Lake Isabella and Rivernook Squirrels!

We ended up visiting Lake Isabella on Sunday afternoon. It was very successful. We got sooo many insects it was hard to photograph it all in one night. In fact there are still some little beetles running around unphotographed.

This is a Pepsis sp. The common name is Tarantula Hawk. These guys are amazing. They will sting a tarantula, which paralyzes it and then drag it to its burrow. Here it lays it's tiny eggs inside the tarantula and when it's larva hatch they eat the paralyzed tarantula alive! The insect world is amazing!

One of the neater finds is the Microcoryphian! Kind of looks like a silverfish but different order entirely. It is not an order that you run across on a normal collecting trip. It has contiguous eyes, is real rounded and has beautiful stripes. We found this little guy running around in the gravel near Lake Isabella.

I was really excited to see a bumble bee. In almost all of their ranges Bumble Bees can be difficult to find because their numbers have declined all over the world.  Reasons for the decline are numerous including competition with the non-native European Honey Bee. This Bumble Bee in particular is one of the prettiest ones I have seen with the red hairs on the tip of the abdomen. This one has a little bit of an unfortunate name Crotch's Bumble Bee (Bombus crotchii).

Finally we have a group of California Ground Squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) around our camp. They are actually colonial species which made a lot of sense since I have been smelling rodents the whole time we have been here. About 8 feet from our trailer we have a colony! It is fabulous to see them running around all day AND they love the Texas Pecans! They can be quite vocal as well as you can see below!

If you are unfamiliar with where we are here is a map.




Kendra and John
- posted from ipad during the international bug expedition 2012

First day of collecting!

First day of collecting, Rivernook Campground, Kernville, CA. Sequoia National Forest, 9th of June 2012.


The night we got into Sequoia National Forest we decided to black light. Which was great! We got some pretty common, but very cool insects! They will for sure have an appearance in the Peterson guide. We spent most of the morning on Saturday the 9th, photographing our catch from backlighting the night before and the early afternoon reorganizing everything from the past three days of discovering our trailer.

Here is our final photography set up!

We are very pleased. The dogs get the bed in the back, both kennels fit and Repede can hide all the squeak toys from Kava in his kennel. Our camera gear including high speed can be set up in the corner and if we need to do anything with microphot (for the small stuff that requires a microscope objective) we can set that up at the table. We have it covered! Below are some of the photos we took. The Ten-lined June Beetles are amazing, if you don't think they are amazing than there is no help for you in the insect world!

Our first camp site that we will be staying at for an extended period was a good find for insects. It is nestled between the Kern River which is very large and a small stream that has lots of riffles and pools. We have lots of vegetation all around us, desert willow, cottonwoods and several oak species as well as many other small bushes and shrubs. We have several mountain peaks all around us. We are also close to a large lake, Lake Isabella. We will hit this later on and see what we can find.

We also decided to run up to the trail of 100 giants as the sun was going down. Below are some picks of the Giant Sequoias (Sequoiadendron giganteum). It was incredible to see them for the first time. You kind of have a sense of overwhelming insignificance.

Kendra and John
- posted from ipad during the international bug expedition 2012

The trailer Gods are testing us!

June 8th 2012 Start in Flagstaff, AZ end in Kernville, CA in Sequoia National Forest.

E.O. Wilson said " There is no greater high than discovery." I am pretty sure he was talking about nature, but this sure applies to discovering your travel trailer as well. I can honestly say that we have had some pretty major adrenalin rushes the past few days.

Day three of our bug adventure, all we want to do is get somewhere where we can stop driving this trailer and just collect bugs! This trailer hauling business is not for sissy's. Since Arizona does not have day light savings time, and it was light out at 4AM (preparing us for the 24 or so hours of light in Alaska), we decided to leave early so we can get to Sequoia National Forest at a decent time and get organized, relax a bit and black light for insects. We get up early to start putting the trailer together and find that one of our tires resembles a mountain range; there were rather large peaks and valleys in it! NOT GOOD! At this point the trailer Gods are testing us! The up side is we got to change a flat in the comfort of our one day rental dirt pad home. Luckily it was 5 AM and not many people were up. We got our massive red bumper jack off the side of our truck (yes, we do use this, it does not just look cool!) and found it very easy to change the tire. We were happy to do this at a RV park and not on the side of an interstate with semi's flying by taking our lives into their hands with every gust of wind.

The mechanic in Flagstaff said that our tire was separating on the inside which would cause it to sway, he also noticed our tires were from 2005. Despite the fact that the other three tires still looked good, since most of its life the trailer sits in a lot with Texas heat beating on it allowing dry rot and other devastating things to take their toll, we decided we deserved new tires. We got 5 new tires and 2 new rims. Yes 2 rims, one was bent (a result of the tire separation) and we wanted two full spares in case something happens on the Alaskan highway! We now have 4 of the best trailer tires you can buy and 2 full spares. With our luck so far, I am sure something will necessitate their usage.

Ok, not leaving by 7 AM we left at 10AM. We took the opportunity to hit the grocery store across the street and fill up on drinks and misc. supplies. We got on the road only to discover that we were driving in some major wind. Let's just say the hitchhikers we saw were having a difficult time staying upright. We think the trailer control has greatly improved, but hard to tell since we are basically driving a huge flat kite through the Sierra Nevada's today. We again, will not arrive at our camp site until late, but at least we can start playing in nature again and just relax a bit. We still plan on black lighting at night and I am sure we will have some really cool bug pictures to post!

We are staying near Lake Isabella on the southern most part of Sequoia National Forest just north of Kernville! So far it is beautiful! We can not wait to explore. There is also a Kernville brewery that I know we will visit although we could use something a little harder than beer at this point in the trip!

California and the Mojave Desert are beautiful! We saw some Joshua Trees but did not get pics of them! Hopefully we see them tomorrow and can get some pics they are a mazing!

Kendra and John
- posted from ipad during the international bug expedition 2012

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.