"Big L" Run - 6/1/07

Michael, Travis, Emma and I traveled up to "Big L" again last Friday. We had started out just planning on setting up a light at the farm, but... you know how the farm is 1/2 way there.. (we were almost there anyway), plus I have a soft spot for "Big L" that got pushed on by the guys.

We setup at the farm then went for food (of course we couldn't just visit ONE drive through). We were all in the car with the flashlights and containers anyway; so we left from there. We had to gas-up on the way so we stopped by Pseudo-Sammy's. There were so many back-swimmers and other things flying around that there was a fog or cloud around the pumps. We sat at a safe distance for a moment, while I searched for charged batteries for my camera, and watched people attempting to fuel their vehicles: wiggling, swatting and cursing the air. We took some photos of the swarm (will post soon), then drove to real-Sammy's (I wasn't going to get out of the car in the middle of THAT storm). Sammy's was a little less infested.

Once there we hit: Lupé's, Chevron, "that one place where James found that huge Ox beetle" and the gas station that is over by Lee's. We found four Ox beetles (S. aloeus), mostly males, and some nice, big moths (after my run-in with "out of focus moth" I didn't try to take any pictures of them). We did not go to "tiger truck stop" but the furthest station had quite a few water beetles. Surprisingly, Lupé's didn't offer anything except for four or five Strategus that were the victims of hit-and-run accidents and an attendant that was wondering what we were doing; she must be new.


Back at the farm the sheet was nearly covered but there was nothing that we kept. The rig was so full of insects that we turned the lights off (Travis figured out a quick way to turn all the lights off at once) and left it there. I found out later that the quickest way to take down a rig is to run it over with a lawn mower (it was like the magic trick where you pull the table cloth out from under the stuff on the table: gone in a flash)

Steven