Sunflower etc. project, cont. 3

 Went back to Peck Road Water Conservation Park just to make sure the leaf beetles I had transplanted there really were absent, and not merely falling below detection thresholds as a result of having had a "bad year" last yr. Despite continuous searching for more than an hr I found none.

The ones at Plymouth Elementary have also been periodically disappearing. Some leave within several hrs to a day after being put there (possibly due to host phytochemical reasons relating to drought?), the rest have a retention half-life of 2-4 days. Given that Plymouth has only three fully leafed-out sunflower bushes at the moment (and therefore it is easy for me to search them extensively), my favored hypothesis is that birds are eating them all because foliage-gleaning bird density is elevated at Plymouth and moreso at Peck compared to Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area's aridland, and because there exist birds capable of detoxifying Encelia (so presumably there also exist birds capable of detoxifying Trirhabda geminata, given that Trirhabda presumably sequesters its defense chemicals from its host). The 2-4-dayers generally seem contentedly lethargic in the days preceding their disappearance (in contrast the quick departers were observed walking restlessly even after feeding), so host chems may not be to blame for 2-4-dayer demises.

In other news an acquaintance also helped me plant a live cactus in there (to further feed the cactus flies, and also Nitops pallipennis, which breeds in the flowers), so at least there's some progress made, I suppose.

No update on the Huntington ones yet, for the simple reason that I haven't bothered to check. I did edit the post preceding this one with some updates, tho.