Insects Take Center Stage

Pearl crescent butterfly, Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve, 18 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John) 25 July 2026 July is Bug Season. This week they took center stage at Raccoon Wildflower Reserve, Frick Park and Aspinwall Riverfront Park (a.k.a. Allegheny RiverTrail Park). Butterflies are hard to photograph with my cellphone but I managed to capture images of a pearl crescent at Raccoon Wildflower Reserve. Pearl crescent butterfly, Raccoon Creek Wildflower Reserve, 18 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John) Looks like a bee but this is a fly — a bee-fly on Queen Anne’s lace at Aspinwall. Bee-fly on Queen Anne’s lace, Aspinwall Riverfront Park, 22 July 2026 (photo by Kate St. John) I also found evidence of tiny wasps and chased a Great-sized wasp from flower to flower. At Frick Park we found a red misshapen gall on a blackberry stem. Not only did the gall look like an infection but the stem looked like it had broken at the site of the gall. This is evidence of a blackberry knot gall wasp…