Ohio Birds and Biodiversity

Last Sunday, I headed off to Shawnee State Forest in southern Ohio to do some major exploring, and photography. This was a solo trip, which is a nice thing to do on occasion, as I can click off serious volleys with the camera without irking anyone.

As always happens on such forays, I found plenty of interest - more material than I'll ever get around to blogging, probably. But there were a few serendipitous standout finds, and the one that follows was the King of Finds on this day.

ALERT: This post does involve a spider, for you arachnophobes. But please, have no fear and read on anyway. Pictures don't bite, and this beast, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is one of the coolest looking spiders out there.

The Jetta perches at the entrance to a closed forest road deep within Shawnee. Quick sidebar on the car. This is the second Volkswagen Jetta TDI that I've had, and I want to briefly trumpet the virtues of this vehicle, especially as I suspect many people who read this blog are serious travelers. The TDI Jetta is diesel-powered, and gets phenomenal mileage. On this trip, which is about 100 miles one way, I averaged about 48 miles per gallon. Plus, the car runs at least as clean as a regular gasoline-powered vehicle, has oodles of torque, handles like a sports car, and is full of cool gimickry. Something to consider next time you're car shopping.

Anyway, our story unfolds on the steep bank just behind the car, and just past that yellow gate. I was wandering up the road, and right away saw a Bird's-foot Violet, Viola pedata, in flower. This most beautiful of our violets is running late this spring, and it was the only one that I saw in flower this day. I walked to the plant, and leaned down to clear some grasses from the field of view before making a photo. Just then, a medium-sized beetle buzzed by, and promptly became ensnared in a tangled jumble of spider webbing. I was sort of absently wondering whether the webmaster might be home, as I continued paying the violet some mind.

Suddenly - WOW! Out from the grasses, just a few feet away, waltzed a gorgeous Northern Black Widow, Latrodectes variolus. Needless to say, Viola pedata was quickly forgotten and I focused my attention - and camera - on this seldom seen animal.

The widow was just as cool as you'd ever hope to be. She didn't run wildly to the hapless victim, as some lesser spiders would. She just sort of strutted through the cobwebbing in her own sweet time, while I thanked my lucky stars that such a treat would land right in my lap.

Once she reached the beetle (at least I think it's a beetle; I don't recognize the species), Ms. Widow began the process of binding it with silken strands. By this time, the bug had ceased any struggles; in fact, it quit writhing about before the spider even arrived on the scene. I suspect it had a heart attack when it realized its fate.

By now, I had gingerly worked myself into a prostrate position only a few feet away, and the spider paid me no mind. Fortunately, the Canon already had the 100 mm macro lens bolted on, so I was good to go. In this shot, we're looking at the ventral side (bottom) of the spider. Note that the classic "hourglass" red markings are broken, or disconnected. Our other species, the Southern Black Widow, Latrodectes mactans, has the red markings connected and constricted in the center, and they really do form an hourglass shape. CLICK HERE to see photos of a Southern Black Widow that I encountered a few years back.

In general, these are apparently rather locally distributed spiders in Ohio, and largely confined to the southernmost reaches of the state. Widows probably are not particularly rare, but they're shy and retiring, and often hide in nooks and crannies where they won't be seen.

In this shot, we can see silken strands playing out from her spinnerets. Just aft of the spinnerets is a bright red dash that runs up her back, and the broken hourglass is in front of the spinnerets. Northern Black Widows are apparently often ornamented with red markings on the upper surface, while Southerns rarely are.

By now, she's got a fair bit of webbing around the victim, which is well on its way to mummification. I've said it before and I'll say it now: DO NOT return as an insect. Your fate is not likely to be a pleasant one.

Spiders are incredibly cool, and certainly must rank high among the world's most coordinated animals. Widows make an insensible and sometimes fairly extensive tangle web with no rhyme or reason to it. Yet the spider deftly navigates the webbing - which it laid down of course - while all other comers, if small enough, are quickly stuck fast. Getting up close, like we are in these shots, allows one to really watch the hyper-coordinated finesse with which the spider unravels silk from its spinnerets and routes it into position by using the tips of any of its eight legs.

Finally, after she felt her prey was adequately wrapped, the black widow tugged it through the webbing and to the mouth of her lair, which is that opening just behind her and to the right. She was hiding in there when the beetle hit the web, and its struggles spurred her to action. I happened to glance down just in time to see her emerge from her den, and that started this sequence of observations.

I am a firm believer in never killing something just because it scares you, or you think it somehow unworthy. Even black widows have their place, and they are a fascinating part of our biodiversity. But I'm always flopping to the ground to take photos or study something, and this encounter reminded me to take a more careful look before I go prostrate.

An exceptionally serendipitous mammalian find came my way today, in an unlikely place. I had to visit the heart of the sprawling campus of Ohio State University, to speak to Angelika Nelson's ornithology class at Jennings Hall. That was fun, and I got to pontificate about wood-warblers - thanks for having me, Angelika!

On the short walk back to the parking garage following the lecture, a very interesting animal turned up and caused an unexpected delay in my schedule.

I had turned the corner behind Jennings Hall, and was walking towards the parking garage, when I spotted an out-of-place blotch on the building in the foreground. We're looking west down 12th Avenue, and that's part of the OSU medical complex on the left. The parking garage where my car was entombed was just down this street.

Anyway, look closely at the second whitish cement rectangle from the ground on the building in the foreground. To me, it stuck out like a sore thumb, and I knew what I was in for.

A bat! And upon arrival it revealed itself to be an Eastern Red Bat, Lasiurus borealis! This was a fortuitous meeting indeed! All I had on me was my Droid, and I starting clicking off photos with that when it dawned on me that I had the Canon locked in the trunk of my car, not far away.

A minor dilemma ensued, as I was off to west campus next, to meet with Erin, Matt, and Paul - the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas team. I had said I would be over there at 1 pm, and this darned bat was going to throw a wrench in that timing as it'd take a while to go get my gear, return, and make some images.

After a nanosecond of deliberation, it dawned on me that the soon-to-be late meeting was with a bunch of biologists, and who better would understand my excuse for being tardy?! So it was back to the car and the camera was toted back to the bat, who now can appear on the Internet.

Eastern Red Bats are highly migratory, and this one is on its way to points north. They normally don't select such stark surroundings as a roosting spot, and I wished that the animal had done a better job of secreting itself. It was only about seven feet off the ground, and stuck out like a sort thumb against the barren concrete. But with luck, it'll soon be on its way and far from the urban concrete jungle.

Red bats normally hide amongst leaf clusters, such as the long persistent dead brown leaves of American Beech trees. When dangling from a branch, surrounded by old leaves, a red bat is nearly impossible to spot. They are consummate leaf mimics when in repose.

Note the animal's gorgeous burnt-orange pelage, tinted hoary with frosted hair tips. A striking bat indeed. I don't have much experience photographing bats - after all, one doesn't often encounter them, or at least I don't. The relatively few opportunities that I have come across bats in photographable situations, I've found them to be challenging subjects. Bats are just very good at tucking up into an amorphous furry ball, and it can be hard to tell what they are sometimes.

The wrists of the wings are armed with long thumbs tipped with claws, and these, along with the bat's hind toe claws, allow it to effortlessly grip vertical substrates for long periods of time. And my, what big ears she/he has! Its echolocation gear is located in there and the large ears help to gather and concentrate audio feedback. Woe the the moth that gets locked onto a bat's sonar system.

Cute, or no? The former, in my opinion. Bats are without doubt one of our most interesting and valuable groups of mammals, and it was a great - and unexpected - treat to make the aquaintance of this fine looking red bat today. And Erin, Matt, and Paul - sorry for running late, but here's the culprit.

The timing of my trip into Shawnee State Forest last weekend was perfect for catching the short-lived eruption of breeding Mountain Chorus Frogs, Pseudacris brachyphona. This species is far more limited in its distribution in Ohio than is the more familiar Western Chorus Frog, P. triseriata, which occurs nearly statewide. The latter makes a characteristic grating rasp, often said to resemble the sound of a fingernail run down the teeth of a comb.

Mountain Chorus Frogs make more of a short bleating trill - faster and higher-pitched than the Westerns. They also occur in heavily wooded areas and are limited to the unglaciated hill country of southeastern Ohio. I've never heard Mountains and Westerns together, and doubt that their paths would typically cross given the differences in habitat.

The above photo shows a typical Mountain Chorus Frog breeding pond. These frogs are prone to selecting tiny ephemeral pools, often little more than water-filled tire ruts in some cases.

As I cruised the forest roads within Shawnee, the nasal bleating of chorus frogs was a routine part of the soundscape, and finally I had to stop and try and run some down. I caught up with a number of frogs in a tiny puddle, and at the expense of some wet and muddy knees, was able to procure some images. In this image and the following, the mating pair of frogs are about six inches under the water, which was crystal clear.

Like most other frog species, when a large human blunders near the mating pool, all of the frogs go silent and dive into the muck. With a little still and quiet patience, they'll soon pop back out and commence activities. This pair was so enthralled with one another that they never even hid, and I was able to sneak quite close without alarming them. The male (top, obviously) is locked in amplexus with the reddish-brown larger female. Note the length of her toe!

Other frogs in this pool had already mated, and freshly deposited eggs can be seen to the left of the frogs. In short order the egg clusters will expand into large gelatinous masses, and before long the pool will swarm with tiny tadpoles. I suspect that Mountain Chorus Frog tadpoles mature quickly, as many of their breeding pools dry up within a month or so after breeding season.

A massive front rolls through, just after dawn this morning at Glacier Ridge Metropark in northwestern Franklin County, Ohio. It was a wintry mid-30's and light snow when I hopped in my car just before daybreak to go check a few local patches. The day broke blue and beautiful once the storm passed, but temps never rose above the mid-40's. Just a few days ago, temperatures were in the 70's and 80's. Such yo-yo weather is typical of Ohio in spring.

A bit of cold and snow didn't deter this freshly arrived House Wren. He probably just got in yesterday or the day before, and is busily proclaiming his turf. From here through May, almost every day will bring a new buffet of neotropical migrants, and migration will reach a crescendo in the first and second week of May. Dust off your binoculars, and get out there!

Well, well - rejoice! Another "Earth Day" has fallen upon us like a crashing meteor of discarded plastics, and... Wait! I promise not to express cynicism about this day, and all of the environmental posturing that ensues, like I did HERE.

Just remember, every day is Earth Day on this here blog!

While traveling down U.S. Route 52 in southern Ohio during yesterday's epic field trip into the hill country, I was nearly struck dumb by a field of purple. I had to wheel the car around, and visit this spectacularly colorful meadow! It's not that the brightly hued plants were a mystery in need of solving - I knew their identity at 60 mph with a fraction of a glance.

Our botanical protagonist is the lovely Common Blue Violet, Viola sororia. This is the same species that comes up in your yard, too, although probably not in these numbers. The violet is more native here than you or I, and in this case is easily holding its own against the VERY nonnative turf grass. Go, violets!

It was the scope and scale of this violet-covered field that made me detour off the road for an inspection. There were several acres of the plants, and I utterly fail to see how anyone could pass by this scene and not briefly fall into a contemplative revery over the lush lavender-misted meadow.

Your blogger is man enough to lay in a field of flowers. One of the basic rules of nature photography is to try and become one with your subject, and that often means dropping to the ground. I took scores of photos; the potential setups were endless!

This is what the field looks like from the perspective of a native pollinating insect, and many of them were roaming the violet patch.

I will admit to a bias. I generally despise turf grass. We've probably planted,collectively, an area the size of New Jersey of the stuff in this country. For legions of guys, their primary hobby seems to be mowing grass, often into opposing cross-hatched rows. If a purple blotch of a violet, or day-glo yellow dandelion or any other chlorophyll-bearing "alien" dares surface, they are promptly nuked with some of Scott's finest chemical agents of botanical warfare.

Why and how we've developed a turf grass metality is beyond me. The ideal in this grassy world is to create a yard that resembles the emerald felt of a pool table. Then, lurk along its edges just waiting for any other type of plant to surface. When one does, the indignant homeowner runs out and bayonets it with a ramrod full of toxins.

But why? To my eye, the violets in these photos are one million (to the 3rd power) more interesting than a flawless monoculture of grass. I think that most people, at least subconciously, feel the same. If this four acre field were perfectly manicured green grass, I doubt if it would elicit even a comment from the numerous passersby. However, filled with violets as it is, I am sure that I am not the only one that reacts favorably, and I'd bet two irises and a wood betony that others have u-turned and whipped out the camera.

An ornately patterned Meadow Fritillary, of which several were coursing over the violet field. Why? Because their host plants are (drumroll...)... violets! The "frits" that landed themselves in this meadow were like kids in a candy shop. They probably hardly knew where to turn, so overwhelming was the density of the violets that they require to lay eggs upon, and that their caterpillars must chew to grow and morph into these stunning butterflies.

Abutting the colorful meadow was a large lawn, and a quite typical one at that. The landowner has been diligent about purging any and all invaders from his neat turf grass. But if he/she is the one that permitted the adjacent field to run wild with violets, an Earth Day medal to him, I say!

This photo shows, with striking clarity, a very simple change that anyone with a yard can make to truly help the environment. Banish the turf grass mentality, and allow some diversity to creep into the yardscape. Better yet, plow up a good chunk of grass and plant it to native plants. The choices are myriad, and nearly all of our native plants are a million times (to the 3rd power) more beneficial than the nonnative stuff.

In fact, to help get the native plant message across, we started the Midwest Native Plant Conference back in 2009. This year's event will be held on the weekend of July 26, 27 & 28 in Dayton, Ohio. You'll find it to be a treasure trove of information about native plants and the good that they do, courtesy of a fine lineup of expert speakers. Keynoting the 2013 conference is Mr. Native Plant himself, Dr. Doug Tallamy. His book, Bringing Nature Home, has done as much as anything to open people's eyes to the value of conserving and encouraging native plants.

The complete scoop on the Midwest Native Plant Conference is RIGHT HERE. I hope you can make it. We have a blast, and even have some awesome field trips where you can see lots of cool native plants (and animals) with your own eyes. CLICK HERE for registration info.

The tranquil, forest buffered waters of one of several small lakes within Shawnee State Forest. This lake, and the others, plays host to scores of one of our most interesting salamanders. I visited this site last Sunday with John Howard and Mary Ann Barnett and we, quite naturally, spent some time working with these animals, and documenting them on our pixel-making machines.

A Red-spotted Newt, Notophthalmus viridescens, poses nicely on a log (with a little direction from the paparazzi). This animal is probably at least three years old, and could be much older than that. Newts operate in quite the opposite way of most salamanders, which are strictly aquatic when immature, and become landlubbers when adulthood is attained.

In their juvenile stage, which can last several years, Red-spotted Newts look very different than this, and are known as Red Efts. You can see photos and read about efts RIGHT HERE. When the brightly colored eft matures and transforms to an adult newt, it slips into the drink and becomes nearly as aquatic as a fish, as we shall see. On occasion, adult newts make short peregrinations from their pond during wet weather, as this one had done, but for the most part they remain in deep permanent water.

In addition to the red spots on the dorsal (upper) surface, newts are sparsely polka-dotted with black stippling below. In the looks department, these are probably not our flashiest salamander, but newts do have a certain charm to them.

An adult Red-spotted Newt is far more at home in the water than on land (or posed on logs). In this photo, we're peering through a foot or so of water to the bottom of the aforementioned pond. Three newts are visible floating in the water column, and there were far more than this. In just a short stroll along a small part of the shoreline, we must have seen 50 or so. Newts swim like fish, and the rudderlike laterally compressed tail - reminiscent of a muskrat tail - provides efficient propulsion.

Newts can operate with relative impunity in waters such as this, without fear of being preyed upon by voracious fish such as bass or bluegill. Their immunity stems from a toxic chemical defense system. Red-spotted Newts are infused with tetrodotoxin (TTX), which is the same stuff that would have you regretting (briefly) wolfing down a poisonous puffer fish. Apart from a suite of marine animals such as puffer fish, the only other group of animals known to carry TTX are amphibians. About 28 species in 10 genera - frogs, toads, salamanders - have been found to harbor TTX, and to date no antidote has been discovered to combat TTX poisoning. So, please avoid swallowing newts and their attendant neurotoxins. To do so would bring on severe muscular paralysis, and possible death, and neither of those things makes for a good field trip.

We discovered this pair of amorous newts entertwined in the shallows of the pond. It is breeding season for the newts, and the smaller male (presumably the male) has climbed atop the female and has her firmly in his grasp. The females apparently select their mate, and the chosen male will deposit a sperm packet (spermatophore) on the bottom of the pond. Mrs. Newt will then uptake the sperm via her cloaca, and later drop her fertilized eggs.

Newts don't become sexually mature until three years of age, and once adulthood is reached and they're in the breeding ponds, they can probably live a long life. It's possible that newts can live for ten or twenty years, maybe even longer.

I seldom ignore the wildflowers. They, in all of their colorful, ephemeral glory, usher in spring like no others. Following is a brief sampling of shots taken on recent expeditions. In the interest of time, or lack thereof, I shall just offer brief captions, and you may make what you will of them.

An elfin hummock of Bluets, Houstonia caerulea, brightens a rough embankment.

A Sessile Trillium, Trillium sessile, ekes out space on a rich hillside carpeted with other wildflowers. This plant is sometimes known as "Toadshade".

The pale lavender blooms of Long-spurred Violets, Viola rostrata, are adorned with baseball bat-like extensions. Look for them along streams and lush wooded terraces.

A tsunami of Pussy-toes, Anennaria plantaginifolia, washes down a barren slope. Later, beautiful American Lady butterflies may lay their eggs on the foliage.

Without doubt, one of the showiest woodland wildflowers is the Greek Valerian, Polemonium reptans. This is the variety villosum, which was named by Ohio botanist Lucy Braun.

A meadow dappled with brilliant scarlet Indian-paintbrush, Castilleja coccinea, is an almost shocking spectacle. It is the bracts (modified leaves) that are colored orange, not the flowers. The latter are inconspicuous and green.

Tearing goofily around the woods in pursuit of small butterflies hardly seems to be an activity befitting grown men. But sometimes I can't help myself, and succumb to the allure of charming little animals such as the Falcate Orangetip, Anthocharis midea.

There! See? An orangetip rests on the oak leaf litter, right in the middle of the photograph. Such a view is typical of this species. Sharp-eyed and leery, the orangetips are quick to take wing when approached, and in the blink of an eye will be hundreds of feet away.

Ah! We crop our way in to the little beast, and can now admire the fabulous coloration of this male. The orange-yellow wing tips are diagnostic - quite unlike any of our other butterflies. Falcate Orangetips are tiny little insects, noticeably smaller than the familiar Cabbage White of towns, gardens and nearly everywhere open. Unlike Cabbage Whites, the orangetips are very much butterflies of the forest, seldom straying far from the cover of timber. They fly but for a brief time in April and May, so if you want to see one you'd better get afield soon.

Falcate Orangetips are a southerner, and best sought in the hill country of southern and eastern Ohio. I made these images in Shawnee State Forest where they are plentiful. An essential ingredient in the ecological orangetip recipe is mustards. Like many other species in the White family of butterflies, the orangetips must have mustards to deposit their eggs upon, which the caterpillars will fatten up on. A favored host plant seems to be Smooth Rock Cress, Arabis laevigata, but they will use the more plentiful toothworts as well.

Anyway, these little rascals can be devilishly hard to run down. The males never seem to stop. They have work to do, females to find. Their visits to flowers for nectar are usually quite brief, and as soon as you train the camera on one, it's gone, off to the next flower. A photographer trying to image a Falcate Orangetip is often like a puppet on a string, led in jerky erratic fits and spurts around the forest by tiny bit of gossamer-winged butterfly. An observer would think the photog to be a drunken lunatic, if they didn't know the score.

But even Falcate Orangetips must take a break and this one finally did. An orangetip in repose tightly appresses its wings over its body, and becomes one with the leaf litter. By slipping to the ground, and scootching along on my belly, I was able to get right on top of the animal, and capture the best images that I've made to date of one of these little stunners.

A stunning male Luna moth, Actias luna, rests on a wall near the New River in Fayetteville, West Virginia, early this morning.

I'm down here for the week, leading field trips for the New River Birding & Nature Festival, as I've done for about eight years running. It's a fabulous area, full of stunning scenery, fantastic birds, and all manner of interesting flora and fauna. Even though birds are the focus, it's hard for me to focus on them for photography, as I've generally got my hands full with other things.

We see a lot of birds, though. Today's foray, which traversed a gorgeous mountain and ended up along the wild Gauley River, netted our participants all kinds of feathered goodies. Worm-eating Warbler teed up and singing. A half-dozen Cerulean Warblers, most heard, one seen. A bunch of other warblers. Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Scarlet Tanagers. Four species of hawks. Up close and personal with Yellow-throated Vireos. And much more.

The Mountaineer State's namesake butterfly, the West Virginia White, Pieris virginiensis. We had scads of interesting leps today, and since I just had my macro lens bolted on and slung to the Canon, I made a few images of the little beasts. I'll try and nail some birds to share soon.

More updates to follow...

Southern West Virginia is dynamite for warblers at this time of year. Lots of species breed, and scads of migrants are passing through. This means birders working the varied habitats of this region will encounter a treasure trove of wood-warblers. We certainly have, on our expeditions as part of the New River Birding & Nature Festival this week.

This scrubby bank bordered by mature forest at the summit offered interesting birding this morning. Our group encountered both Blue-winged and Golden-winged warblers here, on territory and within earshot of one another. Hybrids have turned up in this immediate vicinity before.

Also on the steep-sloped shrubland was Yellow-breasted Chat, and this beauty, the Prairie Warbler.

In stark contrast to the previous dry brushy slope, a territorial Yellow-rumped Warbler shouts out its song from the summit of a Red Spruce in the cold wet bogland of Cranberry Glades Botanical Area high in the Monongahela National Forest, yesterday. The yellow-rump was but one voice in a symphony of warblers. Joining it was Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Palm, Canada, Magnolia, and Blackburnian warblers, Common Yellowthroat, and Northern Waterthrush.

The rich forests in and around the New River Gorge are well known for Cerulean Warblers, and this one put on quite a show for our party this afternoon. Some of its companions included Hooded, Black-and-white, and Worm-eating warblers, Ovenbird, and American Redstart. Work other nearby habitats such as piney woods and river bottoms, and you'll add even more species to your warbler list.

Kentucky Warbler, Geothlypis formosa, Cotton Hill, Fayette County, West Virginia. Our party had several of these gorgeous lemon-yellow wood-warblers in rich wooded mountain slopes.

This bird's specific epithet, formosa, means "beautiful", and that's an apropos descripter for this stunning songbird. Kentucky Warblers are far easier to hear than see. The male's rather husky chanting song - churee, churee, churee - is often delivered from dense cover. When finally, after much searching, one decides to show itself, the effort to find it is well rewarded.

I've just returned from a week in southern West Virginia, where I helped to guide trips as part of the New River Birding & Nature Festival. I've mentioned this festival many times on this blog, as I've been part of this scene for about eight years now. The NRBNF takes place the last week of April/first week of May each year, and that's prime time in the West Virginia mountains. If you wish to experience a fabulous palette of birds and other fauna and flora, be sure to put this event on your calendar for 2014.

One of the places that I visited goes by the quirky name of Muddlety, in Nicholas County. It's WAY back through the mountains, and is an adventure to reach. We see lots of interesting birds, including Cerulean Warblers, along the way. But a definite highlight of this trip is paying homage to one of the biggest trees in the eastern U.S.

A sylvan behemoth towers over the crowd of lesser trees. Its companions are no slouches in the size department, but they cannot hold a candle to this wise old woodland sage. Perhaps, if spared the axe or ravages of strip mining, some of these other trees may one day - decades down the road - match this plant, which is the largest Tuliptree, Liriodendron tulipifera, in the state of West Virginia.

Part of our party clusters around the base of the Tuliptree. People are naturally drawn to this giant, and even though a slippery climb up a steep slope is required to reach the tree, many make the trek. I had not been here for a few years, and was pleased to see that the Tuliptree was in fine form.

This Tuliptree - often erroneously called a "tulip poplar" - has been known for a long time. Everything around it has been logged and strip-mined, but for some fortuitous reason the giant was spared. The impacts of the mining are fading, and the immediate vicinity is once again cloaked with trees. It may be that miners and loggers acknowledged the magnificence of this specimen, which would have been monstrous when lumbering and coal extraction was going hot and heavy decades ago.

Nine people ring the tree. That's about how many it takes to span its circumference. This Tuliptree was nominated to West Virginia's Big Tree Registry in 1977, taking the crown as the largest known specimen of Liriodendron tulipifera in the state. Other big ones have been found in the intervening three and a half decades, but none of them has eclipsed this tree.

Your narrator bonds with the tree. At about the level of my elbows, the tulip is 212 inches around, or 17.5 feet.

When I glanced upward, this is the perspective. The Tuliptree shoots 173 feet up into the ether. If you are familiar with the John McGraw Tower at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York - the structure that harbors the Cornell Chimes - this tree is the exact same height.

It's a long way up to reach the first branches. The crown spread is 82 feet, and those boughs have seen a lot of life over their centuries (?) of existence. One can only imagine what the tree's "yard list" of birds must be. Probably a huge chunk of all of the species that routinely perch in trees have spent time in this Tuliptree.

I was glad to once again make this Tuliptree's acquaintance, and certainly hope this is not the last time that I stand in her shadow.

This is the rather clumsily named Beautiful Eutelia, Eutelia pulcherrimus. They sure got the beautiful part right, but blurt out EUTELIA! in polite company and they'll look at you as if you're daft. This thing looks like a Pablo Picasso artwork with wings, and it was a first for me.

I've got to apologize for the less than stellar photographic work. I made this image at about 5:45 am one day last week. There's a building that's brightly lit with nightlights not far from our 6 am rendezvous spot for fields trips for the New River Birding & Nature Festival, in southern West Virginia. I'd have about ten minutes or so to look through the Lepidopterans that had collected on the walls, then hightail it over to meet my group. Anyway, I now sorely regret not working with this moth a bit more, and trying to craft some better images.

Beautiful Eutelias are, supposedly, not very common. I had no idea what it was when I saw it, nor did the people that I was with. It wasn't hard to figure out, though, and once the basic necessity of identification is out of the way, I naturally wanted to know what its host plant(s) are. One should never just stop with learning a name; if you do, what have you accomplished? Not much, other than learning a name.

I checked several moth reference guides, and good online resources. All said the same thing - the host plant of the Beautiful Eutelia is Poison Sumac, Toxicodendron vernix. I knew something was amiss, or at least there was more to the story. I photographed this moth in Fayette County, in a region that I have come to know well. There's no Poison Sumac anywhere near where I was. Poison Sumac is actually a very habitat specific plant, and not common in West Virginia, Ohio, or other surrounding states. It grows primarily in bogs and fens, and those are not common habitats. The above map, courtesy the USDA Plants Database, shows in green the counties in which Poison Sumac has been documented. Fayette County is not one of them; in fact, it doesn't even abut one of the green counties.

So, I began to wonder if perhaps the moth's caterpillars noshed on Poison Ivy, which has essentially the same chemical properties that the rash-inducing sumac does. I grabbed David Wagner's outstanding Caterpillars of Eastern North America book from the shelf, thumbed to the Beautiful Eutelia account, and sure enough, Dave listed both Poison Sumac and Poison Ivy. Bravo!

But this confirmation of Poison Ivy as a host raises another question. Why are there not more of these beautiful moths flying around? Poison Ivy, Toxicodendron radicans, is one of our most abundant native plants. It is everywhere, in nearly every conceivable habitat. There's obviously more ingredients required to produce Beautiful Eutelias than meets the eye.

Photo: Brocken Inaglory/Wiki Commons

A pair of Polar Bears, Ursus maritimus, engage in a bit of mock sparring at the Polar Bear Capital of the World, Churchill, Manitoba.

Polar Bears are perhaps the most iconic mammal of the Arctic, and warming temperatures are threatening their existence. The man who knows as much as anyone about the giant white bear, and who led the charge to have this species listed as an officially declared "threatened species" by the U.S. Department of Interior, is Dr. Steven Amstrup.

Amstrup is Chief Scientist of Polar Bears International, and he'll be in Columbus on Tuesday, May 14 to give a fascinating presentation about polar bears. This lecture is part of a monthly series of talks put on by the Environmental Professionals Network. The breakfast presentation takes place from 7:15 - 9:20 am at the Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center on the Ohio State University Campus.

For details and registration, GO HERE.

A pair of Yellow-crowned Night-Heron nests adorn massive Sycamore trees overarching Preston Road in Bexley, Ohio, on the east side of Columbus. This species has been nesting in this spot for about eighteen years, and insofar as I am aware, it is the only known breeding "colony" of Yellow-crowned Night-Herons in the state. They are undoubtedly nesting in a few other locales, but pinning down the nests is often not easy.

This is a ritzy neighborhood indeed. Nearly all of the neighbors are well aware of the herons, if only because of all the birders that flock to the neighborhood to pay homage to these special birds. Or, perhaps, they notice the ever-increasing layer of white guano that whitewashes the street below the nests. Ah, a small price to pay in order to host such interesting animals

I made my annual trip to the nests yesterday, and was pleased to see that a pair of birds was back in residence. Their clumsy stick structure is a bit rattier than the surrounding big $$$ homes, but it has done the job well for many years now. There was no sign of another pair, and the other nest remains unused. The active nest is the one in the backdrop in the previous photo.

Yellow-crowned Night-Herons are at the northern cusp of their breeding range in Ohio. A few birds have nested even farther north, such as in Michigan and Minnesota, but for the most part this is as far north as they make it. The species becomes quite common southward, and is easily found in the swamplands and coastal wetlands in the southern U.S, throughout the Caribbean, in much of Central America, and parts of South America.

Oh my, what big eyes you have! The bulging reddish eyes of Yellow-crowned Night-Herons are a major, obvious feature, and serve the animal well on its nocturnal fishing forays. A beautiful little stream, Alum Creek, flows very near to this nesting site, and these birds undoubtedly spend much time in its waters under cover of darkness.

This shot shows the peculiar forward-facing arrangement of night-heron eyes. Actually, most herons have a similar setup. It's as if the bird has a pair of telescopes sighted down the blade of a bayonet. Like a pool shark carefully measuring his shot, a hunting heron draws a bead on prey, and with a brutal thrust of the neck that is quick is a wink, it spears its victim. In the case of Yellow-crowned Night-Herons, the favored prey are crustaceans, and in these parts that means crayfish. Life for the "crawdads" in nearby Alum Creek is perilous indeed.

There was much primping of plumes as the birds set about the task of rehabilitating their nest. The sexes look nearly identical, and I believe the male is the bird on the left, fanning its feathers like a peacock. When nest construction commences, he gathers sticks and offers them to the female, who then carefully places them into the structure. This behavior, apparently, serves to also reinforce their pair bond. That's what I observed yesterday - male passing along sticks, female embedding them in the nest.

The male partially fluffs himself into a regal state, and seems to demand that the female pay him some mind. She was busy, though, and had seemingly sent him out on a limb where he couldn't interfere with her important work.

It won't be long and eggs will be laid, and before we know it the gangly youngsters will be in the nest. I'll try and make another trip down here at a later stage and share how things are going for this pair.

An American Toad belts out his drawn-out sonorous aria. Everyone love toads, and for their part, toads are indifferent to all. They haven't much to fear. Their warts, which add to their considerable charm, are full of caustic secretions, as are the large paratoid glands behind their eyes. Try and eat one and you'll regret it, as more than a few dogs have learned the hard way. Thanks to their chemical defense system, toads have few enemies.

With one notable exception...

This fearsome sight is the last thing that a toad wants to see. If it does, this snake will probably be the last thing it sees.

I found myself in Adams County, Ohio yesterday, along with some friends. More posts on that mission will probably follow at some point, as we were up to some fairly interesting things. Anyway, we stopped in to the Eulett Center to meet up with some people, and our arrival coincided with that of Eric Davenport, who serves as Chief Naturalist for the Edge of Appalachia Preserve. Eric had a bag dangling in his hand, and within was this gorgeous Eastern Hog-nosed Snake, Heterodon platirhinos.

Needless to say, out came the cameras. Hognoses come in various color forms, ranging from nearly black to this stunning black and yellow form. This is not a particularly common or widespread reptile in Ohio, and most are found in the Oak Openings of northwestern Ohio, and in southernmost Ohio, where Eric found this specimen. Hog-nosed Snakes favor sandy substrates, where these accomplished diggers can ferret out a favored prey, the aforementioned toads.

The uninitated, especially ohidiophobes, would likely have their socks scared off by one of these snakes. It's not so much their size - hognoses only reach about three feet in length - but their excellent acting ability that'll startle a person. When first approached, the snake will flatten its neck to paper-thin dimensions, rear up, hiss, and look all the world like a ferocious cobra. If you continue your approach, it will lunge wild strikes in your general direction, but have no fear - it's all bluff. Even if the snake does make contact, it'll just harmlessly head butt you, not bite.

By now, most people will be headed the other way, but if you persist the snake begins Act II. It'll roll over on its back, dangle its head loosely, and loll its tongue from its mouth. This is an excellent imitation of playing dead. If you attempt to right the reptile, it'll often just promptly roll back over and continue feigning dead. As good as this performance is, it all too often works against the snake when humans are involved. Ignoramuses sometimes kill them, thinking the hognose to be dangerous.

As Eric noted, Eastern Hog-nosed Snakes seem to have exceptionally long tongues, which they use to sense their environment. Note the snake's flattened shovel-like snout.

Hognoses are accomplished diggers, using their snout like a spade. When the keen sensors within their tongue detect toady prey, the snake sweeps its snout from side to side through the sand to uncover the victim.

The Eastern Hog-nosed Snake is yet another facet of Ohio's declining natural heritage. At one time, this species occurred in at least 30 of Ohio's 88 counties. Today, it still persists in perhaps nine of those counties. These charismatic and fascinating animals should be protected at all costs.

I've been a lot of places the last three days, and have seen and photographed many cool things. Capped the weekend with a day at the fabulous Magee Marsh Wildlife Area on Lake Erie, where I and the scads of other people saw scores of birds. More to follow on that, hopefully.

On the way back from Lake Erie, I made a little circuit of prairies, all very different from one another. A few photos follow...

The 19-acre Lakeside Daisy State Nature Preserve is a must-see site for anyone who enjoys nature. Right now is the time to stop, when the preserve's namesake is in peak bloom.

Lakeside Daisy, Tetraneuris herbacea, is listed as federally threatened and is one of the rarest plants in the United States. One wouldn't think it so rare if they visited the nature preserve now, when the limestone barrens are colored golden with thousands of flowers. Excepting a small Michigan site, Ohio's Marblehead Peninsula hosts the only U.S. population.

As the sign says, one of the best remaining prairies in Ohio - and there are precious few - is the Castalia Prairie, which is protected by the Ohio Division of Wildlife as the Resthaven Wildlife Area.

I found it necessary to stop today, to see this tiny orchid. The White Lady's-slipper, Cypripedium candidum, grows only in two locales in the state, and by far the largest occurs in the Castalia Prairie. This gem stands only eight inches tall. The orchid is fire-dependent. Following the next controlled burn, perhaps next year, the orchids will burst forth in staggering numbers.

Finally, I couldn't drive by the Claridon Prairie, which is not far east of Marion, without a stop. It's a bit early for much to be happening in this shard of tallgrass prairie, but I knew there would be one notable plant that'd be looking good.

An eastbound freight train rolls down the tracks, leaving a trail of sky-blue Wild Hyacinth, Camassia scilloides, in its wake. The railroad, which was laid out long ago, is responsible for the preservation of this prairie. It's verges, at least for this mile long sliver, are virgin prairie soil with its complement of special prairie plants.

Wild Hyacinth commonly grows along streams on rich wooded terraces, but it can also flourish under big skies in moist prairies. It looks right at home in the Claridon Prairie.

A snippet of the parking lot at Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, on the shores of western Lake Erie. This site is world famous among birders, and with good cause. It is a premier stopover area for scores of neotropical songbirds in migration. In the peak month of spring migration, something like 100,000 people will visit. I was there yesterday, and managed a few photos, which follow...

You can find nearly every state's license plate in the parking lots at some time or another. Including some good ones. "Twitcher" is a British term for one who chases birds.

The Ohio Division of Wildlife owns and manages Magee Marsh, and the mile long boardwalk and the 37-acre swamp woods through which it passes. This boardwalk has long been known as the "Bird Trail", even before there was a boardwalk.

The Division of Wildlife also owns the 2,200 surrounding acres, which holds one of the finest marshes on Lake Erie. The parking lots and beach were once a state park, called Crane Creek. The Division of Parks and Recreation transferred that property to the Division of Wildlife several years ago, hence "Crane Creek State Park" is no more, although people still erroneously refer to the area by that name.

If you're a birder, and you visit Magee Marsh, thank the Division of Wildlife, perhaps by purchasing an Ohio Wildlife Legacy Stamp. It's expensive to host the throngs of birders that visit. All of those port-a-johns, for instance, cost about $15,000 to rent for peak spring migration. As this year's visitors saw, the Division makes special efforts to accommodate birders, many of whom may not know that Magee was purchased entirely through revenue generated by hunting license revenue, and Pittman-Robertson funds.

One doesn't have to go far to see cool birds. Someone stuck oranges along the parking lot, and brilliantly colored Baltimore Orioles found them appealing.

An adult male American Redstart sports the colors of Halloween. These little warblers seldom pause; they are frantic bundles of energy, raging through the foliage and spooking bugs from the leaves.

Magnolia Warblers sport just about every field mark that you'd want to see on a songbird: eyestripe, wingbars, tail spots, breast streaks, and gaudy coloration.

A personal favorite is the elegant White-crowned Sparrow. They were conspicuous, and the males were constantly singing their mournful buzzy wheezes.

Some sharp-eyed birder spotted this American Woodcock rooting for invertebrates. It is forehead deep in the muck, its long bill several inches into the soil.

As I made my images, through all manner of obstacles, the woodcock fanned its wings. It is a male. The outermost primary feathers - at the bottom of the wing in this photo - are much narrower than the others. They're narrow in the female, too, but not this narrow. When the male does its fabulous aerial courtship display flights, the wind rushing through these skinny bladelike outer primaries creates the twittering sound that we hear.

Throat aflame, a brilliant Blackburnian Warbler skips to another branch. This animal has come a LONG way to be with us. They winter in highlands of the Andes Mountains in South America, and it is bound for the boreal forest of Canada.

An avian zebra, the male Black-and-white Warbler is resplendent in its coat of inky stripes. This warbler was once known as the "Pied Creeper", and its elongated hind claw allows the warbler to scamper along bark as adeptly as a nuthatch.

A surefire crowd-pleaser is the Prothonotary Warbler, which appears to be crafted from molten gold. This is the only cavity-nesting wood-warbler in the east, and a pair or two usually nest along the Bird Trail.

It's easy to see why the Northern Parula was once called the "Olive-backed Warbler". Parulas are truly dinky; our smallest eastern warbler, weighing the same as three pennies.

Wearing a cap of chestnut, the Palm Warbler spends much time on the ground, and often out in the open - an unusual behavior for a warbler. While the "palm" descriptor conjures images of tropical beaches, this species breeds as far north as trees grow, all the way to the shores of Hudson Bay. Wisely, they do winter in the Caribbean and coastal Mexico and Central America, where palm trees are common.

A Nashville Warbler contorts itself to reach insects within the flowers of a Peach-leaved Willow, Salix amygdaloides. Alexander Wilson shot the first specimen in Tennessee, in migration, but the bird doesn't breed anywhere near the Volunteer State.

The most common breeding warbler at Magee Marsh is the Yellow Warbler, and a beautiful bird it is. This male was also feeding among the willow flowers, but simply could not help bursting into song from time to time. After delivering his loud Sweet-Sweet-I'm-So-Sweet!, he'd dive back into the flowers for more goodies.

Although it's now a few weeks past, I want to make one more pictorial post about the New River Birding & Nature Festival. I've been traveling down to lead trips and otherwise help out with this event for seven or eight years now, and it is an annual highlight. The festival is centered on the mighty New River, near the town of Fayetteville, West Virginia. This area is one of the most scenic places in North America. It is also a treasure trove of biodiversity, including "special" birds such as Cerulean Warbler, Golden-winged Warbler, Swainson's Warbler, and a bit to the south and high in the mountains, breeding Red Crossbills.

The boys - and girl - haven't yet posted the dates of next year's festival, but it'll be at the tail end of April, into early May. Check their website HERE. You'll get a flavor for the event, along with some photos. We'd love to see you there in 2014!

The mill at Babcock State Park is picturesque indeed. Not only that, but there's good birding, butterflying, and overall naturalizing in this very spot. Black-throated Blue Warblers breed in the dense tangles of Great Rhododendron on the adjacent slopes, and Swainson's Warblers nest downstream. One of your narrator's very favorite spiders, the outrageous Lampshade Weaver, builds its webs on sandstone outcrops along the stream.

Moths abound, and participants are dazzled by what comes into the nightlights at what may now be West Virginia's most photographed and studied outhouse. Luckily for us, this outhouse is at our morning rendezvous spot for field trips. I think there was a Luna there almost every morning this year.

We were excited to find this jumbo Promethea Moth on the walls of the outhouse one morning. It is a gravid female, and with luck she'll dump all of those eggs and a few will make it through the perilous caterpillar stage and complete the life cycle.

This is the Promethea's cocoon, a curious pendant bag that is reminiscent of a Baltimore Oriole nest. We found this one at Cranberry Glades, and admired it while being serenaded by Winter Wren, Canada and Magnolia warblers, Blue-headed Vireo, and more.

I was co-leading this trip to Cotton Hill on a fine sunny morning. We stopped here because there were all manner of birds in this spot. Northern Parula and Yellow-throated Warbler sang from towering Sycamore trees. Baltimore Orioles issued their flutelike whistles, and another whistler, the Eastern Meadowlark was teed up close at hand. But this action was just a warmup act for the mountain ahead, which abounds with Cerulean Warblers.

One of the festival's founders and a Chief Cook and Bottlewasher is this stylishly risque fashionplate, Geoffrey Heeter. Geoff allowed us to relish the birds of the locale in the previous photo a bit longer than we had planned. To his credit, he conjured this locksmith in no time flat to extract the keys from the innards of Geoff's vehicle. The dog certainly appreciated the business.

Of course, the plants are not to be snubbed, at least on my trips, and we see some doozies. This is one of them, the Little Brown Jugs, Hexastylis virginica. That's its strange flower, in full bloom, flat on the ground in the center of the leaves.

The progression of spring varies a bit from year to year. Last year, it came early and this year spring was tardy. This trio of Pink Lady's-slippers, Cypripedium acaule, was in bud and just about ready to burst. We see several other species of cool orchids, but probably none of them tops this one for sheer wow factor. If you come next year, the pinks will likely be in bloom, and the rocky ledges where I took this photo harbor dozens of plants.

Check out the New River Birding & Nature Festival, and see if you can make it in 2014.

A massive fen buffers a wild portion of the Lake Huron shoreline in Michigan's Presque Isle County. Once again, I am up in the northeast corner of the Lower Peninsula, in one of the state's most diverse counties and enjoying myself immensely. This is my fourth year up here, leading trips in collaboration with NettieBay Lodge.

Like everywhere else, spring is late to arrive, but that means that we've caught the peak of some early bloomers, such as this stunning Bird's-eye Primrose, Primula mistassinica. This diminutive wildflower grows in cold calcareous gravels of the Lake Huron shoreline, in association with other interesting flora.

The birds have been beyond fabulous, and I've seen nearly 140 species since my arrival last Wednesday. There'll be plenty more to come, too. Today, our group caught a fabulous group of migrant warblers; at one point six species shared the crown of a Red Pine, creating a scene right out of a plate from a field guide.

Above, one of Lake Nettie's resident loons rotates its eggs. She, as you can see, is not immune to the various midges and other insects that are part of the North Woods package. These loons are worth the price of admission alone. They know us - or at least Mark and Jackie, the lodge's owners - and we can boat out to their nesting island without causing any disturbance. Their tameness towards us permits fabulous photo ops, and I'll hope to share more loon pics later.

More pics and stories to follow, as time allows.

Encounter with a Black Widow!

Eastern Red Bat!

Mountain Chorus Frog

Unpredictable April

An amazing field of purple

A dash of newt, spotted in red

A few flowers of spring

Falcate Orangetip

West Virginia birding

West Virginia warblers

Kentucky Warbler

This is one BIG Tuliptree!

Moths: Still a lot to learn

Polar Bear talk!

Bexley's famous night-herons

A toad's worst nightmare

Some botanical eye candy

A pictorial trip along the "Bird Trail"

New River Birding & Nature Festival

Northern Michigan