On the Sandbars again!

"None of your knowledge, your reading, your connections will be of any use here: two legs suffice, and big eyes to see with. Walk alone, across mountains or through forests. You are nobody to the hills or the thick boughs heavy with greenery. You are no longer a role, or a status, not even an individual, but a body, a body that feels sharp stones on the paths, the caress of long grass and the freshness of the wind. When you walk, the world has neither present nor future: nothing but the cycle of mornings and evenings. Always the same thing to do all day: walk. But the walker who marvels while walking (the blue of the rocks in a July evening light, the silvery green of olive leaves at noon, the violet morning hills) has no past, no plans, no experience. He has within him the eternal child. While walking I am but a simple gaze."

― Frédéric Gros

Despite striking out on Sandy Stream Tiger Beetle this season across three prior visits along the Wisconsin River, I headed back to the sandbars and shoreline yet again on Saturday. I suppose I'm just a glutton for punishment, but it was a gorgeous day to be out hiking, exploring Nature, and looking for critters to photograph.

And once again, Sandy Streams found: Zero-point-zero.

There were several Bronzed Tiger Beetles at the Sauk sandbars ...

With Sandy Stream off the docket, the next one I'll look for is Virginia Metallic Tiger Beetle (Tetracha virginica), which is a nocturnal species that can be found at Spring Green Preserve. One doesn't find them midday, but early mornings as they search for logs, leaves, or other things to hide under. Nocturnal beetles crawling under logs during the day are engaging in diurnal harborage—seeking a protected microhabitat to rest and survive until nightfall. Other species I'm not likely to encounter this year are Cow Path and Long-lipped, but there are still opportunities to get Twelve-spotted. Thus, of Wisconsin's 16, the best I'll probably do is 13 tiger beetle species for the year.

Arena's sandbars were already crawling with Muggles, so my search there was limited to a single quick lap. Hairy-necked Tiger Beetles continue to increase in number for their summer emergence, but photographing them means getting down in the wet sand—a dirty effort I wasn't up for. Instead, I headed over to Spring Green Preserve. I hadn't been there since late June, making it the perfect spot to log more steps and see what insects were active.

Flowering Spurge (Euphorbia corollata) was ubiquitous throughout the prairie. 

Liatris were budding ...

I don't know how I spotted this ...

It's a female Goldenrod Crab Spider (Misumena vatia), blending in perfectly with her prey-post. Unlike chameleons or octopuses, which shift colors instantly using chromatophores, the Goldenrod Crab Spider relies on a slower metabolic process. Moving to a yellow flower triggers her hypodermal cells to synthesize a liquid, ommochrome-based yellow pigment that covers the reflective white layer beneath her cuticle—a transformation taking 10 to 25 days. Reverting to white on paler blossoms happens much faster, taking just 5 to 6 days as she reabsorbs and excretes the yellow pigment as waste. 

The only tiger beetle species present were Punctured ...

There was an abundance of robber flies, though ...

This one is a member of the genus Proctacanthella and may be P. cacopiliga, but I'm not 100%.

This larger gruesome robber is the Common Marauder (Proctacanthus milbertii).

With rain in Sunday's forecast—still much needed around here—Saturday was my window to get out. My time in the field didn't yield much in the way of photos, but a day spent outdoors is always time well spent. The real value wasn't in the shots I took, but in the simple reset that comes with hours on the trail, recharging both body and mind.

All images © 2026 Mike McDowell

August and Strike III

"All species will go extinct eventually, even our own: it is one of nature's few imperatives."

― Hope Jahren

It's August! There's still plenty of insecting to do, but I'm about ready to give up on Sandy Stream Tiger Beetle (Ellipsoptera macra) for the year. On Sunday, a thorough search of sandbars and beaches at the Sauk Canoe Launch, Arena Boat Landing, and Peck's Landing near Spring Green yielded a big zero.

A whiff! A dip!

It's a troubling sign; while historically rare in southern Wisconsin, this is the first time in a decade since I discovered them at Sauk that I've failed to find one. True to the last blog post, that doesn't necessarily mean they're completely extirpated from the area because there's still a chance for inland populations or spots I haven't yet explored this season, like Bender Bluff Beach and sandbars on the eastern edge of Sauk City. Having said that, if that is the case, their numbers must be astonishingly low this year.

Here's a map of E. macra from iNaturalist.org:

So far the only Wisconsin 2026 E. macra observations are from Door County (July 9th). All the pins northwest of Madison are from 2022 or earlier, but I found them at Sauk in 2025, 2024, 2023, etc., going back to 2015. The lone sighting near Eau Claire is from 2013. Alas, I do not publish my insect sightings on iNaturalist.org, but probably should start doing so.

If there's a lesson here, it's that we shouldn't take things for granted when a species is uncommon or rare in an area. It really doesn't take much to substantially knock them back—and maybe the spring flooding we experienced was responsible after all. Even though the Sandy Stream Tiger Beetle isn't federally imperiled because it's doing well in other states, its local future in southern Wisconsin is unclear. My gut says they'll make a comeback to the lower river sandbars eventually, but it might take a few years. 

On the other hand, Hairy-necked Tiger Beetles were abundant on the sandbars at Arena and Peck's Landing, as well as Bronzed—numbers were up. Temperatures were a little cooler than the previous visit and that seemed to have slowed them down just enough for me to get a little closer to them with my macro rig. 

This one was on drier sand.

But, as per usual, most individuals were found hunting for prey on wet sand near the water's edge ...

As such ...

It makes for messy insecting.

A somewhat cooperative Red-spotted Purple rendered a nice portrait opportunity ...

There we go ...

This is Yellowseed False Pimpernel (Lindernia dubia), a native wetland annual that thrives on exposed mudflats and river sandbars like those along the Wisconsin River.

It was a gorgeous, comfortable day without any mosquitoes. Saturday's 2.5 inches of much-needed rain was welcome, but it will likely trigger another hatch of blood-sucking bugs soon.

Just a quick comment on political posts like the previous one. Generally, I'll only post about politics when it comes to matters of science denialism, violations of the 1st Amendment, and removing environmental protections. When I resumed blogging in 2020 after a long hiatus, I turned commenting off. It's been my experience that an open comment section becomes an exercise in digital babysitting, and have neither the time nor patience for it. Disagree all you want, but you'll have to do so elsewhere.

This is a reality-based blog.

All images © 2026 Mike McDowell

Good grief ...

The recent Senate exchange between Rand Paul and Anthony Fauci prompted me to check what's currently sitting on official government webpages regarding SARS-CoV-2 pandemic origins. What I found was a masterclass in logical fallacies, misdirection, and overconfident conclusions presented as science. 

 

To be sure, I'm not defending Fauci. He has been criticized for privately encouraging scientists to reconsider early suspicions of a lab leak. Could it have been a lab leak? Certainly. But the empirical evidence, for the time being, points to a zoonotic origin. The purpose of this post is to show that the .GOV page presents a contested scientific question with far more certainty than the evidence supports—and relies on arguments that do not hold up under scrutiny.

 

To get started, consider the following ...

We've fished this lake for two months without a single bite or sighting. If there were fish in here, we'd have caught one by now.

Our rovers have been crawling the surface of Mars for decades, analyzing thousands of soil and rock samples. If there were any chemical or fossilized traces of ancient life, they would have turned up by now. 

Spot anything sketchy?

If you didn't click on the link, here's Point 5 from the linked .GOV webpage:

"By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced. But it hasn't."

First of all, it's troubling (and embarrassing) that this statement appears on an official government webpage because it presents a contested scientific question as though it has a settled answer. 

 

Secondly, this is not how science works, and it isn't what the scientific literature has concluded about the origin of the virus. What appears on the .GOV website isn't a scientific finding—it's an argument, and a poor one at that. It assumes that if a zoonotic spillover occurred, definitive evidence should already have been discovered. But that assumption has not been demonstrated. The search for the origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not complete, and many infectious disease origins remain unresolved for years or decades, with some never conclusively traced. Failure to find definitive evidence does not prove that the evidence does not exist.

Rather than possess the basic intellectual honesty to say, "we do not yet know," the statement treats a lack of evidence as definitive proof of its claim. This is a form of argument from ignorance: it takes the absence of a definitive finding and treats that absence as evidence against a competing explanation. The flaw is assuming that if evidence has not been found, it must not exist. As the familiar scientific principle goes, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

It's akin to saying "We don't know, therefore we do know."

Another example would be:

"We haven't found a natural explanation for how life first got started on our planet, therefore it must have a supernatural origin."

Right?

 

Finally, evidence for a natural origin of the virus does exist—it's just not conclusive physical proof (like catching the exact live host species in the wild). Spatial mapping of the earliest late-2019 cases and environmental sampling at the Huanan market heavily point to the wildlife trade. At the present time, the preponderance of scientific evidence points to a zoonotic origin. 

Now let's look at the other points on the list ...

Point 1:

"The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature."

But this does not mean that SARS-CoV-2 has a biological characteristic that cannot occur naturally. They are almost certainly referring to the furin cleavage site. But pointing out that a specific feature hasn't been observed in this exact lineage of betacoronaviruses before 2019 doesn't mean it can't evolve naturally. And anyway, furin cleavage sites do appear independently across multiple other coronavirus lineages—evolution routinely produces novel combinations.

Point 2: 

"Data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events."

This is not an established fact.

There are peer-reviewed papers that have presented evidence that the earliest outbreak likely involved at least two zoonotic introductions. You'll find that virologists who study pandemic origins are much less divided than the U.S. intelligence community—and even those intelligence agencies favoring a lab leak express only low-to-moderate confidence. Is this skepticism reflected on the .GOV website? 

Historically, pandemics and epidemics have involved multiple zoonotic introductions, but others have been dominated by a single successful introduction followed by sustained transmission. There is no universal rule that all zoonotic pandemics must show repeated independent spillovers.

Point 3: Partially true!

"Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research (gene altering and organism supercharging) at inadequate biosafety levels."

However, it's dishonestly framed. Defining gain-of-function as "gene altering and organism supercharging" is a dramatic sensationalization rather than a scientific definition. Whether WIV experiments officially constituted "Gain-of-Function" remains disputed. Researchers swapped genes to test how viruses attach to human cells, but they were not engineering "supercharged" pathogens.

Point 4:

"Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) researchers were sick with COVID-like symptoms in the fall of 2019, months before COVID-19 was discovered at the wet market."

Interesting, but not conclusive. We know that, for some people, COVID-19 was no worse than a common cold, and many respiratory viruses can produce symptoms indistinguishable from COVID-19. Without a positive PCR test or blood antibody data from those specific individuals back in late 2019, labeling generic respiratory symptoms as "COVID-like" is scientifically meaningless.

I'm not an expert on this material, but one doesn't need to be a virologist to detect poor arguments.

 

Addendum:

As he has a penchant for doing, Trump jumped the gun by blaming "radical-left vandals" and claiming he had proof before the facts were in, forcing his administration to aggressively double down on his story despite clear evidence that the Reflecting Pool's damage was just a botched installation by a no-bid contractor. Now, with the Justice Department dropping its case against former Olympian David Hearn and admitting the Department of the Interior suppressed internal reports confirming contractor error all along, it proves once again how quickly the administration manufactures political outrage long before reality catches up. 

 

It's just the way he is. 

 

Delusional

"The origin of the virus that causes COVID-19 hasn't been definitively proven, so the question remains open. But the scientific evidence supports a natural spillover from an infected animal to humans rather than a leak from a lab."

See: No way!

Percent of Americans who:

Believe in literal Biblical Creationism: ~35%

Deny Anthropocentric Climate Disruption: ~35%

Are OK with Christian Nationalism: ~35%

Are core MAGA Supporters: ~35%

The president's current approval rating: ~35%

 

Another idiot:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently claimed (again) that Lyme disease is a lab-engineered bioweapon created through gain-of-function research. However, scientists and historical data show this claim is entirely false. Ancient Origins: Genetic studies show the bacteria causing Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi) has existed in North American forests for at least 60,000 years.

 

More

Don't trust these people—they're either lying, ignorant, or both.

Strike II

"Seeing the mud around a lotus is pessimism, seeing a lotus in the mud is optimism."

― Amit Kalantri

No Sandy Stream Tiger Beetles were found during my weekend survey in Sauk and Arena. Though later than their typical emergence window, my historical records show they can still be found well into August. 

Moderate drought has brought the Wisconsin River low enough to expose a network of extensive sandbars—reminiscent of a summer just over a decade ago, though with far fewer tiger beetles around on this day. While this could still be the typical mid-season lull, I'm beginning to wonder if the spring flooding is the cause for their exceedingly low numbers.

Hmm ... how far I can hike via sandbar hopping?

A stretch of beach ...

In all my searching I found just a single Bronzed Tiger Beetle, but there was at least another subject of interest: Shoreline Wolf Spiders (Arctosa littoralis) ...

Their camouflage is superb. They standout a little more when sunlight is on them by creating a contrasting shadow, but look what happens when clouds block the light ...

I mean, is that impressive or what?

I was on the fence about heading to Arena. It's better known and weekend sandbars on hot days are guaranteed to be packed with Muggles, complete with loud music, pets, and cookouts—a bit too much of a party scene for my taste. Still, people often get curious about what I'm doing, which can create opportunities to share a little entomology.

Despite beachgoers scattered about, I completed a loop around the main sandbar. Like at Sauk, Bronzed were scarce—only two sighted—but I encountered around a dozen Hairy-necked Tiger Beetles working the damp sand. I spent an hour trailing them with my camera, though their skittish, hyper-vigilant nature made close-range portraiture exceedingly challenging.  

 

This is the part where I might appear to be entirely unhinged to onlookers—walking in slow motion toward empty sand, crouching, standing, crawling on all fours, and throwing my arms up in pure frustration before starting process all over again. Though nobody asked on this day, every so often someone comes up to me and asks "What are you doing?"

 

Me: "I'm photographing a tiger beetle!"

 

Them: "A what?" 

Naturally, the beetles kept to the water's edge, where the saturated sand had a sour, swampy funk to it—that classic smell of dead algae and marsh muck decaying under the mud. Pursuing them down in the mire meant I finished the day completely drenched, muddy, and smelling like the bottom of a riverbed.

 

Such fun!

 

All images © 2026 Mike McDowell

Arena's Sandbars!

"Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination."

― Louise Brooks

Here are a few photos from last weekend's trip out to Arena's sandbars on the Wisconsin River. The smoke and haze definitely cut down on visibility to the horizon, but it ended up creating a pretty cool atmosphere for these shots. The repair job I did to my Nikon FT1 adapter seems to be holding up as well, so I'm putting off purchasing a new camera for now. I've saved for it and I'm not going to use those funds to buy another guitar!

As I mentioned in my previous post, despite the fantastic habitat, tiger beetles were nowhere to be found on the sandbars. However, the phenological window is right for the Sandy Stream Tiger Beetle—which emerges only in summer, unlike species with spring/fall cycles. I'll likely look for them again tomorrow or Sunday.

A few southbound Least Sandpipers (Calidris minutilla) were foraging for invertebrates along the sandbars ...

Ah yes! Fall migration has begun.

There were lots of Allegheny Monkey Flower (Mimulus ringens) ...

Macro close-ups ...

The only insect I photographed was a this deceased stag beetle ...

As usual, I ended up at Sauk Rec, but it was already late and sweltering when I arrived. The only tiger beetles out were a few Punctured Tiger Beetles; the rest were likely sheltering in their burrows to escape the high heat. While we had a nice cooldown this week, temperatures are set to climb back into the 80s and 90s over the weekend.

Though on the non-native and invasive Knapweed (Centaurea biebersteinii), I got a nice photo of a Common Sootywing (Pholisora catullus) ...

Before resigning myself from the oppressive heat, I spent a few moments photographing Purple Prairie Clover (Dalea purpurea) ...

As for tomorrow, if I don't find Sandy Stream Tiger Beetles at Sauk (or Arena), I may end up exploring the Pheasant Branch Creek Corridor or Deer Creek. 

All images © 2026 Mike McDowell