Ohio Birds and Biodiversity

The month past has been a whirlwind of travel; even more so than a "normal" May. I've been on the road for the majority of the past few weeks, including the last eleven days in northern Michigan. It's always nice to return home after extended forays, even if it means dealing with a pile of emails and various other stuff.

For the last five years, I've led trips in mid to late May in Presque Isle County, Michigan, based out of Nettie Bay Lodge. Birds are our primary quarry, although we look at everything and that covers a lot of ground. I could not resist making the image above, of an eastern chipmunk, Tamias striatus, while a passel of migrant warblers entertained our group. I was looking at a Nashville Warbler when the little "chippie" caught my eye and obliging posed for my camera.

Chipmunks are abundant in northern Michigan, and rank high among the most valuable of forest animals. CLICK HERE for a piece that I wrote about chipmunks.

The thirteen-lined ground squirrel, Spermophilus tridecemlineatus, is always a crowd pleaser. These relatives of prairie dogs are pretty easy to find in Presque Isle County, and I enjoy showing them to people. For many, it is a life mammal. You can read an article that I wrote about ground squirrels HERE.

In all, we had about 21 species of mammals, including such interesting fare as porcupines, river otters, beaver, and northern flying squirrels. That pales in comparison to the 160+ species of birds racked up by our two groups, but the mammals always add greatly to the trips.

A typical beach scene at Wilderness State Park at the extreme northwestern tip of Michigan's lower peninsula. The mighty Mackinac Bridge, which crosses over the Straits of Mackinac into the upper peninsula, can be seen from this spot.

Beach-walking here is always interesting, especially for a natural philosopher such as myself. One is serenaded by various boreal warblers and other songbirds from the adjacent coniferous woodlands. Scads of mergansers, cormorants, terns, gulls and other waterfowl gad about offshore. If one is really lucky, a Piping Plover might be spotted - they nest locally.

For those with a botanical bent, it can be difficult to keep one's eyes to the sky, what with all of the interesting flora. The rocky beach was liberally strewn with the magenta blossoms of bird's-eye primrose, Primulamistassinica. Nearby mossy hummocks, partially shaded by arbor-vitae, harbor the diminutive calypso orchid, Calypso bulbosa. The latter was a major target for me, but alas, the late spring conspired to delay its blooming and I'd probably want to be heading back north this weekend to see it (which won't be happening).

But what would you know - in spite of all the avian and botanical distractions, it was a bee that caught my eye. Not long after venturing onto the beach, an utterly stunning bumblebee shot by, and the chase was on.

I'll have you know that I invested a good hour of my life to make these images, and that nearly all of the dozens of images that I made were no good. It was a windy day, and the dwarf willows upon which the bees were feeding blew about like rice paper in a hurricane. To obtain any semblance of a decent shot, I set my camera to shutter priority at 1/1600, and had to use one hand to hold the willow sprig steady.

Anyway, the little beauties are tricolored bees, Bombus ternarius, sometimes known by the (better) common name of orange-belted bumblebee. This is a bee of northern climes, ranging throughout much of Canada and south into the northern states. I had never seen one in the flesh, but knew it instantly because of its distinctiveness. In photos, the bee looked to be an entomological wonder, and I was not disappointed in the least upon finally making its acquaintance.

The tricolored bumblebee looks good from any angle, especially from the back. That fuzzy orange belt should give anyone pleasant pause, and I don't consider a single second of my apian adventure wasted time.

Insofar as I know, this bumblebee doesn't occur in Ohio, at least with regularity, but I will gladly accept correction on this point. At least I've never seen one, and I tend to give winged pollinators more than a casual glance. I can report that these tricolored bumblebees were the most difficult bumblebees to photograph of any species that I've encountered. Once spooked, which was easy to do, they would roar off, make a few circles, and shoot quickly out of sight. Chasing one was impossible, but fortunately a fair number of these animals were present and it only required inspecting a few flowering willows to turn up another.

Bumblebees are nearly perfection when it comes to cross-pollination.Note the pollen adhering to this specimen as it works over the flowers of this willow. Also note the tiny orangish spot in its yellow "fur", just above where the wing meets body. I believe that is a mite, and if you scroll up and look at the first bee photo, you'll see a few others near that bee's eye. Mites are ubiquitous on all manner of flying insects, but it takes a fairly heavy duty macro lens to pull them in.

About a month ago, immediately following the Ohio Ornithological Society's annual conference at Shawnee State Park, I got to spend some field time with two of Ohio's very best bird photographers. That would be Dane Adams (left) and Brian Zwiebel, pictured above plying their trade. Along with Jan Auburn, we made a rather short but steep trek to the summit of a tall "mountain" near the Shawnee lodge that offered treetop views. That's some heavy photographic artillery mounted on those tripods. Both guys shoot Canon gear, and Brian was working with a 600 mm lens (I think), and Dane had even a bit more oomph with 800 mm of lens. You can reach a longs ways into the leaves with gear like that.

We had a great time talking photography and watching numerous warblers and other songbirds move through the nearby trees. As a bonus, the cement pad at the hill's crest served as an attractant to hill-topping butterflies of many species.

On the hike up, and everywhere else we went that weekend, we noticed plenty of eastern tent caterpillars, Malacosoma americanum. This species is certainly one of our better known caterpillars, due to their habit of constructing conspicuous silken shelters. These caterpillarariums are nearly always placed in the fork of a black cherry tree, Prunus serotina, as is the one pictured. Tent caterpillars, which are the larvae of a rather handsome moth, seem to have boom and bust years. Some years the silk nests are seemingly everywhere, others relatively few can be found.

Most caterpillars go through five growth phases, each one termed an instar. At least two and perhaps three different instars are present in this photo. Following each instar, the caterpillar sheds its skin and emerges larger. Following the ultimate instar, it fashions a cocoon in which it will transform to the adult moth.

The silken tents in which the animals live communally until their last instar serve several purposes. Foremost, the dense sticky silk offers superb protection from would-be predators, especially parasitoid flies and wasps. Both are prolific enemies of caterpillars. Also, most songbirds will not deal with the dense silk, so for the most part the caterpillars are also safe from the feathered crowd.

Come nightfall, and the temporary disappearance of most of the birds, flies, and wasps, the caterpillars emerge from the nest and radiate out into the tree to feed on cherry foliage. Come dawn, they crawl back into the shelter of the nest. The tent probably also serves as a sort of greenhouse, with an elevated internal temperature that speeds the digestive process of the caterpillars within. Note all of the little blackish flecks in the silk - that is all frass, or caterpillar poo.

A fully grown eastern tent caterpillar is rather handsome, painted as it is in blue, gold, black, and white. Nonetheless, it is mostly maligned by people who resent what they consider to be unsightly silken nests. Let it be noted, though, that this is a native animal and its depredations on cherry trees seldom do any lasting damage. And as we shall see, some interesting and generally much more appreciated animals make much use of the tent caterpillars.

Most birds do have trouble eating them, as the long stiffish bristles of the caterpillar will eventually clog up their digestive tracts. Most famous of the tent caterpillar-eating birds are the cuckoos, who seemingly eat them with impunity. This is because Black-billed and Yellow-billed Cuckoos can slough off and cast out their stomach linings if they become too spiked with caterpillar bristles. The bird is able to regrow its stomach lining and thus can regularly consume the bristly meals. For the most part, with at least one notable exception, it seems to be the cuckoos that are the primary avian predator of eastern tent caterpillars.

A quick aside: Next time you see a tent caterpillar nest with some caterpillars on the outside, go tap or otherwise disturb the nest. You'll probably see the same furious side to side thrashing as shown in my video. This behavior is most likely evolved to thwart predatory flies and wasps, and prevent these insects from laying eggs on the caterpillars. The motion also may function as an alert to other caterpillars who are outside the nest. My friend Paul Knoop observed a predatory Ichneumon wasp alight on a nest this spring and all of the visible caterpillars instantly began thrashing. He reports that within 30 seconds or so, all of the caterpillars had vanished back inside the nest.

Anyway and finally, to the object of this article. We had not long been atop the hill when we spotted a gorgeous male Baltimore Oriole fly into a nearby tree. Knowing the the colorful blackbirds were also fond of snacking on tent caterpillars, I suggested that Brian and Dane train their lens on a nearby, particularly scrumptious caterpillar nest. Sure enough, a couple minutes later the oriole dropped through the branches and approached the nest.

Dane, with his mega lens and skills at finding objects through blowing leaves and branches, managed a great series of shots, and he was kind enough to share them with us. In the photo above, the oriole has just alit and is inspecting the nest for victims.

One thing that I was always curious about was how orioles managed to eat bristly tent caterpillars without doing harm to their digestive tracts. Cuckoos, as we know, can simply regrow bristle-clogged parts, but insofar as I know, orioles do not have this ability. I was hopeful that a nice series of photos might cast light on the oriole's tentside culinary practices.

We can see in the above photo that the oriole has apparently pierced the skin of the caterpillar, and is drawing out the prized innards.

It appeared to us, and Dane's photos seem to illustrate this, that the oriole uses its sharp, finely pointed bill to neatly slice open a slit in the caterpillar, from which it could draw out the inner contents.

You can see the oriole tugging out the guts, as it were, without the need of swallowing the whole package bristles and all.

Like slurping a strand of spaghetti from a tubular plate. Baltimore Orioles are certainly known to dine on tent caterpillars, but I've never seen the techniques by which they do so explained. Thanks to Dane's fine photographs coupled with our field observations, it appears to be a matter of careful dissection and surgical extraction, thus avoiding the bristly outer skin.

Even the most reviled native animals, such as tent caterpillars, have value. Our superficial condemnation is often unjustified and all too frequently based on ignorance.

Thanks to Dane for sharing his great series of photos.

A flurry of moths congregates under a night light. Prominent among their ranks is a large showy Luna, Actias luna, one of the world's best known moth species. The vast majority of Ohio's 3,000 or so moth species - and especially their caterpillars - are far less well known.

I am giving a program on caterpillars and their intricacies next Sunday, June 8th, at 2 pm at the Cleveland Metroparks' Rocky River Reservation, in the beautiful Rocky River Nature Center. It is free and open to all. Details can be found RIGHT HERE.

An as yet to be identified "inchworm", or Geometer looper caterpillar, photographed late last night in the remote depths of Adams County, Ohio. Note the animal's uncanny resemblance to a twig, and how it has spun silken support struts to anchor it in position. It is quite easy to overlook such masters of disguise, which of course is precisely the idea.

Birds probably drive much of the evolution of this sort of fantastic mimicry. Without caterpillars, we could kiss most of our songbirds goodbye. In spite of caterpillars' astonishing ability to hide, birds and other predators find and eat the vast majority.

A gorgeous Straight-lined Plagodis, Plagodis phlogosaria. In general, very few moths ever develop to this stage. They are eaten by predators in the caterpillar phase. Caterpillars make the world go 'round; they are the largest group of herbivores by a long shot.

Head on with an irritated Giant Swallowtail caterpillar. It has flicked a formidable set of horns from its head - they are known as osmeteria. Osmeteria are like slimy foul-tasting and smelling biological switchblades, and are a last-ditch deterrent to ward off predators. Caterpillars have an amazing bag of tricks to avoid being eaten.

If that Giant Swallowtail caterpillar makes it, it will morph into our largest butterfly, Papilio cresphontes.

Beyond bizarre is this moth caterpillar, the Monkey Slug, Phobetron pithecium. It is thought to mimic a shed tarantula skin. There's a great story behind this one, which is at least a locally common species here in Ohio, where of course we have no wild tarantulas.

If you can make the Rocky River Nature Center next Sunday, I'll look forward to seeing you. Following the talk, uber-birder and naturalist Jen Brumfield and I will lead a walk around the grounds looking for anything and everything for those interested. Again, CLICK HERE for all of the details.

An Eastern Kingbird sits on his fence, exuding a regal and stately air befitting its name. I photographed this flycatcher up in Presque Isle County, Michigan, one of numerous kingbirds that I saw there. The scientific name is Tyrannus tyrannus, and tyrants they are. Kingbirds don't seem afraid of much, and have no qualms about scrambling skyward to harass intruding raptors, crows, or ravens.

This bird paid me no mind, and using my car as a blind I set out to make some images of the handsome tyrannid when I saw it was about to engage in something rather cool.

As I clicked away, the kingbird suddenly began to upchuck a pellet! Luckily I had the camera on burst mode, which is the equivalent of a photographic machine gun. By holding down the shutter button, I could burst off about six shots a second and thus capture the following series of images.

Owls are probably the best known group of birds when it comes to casting pellets. Indeed, experienced birders often find roosting owls by the presence of pellets. A pellet, as applied to birds, is just a condensed mass of indigestible bits from its prey. In the case of owls, a pellet would be mostly bone and fur. Rather than expel the stuff through the posterior end, birds cast the pellets back out through the mouth.

But owls are by no means the only group of birds that form and expel pellets. Probably most species that make a habit of eating animals that are partially comprised of hard dry matter such as bones and fur form and cast pellets. In the case of the kingbird, its pellets are primarily chitin - the hard indigestible parts of insect exoskeletons.

A fraction of a second after I made this shot, the bird gagged out the pellet. The elapsed time for this entire sequence of photos was only a second or so. It was just fortunate that I already had the camera trained on the bird. There would not have been enough time from noticing the imminent casting of the pellet and getting the camera up and in position to fire off the shots.

With a final quick gagging flourish of the head, the pellet was cast out and the bird resumed its normal posture. I may be easily amused, but it was quite interesting to witness and I'm glad that I was able to photo-document the event, crude as my photos may be.

I have only one regret, that I didn't think to go over to where the bird was perched and try to find the pellet. It likely would have been largely made up of dragonfly parts and beetle shells. Well, maybe next time.

The blizzards, cold temperatures, and heavy snow cover that defined last winter in Ohio are but a distant memory. Today's temperatures hit the mid 80's, and spring migration has subsided. The shift to warm weather and all that it brings feels good, but last winter certainly left some positive memories.

A highlight of the polar vortex winter of 2013/14 was the astonishing spectacle of thousands of Snow Buntings at Mike and Becky Jordan's Delaware County residence. The buntings were attended by good numbers of Horned Larks and Lapland Longspurs, and the overall effect was of a tsunami of birds blowing over the snowy fields. I wrote about this several places, including RIGHT HERE.

The Jordans were very gracious to the scores of birders who came from far and wide. They put out several thousand pounds of cracked corn to keep their feathered charges happy, too. The scene was a definite highlight of winter birding.

On one of my visits, I brought along my GoPro camera, and used it to shoot some video footage. Tim Daniel, photographer for the Ohio Division of Wildlife, also made some excellent video with his GoPro. Our colleague and videographer extraordinaire Skip Trask was kind enough to take the best of the videos and splice them together into a short, artfully executed piece. It follows, and I hope that you enjoy a short reminisce of last winter's amazing bunting spectacle.

Video by Tim Daniel and Jim McCormac - editing by Skip Trask

A rather large wood roach of the genus Parcoblatta (I presume) investigates the surface of a leaf. John Howard and I were out late into the night last Saturday in Adams County, searching for nocturnal critters. We saw several of these roaches, which are common in southern Ohio woodlands. While they are in the same order (Blattodea) as the loathed pest cockroaches that infest dwellings, these are native roaches that live in natural habitats.

Nonetheless, if you are a sufferer of katsaridaphobia - fear of cockroaches - you're not going to like these things, harmless as they may be. The cockroaches don't care whether you like them or not. After all, Homo sapiens is just a short-term blip on the evolutionary time scale. From a cockroach's perspective, we have yet to prove ourselves. After all, humans in roughly our modern form and as described as H. sapiens only arose about 200,000 years ago. The cockroaches have been at the game of life for FAR longer than that. Fossilized ancestral roaches date back some 300 MILLION years, and more or less modern blattopterans have been around for some 145 million years. Cockroaches are successful, no doubt about it.

If, in addition to the aforementioned katsaridaphobia, you are also afflicted with arachnophobia, you're really not going to like this photo. John and I, however, were delighted to stumble upon this scene. A very large nursery web spider, Pisaurina mira, has captured a wood roach and is eating it. This is a scene that has played out for hundreds of millions of years, in one form or another. Spiders have an even more ancient history than do the roaches, having arisen some 400 million years ago. And as we can see from this photo, the spiders are most likely to dominate when it comes to roaches.

While more than a few people are turned off, often to a great degree, by spiders and roaches, you can't argue with success. These orders of animals have been around longer than many minds can comprehend, and they'll surely be on mothership earth long after Homo sapiens has departed.

If you've made it this far, I offer an antidote to the horrorshows above: a "cute" Northern Saw-whet Owl. Even though the owl is every bit the formidable hunter that the spider is, far more people like them.

Thanks to Dr. Rich Bradley for confirming the identity of the nursery web spider.

I recently received a rather disheartening note from John Pogacnik, biologist with Lake County Metroparks. The park district is in the extreme northeastern corner of the state and hard on the shores of Lake Erie. John, as many of you know, is an astute observer who spends much time afield.

In 2012 he began to notice some American beech, Fagus grandifolia, that were showing signs of ill health. Beech were already under assault in some regions by beech bark disease (BBD), which is a combination of introduced fungal and insect pests joining forces to attack and kill beech. BBD is widespread throughout northeastern North America, but doesn't seem to have (yet) caused widespread mortality in Ohio. Anyway, the new(?) issue detected by Pogacnik is not BBD.

A healthy American beech towers over the forest floor in Gross Woods State Nature Preserve, Shelby County. Beech can correctly be termed a keystone species. A great many other organisms are reliant on beech, and the trees fuel a forest ecosytem that is much richer than it would be without the trees. Beech typically occur in association with sugar maple, Acer saccharum, and beech-maple forests are a huge and vital part of the eastern deciduous forest ecosystem.

Mature trees typically form cavities that are used by Barred Owls, raccoons, flying squirrels and a number of other birds and mammals. The roots spawn the growth of one of our most specialized vascular plants, the beech-drops, Epifagus virginiana, which is parasitic on beech roots (without harming the tree). Beech also produce bounty crops of beech nuts some years, and this mast is an important food for numerous animals, including white-tailed deer, turkey, grouse, squirrels, wood ducks, chipmunks and many other creatures. Scores of moth - and some butterfly - caterpillars are also co-evolved with beech and depend on its foliage for food.

A forest deprived of its beech would be a far less diverse woodland.

John sent along some photos that show various stages of damage caused by the as-yet identified attacker. First signs of infestation involve dark striping on the green leaves as one looks into the backlit canopy. This can be seen well in the above photo.

The affected foliage then withers, dries, and yellows, as seen above and in the following two photos. Ultimately the diseased trees die, and John has already documented mortality and reports that many other beech appear on to be on their way out.

So far, the mystery beech disease has been detected only in a few locales in eastern Lake County and adjacent Ashtabula County. Cleveland Museum of Natural History botanist Jim Bissell has found afflicted old-growth beech in museum holdings in Ashtabula County. It appears this pest, whatever it is, can affect any stage of tree, from sapling to mature giant.

John has brought in experts from the U.S. Forest Service and the Ohio Division of Forestry. A number of forest health experts have reviewed the evidence and so far the culprit remains unidentified.

Please keep an eye out for apparently unhealthy beech trees, and those that exhibit the symptoms shown in the photos above. If you think you've detected this, please email John Pogacnik at: jpogacnik@lakemetroparks.com

If possible take photos of the leaves, and of course make notes as to exact location, extent of the infestation, and age/size of the impacted trees.

A beautiful northern Michigan forest, filled with aspen, cherry, and other trees, and underlain with a dense growth of bracken fern. The forests here are typically mixed, with conifers: white spruce, balsam fir, white cedar, jack, red, and white pines, and depending upon the moisture regime, black spruce and tamarack.

It's a yellow-bellied sapsucker, Sphyrapicus varius, paradise, and this is probably the most common breeding woodpecker in Presque Isle County. Northern flickers certainly give the sapsuckers a run for the money in the abundance department, and downy, hairy, pileated, red-bellied, and red-headed woodpeckers can all be easily found as well.

An old paper birch log litters the forest floor. Note the prominent well fields drilled by sapsuckers long ago. There is ample evidence of sapsucker activity in these woodlands, especially in the form of the perfectly arranged rows of cavities created by feeding operations.

Sapsuckers drill and maintain extensive well fields in a variety of trees. Sap flows from the wells, giving the birds a ready source of sugary food. An entire food web is spawned by the sapsucker well fields. A great many insects come to feed at these excavations, and other vertebrates come in to feed on those insects, if not the sap itself.

The wells in this photo are drilled into the phloem tissues of the birch; round sapsucker holes tap the xylem layer. The rewards of such drilling and well field maintenance are great: paper birch, for instance, can have summer sap in the phloem of up to 16% sugar concentrate.

A female yellow-bellied sapsucker warily eyes your narrator. Those of us who live south of the sapsuckers' breeding range usually think of this as a rather shy and retiring species. And they are, usually, at least in winter and migration when compared to the other woodpecker species. But sapsuckers become much more extroverted on the breeding grounds, especially the males. The birds frequently give their highly distinctive drums: a short series of hammer blows that slows in speed, and sounds as if someone is tapping out a telegraph. The birds also frequently give soft mews, and even a loud raptorlike call.

This spring, while leading my annual NettieBay Lodge birding and nature forays, I found several active sapsucker nests. The entrance hole is a very neat affair. Nearly perfectly round in the center, the entrance is carefully sculpted with flanged openings on the top and bottom.

This year, we were fortunate indeed to have David Govatski on one of the trips. Dave is a forester from New Hampshire, and a wealth of natural history information. He taught me something about sapsucker nesting that I did not know. Sapsuckers often select aspen trees for nest sites, such as this quaking aspen, Populus tremuloides. That I knew, and always figured the birds chose aspen because it is a soft wood. Yes, but there's more to the story.

Note the fungus projecting from the tree below and slightly right of the cavity. That's the heartwood decay fungus, Fomes igniarius var. populinus. Sapsuckers are especially fond of aspen that have been colonized by this native fungus.

A stunning male yellow-bellied sapsucker nervously watches us inspect his nest cavity. We did not tarry. Note the animal's bright red throat, a feature that distinguishes it from the female.

This is the best shot I could manage of the interior of the sapsucker nest cavity. We can see the darker softer punky wood within - the effects of the Fomes fungus. Clever birds that they are, the sapsuckers know that it's easier excavating a deep nest hole in an aspen infected with this fungus, and seek out such trees.

Managers of "sugar bushes" - sugar maple groves managed for syrup production - also know about the sapsucker/Fomes fungus connection. They will often remove fungal-infected aspens from the sugar bush, in an attempt to keep the sapsuckers from inhabiting the area and drilling well fields into their sugar maples.

Learn something new every day.

Photo taken with the iPhone 5S (the rest were shot with the Canon 5D Mark III and Canon 100 mm L-series macro lens)

Triangle Lake Bog State Nature Preserve on a rainy day. I traveled to northeast Ohio last Sunday for a gig, and left bright and early to visit one of the coolest preserves in Ohio before heading over to Cleveland. While kettle lake bogs would have been commonplace in parts of Ohio for thousands of years following the last glaciation (10-12 thousand years ago), most have long since succumbed to the processes of natural plant succession. Of the relatively few that remain here, in my opinion Triangle Lake, which is just outside of Ravenna, is the nicest example. It should be a must-see for any Ohioan interested in natural history. To find such bogs now, at least commonly, one must venture several hundred miles to the north.

As the massive wall of ice that was the Wisconsin Glacier receded, large blocks of ice would regularly calve from its face. These enormous ice cubes would crash to the soft, newly exposed mire left in the wake of the glacier, and form kettle lakes. At first, the divots would be nothing but cold pools of clear water, but plants quickly invaded their margins. Over time, a highly specialized flora evolved and a bog was born. Eventually, plant life would expand to the point that the kettle lake would be completely covered by a bog mat. Now, most of Ohio's bogs have advanced to a state of swamp forest, their bog past scarcely discernible.

Triangle Lake, however, still possesses all of the primary attributes of a kettle lake bog. There is deep open water in the center, which is ringed by a floating bog mat. Beyond that is a dense shrub zone, which grades into swamp forest. Pictured above is a branch of a tamarack, Larix laricina, a classic conifer of bogs. There are plenty at Triangle Lake, but overall this is quite a rare plant in Ohio.

Last Sunday was a very wet day, and I only had a total of about 1/2 hour in which the rain abated to the point that camera equipment could be taken out on the boardwalk. Nonetheless, I was able to click off some images between downpours, and plants usually photograph quite nicely when beaded with water.

The rain kept most of the animals under cover, but this golden-backed snipe fly, Chrysopilus thoracicus, and several of its brethren did emerge.

A relatively short and quite well built boardwalk allows visitors into the innards of the bog. Without it, a person would have a bear of a time gaining access. Thick shrub zones form a nearly impenetrable tangle around the outside rim of the bog. One of the dominant shrubs is highbush blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum.Its blueberries are quite tasty, and the plant is commonly cultivated for the fruit. As can be seen from the photo, it will not be long until the berries are ripe for the plucking. But note, visitors, that this is a state nature preserve and people should not sample the plant life.

What I had really come to see and photograph was the bog's supply of pitcher-plants, Sarracenia purpurea.The timing was good for this one, as most of the mature plants were in full flower.

In this shot, a vigorous clump of pitcher-plants shoots from a carpet of large cranberry, Vaccinium macrocarpon. The latter plant, like the aforementioned blueberry, is commonly cultivated and provides us with commercial cranberries. Cranberry grows on thick tussocks of Sphagnum moss, which is the dominant substrate on open bog mats.

Pitcher-plant is officially listed as threatened in Ohio, and this rare plant is found in only a handful of sites, nearly all of which are bogs. There are one or two populations in fens, too.

Close in on the strange flower of a pitcher-plant. The whole assemblage droops over so the flower faces the ground when fully developed. The dangling scarlet things that look like colorful basset hound ears are the petals. The purple protuberances at the top of the flower are the sepals. Visiting pollinating insects are drawn to the bright petals, and clamber up them to be forced into the flower's innards through gaps between the sepals. This forced entry route pushes the insect into contact with stamens and their attendant pollen. The stigma is like an upside down umbrella and forms the floor upon which the pollinator walks when it enters the flower. Insects bringing pollen from other pitcher-plants deposit it on the sticky floor of the stigma as they bumble about inside the flower, thus cross-pollinating the plant.

The leaves of the pitcher-plant are modified into tubular water-filled death traps that capture insects. Thus, the plant is one of our few truly carnivorous plants. I wrote in some detail about the killing apparatus of pitcher-plants HERE.

I highly recommend a visit to Triangle Lake Bog. If you can get there within the next few weeks, the pitcher-plant flowers should still be looking good. But anytime of the year is interesting. A visit to this bog is like stepping foot into Canada. For details about the preserve, CLICK HERE.

This is jack pine country. The Grayling sands of Michigan's northern lower peninsula harbor large stands of the gnarly black-trunked pine, and at this locale there are hundreds and hundreds of acres of Pinus banksiana between five and twenty years of age. Such a habitat interests birders greatly, as this is the home of one of the rarest of the rare, the Kirtland's warbler, Setophaga kirtlandii.

I always come here when leading my mid to late May field trips that launch from NettieBay Lodge. Everyone revels in the ambiance of the wide open spaces filled with stunted pines and overtopped by Big Sky. The rich reverb song of the "jack pine warbler" rings out, and many other avian musicians contribute to the soundscape. The guttural croaks of common ravens. Ethereal whistles created by courting upland sandpipers drift down from the ether. The lovely flutelike melodies of hermit thrushes - yes, they breed in this stuff! - issue from the pines. Sparrows cannot be missed: song, vesper, field, clay-colored, Lincoln's, chipping, and from older tracts of pines, white-throated sparrows whistle their mournful tunes.

Not a bad place to be, if you are into birds.

There is far more than birds in the jack pine plains, though. Last year I had noticed stump after stump that was liberally encrusted with one of our showiest lichens, and I resolved to photograph them this year.

This is about a lush a display of British soldier lichen as a lichenologist could ever ask for. I am decidedly NOT a lichenologist, but that in no way dims my admiration of this scarlet-topped combo of an alga and a fungus.

I believe this species is Cladonia cristatella, but don't hit me with a bat if I'm mistaken. There are, I think, some other Cladonia lichens that appear quite similar. No matter what you call it, this lichen is a certified showstopper, and it was a treat to see stump after stump capped with the stuff.

Lichens are composites of two separate organisms - an alga (or cyanobacteria) and a fungus. Collectively they join in a mutualistic relationship and live together as one. The lichen's name is derived from the fungal species, which in this case (if I am correct with the identification) is Cladonia cristatella. The algal component is Trebouxia erici. The common name stems from the brilliant red fruiting bodies, or apothecia, which resemble the red caps that British troops wore during the American Revolution.

Not too many lichens can lay claim to this level of showiness.

Yesterday dawned clear and crisp; a picture-perfect early summer day. A good day indeed to head to one of my favorite natural areas, the legendary Cedar Bog near Urbana, Ohio. I was there to give a lecture on entomology, specifically about the "bugs" of Cedar Bog. The best part of the day was the special off-the-boardwalk field trips before and after the talk.

Venturing off the mile-long boardwalk that bisects Cedar Bog's fen meadows and various other habitats is strictly taboo. Only permitted researchers or others affiliated with the bog may do so, and even then off boardwalk travels are rare. Our groups consisted of noteworthy supporters of the bog, and we wanted to thank them for their contributions with a special trip.

One of our groups deep within the bog (which of course is really a fen), in a very special meadow. I should say that, even though venturing far off the boardwalk was a treat for these folks, most people probably wouldn't want to do this. The ground is spongy, and a misstep can land one in boot-sucking quagmires. There is a lot of dense brush to push through, the humidity is intense, and ticks, mosquitoes and other pests can abound.

But by braving all of that, we got to see a lot of interesting flora and fauna. This particular meadow is distinguished by the presence of one of Ohio's rarest plants, the prairie valerian, Valeriana ciliata. I wrote a bit more about this plant RIGHT HERE.

Try as we might, we could not completely ignore the non six-legged crowd. This is an adult five-lined skink, Eumeces fasciatus, and many people first learn that lizards do indeed occur in Ohio by spotting one of these along Cedar Bog's boardwalk.

If you are smaller than the owner of this eye, you would not want to get caught in its harsh unblinking gaze.

The previous multi-faceted eye doesn't miss a trick, and it belongs to this utterly ferocious beast. This is a large robberfly, Laphria thoracica, that is an excellent bumblebee mimic.They sit atop leaves, and wait for potential victims to fly by. The fly then scrambles out, and envelops the lesser insect with its legs, then stabs it with a proboscis that resembles a hypodermic needle. Chemicals are injected that liquefy the victim's innards, which the robberfly then sucks out via its proboscis.

Almost as if on cue, this enormous gray petaltail, Tachopteryx thoreyi, appeared in one of the meadows. Petaltails are our most primitive dragonfly, and are brutish animals. They'll capture and eat dragonflies up to their own size, including other petaltails. They seem especially fond of bagging swallowtail butterflies. Shortly after I made this photo, the petaltail shot over and landed on my arm, giving the group a great look. You can find a more detailed post about these fascinating dragonflies RIGHT HERE.

Every meadow had its complement of painted skimmers, Libellula semifasciata. It must be a good year for these stunning dragonflies. I've never seen so many in a single year, and have seen many other reports of them from around the state.

We were quite excited to find a brown spiketail, Cordulegaster bilineata, and the animal had the good manners to pose obligingly. At one point, it slowly hovered and flew right among the group, offering stunning looks. All too often with big dragonflies, one is left with far less than satisfactory looks and no photo opportunities. We saw at least a half-dozen massive swamp darners - proportionately probably our largest dragonflies - but none of them cooperated for photos or close looks.

This female violet dancer, Argia fumipennis, is making mincemeat of a victim. You can see the shiny wing of its prey, which might be some type of winged ant.

The meadows were awash with this interesting moth, the Le Conte's haploa, Haploa leconteii.They look rather butterflylike when in flight, and make no great effort to hide themselves when they alight.

We encountered a sapling that was covered with these interesting insects. They are treehoppers, in the nymph stage. A greenish-white freshly molted nymph is in the center of the photo. I found these treehoppers to be quite showy with their chestnut eyes, stegosaurus spines along the back, and odd little hornlike helmets. I don't know the species, but many treehoppers take on the appearance of thorns or other plant parts, which helps them blend in when at rest. They tap sap from their host plants, and treehopper colonies are often attended by ants, which feed on the honeydew secreted by the treehoppers.

As the sun faded to the west towards the day's end, it cast perfect light to reflect the shadows of water striders in Cedar Run. The crystal clear water of the small creek allows the shadow of the strider to be seen on the stream bottom. Water striders (this one is probably in the genus Gerris) do not break the water's surface, but their feet create hydrological "divots" on the water's surface. It's these divots that we're seeing reflected by the shadows, with the insect's slender ellipsoid body in the center.

All in all, an excellent day at Cedar Bog, filled with interesting finds. If you haven't visited Cedar Bog, please do. CLICK HERE for details.

I've got a lot of friends who are really good amateur herpetologists, and they're a lot of fun to get afield with. This is one of them - Josh Dyer, who works for the Crawford County Park District. As fortune would have it, I had to speak to a teacher's workshop last Tuesday morning in Bucyrus. Part of the agenda involved an afternoon field trip, so of course I arranged for our group to connect with Josh and have a hike around one of the park district's properties. We had a blast, spending several hours in the 90 degree heat traipsing around and finding all manner of interesting flora and fauna. But it was snakes that ruled the day.

QUICK ASIDE: The Crawford County Park District is one of Ohio's jewels when it comes to conservation and outdoor education. The organization owns many interesting properties, and puts on a full agenda of excellent programming. To learn more about CCPD, CLICK HERE.

Josh took us to a "secret" meadow where he has long monitored the local snake population. One of the big problems with keeping tabs on snakes is that most of them are so darn secretive. It takes special search techniques to ferret out snakes, but the herpetologist does have a trick or two up his/her sleeve.

An easy way to lure snakes in is to simply place sheets of tin or wood on the ground. The reptiles will often find them to be good, dark, and warm hiding spots and develop a habit of secreting themselves under the sheets. It's one of these "tins" that Josh has flipped up in the first photo, and in the shot above he has a pair of female common gartersnakes, Thamnophis sirtalis, that he just grabbed from under another sheet.

The common gartersnake (syn: eastern gartersnake) is perhaps our most common and widespread snake in Ohio. We caught about 20 of them on this day, all or nearly all of which were female. Here, the snake flicks its beautiful orange and black tongue at the photographer. It is collecting detailed information about its surroundings with that tongue - CLICK HERE for an interesting article about snake tongues and how they work.

Although gartersnakes are completely harmless, they do have a good built-in repellant. When seized, a snake will typically let loose with a load of "musk" - a whitish malodorous paste. After an afternoon of handling numerous gartersnakes, an accumulation of musk has dried to form an ill-scented crust on Josh's arm.

I was quite pleased to see this gorgeous eastern milksnake, Lampropeltus triangulum. Milksnakes are highly beneficial, eating numerous rodents and other lesser animals. These snakes do have a propensity for hunting in and around sheds, barns and other outbuildings, and this behavior often brings them into contact with ignorant humans who kill them. I receive numerous emails every year of decapitated milksnakes from people wanting an identification. They often think it was a venomous copperhead.

Milksnakes are accomplished climbers, if they choose. We placed this one on the trunk of a massive bur oak, and it easily traversed the vertical bark-face. This animal was about 2.5 feet in length; they can exceed four feet.

Note the triangular dark patch atop the head - the source of the specific epithet triangulum (I presume). Milksnakes have a stunning pattern of alternating bands, and a fresh animal that has just shed its skin is striking indeed. The common name milksnake stems from their habitat of frequenting barns with plenty of rodents. This led to an old wive's tale that the snakes were there to tap the udders of cows and drain the milk. In reality, they are doing the farmer a service by taking out, or at least thinning, the barn's population of mice. Being a constrictor, a milksnake wraps its victim in several coils of its body, and exerts enough pressure to stop breathing and suffocate the prey, which is then swallowed whole.

Yes! This, bar none, was the find of the day! Josh flipped a tin to reveal a smooth greensnake, Opheodrys vernalis! The assembled teachers must have thought we were a bit touched in the head, as we whooped it up upon seeing this exotic rarity. I had long thirsted for a smooth greensnake, but they're not easy to find, at least without a special effort. Indeed, the day the we found this animal, the Ohio Division of Wildlife announced that its status had been changed from Species of Concern (a "watch list" category) to Endangered.

There is another much more common albeit range-limited greensnake in Ohio, the rough greensnake, Opheodrys aestivus. I've seen those many times, and once wrote about them RIGHT HERE.

Smooth greensnakes once occurred in 22 or 23 Ohio counties, but are probably only extant in four or so today. The remaining animals are strongly associated with prairie remnants, and surely would have been far more common prior to settlement, when prairies covered some 5% of Ohio.

These are exceedingly gentle and beautiful little animals. The stunning lime-green upper surface allows them to blend well with grasses or the foliage of low shrubs and trees. The smooth greensnake only reaches a maximum length of one and a half feet or so. Nonetheless, the little charmers are death on insects, which make up their primary prey.

Seen well, the scale pattern of a smooth greensnake is a true work of art and would be at home on a gallery wall. The deep green scales are trimmed with hyaline (translucent) margins and pinstriped with a lemon colored band. This photo illustrates why it is called a "smooth" greensnake - the scales are flat and unblemished by corrugations or ridges. In the rough greensnake - which can attain lengths of 2.5 feet, much larger than this species - the scales are keeled; a small ridge runs down their center.

As you may recall from art class, yellow and blue makes green. Greensnake scales are comprised of the former two colors, leading to the beautiful green animals that we ooh and aah over. In this shot, we can see a few scales where the blue pigment is bleeding through. When a greensnake dies, the weaker yellow pigments rapidly deteriorate, creating a dead bluesnake. CLICK HERE for a post with photos of a blue greensnake.

While not as arboreal as their rough greensnake counterparts, smooth greensnakes can and do climb well. Here, our subject poses in a bur oak sapling.

I really appreciate Josh working with us on this field trip; I think everyone (sans two, perhaps) were absolutely thrilled to see this greensnake, and were nearly as interested in the other snakes that we saw. For me, it was especially enjoyable to see a new reptile, and one that I've long coveted.

Iris, Most Beautiful Flower

Iris, most beautiful flower,
Symbol of life, love, and light;
Found by the brook, and the meadow,
Or lofty, on arable height.
You come in such glorious colors,
In hues, the rainbow surpass;
The chart of color portrays you,
In petal, or veins, of your class.
You bloom with the first in Winter,
With the last, in the Fall, you still show;
You steal the full beauty of Springtime,
With your fragrance and sharp color glow.
Your form and beauty of flower,
An artist's desire of full worth;
So Iris, we love you and crown you,
MOST BEAUTIFUL FLOWER ON EARTH!

Edith Buckner Edwards

I don't know if I could fully concur with Ms. Edwards'"most beautiful flower" sentiments, but the genus Iris will certainly place on the podium. Irises are indeed stunning, and the species above is especially noteworthy. It is the leafy blue flag, Iris brevicaulis, which is listed as a threatened species in Ohio.

Last weekend, Daniel Boone and I made a trip into some swampy river bottom habitats in western Ohio, and one of our rewards was this plant. The iris was a "life plant" for Boone, who ticks off flora like birders list birds. A major difference is that Boone's year lists are far larger than most birders, totalling well over a thousand species.

In spite of all his travels, and all of the plants that Dan has seen, the leafy blue flag had evaded his net. Not only did we fix that situation, but went on to find many other botanical highlights in habitats largely shunned by explorers, at least in summer's heat (and clouds of mosquitoes). I'll hope to put the full pictorial story of our trek up here soon.

A duo of male Cope's gray treefrogs, Hyla chrysoscelis, sit in a rain barrel. They were doing far more than sitting, actually - they were making a heckuva racket.

I spent much of the weekend in and around Burr Oak State Park in Athens, Morgan, and Perry counties with John Howard and Diane Platco-Brooks. We were there to scout for next weekend's epic moth-fest, Mothapalooza, an event that is drawing 150 people from all around Ohio and points far beyond. We found lots of cool sites and scads of interesting critters. Mothapaloozians are in for a good time.

Friday evening was muggy and wet, following a series of showers. One of our stops featured an insanely loud collection of Cope's gray treefrogs, and I could not resist stalking some of the little amphibious blowhards and making a few images.

We have two species of treefrogs in these parts, and insofar as I know, they appear identical and are visually inseparable. Voice is the key to ID. They're easy to recognize as treefrogs, however. Both have a light patch immediately below the eye, mildly warty skin, and a blotchy lichenlike pattern. They're also hefty; noticeably larger than spring peepers or chorus frogs. CLICK HERE for photos of the other treefrog. Those photos also show the chameleonlike color shift that these frogs are capable of. The frogs in this post are all a nice shade of mossy brownish-green, but if they were to spend enough time on leafy green plant material, chances are they'd shift to a lime-green hue. When on dryer substrates such as oak bark, treefrogs can change to a pearl-gray color.

Cope's gray treefrogs are southerners, occurring roughly in the southern one-quarter of Ohio. The other species, gray treefrog, Hyla versicolor, is found throughout the state and overlaps the Cope's range. However, I don't think I've ever heard the two intermixed and singing in the same locale. We did hear H. versicolor on this trip, but not in close proximity to Cope's.

Close in on a Cope's gray treefrog eye, which is a rather amazingly ornate organ. You can see the reflection of my Canon's twin light flashes in the pupil. If you want to really see amphibians well, go out after dark. They tend to be far easier to approach, especially when in song.

Cope's gray treefrog (and the other one) are tinged with a beautiful shade of lemon-yellow around the bases of the legs. We can also see the powerful suction discs terminating each toe. Treefrogs are excellent climbers and spend much time in trees and shrubs.

Of course, the most conspicuous element of this photo is the enlarged throat sac, as the animal was caught in full trill. It was deafening. It is amazing just how loud such a small amphibian can be. At one point, we spied eight or nine males at once, and all of them were in full song. Apparently, the louder one's song the better. One of the frogs managed to get himself inside a small drainpipe, and was singing from within. That was really LOUD, as if the animal had been wired to a stack of Marshall amps. AC/DC would have been proud of the little fellow.

The song of the Cope's gray treefrog is a short nasal trill, which is distinctly unmusical, at least when heard from a foot away. When the animals are more distant, they sound rather pleasing. The song does carry for quite some distance, and most people notice it but probably not many make the connection with a small frog. As the sound typically comes from trees, it is sometimes assumed that a bird is responsible.

Click on the video to hear a pack of Cope's gray treefrogs singing at VERY close range.

The Environmental Professionals Network (EPN) was launched only a year or so ago, but it has already morphed into a large network of like-minded people who either work in various environmental fields, wish to work in an environmental organization, are students, or just have an interest in the natural sciences. A staple activity of the EPN are its monthly breakfasts, which feature a speaker.

I was flattered to be tapped by the EPN's executive director, David Hanselmann, to give July's talk (DETAILS HERE). Normally the EPN meets on Ohio State University's West Campus, but this meeting will be different. We are gathering at the fabulous Grange Insurance Audubon Center along the banks of the Scioto River, just south of downtown Columbus. Following the program, I'll take any interested parties out to look for birds, plants, and any forms of wildlife that we might encounter.

This is the little known Trimble Wildlife Area in Athens County (now subsumed into the much more expansive Wally O'Dowd Wildlife Area). Trimble is a treasure trove of native flora, and as you might expect, harbors an abundant and diverse fauna.

The title of my program is:

Plants Make the World Go 'Round: Why We Must Protect Our Native Ecosystems.

I hope to talk about the big picture of how plants foster much of the animal diversity that we see, the changes that have occurred to our landscape since European settlement, and the importance of protecting biodiversity for humankind's sake. Of course, there will be plenty of photos!

Common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, one of our most valuable native plants. It and its other milkweed brethren have recently garnered the limelight, due to extreme drops in monarch butterfly populations. Monarchs require plants in the milkweed family for their host plants (plants that the caterpillars can eat).

Milkweeds do not only host monarchs; they support staggering animal diversity. A good milkweed is a self-standing botanical kingdom populated by legions of insects, both specialists and generalists. This is an orange assassin bug, Pselliopus barberi, hunting for prey on the buds of a common milkweed.

Nearly all native plants have their complement of specialists, sometimes many, sometimes few. This bizarre creature is a butternut woollyworm, Eriocampa juglandis, whose fate is largely tied to that of its host plants, the black walnut and butternut. The filamentous waxy appendages that adorn the insect's caterpillarlike body create the illusion of an unsavory piece of fungus - possibly a ploy to deter would-be predators.

When it comes to eating plants, no one does it better than the Lepidoptera: butterflies and moths. This stunning insect is a dark-banded geometer, Ecliptopera atricolorata, and its caterpillars eat... no one seems to know. There are still scores of animals, even beautiful ones such as this, that we know very little about. However you can be reasonably sure that this geometer's caterpillars are eating some sort of native plant, as do the overwhelming majority of Ohio's 3,000 or so other moth species.

Our native habitats have generally fared poorly since Europeans began the colonization of North America. This chestnut-sided warbler is an exception. John James Audubon, in all his wanderings some 200 years ago, only saw this species once. Today, the chestnut-sided warbler is very common, and a birder out in spring migration in Ohio might see dozens. The reason: wholesale land use changes.

Not all birds fared as well as the warbler. This year marks the centennial of the passing of the last passenger pigeon, which was once the most numerous bird on earth. We caused its demise in an incredibly short time. We would be wise to remember the pigeon, as we watch the formerly abundant monarch butterfly apparently floundering.

Anyway, that's a taste of what I hope to touch on in my talk on July 8. All are welcome, and you can get the complete scoop on the event RIGHT HERE.

A banded tussock moth, Halysidota tessellaris, sips nectar from a common milkweed plant. I made this image late last night; it was one of a blizzard of moths that we saw.

I've been down in southern Ohio for the past two days, getting ready for an onslaught of 150 moth enthusiasts who are descending on Burr Oak State Park for the weekend. They are coming in for the 2nd Mothapalooza event, which promises to be interesting.

Two nights ago, David Wagner and I were mothing late into the night at another spot in southern Ohio, and had an unbelievably massive incursion of moths into the sheets. It really was mind-boggling, both in terms of diversity and numbers. I can't wait to share some images of that evening, but it'll have to wait until time permits...

Last weekend saw the massive moth conference, Mothapalooza II, invade Burr Oak State Park in picturesque southeastern Ohio. Possibly somewhat strangely to the lodge's staff, a Bigfoot conference took place here the weekend before. At least we could show them our subjects of interest.

One hundred and fifty participants convened, from ten states and Canada. In this photo, your narrator debriefs with up and coming uber birder Alexandra Forsythe (her website is HERE) and her mother Cheryl. They traveled from Indiana to attend the conference. Alex, who is 15, already possesses awesome field skills. This photo was taken just after a 7:30 am bird walk around the lodge (crazy us; we were up until 2 am mothing!), and we had just escorted 30 other hard cases to look for birds. Alex found us many interesting species, including an eastern kingbird nest with two chicks about ready to fly the coop.

Mothapalooza draws a diverse demographic, including many sharp young naturalists and biologists. It's great to see such interest in natural history among a younger crowd; all too many of these sorts of events tend to be comprised of aging silverbacks such as myself. Nothing wrong with that, but we do need to think about the next crop of conservationists.

I snapped this photo with my iPhone on one of my innumerable trips in and out of the lodge. The parking lots are jammed. All of those cars, excepting the staff, are moth-ers! It was very cool. Everyone you would encounter was there for moths, and it was truly a great crowd. Sometimes events can be a bit low-key, but that wasn't the case here. Dinner, pre and post talks, on the buses, it was always happy chatter. Happy chatter is the earmark of people having a good time, and that's what we hoped for.

Burr Oak State Park is well off the beaten path, but most definitely worth visiting. The lake behind the lodge is beautiful, and the surrounding landscape is heavily wooded and full of flora and fauna. CLICK HERE to learn more about the park and its lodge.

Part of the Mothapalooza team poses post conference. From left (back row), it is Dave Horn, Mary Ann Barnett, Olivia Kittle, Elisabeth Rothschild, Scott Hogsten, and your blogger. Front row, from left, we have Diane Platco-Brooks, Fiona Reid, and Candice Talbot. Missing committee members are Dave Wagner, Tami Gingrich, Amy Mauro, and John Howard.

I could say lots of great things about all of these people, and the numerous other expert moth-ers, van and bus drivers, and volunteers that made Mothapalooza possible, but this would turn into a very LONG blog post. Suffice to say that we were fortunate to have most of THE BEST lepidopterists and naturalists around involved, and that's what makes Mothapalooza such a special event. I do have to single out Mary Ann. She got on board with the concept from the beginning, and has served as our CEO for both Mothapalooza I and II. Without her talents, organizational skills, and hard work, it wouldn't be possible. We are also grateful to the Ohio Division of Wildlife for its support of Mothapalooza and natural history in general, and the Ohio Lepidopterists for their invaluable assistance. Please CLICK HERE for the complete roster of our supporters, all of whom we greatly appreciate! And keep in mind that National Moth Week soon approaches!

An avid group of moth-ers clusters around a sheet late at night, ogling all manner of interesting creatures. Mothapalooza field trips are quite unlike other conferences that I've been part of. We don't head out until dark, and many people did not return to the lodge until 2 or 3 am. We probably had a better shot at seeing the (mythical) Bigfoot than the people at the previous week's conference did!

There were five mothing stations scattered around the area, each rigged with light traps to lure in our targets. A fleet of vans, driven by wonderful volunteers, regularly visited each site, taking people to and fro. Organizing and managing all of that was a major headache, and kudos go to Olivia Kittle and Elisabeth Rothschild for taking all of it on and handling logistics beautifully. We also owe a big debt to moth expert Diane Platco-Brooks, who opened up her property, Brookhaven, to Mothapaloozians. Diane's place is fabulous and moth-filled, and was the hand's-down favorite site. What a gracious host, to allow two nights of raving moth fanatics to invade and moth until the wee hours!

It wouldn't be much of a Mothapalooza without moths, but we had plenty of those. This was a "life moth" for your narrator and many others. It is a pink-legged tiger moth, Spilosoma latipennis, and a showy creature it is.

We were dazzled by the incredible camouflage of this mottled prominent, Macrurocampa marthesia.It is a lichen mimic, and when at rest on lichen dappled bark the moth essentially becomes invisible.

Photo: Ed Lux

We saw much more than moths. This southern flying squirrel caused a stir when it glided down from the trees, landed on Brian Herriott's shoulder, bounced off him and onto a lady standing nearby, then shot back into the trees. Diane Platco-Brooks also had feeding stations stocked with crunchy peanut butter, and her flying squirrels entertained scores of people.

Scott Hogsten found this oddity. It is a wasp mantidfly, Climaciella brunnea, which is sort of a mad scientist melding of a dragonfly and a praying mantis.This species is also an excellent wasp mimic to boot. The reproductive strategy of mantidflies is every bit as bizarre as the insect's appearance, but that story will have to wait until another day.

We also had day field trips to varied habitats. This fine group was part of an excursion led by John Howard and myself which ventured into the Wallace O'Dowd Wildlife Area. There were many highlights, not the least of which was an eye level summer tanager hunting wasps and bees within twenty feet of the group.

We also stumbled into this little Cope's gray treefrog, who remained tucked into its Bhuddalike stance, regarding us with utterly inscrutable eyes. It remained silent, but at night the treefrogs came alive. I made a post about the frogs at Diane's place RIGHT HERE.

It was only fitting that David Wagner's Saturday afternoon field trip group found this extraordinary beast, the paddle caterpillar, Acronicta funeralis. After all, it is prominently featured on the cover of his book the Owlet Caterpillars of Eastern North America. It uses those strange paddle-tipped threadlike structures to flail would-be predatory insects such as ants, flies, or wasps.

Soon, I'll slap up a moth-heavy post. We found legions of ultra-cool moths, and I look forward to sharing some of them.

Thanks to everyone who made Mothapalooza a big success, and traveled from near and far to be a part of it. We are already cooking up plans for Mothapalooza III!

A little wood satyr, Megisto cymela, perches in the gloom of a grassy woodland verge.This species is a shade lover; most butterflies are sun worshippers.

On Saturday, July 12, the Midwest Native Plant Society (the group that organizes the Midwest Native Plant Conference) is putting on a one-day butterfly workshop. The venue is the fabulous Army Corps of Engineers' Visitor Center at Caesar Creek Lake in southwestern Ohio's Warren County. All of the details are RIGHT HERE.

Always a special find, northern metalmarks, Calephelis borealis, seem to be having a banner season. I photographed this one a week ago in Adams County.

The workshop features a great slate of speakers: Jaret Daniels, author of Butterflies of Ohio, and Jeff Belth, author of Butterflies of Indiana, will both be giving talks. Cheryl Harner is speaking about Butterflies as Bioindicators, and Scott Hogsten is giving a program on butterfly photography. All this, and we even include lunch!

A pipevine swallowtail, Battus philenor, extracts nectar from one of the very best plants you can have in the garden, the aptly named butterfly-weed, Asclepias tuberosa.

Following the morning and early afternoon programs, the sun should be warming the earth rather nicely. That's when we'll head afield with our speakers and other knowledgeable butterfliers as guides, and track down some of these fluttery beasts.

The landscape around the visitor's center is loaded with great butterfly habitat. There is lots of prairie and the prairie plants should be looking sharp. Barring some sort of monsoon, we will definitely see scads of our target subjects.

If you're looking for a fun and educational way to enjoy a nice mid-July day, please join us. Again details are RIGHT HERE.

I've been on a bit of a moth jag, I know, but it's hard not to be after Mothapalooza. When I mention moths and the Mothapalooza conference (150 attendees!) to some acquaintances, I think they're probably wondering if we're all daft. I suppose I can understand a reaction like that - if one knows nothing about moths. The reality is that moths are seemingly endlessly diverse - at least 3,000 species in Ohio alone - and often strikingly beautiful and ornate. More importantly, moths, and especially their caterpillar larvae, make the natural world go 'round. Were it not for moths in all of their life cycle phases, life as we know it would cease.

Following is a briefly captioned slideshow of just a smattering of moths that I've photographed in the last week or so. All of the following come from Adams County, Ohio, where a few of us spent field time just prior to Mothapalooza.

Five year old Lily Howard shows entomologist David Wagner a giant cecropia moth, Hyalophora cecropia. Her awe at the beauty of the massive insect was apparent, and Dave is quite impressed too, even though he's seen scores of them.

Wagner is one of the leading entomologists in North America, and the top caterpillar expert in the country. CLICK HERE to see his book that brought caterpillars to the masses. He has now come to the Adams/Scioto County region of southern Ohio at least six times. That's because this area is an absolute treasure trove of lepidopteran diversity.

A truly impressive moth, the cecropia appears even larger on Lily's hand. It's not hard to see why someone might become interested in such creatures.

The evening of Wednesday, June 25, was a night not soon to be forgotten. Wagner and I were staying at the Eulett Center in the heart of the sprawling 15,000-acre Edge of Appalachia Preserve, and we were running several light traps around the building. Derek Hennen and John Howard were with us earlier in the evening, but unfortunately for them, they had to depart before things got really good. Just before dusk, a storm rolled through, and the evening was muggy and humid, with fog so thick at times you could see your shadow on it. By 10:30 pm, the moths were coming in by the droves. We worked the sheets until after midnight, crashed for a while, and got up again at 4 am to see what was up.

We were stunned by the scene that greeted us. The sheet in the photo, illuminated by a high-intensity mercury vapor bulb, probably had 2,000 moths on it or perched on nearby walls and flooring. The majority of moths were highly migratory armyworm moths - there must have been hundreds of thousands passing over that evening; I'm sure we pulled in only a small fraction of what was out there. But a huge diversity of other moth species were also drawn to the lights, and a few of those follow.

Lots of big silkmoths and sphinx moths came in, so many in fact that we couldn't resist posing as many as possible on a nearby wall. Big moths such as these are usually quite tame and easy to handle, which allows the photographer to move them to substrates more favorable than a stark white sheet for photo shoots.

Clockwise, from top left: small-eyed sphinx, Paonias myops; laurel sphinx, Sphinx kalmiae; Pandorus sphinx, Eumorpha pandorus; Virginia creeper sphinx, Darapsa myron; elm sphinx, Ceratomia amyntor; bisected honey locust moth, Sphingicampa bisecta; waved sphinx, Ceratomia undulosa (I think); giant leopard moth, Hypercompe scribonia; and io moth, Automeris io.

The pandorus sphinx in the previous photo was incredibly striking. It had probably just emerged that day or the previous, and was bright and unblemished.

A white-lined sphinx, Hyles lineata, also came in to the lights. This is a highly migratory species that moves up from the south, and some years we get large numbers.

John Howard, who was with us earlier in the evening, had this beauty show up at his house a few miles away the day before. He was good enough to bring it over for us to admire and photograph. It is a tersa sphinx, Xylophanes tersa. It resembles a stealth bomber. Tersas are another southern immigrant, and are uncommon at best here.

I was especially pleased to see this pink prominent, Hyparpax aurora, the first one I had ever seen. It somewhat resembles the much more common rosy maple maple moth.

This was another "life moth" for your narrator, the Harris's three-spot, Harrisimemna trisignata. Not one, but two of these winged works of art came in.

Seen head on, the Harris's three-spot looks like it's wearing goggles. As someone pointed out, it also looks rather spiderlike, and may be mimicking an arachnid (spider mimicry is indeed documented in other species of moths).

At least twenty-five of the spectacular giant leopard moths, Hypercompe scribonia, were at our sheets simultaneously.This species, while not rare, always attracts attention and I have had co-workers and friends bring them to me wondering what in the world they had found.

We pushed on this one's thorax to stimulate reflex bleeding. When harried by a predator, giant leopards can force drops of caustic yellow liquid from the sides of the thorax, which presumably is a deterrent to predators.

Earlier that day, we made a late afternoon trip to a nearby prairie. Our goal was to find two very rare moth species and we had success on both counts. This is a flower moth in the genus Schinia, but I cannot yet give you the specific epithet - the species has not yet been formally named. I've written about this moth's caterpillars before, such as HERE.

I had never before seen the moths in the wild, so it was a treat to find at least five of them on this day and obtain some nice images of free-flying individuals.

Dave Wagner thinks these flower moths are nocturnal, but one or two were on the wing and nectaring when we there. Probably because it was late in the day, and overcast. I was pleased to be able to photo-document them feeding at the flowers of their host plant, scurf pea, Orbexilum onobrychis. The nut does not fall from the tree. So far as anyone knows, scurf pea is the only host plant for the caterpillars, and the adult moths are found in extremely close proximity to the plants and obviously also nectar on them.

This tubular little moth was the other scurf pea specialist we sought - and found. It is the coppery orbexilum moth, Hystricophora loricana, and like the Schinia flower moth, its fortunes appear to be completely tied to scurf pea. This is a tiny moth that would be measured in millimeters. During the day, they rest atop scurf pea leaves, but could easily be dismissed as pieces of bird droppings or dead plant debris.

The latter two moths are great rarities, and probably should be listed as endangered in Ohio. Scurf pea, which is strongly associated with prairie habitats, is not nearly as common today as it would have been before people destroyed 99% of our original prairies. These moths, and undoubtedly other species, are likely relicts of a time when vast scurf pea colonies supported an abundant array of insect life.

Michigan mammals

Flight of the (tricolored) bumblebee

Oriole, eating tent caterpillars!

Caterpillar program, next Sunday in Cleveland

Kingbird casts pellet

A brief cinema of Snow Buntings

Katsaridaphobics beware!

Mysterious affliction killing beech trees

Sapsucker nests and Fomes fungi

Triangle Lake Bog and its pitcher-plants

British Soldier lichens

Bugs in the Bog

A "life" snake!!! And more snakes!

A wild iris

Cope's Gray Treefrog

EPN Breakfast/talk/walk - July 8!

Mothapalooza begins!

Mothapalooza invades Burr Oak!

Butterfly Workshop - last call!

Exquisite moths