Ohio Birds and Biodiversity

As most plants decline, fringed gentians put on a show

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
October 19, 2014

NATURE
Jim McCormac

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,

And colored with the heaven’s own blue,

That openest when the quiet light

Succeeds the keen and frosty night.

— excerpted from To the Fringed Gentian by William Cullen Bryant

Fall’s frosty days are here, and colder weather and shorter days have muted autumn’s spectacular wildflowers.

Some flowers persist in a losing battle with Old Man Winter. The riotous bouquet of asters, colored in blue, white and purple, struggle mightily to hold on. Their rich hues are punctuated by lemony goldenrod flowers, another of winter’s botanical deniers.

None of fall’s holdouts compare, however, to the king of autumn flowers: the fringed gentian.

On Oct. 5, a date that seems too late for wildflower hunting, I visited a rich fen in Ross County. After a short trek through pasture and scruffy woods, we burst into a wet meadow browned with sedges. Breezy gusts showered leaves from the surrounding trees, and nippy air called for warm jackets.

In spite of the late date, we were greeted by one of Ohio’s most spectacular wildflower displays. Sprinkled among the senescent grasses and sedges were thousands of fringed gentians, just hitting their stride. Like cobalt bursts of botanical fireworks, their gorgeous blue flowers glittered throughout the meadow.

A fringed gentian blossom almost defies adequate description. It’s as if the petals have been spun from silk dyed the richest royal blue. The mythical seamstress craftily allowed the petals’ edges to tatter and fray, creating a look of artful sloppy elegance.

Gentians are named for King Gentius, a ruler of ancient Illyria (which included Albania, Greece and Macedonia). According to the Roman naturalist Pliny, Gentius first discovered the purported medicinal properties of this family.

The gentians constitute a big family, with some 1,600 species worldwide; Ohio is home to only 14 of them. Among their rank, the fringed gentians rule.

The species written about here is the western fringed gentian (Gentianopsis virgata). The eastern fringed gentian is similar; in fact, some botanists haggle about the plants’ uniqueness. Both are beautiful.
Fringed gentian is rare in Ohio. It was once found in 26 counties; today, the plants occur in perhaps half of them.

This species is picky about its haunts, growing only in boggy peatlands. A 1992 study published in TheOhio Journal of Science showed that 98 percent of Ohio’s peatlands have been destroyed since European settlement. Development of land for agricultural purposes was the major culprit.

The fringed gentian is a stunning icon of habitats that we have largely erased. Many of its associates have also become rare. The flowers of blue silk should serve as a reminder to protect what we still have.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a biweekly column for The Dispatch. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

Last weekend was a whirlwind tour of the state. I was in northeast Ohio on Saturday to give a talk for Summit County Metro Parks (thanks for having me, Meghan!). Since that program wasn't until 7 pm, I headed up early to visit some iconic natural areas and make some images.

In the photo above, we're looking off the massive bluffs of Hach-Otis State Nature Preserve. Fall color was nearing peak. I only regret that it was a rainy, overcast day. A bright blue sky day would have made the leaf color sizzle, but one takes what one gets.

The following day, it was up early and off to southern Ohio at the other end of the state. This view is from the Copperhead Lookout fire tower in Shawnee State Forest, and it's evident that fall color is not quite as advanced down there.

If you would like a suggestion for a last hurrah fall field trip, I'd suggest Shawnee this weekend. The leaf color should be outstanding, and as you shall see if you forge on with this post, there are other interesting things to observe.

Colorful Sugar Maple leaves brighten the ground.

While tree leaves are changing hues and falling to the ground, one of our most interesting treelets is bursting into bloom. Witch-hazel, Hamamelis virginiana, was in flower in both northern and southern Ohio last weekend. The spindly yellow flowers are easy to overlook among the fading leaves.

Long confetti-like petals radiate from the Witch-hazel's corolla - an odd looking flower indeed.

But to the subject at hand, Buck Moths, Hemileuca maia. I picked up my friend Grace Cochran in Chillicothe bright and early Sunday morning, and we went down to Shawnee to hunt bucks. To me, this large and interestingly marked moth is as much a sign of autumn's closure as anything. But only in certain regions, at least in Ohio. Buck Moths are limited to the hill country of southern and southeastern Ohio, and another population occurs in the Oak Openings west of Toledo.

To pursue Buck Moths, you've got to head afield late, after most moths are done for the year. They begin flying in mid-October or thereabouts, and can be found into November.

This is the Buck Moth caterpillar, and it is a voracious consumer of oaks. They are said to favor the foliage of trees in the red oak group. In any event, you want to seek the adult moths in forests heavily populated with oaks.

Antennae at half mast, a male Buck Moth seemingly glares at the photographer. Note the dense hair, which is almost furlike. Such a coat benefits an insect that flies this late in the season, when air temperatures may only be in the 50's F.

Buck Moths do have the good manners to fly during the day, which makes finding them fairly easy. Slowly cruising the forest roads of Shawnee is probably the easiest way to find them. Wait until you spot a moth winging by, park, and start chasing. Problem is, most of the moths that you see will be males in rabid pursuit of females. They rarely stop in their relentless tracking of pheromones, and all too often shoot by and off into the woods never to be seen again.

Like a good geek, I suppose, I keep an insect net in the trunk. Using that, I was able to bag a few moths for closer inspection. All were released unharmed, and off they went, right back on the females' trail.

Here we can see the exceptionally well-furred abdomen of a male Buck Moth. We know it is a male by the bright orange tassel adorning the tip of the abdomen. When captured, the moth will wag and curl the abdomen, and that behavior along with the bright colors may be intimidating to potential predators.

It isn't every fall that I can get out and pursue big Buck Moths, but fall isn't quite the same without such a Lepidopteran hunt. Thanks to Grace for helping to wrangle the moths, and for participating in the hunt.

A trip to Akron last Saturday took me near one of Ohio's most iconic natural areas, so I left early to spend some time in Kent Bog. Or, as it is formally known, the Tom S. Cooperrider Kent Bog State Nature Preserve. Tom deserves the honor. The Kent State University botanist has done lots of great things, and served as a mentor for many, yours truly included.

Kent Bog is a local (and state) treasure, and is heavily used by the people of Kent and surrounding areas.That such a place would survive in a rather heavily developed area is a bit of a miracle. I believe local support for the bog's well being has warded off one or two development schemes that would have taken place on its margins. If you get the chance, visit Kent Bog. Directions and other details are RIGHT HERE.

Water droplets dangle from Highbush Blueberry, Vaccinium corymbosum.

As fate would have it, the day that I visited was wet. Very wet. Rolling waves of showers washed over nearly all day, punctuated by brief respites from the rain. I'm certainly not going to melt, but camera gear does not like being drenched. Nonetheless, I and my camera made the trek through the bog, and managed to come away with a few images.

Onto the boardwalk we go. Kent Bog is quite wet and spongy, and a trail of planking not only makes things easier for visitors, it also controls access. It would not behoove this rare plant community to have people going every which way. The one-half mile boardwalk is an easy stroll; far easier than free-form mucking through a place like this, I can tell you from plenty of experience.

Even a mildly astute observer of nature will notice plants that seem quite unusual, at least for Ohio. Scads of ghostly-barked Gray Birch, Betula populifolia, occupy the bog. While common here, this is a rare species in Ohio.

The long acuminate leaves of Gray Birch, yellowing with age. This is a northern plant, near its southern limits at this site.

We penetrate deeper into the bog, which looks far more like Canada than Ohio at this point. Kent Bog is a glacial relict at this latitude; to find habitats such as this commonly, one would have to travel far to the north. Bogs would have been common in northeast Ohio up until a thousand or so years ago. Most have long succumbed to the advance of vegetative succession.

Etching the names of donors into the boardwalk is a great way to help fund an expensive trail. Dozens of boards are inscribed with donor names at Kent Bog, and each dedicated board's donation was adequate to fund construction of a stretch of boardwalk.

The bog was alive with migrant birds during my visit. For many, Kent Bog would have been a comfortable home away from home - just like the northern boreal forest where they bred or were spawned last summer. This is a tiny Ruby-crowned Kinglet, curious about my presence. Plenty of Golden-crowned Kinglets were also present. Rusty Blackbirds issued squeaky creaks from the bog's depths, and Yellow-rumped Warblers were everywhere. Once, while cowering under a dense tamarack during a particularly enthusiastic shower, a Winter Wren came within a few feet to stare at me with bright eyes. It undoubtedly wondered about the large hominid in its turf, but quickly lost interest and resumed foraging among the branches.

Ah! A rare bolt of blue from on high! There was probably a grand total of 15 minutes of intermittent sunshine in the morning, and when I saw it coming I rushed to good vantage spots. Here, we look into a gap framed by Tamarack, Larix laricina.

Tamarack is a deciduous conifer. Before long, it'll lose its needles, but before they go they'll turn a stunning golden color. Kent Bog's Tamarack forest should be looking quite colorful in the next week or so; I was just a bit ahead of the color.

A couple of hundred miles to the north, Tamarack becomes extremely common but in Ohio it is limited to the relatively few bogs that remain. At some point in its distant past, Kent Bog was an open lake. It was created by a giant ice block calved from the retreating Wisconsin Glacier about 12,000 years ago. Plants more or less immediately began the process of colonizing the cold wet soil and mire left in the glacier's wake. Kettle lakes initially were ringed with plant life, including Tamarack. Over time, the plants grew out into the lake, and ultimately flora completely fills the lake - the natural fate that most Ohio bogs have experienced. Kent Bog has no open water remaining, and its thick cloak of Tamarack is essentially its last hurrah. Eventually the bog will transform into a deciduous swamp woods dominated by maple and other softwoods.

I spent a fair bit of time fooling with a lens that I don't use enough: the Tamron 70-200 f/2.8. This lens is awesome for landscape and people shots, and wildlife if the subject is fairly close. In the shot above, the lens is wide open at f/2.8, which gives the image a rather dreamy/blurry look that I find somewhat pleasing. The very last shot in this post was shot with the same lens at f/8, and you can compare that sharper look with this image.

The building block of bogs is Sphagnum moss, or "peat". Sphagnum holds water like a sponge, and exudes acidity as a byproduct of its growth. This creates a substrate that is hostile and uninhabitable for most plants; many that can grow here are specialized to these conditions.

A definite bog specialist is Tawny Cottongrass, Eriophorum virginicum. It is not a grass at all, but rather a sedge.

A common shrub in Kent Bog's understory is one of only three native Ohio hollies, the Winterberry, Ilex verticillata. Its brilliant orange-red berries are stunning.

As one nears the end of the boardwalk - if you went clockwise - a great mass of a shrublet known as Leatherleaf, Chamaedaphne calyculata, comes into view. This member of the heath family can be extremely abundant in its northern haunts. In fact, it is so prolific in some peatlands that they are termed "Leatherleaf Bogs".

Just past the Leatherleaf patch is a conspicuous brown hay. Rather rare hay, as we shall see.

The previous photo shows a field of senescent Virginia Chain Fern, Woodwardia virginica. This species, like most of the others that I've mentioned, is mostly a bog specialist, at least in Ohio. It is rare and local in our state.

The last stretch of trail navigates a gorgeous patch of upland forest dominated by oak, beech, maple, sassafras and other species that prefer to keep their roots out of the drink.

Kent Bog will be looking exceptionally showy for the next few weeks, but it looks great at any season. I hope you find the time to visit and experience one of our few remaining bogs.

On my recent foray through Kent Bog, written about HERE, I couldn't help to notice a multitude of colorful mushrooms. Nor could I resist going prostrate on the wet boardwalk to make images. I am not much of a mushroom expert, but find them irresistible photography subjects. I've got a large pile of mystery mushroom photos awaiting identification.

I do think I know the name of this blood-orange beauty. It is Russula emetica, and that scientific epithetic should tell you all you need to know about its edibility. Emetic comes from the Greek word emetikos, which means vomiting. My identification may well be incorrect; apparently Russula mushrooms are many, with lots of look-alikes. Let me know if you know better.

While nearly everyone would find these 'shrooms pleasing to the eye, probably no one would find them pleasing to the palate. Here are two of its common names: "The Sickener", and the "Vomiting Russula".

Not exactly the sort of fungus one is apt to put on the pizza.

Whatever you call it, the mushroom is certainly eye candy. They stood out like colorful beacons against the damp leaf litter underlying Kent Bog's tamarack forest; the brightest jots of color in the place on this cool late October day.

The underside of the showy cap was divided into a neat arrangement of gills.

Although it may have been natural deterioration - many mushrooms don't last that long in their fruiting body form - it looked as if something had been nibbling at the Russulas. Who, given their powerful emetic properties, would be so foolhardy?

I wonder if Eastern Box Turtles still survive in Kent Bog and its protected environs? These reptilian tanks are well known for their love of nasty and even downright deadly mushrooms. The turtles must have cast-iron constitutions. I once encountered a turtle in the act of scarfing down a "Vomiting Russula", but saw no evidence that the turtle hurled as a result. In fact, it had left a lengthy trail of ravaged mushrooms in its slow and plodding wake. Many mushrooms, like may-apples, grow at just the right height for a low-slung tortoise to notice, and harvest.

A particularly luxuriant Stiff Gentian, Gentianella quinquefolia, is apparently content in an Adams County, Ohio cedar glade. It shared space with dozens of others, and I made these images last Sunday, October 26 - a date by which most flowers have tossed in the towel. This showy gentian is a true harbinger of Autumn's end.

The flowers of Stiff Gentian are photo-sensitive, opening fully when spurred by the sun's rays. The nectar within is alluring to a host of late season pollinating insects, especially members of the order Hymenoptera (bees and wasps). I parked myself near some especially robust gentians, camera in hand and rigged with the macro setup.

I didn't have to wait long before interesting subjects appeared. This was my favorite, and an animal that I had not previously photographed (at least well). If I'm correct, it is a so-called sweat bee, and possibly one in the genus Augochloropsis. I hedge on the identification because this is a large group of insects, with many look-alikes. For a piker like me, a species-specific ID is more than difficult. But whatever you call it, the animal is quite showy and well worth our close inspection.

The little bee struggles mightily to pull itself from the confines of a mostly closed flower. I'm sure it was worth the investment of energy. The gentians were probably grateful for its trespasses, too. Bees - native bees, not European honeybees - are essential to the gentians' life cycle.

The entire trip into the flower didn't last but ten seconds or so. After plumbing the depths of the flower, the bee was off to the next.

Most of our roughly 1,800 native plant species (in Ohio) would quickly fade away were it not for the army of native pollinators that service them.

Last Sunday, October 25, dawned crisp and clear. I know, because I watched the sun came up as I drove to one of my favorite places in Ohio. This day was to be the last of the great fall days, weatherwise, and I wanted to be atop a certain conspicuous promontory soon after sunrise.

The sign above points the way to one of the best - and most significant - hikes in the state. The Buzzardroost Rock trail is about a 4.5 mile round trip, and worth every footfall. It is part of the vast Edge of Appalachia Preserve in Adams County. I toted my backpack full of camera gear along, and managed to make a few passable photos during the trek.

The scenery, from a fall leaf color perspective, was still stunning if slightly past peak. One of many great things about living in the vast eastern deciduous forest region is the conspicuous change of seasons. Nothing signals the changing of the guard like late autumn's brilliant burst of foliage. Of course, the color is but a short-lived harbinger of the coming of Old Man Winter, but the next few months of snow and cold will bring their own charms, and make the arrival of spring that much sweeter.

Not a bad canopy to have over one's head! I found myself constantly ogling the trees, searching for the perfect shot. Myriad options presented themselves, and scads of photos were taken, but I like this image as well as anything I clicked off on this pristine day. For those of a photographic bent, it was shot with the Canon 5D Mark III rigged with Canon's 17-40L wide-angle lens, using a focal length of 17 mm. ISO was set to 100, shutter speed was 1/200, and the lens was stopped down to f/8. I was lying on my back in the leaf litter to better get this perspective.

After a fairly speedy hike, I reached the trail's terminus and the namesake Buzzardroost Rock while the sun still hung low in the east. Limestone cliffs tower 70 feet above the forest floor, and the view from the rock is extraordinary. You MUST make this trip at some point.

Buzzardroost Rock is part of the sprawling Edge of Appalachia Preserve, which is co-managed by the Cincinnati Museum Center and the Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. The preserve now encompasses about 16,000 acres, and TNC regularly adds new parcels. Their Sunshine Ridge corridor project is an effort to link "The Edge" to the 65,000 acre Shawnee State Forest, which lies not far to the east.

The Shawnee/Edge region is the wildest landscape remaining in Ohio, and one of the most significant biological hotspots east of the Mississippi River in North America. Rare habitats and unusual flora and fauna abound, and I have featured scores of them on this blog over the years. The primary reason that so many natural history events - at least ones that I have had a hand in - take place down here is because of the natural diversity. Mothapalooza, Flora-Quest, numerous Ohio Ornithological Society conferences, and the Appalachian Butterfly Conference, are but a few. People attending Mothapalooza III next year will once again be wowed by this area, and one of the trips will journey to the very rock that you are now virtually visiting.

Ohio Brush Creek carves a whopping dimple through heavily forested terrain. This stream is one of Ohio's healthiest, in large part because so much of the buffering landscape has not been badly abused and is largely protected.

The straw-brown tufts of grass at cliff's edge may not look like much, but looks can be deceiving. This plant is Plains Muhlenbergia, Muhlenbergia cuspidata, an Ohio endangered species. It is one of numerous threatened and endangered species found on Edge of Appalachia properties.

On the return trip, I adopted a much more leisurely pace and explored habitats such as this prairie opening. Signs of former pasturing were present, but managers are working to return this spot, and many others, to barrens prairies. The botanical diversity in places such as this is fabulous, and botanists can lose themselves for hours searching about barrens prairies. It was a habitat similar to this that I made the photos of Stiff Gentians featured in the previous post.

While their collective voices have largely been muted, a number of singing insects still held on. This is a Treetop Bush Katydid, Scudderia fasciata. Many of the katydids seem to color up somewhat as fall fades, their increased reddish pigments serving to better allow the insects to blend with senescent fall foliage. This animal is a male, and note his ear, just below the knee on its foreleg. While that may seem to be an odd place to have one's ear, it serves these insects well. By having its ears as far apart as possible, the insect can better triangulate on sounds and pinpoint their source.

Asters are without doubt the botanical markers of fall's conclusion, and many species hold on past first frosts. This one is a rarity, the Shale-barren Aster, Symphyotrichum oblongifolium (Sim-fee-oh-tri-kum oh-blon-gih-fol-ee-um). Horticulturists have worked wonders with this species, and a cultivar is now widespread and available at many nurseries. Get one if you can. Shale-barren Aster is a pollinator magnet extraordinaire.

If you get the chance to visit the Edge of Appalachia Preserve, by all means do so. More information is available RIGHT HERE, and HERE.

Now here's something one doesn't hear everyday. Laura Hughes recently sent along another fabulous trail cam video that she and her husband made in the backwoods of Monroe County in eastern Ohio. This one features a trio of frolicking River Otters, Lontra canadensis. As you'll see, they approach the camera quite closely; in fact, one of them brushes it with its whiskers. Turn the volume up, though - the otters are delivering their amusing little squeaky calls, and those are sounds that most people have never heard, I dare say.

Video by David and Laura Hughes

Amur honeysuckle, Lonicera maackii, cloaks the understory of an Ohio woodland. This plant, and a few other closely related species, would get my vote as worst invasive species of upland habitats. This post is meant only as a (mostly) pictorial offering of evidence as to how the honeysuckle gets scattered far and wide. If you would like to read in more detail about the evils of these shrubs, CLICK HERE.

The first photo in this post was made in early spring, when the honeysuckle was just leafing out. Later would come (admittedly) very showy flowers. Pretty flowers and beautiful fruit are the main reasons that these shrubs were imported to the New World. What a mistake that was. Honeysuckle now runs rampant, and chokes out all manner of native species.

An American Robin perches jauntily in a sea of tasty berries. It, and many others, were plundering a small patch of Amur honeysuckle shrubs in Jasper-Pulaski Wildlife Area last Saturday. I was in Indiana to see and photograph the spectacular congregation of migrating Sandhill Cranes, and will soon post about that experience (once I get my myriad photos sorted).

A robin, caught in the act. At least a dozen robins were raiding this shrub, and consuming several to a dozen berries with each foray. They and the other fruit-eating honeysuckle birds can strip a sizable shrub in a day or two.

Down the hatch goes a honeysuckle berry. Shrubs that produce brightly colored berries are generally doing so to attract birds. The showy fruit is irresistible to robins and other frugivorous birds. While the soft pulp is quickly digested, the hard seeds within are much tougher to digest, and some of them will pass through the bird's digestive tract intact. They will be expelled later, quite likely some distance from the source shrub. This is one of many ways in which plants "migrate".

Were these the fruit of some native shrub, I would be much prouder of this photo. After all, it is a reasonably crisp shot of one of our most elegant birds, the Cedar Waxwing. But alas, the debonair chap sits among more of the nasty Amur honeysuckle.

Like robins, waxings are huge fans of berries and a flock can intake great quantities in short order.

I would think that eating one of these berries, were you the size of a waxwing, would be akin to you or I eating a large melon. There were at least as many waxwings working over the honeysuckle as there were robins. In the relatively short period that I monitored their activities, the birds probably ate hundreds of berries.

When one considers the overall numbers of robins, waxwings, and other species of fruit-eating birds, it's small wonder that invasive berry bushes such as honeysuckles spread so prolifically.

A gaggle of birders packs the viewing platform at Jasper-Pulaski Fish & Wildlife Area near Medaryville, Indiana. I made a whirlwind trip here last weekend, connecting with a friend from Chicago, Joyce Pontius. We were there, primarily, to observe the noisy and conspicuous spectacle of thousands of Sandhill Cranes on temporary hiatus from their southbound journeys.

I highly recommend this trip. From my town of Columbus, Ohio, it is only about a four hour drive, and the Chicagoans need only travel half that distance. Jasper-Pulaski is in easy driving range from much of the Midwest, and you'll meet people from all over the place who have traveled to see the cranes.

This is what the crowd on the deck is ogling - thousands of noisy Sandhill Cranes. The birds hit their peak numbers in November. Yesterday (November 12), about 8,000 cranes were present, and nearly that many were there last weekend when I made these images. There are probably more to come, although the frigid Arctic blast moving through may move some along, too.

The huge meadow overlooked by the main viewing platform is known as Goose Pasture. It serves as a social rendezvous point for the cranes, which spend the evenings in nearby marshes elsewhere on the 8,000+ acre wildlife area. Around sunrise, the cranes fly en masse to Goose Pasture and seemingly chat it up with each other. Shortly after sunrise, the birds begin streaming out to surrounding fields to spend the day foraging.

At rush hours, scores and scores of cranes are constantly overhead, and their loud primeval rattles fill the air. The overall effect is quite unforgettable.

A quartet of cranes glows golden in the sunset. One soon learns that light is everything when making certain types of photographs, and one also learns just as quickly that the sun and clouds cannot be manipulated at will. This shot was made in the sole 10-15 minute period in which the ever-present gray cloud cover moved aside and let the rays shine through.

Dusk and dawn are the times to be at the viewing platform for the cranes' social hours. In between, trolling the local roads will produce scads of cranes feeding and resting in agricultural fields. Oftentimes the birds are quite near the road, and often will not flush or be unduly disturbed if the observers remain in their vehicle.

A Sandhill Crane is one big bird. It stands about four feet in height, has a wingspan of around seven feet, and can weigh eleven pounds. Over 1,500 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds would be required to match the mass of a crane. People that I suspect would never notice the lesser components of our fauna, such as pleasing fungus beetles or various sparrows, DO notice Sandhill Cranes. And many of them travel far distances to J-P to witness the crane spectacle and admire the feathered giants for hours on end.

It is high entertainment to watch the highly social but selectively finicky cranes as they forage in groups. In this shot, an altercation appears to have broken out. Separating an agonistic encounter from courtship is sometimes tough, though. There are at least seven distinct displays which cranes use to express various degrees of displeasure, and some at least are at a casual glance not that different than the courtship displays.

Now this is courtship! That blotch in the upper lefthand corner of the image, in front of the bird's bill, is not a smudge on my lens. The "dancing" bird, which has leapt high into the air, has tossed a piece of corn stubble skyward. This display is known as the "vertical toss", and it is usually performed by a male. Apparently it serves to get the attention of a female. Hang around and watch groups of cranes for any length of time, and you're bound to witness all manner of interesting social interactions such as this.

Cranes rule in this neck of the Hoosier state. They even get the right-of-way when crossing roads.

A platoon of cranes punctuates a picture-perfect Indiana sunset. They joined thousands of other cranes in Goose Pasture for the evening ritual. At flocking times, Sandhill Cranes absolutely dominate the environment. Cranes are everywhere, and their guttural rolling calls fill the air. Impressive hardly describes it. If you go, don't leave the platform when the sun finally dips behind the horizon. About a half-hour or so after nightfall, the flocks' collective calls will begin to rise in pitch, and their restlessness becomes palpable. Suddenly, with a mighty wall of sound, the birds take wing and journey back to the icy waters of the marshes where they'll spend the night.

This wasn't my first time at the Jasper-Pulaski crane dance, and as before the trip came to a close all too soon, and it was time to get back to my world.

A mustached jumping spider will stalk its meal

COLUMBUS DISPATCH
November 16, 2014

NATURE
Jim McCormac

Jumping spiders are the extroverts of the arachnid world.

Most spiders prefer to stay out of sight and out of mind. Many remain well-concealed or emerge under cover of darkness.

That is a good thing for the legions of arachnophobes. Such people would rather not know that more than 600 species of spiders occur in Ohio and that they are the most abundant predatory animals in the state.

Many species are outrageous in appearance. The mustached jumping spider (Phidippus mystaceus) resembles a cross between Justin Bieber and Sid Vicious, endowed with three extra sets of eyes and legs and imbued with a homicidal bent.

Most jumping spiders are active during the day and behave like eight-eyed leopards, stalking and pouncing on victims. They shun web building but do make intelligent use of silk.

Before leaping at a victim, the jumping spider attaches a silken belay line. Thus, if the jump were to fail or the prey were to knock the spider away, it can quickly clamber to safety.

Jumpers also craft dense silken bivouacs, which are used for shelter and nurseries for spiderlings.

Experts think jumping spiders possess among the greatest visual acuity of any group of invertebrate animals. A little jumping spider will cock its head curiously at a human and seem to track your every movement. It might even advance on you, to better gauge your intentions.

Have no fear: The spiders are too small to inflict damage, and bites to humans are essentially unknown.

However, potential food had best beware. These formidable foes possess cognitive memory abilities far beyond most other small creatures. The spider can spot prey, move out of sight and into a better ambush locale, and leap unerringly onto the victim, sight unseen. Much larger animals are quickly overcome by the spider’s powerful venom.

About 13 percent of Ohio’s spiders are jumping spiders, and they represent the world’s largest family of spiders.

Such success has spawned fantastic evolutionary radiation. Some jumping spiders have evolved to appear remarkably similar to ants. The disguise is so good that even naturalists can be fooled, as can the spider’s potential predators. Ants are largely unpalatable and can be highly aggressive, so resembling one can be a good deterrent to predators.

Jumping spiders hit their pinnacle of outlandishness when mating season rolls around. Males must approach the larger females with caution, lest they be mistaken for a meal.

To up their odds, male jumpers engage in ornate displays that involve waving their legs like a sailor signaling with semaphores and flashing iridescent body coloration.

Some spiders even create drumrolls or vibrations to add audio effects. Spiderish vaudevillian acts identify them to the aggressive females.

The Ohio Division of Wildlife offers the free publication Common Spiders of Ohio. To get a copy, call 1-800-WILDLIFE or send email to wildinfo@dnr.state.oh. us.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a biweekly column for The Dispatch. He also writes about nature at www.jim mccormac.blogspot.com

Lake Erie, as seen from the fishing access parking lot just east of the power plant in Eastlake, Ohio.

I traveled to the Cleveland area and specifically Holden Arboretum yesterday, to give a program for the Blackbrook Audubon Society. The subject, fittingly, was "Birding Ohio's North Coast", and the talk largely outlines the Lake Erie Birding Trail guidebook, which was released earlier this year.

The program was in the evening, but I went up early to meet with Brian Parsons, the Holden Arboretum's Director of Planning and Special Projects. The arboretum is engaged in some very exciting work, and Brian was good enough to give me a tour. More on that in a later post.

As fate would have it, Eastlake was only 20 minutes from the site of my talk, and I had a bit of time in between things to run up there and do some gull-watching. The weather was tough. Gale-like winds raged, and the temperature was in the teens. These conditions transformed the lake into a raging cauldron, with big rollers forming and atomizing against piers and breakwalls as seen in the photo above. Many people came and went while I was there, to stare at a formidable and angry Mother Nature from the safety and warmth of their cars. It's hard to make decent photographs from a car, so I spent my time outside behind the tripod, dodging spray from waves crashing against the seawall twenty feet away. By the time I left, my car was frosted in a thin veneer of ice.

A literal mountain of water forms, giving a bunch of Red-breasted Mergansers a thrill ride. The world's largest gull, the Great Black-backed Gull, glides by the summit of the water-mountain. The waves on this day were truly impressive, with some exceeding ten feet and forming tubes. Thousands of mergansers were offshore, and there was gulls galore.

The Cleveland region of Lake Erie offers truly world class gulling. Harbors and power plants can teem with tens of thousands of birds at peak traffic times. A staggering 20 species have been found in this area, and very few other places can boast that kind of larid diversity. Seeing such numbers of birds is rather awe-inspiring, and I relish the opportunities that I have to travel to The Lake to bask in their presence. Should you like to experience this part of Lake Erie at its wintry finest, consider attending the December 6 meeting of the Ohio Ornithological Society, which will feature field trips to Cleveland hotspots, and a talk by legendary birder/photographer Chuck Slusarczyk, Jr. Chuck will be focusing on, appropriately enough, gulls. All the event details are RIGHT HERE.

Watching scads of gulls doing their thing is always interesting, at least to me. They engage me on several levels. One, their resistance to incredibly hostile environmental conditions is completely impressive. Keep in mind, you or I would die in very short order were we to find ourselves in the lake at this time of year. To the gulls, it is nothing. They frolic as if on a Floridian vacation at the beach.Two, their flying abilities are utterly remarkable. Even with yesterday's hurricane blasts, the gulls glide about with impunity, seemingly paying the explosive gusts no mind, but instead capitalizing on the wind to better position themselves. If I were to come back as a bird (and I might), I would give a gull serious consideration as my next incarnation.

There is more to gulls, such as the interesting identification challenges and the hybridization issues, but the other major reason I enjoy watching gulls is their behavior. In the photo above, a fracas breaks out between two first-year Herring Gulls over a tasty gizzard shad or some such morsel. Other Herring Gulls speed to the scene, some caught with mouths agape as they loudly bugle their thoughts. A congregation of gulls is generally a lively place.

A quartet of Ring-billed Gulls works the headwind, trolling the waters. The center bird, with the sharply marked pink and black bill and dusky plumage, is a first-year gull (some use the term cycle, as in first-cycle gull. I've never warmed to that term). The others are adults. All of our gulls take multiple years to attain full adult species, and in the case of the Ring-billed Gull three years are required. For most of the year and in most places, this is the most abundant species of gull in Ohio. As winter sets in, they will generally be eclipsed by ever-increasing numbers of Herring Gulls, on Lake Erie.

Burly, bull-necked and stern in countenance, an adult Herring Gull glides by, pale yellow eye aglow. Its feathers have grown dingy around the head; that's a feature of its winter, or basic, plumage. Come the onset of spring and the approach of breeding season, Herring Gulls shed the dirty feathers and become gleaming white. Handsome beasts, indeed.

If a large gull such as a Herring Gull makes it to its fourth year and the attainment of complete adult plumage, it may well have a very long life ahead of it. Gulls can live for many decades.

Delicate and ternlike, an intricately marked adult Bonaparte's Gull wheels by, ever vigilant for emerald shiners and other small piscine fare. This one is my favorite, and I spent the better part of my two frigid hours watching them. As always, I was hopeful that a rare associate, such as a Little Gull or Black-legged Kittiwake, might be accompanying the "Bonies", but even without that added spice the Bonaparte's Gulls are fine entertainment.

This is a small gull - dwarfed by the preceding species. It takes a Bonaparte's Gull only two years to achieve its adult plumage. Adults are easily identified by the bold black, gray, and white wing pattern. The only species close to it is the very rare (here) Black-headed Gull, which has sooty black underwings, among other differences.

A Bonaparte's Gull stutter-steps in midair, showing its flashy orange feet and legs. The bird has spotted fishy prey, and has made instant aerial corrections to prepare for a feeding plunge. At this point, it has two immediate issues: catching the fish, and then wolfing its meal down before larger gulls have a chance to try and steal it away.

The offshore waters of Cleveland and vicinity support an enormous concentration of Bonaparte's Gulls in November and December. One-day estimates in excess of 100,000 birds have been made along Cleveland's lakefront. This part of the lake is a vital staging area for the small gulls, and seeing them at their peak numbers is one of the great spectacles of Nature in this part of the world.

My time was up all too soon, and it was time to go to the talk. Just before departure, the sun popped out and lit the crashing surf beautifully. All in all, a fabulous if brief trip to our Great Lake.

A herd of Bison grazes the vast grassy plains of the Wilds in Muskingum County, Ohio. Their captive herd seems to be expanding, and there were a number of bisonlets among the ranks, so reproduction must be going well. The scene offers a tiny snapshot of the days of yore, when countless thousands of Bison roamed the Great Plains.

Participate in the upcoming Chandlersville Christmas Bird Count on December 20, which covers the Wilds and surrounding areas, and you can marvel over the massive Bison, too. Details about the bird count are RIGHT HERE.

I have noticed that people have an inordinate interest in mammals, and most Homo sapiens will gawk at something like this huge Bison before casting their eyes to, say, a Winter Wren or Henslow's Sparrow. I think this tendency is hard-wired, as after all other mammals are closer to us on the evolutionary tree than other groups of organisms. Also, mammals - at least large ones - can mean one of two very important things: food, or danger. It is still in our nature to keep our eyes on them.

While we were watching those Bison from a distant perch, this proud eight-point buck White-tailed Deer was watching over his harem in another field. Suddenly a lesser buck appeared on the horizon, and this stud instantly went on alert. Notice how its fur is raised, much like an angry cat, and that snowy white flagtail is at full mast.

Apparently not intimidated by the larger buck's signs of aggression, the lesser buck (foreground) charged forth. But, Jr. Buck was chasing after a frisking doe, so perhaps he wasn't thinking too clearly. By the time it reached this fence, the bigger buck had also made its way to the fence, ready for an encounter. I was hoping one or the other would leap the fence and really mix it up, but that was not to be. Still, after a bit of snorting about they did ram antlers - HARD - right through the fence. The crack was clearly audible from our observation point some distance away.

While the Cervidian standoff depicted above was taking place, this gorgeous Coyote trotted into view. I saw a furtive movement from the corner of my eye as the wily one briskly trotted through high vegetation down a hillside and towards the deer. It was rather far, and I didn't think it knew of our presence. As if to disprove that notion, it stopped and turned to gave me a baleful glare, letting me know that yes, it did indeed know that the dumb biped was watching.

The Coyote kept a direct course towards the younger buck, which was on its side of the fence. The deer quickly became aware of the interloper, and began moving off. I was hoping for some sort of strange encounter, and stood ready to photo-document it, but nothing doing. I suspect the 'yote was just passing through - can't imagine it would have taken on a deer that size, but the scene made for great wildlife watching.

A Mink carries a giant half-eaten bullfrog. This one was a stroke of great luck. I was standing along a marsh at Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area in Wyandot County, photographing two Northern Shrikes mixing it up in a tall cottonwood tree. I had my camera mounted on a tripod, with the 500mm lens with 1.4 extender, making it a 700mm. Just as with that Coyote, a movement in the grasses caught my eye, and I looked over to see the Mink tearing across the dike.

Shrikes temporarily forgotten, I whirled the camera onto the Mink and began clicking away. It still apparently hadn't seen me and was loping right to my spot. Unfortunately, I was somewhat over-lensed given its close proximity, and only managed this one keeper shot. The mild haze in the foreground is due to some grass blades between me and it. The photo was shot at just about the same time that it saw me, and clicked into high gear. Like a supercharged furry slinky, it bounded into dense cattails never to be seen again.

Western North Dakota, just north of the small town (pop. about 1,750) of Watford City. All of those square or rectangular pale patches are fracking pads. The boom is on in the Roughrider State (so nicknamed to help promote tourism), and has been for the last eight years. In spite of ranking 48th among the states in overall population, North Dakota boasts the nation's best economy, and lowest unemployment rate. Want to rent a four bedroom modular home in Watford City? Be prepared to shell out up to $4,000.00 - a month! The high times are here.

This growth has come with a steep price. The New York Times has published a series of articles detailing the woes of the Bakken Shale boom; you can (and should!) read them RIGHT HERE. Thousands of wells pepper western North Dakota's landscape, and in addition to an oil and gas bonanza, they've brought lots of problems. Pollution, corruption, cronyism, catastrophic accidents, habitat destruction, and spills - lots of spills. An estimated 18 million gallons of toxic sludge has spewed into unwanted places in the last eight years.

Reporters Deborah Sontag and Robert Gebeloff seem to have done a thorough job digging the Bakken dirt, and drilling down into the seamy substrate of this shale boom. A veil of secrecy masks much of the information related to drilling, but they did unearth lots of facts, and got some tasty interviews with various officials.

One of their interviewees was Ron Ness, the president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council. Ness states that "...there wasn't a damn thing..." in pre-boom Watford City and vicinity. He goes on to regale the reporters with the benefits of the fracking boom: "We've got the largest-producing Cinnabon anywhere in the world".

Well. Who can argue with that for progress, and a surefire sign of economic growth. Cinnabon, that sugary fat-laden elixir of the turnpike plazas, whose staple Cinnabon Classic packs a whopping 880 calories and 36 grams of fat.

The prairie pothole region, North America's duck factory and an Eden of biological diversity. North Dakota is full of pothole wetlands and vast expanses of prairie, all cranking out birds galore. The annual North Dakota Potholes and Prairies Birding Festival bears evidence of the extreme birdiness of this state. CLICK HERE for their website and a list of the spectacular bird diversity.

But stippling the prairies with well pads is progress, apparently. And progress can be measured by Cinnabon sales.

Big fluffy cumulus clouds drift across a blue prairie sky. This is one of my favorite places in Ohio, Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area in Wyandot County. I've been coming here since I had a driver's license (before, actually) and have made scores of trips to Killdeer over the years. It's only about an hour from my house, so if time is tight and I need a short trip, this is often my destination. Rare is the trip to Killdeer Plains that doesn't produce something exceptional, no matter the time of year.

Tall prairie grasses lit golden by the sunset. Killdeer Plains is a 9,000+ acre remnant of the Sandusky Plains, which was a massive swath of prairie that blanketed parts of Crawford, Hardin, Marion, and Wyandot counties in north-central Ohio. Once John Deere devised a tool capable of busting the thick prairie sod, it didn't take people long to figure out that this was some of the richest soil to be found. In the relative blink of an eye, farmers transformed the staggering botanical diversity of the prairie into a vegetative triad: corn, soybeans, and wheat.

Probably over 99% of Ohio's original prairie, which may have once covered 1,500 square miles, has fallen to the plow or other development. That makes remnants such as Killdeer Plains all the more important. Birds, in particular, "remember" the prairies. It hasn't been that long since we pulled the habitat rug out from under their feet, and it seems that species that favor prairie habitats still are genetically encoded to use the former prairie areas as way stations, wintering grounds, and nesting areas.

A messy, scraggly pin oak stands alone in one of Killdeer's prairie meadows. It is a great perch tree, and many a raptor has probably used it as a lookout. That's not a raptor teed up atop the tree in this photo, but it might as well be. To songbirds, small rodents, and in season, large insects, that silhouette is the grim reaper incarnate. A Northern Shrike.

Killdeer Plains is a reliable spot to find shrikes in winter, and on a recent visit, I found a few. Two species of shrike occur in North America, and both turn up in Ohio. The southerly Loggerhead Shrike, Lanius ludovicianus, once was a fairly common and widespread breeder throughout the state. Its fortunes have waned, and Loggerheads are now quite rare here.

The shrike of the north is this species, the Northern Shrike, Lanius excubitor, which is an uncommon winter visitor, mostly in the tier of counties buffering Lake Erie. Scattered individuals turn up inland, with Killdeer Plains probably being the best such place to find them.

Loggerhead and Northern shrikes look similar, and can be tough to separate, especially if one does not have much comparative experience with the two. This photo shows two characters of the Northern Shrike: the underparts are faintly but noticeably barred, and the black bandido mask is broken or diminished on the forehead, over the bill.

I was quite surprised to discover two shrikes, together, on my recent visit to Killdeer. These birds normally seem to be quite antisocial, excepting a breeding pair. I had apparently fortuitously stumbled into a border dispute. The two birds lunged, attacked, and scolded one another from the tops of tall cottonwood trees as they attempted to work out the edges of their territories.

When I returned to this area later in the day, one of the shrikes was conspicuous as it perched atop prominent trees, but the other was not to be seen. I suppose it was forced to move to a distant patch of turf. They're both probably still within the wildlife area, and likely will be until spring.

While there is an Australasian family of birds in the genus Cracticus that are officially known as butcherbirds, the shrikes are our "butcherbirds". They've earned the nickname. It is also reflected in the genus name Lanius, which means "a butcher". The shot above shows a meadow vole draped unceremoniously from a thorny tangle of autumn-olive branches. I was helping to lead a field trip at the Wilds a few years back, when we observed a Northern Shrike laboriously toting this hefty rodent into the shrubs. After it departed, we of course rushed over to see what had become of the vole. Its neck vertebrae had been snapped by the shrike's raptorlike bill, and later the shrike undoubtedly returned to tear the beast asunder as it hung from the branches as if suspended by a butcher's hook.

At least by human standards, shrikes are easily our most brutish songbirds. They are fierce indeed, and have been known to attack birds as large as a Blue Jay. It is always a treat to find a shrike, and they are interesting to observe. Killdeer Plains is obviously a good bet, and the Wilds generally has a shrike or two each winter. The Ohio Ornithological Society hosts their annual Birding at the Wilds event on January 17th. That's always fun, and might produce a shrike. Details will eventually be posted HERE.

The upper end of Deer Creek Reservoir in Fayette County, Ohio, where beautiful little Deer Creek begins to become impounded by the big dam some distance to the south. Bob Royse found a Black-legged Kittiwake here on November 26, and the wayward gull is still sticking. I was finally able to run down there this morning and ogle the animal. The light never was great - the end of the day would be a much better time to shoot images from this spot - but I did what I could to record the rarity. But mostly I just watched the highly entertaining bird, for nearly three hours.

It took all of a nanosecond to find the kittiwake, seen here stretching its wing. Bob's directions and description of the scenario were spot on. The bird is fixated on a spot where a seldom-used park road comes very near the creek, and access could not be easier. I saw the bird from my car, pulled over, and set up shop. The kittiwake cared not a whit for my presence, nor that of the other birders that stopped in during the morning.

As are nearly all Ohio records of Black-legged Kittiwake, this individual is a first-year (first-cycle for some of you) bird, born this summer somewhere in the far north. Young kittiwakes are more striking and conspicuous, and easier to identify, than are the adults.

The kittiwake takes a bath. I always marvel over the cold hardiness of birds such as this. It was below freezing upon my arrival, and that water is frigid indeed. The gulls are unfazed.

Black-legged Kittiwakes breed in the far north, from about the latitude of southern Alaska to points north. They are normally birds of the oceans, breeding along sea cliffs and wintering at sea. Small numbers, nearly all juveniles, do make "wrong turns" and end up inland, as this bird did. A smattering of the population migrates through the Great Lakes, and most of our kittiwake records come from Lake Erie. Birds well inland from our Great Lake are rare indeed, hence the exceptional nature of Bob Royse's find.

Several dozen Ring-billed Gulls, like this beautiful adult, were also in the area. Every now and then, the flock of ring-bills would barnstorm upstream to where the loner kittiwake hung out, and commence a feeding frenzy. Apparently there were occasional schools of small fish that were coming to the surface, and the gulls would begin dive-bombing the water. Their entry smacks could be heard some distance away. The activity would stir the kittiwake to action, and in short order it would capture four or five fish. I would love to know what the plentiful piscine prey is, but try as I might, I could never get a good image of one of the birds with its fish. From what I could tell, they are probably one of the larger shiners, perhaps spotfin shiner.

The kittiwake did not much care for the Ring-billed Gulls, and generally kept its distance. As kittiwakes breed far to the north of the range of the much more southerly Ring-billed Gull, these may have been the first of their kind that the young kittiwake had interacted with.

Our protagonist was somewhat more hospitable to this smaller Bonaparte's Gull (on right). The Bonaparte's seemed to want to hang with the kittiwake, but we noticed that its efforts to perch atop the same rock as the kittiwake were soundly rebuffed.

A young kittiwake is highly ornamented with black markings. Although you may throw your hands up at gull identification, as do many birders, there should be little problem in identifying one of these distinctive beasts.

In flight young kittiwakes show a bold black M, or perhaps W, pattern on the upper wings. The big smudgy-black collar and dark tail tip bookend the wing pattern, and create a showy pattern that causes a kittiwake to pop from the crowd of gulls.

I made this image back in 2010, on St. Paul Island in the Bering Sea far off Alaska's coast. The clean gray and white adult Black-legged Kittiwakes construct a large fancy nest made primarily of mosses plucked from the tundra. There cannot be many other gull species whose young are raised in such luxury.

It would be very interesting to know where the Deer Creek kittiwake originated. To be sure, it was spawned in a situation similar to the photo above, quite possibly along the Arctic Ocean of eastern Canada. Our rare visitor has probably traveled at least 1,500 miles from the north to thrill birders here in central Ohio.

The impressive entrance to Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. When passing through these battleship-like gates you know you've arrived somewhere of note. Of course, for most of the residents it's a one-way street.

I was down here recently for a meeting, and we allowed enough time to tour some of the sights. Spring Grove is the largest cemetery in Ohio, at over 700 acres, and it is probably considered as much park as cemetery. It harks back to the olden days, when cemeteries were used for picnics, weddings, and nice oases free from the hustle and bustle of the city.

We had some knowledgeable guides for our foray into the cemtery, including Ned Keller and Kathy McDonald, Judy Ganance, and Solomon Gamboa. When you're dealing with small roads winding in an abstract fashion through 700 acres, it takes a while to learn the lay of the land.

But thanks to our guides, we were able to navigate directly to some of the cemetery's highlights, including the massive white oak, Quercus alba, in this photo. It utterly dwarfs our group. The tree is several hundred years old. Although it is not the state champion (largest of its species), Spring Grove does boast an incredible 19 state champs, some native trees, some not.

Your narrator at the final resting place of two of Ohio's most accomplished biologists, the Braun sisters, Annette and Lucy. I had only visited Spring Grove a few times prior, and never had had time to track this spot down. This time, we knew right where to go and made the pilgrimage to the Braun's final resting spot a priority. Quite fittingly, their graves lie in the shadow of that massive oak in the previous photo.

Although purely coincidental, I am sure, the look and placement of the tombstones mirrors the sisters' real life relationship. By all accounts, Lucy was more forceful and dominant, while Annette was laid back and soft-spoken. Lucy's headstone is bolder, and placed just ahead of Annette's paler, less conspicuous marker.

Emma Lucy Braun, 1889-1971. She was, without doubt, one of Ohio's - and North America's - preeminent botanists. Lucy began operating at a time when women scarcely had a toehold in the biological sciences, and their involvement was not often encouraged. None of this would have mattered a whit to Lucy, with her forceful personality, and I'm quite sure she would have been successful at whatever she had put her considerable mind to.

Lucy had many publications and other accomplishments to her credit, but this book is undoubtedly her most famous work. Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America was published in 1950 and instantly became the gold standard of eastern forest ecology. It remains highly relevant to this day.

Lucy Braun wrote three other books, and at published at least 180 papers and articles over her career. But probably first and foremost, she was a FIELD biologist - something that unfortunately is becoming a lost art these days. She reveled in exploring the wilds, finding and learning plants, and attempting to figure out the big picture. That's why her magnum opus, the Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America, is such a standout. In it, Lucy adroitly synthesized all of her years of field work and knowledge into a coherent dissection of a big and complicated subject.

Along the way, she discovered a number of new plants or varieties thereof, with perhaps the most famous being the rockhouse white snakeroot, Ageratina luciae-brauniae. B.E. Wofford, who elevated this taxon to species level in 1976 - other botanists had probably incorrectly treated it as a variety of another species - left no doubt about who deserved credit for the species' discovery with his choice of scientific epithet.

The gorgeous plant in this photo is greek valerian, Polemonium reptansL. var. villosum E.L. Braun. Lucy first recognized this distinctive variety and published it, hence her authorship behind the varietal name. Braun's greek valerian is a rather rare and local plant in Ohio, but it can easily be found in Shawnee State Forest, which is where I made this photograph.

Amazingly, Annette was probably even more productive than her dynamo sister, although she sometimes gets lost in Lucy's large shadow. Annette often accompanied Lucy on her field trips, and many of those were to the prairies of Adams County, Ohio, which is a biological wonderland. Annette's thing was moths, specifically the microlepidopterans (really little moths!). Her accomplishments in this little studied realm were staggering. Annette described some 335 moth species to science, and published scores of scientific papers, including four major monographs. In the world of lepidoptera, she was a true giant.

I made this image of this tiny caterpillar in one of Lucy and Annette's beloved Adams County prairies back on July 25, 2012, and the obscure larva ties together the two sister's interests nicely. The animal is known as Ethmia longimaculella, and it is in a group of moths that was of great interest to Annette. The caterpillar feeds on a plant that surely caught Lucy's eye, the false gromwell, Onosmodium molle, which for us in Ohio at least, is a rather rare prairie inhabitant. Lucy would have examined the plant, while Annette studied its larval predators.

Ah, the Woolly-bear, Pyrrharctia isabella, America's most beloved caterpillar. The tubular little beasts are impeccably zoned into neat patterns of burnt-orange and black, making for a darn good-looking larva. Woolly-bears are also undoubtedly the most widely recognized of North America's thousands of species of caterpillars, and that's due to their supposed ability to prognosticate the coming winter weather. The wider the orange band, the milder the winter, so the folklore goes. If that were true the bear in this photo would be calling for a balmy winter.

Not to burst any bubbles, or cast aspersions on any of the Woolly-bear festivals that have sprung up (one in Vermilion, Ohio - the "Woollybear Festival" - began in 1973), but there is no credibility to the caterpillars' role as weather forecaster. The widths of the colored bands are unrelated to future weather. Their size is much more aligned with their age. Caterpillars grow through various stages, each termed an instar. Five instars/stages is a common number of growth phases for most of our caterpillars. As they grow, and shed their "skin" between instars, caterpillars often change appearance markedly. In the case of the Woolly-bear, the black bands widen with age, and thus older caterpillars are darker. Dark old specimens might lead one to believe a brutal winter is on tap.

Get any sort of semi-warm snap, especially with sun, this time of year and out come the bears. It is very common to see Woolly-bears legging it across roadways under such weather conditions in early winter. I was able to stop at a few interesting places on my way to Canton last Wednesday afternoon, and saw numerous bears crossing roads. The temperature when I made this photo was only about 40 F.

For reasons unknown, Woolly-bear caterpillars are inveterate wanderers in fall and early winter. It doesn't seem to make much sense, as these caterpillars can eat an enormous variety of very common plant life, so there would seem to be little reason to risk the numerous threats that come with roaming far and wide. But nomads they are, and they know better than we what they are supposed to be doing.

The issue of the Woolly-bears' alleged skills as winter forecasters is also muddied by misidentifications. Unfortunately, not all people pay close attention to detail (just watch Fox News for proof!), and as distinctive as Woolly-bears are, there are similar species. The one above is a Giant Leopard Moth caterpillar, Hypercompe scribonia, and it too wanders widely in late fall/early winter. Some people will see one of these and instantly think the White Death will soon be upon us.

Another common ground-roaming fall caterpillar is that of the Virginia Tiger Moth, Spilosoma virginica, which is known as the "Yellow Bear". Were a true Woolly-bear believer to see this one, its nearly solid yellowish color might convince them that winter is slated to be quite Floridian.

This one, believe it or not, is another "Yellow Bear", but it might be better termed a Black Bear. The caterpillars of Spilosoma virginica are incredibly variable in coloration, and thus this one species is capable of fooling lepidopteran-illiterate Woolly-bear fans into believing the upcoming winter will be incredibly brutal, or unnaturally balmy.

Free-ranging Woolly-bears face great hazard when attempting to cross roads hundreds of times wider than they are. The mortality is high, but fortunately Woolly-bears are abundant. Vehicular carnage seems to dent their population very little. If they do make it to the other side, the bear will seek a sheltered spot to overwinter. That's right, this species rides out the winter that it is supposed to be forecasting as a fully grown caterpillar. The Woolly-bear can essentially freeze solid, and cryoprotectant chemicals in its system prevent irreparable damage to its vitals.

If all goes well for the Woolly-bear, come spring and warmer weather it will pupate and later emerge as this gorgeous moth, the Isabella Tiger Moth. I suspect very few people would recognize the moth, even though vast numbers of them would instantly identify the caterpillar.

You can probably file the following video under strange things almost no one ever gets to see.

The beloved Striped Skunk, those handsome if not occasionally malodorous black and white beasts, are well known for their digging propensities. If skunks are about, and hungry, it is common to see the aftermath of their hunting: small divots pawed into the ground where the animals have dug out tasty beetle grubs or other fare.

But a skunk is not a one-trick pony when it comes to feeding skills. They'll take about anything they can find, and that includes eggs. If, for instance, a skunk stumbles into a turkey nest, it'll likely grab the eggs, or at least one of them.

However, a skunk with fresh egg soon finds itself with a dilemma. How does a four-pawed animal crack the shell. View on...

Video by Laura and Dave Hughes

The Hughes - David and Laura - consistently outdo themselves in capturing outstanding trail cam videography. I've featured their work here many times; type "Hughes" into the blog's search box in the upper left corner of the page and you'll find plenty of examples.

In this case, they've left some old guinea fowl eggs along the game trail, to see what might take the bait. A skunk ambles along, seizes an egg, and begins playing the part of an NFL center with it. This is apparently a known behavior for Striped Skunks - hurling hard-shelled food backwards between their legs. The animal would normally fling the item into a path of great resistance, such as a rock or tree trunk, in an effort to smash the object open. The subject of this film doesn't have a good smashing surface close at hand, but that doesn't stop it from hiking its egg.

BONUS: A Virginia Opossum enters the scene towards the video's end, and almost gets whacked by one of the skunk's errant egg hikes.

Great stuff, and thanks to Laura for sending along the video and allowing me to share.

This juvenile Red-headed Woodpecker was one of many busily harvesting acorns today at Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area. Oak of several species are plentiful throughout the 9,000+ acre wildlife area, and every woodlot has its complement of woodpeckers. This was a banner year for the acorn crops, so there is lots of work for the red-heads.

Red-headed Woodpeckers cache food, and they were industriously wedging acorns into nooks and crannies of various granary trees. Assuming the birds can remember their locations, and I'm sure they do, for the most part, these acorns will be welcome foodstuff during bleak winter weather.

A good-sized American Elm, Ulmus americana, stands alone on a field edge. Its whiskbroom shape is apparent even from afar. I tend to notice big elms, and generally pay them more than a passing glance. The American Elm is still a very common tree in Ohio, but big ones are scarce.

In 1928, Dutch Elm Disease was first detected in North America, and it spread like wildfire. It is caused by three species of microfungi, two of which afflict trees on this continent. The fungi is spread by a trio of bark beetles. Once a tree is infected, the tree attempts to thwart the spread of the invader by plugging its xylem channels, which transport various nutrients and water throughout the plant. This ultimately fails, and the elm dies. Trees usually succumb before reaching the size of the specimen in this photo, which I found last Thursday at Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area. Most large elms that I see are isolated like this one is; it may be more difficult for the vector beetles to reach them.

When I slowed to admire the stately tree, I noticed it bore a nest. You can see it in the branches furthest to the right in the photo. This is not the first time that I have seen such a nest in a surviving mature elm. In fact, when I do find such a tree I scan it specifically for this type of nest.

A work of art indeed! The beautifully woven basket of a Baltimore Oriole, suspended from the elm's slender branches. The fact that it is still in the tree, and in good shape at this late date, is a testament to the oriole's basket-weaving skills.

There is no question that Baltimore Orioles have a propensity for siting their nests in the boughs of American Elms. Before Dutch Elm Disease appeared on the continent and laid waste to our elms, this tree was commonly used as a street tree. Avenues and boulevards would be lined with elms, their overarching branches connecting to form a shady arbor over the roadway. Numerous accounts describe the colorful orioles that graced the elms, delighting people with their musical flutelike whistling and brilliant splashes of orange. A paper entitled The Nesting Habits of the Baltimore Oriole appeared in a 1930 issue (vol. 42:4) of the Wilson Bulletin. In it, the author describes nine nests that occurred along a street in Sigourney, Iowa in the summer of 1927 (pre-DED). Eight of the nests were located in American Elms. Such pro-elm favoritism was probably the rule in midwestern towns and cities prior to DED.

Why the orioles' preference for elms? Probably for safety's sake. The spindly, drooping ultimate branches of elms prohibit access to many predators. A raccoon would certainly never make it to a nest such as shown in my photo. Nor would that most effective of avian nest predators, the black ratsnake, I would guess. Fortunately orioles have proven to be adaptive, and have jumped the arboreal ship to other trees for nesting purposes. A favorite is the Eastern Cottonwood, Populus deltoides.

I have watched orioles create their ornate hanging baskets on a number of occasions, and it is a remarkable thing to observe. Here, a female busily weaves her nest in a maple in northern Michigan. Somehow she takes an insensible tangle of grasses and plant fibers, and in a flurry of activity crafts a sturdy, well designed cup from the mess in just a few days. I couldn't do such a thing armed with my ten fingers.

The oriole's intricate cup spawns one of the world's most colorful blackbirds, named for the colors of the coat of arms of Sir George Calvert, who was the first lord of the Baltimore colony. The females, who one might argue do most of the heavy lifting in the oriole's world, are much more muted in plumage than is this showy male.

No dummies, most of our Baltimore Orioles are now in the tropics of Central America where they will ride out the winter. Come late April, their cheery whistles will once again ring from the Ohio treetops, every bit the harbinger-of-spring.

Fringed Gentians

The Buck Moths ride again

A pictorial stroll through Kent Bog

Beautiful mushrooms, ill consequences

Stiff Gentian, Gentianella quinquefolia

Hike to Buzzardroost Rock

River Otters squeaking like squeeze toys

Robins, waxwings, and honeysuckle

Sandhill Cranes at Jasper-Pulaski

Odd looks of jumping spiders belie fearless predators

A rough day on Lake Erie

Some encounters with mammals

Progress = Cinnabons!

Northern Shrike, aka "Butcherbird"

Black-legged Kittiwake in central Ohio!

Spring Grove Cemetery and the Braun sisters

Woolly-bears make bad meteorologists

Skunk "hikes" egg

Red-headed Woodpeckers plundering acorns

Orioles and elms