Quantcast
Channel: Ohio Birds and Biodiversity
Viewing all 1336 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

Return of the butterflies

April 22, 2015, 2:16 pm
$
0
0
The warming of spring brings out a new crop of butterflies, and their appearance is much welcomed by many, including your narrator. These stunning male Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, Papilio glaucus, are fresh and unblemished. I photographed them on a recent sunny day in southern Ohio, the duo was among dozens that I saw.

Try as I might, this female American Lady, Vanessa virginiensis, would not fully cooperate with my camera. It's a semi-wary species to begin with, but this girl was busy. She was scrambling about the pussy-toes, which is this species' host plant, depositing eggs, and I didn't want to horn in and disrupt activities more important than my picture-taking. So I just did the best that I could, and largely left her to the business of making more of her kind.

Here is a more formal portrait of pussy-toes, Antennaria plantaginifolia. It's a very common plant of dry banks and exposed soil, typically growing in the semi-shade of woodland borders. Pussy-toes is not what most people would term a showy plant, and few gardeners would be tempted to seek it out and plant pussy-toes inside the garden fence. However, aesthetic issues aside, this species is a goldmine for early spring pollinators, and we shall take a glimpse into its nectariferous attractions.

A small fly with a huge proboscis laps nectar from tiny pussy-toe flowers. I have no idea which species of fly this is, but its value as a pollinator is manifested in the minute orangish pollen grains stuck all over its hairs. Flies, which generally get an utterly underserved bad rap due to the ills caused by a relative handful of species, are a major and incalculably valuable group of pollinators.

A solitary bee of some sort ravages pussy-toes flowers. I saw many, many like it on these flowers during this foray into Shawnee State Forest. It should go without saying that the Hymenoptera - bees and wasps - are of major importance regarding the pollination of our native plants. And the pussy-toes, discreet and as ignored as they are, provide major fodder for the earliest pollinators of spring. If you want to see lots of cool bugs, and find subjects galore for the macro lens, park yourself by a colony of pussy-toes and keep a sharp eye out.

Spring Azures, Celastrina ladon, were everywhere on this fine spring day. These little flecks of silvery blue are a ubiquitous part of the vernal butterfly fauna, and groups of them are often seen gathered at mud puddles or other moist spots. They are not immune to the virtues of pussy-toes, as we can see.

Needless to say, I was quite pleased to find several Henry's Elfins, Callophrys henrici, nectaring at pussy-toes flowers. These tiny butterflies tend to be localized, and are always in close proximity to their host trees, which is redbud, Cercis canadensis. Elfins often perch on the ground, a situation which does not lend itself well to making showy photos. To boot, they can be rather flighty. But when ensconced upon tasty flowers, they become quite approachable and it was easy to get as close as I wished.

This is a Brown Elfin, Callophrys augustinus, which is one of Ohio's rarer butterflies. It is only known from about five counties in southern Ohio, and populations tend to be widely scattered and small. Shawnee State Forest harbors several reliable sites, and that's where I made this image. The butterfly is resting upon the leaf of a mountain-laurel, Kalmia latifolia, its host plant. Elsewhere it uses other plants in the heath family such as blueberries and huckleberries. Some of the brown elfins were also nectaring on pussy-toes, but I was not able to get a documentary shot.

The butterfly parade will only grow more robust as spring progresses, and take heart - we have a good 5-6 months of butterflying season ahead.
↧
Search

No Finish Line - a fascinating new book on birding ( and more)

April 24, 2015, 1:47 pm
$
0
0
Hot off the presses is this excellent book that all birders will enjoy devouring. It is the biography of Dr. Bernard Master, renowned world birder, conservationist, physician, and businessman. In the interest of full disclosure, Bernie is a good friend, but that relationship would not, I believe, cloud my opinion of his first foray into the literary world.

I've just received my copy of No Finish Line (subtitled Discovering the World's Secrets One Bird at a Time), and have only had a chance to skim through, look at the some 140 photographs, and read select passages. Trust me, if you are a birder on any level, you'll enjoy reading this book. Few people have had the lengthy and well traveled birding career that Dr. Master has, and he pulls no punches when it comes to calling things as he sees them. Peppered throughout are accounts of his business endeavors, experiences in Vietnam, opinions on tour guides, and more. I'll write more about No Finish Line once I've had a chance to thoroughly peruse it.

You can get a copy RIGHT HERE.

Also, Bernie will be giving a talk next Tuesday evening, April 28, at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center in Columbus, Ohio. The title of his presentation is World Birding: Finding the Rarest Birds in the World. Having seen some 8,000 of the world's 10,400 species, Bernie has lots of fodder from which to draw, and his talk will undoubtedly touch on his new book. Speaking of which, there will be copies available at the talk, and this would be a great opportunity to hear a wonderful presentation AND get a copy of Bernie's book. Details about the talk can be found RIGHT HERE.
↧
↧

Migration erupts

April 27, 2015, 5:30 pm
$
0
0
Cerulean Warbler, one of many in Shawnee State Forest, Scioto County, Ohio, last Saturday. The Ohio Ornithological Society held their annual conference at Shawnee over the weekend, and we found lots of Neotropical birds back for the breeding season. Numbers and diversity of migrant songbirds will steadily increase, reaching a crescendo in the second week of May.

Grab those binoculars and get afield!
↧

New River Birding & Nature Festival

May 3, 2015, 8:10 pm
$
0
0
I'm just back from eight (8!) days of nonstop immersion into Nature. Sorry if I've not responded to emails etc. but I've mostly been off the grid or too busy to deal with the usual stuff. First up was a day and a half at the Ohio Ornithological Society's annual conference at Shawnee State Forest in southern Ohio. That was a great time, and thanks to Julie Davis, all of the speakers and guides, and everyone else who made that conference a success. Be sure to attend next year.
 
Then it was straight off to southern West Virginia and the New River Birding & Nature Festival. I think this was the 10th year I've helped to lead trips at this event, and it is always an excellent time. The return rate of attendees speaks for itself - 52% of this year's people had been before, and a much larger percentage of total festival attendees over the years have been back multiple times. As always, event coordinators Rachel Davis, Keith Richardson, and Geoff Heeter bent over backwards to make things flow smoothly and ensure that everyone had a good time. CLICK HERE for complete festival information.
 

This action took place high up on Sugar Creek Mountain, an incredibly birdy locale. The group stares slack-jawed at a stunning male Blue-winged Warbler. The bird was singing away as he foraged in small trees at close range and near eye level. At one point, it plucked and ate four caterpillars in about two minutes. We challenged co-leader Keith Richardson (back, orange cap) to find just one caterpillar. In ten minutes of searching the same type of foliage, Keith came up empty-handed, and he has extremely sharp eyes. That's one reason we're not birds, I suppose. We'd starve.

I'm not quite sure how they do it, but the NRBNF organizers lure some incredible talent as guides (present company excluded from that boast!). Here, Mark Garland of Cape May, New Jersey briefly explains bog ecology in the big meadow at Cranberry Glades Botanical Area. Mark is a walking encyclopedia of natural history knowledge. Also in just this one group as leaders is Connie Toops and Jim Rapp, both of whom excel at natural history guiding. CLICK HERE for a complete rundown of NRBNF talent.

Red eyes aglow, our largest and showiest sparrow tees up. Eastern Towhees are certainly not rare in this part of West Virginia, but we enjoy looking at them just the same. A big part of the field trip experiences is learning about common species, not just the rare.

The "& Nature" is in the event's name for a reason. The mountains of Fayette County, the slopes of the New River, and surrounding areas harbor some of the richest biodiversity in the eastern United States. We never shun an opportunity to inspect something cool, whether it be an interesting plant, snake, millipede, or this outlandish Rosy Maple Moth.

This is a rarity, and a major target bird for festival participants. It is a Swainson's Warbler, a denizen of the shady understory of rhododendron thickets buffering mountain streams. While the animal may appear rather plain, at least insofar as warblers go, it compensates with a rich whistled song reminiscent of a Louisiana Waterthrush.

Illustrating the quirks of human behavior, the aforementioned Swainson's Warbler really gets the birder's blood boiling. Yet colorful gems such as this male Black-throated Blue Warbler nearly always are a companion species. Despite this animal's rich coloration, it is the comparatively drab Swainson's Warbler that garners the lion's share of attention, because it is far scarcer.

After the festival concluded, I awoke early this morning and headed back to a particularly charming mountain cove. This site has a clear stream, the banks of which are clouded by snarls of Great Rhododendron, Rhododendron maximum. The airy boughs of Eastern Hemlock, Tsuga canadensis, provide canopy cover, and continuing upslope the forest grades into birch, oaks, hickories and many other species of deciduous trees.

The local Swainson's Warbler's clear forceful whistles punctuated the air as soon as I exited the vehicle. As always, I took time to orient to the sounds around me, and figure out the patterns of the singers. The short snappy warbles of this Canada Warbler came from an especially dense rhododendron tangle not far from the singing Swainson's Warbler. By largely remaining still, silent, and in one spot, in two hours time I had made passable images of the three warblers in the latter three photos. Without using recordings.

In addition to (usually) being a solo activity, bird photography requires some patience. Charging from the vehicle and immediately blasting back the calls of the singers from an I-pod is a mistake. These new and unexpected sounds throw an element of chaos into the situation. It may work briefly, but the artificial sounds upset the normal behavior of the birds that one might wish to photograph, and puts an unnecessary element of stress on them. Two hours in a gorgeous haunt was hardly an ordeal, and ultimately the photos ops are better by remaining still and silent. One learns the patterns of the singers, and it becomes easy to predict their movements. The Swainson's Warbler had a favorite sapling as a singing perch, and it was out in the open. I set up nearby, and it wasn't long before the bird dropped in and teed up beautifully. The little Canada Warbler was harder, but great fun to watch as it fluttered and fly-catched in the shady gloom of the rhododendrons. Finally, as if wondering who the large biped was, it popped out on a sunlit limb and regarded me with curiosity, and I got some shots. The Black-throated Blue Warbler did much the same.

I can't remember next year's dates for the NRBNF, but I'm sure it'll be posted on their website before long, RIGHT HERE.
↧

Great Horned Owl owlet

May 7, 2015, 12:56 pm
$
0
0
A gargantuan white oak, Quercus alba, towers over a central Ohio park. Its gnarled boughs predate the founding of the City of Columbus, the municipality in which the tree resides. Over its centuries of growth, this ancient woody Methuselah has spawned enough animals to fill a small ark. Tens of thousands of caterpillars have noshed on its foliage. In turn, the caterpillars fed (and feed) legions of migratory songbirds that stop to rest and refuel in the oak's branches. Scores of squirrels have harvested its seasonal bounty of acorns. Southern Flying Squirrels have glided from limb to limb. Hawks have used the tree as a lookout post. And in this very photo, there lurks our most ferocious avian predator of all.

A cavity created by the loss of a giant limb provides a nesting spot for a pair of Great Horned Owls. Here we see the female occupying the nest cavity. She could easily be overlooked, as her plumage matches the wood of the tree quite well. I made this image back on April 1, and the owl had good reason to still be occupying the nest cavity.

This is her feathered charge - a tiny, fluffy owlet. At this stage, the adult female owl spends much time in the nest; a formidable defender of the owlet.

Great Horned Owl owlets basically sleep (and yawn), eat, and engage in one function related to the latter. And grow like weeds.

 I had the chance to revisit the nest site almost three weeks after the preceding photos were taken, on April 19, and my how our owlet has grown. The chick, while still heavily fuzzed with down, is nearly the size of the adult.

Great Horned Owls can have as many as four chicks, although two is probably most common, at least around here. In this case, the other egg(s) may not have hatched, or something possibly led to the other chicks' demise shortly after hatching. This one is doing quite well, though.

Owls have nested at this place for as long as I can remember, although they typically shift nest trees from year to year. By now, this owlet is out of the nest and free-flying. This isn't the first Great Horned Owl owlet spawned in this massive oak, and I suspect it'll play nursery for many more to come.

NOTE ON PHOTOS: The nest cavity can be seen from some distance away (if one knows where to look). In the morning, the sun is to one's back creating excellent lighting. I made these images with either a Canon 5D Mark III or crop-sensor 7D Mark II with a 500 mm fitted with a 1.4x teleconverter. Such camera rigs allow one to keep far away, and still get "keepers" without bothering the birds. Nesting owls should never be approached closely. I'm reluctant to mention the exact site, as all too often publicized owl nests can attract scads of people and such activity can lead to nest failure.
↧
↧

Magee Marsh warbler madness

May 10, 2015, 8:26 pm
$
0
0
A tiny fraction of the thousands of birders that descended upon Magee Marsh Wildlife Area in Lucas and Ottawa counties, Ohio, last Friday. Even more people were in the area the next day, which was International Migratory Bird Day. Spring songbird migration is near peak, the Biggest Week in American Birding is in full swing, and there are few better places to be if you are a warbler enthusiast.

I was there all day Friday and Saturday, and a good chunk of today as well. In all, I spent about 20 hours on the boardwalk "Bird Trail", mostly working with newer birders and helping them find and identify birds. Consequently, I took far fewer images than I normally would in that amount of field time, but did manage a few. The Canon 7D Mark II coupled to the 100-400 mm 4.5-5.6 II was slung over my shoulder, so shots of irresistible subjects would not be missed. By the way, this rig is certainly one of the best for handheld bird shots. Not only that, it is extremely versatile and I also used it to photograph snakes, muskrats, and even orchids this weekend. There were solid keepers in every group. I'll try to find time to write about this marvelous Canon pairing sometime.

A Yellow Warbler milliseconds before it sprang from the branch. It was one of untold thousands in the area. The marshes of western Lake Erie may be the Yellow Warbler capital of the world. These gorgeous warblers are smitten with soggy soils grown over with willow shrubs, and there's an abundance of such habitat at Magee and vicinity.

I've enjoyed experimenting with different photographic techniques for birds. This image was taken with the aforementioned rig, at f/5.6, a shutter speed of 1/640, and ISO at 250. When I know or suspect that my avian subject is going to put on a sudden burst of speed, my natural inclination is to bump the shutter speed WAY up to try and freeze the action. You know, get the image crisp enough so that the individual shafts of the primary flight feathers are crystal clear.

Such tactics surely do make for a good image, but so can using shutter speeds that aren't nearly fast enough to freeze all of the action. For this photo, my focus was locked on the bird's face, and when he started to move, I rattled off a 10 frames per second burst mode. I like the way this shot came out: face, eyes, and upper breast sharp, but the rest of the Yellow Warbler is an artistic blur of wildly gyrating feathers. As always, click the image to expand it.

I'll try and post some other images from my weekend at Magee later.
↧

Dragonfly in flight, and the new Canon 7D Mark II

May 12, 2015, 1:16 pm
$
0
0
A female Common Green Darner, Anax junius, at rest, showing the bulls-eye mark on top of the frons (nose). This is a large, common, and spectacular species.

Last Saturday, while at Magee Marsh Wildlife Area along western Lake Erie, a bunch of us were standing around awaiting the emergence of a Kentucky Warbler that had secreted itself in some shrubs. Growing restless, I focused my attention on some nearby Common Green Darners that were dashing about. Just like many of the birds at Magee, these big dragonflies are highly migratory. Large numbers pass through the western Lake Erie marshes, often pausing to feed. This one is a male, with its beautiful sky-blue abdomen. Where he came from is anyone's guess: The coastal Atlantic states, the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, somewhere in the Caribbean, maybe even Mexico or points south.

Shooting fast moving dragonflies in flight offers a challenge for photographers. Good gear definitely helps, but so does steady hands smoothly tracking the subject, and an awareness of the dragonfly's habits. I noticed that this one tended to pause and hover in one particular spot as it made its circuit, and I was ready for it. I made the image with the spectacular new Canon 7D Mark II coupled with a Canon 100-400 mm 4.5/5.6 II lens. This is an amazing combo for nature photography. The parameters of this particular shot were f/6.3, 1/640 of a second shutter speed, ISO 160, no flash, and lens fully extended to 400 mm.

The aforementioned camera rig is superb for birds, and is easily handheld. Sometimes a tripod is awkward, although they ensure a stable shooting platform. However, I find that getting a good percentage of sharp handheld shots with this setup is often easy. This Black-throated Blue Warbler was one of many songbirds that I captured over the weekend at Magee.

I have been impressed with the versatility of the Canon 7D Mark II with the 100-400 mm lens. This White Lady's-slipper, Cypripedium candidum, came out rather nicely. The only real fault with the photo is that I failed to temporarily pull the Prairie-dock leaf behind the orchid out of the way; it creates background clutter.

The 100-400 lens focuses down to about three feet, and thus can work well for plants and other nearby objects.

Here's the rig as assembled. It is pretty compact, although gets a fair bit longer when the lens is twisted out to full zoom. I think that if I could only have one camera/lens setup, this would be it. I'm still learning the nuances of this combination, but my satisfaction with this setup grows stronger every time that I use it. If you're looking for a great all-around photographic nature rig, this might be the combo for you.
↧

Native azaleas attract swarms of pollinators

May 15, 2015, 8:50 pm
$
0
0
I had a very interesting field trip today. It involved a "life orchid", among many other interesting finds. More on some of that later, I hope. A brief peregrination into Shawnee State Forest also produced some noteworthy observations, not the least of which was the flowering of pinxter-flower azaleas, Rhododendron periclymenoides. These small shrubs were near peak bloom, their spindly boughs awash with pink flowers. Every bit as nice as the architecturally interesting flowers was the constant parade of pollinators. Here, a pair of spicebush swallowtails, Papilio troilus, battles for primacy at a particularly coveted snarl of blossoms. Eastern tiger swallowtails, several species of skippers, and both hummingbird clearwing and white-lined sphinx moths also visited.

If you are looking for an especially showy situation in which to photograph butterflies, I would head to Shawnee in the next week or so. Cruise the forest roads and watch for blooming azaleas. Set yourself up in a good position with favorable light and a good backdrop, and let your subjects come to you.

I also learned a new technique for butterfly photography. The azalea featured in this photo was rather high on a steep bank; further than I could comfortably reach with my normal go-to 100 mm macro lens with Canon's twin light flash setup. So, thought I, what the heck, and pulled out my tripod and big 500 mm f/4 II bird lens and attached it to the Canon 7D Mark II. Same setup I'd use to go after songbirds and anything else with feathers. Well, that rig also works very well for butterflies, at least the large ones. The parameters for this shot were f/4.5; shutter speed of 1/3200, ISO 640, and no flash. When I saw this pair of swallowtails bickering and dogfighting, I jacked the shutter speed way up, and that made it possible to freeze both of the rapidly fluttering insects. A nice leafy green backdrop created a pleasing bokeh (background blur).
↧
Search

Caterpillar season!

May 16, 2015, 7:21 pm
$
0
0
 On recent forays, I have been noticing caterpillars everywhere. Most are small early instars - just little tubes that are easily missed. Those that survive will grow dozens of times bigger and more meatier than they are in their earliest instars, or growth stages. The first big seasonal flush of caterpillars coincides with spring leaf out. Many of the early caterpillar species are ones who overwintered in the egg stage; their hatching coincides with the appearance of leaves, which will be their food. In a perfectly orchestrated symphony, our migratory songbirds arrive just as this caterpillar bloom is starting. Inestimable scores of caterpillars become the fuel which propels the warblers, vireos, tanagers, orioles and most of the other songbirds (and some nonpasserines) that we enjoy observing.

The eastern deciduous forest biome, which cloaks much of the eastern half of the United States, stretching from the Gulf Coast to southern Canada, grows the lion's share of caterpillar biomass in northern North America, along with the great boreal forest of the far north. This is why the migratory pathways of so many of our Neotropical migrant songbirds goes through eastern North America, even if the species ultimately heads far to the northwest to breed. Hungry migrants are assured of finding lush food sources when they travel through a region rich in broad-leaved trees and their attendant caterpillar crops.

As for the photo above, it's a bit of a fooler. While the animal is quite caterpillar-like, it is actually a sawfly larva. Sawflies are in the order Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants), not the Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). It's the larvae of the latter that we call caterpillars, and which are arguably (or not) the most important foodstuff for a great many of our bird species. Sawflies do not seem to be particularly well known, and I'm unsure of this species. It is eating black oak, Quercus velutina. Many sawfly species seem to be "chemically protected"; they sequester toxic compounds that render them unpalatable to birds. However, I have seen birds eat sawflies on several occasions.

Now this was a cool find! I was with Ann Bowe, a friend from Kentucky, yesterday. I was down there to seek out the Kentucky lady's-slipper (success!), and along the way Ann spotted this beauty. It is the caterpillar of the Canadian owlet moth, Calyptra canadensis. I had never seen it before, at least that I recall. Adding to its intrigue, this species eats only meadow-rues in the genus Thalictrum. They are big cats, and meadow-rues are typically rather spindly herbs. The three caterpillars on this meadow-rue were making mincemeat of the plant, and the lower leaves had been stripped down to bare petioles. Caterpillars that are rather large and conspicuous, and feed during the day when birds are active, often possess chemical properties that make them distasteful to birds (as mentioned under the sawfly above).

I was, it should go without saying, quite excited to find this little oddity. I had a few short hours to photograph this morning, and ran over to a nearby local patch, Kiwanis Park. It is an oasis of high quality habitat along the Scioto River, and is loaded with a diverse native flora. After getting some keepers of various birds doing interesting things, I was making the short drive home when I felt a tickle on my arm. Glancing down, I saw this caterpillar inching along.

It is the filament bearer, Nematocampa resistaria, another species that I knew of but had never seen. I quickly detoured into a parking lot, got a vial from the trunk, and caged the animal. Upon arrival home, I placed it on my serviceberry, Amelanchier arborea, and made some images. The odd protuberances on the caterpillar's dorsal surface probably act as disruptive camouflage, perhaps helping it to blend in when at rest. When disturbed, it elongates the filaments significantly, as here. I suppose it is possible that the caterpillar may use them as flails - whips by which it can repel would-be parasitoid flies or wasps.

In any event, I hope this filament bearer flourishes on my native serviceberry. They are known to eat a wide variety of woody plants, including species in the rose family, such as serviceberry. If all goes well for it, the caterpillar will morph into a rather undistinguished brown moth. If one of the local birds gets it before that, well, that's life on the food chain.
↧
↧

The ferocious dragon hunter

May 17, 2015, 7:29 pm
$
0
0
Dragon hunters, even as youngsters, are ferocious
 
 
NATURE
Jim McCormac

May 17, 2015

The first column I wrote for this newspaper — appearing Aug. 16, 2005 — was about the dragon hunter, our largest species of dragonfly.

Hagenius brevistylus, as the dragon hunter is formally known, is a brutish insect. An adult can measure 31/2 inches. Comparatively small eyes cap a beefy, broad-shouldered thorax. Long, powerful, spiny legs seize prey, which the dragonfly plucks from the air.

Dragon hunters are extreme aerialists, putting on Ferrari-like bursts of speed and jagging with mind-numbing quickness. They use their skills and power to overcome big victims such as swallowtail butterflies and other dragonflies almost as large as themselves.

A large part of the dragon hunter’s mission is to make more dragon hunters. When a male encounters a willing female, he roughly grabs her by the head and mates with her. The courtship is Neanderthalish, no gentle New Age insect here.

Dragon hunters and their ilk have been around for about 300 million years.

The female dragon hunter deposits her eggs in the still waters of high-quality streams. Those that hatch produce a larva known as a nymph. The nymph is even more ferocious than the winged adults, if that’s possible. It is longer-lived, too. The nymph stage can last for several years, while the adult dragonfly might live a few months.

On a recent trip to Little Darby Creek, Anthony Sasson of the Ohio chapter of the Nature Conservancy and I trawled up a dragon hunter nymph. I was excited to handle one, as I’ve seen the adults several times but never the completely aquatic larva.

A dragon hunter nymph is a leaf come to life, a horror show for lesser aquatic beasts. The quarter-size larva lurks in leafy detritus on the stream bottom. It blends perfectly with its surroundings.

When a victim happens along, the dragon hunter shoots out its lower “lip” (technically a labium) as far as one-third its body length in fractions of a second. A pair of toothed appendages at the lip’s terminus seizes the prey and yanks it back into the maw of the murderous larva. The victim, which might be a caddisfly larva, worm or even a small fish, has no time to react.

When it comes time to shift position, the dragon hunter nymph employs an odd style of locomotion. Its gills are in its rectum. By pushing water through the gills and out its rear in forceful blasts, the strange beast can jet itself about quite handily. As with the adult’s mating habits, such behavior would be considered rather crass among humans.

Dragon hunters are one of myriad interesting animals that depend upon streams with high water quality. Their presence means a healthy ecosystem.

The Big and Little Darby creeks are the crown jewels of central Ohio waterways and foster legions of animals that fire the imagination.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jim mccormac.blogspot.com.
↧

Northern Michigan birds

May 26, 2015, 7:22 pm
$
0
0
Greetings from northern Michigan's Presque Isle County. I've been up here for a week, so far, and have been burning the candle at both ends. Doug Tallamy and John MacIntosh were up for a few days, and we collectively shot off many thousands of images. Then my group came in last Sunday to base camp at the beautiful Nettie Bay Lodge and we've been tearing it up ever since. Many amazing experiences, a huge bird list racked up thus far, and an incredibly exciting life mammal for your narrator (more on that later).

Yesterday was the most amazing day in the jack pine country that I've ever had, and today's foray to the shores of Lake Huron brought over 400 migrating Broad-winged Hawks, among MANY other interesting observations. We've been having a great time, and everyone is seeing lots of new things, and seeing most of them quite well.

Following are a few avian delights that I managed to snap photos of in the past few days...

Lincoln's Sparrow, gushing forth his rich buzzy melody in a scrub oak thicket in a young jack pine plains

A strong breeze ruffles the feathers of a male Vesper Sparrow. The clear fluid whistled notes of this handsome sparrow introduce a delightfully complex buzzy song which is a common part of the soundscape in jack pine country.

Star of the jack pine show, a male Kirtland's Warbler tees up and delivers his rich forceful reverb warble.

Golden-winged Warblers are fairly common up here, their few-parted buzzy songs a distinctive melody.

One of the flashiest warblers is the Magnolia Warbler, and this male was singing from dense white cedar and spruce in boggy ground.

A secretive Mourning Warbler gives your narrator a glimpse before retreating into a thick stand of red-osier dogwood.

A shockingly neon Scarlet Tanager, fresh from South America, feeds near the Lake Huron shoreline.

 
Sandhill Cranes are common up here, and this pair is foraging among dense sedges buffering a pristine kettle lake.
 
More to come, when time permits.

↧

Eastern Meadowlark, calm before the storm

May 30, 2015, 9:11 pm
$
0
0
Finally home, after eleven days afield in northern Michigan. This was my sixth consecutive year of leading field forays in Presque Isle County, based out of the beautiful Nettie Bay Lodge, ably managed by Jackie and Mark Schuler. Our group was absolutely magnificent, and we hit it out of the park when it came to birds and other wildlife. I'll share more of those adventures later.

Prior to my group's arrival, I spent three days with Doug Tallamy and his friend John McIntyre (spelling? Sorry John, can't find your card). As an aside, read Doug's recent op-ed in the New York Times, RIGHT HERE. Both are avid lensmen, and sport big glass. We tromped around the north woods and found tons of interesting subjects. Between this photo foray and the shooting that I did after my group left, I popped off perhaps 5,000 images. Why so many, you may ask? Is he daft? Well, maybe, but my Canon 7D Mark II clicks off 10 shots a second in burst mode and that quickly adds up. Oftentimes, I'm shooting rapid fire when I think a bird is about to do something interesting, such as grab prey, take wing, preen, whatever. To get the killer shot sometimes - most times! - requires shooting lots of digital discards.

Anyway, today's return trip brought me within a stone's throw of one of my favorite places, Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area. The light and sky was beautiful, and a few target subjects lurked within the wildlife area, so in I went for a brief hunt.

Plumped to rotund proportions, an Eastern Meadowlark belts out its clear, piercing whistled song. Were the animal a girl, I would declare that the fat lady has sung. This is one of my favorite birds - yes! a blackbird! - and I couldn't resist watching him for a while. His female, charmed by the melody no doubt, skulked in the grasses below.

So exuberant are springtime meadowlarks that even in flight the song comes out. He may not have been as carefree as looks might imply. The lark had the same view of the western sky that I did, and it was ominous.

The sky churns and boils; a prairie thunderstorm in the making. Moments after I took this shot, the skies let loose, throwing buckets of water earthward. I sat in the car and rode it out, grateful for the free carwash. The meadowlarks and other critters are not as fortunate, but they've ridden out such weather for eons. Storms such as this are but a minor inconvenience, and before its even a memory the meadowlark will be back to whistling.
↧

Once thought lost, rare orchid reappears in Ohio

May 31, 2015, 12:51 pm
$
0
0
Heart-leaved twayblade, Listera cordata

Once thought lost, rare orchid reappears in Ohio

COLUMBUS DISPATCH
May 31, 2015

NATURE
Jim McCormac

The orchid family is gargantuan, with an estimated 22,000 species. It is thought to be the second-largest flowering plant family, barely bested by the sunflower family.

Orchids reach their peak in tropical climates, which Ohio is decidedly not. The Buckeye State hosts a mere 46 native species (and one weedy non-native, the helleborine).

Most of our orchids are finicky specialists. Many species are wedded to rare habitats such as bogs, fens and wet prairies. Changes to the landscape after European settlement have not been kind to orchids (or most of our 1,800-plus species of native plants).

In total, 22 orchid species are listed as endangered, threatened or potentially threatened. Another four are considered extirpated, or locally extinct. Extirpated species occur elsewhere but have not been seen in Ohio for at least 20 years.

When an extirpated plant is rediscovered, it’s major news in the botanical world. Thus, May 26, 2013, was a big day for Lake Metroparks biologist John Pogacnik and son Shaun. They had bushwhacked deep into Ashtabula County’s Morgan Swamp, a wild land owned by the Nature Conservancy.

While exploring the swampy ground, overshadowed by towering hemlock and yellow birch, the Pogacniks noticed a tiny, unfamiliar plant.

They had stumbled into a colony of heart-leaved twayblade (Listera cordata). This miniscule orchid had been found only once before, in 1933, also in Ashtabula County. It was a holy grail plant for field botanists. Because of the find, the orchid moved from the extirpated to the endangered category.

One can literally traipse through a twayblade colony and miss the plants. A whopper might rise 4 inches above the shady forest floor. Many specimens are only an inch or two tall. The ornate flowers are charming upon close inspection but aren’t much bigger than a mosquito.

Orchids are notorious for their booms and busts. Last year, few twayblades appeared aboveground. This year, several hundred burst forth. Pogacnik took me to the site on May 17, and the plants were at the zenith of their glory.

Heart-leaved twayblade occurs in cool habitats throughout the upper reaches of the Northern Hemisphere. It was first described as Ophrys cordata by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1753.

In 1813, Scottish botanist Robert Brown placed it in the genus Listera, which he coined in honor of the great English naturalist Martin Lister. Not coincidentally, Brown helped pioneer the use of powerful microscopes. High magnification is necessary to see minute details of Listera blossoms.

Kudos to the Nature Conservancy for protecting Morgan Swamp. It is a crown jewel of Ohio natural areas and harbors many rare species. I’m sure the 1,400-acre forested wetland still holds secrets.

For more information on the Nature Conservancy in Ohio, visit www.nature.org/Ohio.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jim mccormac.blogspot.com.
↧
↧

Life mammal! A burly burrowing beast!

June 3, 2015, 9:45 pm
$
0
0
The gorgeous Ocqueoc Falls, just minutes from Nettie Bay Lodge in Presque Isle County, Michigan. These are the largest falls in the Lower Peninsula. I've been coming to Nettie Bay for six years now, to lead small groups of birders in search of, what else, birds. But we find much more, in scenery that often resembles the above in various ways, shapes, and forms. The botany is exceptional, including some neat orchids. Very interesting butterflies work the flowers, and dragonflies of many species abound. And the mammals! More on furbearers in a moment, as they are the primary topic of this post.

We haven't yet confirmed next year's dates, but they'll be at the latter end of May. The beauty of late May, for those of us from down south, is that we can relive spring migration again. Even in late May big scrums of migrant warblers and other songbirds can be encountered along Lake Huron, and on one magical day this year, we observed nearly 500 raptors moving northward along the shore of that Great Lake, nearly all of them Broad-winged Hawks. We keep the group size small - about ten people - so that everyone can pretty well see everything. The general arrangement is to arrive in the afternoon the first day, dinner followed by local birding, then three days of major action. The fifth and final day ends at noon, after spending the morning chasing down some more interesting birds that were perhaps missed, followed by a brunch before departure.

Mark and Jackie Schuler are proprietors of Nettie Bay Lodge and nicer people you'll not meet. As an exceptional bonus, Jackie is a topnotch gourmet chef, and you'll never eat better on an outing like this. Just ask anyone who has been. The lodge and its attendant cabins are hard on the shore of a large glacial lake that sports several pairs of nesting Common Loons, which are prone to delivering loud yodels on occasion throughout the night. No one complains.

If you're interested in coming next year, we'd love to have you. Just contact Jackie or Mark, RIGHT HERE.

Part of our group celebrates in the sunshine of a glorious technicolor northern Michigan morning. Why? Read on...

They had just had beautiful extended views of this animal, a Golden-winged Warbler. Actually, one like it - I found over a half dozen territorial males, and this bird, caught during a preening session, was one of the others. Golden-wings are major target birds for most people who come, and finding them isn't too tough.

Presque Isle County is awash with mammals, and few are more common than Chipmunks. Or more important - the striped chubby-cheeks are MAJOR dispersers of tree fruit and other seeds. In addition, we always see Muskrat, Beaver, Porcupine (usually, but always their dens), several species of squirrel, Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel (which is essentially a prairie dog), White-tailed Deer, and more.

But one mammal in particular has always eluded your narrator, both in my five previous years of Nettie Bay trips, and elsewhere. Soon after my inaugural visit to Presque Isle County, I noticed burrows like this. This part of Michigan is sand country, and the big burrows typically have large porches of excavated silica out front. I knew immediately what was making them, although a local deputy sheriff assured me that they were the handiwork of Red Fox. Ha! I knew better than that, and have spent many hours observing burrows that looked to be active. As the presumed occupants are mostly nocturnal, I even skulked about near burrows in the nighttime forest, hoping to see what for me was a beast approaching mythical status.

It's funny, sometimes, how one finally vanquishes a nemesis animal. Maybe, if it is some bird that you've always lusted for, it shows up at your backyard feeder. Or a desired butterfly alights on your arm, after years of failing to see one. In this case, the Glory Hallelujah moment took place in a 15-passenger van as it plodded down a backwoods sandy track. It was near day's end, and our group was tired, having met at 5:30 am and spent much of the day finding Kirtland's Warblers and other great stuff. We were headed back for one of Jackie's delicious dinners, when suddenly a SHOUT WENT UP!
 
Photo: Jenny Bowman

BADGER!!! Shouted Jenny Bowman and Sandy Brown in tandem, along with perhaps others. STOP! Was the next cry, from me. Mark notched the van into reverse, and eased backwards. There, big as life and peering curiously at our conveyance and the strange bipeds within was this big, beautiful badger!

We quickly settled down, and took full advantage of this rare opportunity to ogle a seldom-seen mammal. The den was only ten or so feet off the road, which is how they commonly are found up here.

But wait! It gets better...

Photo: Sandy Brown

A BABY BADGER!!! It wasn't but a few seconds or so and a smaller paler version of the big one pushed its way from the lair and stared at us. The youngster seemed curious indeed about us, but momma badger was having none of it. She seemed to attempt to prod it back down the hole, but the inquisitive youngster resisted for a bit, giving us brief but fantastic looks.

After perhaps a minute or two, the mother succeeded in herding junior down the hole, and then went subterranean herself.

Video: Jenny Bowman

Immediately after the adult Badger disappeared, large clouds of sand came flying out from the hole. At first, not knowing much of the ways of these beasts, I wondered why she would pick such a time to do further excavations to the den. Well, that's not what she was doing at all. Jenny's video above shows her sand-pitching activities.

I went back later that evening, towards dusk, with Mark, and we ever so silently approached the den. Only to quickly discover the reason for her sand-flinging. She was temporarily covering the burrow entrance, after apparently perceiving our presence as a threat. I went back the following day, and she had opened the hole back up and reshaped it to perfection.

Badgers, as we've seen, are efficient diggers and their primary prey are lesser animals such as ground squirrels, moles, mice, chipmunks etc. which they rapidly unearth from their burrows. Badgers are primarily western in distribution, with Michigan being near their eastern limits. For more about these fascinating mammals, GO HERE.

Thanks very much to Jenny Bowman and Sandy Brown for allowing me the use of their photos, and video. This was the one day in probably years that I DID NOT bring a camera along. I had been carting along the Canon 7D Mark II with the stellar new 100-400 lens bolted on, just in case anything major happened. But one can not - or at least should not - focus on photography when leading groups. And that morning dawned rainy, and only a week or so before I had been in the rain with my other camera and the moisture gummed it up a bit. So foolishly I was sans camera, figuring hey, what could happen if I didn't cart one along for one day. I'll long kick myself over the Badger shots that I would have had. But Jenny's and Sandy's are quite nice, and besides, the memory of this major mammalian moment will always be with me, and everyone else who was there.
↧

Common Mergansers on the rise

June 7, 2015, 9:02 pm
$
0
0
Photo: Bob Lane 

Bob Lane sent along some wonderful photos of a hen Common Merganser attending her large brood of chicks. Looks eleven of the little fuzzballs in all. The little ones stay closely huddled with the hen at this point, even hopping aboard her back for rides when possible. He observed the brood at Conneaut, Ohio, last Tuesday, June 2. They most likely nested along Conneaut Creek, where John Pogacnik and others have reported breeding Common Mergansers for a number of years.

This cavity-nesting duck nests along high quality streams buffered by healthy riparian forests. There is no question that this species is on the rise as a nester in Ohio, and adjacent states. Recovery of areas that were once largely denuded of forests is the likely reason for the duck's increase - they are probably recolonizing former breeding areas. West Virginia's breeding Common Merganser population has skyrocketed - I wrote about there RIGHT HERE - and Pennsylvania's population has also spiked enormously.

About a decade ago, Jim Dolan, along with Dan Justice, began to place nest boxes along Little Beaver Creek in Columbiana County. Their efforts quickly bore fruit, and boosted the nascent merganser population along that beautiful stream. More on that work HERE. Currently Common Mergansers are nesting along a half-dozen or so streams in eastern and northeastern Ohio, and not coincidentally these waterways rank high among our healthiest aquatic ecosystems. Robust riparian forests that protect the water quality of these streams is a common denominator.

Common Mergansers are a highly visible, charismatic indicator of healthy forests and waterways.

Photo: Bob Lane
↧
Search

Doug Tallamy speaks in Columbus, June 14

June 8, 2015, 7:03 pm
$
0
0
Doug Tallamy (left) and your blogger pose with some heavy artillery in Michigan's jack pine country back on May 30. Doug and his buddy John McIntyre came up for a few days prior to my Nettie Bay Lodge tour, and it was my pleasure to show them some of the wonders of northern Michigan.

Tallamy is quite the photographer, and if you can make his upcoming talk you'll be able to marvel over some of his handiwork. Doug will be at the Grange Insurance Audubon Center at 505 W. Whittier Street in Columbus next Sunday, June 14. The show starts at 7 pm, and you won't want to miss it. Read Doug's recent op-ed in the New York Times RIGHT HERE.

This is Doug's magnum opus, and it is a work of genius. He clearly, logically, and simply puts forth the role that native flora play in the landscape, and how the homeowner can utilize native plants effectively. Most of our native insects are intimately tied to native plants, and those bugs go on to provide fuel for higher beasts such as birds. I imagine that they'll have Bringing Nature Home available at the presentation, but CLICK HERE for another option.

I've heard Doug speak on numerous occasions and it is ALWAYS a treat. In my view, he is one of the top speakers on the natural history circuit, anywhere. I would HIGHLY recommend this program.

CLICK HERE for the details.
↧

Nest boxes helping slow decline of state's kestrels

June 14, 2015, 7:32 pm
$
0
0
Photo courtesy Bernard Master

COLUMBUS DISPATCH
June 14, 2015

NATURE
Jim McCormac

Nest boxes helping slow decline of state's kestrels

On March 17, 2013, The Dispatch ran a story describing the initiation of an American kestrel nest-box trail.

The kestrel, our smallest falcon, requires cavities for nest sites, and suitable homes have become scarce for the charismatic birds.

In 2012, 25 boxes were placed on road signs along state highways in Crawford and Wyandot counties — a region that’s part of the Sandusky Plains prairie, whose wide roadside verges and large adjacent meadows create abundant hunting habitat for the falcons.

The results of the inaugural season were encouraging: Eight kestrel chicks were fledged in 2013.
Before spring 2014, 16 more boxes were added for a total of 41 kestrel condos. The number of fledged kestrels almost tripled last year, with 22 birds produced.

Road construction has deterred some nesting this year, but 13 chicks have been produced, with eggs still to hatch in two other nests.

American kestrel populations in eastern North America have plummeted by almost half during the past 50 years.

In Ohio, kestrels have declined by more than
40 percent since 1990. The earliest reporters, such as Lawrence Hicks in 1935, said there were more kestrels than all other raptors combined.

Kestrels might be only the size of a blue jay, but they’re death for mice and large grasshoppers. They often hunt from telephone wires, scanning the ground for prey. Sometimes they’ll “wind kite,” hovering as if tethered to a string.

Several factors — including reduced habitat because of large-scale landscape changes and decreases in prey because of pesticides — probably have contributed to the kestrel declines.
Populations of larger Cooper’s hawks have hurt, too: They’re known to prey on kestrels. Kestrels must also vie with starlings for cavities.

A reduction in cavity nest sites might be the biggest pinch point, but kestrels take readily to man-made boxes.

Amanda Duren of the Ohio Bird Conservation Initiative spearheaded the kestrel nest-box trail with support from the Ohio Division of Wildlife, the American Kestrel Partnership and the Ohio Ornithological Society.

Charlie Zepp of Dublin built most of the original boxes, and students at the University of Findlay and volunteers with the Crawford County Park District are monitoring the nests.

Most importantly, Matt Perlik and Matt Raymond — biologists from the Ohio Department of Transportation — embraced the kestrel project, paving the way for the placement of nest boxes.

With luck, the Ohio Kestrel Partnership will keep the little falcons a part of the roadside scenery for a long time.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch at least twice a month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.
↧
↧

Mothapalooza III concludes, and it was grand!

June 18, 2015, 9:05 pm
$
0
0
A giant banner strung across the entryway to the Shawnee State Park lodge in southern Ohio proclaims the arrival of Mothapalooza. It may also have scared off the non-moth'ers, or at least made them stare in befuddled wonderment, pondering whether they should enter the building.

Mothapalooza is, insofar as we know, the largest and most complex event that celebrates the diversity and ornate complexity of the world of moths. A few of us hatched this scheme about four years ago, and we held Mothapalooza I in 2013. It, to our absolute amazement, drew about 140 attendees, plus a whole host of invited experts and guides. Mothapalooza II, held last year at Burr Oak State Park, was also a similar-sized sellout. Last weekend saw Mothapalooza back at Shawnee, and in total there were about 175 people.

I think moth'ers from about eleven states were present. I can think of these offhand: Ohio, New York, Indiana, Missouri, Texas (yes, Texas!), Kentucky, West Virginia, Delaware, Connecticut, Illinois, Pennsylvania and I'm sure I'm forgetting some. The common denominator was an interest - for many, a passion! - for the fluttery crowd. Mothapalooza's popularity is clear evidence of the interest in wildlife diversity, even forms of wildlife that are generally not thought of as drawing crowds. We, the organizers, are pleased by the local economic stimulus that such an event provides. We booked the entire resort for this - all rooms, all cabins, everything - and filled it. Many rooms were booked in nearby Portsmouth as well, to accommodate overflow. We rented lots of vehicles to shuttle participant's to field trip sites as well. We didn't attempt to track economic input from this weekend-long event but it certainly was into the tens of thousands of $$$.

The moth crowd packs the lodge's back patio for the Saturday evening dinner. The logistics of organizing such an affair so that it runs smoothly is a ton of work. The Mothapalooza team included about 40 volunteers who orchestrated everything from transportation to vendors to field trips to speakers to lots of other things. Acting, quite ably I might add, as Mothapalooza CEO for the third year was Mary Ann Barnett. What great work she does, and anyone who has been involved in a large complex conference knows the skill set that is necessary to bring something like this off without hitches.

I want to thank everyone who played any sort of role in helping. I hesitate to name names, as I'm certain to forget key people, as there are so many. But I will mention a few. Our Mothapalooza planning committee was Olivia Kittle, Judy Ganance, Elisabeth Rothschild, John Howard, Diane Brooks, Scott Hogsten. the aforementioned Mary Ann and myself. Most of us have been through the entire suite of Mothapaloozas and it's a great team. Thanks to everyone of them, and the crew of other volunteers who make Mothapalooza possible.

I especially wish to thank our sponsors, and foremost among them was the Ohio Division of Wildlife. The DOW is certainly one of the leading natural resources agencies in the country when it comes to supporting wildlife diversity in all of its varied forms. CLICK HERE to see proof of this. The other formal sponsors included the Cedar Bog Association, Crane Hollow Preserve, The Wild Ones, Ohio Lepidopterists, Midwest Native Plant Conference, National Wildlife Federation, Flora-Quest, National Moth Week, Ohio Prairie Nursery, and Monarch Pathways. The Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy offered much support as did the Cincinnati Museum. They jointly own and manage the Edge of Appalachia Preserve, which played a big part in our field trip sites.

Our Mothapalooza field trips are rather strange. Maybe not so much the Saturday daytime trips, one of which is shown above. The gentleman in the center, pointing with cap on, is none other than Dr. David Wagner, legendary entomologist at the University of Connecticut and author of the Caterpillars of Eastern North America. Dave's been to all of the Mothapaloozas and his presence greatly improves the event. This year, we had another piece of heavy artillery in the form of Dr. Douglas Tallamy of the University of Delaware. Doug is very well known in large part because of his ground-breaking book Bringing Nature Home. What a treat is was to have Dave and Doug as the evening keynote speakers.

The Shawnee State Forest and nearby Edge of Appalachia Preserve is a region lush in diversity of flora and fauna. We found lots of it. Eight or so trips radiated out through the region, visiting all manner of habitats and locating scores of interesting things. But these daytime trips did not commence until 10 am - quite tardy indeed for veteran explorers of nature! But we had a good excuse for sleeping in. Our nocturnal mothing forays did not begin until nearly 10 pm, and most people did not return from those until 2 or 3 am, with some fanatics staying out later than that!

Mothapalooza raises funds to give back to nature, usually to a group such as The Nature Conservancy. We want to support land acquisition, which is one of the highest and greatest things that anyone interested in the environment can help with. But this year, we deviated from that mission and instead gave $5000.00 to the newly established Dennis Profant Scholarship Fund, administered by Hocking College. Dennis was a topnotch biologist, a bona fide moth authority, and big supporter of Mothapalooza. His passing last April was tragic and far too soon. I wrote about Dennis RIGHT HERE.

We also funded three outstanding young luminaries in the field of natural history to attend Mothapalooza. Your narrator and Mary Ann Barnett bookend (from left) Candice Talbot from Ontario, Canada; Alexandra Forsythe from Indiana; and Jacob Gorneau from New York. All are brilliant, passionate, and totally committed to natural history, and we hope to have a long relationship with each. If only they could be cloned and spread about the world.

The primary field trips took place under cover of darkness. We are fortunate to have of the greatest lepidopteran experts in the area working with us, and setting up lighted moth sheets far and wide. Mothing stations were scattered around Shawnee, and several were near the Eulett Center at the Edge of Appalachia Preserve.


Mid-June is a spectacular time for moth abundance and diversity and we hit it out of the park this weekend. Or I should say, the moths did. Incredible numbers came to most mothing stations; so many in fact that moths were landing on any available surface near the sphere of lights, including wires, trees, tripods, and people.
 

This short video, taken with the I-Phone's cool slo-mo video feature, offers a glimpse into the action around a moth-packed sheet. By sheer luck, a moth flies into the camera's field and across the video as I panned, creating a strange effect.
 
Becky Dennis poses with two of the giant silkmoths, a Luna on the left, and a Polyphemus on the right. The big silkmoths are always crowd-pleasers and we had lots of them this year, of a dozen or so species. Tons of sphinx moths as well, and scores of other exotic insects.
 
In my next post, I'll share some of the cool creatures that we ran across during Mothapalooza III.
 
↧

Some Mothapalooza highlights, Part 1

June 20, 2015, 6:49 pm
$
0
0
The Tuliptree Silkmoth, Callosamia angulifera, is an impressive beast indeed, and attendees of the recent Mothapalooza conference saw many of them. And scores of other moths, of a great many species. As nearly all of the 175 or so conferees were armed with cameras, the total number of photos taken over the weekend was stupefying. I managed to click off a number of shots as well, and will share some of the mothian highlights in the next post. But for now, a pictorial recap of a few non-moth critters that were encountered.

Butterfly milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa, bustles with Spicebush Swallowtails and Great Spangled Fritillaries. If you want a gorgeous plant that is highly attractive to the fluttery crowd, this is it. Butterfly milkweed was nearing peak bloom during Mothapalooza, and a number of the daytime field trips made a point of loitering near the plants and tallying lots of butterflies.

Banded Hairstreaks, Satyrium calanus, were out in good numbers. Hairstreaks are thumbnail-sized bits of lepidpoteran magic, and sightings are highly coveted by butterfliers. This one was smitten with the turquoise shirt of a field tripper. Normally I prefer shooting subjects on natural substrates, but was struck by the color montage of the butterfly, the shirt, and the clear blue sky in the backdrop.

Candice Talbot, a moth expert from Canada and one of our field station leaders, really wanted to see a black widow spider. It didn't take me long to find one for her. This is a female Northern Black Widow, Latrodectus variolus, guarding her egg case. It is a stunningly beautiful spider, and despite the widows' fearsome reputation, they have always struck me as retiring and passive.

The ponds scattered throughout Shawnee State Forest typically have marshy verges and aquatic plants in the shallows, and can teem with damselflies and dragonflies. This is one of the tiniest of that crowd: A female Fragile Forktail, Ischnura posita. They are easily overlooked as they flutter through sedges and grasses, picking truly Lilliputian prey from the foliage. This one has captured a nymph of some sort of planthopper. The victim is so small that it couldn't be recognized at all with the naked eye.

We all kept a sharp eye out for the larval stages of moths (and butterflies), the caterpillars. This extraordinary animal is an Eight-spotted Forester, Alypia octomaculata. It is one of many insects that requires plants in the grape family for nutrition. If all goes well, this caterpillar will become a showy black and white moth.

Caterpillars face legions of enemies, few of them fiercer than this large beetle, the Fiery Searcher, Calosoma scrutator. These largely nocturnal beetles are large and speedy, and race about the trees seeking caterpillar victims, and other lesser insects. We had quite a few visit the mothing sheets, which is a double-edged sword. On the plus side, they are beautiful and not often seen. To the negative end, they sometimes eat the interesting moths lured to the sheet. At one point, a Fiery Searcher invaded one of our sheets, and unerringly navigated towards a moth known as a sack-bearer, the only one on the sheet and one of few seen during Mothapalooza. It then quickly made mincemeat of the sack-bearer.

I'll devote the next post to moths, and only moths, that were observed during Mothapalooza.
↧

Some more Mothapalooza highlights

June 21, 2015, 6:54 pm
$
0
0
A Rosy Maple Moth, Dryocampa rubicunda, glares menacingly at your blogger. Well, as menacingly as a pink and yellow animal can manage.

Our extreme mothing efforts at the recent Mothapalooza conference paid great dividends. Scads of species great and small were seen, and in most cases, photographed. I'll share a smattering of my efforts here.

By the way, dates have been confirmed for Mothapalooza IV. The conference will be back at Shawnee State Park Lodge, August 5 thru 7, 2016. The later date will provide a somewhat different cast of moth characters, and the crop of caterpillars will be much advanced. You won't want to miss it. The link to the Mothapalooza website is RIGHT HERE.

This is one of our largest moths, the Royal Walnut Moth, Citheronia regalis. Its larva IS the biggest caterpillar, the fabled Hickory Horned Devil, which is nearly the size of a small hotdog. I have written about them HERE, and HERE.

The giant silkmoths, such as this, always elicit oohs and aahs. But cool as the jumbo silks are, one soon learns that many of the smaller - often MUCH smaller - moths best them in ornateness.

An extravagant animal indeed, and its beauty is reflected in the name: Glorious Hybrosyne, Habrosyne gloriosa. One never seems to see many of these, but a few made their way to our sheets, generating lots of excitement.

This one looks like an artist took a pen to its wings, and drew crazy op art. It's a Zebra Conchylodes, Conchylodes ovulalis. The subjects of this photo and the last were shot in situ; on the white illuminated sheets to which they were drawn. I refer to such backdrops as "white sheets of death" when it comes to making photographs, and only fire off shots under such conditions when I don't think there's any other way I'll get an image. In my view, it's impossible to get a really stunning photo on such substrates.

We have discovered a nearly infallible rule to handling moths. If they're small and/or smooth, you cannot manipulate them. Touch one like this and its off like a rocket. However, the fuzzier and/or larger the moth, the easier they are to handle and move to better backdrops. Most of the following images' subjects were placed on nearby objects that provided for a much better image than a brightly lit white sheet.

This little moth is truly fuzzy, as is its caterpillar. It's a Black-waved Flannel Moth, Lagoa crispata. Thelarva looks a bit like a turtle covered in brown shag carpet, and it can deliver a punishing sting via sting hairs.

From a photographer's perspective, moths are fun to explore from different angles. Certain ones, such as this, lend themselves well to head-on views. Black-waved Flannels, like so many of the exceptionally fuzzy species, are usually quite easy to handle and move around.

This Eastern Tent Caterpillar Moth, Malacosoma americanum, looks a bit like a charging bighorn sheep. In its larval stage, this moth is much derided. They're the caterpillars that form the large conspicuous silken nests on cherry trees in the spring.

A Rose Hooktip, Oreta rosea, stunning in colors of lemon and peach. Their caterpillars feed on native viburnums such as Arrowwood, Viburnum dentatum.

Ah! A personal favorite, and a stellar bark mimic if there ever was one (and there are lots)! It's a Common Lytrosis, Lytrosis unitaria, and it looks as if it was artfully carved from wood.

Here we have camouflage taken to the ultimate. The sneakiest turkey hunter clad in the best ghillie suit couldn't hope to match this. It is a White-blotched Heterocampa, Heterocampa umbrata, and even though the moth fills the frame and the image is tack sharp, it is tough to see. Such cryptic coloration and patterning serves these moths well as they hide from birds and other predators during the day.

One that was new to me, the Small Necklace Moth, Hypsoropha hormos. With some 2,500 moth species in Ohio, bagging lifers isn't too hard for most of us. Its caterpillar nosh on persimmon and sassafras.

I had to violate my "white sheet of death" rule to make this image of a moth known as The Chevron, Eulithis testata. Being small and smooth, we would have had little chance of successfully relocating it. However, by getting my camera near the sheet and shooting sideways at the moth's level, it mitigated some of the sheet glare. Note how the moth holds its abdomen arched up and over its head. That's probably disruptive camouflage, helping it to blend in with the twigs and branches it probably hides on during the day.

Many of us reminisced on good memories afield with Dennis Profant whenever we saw slug moths, which were probably his favorite group of Lepidopterans. This one is a Spiny Oak Slug Moth, Euclea delphinii. Its caterpillar is incredible. CLICK HERE for a post that I made on slug moth caterpillars, which includes an image of this species' caterpillar.

Finally, the strange little Yellow-shouldered Slug Moth, Lithacodes fasciola. It and most of its slug moth ilk are small enough to be overlooked among the comparative giants of the moth world. But one of the great pleasures of mothing is learning to pay close attention to the little guys, which often are the showiest animals on the sheet.

Put Mothapalooza on your calendar for next year. If you like natural history in all its varied forms, you'll like Mothapalooza.
↧
Viewing all 1336 articles
Browse latest View live
Search