We have had many outstanding bird activities in our manicured suburban neighborhood in New Holland, Pennsylvania in the last five years that have made our lives more interesting. Our neighborhood has been planted to grass that is regularly mowed, shrubs and trees. A couple of bird baths provide water and a few bird feeders offer additional nutrition.
One day in March a few years ago, all our goldfish disappeared from our 100 gallon back yard pond. Late in the afternoon a few days later a neighbor and myself saw a great blue heron flying low up our street, circle our lawns and land in one of his Norway spruce trees. The neighbor asked if I had seen the heron at our fish pond a few days ago. I said I hadn't, but then knew what happened to our goldfish!
We see several mallard ducks in our neighborhood because of a one-acre pond about a quarter of a mile away. A pair of those mallards would swim in our fish pond, which was a bit comical. And one spring, a female mallard laid 12 eggs in a grassy nest under a planted bush in our yard. I figured when she laid the last egg and started to incubate her clutch. I also predicted when they would hatch after 28 days of incubation. On the day I thought the mother duck would leave her nursery with her brood, I watched from a discreet distance. And, sure enough, she waddled across our lawn to the pond with a fluffy, winding stream of cute ducklings following her!
In recent winters, one or two Cooper's hawks would attack house sparrows and mourning doves at our bird feeders. In its attempt to escape, one dove crashed into an upstairs window and fell to the ground dead. I always knew when an attack was about to happen because the birds suddenly dove for cover in shrubbery, or tried to fly away. A Coop would dive into the bushes after the birds and I could see the potential prey and hawk scrambling about in that shrubbery. Sometimes the hawk did catch a bird and fly to a tree limb perch to eat it. Feathers fell from the bird as the raptor tore off chunks of meat.
During a blizzard one winter's day, I saw from our house a sharp-shinned hawk standing on the snow cover and tearing feathers off a house sparrow it killed. The hawk was preparing the bird to eat it. The feathers blew away in the wind as the little hawk ate bits of meat right in the middle of that cold wind and drifting snow. After several minutes, the sharpy flew away, leaving only a sparrow foot and beak, both of which were quickly covered by the falling and drifting snow, as though nothing happened there.
Mourning doves are on our lawn the year around, mainly because of bird feeders during winter. But in spring and summer a few pairs and their young dominate our neighborhood. We hear their cooing all day, every day. We see them and their fledged offspring flying about all through the warmer months. Because pairs of doves have two staggered broods of young at any one time during the warmer months, each pair produces one pair of youngsters every month from April into September, for a total of 12 young a year, if it weren't for accidents like nests falling from trees in winds and predators such as Cooper's hawks, American crows, blue jays and others lurking in suburban lawns.
We see several fledgling birds in our neighborhood every summer. We see young mourning doves, northern cardinals, blue jays, American robins, purple grackles, gray catbirds, Carolina wrens, house wrens and house sparrows every summer on our lawn.
Over the years, I have watched gray catbirds intently watching the grass cutting process on our yard. They are eagerly looking for small, brown moths and other insects to be flushed out of the grass by the mower, insects the catbirds pursue, often grab and eat. Those catbirds apparently associate grass mowing with food.
One afternoon around the middle of June, I was sitting in our quiet living room beside an open window when I was almost knocked off the chair by a wood thrush singing, seemingly right at my elbow. Peering cautiously out the window, there perched a handsome male wood thrush in a red-osier dogwood bush who sang his lovely, flute-like "e-o-laaa" and "a-o-leee" songs. I stood still and the thrush continued fluting beautifully for close to a minute it seemed. That thrush was my Central America and deciduous forest connection.
One warm, sunny afternoon in mid-April I heard a blue jay vocalizing sweetly and saw him looking about on the lawn for any kind of invertebrate. When he found a juicy tidbit, he flew into a small tree and fed it to another blue jay, presumably his mate. Then down to the ground for another morsel to feed his love. All this was blue jay courtship and about six weeks later I accidentally saw the results of that courting in the form of nearly fledged, young jays in a grass and twig cradle in an eight-foot-tall red juniper tree in our yard.
By luck one summer day, I saw a song sparrow feeding a fledged cowbird chick in our yard. We hear about such happenings, but seldom actually see it.
Carolina wrens are noted for nesting in strange places, such as in pockets in pants hung on wash lines, and in boots left outside, sheds, flower pots and other unusual spots. And a few years ago, a pair of Carolinas had a nursery in a neighbor's outdoor grill they never seemed to use. The adult wrens continually flew in carrying food and flew out carrying droppings, a sure sign of youngsters within the grill. Eventually trips to the grill ceased and I figured the young fledged.
These are some of the bird activities that happened in recent years in our suburban neighborhood in a small town. Most readers can experience other bird activities in their neighborhoods that will be as interesting as the ones that too place in my home area over the last several years.
Thursday, August 18, 2016
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Three Salamander Lifestyles
Salamanders are amphibians and the word amphibian means two lives. Most amphibians start life in water like fish, but later leave the water and live on land, only returning to water to spawn. But not all salamander species follow that lifestyle. Some species developed other ways of living to adapt to their respective niches and survive. Here in southeastern Pennsylvania, spotted salamanders, eastern newts and red-backed and slimy salamanders represent three salamander lifestyles.
All adult amphibians (frogs, toads and salamanders) are predatory, feeding on creatures they can handle, which mostly is invertebrates. And all amphibians in this area are small and hidden away in damp places to keep their bodies moist for survival.
Spotted salamanders, a kind of mole salamander, are called that because they live in the ground under carpets of fallen, dead leaves in forests in eastern North America. They start life with four legs, swimming tails and external gills in vernal ponds where their parents spawned during rainy days in the woods in March. But after a few months living in water, they come out onto the land where they spend the rest of their lives, except to spawn milky-white, gelatin-like masses, with several eggs in each one, in the same woodland pools they hatched in.
The attractive adult spotted salamanders are up to six inches long and black with two rows of yellow or orange spots down their backs. They are seldom seen, except when spawning or marching across forest floors to pools during rainy March nights.
Eastern newts, another kind of salamander, have three stages in their life history. These newts of the eastern United States start life in water as brownish larvae, each with four legs, two external gills and a swimming tail. But after several months, they emerge on land, become striking reddish-orange with red spots, each one thinly ringed with black. The bright color of these red efts warn predators that efts taste bad.
After two or three years of living in moist places on land, efts return to ponds, transform into beautiful adults that are olive on top with red spots, yellow below and covered all over with black dots. There they live the rest of their lives, and spawn there as well.
I think eastern newts took that third step in their life cycle because they couldn't compete for space and food with their relatives on land. So they gradually created their own niche as adults living in water, where they have lived ever since. But they still need to come to the surface to take oxygen from the air.
The ancestors of the related red-backed and slimy salamanders may have adapted to damp forest floors where there was no standing water to spawn in. Over time, they developed the habit of laying clutches of up to a dozen eggs, each with a thicker, more protective covering, in moist, protective places under rocks, fallen logs and leaves, and other objects on forest floors. Today the young of red-backs and slimies don't pass through an aquatic phase, but hatch on damp soil in humid places as miniatures of their parents. These species of salamanders are not tied to water to reproduce, which allows them to spread farther and farther across wooded landscapes.
Red-backed and slimy salamanders could even be creating new species by being isolated in islands of woods, surrounded by seas of fields, lawns and other human-made habitats not beneficial to salamanders. The salamanders can't travel over those dry environments to exchange genes. Any genetic quirk that aids survival in a woodlot would stay in that patch of woods, creating a new species in that woodlot only. These salamanders survive in tiny woods, even without pools of water, because they have long ago adapted to spawning on moist soil in shaded, protective niches.
These three kinds of salamanders in southeastern Pennsylvania, as examples, demonstrate three successful lifestyles. It pays for any form of life to diversify as much as possible to use as many niches as possible.
All adult amphibians (frogs, toads and salamanders) are predatory, feeding on creatures they can handle, which mostly is invertebrates. And all amphibians in this area are small and hidden away in damp places to keep their bodies moist for survival.
Spotted salamanders, a kind of mole salamander, are called that because they live in the ground under carpets of fallen, dead leaves in forests in eastern North America. They start life with four legs, swimming tails and external gills in vernal ponds where their parents spawned during rainy days in the woods in March. But after a few months living in water, they come out onto the land where they spend the rest of their lives, except to spawn milky-white, gelatin-like masses, with several eggs in each one, in the same woodland pools they hatched in.
The attractive adult spotted salamanders are up to six inches long and black with two rows of yellow or orange spots down their backs. They are seldom seen, except when spawning or marching across forest floors to pools during rainy March nights.
Eastern newts, another kind of salamander, have three stages in their life history. These newts of the eastern United States start life in water as brownish larvae, each with four legs, two external gills and a swimming tail. But after several months, they emerge on land, become striking reddish-orange with red spots, each one thinly ringed with black. The bright color of these red efts warn predators that efts taste bad.
After two or three years of living in moist places on land, efts return to ponds, transform into beautiful adults that are olive on top with red spots, yellow below and covered all over with black dots. There they live the rest of their lives, and spawn there as well.
I think eastern newts took that third step in their life cycle because they couldn't compete for space and food with their relatives on land. So they gradually created their own niche as adults living in water, where they have lived ever since. But they still need to come to the surface to take oxygen from the air.
The ancestors of the related red-backed and slimy salamanders may have adapted to damp forest floors where there was no standing water to spawn in. Over time, they developed the habit of laying clutches of up to a dozen eggs, each with a thicker, more protective covering, in moist, protective places under rocks, fallen logs and leaves, and other objects on forest floors. Today the young of red-backs and slimies don't pass through an aquatic phase, but hatch on damp soil in humid places as miniatures of their parents. These species of salamanders are not tied to water to reproduce, which allows them to spread farther and farther across wooded landscapes.
Red-backed and slimy salamanders could even be creating new species by being isolated in islands of woods, surrounded by seas of fields, lawns and other human-made habitats not beneficial to salamanders. The salamanders can't travel over those dry environments to exchange genes. Any genetic quirk that aids survival in a woodlot would stay in that patch of woods, creating a new species in that woodlot only. These salamanders survive in tiny woods, even without pools of water, because they have long ago adapted to spawning on moist soil in shaded, protective niches.
These three kinds of salamanders in southeastern Pennsylvania, as examples, demonstrate three successful lifestyles. It pays for any form of life to diversify as much as possible to use as many niches as possible.
Sunday, August 14, 2016
Treefrog Callings
During spring in the Middle Atlantic States, males of three kinds of treefrogs in the Hylidae family, spring peepers, gray treefrogs and chorus frogs, broadcast simple, beautiful courting songs that bring the genders of each species together for spawning in the shallow water of impoundments and wetlands.
The courtship calling of all frogs and toads is simple, repetitive and ancient, a remnant of the eons ago Amphibian Age. Their peeps, trills, grunts and moans are delightful to hear because they symbolize spring's arrival, the long ago past, and just thrilling to experience as another part of nature. The throat of each courting male bulges with every vocalization, amplifying its volume so females of each kind can hear them and come to the males in or near shallow water to spawn.
We hear the three species of tree frogs mentioned above far more often than we see them because of their small sizes and blending into their habitats. And we note their presence and identify them more by sound than sight. I've been happy to hear the vernal choruses of each of these species of little frogs many times through the years here in the Middle Atlantic States.
Spring peepers are the most common and widespread of these treefrogs in the Mid-Atlantic States. Most anyone who goes to appropriate habitats in the eastern United States and Canada in April to hear male peepers will probably have opportunities to do so. Light brown with a darker X across their backs and only an inch long, peepers' loud peeping far out-strips their diminutive size. Many males calling together, while perched on cattails and other plants emerging from the shallows, make an almost deafening sound. But from a distance, they sound like sleigh bells. They peep mostly at night, but also on rainy days.
During the warm evenings of May and June, male gray treefrogs emit short, musical trills from trees along the edges of the shallow water they will spawn in. About an inch and a half long, they are light gray or dull green with darker markings, and, to me, look like little toads. They live in the eastern half of the United States where there are abundant trees growing in ample wetlands.
But chorus frogs are my favorite treefrogs because I like hearing their soothing, gentle trilling that sounds like a thumb nail running up the teeth of a comb, " cccrrreeeeeeeekkk", with an upward pitch. That melancholy sound is heard across the mid-west of Canada and the United States east to southeastern Pennsylvania and the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey and the Delmarva Peninsula into The South.
Only an inch long and gray with darker markings for camouflage, chorus frogs' greatest beauty is in their mellow trills that I have always enjoyed hearing in the Middle Atlantic States during March and into April. To me, the love songs of male chorus frogs characterize most the shallows of wetlands in thickets of tall grass, cattails, bushes and small trees at dusk in early spring. Their calm, ageless calling touches my soul. All is well with the world!
Though seldom seen, the beautiful, perhaps mystifying, songs of these common and widespread treefrogs make time spent outdoors in spring more enjoyable. And they are a reminder of the distant past, the long ago Age of Amphibians.
The courtship calling of all frogs and toads is simple, repetitive and ancient, a remnant of the eons ago Amphibian Age. Their peeps, trills, grunts and moans are delightful to hear because they symbolize spring's arrival, the long ago past, and just thrilling to experience as another part of nature. The throat of each courting male bulges with every vocalization, amplifying its volume so females of each kind can hear them and come to the males in or near shallow water to spawn.
We hear the three species of tree frogs mentioned above far more often than we see them because of their small sizes and blending into their habitats. And we note their presence and identify them more by sound than sight. I've been happy to hear the vernal choruses of each of these species of little frogs many times through the years here in the Middle Atlantic States.
Spring peepers are the most common and widespread of these treefrogs in the Mid-Atlantic States. Most anyone who goes to appropriate habitats in the eastern United States and Canada in April to hear male peepers will probably have opportunities to do so. Light brown with a darker X across their backs and only an inch long, peepers' loud peeping far out-strips their diminutive size. Many males calling together, while perched on cattails and other plants emerging from the shallows, make an almost deafening sound. But from a distance, they sound like sleigh bells. They peep mostly at night, but also on rainy days.
During the warm evenings of May and June, male gray treefrogs emit short, musical trills from trees along the edges of the shallow water they will spawn in. About an inch and a half long, they are light gray or dull green with darker markings, and, to me, look like little toads. They live in the eastern half of the United States where there are abundant trees growing in ample wetlands.
But chorus frogs are my favorite treefrogs because I like hearing their soothing, gentle trilling that sounds like a thumb nail running up the teeth of a comb, " cccrrreeeeeeeekkk", with an upward pitch. That melancholy sound is heard across the mid-west of Canada and the United States east to southeastern Pennsylvania and the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey and the Delmarva Peninsula into The South.
Only an inch long and gray with darker markings for camouflage, chorus frogs' greatest beauty is in their mellow trills that I have always enjoyed hearing in the Middle Atlantic States during March and into April. To me, the love songs of male chorus frogs characterize most the shallows of wetlands in thickets of tall grass, cattails, bushes and small trees at dusk in early spring. Their calm, ageless calling touches my soul. All is well with the world!
Though seldom seen, the beautiful, perhaps mystifying, songs of these common and widespread treefrogs make time spent outdoors in spring more enjoyable. And they are a reminder of the distant past, the long ago Age of Amphibians.
Friday, August 12, 2016
Solace From Nature
Early in the afternoon of August 11, 2016, I visited two human-made habitats in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to see what plants and animals were visible. One place is a church campus and the other is a small park along a slow part of Mill Creek, both within eight miles of home.
As I drove across the large parking lot of the church, I saw several birds standing or lying on the black top and a few of the several stone islands in that lot. With binoculars, I counted 30 killdeer plovers, all of them in the shade of the planted trees in the stony places. Those killdeer feed on invertebrates on the adjacent and expansive short-grass lawn of the church and probably hatched young among the stones. But August 11 was sunny and hot and those inland shorebirds were resting in the only shade available; smart birds.
Once while I was there, the killdeer took flight together in a loose flock and circled the parking lot a few times, alternately flashing white bellies and brown backs as they flew. But soon they swooped down to the shade of the parking lot.
At least a half dozen barn swallows dashed and swooped in mid-air behind a lawn mower to catch insects stirred up from the grass by the mower. Swallows are now gathering prior to their migration south, so they won't be in this area much longer this season.
Sneezeweed, a tall plant with beautiful yellow flowers, dominated a quarter-acre low spot on the church's lawn. Bumble bees, pearl crescent butterflies, cabbage white butterflies, a couple of monarch butterflies and other insects sipped nectar from those blossoms, creating an inspiring show.
Moving on to a water-filled retention basin rimmed by tall cattails on the church campus, I saw several dragonflies of three kinds, green darners, twelve-spotted skimmers and white-tailed skimmers. Male darners have green or blue abdomens, male twelve-spots have three alternate dark and white spots on each of four wings and male white-tails have white abdomens. Those characteristics make the males of each species more noticeable and attractive to potential mates. At least those male dragonflies were more visible to me than their respective females.
Those dragonflies, mostly males visible to me, buzzed rapidly back and forth low over the shallow water after insect prey. And jealous males also chased each other and potential mates. The dragonfly's swift flying on their four stiff wings was entertaining. And a few dragonflies landed on cattails to rest or eat victims they caught in mid-air.
While watching the flights of dragonflies, I heard the gulping and twanging of several male green frogs in the shallows at the bases of the sheltering cattails. They should be cautious because I saw a recently fledged green-backed heron stalking stealthily among the cattails.
At the back-up water from a dam on Mill Creek I saw scores of bluet damselflies, about a dozen green darners, a few twelve-spotted skimmers and a score of common carp. Looking at them through binoculars, the many male damselflies were thin, inch-long strips of blue skimming rapidly back and forth just above the very slow-moving surface of the pond. Females were with them, but they were brownish for camouflage and more difficult to see.
Some of the damselflies were coupled as they flew low over the water. And some couples were spawning eggs into the protection of clumps of alga on the water's surface. But it was the number of these constantly moving damselflies, all just above the water, that was the show at this pond.
Meanwhile, just below the water's surface, the several ponderous carp either lay still in the sunlight or moved slowly. Carp are mostly brown with yellowish-brown fins, originally from Asia and can be disruptive to native fish. But I like carp in habitats already disturbed by human activities. And until those habitats are restored to more natural condition, carp will be a dominant, interesting fish in them. Carp are better than no life at all.
Just as I was about to leave this slow-water stretch of Mill Creek, I saw a wary, timid family of practically-grown wood ducks on water along the far bank, back in the shade of protective tree limbs hanging over those shallows of the creek. Soon woodies will be gathering into ever larger flocks prior to their migration south for the winter.
As I left Mill Creek, I felt the peace and beauty of that waterway and its lawn and tree-lined shores during a warm, breezy afternoon. It was quiet there and I went away with a feeling of contentment.
Both habitats I visited that afternoon were human-made. But they were interesting with adaptable life that makes a day more worthwhile. Any reader can benefit from the solace of nature as I do.
As I drove across the large parking lot of the church, I saw several birds standing or lying on the black top and a few of the several stone islands in that lot. With binoculars, I counted 30 killdeer plovers, all of them in the shade of the planted trees in the stony places. Those killdeer feed on invertebrates on the adjacent and expansive short-grass lawn of the church and probably hatched young among the stones. But August 11 was sunny and hot and those inland shorebirds were resting in the only shade available; smart birds.
Once while I was there, the killdeer took flight together in a loose flock and circled the parking lot a few times, alternately flashing white bellies and brown backs as they flew. But soon they swooped down to the shade of the parking lot.
At least a half dozen barn swallows dashed and swooped in mid-air behind a lawn mower to catch insects stirred up from the grass by the mower. Swallows are now gathering prior to their migration south, so they won't be in this area much longer this season.
Sneezeweed, a tall plant with beautiful yellow flowers, dominated a quarter-acre low spot on the church's lawn. Bumble bees, pearl crescent butterflies, cabbage white butterflies, a couple of monarch butterflies and other insects sipped nectar from those blossoms, creating an inspiring show.
Moving on to a water-filled retention basin rimmed by tall cattails on the church campus, I saw several dragonflies of three kinds, green darners, twelve-spotted skimmers and white-tailed skimmers. Male darners have green or blue abdomens, male twelve-spots have three alternate dark and white spots on each of four wings and male white-tails have white abdomens. Those characteristics make the males of each species more noticeable and attractive to potential mates. At least those male dragonflies were more visible to me than their respective females.
Those dragonflies, mostly males visible to me, buzzed rapidly back and forth low over the shallow water after insect prey. And jealous males also chased each other and potential mates. The dragonfly's swift flying on their four stiff wings was entertaining. And a few dragonflies landed on cattails to rest or eat victims they caught in mid-air.
While watching the flights of dragonflies, I heard the gulping and twanging of several male green frogs in the shallows at the bases of the sheltering cattails. They should be cautious because I saw a recently fledged green-backed heron stalking stealthily among the cattails.
At the back-up water from a dam on Mill Creek I saw scores of bluet damselflies, about a dozen green darners, a few twelve-spotted skimmers and a score of common carp. Looking at them through binoculars, the many male damselflies were thin, inch-long strips of blue skimming rapidly back and forth just above the very slow-moving surface of the pond. Females were with them, but they were brownish for camouflage and more difficult to see.
Some of the damselflies were coupled as they flew low over the water. And some couples were spawning eggs into the protection of clumps of alga on the water's surface. But it was the number of these constantly moving damselflies, all just above the water, that was the show at this pond.
Meanwhile, just below the water's surface, the several ponderous carp either lay still in the sunlight or moved slowly. Carp are mostly brown with yellowish-brown fins, originally from Asia and can be disruptive to native fish. But I like carp in habitats already disturbed by human activities. And until those habitats are restored to more natural condition, carp will be a dominant, interesting fish in them. Carp are better than no life at all.
Just as I was about to leave this slow-water stretch of Mill Creek, I saw a wary, timid family of practically-grown wood ducks on water along the far bank, back in the shade of protective tree limbs hanging over those shallows of the creek. Soon woodies will be gathering into ever larger flocks prior to their migration south for the winter.
As I left Mill Creek, I felt the peace and beauty of that waterway and its lawn and tree-lined shores during a warm, breezy afternoon. It was quiet there and I went away with a feeling of contentment.
Both habitats I visited that afternoon were human-made. But they were interesting with adaptable life that makes a day more worthwhile. Any reader can benefit from the solace of nature as I do.
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
A Busy Meadow
In the early afternoon of August 8, 2016, I was driving through Lancaster County, Pennsylvania farmland in search of anything new or interesting in nature. I came to a patch of tall peppermint plants in bloom about 30 yards off the country road I was on. I stopped at that sunny meadow to see what insects were visiting the mint blooms to ingest nectar, pollinating those blossoms in the process. I mostly saw cabbage white and pearl crescent butterflies, silver-spotted skippers, carpenter bees and digger wasps on them.
Digger wasps are about an inch long and black with rusty-red abdomens. Adult diggers consume nectar from flowers but their larvae feed on the larvae of June beetles living in the soil. Female diggers tunnel through the ground after June beetle grubs, sting them to paralyze them and lay an egg on each grub. Each wasp larvae eats its beetle larva, overwinters in the pupa stage and emerges the next summer ready to ingest nectar and mate.
While I was watching the insects on the mint flowers, I noticed the mints weren't alone in their stand. I also saw the orange blossoms of spotted jewelweeds and the small, pink blooms of smartweeds. All those plants develop best in damp ground and these were growing in a shallow ditch in the pasture.
I also began to notice the meadow in general. A brook, and two lines of trees and shrubbery, each one about 100 yards long, broke up the continuity of the pasture. I saw, too, that this was a busy meadow of birds and bugs. I stayed to watch that human-made pasture for about an hour and a half.
Dozens of post-breeding barn swallows zoomed through the air close to the meadow after flying insects. They were done nesting in local barns and were preparing to drift south to avoid the northern winter by developing wing muscle strength and gaining weight.
Over a score of starlings and brown-headed cowbirds followed a few grazing horses as they grazed in the meadow. The horses stirred up insects with their hooves as they stepped, making those bugs noticeable to the birds.
I saw that the short-grass meadow I was studying had patches of patriotic flowers. There were pink flowers on red clovers, white blooms on Queen-Anne's-lace and some blue blossoms on chicory. All those plants, however, are originally from Europe. But a few yellow and black male goldfinches, which are native to North America, didn't care about that. They were on chicory plants to eat seeds that developed on the already pollinated flowers.
I also noticed a killdeer plover picking up invertebrates from the pasture. Killdeer are inland shorebirds that nest on nearly bare ground and gravelly parts of meadows and fields across North America.
And I saw a wood chuck moving about slowly and nibbling vegetation in the meadow by one of the lines of trees and shrubs. Chucks live in holes in the ground they dig themselves. Abandoned chuck holes are used by red foxes, coyotes, skunks and other mammals.
The clear, flowing brook figured heavily in the variety of animal life in that pasture. Schools of stream-lined black-nosed dace swam easily into the current of that narrow waterway as they watched for tiny invertebrates to eat. A few striking, male black-winged damselflies that have metallic-green bodies courted females along the brook. Their fluttering flights low over the sparkling water seemed like dancing in the sunlight. They were once predatory nymphs in that brook and females will lay eggs in that same waterway. And a pair of big green darner dragonflies were attached to each other as the female of the species dipped the end of her abdomen in slower-moving water to deposit eggs.
Predatory dragonfly nymphs will develop from that spawning.
A few kinds of small birds, including several beautiful American goldfinches of both genders, a few house finches of both genders, a family of chipping sparrows, a striking pair of indigo buntings and several house sparrows entered a slow, shallow section of the brook to drink and bathe. Sometimes there were several birds of a few species flutter-bathing at once, creating an attractive and interesting show. I thought the blue of the male indigo was particularly lovely.
A few kinds of common butterflies, including cabbage whites, and the beautiful tiger swallowtails and spicebush swallowtails were "puddling" in mud on a bare-soil path made by the horses going to the brook to drink. The butterflies were ingesting moist soil and, probably, horse urine to consume minerals they can't get from flowers.
One or two each of northern cardinals, song sparrows and gray catbirds flitted among the trees and other plants in the two hedgerows, adding to the diversity of life in that meadow. They had already nested in those lines of trees and bushes and were gaining weight and regaining strength for the coming fall and winter. The catbirds will migrate south for the winter, but the cardinals and sparrows will live out their lives in those hedgerows where they hatched. This winter they will eat weed seeds and spend cold, winter nights huddled in the shrubbery.
Though created and used for the good of people, that meadow, like other human-made habitats, has an interesting diversity of adaptable life in it. A key to survival is to be adaptable and make use of what is available. In the meantime, we humans can enjoy experiencing plants and animals that have adapted to human-made habitats.
Digger wasps are about an inch long and black with rusty-red abdomens. Adult diggers consume nectar from flowers but their larvae feed on the larvae of June beetles living in the soil. Female diggers tunnel through the ground after June beetle grubs, sting them to paralyze them and lay an egg on each grub. Each wasp larvae eats its beetle larva, overwinters in the pupa stage and emerges the next summer ready to ingest nectar and mate.
While I was watching the insects on the mint flowers, I noticed the mints weren't alone in their stand. I also saw the orange blossoms of spotted jewelweeds and the small, pink blooms of smartweeds. All those plants develop best in damp ground and these were growing in a shallow ditch in the pasture.
I also began to notice the meadow in general. A brook, and two lines of trees and shrubbery, each one about 100 yards long, broke up the continuity of the pasture. I saw, too, that this was a busy meadow of birds and bugs. I stayed to watch that human-made pasture for about an hour and a half.
Dozens of post-breeding barn swallows zoomed through the air close to the meadow after flying insects. They were done nesting in local barns and were preparing to drift south to avoid the northern winter by developing wing muscle strength and gaining weight.
Over a score of starlings and brown-headed cowbirds followed a few grazing horses as they grazed in the meadow. The horses stirred up insects with their hooves as they stepped, making those bugs noticeable to the birds.
I saw that the short-grass meadow I was studying had patches of patriotic flowers. There were pink flowers on red clovers, white blooms on Queen-Anne's-lace and some blue blossoms on chicory. All those plants, however, are originally from Europe. But a few yellow and black male goldfinches, which are native to North America, didn't care about that. They were on chicory plants to eat seeds that developed on the already pollinated flowers.
I also noticed a killdeer plover picking up invertebrates from the pasture. Killdeer are inland shorebirds that nest on nearly bare ground and gravelly parts of meadows and fields across North America.
And I saw a wood chuck moving about slowly and nibbling vegetation in the meadow by one of the lines of trees and shrubs. Chucks live in holes in the ground they dig themselves. Abandoned chuck holes are used by red foxes, coyotes, skunks and other mammals.
The clear, flowing brook figured heavily in the variety of animal life in that pasture. Schools of stream-lined black-nosed dace swam easily into the current of that narrow waterway as they watched for tiny invertebrates to eat. A few striking, male black-winged damselflies that have metallic-green bodies courted females along the brook. Their fluttering flights low over the sparkling water seemed like dancing in the sunlight. They were once predatory nymphs in that brook and females will lay eggs in that same waterway. And a pair of big green darner dragonflies were attached to each other as the female of the species dipped the end of her abdomen in slower-moving water to deposit eggs.
Predatory dragonfly nymphs will develop from that spawning.
A few kinds of small birds, including several beautiful American goldfinches of both genders, a few house finches of both genders, a family of chipping sparrows, a striking pair of indigo buntings and several house sparrows entered a slow, shallow section of the brook to drink and bathe. Sometimes there were several birds of a few species flutter-bathing at once, creating an attractive and interesting show. I thought the blue of the male indigo was particularly lovely.
A few kinds of common butterflies, including cabbage whites, and the beautiful tiger swallowtails and spicebush swallowtails were "puddling" in mud on a bare-soil path made by the horses going to the brook to drink. The butterflies were ingesting moist soil and, probably, horse urine to consume minerals they can't get from flowers.
One or two each of northern cardinals, song sparrows and gray catbirds flitted among the trees and other plants in the two hedgerows, adding to the diversity of life in that meadow. They had already nested in those lines of trees and bushes and were gaining weight and regaining strength for the coming fall and winter. The catbirds will migrate south for the winter, but the cardinals and sparrows will live out their lives in those hedgerows where they hatched. This winter they will eat weed seeds and spend cold, winter nights huddled in the shrubbery.
Though created and used for the good of people, that meadow, like other human-made habitats, has an interesting diversity of adaptable life in it. A key to survival is to be adaptable and make use of what is available. In the meantime, we humans can enjoy experiencing plants and animals that have adapted to human-made habitats.
Sunday, August 7, 2016
Tree Bark Habitats
At first appearance, tree bark seems sterile, but it is a habitat for certain adaptable and commonplace kinds of life in the Middle Atlantic States, as elsewhere. But one has to look closely to see most of the life on tree bark. Squirrels can be obvious scurrying up trees and out their limbs, but most life on bark is small, often still, and much of it blends into the gray or brown of the bark.
Mosses, lichens and tiny mushrooms are the bulk of the non-animal life living on bark, forming little gardens that are most apparent during and just after a rainfall. Mosses, lichens and mushrooms absorb the water, which swells them and makes them more visible.
Lichens are a flat combination of fungi that holds a place on the bark and absorbs rain water, and alga that has green chlorophyll that is powered by sunlight (photosynthesis) to combine carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water to make a sugar that is the food for both the fungi and the alga.
Mosses also have chlorophyll and make their own food. But the mushrooms get their nutrition from breaking down a little of the bark.
Two kinds of daddy long-legs, eastern and brown, are spider relatives most noted for their eight, very long legs, compared to the sizes of their bodies. They are the critters most likely seen on tree trunks and branches in woods and older suburban areas where they catch and eat tiny invertebrates during warmer months. Both kinds of daddy long-legs are camouflaged on tree bark, but some are seen, caught and eaten by a variety of birds and other critters anyway.
Carpenter ants and other kinds of ants commonly run up and down tree bark on missions known only to them. Carpenter ants are the big, black ones that live in colonies in cavities they dig themselves in dead wood under the bark. When excavating tunnels, they poke their heads out of holes in the wood and bark to dump bits of wood from their mandibles. That wood piles up on the ground, giving away the presence of carpenter ants at work.
Willow aphids and other kinds of aphids live on soft, young bark and suck sugary sap from it. Certain types of ants protect aphids and are rewarded with ingesting the sugary waste aphids exude from their rears, a waste called honeydew. But the attractive, little lady bug beetles, and their nymphs, consume the aphids, creating another food chain of who eats whom.
Brown creepers and two species of nuthatches are small birds in the Mid-Atlantic States that walk up and down tree bark and peer into protective crevices for invertebrates and their tiny eggs. Creepers have slightly down-curved beaks they pry into cracks to get food. Nuthatch beaks are stout and a tiny bit up-turned to pick food from tree bark crevices.
Creepers flutter to the bottom of a tree trunk and slowly spiral up the tree in search of invertebrate food. But nuthatches are the only family of birds that can walk down tree trunks head first. Not even woodpeckers can do that. It is amazing how adapted some species of life are to their niche, which allows them survival in that niche.
Mostly at night, sometime in August, many annual cicada grubs emerge from the soil of suburban areas and climb trees and other objects to varying heights. Coming to rest, the brown, outer shell of each grub splits along the back and the winged, adult insect crawls out of its old exoskeleton. After gaining strength, each adult cicada flies away in search of a mate or mates, leaving the empty shell on the tree bark as a reminder to us that it was there. And now, during August days, we hear the almost incessant, pulsing whining of several male annual cicadas high in the tree tops. That buzzing whine brings the genders together to mate and lay fertilized eggs.
Though seemingly uninhabited and dull, tree bark is alive with life in the Mid-Atlantic States, if one looks closely. It is amazing where life is. It seems every niche on Earth has life in it.
Mosses, lichens and tiny mushrooms are the bulk of the non-animal life living on bark, forming little gardens that are most apparent during and just after a rainfall. Mosses, lichens and mushrooms absorb the water, which swells them and makes them more visible.
Lichens are a flat combination of fungi that holds a place on the bark and absorbs rain water, and alga that has green chlorophyll that is powered by sunlight (photosynthesis) to combine carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water to make a sugar that is the food for both the fungi and the alga.
Mosses also have chlorophyll and make their own food. But the mushrooms get their nutrition from breaking down a little of the bark.
Two kinds of daddy long-legs, eastern and brown, are spider relatives most noted for their eight, very long legs, compared to the sizes of their bodies. They are the critters most likely seen on tree trunks and branches in woods and older suburban areas where they catch and eat tiny invertebrates during warmer months. Both kinds of daddy long-legs are camouflaged on tree bark, but some are seen, caught and eaten by a variety of birds and other critters anyway.
Carpenter ants and other kinds of ants commonly run up and down tree bark on missions known only to them. Carpenter ants are the big, black ones that live in colonies in cavities they dig themselves in dead wood under the bark. When excavating tunnels, they poke their heads out of holes in the wood and bark to dump bits of wood from their mandibles. That wood piles up on the ground, giving away the presence of carpenter ants at work.
Willow aphids and other kinds of aphids live on soft, young bark and suck sugary sap from it. Certain types of ants protect aphids and are rewarded with ingesting the sugary waste aphids exude from their rears, a waste called honeydew. But the attractive, little lady bug beetles, and their nymphs, consume the aphids, creating another food chain of who eats whom.
Brown creepers and two species of nuthatches are small birds in the Mid-Atlantic States that walk up and down tree bark and peer into protective crevices for invertebrates and their tiny eggs. Creepers have slightly down-curved beaks they pry into cracks to get food. Nuthatch beaks are stout and a tiny bit up-turned to pick food from tree bark crevices.
Creepers flutter to the bottom of a tree trunk and slowly spiral up the tree in search of invertebrate food. But nuthatches are the only family of birds that can walk down tree trunks head first. Not even woodpeckers can do that. It is amazing how adapted some species of life are to their niche, which allows them survival in that niche.
Mostly at night, sometime in August, many annual cicada grubs emerge from the soil of suburban areas and climb trees and other objects to varying heights. Coming to rest, the brown, outer shell of each grub splits along the back and the winged, adult insect crawls out of its old exoskeleton. After gaining strength, each adult cicada flies away in search of a mate or mates, leaving the empty shell on the tree bark as a reminder to us that it was there. And now, during August days, we hear the almost incessant, pulsing whining of several male annual cicadas high in the tree tops. That buzzing whine brings the genders together to mate and lay fertilized eggs.
Though seemingly uninhabited and dull, tree bark is alive with life in the Mid-Atlantic States, if one looks closely. It is amazing where life is. It seems every niche on Earth has life in it.
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Mullien and Teasel
I never saw so many flowering teasel plants along rural roadsides as I have during the latter part of July of this year. I saw many patches of teasel here and there for several miles as I drove along. And common mulliens were among some clumps of teasel, but not as abundantly.
I began to think about the characteristics teasel and common mullien have in common. Both these tall kinds of plants are common in pastures, abandoned fields and roadsides all over eastern North America. And though aliens from Europe and considered to be weeds by most people, both are here to stay.
Teasel and mullien stalks were used by Europeans during medieval times. Teasels have hard and spiny flower heads and stems and were used to tease out wool. Dead and dry common mullien stalks have holes where the flowers and seeds formed. But when the seeds fall out to the ground, those holes are filled only with air. The dead, holey mullien stalks in medieval Europe were dipped in liquid animal fat, which soaked into, and hardened in, the cavities and the dried stems themselves. Later they were lit as torches to be used at night.
Both these plants have two-year life cycles. During the first year of its life, each plant develops several leaves only in a circle close to the ground. But during its second year, each plant grows flower stalks, and blossoms that are pollinated by insects. And when the seeds of each kind are mature and fall to the ground, both types of vegetation die, leaving dead, upright stalks that are picturesque in winter snow.
Several autumns ago I brought a handful of dead teasel flower heads and their stems home for an indoor dried arrangement. Not thinking, I dragged those teasel stems across our lawn to the house. And, sure enough, young teasel plants grew the next spring in our yard. But I was not concerned. I just mowed the grass each week as I always had done, which included mowing off the flower stalks of teasel during the second summer. Those plants died without producing seeds, leaving no descendants on our lawn.
Teasels have small, pale-lavender flowers in their bristly seed heads. Blossoms in the middle of each attractive flower head bloom first while flowers on the top and bottom of each head bloom last. The blossoms between the middle and the ends bloom in succession from the middle out to each end, an unusual way for any plant to bloom.
Common mulliens have numerous and cheerful yellow blossoms all along the upper half of their flower stalks. And this kind of mullien has one, two or three picturesque spikes of pretty blooms during their second year.
Insects visit the flowers of both plants to sip their nectar, pollinating them in the process. The insects get food, mice and seed-eating birds consume the resulting seeds during fall and winter, and the vegetation reproduces themselves from seeds that were not ingested.
Teasel and common mulliens have several traits they share, making them the more interesting to us. They also produce food for a variety of small wildlife. And they beautify many country roadsides with their lovely flowers. Look for them when visiting farmland and other rural areas.
I began to think about the characteristics teasel and common mullien have in common. Both these tall kinds of plants are common in pastures, abandoned fields and roadsides all over eastern North America. And though aliens from Europe and considered to be weeds by most people, both are here to stay.
Teasel and mullien stalks were used by Europeans during medieval times. Teasels have hard and spiny flower heads and stems and were used to tease out wool. Dead and dry common mullien stalks have holes where the flowers and seeds formed. But when the seeds fall out to the ground, those holes are filled only with air. The dead, holey mullien stalks in medieval Europe were dipped in liquid animal fat, which soaked into, and hardened in, the cavities and the dried stems themselves. Later they were lit as torches to be used at night.
Both these plants have two-year life cycles. During the first year of its life, each plant develops several leaves only in a circle close to the ground. But during its second year, each plant grows flower stalks, and blossoms that are pollinated by insects. And when the seeds of each kind are mature and fall to the ground, both types of vegetation die, leaving dead, upright stalks that are picturesque in winter snow.
Several autumns ago I brought a handful of dead teasel flower heads and their stems home for an indoor dried arrangement. Not thinking, I dragged those teasel stems across our lawn to the house. And, sure enough, young teasel plants grew the next spring in our yard. But I was not concerned. I just mowed the grass each week as I always had done, which included mowing off the flower stalks of teasel during the second summer. Those plants died without producing seeds, leaving no descendants on our lawn.
Teasels have small, pale-lavender flowers in their bristly seed heads. Blossoms in the middle of each attractive flower head bloom first while flowers on the top and bottom of each head bloom last. The blossoms between the middle and the ends bloom in succession from the middle out to each end, an unusual way for any plant to bloom.
Common mulliens have numerous and cheerful yellow blossoms all along the upper half of their flower stalks. And this kind of mullien has one, two or three picturesque spikes of pretty blooms during their second year.
Insects visit the flowers of both plants to sip their nectar, pollinating them in the process. The insects get food, mice and seed-eating birds consume the resulting seeds during fall and winter, and the vegetation reproduces themselves from seeds that were not ingested.
Teasel and common mulliens have several traits they share, making them the more interesting to us. They also produce food for a variety of small wildlife. And they beautify many country roadsides with their lovely flowers. Look for them when visiting farmland and other rural areas.
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