It’s that time of year. The time for insect explosions. The flies and mosquitoes are out, the cicadas and katydids are “singing the sun down” each night and the field cricket young are emerging. I just talked about that with an individual last week and this week they are everywhere.

Also, the dragonflies are here. Dragonflies are well-named. Not only are they dominant apex insect predators as adults, they are as nymphs in the water as well. Dragonflies will mate on the fly or while sitting on a cattail. The female will then lay her eggs by dipping her abdomen into the water.

The eggs sink to the bottom of the pond and hatch. The life of the dragonfly nymph begins. They are small at first and serve as food for any number of aquatic insects and fish. However, those that survive grow over the next two to three years until they are large enough in some species to catch and eat small fish! Once mature they crawl out of the water on a plant stem and molt for a final time into the adult form. As an adult, they will live for a few months and in that time eat an amazing number of mosquitoes and gnats. At this time of year, at dusk, you can look up and at times see hundreds of green darners flying relatively high feeding on all the small insects in the air. As soon as the bats emerge for the night, however, the dragonflies disappear because they are a favorite food of bats.

Also increasing in abundance at this time are the butterflies. Most everyone knows of the monarch butterfly. This “king” of the butterflies has, what has been called, the fifth most amazing migration in the animal world. To put that into perspective, the sandhill crane migration through Nebraska is #10!

Monarchs start their annual lifecycle in Mexico in the spring. They move northward, mate, lay eggs, and then die. The eggs hatch and the caterpillar feeds, their favorite food is milkweed. They grow, pupate, and the next generation of adults emerge. They fly further north, mate, lay eggs, and die. The eggs hatch and we start the process over again. This goes on and on throughout the spring and summer until the butterflies find themselves as far north as Canada.

When fall arrives one last generation lays eggs. Those eggs hatch, the caterpillar feeds and pupates and the adult form emerges. This adult heads south and flies all the way from Canada to central Mexico where it will overwinter until next spring to start the cycle over again. On that trip south they will form large groups and now is the time to start looking for those groups coming through our area.

Another butterfly common to the area is the painted lady. These orange and black butterflies also migrate. They are one of the most common butterflies throughout the world and when they migrate from Europe to Africa individual butterflies fly completely over the Mediterranean Ocean and the Sahara Desert!

Joining the painted ladies and the monarchs is another migrating butterfly, the red admiral. These three species are then joined by a bunch of non-migrating species and now is the best time to go butterfly watching. A great field guide for the most common butterflies around here is the Common Butterflies of the Central Platte River Valley by Neil Dankert. Neil lives in Kearney and his book is for sale at the Pony Express Station in Gothenburg. Yes, you can use your phone and there are a number of websites that can help you identify butterflies, but I’m old school and a book in hand seems more efficient than swiping on my phone.