The leaves and the male catkins have been bursting out of their buds over the past week. I have been out exploring the oak limbs and admiring the beauty of the rose-colored tips of the new leaves. I found a tree where the buds were just about to open and discovered a small insect clinging to many of them. It appeared that it is injecting its ovipositor into the bud to lay eggs. I was so excited to find these, and I immediately wondered if it was a gall wasp. My guess is that it is possibly the fimbriate gall wasp (Blog Post: Fimbriate Gall Wasp, May 1, 2024). To find out, I went and fetched a couple of pieces of twine and tied them to 4 or 5 places where the insects were laying their eggs. When the leaves emerge, I will see if a gall is forming. I’ll keep you posted on what I discover.
As the days grow longer, I hope that you are finding time to be out in nature immersing all of your senses in the spring weather, wild flowers, hatching insects, bird song, etc. Nature is an inexhaustible source of wonder. I’ll see you out there.
