I Love Pier 6

A wildflower meadow fills much of Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park. 

It is equally tempting there to wander the flower-lined paths or sit among the blossoms. 

Insects and flowers go together. There is so much activity. Right now there are lots of monarch butterflies gathering nectar from milkweeds. 

And so many kinds of ladybugs you can hardly keep track. The ladybugs are feasting on aphids. The aphids are feasting on plants. 

There are thousands of bees of all kinds collecting nectar and pollen like this honeybee.  

A few mockingbirds are always there making a racket and sometimes swooping into the flowers to catch tasty insects. 

If you follow your curiosity you can have adventures and discover things. I stopped to look at the fruit on this tree. 

I think it's a kind of magnolia that will ripen to look like this one nearby. 

But see that smudge that looks like a bird dropping on the low left leaf? 

Close up it looks like this. 

It's a tiger swallowtail caterpillar! Click to enlarge. 

I find amazing things in the urban wildflower meadow at Pier 6! 

Iris Murdoch wrote in A Fairly Honourable Defeat: People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us. 

Squash Vine Borer Moth

I found this stunning insect among the wildflowers on Pier Six in Brooklyn Bridge Park. It's a  squash vine borer moth, Melittia cucurbitae. Click to enlarge. 

It is a day-flying clearwing moth with see-through hind wings.

The squash vine borer moth gets its name from its larval stage; the larvae are vine crop pests that eat the stems of squash, pumpkins, gourds, cucumbers, and melons. Adults emerge from their cocoons in summer (I saw this one on July 9th) after having spent the winter in the ground. Adult females lay eggs and the larvae that hatch from them burrow into stems where they eat and grow. Eventually the larvae burrow into the soil and spin cocoons. We see them again as adults the following summer. 

Gotta love those shaggy leggings!