A Small Step Backwards

Today felt like a small step backwards- it was overall pretty disappointing. We didn't see the large female adult return, neither did we see any eggs in the pod. We had seen her every day since her emergence, so to not see her today was especially worrisome, and made us think that predation may have unfortunately played a role.

Also, we noticed some very tiny crawl-off (pupa). We were worried that these tiny tiny pupa would not have enough physical resources in order to metamorphosize, but upon a literature review, this just means that from a small pupa will emerge a small BSF.

Today, what looked like a small (3-4 mm) female adult fly landed on the book that Rylo was reading. But we weren't able to get a good enough of a look at her so I have to keep the official count of female adults at 1.

Also, we saw some really interesting looking flies that looked remarkably like BSF (with waspish waists, etc), but they were irridescent blue/green, with heads that were entirely blue. Hopefully we'll be able to see them again and catch a closer glimpse.

And the bad news keeps coming. Today, we saw pest flies at the pod for the first time. We really hope that the synonome is working and that today is just a fluke. It is especially important that the synonome is working when we have adult females, because they need to clearly know where they need to come back to to lay eggs.

Let's hope next week will be more successful. Happy BC Day weekend!