June 30 - Dusky Azure

DuskyAzure - (Celastrina nigra) This rare butterfly can be found in the Southern Appalachians, Ohio River Valley, central Illinois, and northwest Arkansas. Females lay eggs singularly under young leaflets of the host plant (Goat's beard-rose family). Caterpillars feed on the leaves and the chrysalids hibernate. Adult butterflies feed on flower nectar, and their favorite nectar is from the wild geranium.

EclipsePlumage - After mating, male wood ducks molt into a dull brown plumage and lose their flight feathers. They are highly vulnerable for three to four weeks. Their second annual molt replaces only the body feathers.

June 29 - Honey Badger

HoneyBadger - The Ratel, also known as the Honey Badger, is a member of the Mustelidae family. They are distributed throughout most of Africa and western and south Asia. Ratels have such a great appetite for ravaging beehives that there have been cases of dead ratels being found, stung to death within the hives they were trying to eat. Commercial honey producers do not take kindly to this destruction and sometimes shoot, trap, or poison ratels they suspect of damaging their hives.

A big honey badger can devour a six-foot-long constrictor like this mole snake, in less than half an hour. Snakes—even poisonous Cape cobras and puff adders—provide badgers with abundant meat in return for relatively low foraging effort. Though the physiology is not yet understood, honey badgers seem to show a strong resistance to the effects of even the most highly toxic venoms. Even if snakes manage to bite their attackers, they rarely escape from the hungry badgers.

June 27 - Bumble Queen

BumbleQueen - The queen begins a new nest with a ball of pollen and wax into which she lays just a few eggs at a time. When the eggs hatch they try to eat their way through the pollen reserve but the queen continually adds to the pollen and wax sealing them in. Eventually the grubs pupate and the queen spins a bright yellow cocoon of the finest silk from which the grubs emerge a few days later as fully grown worker bees.

DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC!
When the drones hatch in mid Summer, the sudden increase in bee numbers frightens people who are nervous about insects. But remember these drone bees have no sting and bumble bees never swarm!

MoonAmongMercurySaturnMars - Between June 26 and 29 these celestial bodies appear together in the evening sky just after sunset.

June 26 - Ambush Bug

AmbushBug - (Phymatidae) These stealthy critters sit very still on or near flowers, their superb camouflage allowing them to remain undetected while an unwitting butterfly, moth or other unfortunate insect happens by to gather nectar. They then seize their prey using front legs adapted for the task - these legs resemble the front legs of the praying mantis. These predators can take prey up to 2-3 times their own size.

June 23 - Meadow Mice

MeadowMice - (Microtus pennsylvanicus), sometimes called the Field Mouse or Meadow Mouse, is a small North American vole found across Canada, Alaska and the northern United States. These animals are found in moist open areas. They make runways through the surface growth in warm weather, and feed on grasses, sedges and seeds, sometimes eating snails and insects.

VenusMoon - These two celestial bodies appear together in the morning of June 23.

June 22 - Garden Giants

GardenGiants - Stropharia rugosoannulata, more commonly known as the Garden Giant Mushroom, emerge clustered or scattered in wide distribution this time of year.

June 21 - Summer Solstice

SummerSolstice - Earth is at a point in its orbit where one hemisphere is most tilted towards the Sun, causing the Sun to appear at 23.45 degrees above the celestial equator, thus making its highest path across the sky. The summer solstice is the day of the year with the longest daylight period and hence the shortest night.

SunAtZenith - Today the Sun appears to be directly overhead at midday along an imaginary line on the Northern Hemisphere known as the Tropic of Cancer.

June 20 - Piping Plover

PipingPlover - A sand-colored, sparrow-sized shorebird that nests and feeds along coastal sand and gravel beaches. Their breeding habitat is beaches or sand flats on the Atlantic coast, the shores of the Great Lakes and in the mid-west of Canada and the United States. A 1986 survey found fewer than 300 piping plovers left in Canada. Since 1985, this species has been considered endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

June 19 - Pocket Gopher

PocketGopher - They can be found widely distributed in North America, extending into Central America. All pocket gophers are burrowing rodents, and their cheek pouches are used for transporting food back to their burrows. Their presence is announced by the appearance of mounds of fresh dirt about 20 cm in diameter. These mounds will often appear in vegetable gardens, lawns or farms, as gophers like moist soil. They also enjoy feeding on vegetables. For this reason, some species are considered agricultural pests. They can also damage trees in the forest.

June 16 - Fledgling

Fledgling - A young bird that has recently acquired its flight feathers, like this Yellow-headed blackbird fledgling.




BendingBills - Hummingbirds do not live by nectar alone. They can scoop insects out of the air by bending their bills open.

June 15 - Nestling

Nestling - A young bird that has not yet fledged. Still too young to leave the nest.

HomeAgain - The probability the one of a pair of mated robins will return to the same territory next spring is 50 percent.

June 8 - Bug Bloomers

BugBloomers - Insect-delivered pollen from other plants causes receiver plants to produce more seeds than when they are dusted by their own pollen.

JupiterMoon - These two celestial bodies appear together in the evening of June 8.

June 5 - Hurricanes

Hurricanes - Hurricane season and cyclone season officially began on June 1, and will end on November 30.



CoriolisEffect - means that all such storms in the Northern Hemisphere rotate counter-clockwise due to the Earth's rotation.

June 2 - Ant Bridge

AntBridge - Army ants often form bridges with their bodies, making the trail smoother for the rest of the colony.





CicadaLifecycle - Deep underground, the cicada nymphs have fed on the sap of tree roots. In their 17th year, the nymphs crawl toward the surface. They emerge by the millions and climb vertical surfaces to shed their skin, and spread their wings. Males fly into trees and begin buzzing to call females. After mating, the female deposits around 400 eggs in slits of bark or twigs. In 6-10 weeks the eggs hatch and ant like nymphs drop to the ground and burrow several feet under the soil to feed and wait for their next emergence in 17 years.

SurvivalInsurance - When cicadas emerge in massive broods every year, their numbers overwhelm predators - ensuring that enough cicadas will survive to reproduce.

June 1 - Partridge

Partridge - Medium-sized birds in the pheasant family, Phasianidae. They are ground-nesting seed-eaters. Many species are hunted for sport or food as game.