Crow’s Nest: Citizen scientist observation

By Daniel Barringer, Preserve Manager.

The citizen-scientist in our household, age 11, found his first adult spotted lanternfly of the year yesterday, July 30, 2020. That’s a few weeks earlier than I might have noticed one, and I write this entry in part to record this data for posterity. Photos from 2018 confirm that we did start seeing adults around the last few days of July.

There are still plenty of third- and fourth-instar spotted lanternflies lounging around on several species of trees, shrubs, and vines. But now the flying, reproducing adults have also begun to grow up.