Evergreen bagworm – I carry my home on my back

Left: An evergreen bagworm 'bag' hidden in a juniper tree. Center left: Two bagworms try to escape. Center right: Three bagworms try to escape. Right: An evergreen bagworm explores the edge of a plastic container.

On a recent visit to Oklahoma, we became interested in the evergreen bagworm (Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis). Our Sooner family is at war with these insects because of the damage they can cause to trees. We got drawn into the battle, first by picking larvae out of the infected trees and squishing them, and then studying them and understanding their lifecycle.

The bagworms we studied were in Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum) trees. The larvae ingeniously camouflaged their bags in way that you might say is artful. They spin their bags in their larval life, decorating it with bits of plant material from the trees on which they feed. In the case of junipers, juniper needles and berries are attached to the bags.

 

Given the time of the year, we are seeing (in these photos) larvae, which are brown/tan caterpillar with black markings. Larvae remain in their protective bag, sticking their head out to feed. The larvae will feed up until late August and then pupate. The males become moths. The females never grow wings and never leave their bags.

We plucked a few larvae and put them in the bottom half of a plastic bottle and covered the top with saran wrap and rubber band. When handling the bags, the larvae retract inside and close off the bag opening. Little by little if left alone, they start to come out. If you put them somewhere where they don't want to be, they move. When they do, they drag their bag behind them. They carry their house and possessions with them.

The larvae must do that naturally in an infected tree to reach different food sources and only attach for good to pupate. To test that, we should have put a marker on a bag and see if it moved around the tree day by day. Unfortunately, we didn't.

The specimens in our plastic trap never one went over the edge, but kept circling around the top. A pretty bag in tow and nowhere to go.

A Hike from Maresana to Selvino

Left: Hiking route from Maresana to Selvino along trail 533. Right: View of Salmezza from trail 533.

Overview

Length: ~14 km (8.7 mi)
Duration: 5 hours one way
Elevation: minimum @Maresana (546 m) (1,790 ft), maximum @ Salmezza 1057 m (3,467 ft), total elevation gain 857 m (2,812 ft)
Location: Italy, Lombardy, Bergamo, Parco dei Colli di Bergamo and north

The Walk

A lot of our hikes start or end on Sentiero - Trail 533. It’s a major hiking trail that’s close Bergamo city center, easy to get to, and from the 533 you can connect up to the larger network of trails. Trail 533 connects Bergamo (Monterosso neighborhood / via Quintino Alto to be exact) to Selvino. We tried a week ago to do the walk but flopped and made it only to Monte di Nese (see A Short Hike from Bergamo to Monte di Nese). This time we got a lift to Maresana to cut the city walking out as well as starting out a little earlier in the day.

Trail 533 is relatively easy to follow. It’s not too steep and a large part of it is under the cover of trees. The trail drops you on the southwest side of Selvino. Once you reach Selvino, there is another kilometer or so to get to the top of the funivia (cable car) to head back to Bergamo. We, fortunately, got picked up by the partner of our hiking companion.

We drove around Selvino looking for a restaurant, which were all inexplicably closed on a Tuesday. We called it quits in Selvino and headed to the Oca Bianca Osteria in Treviolo. Oca is “goose” in Italian, and as you might expect, the menu featured a couple of goose-related dishes. All in all, a delicious dinner in a nice atmosphere made a great way to finish the hike.

Transportation

You can take the number 6 or 9 bus to Quintino Alto and catch trail 533 from there to start the hike. From Selvino, take the funivia (cable car) to get down to Albino, and from there take the tram back to Bergamo. To get to the Oca Bianca from Bergamo, take a number 5 bus.

Plants

During the hike, we saw at least 20 plants we could identify. Among them, the usual suspects (clover, rose, and vetch) as well as four different types of orchids. Feeding on the flowers, we saw  [Zygaenidae] Zygaena filipendulae or the Six-spot Burnet moth, a black and red-colored day-flying moth.

[Family] Genus species – Common name in English (Common name in Italian)

[Asteraceae] Arnica montana – Wolf’s Bane, Mountain Arnica (Arnica)
[Apiaceae] Astrantia major – Great Masterwort (Astranzia maggiore)
[Asteraceae] Centaurea montana – Perennial Cornflower (Fiordaliso montano)
[Asteraceae] Cirsium erisithales – Yellow Thistle (Cardo zampo d’orso)
[Campanulaceae] Phyteuma sp. likely scheuchzeri
[Caprifoliaceae] Knautia arvensis – Field Scabiosa (Ambretta comune)
[Fabiaceae] Lotus corniculatus – Garden Bird’s Foot Trefoil (Ginestrino)
[Fabiaceae] Securigera varia – Purple crownvetch ()
[Fabiaceae] Trifolium rubens – Red Trefoil (Trifoglio rosseggiante)
[Geraniaceae] Geranium sanguineum – Bloody Crane’s Bill Geranium (Geranium sanguineum)
[Lamiaceae] Thymus vulgaris – Common Thyme (Timo commune)
[Liliaceae] Ornithogalum pyrenaicum – Spiked Star of Bethlehem (Latte di gallina dei Pirenei)
[Orchidaceae] Anacamptis pyramidalis – Pyramidal Orchid (Orchide piramide)
[Orchidaceae] Dactylorhiza fuchsii or maculata
[Orchidaceae] Gymnadenia conopsea – Fragrant Orchid (Manina rosea)
[Orchidaceae] Platanthera chlorantha – Greater Butterfly Orchid (Palantera verdastra)
[Plantaginaceae] Plantago media – Lamb’s Tongue (Piantaggine media)
[Rosaceae] Aruncus dioicus – Goatsbeard (Barba di capra)
[Rosaceae] Filipendula vulgaris – Dropwort or Fern-leaf Dropwort Filipendola)
[Rosaceae] Rosa canina – Dog Rose (Rosa selvatica comune)


Orchids along the trail. Left: Anacamptis pyramidalis. Center: Dactylorhiza (either fuchsii or maculata). Right: Gymnadenia conopsea.


More orchids: Left: Dactylorhiza (either fuchsii or maculata). Center Left: Dactylorhiza leaves. Center right and right: Platanthera chlorantha.


Left and center: Arnica montana. Right: Cirsium erisithales.


Left: Aruncus dioicus. Right: Filipendula vulgaris.


Left and right: Astrantia major.


Left: Plantago media. Right: Ornithogalum pyrenaicum.


Left: Rosa canina. Right: Securigera varia.


Left: Centaurea montana. Center: Zygaena filipendulae – Six-spot Burnet feeding on Knautia. Right: Trifolium rubens.


Left: Geranium sanguineum. Right: Lotus corniculatus.


Left and center: Phyteuma (likely scheuchzeri). Right: Thymus vulgaris.



Views of trail 533. Left: Nearing Salmezza. Right: Looking northeast over Selvino.


Views of trail 533. Left: A steep part between Monte di Nese and Salmezza. Right: Near Ca' del Latte heading to Olera.

A Walk from Albino to Bergamo via Monte Misma

Left: The route from Albino to Bergamo. Right: Close to the top of Monte Misma on sentiero 601.


Panorama from Monte Misma


Hike Notes

Length: 25.6 km (15.9 miles)
Duration: 7 hours and change minus a 15-minute lunch break on Monte Misma
Elevation: 1.646 m (5,400 feet) total elevation gain, minimum and ending elevation in Bergamo 256 m (840 feet), max elevation 1.160 m (3,806 feet) @ Monte Misma, starting elevation at Albino 330 m (1,083 feet)
Location: Italy, Lombardia, Bergamo, Bassa e Media Val Seriana

Overview

I got it in my head that it would be fun to walk from Albino to Bergamo, and so we gave it a try today. I wouldn’t say it was one of our prettier walks/hikes due to disruptive trail work after many trees were uprooted in a recent storm, a thick haze with views resembling a very smoggy LA day, and the last bit of the walk on surface streets. On the positive side, this walk contained some classic easy hill walking through roccoli, which are so characteristic to this area.

A roccolo is a big trap for birds, usually smaller migratory birds. You might say it’s a bird snare, but that's a bit of an understatement to describe these often intricate structures. It’s better to describe them as architettura vegetale. Roccoli are built different ways, but commonly are in a circular shape of living material (trees and shrubs) and other materials (wire, poles, netting), built on a hill top. You can often tell that you are approaching a roccolo when you start seeing signs warning about hunters and guns. The signs can seem freaky, but to date nothing has ever happened to us even walking straight through roccoli.

There is an interesting article on roccoli published by LAC, a group promoting the abolishing of hunting. Despite advocating for abolishment, the article gives a good summary of the background on roccoli. The idea of creating a roccolo supposedly came to some priests escaping the plague of the XIV century. The priests headed up into the mountains, but once there, they had to eat something and the story goes that they invented the roccolo. The article does go on to describe many of the not-so-nice ways live birds are used to attract other birds into a roccolo. The article describes the etymology of roccolo as coming from Latin “rocolus”, a diminutive of castle, or that roccolo derives from “rotolus” for the circular form.

Part of the walk (sentiero 513) goes through Parco del Monte Bastia e del Roccolo, which is where we saw most of the roccoli. The provincial profile of the park states that there are dozens of roccoli in this zone. The Wikipedia page for the park states that the roccoli are present in large numbers on the ridge from Monte Bastia to Monte del Roccolo because the area is located on a natural terrace overlooking the Bergamo plain and the mouth of the Val Seriana, which is an area of concentrated bird migration.

Panorama of a roccolo in Parco del Monte Bastia e del Roccolo.


Two other things to point out on the walk are:

• Pierina Morosini chapel. Pierina Morosini (1931 – 1957) was killed on the trail where the chapel is located, her life cut short by a brutal act. She was later beatified in 1976 and officially blessed in 1987. We encountered this touching little chapel early in the hike.
• Maria Ausiliatrice del Monte Misma. We got a bit lost around this, for a lack of better word, sanctuary, which occupies the top of a small wooded hill and includes paths and statues honoring Mary Help of Christians and Saint Joseph. (Information in Italian.) From what we could tell, a local man had several sightings of a dove and la Madonna. Then, the man built the sanctuary with guidance from Mary. It was a bit confusing for us to comprehend what we were seeing perhaps because we were sweating profusely from hiking and in need of some water. It’s an example of the interesting things you find in the hills around here.

Left: Pierina Morosini chapel. Center: Statues at Maria Ausiliatrice del Monte Misma. Right: Ex-votos at Maria Ausiliatrice del Monte Misma.


The steps to recreate this roll-your-own walk are:

• TEB tram: Take the tram from Bergamo to Albino.
• Sentiero 511 (Albino - S. Maria del Misma): In Albino, find 511 and start climbing.
• Sentiero 601 (Bivio Corna Clima, Luzzana - Monte Misma): At intersection with 601, take it to the summit of Misma.
• Sentiero 539 (Cornale - Monte Misma): Take 529 down from the summit until you hit 513. (We got lost once or twice here, signage was a little spotty.)
• Sentiero 513 (Tribulina di Gavarno - Valle Rossa – Monticelli)
• Sentiero 509 (Villa di Serio - Gavarno - Monte Bastia) You’ll have to walk through Gavarno to find 509.

Particularly useful as always is to print out the maps and gpx tracks from the CAI Bergamo, so you can have them handy.

At the end of the mountain walking we were left in Scanzorosciate, a few kilometers from Bergamo, and walked back on streets to Piazzetta del delfino. This part was boring, except for a stop for a much appreciated ghiacciolo (ice pop). Happy walking!

Left: Allium carinatum. Center left: Cirsium. Center right: Cyclamen purpurascens. Right: Capanno con sparo - Hunting blind with gunshots.


Left: A sign in Parco del Monte Bastia e del Roccolo pointing out flowers common to this area, vincetossico - Vincetoxicum hirundinaria, orchide priamidale - Anacamptis pyramidalis, fiordalis di trionfetti - Cyanus triumfettii, and sferracavallo commune - Hippocrepis comosa. Center: Le vie del Misma trails. Right: Graphosoma lineatum - Italian-Striped Bug.


Left: Azienda Agricola Celinate. Right: Coming down from Monte Misma.


Left: View northwest from Monte Bastia toward Nembro. Right: View of Monte Misma from Celinate.


Views of a roccolo in Monte del Roccolo. Note some artificial trees mixed with living trees.