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Snowberry Clearwing

July 24, 2013, 8:37 pm
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Not too long ago, I lucked into a good photo op with a semi-cooperative Hummingbird Clearwing moth, Hemaris thysbe, above. I wrote about the animal and that experience HERE.
 
The hummingbird moth godz have been smiling on me, as last Saturday our group lucked into the other common species in the genus Hemaris, the Snowberry Clearwing, H. diffinis. I was co-leading an expedition into the fascinating Castalia Quarry Metropark in Erie County with Rick Nirschl, when the animal above darted in and began to work a patch of Wild Bergamot, Monarda fistulosa. Needless to say, the group was enchanted with the performance of the little speedster, which along with the other clearwing are occasionally referred to as "hummingbird mimics".

But why would they imitate hummingbirds? To say they are a mimic is to imply that for some reason evolutionary processes have decreed that these moths gain some sort of survival advantage by resembling hummingbirds. I'm not sure this is a case of mimicry; I rather think it is convergent evolution at work. Flowers without "landing pads" such as the big flat petals of coneflowers, like Monardas, are out to attract moths and hummingbirds that are capable of helicoptering in front of the blossom and don't require a landing pad. As hummingbirds and clearwing moths are largely after the same fare, they have evolved similar adaptations and appearances.

In any event, clearwing moths are surefire crowd-pleasers, and you'll want some in your yard I'm sure. To get them, plant Dwarf Honeysuckle, Diervilla lonicera, native (always native!) viburnums, Snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus var. albus, or Coralberry, Symphoricarpos orbiculatus. With luck, you'll one day find the marvelous bag of goo above noshing on your plants, which will (if all goes well!) turn into a Snowberry Clearwing.

Should you be in or around Dayton this Saturday, stop into the Midwest Native Plant Conference between 9 am and 5 pm, when vendors will be hawking native plants, including, probably, some of the plants that I mentioned above.
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Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrels in cemetery

July 26, 2013, 8:04 am
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Your narrator's car, in a Madison County cemetery. My travels of last weekend put me within minutes of a fairly expansive graveyard, that's smack in the middle of one of Ohio's former prairie regions. The prairie is largely no more, having been converted to beans, corn, and wheat, but some of the prairie denizens continue on, including an interesting little mammal.

A Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel, Spermophilus tridecemlineatus, stands sentry duty. Distant as I was, the animal was on to me and ready to whistle a warning to his mates if need be. I've written about ground squirrels before, and I probably will again. I've invested many an hour watching them, and trying to make images, and consider it time well spent.

13-liners love short grassy areas, and adopt cemeteries readily. As the animals are colonial and dig extensive underground labyrinths, their presence doesn't always sit well with cemetery managers and they sometimes are eradicated. I hope that doesn't happen here.

It didn't take long to find a burrow. A convenient bench was not far off, and I crouched behind that to await the surfacing of the squirrel that I had seen ducking into this hole. Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrels are true hibernators, even more so than Woodchucks. Probably the only other mammals that rival their Van Winkleian slumbers are the meadow jumping mice. The squirrels pack up and go subterranean in September or October, and don't poke above ground until late April or thereabouts.

A few minutes of patience, and the little prairie dog popped out to see what the big bipedal dope was doing. I didn't move a muscle, other than to ever slowly hoist the camera into position, and was able to click off some shots without causing undue concern.

These are not bold animals, and are normally quite suspicious of interlopers. Not surprising, since the squirrels are sausages on legs and many a predator would relish one as a meal. However, in areas of high people traffic, the ground squirrels have adapted to humans and can be surprisingly tame, such as can be seen HERE.

When on alert, ground squirrels often stand erect, the better to spot threats. The anvil-headed almond-eyed critters are quite good looking, if you ask my opinion, and their behavior and habits make them all the more intriguing.

Finally, after about ten minutes, the squirrel began to move away from the safety of its burrow, revealing its handsome pattern of dashes and dots.

Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrels are no dummies. They thrive in the warmth of spring, summer, and fall. If things get too hot above ground, a cool subterranean retreat is never more than a few paces away. Come the cold, ice, and snow of winter, the squirrels go underground and sleep right through the whole mess. Not a bad gig!
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Midwest Native Plant Conference: Brief Recap

July 30, 2013, 7:28 pm
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Last weekend, July 26-28, marked the 5th annual Midwest Native Plant Conference, held at the Bergamo Center in Dayton, Ohio. Bergamo is positioned in the midst of 150 beautifully landscaped acres known as Mount St. John. This is an especially apropos setting for a native plant conference, as Mount St. John is heavily landscaped with native plants. One only need set foot out of one of the buildings, and the flora and fauna get interesting, fast.

A staple of the conference and a key component of the event are vendors who specialize in native plants. Saturday is the big day for plant selling, and nurseries hawk all manner of cool plants along the entrance drive. In spite of damp weather, plenty of people came, saw, and bought. By now, there are many more native plants roots down in gardens around Ohio and beyond than there was prior to the conference.

This is an important room - the dining hall. One of the great things about conferencing at Bergamo Center is that everything is nearly self-contained. Plenty of rooms for speaker sessions, good food, and nearly enough guest rooms for attendees. If not staying overnight at Bergamo, plenty of hotels are just minutes away.

We pretty much pack the place with nearly 200 people, which is the limit for the facility. This year, the conference was sold out a month or so prior to the event. Get in early next year! We've thought about perhaps relocating to a larger venue - everything must be BIGGER and BETTER! - but event organizers are reluctant to do that. The conference seems to be just about the perfect size, and the people at Bergamo and Mount St. John are fabulous to work with. So, here it will stay, I think.

Three basic ingredients comprise the conference: Vendors selling native plants; expert speakers discoursing on a variety of plant and ecological themes; and field trips. Between all of those things, it makes for a fast weekend. In this photo, we're in the room with Dawes Arboretum botanist Dave Brandenburg, who is giving a hands-on workshop in grasses and sedges. He's a topnotch teacher and lecturer, and packs 'em in. Dave's talk took place during breakout sessions, which offer multiple choices of talks. All of these lectures are repeated, which makes it possible for attendees to hear many of them. Read about all of the conference speakers RIGHT HERE.

Each evening, and Saturday morning features a keynote speaker. Friday night saw the always entertaining Judy Burris and Wayne Richards speaking about butterflies and how to plant for these gossamer-winged insects. Dave FitzSimmons talked about building vernal pools the next morning, featuring the wetland that he constructed on his property. The scene above shows Saturday night's keynote, the legendary Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home. He spoke about "Building Biological Corridors: Networks for Life", a fabulous presentation that brought the house down.

Our other presenters included Cheryl Harner, Bob Henn, John Howard, Terry Fredrich, Janet Martin, Don Geiger, Macy Reynolds, and yours truly. Between everyone, they managed to cover an incredibly diverse array of topics.

Field trips are an integral part of the conference - what good is all of this stuff if you can't get people out to enjoy it?! Always popular are the nocturnal forays around the grounds of Mount St. John, where we always manage to find a diverse assemblage of interesting beasts. Lisa Rainsong, Wendy Partridge and I combined to lead expeditions both Friday and Saturday night, and the ever-popular singing insects were a main target. This is a remarkably tame Oblong-winged Katydid, tolerating our nightlights quite well. It sounds a bit like a frog.

We also featured "mothing" this year. Mary Ann Barnett, Scott Hogsten and Roger Grossenbacher spearheaded the moth sheets and lured in a variety of interesting creatures. And all of this nighttime action within a few hundreds yards of the conference venue!

The conference concludes with Sunday morning field trips to nearby biological hotspots, and a big thanks to Yvonne Cecil for orchestrating all of the trips. One of the main reasons that we initially selected Dayton for the conference is the number of high-quality prairies, fens and other natural areas in close proximity to the city. These habitats are at their peak in late July, and visiting them is a perfect close to a conference that is all about native plants and their conservation.

I always lead the trip to Cedar Bog, and that's our group, above. Cedar Bog is also a recipient of proceeds generated by the Midwest Native Plant Conference, and to date we have raised about $2,000 for the Cedar Bog Association. We also split conference proceeds between other worthy recipients, and the others this year were The Nature Conservancy's Sunshine Corridor Project, Marianist Environmental Education Center, Ohio Natural Areas and Preserves Association, and Beaver Creek Wetland Association.

A huge thanks to all of the volunteers who manage this conference. I'm reluctant to start trying to name everyone, as I'm certain to forget someone, but you know who you are and everyone that is a part of the conference greatly appreciates your work! I will single out one person, and that's Diana Malas, who acted as our conference CEO this year and did an outstanding job!

The Midwest Native Plant Conference is slated to take place on August 1 thru 3, 2014, at Bergamo Center. Registration usually opens in April. Be there!
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Bizarre tube of goo spawns stunning moth!

July 31, 2013, 8:48 pm
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Bizarre and alienlike, a last instar Cecropia Moth caterpillar, Hyalophora cecropia, is adorned with colorful spined spikes. I lucked into this animal last Saturday, at the Midwest Native Plant Conference. One of the attendees, moth expert Kevin Clark, had brought some of his caterpillar livestock along, including this beast. And as further luck would have it, ace photographer David FitzSimmons was also in the house with all of his gear.

Dave wanted to image the caterpillar, so he set up his white box, which is essentially a small white tent that allows him to display subjects on a clean background under controlled conditions. While I'm not used to shooting this way, Dave was kind enough to allow me some time with the caterpillar and white box, and the above photo is one of the results. Displaying an animal in this way makes for interesting images, and details really pop. This is how Dave shot all of the images for his award-winning Curious Critters book - check that out RIGHT HERE.

Cecropia caterpillars are big, nearly the size of a small hotdog. As far as eating machines go, they make Joey Chestnut look like a chump. All they do is eat, eat, eat, and grow, grow, grow. When a Cecropia cat first hatches from its tiny egg, it is hundreds of times smaller than the massive bruiser shown here. Through a series of molts, with each growth stage termed an instar, the caterpillar blows up into a truly awe-inspiring bag of goo. The colorful orange and blue clubs adorned with spines add a nice touch.

If you're quiet, you can hear the caterpillar chewing from some distance away. Plant matter is vacuumed in via the mouthparts (shown above) and soon expelled out the other end in the form of frass (caterpillar poo). The frass pellets are substantial, and some people first discover Cecropia caterpillars by the ever-growing piles of frass below the feeding tree. Had I been on my game, I would have photographed that, too. Cecropias aren't overly finicky eaters, and have been found snacking on a wide variety of woody plants including birch, elm, maple, ash, cherry and many others.

Photo: Tami Gingrich

Tami Gingrich, who raises Cecropias, was kind enough to allow me the use of her beautiful image of an adult Cecropia. What a showstopper this animal is! It is the largest indigenous moth in North America (the increasing numbers of tropical Black Witches may change that), and is the size of a small bat. No one, and I mean no one, would not stop for a double-take if they spotted one of these moths. If someone were to ignore one of these marvelous moths, I would feel compelled to declare them devoid of intellectual curiosity, and in a later stage of nature deficit disorder.

For all of their ornate beauty, the adult Cecropia, like the other giant silkmoths, will live for but a week if that. It has no functional mouthparts and adults exist only to find a mate, and reproduce. They are little more than incredibly showy flying gonads. Once a pair has mated and the female has dropped her eggs, the moths soon wink out. It is the caterpillar stage that lasts by far the longest, and (arguably) is the most important facet of the moth's lifecycle.

Photo: Tami Gingrich

The Cecropias have a friend in Tami, who raises many of them. She's got quite a handful of cats here, and is lucky that her fingers don't have the taste and feel of cherry leaves. Keeping this number of livestock in food is no small matter - the caterpillar rancher must regularly harvest substantial amounts of foliage to stoke their insatiable appetites.

Moths are truly bits of magic, transforming from odd-looking tubular goo-bags to some of Nature's most stunning winged creatures.
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Black Swallowtail on mountain mint

August 3, 2013, 1:59 pm
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Looking rather like a festively adorned lepidopteran Darth Vader, a Black Swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes, sucks nectar from the flowers of Virginia Mountain Mint, Pycnanthemum virginianum. Mountain mints attract an awesome assemblage of native pollinators, and I would highly recommend them for your yardscape.

This butterfly was photographed this morning at Daughmer Savanna, and I'll hope to share some more photos and words about that foray when time permits.
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Daughmer Savanna excursion

August 5, 2013, 7:20 pm
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Daughmer Savanna, a place that I've written about before, such as HERE, and HERE. The conservation of this magnificent oak savanna was the greatest event in Ohio conservation in calendar year 2010. It may only be 34 acres, but Daughmer is a living museum of Ohio's prairie past; an irreplaceable museum of natural history.

The Crawford County Park District, which oversees Daughmer Savanna, and I have been trying to put together a field trip to the site for over a year, and finally last Saturday was the day. Following is a brief sketch of our foray.

Photo: Cheryl Harner

We were quite surprised when 42 people showed up to explore the savanna! Their attendant vehicles taxed the limits of the available parking, and a bit of parking control was required. Fortunately, other experts were on hand to help, including Cheryl Harner, who made this image and was instrumental in the protection of Daughmer. She just wrote a nice post about the savanna, HERE.

Josh Dyer and Bill Fisher of Crawford County Parks were also on hand, and we were able to spread ourselves through the line and pass along useful info. I think everyone had a pretty good time and saw lots of interesting things. It took us about 2.5 hours to traverse the relatively short loop trail, and I don't think anyone bailed out early!

In addition to piles of cool plants - including towering 250 year old oaks - we saw lots of bugs. Such as this Black Swallowtail, Papilio polyxenes. Some of these critters became the focus of an army of camera-equipped paparazzi, including this swallowtail. Scores of photos were made of the beautiful butterfly. I only clicked off a handful of images during the trip, as it's hard to engage in photography when working with a large group. Nonetheless, I rather liked the way this underview of the swallowtail emerged. It is nectaring on abundant Virginia Mountain Mint, Pycnanthemum virginianum, which also attracts scores of other pollinators.

At one point, I spotted some funny-looking wings sticking out from under a leaf, and it turned out they belonged to this gem, a Primrose Moth, Schinia florida. Pink and yellow flying objects always pique people's interest, and once again the crowd bristled with cameras and produced a sea of clicks. I would venture to say that this unsuspecting little moth may be the world's most photographed Primrose Moth.

Josh Dyer - hat, hand in air - holds the group's interest with a discussion about prairie savanna management techniques. It is one thing to hear a talk about such topics indoors somewhere, but quite another (and vastly better) to hear a professional discuss such things in the very spot in which the management takes place.

Photo: Cheryl Harner

Your blogger is flanked by (front) Bill Fisher, Director of the Crawford County Park District, and Josh Dyer, naturalist with CCPD and an essential and irreplaceable component of the organization. If you click the pic to expand it, you can see that tiny little Primrose Moth riding on my upper arm. It proved to be quite tame and came along for the ride.

Last year, the voting citizenry of Crawford County did a great thing for the county and its residents, both present and future, by passing the park district's first levy. That funding helped make the protection and stewardship of Daughmer Savanna a reality, and let the district continue and expand its excellent programming. Most of the people on this trip were residents of Crawford County, and I got to speak to a number of them. It was gratifying to hear all of the positive comments about the Crawford County Park District and the outstanding work that Bill, Josh and the other employees do.
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Got Turtle (pics)?

August 6, 2013, 9:05 pm
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An Eastern Box Turtle peers curiously at your narrator from the protection of his armoring. Perhaps you, too, are a turtle aficionado and enjoy documenting the animals on pixels (or film). If so, you may want to consider submitting your best stuff for the next Ohio Wildlife Legacy Stamp competition.

The "OWLS", as it's known, was launched by the Ohio Division of Wildlife in 2010, and featured a photo of a Baltimore Oriole. The stunning image that graced that inaugural stamp was taken by Ohio photographer Russ Reynolds. The 2011 OWLS sported an Eastern Amberwing dragonfly; the 2012 stamp depicted a Spotted Salamander, and the current stamp is graced with an image of a Black-capped Chickadee.

Getting right up in the grill of suspicious subjects such as this Midland Painted Turtle is not necessarily easy, but if you've done so and snagged some good images, you might be the next OWLS featured photographer. Any species of native Ohio turtle - there are a dozen species - is eligible. The deadline for submission is August 16, and all of the details are RIGHT HERE.

Would such a mug as this Common Snapping Turtle possibly be pretty enough to feature on the stamp? Who knows; that's for the judges to decide. Once all of the entries are collected, the judging will take place by an esteemed and knowledgeable panel of jurists in early September. Whoever's photo is declared the winner will see vast fortunes ($500) and widespread fame come their way.

Cute as a button but looking rather surly is this Spiny Softshell Turtle. It's a hard animal to approach, but would certainly be a worthy OWLS subject.

The Ohio Wildlife Legacy Stamp exists to raise funds for habitat protection, endangered species research, and educational efforts related to wildlife. Perhaps you've seen those nifty booklets that the Ohio Division of Wildlife produces - birds, spiders, butterflies, dragonflies, mammals, etc.? The OWLS stamp helps fund such outreach, and to date about one million of those booklets have been given out to Ohioans (they're free).

So, if you've got a candidate turtle photo for the stamp - or manage to get one soon - consider submitting it. Again, all of the details ARE HERE. If you want to purchase a stamp, current or past, GO HERE.

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Moths at the lights

August 9, 2013, 6:06 pm
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A Harnessed Tiger Moth, Apantesis phalerata, flutters around one of my night lights. I'm sure that you've got moths visiting your lights, too. Be careful; they become addictive! I found myself going outside frequently to see what might have dropped in, and snapping photos of the scaly-winged visitors. My neighbor popped over last night, wondering what I was doing. Can't blame her - from afar, it looks like I'm staring at the walls, and occasionally lighting the place up with camera flash. So I told her, and I think she thinks I am weird. Possibly, but once you start really looking at moths, and studying their often subtle beauty, the desire to see more of them grows.

Following is a pictorial checklist of just a sampling of the species that I've seen either here at my house in Columbus, or during one night last weekend at a cabin in Jackson County. No special effort was made to lure them; these all just came into the regular porch lights.

Here's that Harnessed Tiger Moth in repose.

 Ash-tip Borer, Papaipema cerussata

Banded Tussock Moth, Halysidota tessellaris

Black-bordered Lemon, Marimatha nigrofimbria

 
Chickweed Geometer, Haematopis grataria

Closeup of male Chickweed Geometer's antennae

Common Looper, Autographa precationis

Delicate Cycnia, Cycnia tenera

Double-banded Grass Veneer, Crambus agitatellus

The Beggar, Eubaphe mendica

Friendly Probole, Probole amicaria

Bold-feathered Grass Moth, Herpetogramma pertextalis

Virginian Tiger Moth, Spilosoma virginica

Clymene Moth, Haploa clymene

The past few nights, I've been getting blizzards of these tiny moths.

Up close, they're rather charming with those swept-back plumes. This is the Clemens' Grass Tubeworm Moth, Acrolophus popeanella, an animal with a name far bigger than its size. Their caterpillars feast on red clover, and there's plenty of that around here. Thanks to Michael Fitts and Diane Brooks for putting me onto the correct identification of this one.
 
In a way, mothing is a bit like fishing, and night lights are the bait. You just never know what interesting creatures are going to show up.
 
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Photos... Lots of photos!

August 11, 2013, 5:25 pm
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Rosy Maple Moth, Dryocampa rubicundula

If you read this blog with any consistency, it may seem like I'm out in the field all of the time. Were that only true. The fact is, my job keeps me in my office the vast majority of the time, at least during the week. When home, I should (and try) to spend much of my time on writing: columns, articles, and a book project.

Thus, when I do get an unfettered full day field excursion I do my best to make the most of it. Yesterday was one of those days. I was off before the crack of dawn to head to my favorite region of Ohio, Adams and Scioto counties.

Your narrator is greeted by two jumbo pups at John Howard's house. I was off to meet John Howard, who lives deep in Adams County and is a fabulous field companion. He'll go anywhere, has an encyclopedic knowledge of natural history, and a real knack for finding unusual things. And, I got to renew my acquaintance with Chloe, his 100+ lb. St. Bernard puppy. Her sister Lula was visiting, so it was a double-whammy!

In all, yesterday was a 20-hour day, and I returned with over 1,700 images (most won't make the cut) of all sorts of strange and interesting organisms. A pretty decent case of chiggers, too, but that's a small price to pay. John and I were out working nighttime stuff until nearly midnight, and the Rosy Maple Moth pictured above was just one of many cool moths that came into our sheet.

More to follow from this excursion, as I get things sorted out...

Red-banded Hairstreak, Calycopis cecrops, as fresh as can be. An almost insanely good-looking bug!

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Planting for Tigers

August 12, 2013, 6:31 pm
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A Purple Joe-pye, Eutrochium purpureum, towers over lesser plants in southern Ohio's Shawnee State Forest. Even casual watchers of roadside wildflowers notice these behemoths, which can tower up to seven feet or more in height. Another species in this neck of the weeds, the Hollow-stemmed Joe-pye, E. fistulosum, is even more robust.

The Joe-pyes' big dome-shaped inflorescences are stocked with scores of flowers, and sweet their nectar must be. As I slowly cruised a back lane through Shawnee towards dusk last Saturday, I was struck by the sheer numbers of swallowtail butterflies working the Joe-pyes. Some giant plants had four, five, even six of the big showy butterflies simultaneously working the blossoms. To the extent that butterflies squabble, there was much combativeness in evidence as the swallowtails jockeyed for position.

A pair of male Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, Papilio glaucus, tap the sweetness of a Joe-pye. If there is a swallowtail anywhere in the neighborhood, and you've got some Joe-pye handy, they're sure to find you (or at least your plants).

I finally stopped the car by a forest glen loaded with flowering Joe-pye, and was dumbstruck by dozens of swallowtails wafting about, flitting from Joe-pye to Joe-pye. Mostly they were Tigers, which seem to have a special fondness for the plants, but there were also a number of Spicebush Swallowtails mixed in. Photo ops were numerous and irresistible, and I was reminded just how addictive these plants are for the fluttery set.

This male swallowtail is nearly fresh as can be, but he's already missing a good chunk of his tail. Bird attack, possibly. I would imagine plundering the nectar of Jack-in-the-beanstalk sized Joe-pyes carries a bit of risk. Brightly colored conspicuous butterflies stick out like sore thumbs, and any would-be predator might be quite tempted to make a go at one.

There are three Joe-pyes native to Ohio: the two aforementioned species, and a shorter one that is equally tasty to butterflies, the Spotted Joe-pye, Eutrochium maculatum. Fortunately, some wise and far-seeing nurserymen have tamed these Joe-pyes and made them available to the homeowner. I would highly recommend sticking some in your yardscape. Not only are they going to one-up any of your neighbor's botanical fare in the cool department, you'll also draw in all of the butterflies.

As more nurseries see the light and increase their stock of natives, interesting and valuable species such as Joe-pye is becoming easier to find. Following are three topnotch Ohio nurseries that carry at least one Joe-pye species (and many other natives):

Scioto Gardens (Delaware)

Ohio Prairie Nursery (Hiram)

Naturally Native Nursery (Bowling Green)
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Orchard Spider

August 14, 2013, 4:00 am
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A female Orchard Spider, Leucage venusta, works her webbing. These are exquisite creatures, and you've undoubtedly got them in your local patch. Orchard Spiders are very common, and can easily be spotted by their largish orb webs which are always constructed at an oblique angle. Not vertical, not horizontal, but in between. The spider typically builds her silken trap down low, where we can admire it.

If you do see an Orchard Spider web, take time to admire the occupant. She is a work of art in lemon, emerald, and black. Note how the spider in this photo is paying out a line of silk from her spinneret, and guiding its placement with one of her rear legs. Spiders certainly rank high among the world's most dexterous and coordinated animals!

This Orchard Spider was shot last Saturday in Adams County, using a Canon 5D Mark III with Canon 430 Speedlite muted with a Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce diffuser. Settings: F/11; 1/80 sec; ISO 800; handheld.
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Small bugs, beautiful and otherwise

August 16, 2013, 8:48 pm
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On last Saturday's epic field 20-hour field trip to southern Ohio, I turned my lens to little things, a lot. Macro photography is not easy, and I have been on a more or less constant quest to better photo-document small life forms ever since I got my first DSLR camera. Part of the trick, for me, is getting the right gear to allow handheld shots. Insects, especially, often do not lend themselves to tripod work. Tripods are too cumbersome and time-consuming to arrange, and often the quarry will vanish before one is prepared to shoot it. If you are willing or able to catch the bug and work with it in a controlled environment, tripods can be great. For the most part, I prefer to shoot the animals on their own terms, and that's how all of the following images were made.
 
A Dogbane Beetle, Chrysochus auratus, one of our handsomest insects. Their iridescent colors are dazzling, and change depending upon the light. Investigate dogbane plants (genus Apocynum) and it won't be long until you encounter some of these stunners.

Clad in the colors of Halloween, this Milkweed Leaf Beetle, Labidomera clivicollis, warns would-be predators of its toxicity with bright coloration. The animal apparently sequesters noxious cardiac glycosides that it ingests from its host plants, the milkweeds, and thus enjoys chemical protection.

At one stop, I returned to my car to find this stunning winged ant resting on the roof. When in dispersal mode, ants will sprout wings and thus venture into new terrain. Species unknown (to me).

A Swamp Cicada, Tibicen tibicen, regards your narrator from its perch on a culm of Little Bluestem grass. Annual cicadas such as this are responsible for the loud droning songs that help define the Dog Days of summer.

I was more than pleased to find a beautiful specimen of this Schinia caterpillar still out. Most have gone into pupation by now, but this dotted little jewel's presence allowed me to make my best image to date of this as yet to be described species. I've written about this fascinating moth before, such as HERE.

This caterpillar-like creature did not fare as well as the previous caterpillar. I came across a colony of Dogwood Sawfly larvae, Macremphytus tarsatus, defoliating a Silky Dogwood, and noticed this drama playing out. A pair of Spined Soldier Bugs, Podisus maculiventris, had bookended the creature, stabbed it, and were busily sucking the life from the hapless victim.

A real life grim reaper peers around the flowering head of a Rattlesnake-master, Eryngium yuccifolium. These largish bone-faced tachinid flies (species unknown) were conspicuous pollinators on this day. Tachinid flies are parasitoids; they lay their eggs on insect hosts, and the fly grubs eventually consume their victims.

I found this wasp to be incredibly ornate and visually stunning, albeit on a very small scale. It is a  Wood Wasp, Cryptanura banchiformis, a parasitoid of wood-boring beetle grubs.

Gnat-ogres, genus Holcocephala, are irresistible photographic subjects. These tiny robberflies are a challenge to shoot, due to their small size. This animal would be measured in millimeters, but it is every bit as predatory and deadly as its larger robberfly brethren, just on a much smaller scale.

The late summer flower fields are meadows of doom, teeming with all manner of incredibly dangerous predators. If you are a pollinating insect, your risk factor spikes exponentially when attempting to land on a flower. This is a type of assassin bug in the genus Phymata, and they are everywhere. Looking like little gargoyles, the creatures secrete themselves within flowers, and pounce on unsuspecting insects seeking a nectar bounty.

This assassin bug successfully plies its trade, having captured some sort of small beetle that made the mistake of foraging amongst the disc flowers of this Purple Coneflower. The assassin has jabbed it with a spikelike proboscis and is in the process of sucking out the beetle's innards.

Insect abundance and diversity peaks in late summer and fall, making for a treasure trove on interesting photo ops.
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Frog, on lilypad

August 18, 2013, 7:51 pm
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A raft of Fragrant Water-lilies, Nymphaea odorata, blanket a quiet pond on the Jasper-Pulaski Wildlife Area in Indiana. Not only is this aquatic plant quite showy, it supports a lot of animal life.

A Green Frog, Lithobates clamitans, regards your blogger with an inscrutable expression. Seconds before I made this photo, it snapped a bee from the air with its long rubberband of a tongue. By wading in, I was able to make a close approach, shoot some images, and leave without even making the amphibian leave his lilypad perch.
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Gorgeous goldfinches gluttons for grain

August 19, 2013, 6:53 pm
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Male American goldfinches in breeding plumage
                                          
The Columbus Dispatch
August 18, 2013
 
NATURE
Jim McCormac
 
Vegetarianism isn’t popular among songbirds. Few caterpillars or other insects are safe when warblers, wrens or chickadees are about. Even birds that are primarily seed-eaters, such as sparrows, shift to a diet high in animal matter when chicks are in the nest. The rapidly growing youngsters need protein to prosper.

Enter the American goldfinch. The gorgeous little “wild canaries” go against the grain by eating almost nothing but grains and other vegetable matter. Goldfinches commonly visit backyard feeders and especially covet thistle seed. In wilder places, they also seek sunflower seeds, grasses and myriad other types of plant fruits. Although goldfinches occasionally wolf down an aphid or two, for the most part they shun the bugs.

When goldfinches descend on a ripe patch of sunflowers or well-stocked feeders, it’s as if a pack of debonair feathered piglets has landed. Many a collector of wild prairie seeds has been thwarted by the finches. Arrive to the flower patch too late and you’ll be greeted by little flecks of gold bouncing between the seed heads, stripping them of their fruit. Not to fret, though: The finches rightfully have first dibs.

Their vegetarian preferences serve goldfinches well when it comes to parasitic brown-headed cowbirds. Female cowbirds dump their eggs in other bird species’ nests, usually to the detriment of the host. The growth of the cowbird chick outstrips that of the native chicks, which often perish due to the cowbird receiving most of the parent’s food. Cowbirds don’t thrive on plants alone, however, and they soon die when subjected to the vegetarian diet of the goldfinch.

Male American goldfinches are now at the peak of their feathered finery. They sport a jaunty black cap and ebony wings and tail, which form a striking contrast against brilliant golden-yellow body feathers. Females don’t attain the bright colors of males, resembling a somber version of their showy mates. Goldfinches seem to exude happiness, gamboling about with an undulating flight constantly punctuated with sweet singsong twitters. They are social animals, too — quite tolerant of their brethren and prone to flocking at favored feeding sites.

Goldfinches are busily breeding now. They delay nesting to coincide with the maturation of thistles, coneflowers, coreopsis and other plants in the massive sunflower family. The down of ripe thistle, especially, is heavily integrated into their nests, and late summer’s abundant crop of seeds provides fodder aplenty for the chicks.

Enjoy the colorful male goldfinches while you can. Come fall, they will commence the most conspicuous molt of any of our songbirds, rapidly shedding their lemony feathers and taking on the muted tones of the females. They’ll ride out the winter dressed down. But come spring, the male goldfinches will cast off their low-key plumage and flash to life in a living sunburst explosion — Nature’s wild canaries reborn.

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.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

Male American goldfinch in nonbreeding plumage
 
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Indianapolis Museum of Art, and Cicada-killers

August 20, 2013, 7:03 pm
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The interesting façade of the Indianapolis Museum of Art beckons visitors to enter and explore. This institution is jam-packed with thousands of pieces of art of all kinds, and is a state treasure for the Hoosiers, and a national treasure for the rest of us.

I was invited here to give a talk on the subject of Nature as Art, and did that last Saturday. I greatly appreciate the invite from Chad Franer, who manages the museum's 152 acres of grounds, and the support of Tariq Robinson, who manages public programming for the museum. It was a great chance to dust off images of everything from Tufted Puffins to Fringed Gentians to American Lady butterflies to Wheelbugs, and offer up a pictorial traipse through the beauty of the natural world of the Americas. We had a good crowd, and they seemed to enjoy it.

We had set this gig up so that a walk on the grounds would follow, and I didn't know what to expect regarding the landscape. I was utterly blown away. The museum also functions as a park, and it was obvious that many Indianapolisites come to wander the grounds and bask in nature. Chad has artfully woven scores of native plants into the museum's grounds, which already was thick with lots of big native trees. The upshot is that we found oodles of interesting flora and fauna. They had limited the post-talk walk to 50 people, and we divvied the group up into two and rotated them between the museum staff and myself. We could have easily spent several hours working the grounds and I don't think anyone would have gotten bored. Essentially, the museum's grounds are an extension of the buildings' interiors: living art.

Our foray produced lots of notable flora and fauna, including one of our most charismatic insects. Chad had mentioned that a colony of a huge wasp known as a Cicada-killer was on the grounds, and I of course wanted to see the animals and share them with our group, and we did just that.

A big - and I mean BIG - female Cicada-killer, Sphecius speciosus, glares at your blogger from the entrance of her burrow. There is a sizable colony of the wasps in a fairly high traffic area of the grounds, and people often cut through the dry bank where the wasps have taken up residence. There have been no issues, and Chad respectfully allows them to stay.

Later, Joyce Pontius and I stopped by Jasper-Pulaski Wildlife Area, which is well known for the numbers of Sandhill Cranes that stop here in late fall and early winter. This area is a wonderful example of a Midwestern sand prairie and also sports some very interesting wetlands, and I wanted to photograph rare plants. Lo and behold, J-P is also loaded with Cicada-killers! This sandy grass parking area was full of them; sometimes 15 or 20 of the giant wasps were in view simultaneously. This was fabulous, as I had long wanted to insert myself into a colony at its peak of activity and try for images.

A male Cicada-killer rockets by, buzzing like a P-52 Mustang. These things are so large they resemble little hummingbirds as they dash madly about. And madly dash they do - a colony is alive with males guarding little patches of turf, and scrambling skyward whenever another male impinges on one's territory. The result is a bunch of huge droning wasps winging about and engaging in lots of airborne tussles - enough to scare the bejeebers out of a person that didn't understand these insects.

A grounded male keeps a constant vigil, ever ready to scramble skyward to deal with interlopers. With patience, I found I could edge pretty close to them for photos. One even used my leg as a perch at one point.

There is absolutely nothing, I mean nothing, to fear from these insects, especially the males. They are six-legged creampuffs; hymenopteran marshmallows. The males do appear daunting, and their large size and aggressive behavior could easily lead a person to fear them. But they pack no punch - males have no stinger. And a slight gesture in their direction usually sends them packing. Females do have a stinger, but they seemed even more passive and I suspect you would literally have to grab one and enfold it in your hand before it would sting.

A female emerges from a burrow. A few times, when I saw one enter her lair, I would lay on the ground within a few feet of the hole and prepare to image the wasp when she returned to the surface. Most of the time, she'd spot me before getting to the tunnel's entrance, and turn around and dash back in. All bark and no bite.

However, if you are a cicada, the wasps are indeed your worst nightmare. Look closely at this photo and you'll see the glazed over, paralyzed eyes of an annual cicada. It was located high in the trees by this female Cicada-killer, jabbed and injected with a paralyzing neurotoxin, and in a feat of incredible brute strength, para-glided to the ground.

Every now and then we would see a female wasp roar aloft and high into the canopy of the surrounding trees. Plenty of Lyric and Linne's cicadas were singing their unmusical droning melodies all about and they were the targets. Occasionally we'd hear the sharp loud distress buzz of a cicada; probably one under attack by a wasp.

It is interesting to actually see a successful Cicada-killer return to earth with a victim. They sort of hover-drop to the ground, like a Sikorski Sy Crane helicopter with engine trouble. The whole package - giant wasp, and even larger cicada - makes for an impressive spectacle. Once on the ground, she rolls the inert cicada onto its back, straddles it and clamps on with powerful mandibles. The poor cicada is then quickly scuttled towards the tombs.

Should you opt to return as a cicada in your next life, do not take up residence anywhere near the proximity of a colony of Cicada-killers. This might be your fate. This wasp is in full trundle, rapidly hustling her victim to her premade burrow. Wasps that were successful hunters did not tarry, and usually had their cicada under the ground in astonishingly short order, which made getting images quite challenging.

The cicada and its wasp attendant disappear into the crypts. Cicada-killer burrows can be a foot or so in length, and the female wasp excavates up to a dozen chambers along its length. Into each is packed one or more cicadas, and the wasp lays an egg on each paralyzed victim. When the wasp grub hatches, it has a fresh supply of meat and digs into the cicada with gusto. It grows rapidly and spends the winter in the ground as a cocoon. Come the following summer, in perfect synchronicity with the emergence of the cicadas, the adult wasps appear and begin the cycle anew.
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Pale Beauty

August 21, 2013, 6:47 pm
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Yesterday, while exploring a woods in Miami County, Ohio, I came across an exquisite little moth. It's there, in this photo, but it blends rather well with its surroundings. Click the photo for an enlargement, and you'll see it at rest on the withered remnants of a May-apple leaf.

Like so many moths, this one was well worth stopping to inspect. Confident in its crypsis, or camouflage, this Pale Beauty, Campaea perlata, didn't as much as twitch even when I poked near with my macro lens. Its whitish background color is suffused with a light tint of emerald, and the hindwings are scalloped like a leaf. The overall effect is stunning, although to most the moth would be a tiny fluttering blur in the corner of the eye as it was kicked from cover.

Pale Beauties are not rare, and their caterpillars feed on a wide variety of common woody plants. They are probably in a forest near you.
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An encounter with the Erect Dayflower, finally!

August 23, 2013, 8:48 pm
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Jasper-Pulaski Wildlife Area near Medaryville, Indiana, a place famous for the thousands of Sandhill Cranes that congregate here in late fall and early winter. But J-P's 8,000+ acres also conserves an outstanding sand prairie and associated wetlands. On my recent foray here, I was especially keen to see and photograph some of the flora, including plants that are either very rare in Ohio, or don't quite make it this far east.

A gridwork of gravelly lanes bisect the wildlife area, and their verges are covered with interesting prairie plants. Exploring Jasper-Pulaski in August will produce a bounty of flora; this is peak time to be in the prairies.

Lush stands of one of the great prairie grasses, Big Bluestem, Andropogon gerardii, tower well above head height.

The nearly naked stems of Western Sunflower, Helianthus occidentalis, support bright yellow blossoms that create lemony drifts in dry sandy ground. This plant is very rare in Ohio, but is a ubiquitous roadside sight in Jasper-Pulaski.

Another great rarity in Ohio is this beautiful mint, the Dotted Horsemint, Monarda punctata. It is everywhere in Jasper-Pulaski, sometimes forming extensive stands. The genus Monarda is famed for its beauty, and Dotted Horsemint may be the best looking of any of them.

This is an oddball in the Amaranth family, and nearly sure to stump someone who is unfamiliar with it. It's Cottonweed, Froelichia floridana, and it looks a bit like a flowering willow that got attacked by a fungus. But this is it - the plant is in its full flowering finery. Continuing with the rare (for Ohio) theme, Cottonweed is endangered in the Buckeye State; only one site is known, near Marietta.

Bluecurls, Trichostema dichotomum, is a tiny mint that would be quite easy to pass over, even when in full bloom. This tiny blossom would be measured in millimeters.

Among all of the fabulous plants that I saw on this trip, this one was my personal favorite, and one that created some interesting history in my life. It is Erect Dayflower, Commelina erecta, a gorgeous species of dry sandy plains, prairies, and barrens.

The genus Commelina was named for Jan Commelin by the great Carl Linnaeus. Jan Commelin and his brother Caspar were brilliant Dutch botanists, and it is said that Linnaeus felt that the plant's two showy blue petals represent the two brothers. The third petal - at the base of the flower - is small, whitish, and quite inconspicuous.

Commelina erecta has a rather broad distribution, occurring to the west, east, and south of Ohio. The species is divided into three varieties, and the one that I saw at Jasper-Pulaski is C. erecta var. deamii, named in honor of the accomplished Indiana botanist Charles Deam.

Given that this plant comes so close to Ohio - the map above shows its Indiana distribution - it would be no stretch to assume that Erect Dayflower occurs in Ohio. We certainly have seemingly suitable habitat, especially in the sandy Oak Openings of northwest Ohio, where many of the species associated with the dayflower grow.

Thus, when Arthur Cronquist's seminal botanical manual Manual of Vascular Plants of the Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada emerged in 1991, I was surprised to see that he included Ohio in the range of Erect Dayflower. This was big botanical news - did the great Cronquist know something that we did not? Perhaps, with the vast collection of specimens housed at the New York Botanical Garden at his fingertips, he was privy to an old collection that had escaped the Ohio botanists' attention.

So, I took keyboard in hand, and dashed off a letter to Patricia Holmgren at the New York Botanical Garden, inquiring whether any specimens of Commelina erecta from Ohio were included in their collection. It probably never crossed my mind to write the great Cronquist directly, as I probably would have thought that he'd have no time for dealing with such petty matters.

To my great surprise, not long after I sent my letter, I received the letter above, from no less than Cronquist himself! You can click the letter, expand it, and read it for yourself. He, in his humorous way, had taken precious time to answer the inquiry of a young botanist who had absorbed his manual like a sponge, and as it turned out, had found one of the few errors in the book.

I was of course delighted to receive a direct reply from Cronquist, and his letter trumped the lack of Commelina erecta in Ohio. The letter is a treasure to me, and is all the more significant because Arthur Cronquist passed away only 74 days after he wrote it. But I had never seen Erect Dayflower, and resolved to some day cast eyes upon flowering specimens, in the wild. Thus, it was a great pleasure and an especially momentous occasion to finally see the plant in its glory in the hot dry sand prairies of Jasper-Pulaski.
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Some gorgeous little bugs

August 25, 2013, 8:26 pm
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Lots of bugs this weekend. Saturday night, I gave a program about "singing insects" - the Orthoptera - at Dawes Arboretum. We limited it to 25 people, and had a full house. After the presentation, we headed out into the dark and I've never had such luck finding cool bugs. Right off the bat, we tracked down and captured a Slightly Musical Conehead, the first of many. A Greater Anglewing was singing from the roof of the building that I gave the talk in. Restless Bush Crickets put in multiple appearances. And on it went - the best nocturnal singing insect foray that I've yet done.
 
Today, Jess Henning and I made a whirlwind trip into the backwoods of Athens County to check out a few spots, and encountered lots of noteworthy plants, and insects. I of course had the camera in tow, and managed some decent images. Following are a few of those...
 
A Snowberry Clearwing, Hemaris diffinis, works the flowers of a Rough Blazing-star, Liatris aspera. The dry meadow where this moth was found was full of blazing-star, and various pollinating insects. Shooting the hummingbird moths is a challenge, as they are in more or less constant motion, and their wings are a blur. When I encounter one and begin the hunt, I flip my camera's settings to shutter priority, and jack the shutter speed WAY up in order to better freeze movement. This image was made at a shutter speed of 1/2,500, with no flash.

A female Zabulon Skipper, Poanes zabulon, was also working the blazing-star. I must confess to largely ignoring the small skippers, and appreciate George Sydlowski for correcting me on its identification.

My favorite shot of the day. This is a TINY braconid wasp, and I think it is a species in the genus Atanycolus. It's a female, as evidenced by the long spikelike ovipositor protruding from the rear of her abdomen, and the entire animal was probably only 5-8 millimeters in length.

Braconid wasps are parasitoids of various insects, and species in the genus Atanycolus go after the grubs of wood-boring beetles. She'll somehow divine the location of a larva deep in a log, and auger that long ovipositor down to it, and lay an egg or eggs on the victim. The newly emergent wasp larvae will bore into their host, and eat it.



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Charismatic Katydids

August 27, 2013, 5:28 pm
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I've been smitten with the Orthoptera for the better part of a decade. I liked these insects - crickets, katydids, coneheads and their kin - even before that, but didn't make a real effort to learn about them. Then, one day about eight or nine years ago, a woman asked me what was making a metallic clicking sound in a shade tree outside her house. From her description, I recognized the sound as I had heard it too, but I was embarrassed to say that I did not know the causer of the clicks.

It didn't take much research to learn that the mystery clicker was a Greater Anglewing, which is a jumbo katydid and a consummate leaf mimic. I was hooked! From that point, I wanted to know the names of all of the six-legged singers that compose our late summer and autumn symphonies. If you are into birds, as I am, learning the insect songs is great practice for tuning the ear for bird song.

Now, I find myself giving lectures on Orthopteran insects, and taking people afield to learn more about them. Last Saturday night, I led such a gig over at Dawes Arboretum, and our field trip was beyond fantastic. It was as if the insects were jumping from the trees and shrubs into our hands. We got great looks at a number of species, and I would say that the Slightly Musical Conehead was the people's favorite.

The very next day, I was on another expedition, and we found the beauty pictured below. She totally manifests the abundant charisma that defines katydids...

A female Curve-tailed Bush Katydid, Scudderia curvicauda, inspects the tasty skin of her human handler. This animal magically sprang from the grasses and presented herself to the group. Knowing a bit about the habits of these beasts, I set about luring it onto my hand. The larger katydids are often incredibly confiding. All one needs to do is slowly move a hand into the proximity of their antennae. The katydid will tap your skin with its feelers, detect tasty salty skin, and clamber aboard.

Once in the hand, the katydid will begin rasping off the outer epidermal layer of your skin, which kind of tickles. Their jaws are powerful, and every now and then they'll give a decent pinch, but nothing too much. But having one of these animals so near allows for the chance to admire their striking appearance. Note the tricolored eyes and whimsical looks of this beautiful animal.

I knew it was a bush katydid in the genus Scudderia when I saw it, but did not know the species. Females are harder to identify than males; indeed some references say that you must see them in close proximity to their male mate to make a positive identification.

Unless you're friends with Wil Hershberger. Wil literally wrote the book on singing insects, and I sent him these photos for his thoughts. He recognized the animal for what it was, and hence I got a  positive identification.

Speaking of Wil Hershberger, this is his book, which he coauthored with Lang Elliott. It is THE book to have for anyone interested in singing insects. If you aren't interested in this group and pick up this book, chances are you soon will be interested in the Orthoptera. I highly recommend The Songs of Insects, and you can get it RIGHT HERE.

We have another wonderful Orthopteran asset right here in Ohio, in the form of Lisa Rainsong. No one in this state knows the singing insects better than Lisa does, and she has started a wonderful blog devoted to our music-making bugs and Nature's other songsters. Check it out RIGHT HERE.
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Eastern Hercules Beetle!

August 29, 2013, 9:36 pm
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A while back, John Howard emailed me with the news that he had discovered an excellent specimen of our largest beetle, and would I like to photograph it? Of course I would, and John was kind enough to keep the animal in captivity until I could make my way to Adams County a week or so later. When I finally arrived, the beetle was none the worse for the wear, and we set out to liberate it and make some photos in the process.
 
An Eastern Hercules Beetle, Dynastes tityus, a true Coleopteran titan. These insects probably aren't very rare, at least in southern Ohio, but they're hard to find and even people who are in the field a lot don't encounter many of them. I've never lucked into one in the wild, so I was excited to have the chance to make images of this specimen.

A dime inserted into the photo offers scale to the big bug. Those rhino-like horns are the most conspicuous feature of a Hercules Beetle, other than its extreme size. The males use them to joust with one another during mating season, apparently. Even though it looks like this thing could put a serious pinch on one's fingers, I doubt it could do any real harm.

These beetles are quite variable in appearance. Their overall coloration and pattern of spotting is apparently influenced by the environmental conditions in which they are spawned. Whatever their color, a Hercules Beetle can live a long time (for a bug) - six months or so as an adult. The live perhaps three times longer than that as the larval stage - huge wood-boring grubs that live in rotting wood. Finding one of these grubs is the stuff of Pileated Woodpeckers' dreams!

The group of beetles in the subfamily Dynastinae are sometimes referred to as "Rhinoceros Beetles", for obvious reasons. The members of this group are behemoths, and the Hercules Beetle is one of the largest beetles in North America. This spectacular bug was actually featured on a 1999 U.S. Postal Service stamp, a fitting recognition if you ask me.

Here's a brief high-def video of the beetle, courtesy my 5D Mark III. As soon as we set the animal on this branch, it set about grazing the moss from the bark. It didn't do a lot otherwise, except twitch its antennae. Soon after these photos and this video were made, we left the beetle in a safe spot not far from where John initially found it, and here's hoping it goes on to help spawn more of these fabulous beetles.
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