Tag Archives: junebug

Junebugs in July

Spending the day drifting in the breeze on the face of a happy sunflower.

Spending the day drifting in the breeze on the face of a happy sunflower.

Every night at dusk, the buzzing begins. Dozens and dozens of junebugs ascend from their hiding spots. Up they go, bumping into everything as they fly higher and higher. One after another, they bounce with a ‘tink’ ‘tink’ against the rain gutters as they congregate somewhere above the roof. We wonder what they do up there in the dark… mating, maybe?   They become ‘prey’ for the young owls that are learning how to hunt this time of year, and owl pellets have been found chock full of junebug wings. It’s always late June or early July when they show up, probably due to the mild summers here on the central coast of California. In the memories of my youth in the hot San Joaquin valley, they were seen hanging and hissing on the screen door.