8.16.26 Volo Bog (wetland), Ingleside, IL

Curious if the lichens will grow on the plastic boardwalk, you step onto the bog boardwalk. You find yourself in a sea of Cattails, with odd marsh plants with elongate, triangular leaves with a large notch in stretching the bottom half. You will later learn that this strange plant is found throughout the bog. pollinator insects buzz through, looking for scarce flowers. Even though you can't see them, muskrats weave through the reeds, picking the and creating open water that many creatures need. Dragonflies cruise around and photogenically perch, also hunting those pesky mosquitos. Even though the boardwalk trembles and you are surrounded by unstable ground, the sun scorches your back and there are still some mosquitos, you love the beauty of this amazing wetland.


Spot-winged Glider

Least Skipper. Very small

Blue Dasher

Eastern Pondhawk

Twelve-spotted Skimmer

Eastern Forktail

Skimming Bluet

Differential Grasshopper nymph. It is at the very last stage of being a nymph (juvenile)

Close-up of legs

Broadleaf Arrowhead

Western Honey Bee next to a Broadleaf Arrowhead flower. Do you see the tiny wasp in the flower?

Honey Bee being buzzed by two Shiny Bog Flies. The latter species is a new one for me!

The tiny wasp on the flower is more visible now

A very wet Bumble Bee drinking some Swamp Milkweed nectar in the sun

Eastern Flower Fly? It may be a different species. I think I need to see the abdomen to be sure

Margined Leatherwing Beetle

Broadleaf Arrowhead, Horsetails (black-ringed green stalks), and Three-way Sedge (spiky stalks, Dulichium arundinaceum). The last one is seemingly state endangered

Dewy web of an Orbweaver Spider

Acanthocephala terminalis


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