Mid-October Road Trip

We made a fall foliage road trip last weekend from our home between Washington DC and Baltimore MD to State College Pennsylvania. We headed out on I 70 to western Maryland and then I99 to State College. Our first rest stop was in Maryland – the South Mountain Welcome Center with a rock façade (maybe from a local source?) and the morning sun showing off a little change in the leave color.

The next rest stop was the Pennsylvania Welcome Center (still on I70). That had big sunflowers in various stages of development. It was easy to see how the seeds look as they begin to mature.

Two of the flowers I photographed had bugs in them (I discovered when I looked at them on the big screen of my monitor. This one looks like and assassin bug

And then was is a milkweed bug.

Just after we left the welcome center – we started to see more color. It wasn’t the peak of fall foliage colors…but a beginning.

There was also fog hanging in the valleys…with a clear sky above.

The drive to State College was a good start to our fall road trip. I’ll post more about it tomorrow.

Milkweed Bugs

This time of year there are many stages of milkweed bugs on just about every milkweed plant I look at. They can be anywhere on the plant – seed pods

And leaves are places where they seem to congregate.

Many times there are several different stages of development (based on size and coloration differences). Sometimes the sheds from when a bug made the transition from one instar to the next are visible (the brownish objects in the picture below).

The more mature instars have more obvious beginnings of wings.

The very young have tiny buds where the wings will grow.

Sometimes there is an adult among the group.

In the end they are all enjoying the nutritional bounty of the milkweed seed pod that are just maturing this time of year.

There are so many grouped on the leaves it is hard to fathom how there can be enough food for them all

And leave enough seeds for the milkweed to reproduce itself.

The bugs must overcome the plant’s reproduction by seeds in some cases. The milkweed has a backup plan – underground runners and roots that can come up next year as a clump of clones to try again.