Wow...... Weight Distribution!

Well we did not have every thing figured out. We left on Wednesday at 10 AM. Planned for 7AM but house cleaning for our wonderful house sitters and house guests was more work than we thought. We have not done much at home in the last couple of months since we have been soooooo busy. Day 1 we wanted to get to Lubbock, TX. On our way we realized our sway bar did not stop the swaying! I don't know if you have ever been in a vehicle that has a trailer causing it to sway, but it feels like your own personal tornado. You have limited control, are thrown around and your heart beats out of your chest. It is SCARY! We regained control of our vehicle, pulled over to catch our breath and tighten the sway bar. That seemed to help quite a bit and we made it safely to Lubbock. Very little to report if you know Lubbock! The KOA was nothing to brag about because like the rest of the Texas panhandle it was a gravel parking lot.

The next day (June 7th) we were going from Lubbock to a little west of Flagstaff, AZ. Actually one hour south of the south rim of the Grand Canyon. It is killing us to pass up the opportunity to visit the Grand Canyon, but that is just an excuse for the great bug adventure trip 2! Somewhere in New Mexico (I am still too scared to remember where we were exactly), we had our own personal Joplin, MO tornado hit our rig. We started swaying so bad we were all over Interstate 40! I am sure people are still talking about the rig that they were sure was going to flip. Our two dogs went from sleeping soundly in the back seat to standing in the back seat with there eyes open soooo big, no words were necessary, they were screaming "what the hell!" If the outside was a tornado than you should have seen the inside. It looked like we took a blender to every single thing in the trailer. Lets just say there are Cheerios in every nook and cranny.

Kava sick after the Joplin MO swaying

One of my mugs fell over and got caught in the handy organizational wire rack and the force of the sway completely busted it off. The cup was on the floor and the handle remained in the wire rack! Sway bar tightening NOT working! We can absolutely not go over 60mph or we sway. This makes no sense to us since bigger travel trailer truck rigs are FLYING by us. We of course have to stop (change our pants) and regroup after this one!! John heads into the Flying J and I call the travel trailer and RVing God and really all knowing one in any motorized vehicle situation (aka my Uncle Kent Davis). He has helped us solve many of our newby travel trailer issues and I was really hoping for some all knowing wisdom here. Kent of course had a whole list of solutions starting with tire pressure and ending in weight distribution. We needed to have more weight at the front of the trailer. Once again our massive amounts of gear were causing a problem. We cleaned up the mess in the trailer and moved a lot of our gear to the front of the trailer. This really helped. Problem solved? We still felt like we could not go over 60 and every time a semi passed us, we were at risk of another sway event! So our Flagstaff AZ KOA arrival time of 4 PM ended up being 8PM. When we finally got there and set the trailer up and went to bed, we were exhausted.

Below is a picture from the Flying J facing East. We had gone over the Rockies with our swaying RV! That was NOT fun.

We also have not gotten anything but the G9 out to take pictures. Our focus is to get to Sequoia National Forest. BUT here is some high speed photography.... pictures taken at our max speed, between 50 -60 mph! First are some Texas panhandle pics.  Yup flat!

Then New Mexico!

Then Arizona, We did not get pics of Flagstaff, but it was beautiful! We got in after dark.

We look forward to start taking insect pictures and sharing them!

Kendra and John

- posted from ipad during the international bug expedition 2012

The great bug adventure of 2012 " the beginning"

Driving from Texas to Alaska either sounds amazing to you or like horrible torture. It has always been a dream of John and I to drive to Alaska. I also thought it would be great to show our two Texas Huskies where their relatives live (ours would never make it up there)! Well, we signed a contract to redo the Peterson Field guide to the Insects of North America which gave us the excuse to fulfill this dream. We purchased a small 20 foot RV as our sleeping quarters and to serve as our photo studio (it will also save us money on hotels).

As two very responsible people, before our departure on June 6th for the big adventure, we took the travel trailer on a few Texas trips. Our first trip was to Pedernales Falls State Park over Christmas where we learned we have these amazing heated mattresses that work VERY well. It was a chilly upper 30's F night and by 2AM we were all (mom was with us) soooo hot that we were sweating buckets and wanted to turn all the heat off in the trailer. We decided this would certainly work for Alaska.

Our next trip was to the east Texas Piney Woods where we stayed at a KOA that was apparently the only RV park in the area that new how to work that "Internet thingy." We learned a LOT about RVing on this trip. First of all, 3 people can fill up a black water tank and consume all the potable water storage in one night. The trailer is very water proof even after 4 days of solid hard rain, and most importantly, the black water tank does not follow that so called universal law of gravity. Apparently, if you hook your RV up to the sewage system and leave it open, "stuff" does not go down and just accumulates near the top! I still don't understand why, but we now know to leave the black water release valve closed until we have a full tank or we will end up with "stuff" where we do not want it!

The third trip was to the hill country.....the "true hill county" where there are LARGE hills that are absolutely amazing. My new favorite Texas road is Hwy 337 through the hill country. That is where I realized our trailer sways going down hill over 60 (FYI, west Texas speed limit is 80). When I got back from this trip, a week before our great adventure, we had a sway bar put on the trailer.

So we have our bases covered, we think..... We will see over the next two months of photographing and collecting insects! We will post some of our photos along the way as well as our mini adventures that you may find amusing. We look forward to hearing from you and staying in touch with our friends and family along the way.

Here is day 1 "the rig" she needs a good name! Any suggestions? The brand of our travel trailer is a Shamrock, so an Irish name may be fitting! Let's just say she is already one tough chick to put up with the two of us!

Kendra and John Abbott

- posted from ipad during the international bug expedition 2012

Location:Historic U.S. 66,,United States

Mexican Free-tailed Bats

The other night we took a friend to see the Mexican Free-tailed Bats at the Congress Street Bridge here in Austin, Texas. This is the largest urban bat colony in the world. It had been a while since I had seen it and reminded me of the great photo opportunities I've had with this species.


The Mexican Free-tailed or sometimes called Brazillian Free-tailed Bat (Tadarida brasiliensis) is a wide-ranging bat found throughout North, Central and South America. They get their name because of their long, prominent tail.


They can roost in a number of different places from buildings to trees, but they are probably best known for the large colonies they form in caves. The photo above was taken at the Eckert James River Bat cave owned by the Nature Conservancy. It is one of the largest bat nursuries in North America and his home to around 4 million bats throughout the summer. The emergences from this cave are quite impressive.




The two photos above were taken at Bracken Cave owned by Bat Conservation International. It is home to the largest bat colony in the world and is home to some 20 million Mexican Free-tailed bats that emerge every night throughout the summer. It is truly a spectacular phenomenon and I encourage anyone  who has the opportunity to watch an emergence. They are so numerous when coming out of the cave that as they fly in a cyclone like pattern up and out of the entrance, some bats get pushed to the outside and are actually impaled on prickly pear cactus spines!

Spring has Sprung

This has been a very dry spring in Texas, but the insect activity is picking up quickly. Here are some of the neat things now flying in the Austin area, specifically at Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve.



This is a snakefly (Agulla sp.); so named because of its cobra like head and appearance. A neat group of insects generally placed in their own order (Raphidioptera), but sometimes placed in the Neuroptera (lacewings, ant lions and owlflies). They are predators and found only in the west within the U.S. Austin, Texas is at the very eastern edge of their range. This is a female with a its long ovipositor that she uses to lay eggs in the crevices of bark and rotting wood.


This is a robber fly in the genus Efferia, most likely E. snowi. Like the snakefly above, this is a predator and a female with a stout ovipositor. Efferia species can be commonly seen perching on rocks and vegetation while waiting for potential prey items to pounce on.


This is a small long horn beetle (Typocerus sinuatus). These can be seen commonly on flowers at Wild Basin right now. They will readily fly from one flower to another looking for mates and taking in nectar.

The Dark of Night

Blacklighting, or the use of an ultraviolet light to attract insects at night is a favorite past time of almost every entomologist. This technique can bring in amazing numbers of insects. The most productive time to blacklight is usually on a calm, balmy night with a new moon and no competing artificial light sources. It is fun to take the time to photograph insects coming into these lights. Because they are nocturnal, many of these are seldom seen.


This is a composite of many moths, beetles, true bugs, caddisflies, and true flies that came to a light I had setup throughout the night.


This Armyworm moth visited the light frequently one night. The larvae can be very destructive on a variety of crops and considered serious pests.


This is not a mosquito, but rather a non-biting midge in the family Chironomidae. They are really neat when seen up close. Like mosquitoes, their larvae are aquatic, but as their name implies, they cannot bite and are harmless.


This is the adult of a net-spinning caddisfly in the family Hydropsychidae. This group of insects have aquatic larvae. The adults look like moths, but they have hairs on their wings rather than scales and they lack the coiled proboscis found in moths and butterflies.


This caddisfly belongs in the family Leptoceridae. They are called Long-horned caddisflies because they have very long antennae.


This is one of my favorite insects, the dobsonfly. The larvae are aquatic, called helgramites, and are often used for fish bait. The adults are short-lived, secretive and thus rarely seen by the casual observer. Males (left) in this group have very long sickle-shaped mandibles that they use to grab a hold of the female (right) with during mating. They are large and really cool looking!

Dragons Underwater

Most people are familiar with dragonflies and damselflies as adults, but few are familiar with the much longer-lived and equally (if not more so) interesting larval stage. They live in the water in a variety of habitats and take on a tremendous variety of shapes and forms. Below are representatives of four different dragonfly families and one damselfly family.


Common Sanddragon (Progomphus obscurus)

Gray Petaltail (Tachopteryx thoreyi)

Yellow-sided Skimmer (Libellula flavida)

Undescribed Spiketail (Cordulegaster sp.)

Ebony Jewelwing (Calopteryx maculata)

Blueberries in the Sky

Early every spring, a group of leaf-cutter or mason bees in the family Megachilidae are actively flying about much of North America. They belong in the genus Osmia and go by a number of names. The species O. ribifloris is called the blueberry bee which is appropriate given its size and color! Females in this genus like to nest in narrow holes or tubes. Most commonly this means hollow twigs, but they will use a variety of things with the appropriate sized hole, including empty snail shells and old dirt dauber nests like you can see below. They don't excavate their own nest, but rather find pre-existing nesting holes. A female might inspect several potential nests before settling in.

Blueberry females then visit flowers like redbuds to gather pollen and nectar. They make many trips to complete a pollen/nectar provision mass for their larva.

Once a provision mass is complete, she will back into the hole and lays an egg on top of the pollen. She then creates a partition of "mud", which also serves as the back of the next cell. 

This process continues until she has filled the cavity. Female-destined eggs are laid in the back of the nest, and male eggs towards the front. 

Once she finishes with the nest, she plugs the entrance to the tube.  

They may end up with several completed nest holes before they are done.

A group of wasps in the family Sapygidae (no official common name, but sometimes referred to as Club-horned Wasps) are also actively flying at this time looking to parasitize the blueberry bees.

By the summer, the blueberry bee larva (if unparasitized) has consumed all of its provisions and pupates. The adult matures in the fall inside its cocoon and doesn't emerge until the following spring when the whole process starts over.