Wisconsin Dells Bugs Insect Display Box

Our summer adventures took us for a week to Wisconsin Dells. June of 2014 was cool, so surprisingly we didn't spend a lot of time at the Waterparks. Also, we discovered the Dells closed the Riverview Waterpark which we loved so much for their buy one day, get one free tickets. 

We enjoyed walking in town, playing in our pool at our cottage, and of course, collecting bugs. When we arrive at the cabin there's always little visitors who have entered the mobile home - mostly lady bugs and flys in the summer months. This year we did find 1 cockroach and a few fire flys. We also surprisingly found a wasp too.

Wisconsin Dells Bugs Insect Display Box 

We pinned over 100 bugs from the dells. There were a few evening I found grasshoppers that landed ON the house siding! At dusk the kids would run around and try to catch grasshoppers. Amongst five kids, they caught 4 tiny grasshoppers.

LIFE IS STILL EXCITING AT OUR HOUSE! 

With more insects. . . 

Quick 2021 update - we have taken our bugs online and on youtube. Visit AMI Studios Chicago if you want to see our insect videos - you can watch them here. 

AMI Studios Chicago

It's mostly baby girls videos and here slime making, she spends time with friends, goes on road trips, lots of coloring activities and make good choices while having fun. During the covid stay at home orders - she had many many many facetime pandemic playdates - we made time work for us and not be bored.

I caught the blue butterfly as he was sitting on a leaf on a tree branch right at the entrance of the house. 1 tick was walking on one of us and was captured. Another evening I had the lights on at night while I pinned our finds and a pluthera of moths and other winged creatures. So I took measures to slowly open the doors and capture a few under my kill jars. No using nets yet! (Although I found a great tutorial on how to make your own, which we will soon make).

We found 1 huge nearly one inch long ground beetle dead at the base of the porch stairs and two days later a June bug lay dead in the same place.

Wisconsin Dells Bugs 2014, In Bug Box, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

While we were exploring bugs with our cousins in July at the Crabtree Nature Center in Barrington IL., we learned from out aunt about horse flies. I had never heard of them, or seen one. Well in this collection, weeks later as I was labeling them and identifying the species of our finds, we came across two horse flies!!

While at the dells I took the family to see my old childhood fishing spot, where my dad and friends took us Sturgeon fishing. Off County Road A in Lake Delton, off the ramp where the dells Ducks used to exit to the road, we walked down to the shoreline. 

There we found shells of what could be a species of cicada... The brown shells above to the right of the butterfly. They were found "glued" to the Dells Limestone rock walls along the river. They were attached similarly to the way Chicago cicada nymph shells can stay attached to a tree after a nymph emerges from it. 

Wisconsin Dells Bugs Insect Display Box 

En route back to the cabin we stopped at the walgreens and a grasshopper flew into our car, we captured it, he's pictured with left side wings spread on the pinned board.

 

Wisconsin Dells Bugs 2014, In Bug Box, a photo by areyousureaboutthatblog on Flickr.

Make mistakes, breathe, reflect, Laugh.Out.Loud, and go Bug Collecting!