Southeast LA report

I am new enough to "blogging" that I hope this post finds its way to the right site! Several things from the New Orleans area:
1) A late March black lighting trip to Des Allemends yielded a few neat beetles and moths. Of note: fiery searchers (6 or so) and large hydrophilids and dytiscids (12 in all, of thereabouts), hundreds of medium-sized dynastine scarabs (Dyscinetus morator), good number of fishflies, and a lot smaller moths that were nicely patterned.
2) Audubon Louisiana Nature Center was done wrong by Katrina - blackberry and tallow are far too prevalent, and nearly all the mature trees were killed. There are still good bugs out there, but there is no more understory for lack of big trees, and what was once passable ground is now impenetrable.
3) Spring sprung here a while back - my benchmarks for the closing of cooler temperatures are: crane fly mas emergence, thistle bloom, Eastern subterranena termite swarming (saw almost none this year), and reports of buck moth eggs hatching. This is followed by larger buck moth caterpillars, a few calls about honey bee swarms (which is better than mite infestations causing bee mortality to the point that one gets NO such calls), and Mexican primrose blooms along roadsides. Finally - and this has begun - the Formosan termites start swarming...and then you know it'll be hot enough for all manner of arthropods to start moving about.
4) Bugstock is coming!