Exploring insect diversity in my backyard

This one is dedicated to all educators and parents out there who are trying their best to educate themselves, their child or student(s) about the environment around them. You may use this blog to understand common critters found in your backyard. I have also provided some tips to kick start your personal journey of discovering the biodiversity around you or to help your kids or students find interesting ways to explore their backyard biodiversity!

*********

By now you would be wondering about what an outdoor educator was upto during the lockdown and travel restrictions and other restriction around social gatherings, etc. Well, I tried my best to adapt to the online mode of teaching and learning. I was fortunate to work from home and adapt to the new normal. You see being an outdoor educator I would always be out there in a forest, or a farm, or field station with bunch of kids exploring the biodiversity, so I never stayed at home long enough to be able to see what was right under my nose. Since I always had an affinity for insects, I enrolled myself for an online course called Bugs 101 on Coursera based on the recommendation of my good friend, a fellow naturalist Chandhu Bandi. I took this course also because I wanted to up-skill and deepen my knowledge on ecology. This course was super exciting, and gave me the inspiration to start exploring the insects in my own backyard. And by the time I was finishing the course, it was the peak of the monsoons, the time when insect life is thriving around us!! 

Chandhu also introduced me to iNaturalist and though I was initially hesitant to try because I assumed that it would be complicated, I downloaded it on my phone and slowly started exploring it. Soon, I was clicking everything around me, mostly insects and I was trying to find what they are called and reading up everything about them.

More than finding out their names, what I really enjoyed was observing the life of these tiny creatures. There is a joy in watching the lifecycle of a moth from the time of mating to laying eggs to its hatching, watching a carpenter bee build its nest, a potter wasp searching for the right mud to build its nest, and many such delightful moments. I am here to share these little wonders in our backyard with all of you. I hope this will help you learn many interesting things about insects and inspire you to enjoy these tiny creatures around you, and also document them!! 

I love clicking pictures, but there are many ways to document your observations like journaling, creating your own field guides for your backyard, story writing and if you have kids around you involve them as well in these activities! Exploring and learning about what is around them will help kids understand what it is like to share space with other creatures and to learn that insects aren't 'scary' or 'disgusting' or 'pest' as they are often portrayed. Also, I tell myself and my students to learn the local names, and not just the english name or scientific name, because not knowing local names is losing out on the local stories from your grandparents, local knowledge, and other possible conversation you could possibly have with local people, or elders in your family. 

So, here I present to you the insect diversity in my backyard. I hope you will find this useful as a resource and serves the purpose of inspiring you to explore the insects in your backyard.

1. Buzzing bees and colourful wasps

When I started observing bees in my backyard, I did not expect to see the diversity that I encountered. Look at the picture here and you will be amazed! 

The three different species of honey bees that I have observed in my backyard; From the right: Asian honey bee, Giant honey bee, Red dwarf honey bee

Observe the yellow thing bulging out from the legs of this asian honey bee. What do you think this is? This is a pollen basket that the bee uses it to collect pollen from the flowers that serves as source of food for the entire colony. When you notice a honey bee with pollen baskets, most probably you are watching a worker bee collecting pollen and worker bees are hard working females who manage the hive, bring food, and protect all the young ones.

Look at this one carefully, what do you think it is? Well, I was surprised to find that it is a bee, and this is one of the interesting bees I have met. This one is called a cuckoo bee, and it lays eggs in the nests of other bees, reminds you of the cuckoo bird, right? Cuckoo bees do not construct their own nests and rely on other bees to raise it young ones. The females of cuckoo bees do not have pollen baskets, since they do not raise their young ones. 

If you thought all the bees build a hive, wait till you see the carpenter bee. Watch the video to know how it makes it nest.

A carpenter bee makes a nest on this dead wood

I observed this carpenter bee chip tiny pieces of wood to make this nest on a dead wood in my backyard. Even a dead wood plays an important role, right? 

Now lets meet the wasps in my backyard and get to know more about them...

Here is a potter wasp putting in a lot of effort to build its nest, finding the right mud that is moist enough for it to roll, and to bring it to the right spot to build it nest, bit by bit. The wasp was scooping tiny balls of mud and taking it to a scooter nearby to build her nest. Looking at her efforts to make a nest for her baby, would we ever think about destroying its nest? I request you to watch this video till the end and it will blow your mind!

This is nest she build with all the hard work for her young ones!

Wasps are famous for being the 'villain' for its sting, but wasps don't sting unless intimidated. Potter wasps are solitary and just need a tiny place in your backyard to make its nest. And in fact wasps are known to feed on other insects like caterpillars etc. which feed on the plants and increase in their population can effect the plant growth, but wasps keep their population in check. It like a natural 'pest control'. I don't like to use the word 'pest' which originated with monoculture, capitalism and has Eurocentric origins  how the creatures are viewed, but I am using it here in the context of the current society. Well, lets keep this topic for discussion for another day, and get back to the wasps.

When I saw her for the first time, I was amazed at that needle like structure protruding from her body. I later learnt she is called crown wasp and the long protruding thing is an ovipositor that she uses to lay eggs on wood boring beetle larvae. So when her young ones hatch inside the beetle larvae, they start feeding on it and that is how a crown wasp ensures her young ones have the necessary food to kick start their journey in this world. So, this is another way in which wasps keep a check on the population of other insects that feed on the plants. 

                           

 

Look at this tiny little one that you may pass it off as a fly, but this wasp uses cockroach eggs to deposit her eggs inside that, and when her eggs hatch, they feed on the cockroach eggs. If you see her around in your backyard, she is keeping a check on the cockroach population! She goes by the name ensign wasp.

You might have observed these nests that look like tiny bits of paper hanging from the ceiling in your backyard. Well these amazing nests are build by paper wasps. 

Well the major distinction between bees and wasps are that, bees feed their young ones and themselves with pollen and nectar but wasps feed their young ones with insects, they are fierce hunters, however adult wasps may feed on nectar. So, bodies of the bees and wasps are meant to serve this purpose. If you observe closely, bodies of the bees are plump and they have tiny hairs across their body which help the pollen stick to it and makes it easier to carry it, whereas wasps are slender and not hairy like bees. 

One thing I have learnt from bees and wasps is that they are playing a huge role in the ecosystem: bees as important pollinators and wasps as 'predators' who keep a check on the population of other insects. Next time you see them in your backyard, welcome them, use this as a teaching moment for kids and adults around you, talk to your grandparents or elders about these and have an engaging conversation, learn local names from them, and take forward any interesting stories you might hear from them, but please try your best not to evict them from their home, their presence in your backyard is a good sign of biodiversity thriving around you! 

2. The Monsoons and the Vivid Moths

As soon as the monsoons kick in full swing you will start seeing all of a sudden these hairy little caterpillars crawling on your walls, chewing the leaves on the plants, and crawling on the soil, basically you see them almost all around your backyard. Many of these hairy caterpillar go on to become beautiful moths which also play an important role in the ecosystem as pollinators. Moths can be active in the night or in the morning, many are active in the night however and provide an important source of food for creatures active in the night (commonly called nocturnal creatures) like bats, owls, etc. Here are some common moths you will find in your backyard. 

Meet tussock moth caterpillar, with alternating bristles of hair on its back. These hairs are used for its defence and to keep itself safe. 

You will see them, in different shades and sizes through the monsoons!!

This moth is laying her eggs on the underside of a leaf in my backyard. I often look everywhere for insects and find these amazing sights to cherish. This one is called a sandalwood defoliator, since sandalwood is their host plant, but they are also found on other plants, like the one in the picture here where she is laying eggs on a passion plant.

Ooo.. what are these weird looking things. Who could have put these random pieces of twigs together? So, this one is called a bagworm moth. The caterpillar builds this 'bag' around it for protection, and it stays here, moves around everywhere with this bag, when it senses any threat, it retracts into the bag. They make the bag with materials they find around them like twigs, leaves, shells, dried plant matter, etc. . Only the male moths come out of their bag in their adult stage and fly to mate with a female who is wingless and remain in the case. The male mates with the female and she continues to stay in the bag and lay her eggs in that.  

Watch the lily borer moth munching the leaves of the lily plant in our garden.

Lily plants thrive in the monsoons and so does the lily borer moth. I know you might feel a slight pain watching the moths chew all the leaves, but I have noticed that they always grow back, and it doesn't kill the plant and I have learnt not to disturb them, because they can be food for other insects and they will keep them in check!

Kambalihula is Kannada/Kambilipuchi in Tamil. These hairy caterpillars, are something you will find on your walls, compound, and all around your backyard. They are called footman moth.

Here you notice footman moth in its adult stage. For two days I was hooked on to this moth. The first picture shows the mating which I observed during the early afternoon, and by evening she was laying eggs (second image). In the last picture, which I took the next day, you will notice a fur-ball kind of thing and eggs inside it. She covers her eggs with the hair as a protection against animals that might prey on them.

3. I just tricked you... mimicry in everyday life

This is my favourite part, where the creatures around me have tricked me until I stood there and observed carefully to notice that I have been fooled. Introducing some coolest tricksters in my backyard. You might easily find them around you and keep an eye out for them, take a bow and appreciate their trick! 

Look at me closely, what am I? If you thought I was a weaver ant, then I just tricked you. I am a spider, to be precise weaver ant mimicking spider.

To put things in perspective, here is a picture of a weaver ant on the right and the weaver ant mimicking spider on the left, and you know what a good job it has done in mimicking the ant.

Why mimic the weaver ant? Well, weaver ants are avoided by predators because they have a painful bite and 'don't taste good'. So, by mimicking ants they can keep their predators away. Also, by mimicking the ants, they are able to stay close to them, gaining protection from predators. They mimic the odour, the way these ants walk and also wave their legs to mimic the antennas of the ants. 

Now here is a question for you, is spider an insect or not? Well, if you thought that anything that is tiny, crawls on the floor is an insect, then its time to reveal the truth. Well, spiders, earthworms, centipedes, etc. are not insects. Here is a quick criteria to identify something you see is an insect or not:

1. It has six legs.

2. It has wings in the adult stage.

3. The body can be divided into three distinct parts: head, thorax and abdomen.

I chose to describe the ant mimicking spider here since it is trying to mimic an insect. So, technically spiders are not insects!!

 

What do you observe here? An ant? Look closer, and you start to notice its something else, but what is it?

Now, you see that its a mantis. This ant mantis does an excellent job in mimicking because there were other ants roaming around in the plant and it took me a while to notice that 'this ant's' forelegs were folded in a peculiar way and then realised that its a mantis and its called asian ant mantis. 

This one mimics ants because by mimicking an ant, predators will avoid them. Seems like this Asian ant mantis are common in urban gardens. They mimic ants until it's ultimate molt when it becomes green in colour. This is because when they are young they are most vulnerable to predators and by mimicking the ants they get protection. As they grow older they start becoming green, as you notice in the picture below, where the mantis is a little bigger and green shades appears on its legs.

 

Asian ant mantis

When I looked at it first, I was like ' Is this a wasp or a bee?' and then on closer observation, I could identify it as a moth!! This one is a moth that is mimicking a wasp, hence called wasp moth. But why mimic a wasp? The same reason, wasps are known for their painful stings, and hence predators like birds avoids them, and hence by mimicking a wasp, it gains protection.

There is something really cool about observing creatures that mimic. It shows to what extent they can change their appearance that it ceases to look like its own kind. But a closer observation reveals that it has just tricked you. I could identify that its a wasp moth, by looking at its 'feathery' antennae, and also the waist. 

Now here is a test for you, identify which one is a wasp and which one is a moth. 

Well the one on the left is a wasp and the one of the right is a wasp moth. If you observe keenly you will notice the difference in the waist of a wasp and a moth that is mimicking the wasp.

4. When they make associations with other species...

Whenever I observe insects I feel like like these tiny critters live in a parallel world in the same space where we larger humans inhibit and it is so cool to take a peak into their world.

Here is an interesting insect association that I have noticed in my backyard. There was a plant that had white powdery stuff all over it, and I went closer for observation, and noticed that they are actually tiny insects called mealy bugs. And then I noticed ants hovering around these mealy bugs. I wondered what is going on here.

The white small insects that you see on the plant are called mealy bugs and you can notice the ant in close association with the mealy bugs. Looks like mealy bugs poop sugar rich liquid. This candy poop is something which ants relish. The mealy bug in turn gets protection by ants from other predators. It is so interesting to see one species of insects make association with another species of insects!

I haven't noticed other insect associations in my backyard, and I encourage you to look around and tell me if you find something interesting!!

Exploring and learning about insect diversity in my backyard opened up to me the world of these tiny creatures that are too tiny to be noticed, we are either too scared off, or disgusted by, or too busy to be bothered about them. But these creatures whom we share our backyard with, are an important part of our ecosystem. I can't thank enough for the bees (honey bees, and carpenters bees) that pollinate the flowers and give us amazing passion fruits that we cherish, the wasps that keep other insects in check, and so many insects who give you new things to learn about our environment and appreciate the interconnectedness and interdependencies even in an urban, semi-urban landscapes where we are losing that direct connection to the environment around us. 

Here are a few tips that I can leave you with:

1. Start small, take it slow, observe one species at a time.

2. Download Seek by iNaturalist on your phone to record and identify species around you if you want to do it along with your family, or if you are an educator and want kids to engage with this.

3. Use iNaturalist on your phone if you are an educator yourself or anyone trying to learn, record and identify species around you. 

4. If you are an educator or someone looking to up-skill their knowledge on insect identification, etc. I would recommend enrolling for the course Bugs 101 on coursera.

5. Try and learn about the local names if the insects, as I mentioned, not knowing/learning local names is losing out on the local stories, local knowledge connected to these species. Having said that I myself need to learn a lot of the names in my mother tongue. 

6. If you have kids around you, try other extended activities like journaling, drawing, story writing, making infographics, etc. Please try this yourself too if this sounds interesting to you.

7. Lastly spread the joy of exploring your own backyard and teach others to kick start their personal journeys of backyard explorations!

Disclaimer: This is not an exhaustive list of insects found in my backyard, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Note: 

1. I have written this based on my observations, and learnings from the course, iNaturalist community, online resources, and interactions with other naturalists. Please write to me if there is anything that you think can be added or corrected. I am always open to learning!

2. Please use this generously for your class, or for yourself.

My journey as an outdoor educator

Teaching at an ashram school in a small village in Kodagu/Coorg gave me a lot of opportunities to implement outdoor education and understand the benefits and challenges of implementing it at the curricular and pedagogical level. While this experience gave me insights into the life of adivasi students and challenges they faced at school because of the stereotypes and social hierarchies in the society (explained in my previous blog), it also gave me opportunities to really understand what it means to implement 'place-based learning'. 

To begin with let me explain place-based learning, it means:

'Using the place as an educational resource. It not only involves being in the place physically, but also using the place effectively, and all its elements in the learning process.' 

This is at a pedagogical level, where you use a place in the teaching learning process. At a curricular level, place-based learning would mean using the place as your starting point to determine what I will teach my learners. Simply put, this means I first need to find out where my learners come from, what is their landscape, what is their context when I design and implement the curriculum. 

While a Masters course and the research project exposes you to the theory and ground realities to some extent, it is only when you become a practitioner will you realise what it actually means to implement it at a government school given the challenges of resources, and social structures within which the school and the administration operates. 

Slowly, as I understood the background of the kids, and their interests, I started tweaking the curriculum to suit their context. Some examples are including their traditional songs in the class and deriving meaning out of that. I noticed that many of their traditional songs were filled with rich descriptions of the ecology of the place. Isn't it fun to learn ecology through songs and through their own traditional songs? Another example includes a project where students developed a guide for the plants in their landscape by collecting the leaves of each plant and providing insights on how the plant is used in the community. As a 'teacher' I was helping them supplement their existing knowledge with other details of the plant that was available out there in the internet, for example, helping them with the scientific name etc. These are two examples of how being with these students helped me gain a better understanding of 'place-based learning' and shaped my role as an educator. 

Some pages from the field-guide made by the students

What also came with this job was depression, because of several reasons, one of the major reason was witnessing a lot of injustices faced by the students due to the social hierarchies in the society, and my perceived agency for change in the given circumstances to help the students. Also, just as I was finishing my six months here, I realised how social sector doesn't pay you much even when you have invested a lot on your own education, and in a capitalist society we all know how much compensation plays a role. Though I have never wanted to accumulate a lot of wealth, I did not want to be underpaid. Applying for many positions in social sector made me realise how this sector is underpaid. This realisation that you are undervalued also pushes you to the edge and you start doubting your own abilities. All this somehow pushed me to think about starting something on my own. 

Also, I had always held a dream of being an entrepreneur since a teenager, mainly the effect of reading so many stories of entrepreneurs - their struggles, success, and happiness of starting something on their own. What excited me was starting something from scratch. I love the excitement of implementing an idea, and finding different approaches to make it work. And this is how I started Happily Outdoors, with an idea to give 'nature deprived' urban children opportunities to spend time in forests, farms, and learn from people who live there. 

So, soon after my teaching fellowship at Kodagu,  I started working on setting up Happily Outdoors. I completely enjoyed designing the activities, and working with children who came to our camps/outdoor learning programme, and local people! The best part was I got to directly interact with parents and listen to their aspirations from the outdoor learning programmes and making those a part of our desired outcomes. I also liked the fact that the same set of kids chose to come back to us each vacation for the outdoor learning programme giving us an opportunity to continuously engage with them and see their growth through our programmes. Here again I used place-based learning to help my learners with urban context gain a better understanding of the ecology of the place, the people, and their culture. 

Through the outdoor learning programmes, I could give opportunities for children to have fun exploring the environment, challenge their fears associated with nature for example fear of insects, fear of the unknown in the nature, challenge their own perception of their limitations, conversations to give and take new perspectives from each other, respect and gratitude for people who take care of them when they are away from home, including the environment that nourishes them with pure water, air, and greenery.  What I really love about this programme is how children bond with people from the village who work along with us during the programme, developing that mutual respect, love and care for each other. 

I love these pictures of two kids helping each other at different instances for an activity that involved building a shelter from natural materials. These pictures speak thousand words for the interpersonal skills/team-building skills that our programme facilitate. Well I prefer to simply say they nurture care for each other. 

The joy of playing in the stream, and bonding with the environment through play!

When trees are kind enough to let us climb and have fun!!

 

 

The smile on the face when you overcome the fear!!

Isn't it fun to have peers who inspire to overcome your fears and rub off their love for insects to others in the group! I have to mention about Ved here who is a budding entomologist and inspired a lot of other kids in the camp. I remember one such incident from our camps, where he woke up with caterpillar hairs on his face, and he had a lot of red spots. It can be painful and since he loves insects so much, he didn't make a lot of fuss about it and said to other kids in the group 'Well, the caterpillar kissed me!!' and I knew that with this simple act he had inspired other kids to accept the realities of sharing the space with other creatures.

The teacher in me really enjoyed these programmes because I could totally make this inter-disciplinary, we could learn about ecology, history, and geography of the place at the same time! Also finding a co-facilitator, Nagaraj who brought in different skillsets by using theater games and activities made it even more fun and gave a diverse experience for kids who came to our outdoor learning programme. Nikhilesh being the one in the background always ensured that we got the logistics right and being a big fan of books, he loved reading stories for kids at the camp. 

That's our core team!

One of our kids batch with the Happily Outdoors team! This was just before the kids starting crying that camp is coming to an end. Lokkaiyya who cooks for everyone at the camp was also in tears. He is more like a grandpa to everyone who serves kids more love with the food! Ananda is also kids favourite at the camp who teaches them to make natural shelter and helps them identify plants in the landscape and its uses. 

My biggest challenge has been to reach out to parents in the initial days. We tried giving out pamphlets in malls, in front of schools, etc. but I have realised that only when parents are invested and actively looking out for such programmes only then they actually enrol their kids for the programmes. So it wasn't worth standing out there in the malls, etc. handing out pamphlets because they are not my audience. What really worked for us was word of mouth. Do good work and people will obviously refer you to other parents. And now we have an amazing bunch of parents who truly believe in what we do and support us. All these experiences motivated me to get trained for conducting biodiversity walks and it increased my confidence and deepen my knowledge about different trees in the urban/rural landscapes. And I organised me first biodiversity walk at Jakkur lake for parents and children in Bangalore, and I have written about this exciting experience in my previous blog. 

I was able to successfully organise various outdoor learning programmes from 2017 till the end of 2019 in different locations.  The beautiful memories that we created with the kids, people of the place, and the nature around us, will always be with us. Sometimes, I still hear from parents about how their kids mention about those delightful moments from their time with us and it fills my heart with happiness. I am grateful to parents who value the experiences that we created for their kids. I will remain indebted to Anand (my mentor), Nikhilesh (my partner), Sudhindra (my brother) and Chaithanya (my brother) who helped me with the very first camp.

In 2019, I joined Dakshin Foundation, where I continued to design and facilitate outdoor learning programmes. Here I was lucky to meet various wildlife biologists, marine biologists, social scientists, and educators working in the conservation space. I was fortunate to visit different research stations like ARRS based out of Agumbe, ATREE field station based out of B R Hills and ANET field station based out of the Andaman Islands. One of my favourite activities include the mangrove walks at ANET. I walked in the mangroves for the first time here, and I know that amazing feeling. I was absolutely amazed at how much I got to learn by being in this ecosystem, no books, or videos or pictures could ever match that first hand experience of standing there and learning from everything and everyone (local staff and visiting researchers) around you. As an educator, when I take kids here, I love to see them walk into the mangroves for the first time, the emotions they go through and observe their experiences of exploring this ecosystem! 

Also what I really enjoyed was learning about the social history of this place, the indigenous tribes, the settler communities in the Andaman islands. I was lucky to read about the interesting history of different tribes of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands that I had never come across before. I enjoyed learning about it as much as I enjoyed teaching about the it. One of the fascinating stories that I came across was 'The battle of Aberdeen' fought by the indigenous tribe 'Andamanese' against the British. This story helped me understand how the colonial rule managed to destroy the indigenous tribes, the battles that they had to fight against the British as well the prisoners from the penal settlements that mainly consisted of people from mainland India and mostly those involved in the freedom movements. The colonisers engaged the in extensive logging in the islands that was home to the indigenous tribes and Andamanese fought back hard when they saw their home being destroyed by the British and the prisoners. It is so painful to read about how colonisation disturbs, or rather destroys the indigenous tribes, their life and all their history, culture, knowledge, language tied strongly to their land.  

I have noticed that history becomes so relevant and compelling when you are in that place where it all happened. The feelings that arise standing at Aberdeen jetty and imagining how the members of the tribe would have fought their battles. All these stories comes alive when you are in that place. So for me place-based learning is an important approach to teaching and learning. I am both a student and a teacher who enjoys learning and teaching through this approach. Everything comes alive, everything becomes relevant and contextual to both the teacher and the students when we learn using this approach. 

Moreover so many stories from the past do not find a place in our history textbooks and also as a young learner one thing I found difficult at school was that history was not relevant and neither were efforts made by the teachers to make it contextual to us. So for me it was like something someone did in the past, and why should I learn about those dates and events. And also many things we learn in history are big events, like revolt of 1857 which are off course important, but we do not learn about the consequences of these events on indigenous tribes in a small islands in Andamans. Only after visiting Andamans did I learnt that revolt of 1857 was a big catalyst for our colonisers to use Andamans as penal settlements, and they started using the prisoners for extensive logging that ultimately effected the indigenous tribes. Several diseases that they brought led to the decline in their populations and the colonisers efforts to 'civilise' them effected their lives beyond repair. I became intrigued to learn more about colonisation and its effects on the tribal communities, and their relationship with the land. 

At Dakshin, I got the opportunity to facilitate experiential learning programme for college students, that took us around the Western Ghats and helped me interact with members of the tribes like Toda and Soliga. Here, I was facilitating conversations between the students and the members of the tribe, and through this experience I got to learn more about the tribe, their life, their stories of past and present and their aspirations. All these experiences especially those with indigenous tribes, only strengthened my interest in tribal communities and the urge to understand how colonisation continues to effect their knowledge systems and their ways of living. My journey that started with being a teacher to kids from Jenu Kuruba tribe at a government school in Kodagu went beyond outdoor education and experiences at Dakshin only deepened my desire to look beyond outdoor education and ask tough questions on colonisation, social hierarchies and its consequences on tribal communities. 

There was a burning desire to do right the injustices faced by them, to share the pain, look for answers together, to bring changes for the better and slowly I started sailing in this direction.. my journey to decolonise. Where will this lead me? Want to know more about this? Stay with me and follow me to the next blog.