Heather of the Hills

Oh, how I love my birds

2012-02-12T19:47:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I mentioned how Carolina Wrens are the apple of my eye as far as species that dine at my feeders in winter go(or any time of year, really). If a weekend of counting for Project FeederWatch goes by with a goose egg on my list next to "CAWR"* (the 4-letter shorthand, known as bander's code or alpha code, for CArolina WRen), it makes me sad. I worry.

This weekend I was sitting at the dining room table having a late breakfast, and I wondered out loud if "my" wrens were okay, because I had not yet heard a peep from them or seen them. Oftentimes they are one of the first birds I hear in the morning, so that was why I was a little concerned. Not to worry, though. As soon I finished posing the question to my bowl of cereal, up popped a wren onto the railing and right into the bowl that holds the bird dough.

It's when things like this happen that I can't help but wonder if there is some kind of connection between myself and the birds. I mean, come on! Wonder about the bird and then it shows up immediately thereafter, as if conjured?!

Don't worry, Heather - we are here and we are fine. Now, if you don't mind, I'm just going to sit in the food.
There were actually 2 of them sitting in here at one point, but I wasn't fast enough with the camera to get a shot of that. In total, there were 3 Carolina Wrens at my feeders at one time this weekend, as was the case last weekend. I had 3 of them at one time in early December, too. This is remarkable because this is the first year in 7 years of counting for FeederWatch that I've ever seen 3 Carolina Wrens at once at my feeders.

Contemplating his/her next bite?
I also enjoy the woodpeckers, and we get three species of them reliably: Downy, Hairy, and Red-bellied. The Downies seem to be the most tame of the three, readily coming in to the suet feeders even if I'm standing right next to them. This sweet little female Downy Woodpecker looks like she just landed, what with the little spray of snow under her tail.

Tra-la-la, minding her own business, making sure I'm getting her good side...

... then this feisty fella shows up. Doesn't he look MAD?! His little head feathers are all puffed up, full of 'tude.

Here's a look at his puffed up mane from the back:

And even though he's chased the female away by now, his bravado continues:

Oh wait, never mind. It's all cool. No problems here, lady.

Lemme jus' grab a big ol' hunk o' dough...

And get on outta here!

I soooo love this shot, caught serendipitously by depressing the shutter at just the right time, of course. It almost has the feel of a raptor caught in flight rather than a woodpecker.

Yes, friends, these are just a few examples of why I love my birds. They are wonderful in every way.

*Okay, regarding the alpha code for Carolina Wren... CAWR isn't technically correct, because that abbreviation could also refer to 2 other wren species in the United States: CActus WRen and CAnyon WRen. The correct bander's code for each of these species is as follows: CACW (Cactus Wren), CARW (Carolina), and CANW (Canyon). I use CAWR for my wren, though, because the chances of me encountering either of the other 2 species, which live out west, is pretty remote at my feeders. Besides, it's shorthand that's supposed to be easy for ME to read. But I digress.

Vultures, creepers and wrens - oh my!

2012-02-07T19:59:00.001-05:00

So what was I talking about when last I blogged... Birds, you say? Well, here's some more bird stuff.

Vultures are common where I live in southeast Ohio, and they are here year-round. This has not always been the case, but it's all I've ever known since I started birding and paying attention to such things. Folks up in northern portions of the state are starting to see their first Turkey Vultures of the year, but Turkey Vultures, as well as Black Vultures, abound in Athens and Hocking Counties (and probably many other southeast Ohio counties). My interest in Black Vultures in Athens County began around this same time last year when a large group set up camp on and around an empty house along my route to work (click HERE to read that post). This year they continue to fascinate me as I try to figure out where they are roosting around town.

One reliable spot, I have found, is The Ridges on the Ohio University Campus. This area used to be known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum, but now it houses university offices, the campus recycling center, and an art museum, among other things.

One Black Vulture among many, coming in for a landing. Notice the bits of whitewash along the brick wall. Yeah, that's vulture poo.
The Black Vultures that I've been seeing during the past few months have been flying rather close to downtown Athens, and I see them often on the days that I choose to walk Uptown (that's what we call downtown in Athens) for lunch. They swirl around down low, and they are sometimes found flying close to the local middle school, which is a little creepy (don't fly off with one of the kids!)
As I've been studying the vultures these past months, I've been tricked by several different shapes they can take in flight. We mostly think of them soaring, which they certainly do, but I've learned that they look very different when they are actively flying and really trying to cover some ground to get from point A to point B. So just because its wings aren't outstretched doesn't mean it's not a vulture.

Turkey Vulture in a hurry
I've also had to really concentrate on field marks to separate the Black Vulture from the Turkey Vultures in flight. The tail should be a reliable clue (short and stubby on Black Vultures, longer and more round on Turkey Vultures), but sometimes it's not the best indicator for me. The white "finger tips" are probably the best marking to look for, but the light has to hit at just the right angle for that to really show. I'm also getting a better feel for the relative sizes (Black Vultures are smaller then Turkey Vultures.)

One of each. Can you tell which is which?
In case you thought I only cared about the Black Vultures, here's a small roost of Turkey Vultures, also found at The Ridges, but quite removed from the spot where I photographed the Black Vultures. Normally they don't make any noise, but sometimes they do hiss, as the top-most Turkey Vulture in this photo is doing.

Another bird that's been high on my fascination-meter this winter is the Brown Creeper. I've seen more Brown Creepers this winter than I ever have, and have spotted them on at least 15 different occasions. While I don't get the impression that they are terribly uncommon, they certainly aren't as abundant as, say, woodpeckers or chickadees. They put me more in the mind of Carolina Wrens, who seem to have a fairly high territory:bird ratio (meaning few birds to a large-ish territory). One thing is for sure: a Brown Creeper is not a bird that you're going to just stumble upon. You've got to know what to look for, and more times than not it will be their sibilant call note that will alert you to their presence.

For example, there are 2 birds on this tree, a creeper and a woodpecker. The woodpecker is peeking, and I'm positive you can pick it out, but I bet you're in a pickle to point out the presence of the creeper.

Here we are, zoomed in. The cute little creeper is just below dead-center. See why they're so hard to spot? Blend right in with the bark. That's some camouflage, eh?

Please pardon the quality of this photo, but it is severely cropped. This was one of the few times when the creeper was at the base of the tree, and there's at least a little contrast with the moss that's around it. It's hard to see, but there's a band on this bird's leg. I photographed this Brown Creeper at the house of my friend Bob Scott Placier, who is a licensed bird bander. He has banded at least 4 of these little gems in recent months, and they have a steady supply of food at Bob's, so they'll probably stick around until it's time for them to migrate north for breeding season.
On the home front, the birding has been pretty steady this winter, with the same 14 species (give or take 1 or 2) showing up reliably each weekend that I count birds for Project FeederWatch. We had an ice storm a few weeks back, which finally brought a pair of Eastern Towhees and an American Tree Sparrow to my feeders, but otherwise it's been a predictable cast of characters.

Singing male Carolina Wren, the apple of my eye at the feeders. Any time I put something special out, like mealworms or homemade bird dough, I tell them out loud that I've put out something just for them. It's for all of the birds to enjoy, of course, but a special kind of joy comes over me when the wrens show up.

I love watching the woodpeckers at this little feeding station - the distance from the railing is perfect for tail-propping.

And no feeder watching session would be complete without a visit from at least one Sciurus carolinensis, or eastern grey squirrel.
Good birding!

Putting birding skills to use

2012-01-08T20:26:00.000-05:00

One of the most rewarding aspects of birding for me is being able to put something that I recently learned to use by making new discoveries of my own based on that learning. I had one such experience today.

I was walking along our rural road, enjoying the sunshine and abnormally warm temperatures for January. I stopped often to look and listen for birds. One particular area caught my interest for some reason, maybe because I don't normally pay much attention to this particular spot, or maybe I caught some special birdie vibes. I saw movement in the grass, heard some Song Sparrows and saw some other sparrows that I couldn't make out well enough to positively identify. Then I heard a chip note that caught my ear. At first I thought it was an Eastern Phoebe, which would have been a really cool find for this time of year. Once I got my binoculars on the culprit, though, I realized it was a Swamp Sparrow. I was especially excited about this because this was a new find for me along our road.

What was more intriguing to me, though, was the fact that I had been tricked by this Phoebe-sounding chip note just about a week ago while doing the Hocking Hills Christmas Bird Count (CBC). My neighborhood habitat is very similar to that of our CBC Swamp Sparrow habitat: close to a creek, with lots of overgrown grasses in a low-lying area that's known to get wet (and stay wet) after too much rain, and with moderate but spotty tree density. When we first heard the "chip!" during the count, our group leader, Jim McCormac, thought it was a Phoebe. The closer we got to the source, though, the less convinced we were that it was actually a Phoebe. It eventually dawned on Jim that it was more likely to be a Swamp Sparrow. While we never actually saw the bird in question that day, after comparing recordings of a Phoebe "chip" to that of a Swamp Sparrow "chip," all 3 of us agreed that what we were hearing was a Swamp Sparrow.

Swamp Sparrow in winter plumage. Photo by Kevin Bearcaw, via Wikipedia
Sure enough, I was being confronted with the same situation on my home turf. Only this time I got to see the bird. I even went so far as to walk back home and get my spotting scope so that I could get a really good grasp of what this bird looked like. To look at it, it seems like not a very exciting bird, unless you like trying to categorize different hues of brown, rust and grey. I have to admit that I would be hard pressed to identify this bird by looks alone simply because I haven't seen very many of them. (I can tell you a Song Sparrow from a White-throated from a White-crowned from a House, but that's about the extent of my ability to ID sparrows on sight. They don't get the nickname "Little Brown Jobs" (or LBJs) for nothing!)

Swamp Sparrows winter in southern Ohio, but it seems few stick around these parts for breeding season. Preliminary data from the recently completed 2nd Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas (2006-2011) show, however, a handful of confirmed breeding locations in the southern 3rd of the state. This is in stark contrast to the last Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas (1982-1987), which shows possible and confirmed nesting only in the northern 2/3's of the state. Having now seen (and heard) this bird in my own neighborhood during winter, I will now be keeping a watchful eye out for a possible breeding record this coming summer. Now THAT would be exciting!

Hocking Hills Christmas Bird Count

2012-01-05T21:05:00.000-05:00

Snow-flocked Hemlocks in the Hocking Hills

January 2nd turned out to be a cold, brisk, wintry day, perhaps not the best of days to be out birding. The roads went from dry to snow-covered in a matter of hours, and we found ourselves in near white-out conditions at a few points in the day. As a result, the birds stayed hunkered down for the most part, except for a few pockets of activity here and there. I had hoped for at least 40 species for the day, and we ended the day with 44 species; however, only 35 of those were in our count territory - the other 9 were "borrowed" from Lake Logan, which was the territory of another count group.
I'm glad we stopped at the lake first thing, though, because there was much waterfowl to be seen. Due to the mild weather that we've had thus far, the water was completely open (i.e. not frozen), so there were many more waterbirds than one would find if the lake had been even partially frozen. We saw several good-sized rafts of American Coots and Hooded Mergansers (with females greatly outnumbering males), a couple of Pied-billed Grebes, a Double-crested Cormorant, and a Horned Grebe. Please let it be noted that, with the exception of the Coots (and maybe the Mergs), I probably wouldn't have been able to ID the other waterfowl due to utter lack of experience (especially since they're all in basic, or non-breeding, plumage right now!). Thanks to our fearless leader, Jim McCormac, for pointing out all these great birds!

As strange as it may sound to some, I find an odd type of enjoyment in driving around and stopping and looking and listening for birds. Of course, this is all done on rural roads, so traffic is not too much of an issue, but you do have to be mindful of private property. We stopped and "staked out" a couple of yards with feeders, and if the homeowners would have happened to look out while this car full of people with binoculars was checking out their house, they might have been a little alarmed! One of these feeders got us our only House Finch of the day, though.

My bird count partners, Olivia and Jim.

Some species came easily, and were spotted or heard at almost every stop, with the American Crow probably taking the prize there. Dark-eyed Juncos were also observed in great numbers (101 for the day for our group, I believe). Other species like Carolina Chickadee and Tufted Titmouse were observed in surprisingly low numbers, especially given the number of forested habitats we encountered. We got all 5 woodpecker species that we expected (Downy, Hairy, Red-belied, Northern Flicker, and Pileated), but we had to work really hard for the Hairy, and all the Pileateds were silent fly-bys. That's one woodpecker you tend to hear more than you see it, but not on this day. We had 4 Belted Kingfishers for the day, which I thought was a high number, but very few Starlings or House Sparrows, both of which I would have expected to see in decent numbers simply due to their commonness.

Surprises for the day came both in the form of what we saw and didn't see. The aforementioned Horned Grebe was a nice find, as were several hearty-souled Savannah Sparrows cavorting with a large flock of Juncos, a Bald Eagle soaring over Lake Logan, and a few Killdeer holding out on the mudflats at the lake. We had several misses, too, that were disappointing: no Turkey Vultures (did see a number of Black Vultures, though), no Red-tailed Hawk, and no American Kestrel. Regarding the latter two, I suspect our chances would have been better if the weather weren't so dreadful. Who wants to be teed up in a tree or perched on autility line when the wind is blowing the snow sideways? We had also hoped and tried for Red-breasted Nuthatch, Winter Wren and maybe an overwintering Eastern Phoebe, but no luck. And so it goes.

The day wrapped up at Crane Hollow Nature Preserve, where we had a group gathering and pot luck. It was nice to sit in this warm, cozy house with some yummy snacks and in the company of friends, new and old, while we compiled the day's findings. It was a wonderful way to start the new year!

Here's the full list of species that our group saw and/or heard, if anyone cares to know:

Hooded Merganser
Double-crested Cormorant (new for the Hocking Hills count!)
American Coot
Canada Goose
Pied-billed Grebe
Horned Grebe
Mute Swan
Mallard
Killdeer
Belted Kingfisher
Bald Eagle
Red-shouldered Hawk
Northern Harrier
American Crow
Norther Cardinal
Blue Jay
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Savannah Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
American Tree Sparrow
Eastern Towhee
Hermit Thrush
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Pileated Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Red-breasted Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Mourning Dove
American Goldfinch
House Finch
Carolina Wren
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Black Vulture
Northern Mockingbird
House Sparrow
European Starling

My Birdy Big Year

2011-12-27T22:00:00.000-05:00

When looking back on things, whether it's a month, a season, or a year, it is in our nature, I think, to look for the high points. I had many high points this past year, too many to name, actually, but some stand out more than others and are worthy of being recounted in a year-end round-up fashion.

I knew going into 2011 that it was going to be a big year for me as far as birding was concerned, and I was right. The entire year has been a turning point in my birding career, and I feel like I have started to come into my own. Do I have lots more to learn? Sure, but that's a big part of the fun. Lots of details finally started to click for me this year, and I'm happy to say that I'm beginning to see a bigger picture. I don't see "just a bird" anymore, but also how the bird is connected to the habitat it uses, and how we are affecting those habitats (for better and for worse). I'm also paying more attention to bird behavior, and find myself continually asking "what does that mean? why are you doing that?" My own birding "philosophy" continues to evolve, which I will share at some point (I already have to a certain extent, when I wrote about the Emotional Life List), and I watch with curious interest some of the discussions other birders have about things like "what differentiates a birder from a bird watcher?"

A male Magnolia Warbler, captured and released at the New River Birding and Nature Festival, May 2011

The New River Birding and Nature Festival that I attended in May in West Virginia went a long way to expanding my bird knowledge. A full week of birding immersion was better than I ever could have imagined. I look forward to making a similar trip in May of 2012, this time up in Michigan. It will be a different set of birds, different habitat, different flora, but some of the same friends will be there, and I have no doubt the experience will be spectacular.

A Red-eyed Vireo fledgling, probably newly out of the nest the day this photo was taken.

Breeding pair of Orchard Orioles, a first-year male on the left and a female on the right.

Participating in the Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas this summer was also a fantastic experience that contributed to my growing avian knowledge base. This was an activity that I took part in largely on my own (as opposed to a festival or group birding outing), and it was empowering to be able to recognize and identify some new birds without assistance, as well as to find evidence of breeding either in the form of a nest, adults carrying food, or in some rare cases, fledglings that were not too many days out of the nest. I still remember the joy in my heart at finding several teeny Red-eyed Vireo fledges along the side of our road, and the great excitement at tracking down a begging Blue-winged Warbler on our neighbors' property and a whole party of begging Ovenbird babies just feet from my own front door! (A challenge for upcoming breeding seasons is to find an actual Ovenbird nest on our property, which is a tall order, as their nests are notoriously well-camouflage and difficult to find!)

A Great Egret flies over Meadowbrook Marsh near Lakeside, OH

The last big birding "event" for the year was the Midwest Birding Symposium (mark your calendars for September 19-22, 2013, when the symposium will be back at Lakeside, OH!), where I found myself with so much to do and see that although we went up to Lakeside a few days before the symposium even started, I still didn't get to visit all of the birding hotspots on my list. This time around we took part in the sunset cruise (we missed it when we went up in 2009), which was my first pelagic-style experience (although I'm not sure if riding a boat in the windy chop of Lake Erie really counts as pelagic cruise). I was surprised and pleased to see many birds at Magee Marsh at close range. Magee is known as a mecca for spring migrating birds (they rest there before crossing Lake Erie to get to Canada), but it is also obviously a good resting spot for them during fall migration as well.

The male of our nesting Eastern Phoebe pair after being banded.

Speaking of migration, another thing that I got a little more in tune with this year was the arrival patterns that define spring migration. Before breeding season even begins, it pays to listen to when the year-round-resident birds start to sing, sometimes as early as February. Likewise, I listen especially close every day starting in early April as I await the return of our nesting Eastern Phoebes. The Woodcocks also start moving into southeast Ohio in mid- to late April. Come the beginning of May, the floodgates open, the trees are flowering and new singers are added to the dawn chorus every day. Just thinking about it right now on a damp December evening makes me giddy!

Surprised? Scared? Happy? Who knows what's going through this little Saw-whet Owl's mind here, but it was love at first sight for me!

An especially poignant moment came on my birthday in early November, when I got to not only observe the banding of a Saw-whet Owl, but I even got to hold, "pet," and release the bird. You can read the full details of the experience HERE.

Yours truly giving a birding program at the Athens Public Library in January 2011.

As I look forward to 2012, I anticipate a similar array of experiences, each with something new to teach me. I also hope to engage more with my local community, teaching them about birds and showing them why I think birds are awesome, and just maybe setting a foundation in place for a local birding group, which this town is sorely lacking. I dearly love my birding friends from other parts of Ohio and beyond, but I also want to make more birding friends right in my own back yard.

Here's wishing you all a very birdy 2012!

Dauntless Downy Woodpecker

2011-12-22T11:30:00.000-05:00

At our feeders nestled in the woods, 5 species of woodpeckers have been observed dining on suet, and occasionally on sunflower seeds and peanuts. In order of appearance from least to most common, those woodpeckers are: Pileated Woodpecker, Northern Flicker (yellow-shafted form), Red-bellied Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker and Downy Woodpecker. On very rare occasions I will see Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers on our property, but they have never come to the feeders.

As you might imagine, the least common visitors get the biggest hoots and hollers from me, and are most likely to find themselves in the cross-hairs of my camera lens. This is unfair to the more common visitors, such as the Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers. As I was looking for photos to illustrate this post, I noticed that I don't have very many photos of Downy Woodpeckers, and the ones that I do have all look virtually the same.

Yup, that's a male Downy Woodpecker clinging to the suet cage. We can tell that it's a male by the little note of red on the back of his head; female Downies have no red on their head.

While I may not jump up and down every time I see a Downy Woodpecker, I certainly do appreciate each appearance they make. They are easily visible year-round, and the parents will bring their begging fledges to our suet feeders once they are old enough to leave the safety of the nest. One time, about 5 years ago, they nested in a snag just above our driveway, and we were alerted to said nest by the incessant begging of the babies within. It took a few days to figure out where this high-pitched squeaking, reminiscent of a mouse with a megaphone, was coming from, and I was happy to learn that it was a clutch of successfully hatched wee Downies.

Since woodpeckers aren't songbirds, we don't really think of them making much noise except for pecking and drumming with their bills on trees or fence posts. They do emit a number of vocalizations, though. Downies make a loud "pick!" sound as well as a whinnying-type of call that descends in pitch at the end. They also make some other squeaky and churring calls, especially when several birds are in close proximity to each other. The Downy population in our woods has slowly been on the rise since I started counting them for Project FeederWatch seven years ago. At first we would only see 1 or 2 Downies at a time, but now it is common to have at least 4 within view at once. I know there are more of them around than that, but keeping them all in sight at one time is tricky! When they are not perched on a feeder, they are in constant motion, hitching up and down the trees in search of bugs in and under the bark, and during the winter it seems like they are constantly bickering, harassing each other, and shooing each other away.

A Downy at the homemade bird dough bowl, watching someone else fly by. Perhaps another Downy?
This year I have noticed an interesting trend among my Downies. Normally when I step outside to refill the feeders, or just to have a look around on the deck, all the birds scatter except for the fearless Carolina Chickadees. Now the Downies are joining the ranks as the next species to be unperturbed by my presence. I can stand right next to the suet feeders with a Downy at arm's length, munching away like it doesn't even see me. Yet another bird whose trust I have presumably earned. I feel mighty honored to stand so close to these fantastic creatures.

The Frost Hunt

2011-12-07T11:30:00.000-05:00

tiny buds
await spring

A recent string of cold nights with clear skies and calm winds made for some delightfully frosty mornings, bringing the landscape into a characteristic state of being right on cue for the first days of December. These frosty mornings occurred, of course, during weekdays, when there was no time for stopping and capturing photos that could be savored later. I eagerly watched the weather forecast for the weekend, and was happy to see that conditions would be ripe for a good frost on Saturday morning. Excellent! Finally, I could go on a Frost Hunt! The title alone conjured crisp images in my mind, and helped me to get myself out of bed early on a morning when I might otherwise prefer to sleep in.

It wasn't until I got outside and really started looking at how the frost clung to leaves and flowers that I realized that it had been far too long since my last truly connected encounter with the land. It ended up being one of those multi-sensory experiences that I truly cherish.

Bee Balm seed head, covered in frost

In addition to each flower or blade of grass that I stopped to admire, there was the singing and calling of the birds. There's that mischievous Blue Jay that wants everyone to believe he's a Red-shouldered Hawk just from the sound of his voice, but I know his true identity. A Pileated Woodpecker sounded off amid the treeline along the ridge top, with a slightly erratic flight that took it out of sight. Song Sparrows gave their raspy call note, and then one daring male took me by surprise with a short song, repeated several times - something I did not expect to hear in early December. His song, combined with the smell of ever-present ground ivy, momentarily tricked my brain into thinking it was spring, but the frost crystals jolted me back to the reality that winter is just around the corner.

My "hunt" took place just across the road from my house, in an area with which I have become very familiar over the years. Photographing the flora had me feeling like I was among old friends, and they welcomed me happily, not caring that I had been away for a while. Each plant has its own "personality," both in the growing season and in the quieter times of fall and winter. Sometimes I think it is easier to appreciate the lines and curves of the plants in the dormant season, because most of the color is drained and withered away, leaving only the bare essentials to draw your attention.

Even so, some color remains to enliven the landscape!

Mysterious features become more prominent with frost glistening on them. I found many of these galls on the stalks of goldenrod plants, most of which had a perfect hole drilled right in the center on one side. Downy Woodpeckers and Carolina Chickadees are known to excavate these galls in order to get to the goldenrod gall fly larvae that is contained within. This is a phenomenon I have yet to observe myself, but one I very much hope to see in the future.

Virgin's Bower is one of my absolute favorite flowers to observe in fall and winter. The feathery fronds, to which the plant's seeds are attached, catch the light of sunrise and sunset with perfection, and frost adds yet another dimension of beauty to them.

Teasel is another flower that presents strong architectural interest in fall and winter. Interestingly, the frost made the seed head look much softer than usual, tuning what normally looks like something akin to a porcupine into an object resembling a soft brush. The bracts at the base of the seed head, however, retained their harsh curls, reminding me of Medusa's head of snake hair.

Next, the sun comes out...

Abstracts in frost

2011-12-04T11:57:00.001-05:00

Wordless, abstract Sunday...

Puffballs, part II

2011-12-01T19:04:00.001-05:00

Continuing with my puffball adventures, we move from the behemoth to the dwarf. These next mushrooms that I'm about to share are VERY small compared to the large puffballs from my last post. I would gauge these little guys to be around 1/50th the size of that huge puffball that was at least as big as my shoe.

At first glance, you might mistake them for a bunch of nuts on the forest floor. Perhaps we have stumbled upon a squirrel's not-so-secret stash of acorns?

Upon closer inspection it becomes apparent, though, that they are stacked a little TOO neatly to be nuts. Indeed these are mushrooms, and as far as I can tell, they fall into the puffball category.

While most were found existing only in large clusters, a few were visible singly or in pairs. I should have put something next to these to give you an idea of their size, but I would describe them as being as large as a cherry tomato. While I cannot claim with much certainty their identity, I am inclined to say these are probably the pear-shaped puffball, Lycoperdon pyriforme, a species that is known for growing in clusters.

Mushrooms may be one of the easiest subjects to photograph in nature. They are photogenic, they don't fly or walk away from you, and rarely do they blow in the wind. A nice stationary subject, not something you come across very often in nature photography!

I hope you've enjoyed this look into the world of puffballs. I will admit that I know very little about mushrooms and fungi, but the more I photograph them, the more my interest becomes piqued. One more item to add to my list of things to learn about!

Late summer puffballs

2011-11-22T19:23:00.001-05:00

Today has been a typical wet, dreary November day. Well, except that the temperatures seem a little above average. Regardless, I am mourning the loss of summer, and have been for a number of weeks. Now would be a good time to go back and reminisce a little. Take a look at some of the cool stuff I found out and about during those verdant, warm, long days.

I would forgive you if you didn't identify this correctly. It's the kind of thing you might not necessarily investigate at close range. Wait, who am I kidding? If you're reading this blog, you probably like getting up close to things in nature! But I would understand if you thought maybe this was a zoomed-in photo of the hide of a giraffe.

I would also understand if you thought this was a close-up of a print of some turkish art. I am reminded of both of these things when I look at these photos.

It is, however, neither of these things. It's a lovely (gigantic!) puffball mushroom. My shoe next to it gives you some idea as to the scale. If there are any mycologists or mycophiles out in the audience who can pin this down to a species, I'd love to hear from you!

Puffball crater

They seemed especially abundant this year, mostly occurring in groupings of 2 or 3 (sometimes more). From afar they all look the same, but up close, you can see how unique each one is.

This grouping caught my fancy. Almost like a family posing for their portrait. I love how there's a line in the middle 'shroom that seems to carry right into the pattern of bottom one.

Ahhh, mushrooms in a field of green with a backdrop of green leaves. I think maybe I can still smell the summer air if I try hard enough...

Interesting feeder observations

2011-11-18T21:06:00.001-05:00

During the Project FeederWatch season I keep a closer eye on what's going on at my feeders, for obvious reasons. When FeederWatch is not in session (i.e. spring, summer and some of fall), however, I don't always pay a lot of attention to the feeders, usually due to a combination of being busy with other outdoor stuff and lack of bird activity at the seed buffet.

A few weeks before this year's FeederWatch season began I did notice a few interesting feeding behaviors.

Interesting behavior #1 - Carolina Chickadees eating thistle seed.
Thistle is widely know as the caviar equivalent for finches of all types. I have never seen thistle listed as a seed that chickadees will go for. If you look at the various charts that show what birds will eat what kind of food at your feeders, you will usually see two listings: one for what is "preferred" and one for what is "readily eaten" (read: tolerated). Thistle doesn't show up as either of those choices for chickadees. And yet, my chickadees really got into it during a period where I wasn't offering sunflower or safflower seeds.

Chickadee-dee-dee clinging on the thistle feeder, and also sharing the feeder with an American Goldfinch.
Once I started offering black-oil sunflower and safflower seed again, I thought for sure they would ditch the thistle, but they proved that theory wrong. They will, of course, partake of sunflower, safflower and suet, but they still also come to the thistle. Anyone else out there ever see their chickadees eat thistle? I know the Juncos will eat it, but only on the ground. A friend once told me that Mourning Doves would routinely eat thistle at his feeders (he had a thistle feeder with perches on it; otherwise, I wouldn't have believed him because there's no way a Mourning Dove could cling to a feeder like the one I have pictured here.)

This proves to me that it's not just one rogue individual who developed a taste for the thistle; at LEAST two of them are fond of it. And look how those toes are clinging to the mesh-like material of the feeder!
Interesting behavior #2 - Northern Cardinals eating suet... from the suet cages.
This one surprised me even more than the chickadees eating thistle seed! Why? Because, typically, cardinals are not birds that cling to things well. Other birds are much more suited to this (especially woodpeckers and nuthatches, but also chickadees, wrens, titmice and finches) simply because of the way their bodies are built and adaptations they have developed over time. How often do you see a cardinal clinging to the side of a tree? Never! Perched on a branch or on the ground is most common, or on a flat feeder like a platform or other type of feeder where they have room to stand. I have seen them attempt (and sometimes succeed) to perch on tube feeders that have those small, 4-inch long perches, but even that is often a tremendous struggle because it's hard for them to keep their balance. So hanging onto a suet cage was beyond my comprehension. (Please excuse the graininess of the following photos - the light was low, so camera settings where cranked up to compensate, making for less than perfect images.)

Cardinal on top of the suet cage? Okay, I can deal with that. I have watched them bend over and peck suet from the top of the cake when it's still new and tall enough to come up to the top of the cage.

Wow, far out! Not only is she exhibiting excellent clinging skills, but great maneuverability as well. Notice how she's making her way down closer to that tiny sliver of suet cake at the bottom of the cage.
As with the chickadees turning to thistle, the cardinals were turning to suet because there was no sunflower or safflower seed available. They continue to repeat this when the seed runs out, but UNLIKE the chickadees, they abandon the suet as soon as seed becomes available again. So the suet is an item of last resort for the cardinals, whereas the thistle got incorporated into the daily diet for the chickadees.

We don't normally see suet "marketed" toward cardinals because most suet is sold in cakes or plugs and offered in feeders that aren't cardinal-friendly. I learned last winter, however, that cardinals DO LIKE suet if it's offered in a way that they can get to it easily. When I make my homemade bird dough, I crumble it into different-sized chunks and scatter it along the deck railing, and also put it in a small dish. They really took to that last year. Knowing this, it makes me wonder if the cardinals that I'm seeing on the suet cages this year are the same cardinals that ate my bird dough last winter, and somehow recognize the suet cakes as something similar, and "oh, hey, this stuff might be good, too, and I'll try my darndest to get to it!"

Suet score!
I would love to hear your stories of odd or interesting feeder behaviors! Feel free to share in the comments.

May the counting begin!

2011-11-14T20:45:00.000-05:00

Project FeederWatch got underway this past weekend. This will be my 7th season counting for this citizen science project run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and I can't wait to see what kind of new and interesting things I'll see at my feeders this winter, whether it be a new species, a record-breaking flock of Grackles, or a never before seen behavior or interaction among the birds.

Already I have some interesting data to look at from my first counting session. Looks like things are getting off to a start that is practically identical to last season. The exact same species showed up, with only the tiniest variation in the numbers of each. How about that?

species	wknd of 11.13.10	wknd of 11.12.11
Mourning Dove	13	13
Red-bellied Woodpecker	1	1
Downy Woodpecker	2	2
Hairy Woodpecker	1	2
Carolina Chickadee	4	5
Tufted Titmouse	3	2
White-breasted Nuthatch	3	4
Northern Cardinal	2	2
American Goldfinch	9	10
Total individuals	38	41

Looking back on past seasons' data, I should expect to see some Juncos next weekend. I have seen a few in town already, but none yet in our own yard.

I can tell that my fascination with goldfinches and their striking plumage is going to continue.

Here we got a nice look at their white patches above the tail, not feathers you see terribly often
And the nuthatches will continue with their bold antics, running each other off from the feeders. I hope to catch some good shots of them with their various displays of aggression, but they are fast and hard to keep up with the camera. Unless they're eating, that is.

One new bird that I hope to draw in this year is the Brown Creeper. They are definitely in our woods, but they're not exactly a bird that takes to traditional bird feeders. I'm going to try some homemade "bark butter" to see if that will bring them in.

And, it will be time to start making homemade bird dough soon, once the temps actually decide to get cold (as I write this at 8:30 in the evening, it's still 69 degrees outside... I'm not complaining, but it is a bit odd for mid-November!). Will my Pileated Woodpecker come back again this year for a sample of that tasty treat? I surely hope so!

Chickadee love

2011-11-09T18:41:00.000-05:00

I've been going through some photos in preparation for an upcoming post, and just couldn't wait any longer to share these 2 photos of a Carolina Chickadee at our feeders. It's a gorgeous, tough little bird, and I can't quite get over how handsome it is. While they won't eat from my hand (yet!), our chickadees are pretty fearless when I'm outside, and I was only about 3 feet away while taking these pictures.

More to come!

A special owl on a special day

2011-11-06T23:20:00.000-05:00

Remember a few posts back when I showed you a cute, tiny owl? I said I could have taken it home in my pocket, and estimated that it was smaller in size than my head.

A captive Northern Saw-whet Owl who is part of the educational display for the Back to the Wild wildlife rehabilitation center.
This past Friday, I finally got a chance to meet one of these little cuties up close. But let's back up a little bit.

I had never even heard of Saw-whet Owls until last spring. It was at the ODNR's annual Wildlife Diversity conference that I heard a presentation about Saw-whet Owls given by Kelly Williams-Sieg, an Ohio University grad student and licensed bird bander. The presentation detailed her work with Project Owlnet and how she's been banding and researching Saw-whets (and other birds) since 2004 at Earl H. Barnhart Buzzards Roost Nature Preserve in Chillicothe, Ohio. As her presentation wrapped up, I jotted down some notes and thought, "Wow, wouldn't it be cool to attend one of these banding sessions?" I left it at that, thinking it a purely whimsical notion at the time. Fast forward 6 months or so to an event at Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area, where Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalists met for a weekend of pure nature bliss, full of learning about and looking at birds, butterflies, flowers and beetles. It was here that I met Bob Scott Placer, a licensed bird bander, who also happens to live practically down the street from me. Bob has been helping Kelly band owls at Buzzards Roost from day one. After some discussions with Bob, I went out to Buzzards Roost once last year to check out the banding operation, but we struck out. It was early December, and they hadn't seen any Saw-whets for a week or so. Bob advised that we come in early November the next year for better luck.

And so we did just that. There was no pressure to see an owl or anything. It just so happened to be my birthday on the day that I chose for our owling adventure.

A group of folks from the Scioto Valley Bird and Nature Club was already there by the time we arrived around 8:15 pm. Kelly, Bob and Lisa, our banders for the evening, made several checks of the mist nets between 8:30 and 10:15, each time coming up empty-handed. By 10:30 all the bird club folks had headed home, so Dave and I were the only onlookers left. Around 10:45 the nets were checked, and still there was nothing. Bob said that during previous banding sessions so far this season the owls had been showing up pretty late, so we all hung in there for one more net check at 11:15. Lo and behold, Kelly checked a net and said she had an owl. I let out a small squeal of delight and rushed down to see for myself. Kelly deftly but gently untangled the owl from the net. It clacked its beak several times, a sound of warning. We heard plenty more of that as our time with the owl went on.

Kelly Williams-Sieg and Bob Scott Placier prepare to collect data from a Northern Saw-whet Owl.
Once the owl was freed from the mist netting, we brought it inside to band it and collect various data, such as wing and tail length, weight, and amount of fat observed.

Kelly blows the owl's feathers out of the way so she can look for fat deposits under its skin. This bird showed no fat deposits, which is typical of a bird that is in the middle of migration. Kelly also showed me how she feels along either side of the breast bone for fat, and let me feel for myself.

Kelly demonstrates how a Saw-whet bite doesn't hurt. That hooked beak looks intimidating, but that's mainly a tool for ripping the flesh of its prey. The real danger on this little predator is its talons, which Kelly experienced first-hand several times over the course of several minutes.

Normally docile and seemingly tame in the hand, this Saw-whet was an exception to the rule. She was feisty right from the start, complete with lots of bill snapping and much kicking and grabbing with those talons. Here Lisa gives the owl a momentary distraction of a pencil to hang on to while Kelly tries to reposition her for more data collection.

Taking the tail measurement. I think the owl has a most displeased expression here.

For those of you wondering how you weigh an owl (or any other small bird), this is how it's done. They go head-first into some kind of tube, which keeps them from wiggling around too much. This Saw-whet weighed in at 98.2 grams, which Kelly said was on the high side for this species. The weight, combined with tail and wing measurements suggests that this owl is a female (typically, female owls are larger than the males).

A black light is used to help age the bird. There is a certain pigment in the owls flight feathers that show up in varying degrees of pink, depending on its age. This photo doesn't do the test justice because the whole bird shows up as pink, which is not what we really saw. Based on the amount of pink we saw, and how bright the pink was, Kelly determined that this owl was born this year. That's called a hatch-year bird. So we had ourselves a fiesty, hatch-year female.

Now that we've got her vitals, let enjoy her cuteness, shall we?

Rock, paper, scissors, owl! Just kidding. Kelly's showing me how to hold my fingers as I prepare to get the best birthday present a birder could ask for...

... A loving gaze from a teeny, tiny owl. Say it with me everyone: Awwwwwwwwww.

Despite all the attitude and the feistyness, this little ball of fluff could not resist the power of a good head rub. I have read about this phenomenon from others, and she did indeed just keep pushing her head back farther and farther as I ran my finger down her head and back. She did show some signs of resistance though, as she simultaneously pushed into the head rub while snapping her bill half-heartedly. The theory behind what seems to be the owl's enjoyment of this action is that it reminds them of mutual grooming and preening that they do in the wild (especially mother with owlet).

One last pose with "my" owl before we took her outside to be released.
It took a few minutes for us to walk down to the spot where we released her, which gave her eyes time to adjust to the dark enough so that she could see to fly off to a nearby perch. Kelly placed her on my arm, and I had a feeling it wouldn't take her too long to fly off, given all the attitude she had given us while in our care. Sure enough, she took off within 5 seconds, wooshing over my head into a tree just behind me. Luckily I was able to turn around fast enough to see her outstretched wings back-lit against a sky brightened by a waning moon just before she landed.

All in all, I'd say that experience was a pretty cool birthday present. Thank you Kelly, Bob and Lisa. And thank you, little owl. I was very honored to meet you.

But wait, don't go away yet! Please be sure to check out THIS ARTICLE from the October 2008 issue of Ohio Magazine that goes into a little more detail about the Saw-whet banding project. And to see the banding process in action, watch THIS VIDEO by ODNR's Division of Wildlife.

Beech leaves

2011-10-29T23:00:00.000-04:00

The woods on our property consist of a diverse mix of deciduous tree species. I've never attempted to do any kind of survey, but would like to some day. Until then, I cannot say with certainty what the "dominant" species is/are, but we have many specimens of large trees such as oak, hickory, maple, beech, and buckeye as well as a variety of understory trees such as sassafras, redbud, dogwood and paw paw. Trees occurring in smaller numbers are aspen, tulip tree and sycamore. Heavy winds a few weeks back pretty much wiped the branches clean of their dapper autumn-colored leaves, but there are a few lingerers. But even those hangers-on will be bare within a few weeks, save for most of the beeches and some of the oaks.

The beech trees always grab my attention, and a lot of this has to do with the fact that they encircle our house and their leaves are right at eye level from almost any window that you look out of. As fall marches into cooler days and nights, and frost and cold rains start to come into the picture, I attempt to be vigilant in watching their leaves because every year they catch me by surprise. One day they're green and then - POOF! - they've changed. And then a few days later they've changed again. As fall progresses into winter, the leaves hang on the beech trees, but they change in character. They become more and more paper-like. They go from brown to beige. Winter winds whip them ragged, but still they will hang on until the last possible moment in spring. Other tree species will be sprouting new, green growth, while last year's beech leaves will still be there, almost transparent now, clinging to a season that was over months ago.

Today I went out with my camera and attempted to capture the differing stages of change among our beech leaves. This is something that grabs my interest - the leaves on some beech trees seem to turn faster or sooner than others. I've tried to make loose correlations to the age or size of the tree, but have come up with nothing conclusive. At this point, there are very few green leaves left. Most are a nice yellow or orange, or a mottled combination of the two. Some are brown, and a few have even gone into what I call the "paper" stage - they are dry and rolled at the edges, already well on their way to their winter "look."

There is a term, I have learned, for dead leaves that cling into winter. It is marcescence. Okay, so there is a name for it, but no one is quite sure why it happens. The most common theory that I came across had to do with protection from browsing animals such as deer or moose - having these papery and likely unpalatable leaves at the end of the branches could save the tender buds from being eaten. But if that were true, wouldn't all trees employ that same strategy? So many questions, so many things still unknown.

Raptors at the Midwest Birding Symposium

2011-10-18T20:09:00.000-04:00

There are so many things to see and do at the Midwest Birding Symposium that it's a challenge to fit it all in over the duration of the event. One thing I have made time for in both years that I have attended was a stop at the display set up by the folks at Back to the Wild. At Back to the Wild, they rehabilitate all kinds of native Ohio wildlife, but the stars of the show at the Midwest Birding Symposium, as you might guess, are birds. Specifically, raptors. In addition to rehabilitating injured wildlife, they also provide educational opportunities to the public, such as their display at MBS. They brought along a whole host of owls, hawks and other prey birds, several of which I will share here.

Seeing wild, uninjured Bald Eagles was a pretty easy thing at this year's MBS - I saw at least one flying high in the sky every day that I was up there. The Back to Wild folks brought 2 Baldies with them this year.

There's no denying that Bald Eagles are regal and majestic-looking. Sadly, their voice doesn't quite match up to their appearance and reputation (the long "KEEEEEEEeeeeer" sound you hear dubbed in the movies when a Bald Eagle flies over is actually the call of a Red-tailed Hawk!), but we did get to hear one of their 2 Bald Eagles vocalize a little bit. That was the first time I had heard that in person. As luck would have it, the next day I heard that vocalization yet again, only this time from a wild Bald Eagle flying overhead as a group of us was walking through the woods. That was pretty cool!
At the other end of the size spectrum was the smallest raptor on display, this cute little Saw-whet Owl.

These itty-bitties are pint-sized compared to the Eagle. There's nothing in this photo to give you a sense of scale, but I bet this owl is smaller than your head.

"This is my good side!" says the wee owl.
As enamored as I was with the Saw-whet (I would have loved to take him home in my pocket), I was also quite enchanted with this Peregrine Falcon.

This is what a Peregrine looks like when you catch him mid-floof.

Time for a little stretch.

Want to see raptors like this up close and personal? Then you should pre-register for the 2013 Midwest Birding Symposium, which will once again be held in Lakeside, September 19-22. Click HERE to pre-register. C'mon, you know you want to!

Respite

2011-09-29T20:21:00.000-04:00

I'm currently taking a respite from social media (blogging, Facebook). I'll be back, don't fret. Just need a little break.

In the meantime, please enjoy one my favorite signs of fall: asters. These grow at the edge of our driveway every year. This is most likely Panicled aster, Symphyotrichum lanceolatum, also called Lance-leaf aster. Same shot, presented 2 different ways.

Midwest Birding Symposium 2011 - photo highlights

2011-09-20T21:59:00.000-04:00

Well, this year's Midwest Birding Symposium was a huge success. I had lots of fun, but still didn't get to spend enough time birding, nor did I spend enough time with my friends. But there's always 2013. That's right, the date has already been set for the NEXT Midwest Birding Symposium, which will take place once again in Lakeside, Ohio, on September 19-22, 2013. Mark your calendars now!

But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Sorry I didn't blog during the event. I did post some photos to Facebook and Flickr, but for those of you who don't follow either of those social media outlets, here are some of my best photos from the event.

Sunrise at Marblehead lighthouse. I birded at this location, but the main attraction, I must admit, was the chance to view something as beautiful as this.

The same morning I was at Marblehead I took this photo of a juvenile Bald Eagle. Sorry for the photo quality. One of the greatest things about the symposium this year was that I saw at least one Bald Eagle every day I was up there. Pretty cool.

On Thursday evening we took a sunset cruise on the Goodtime I. This is the view as we were preparing to leave the pier at Lakeside.

While on the sunset cruise, we looked for gulls, terns, and other water birds. Here, a smattering of Ring-billed Gulls follows behind the boat.

A Ring-billed Gull caught in the beautiful light of dusk.

Sunset on Lake Erie.

Great Egret flies over the water at Meadowbrook Marsh. This is a relatively new birding hotspot in the area. I'll tell you more about it in an upcoming post.

It's a bug-eat-bug world out there

2011-09-12T20:00:00.001-04:00

Shortly after returning from a recent expedition to seek out the fantastic Amorpha Borer Beetle in Scioto County (click the LINK if you missed my report of the successful mission), I was talking to my mom, who asked, "So, when did you get so into bugs? I thought you were into birds. What happened to the birds?" A perfectly legitimate line of questioning for a girl who started out interested in "just birds and flowers, thank you very much." In answer to my mom, and to the rest of you, if you care to know: a number of things have contributed to my burgeoning interest in insects. Having macro capabilities on my camera has probably been the most direct influence. My macro methods are a bit crude, but they do the job for me. Once you start photographing flowers at a macro level, you see things you've never noticed before, and it's only a matter of time before you start appreciating insects from a whole new perspective. Having friends who are into insects helps, too.

I should also mention that studying birds and botany has been a gateway to so many other aspects of the natural world for me. At the upcoming Midwest Birding Symposium, I look forward to hearing my friend Jim McCormac's presentation, "Birders Going Beyond Birds," which will address this very topic!

So, let's take a look at how I view insects as a birder. From a birding perspective, I think about insects as being food for birds: worms for robins, caterpillars for cuckoos, vireos, and warblers, cicadas for Mississippi kites, and those are just a few of many examples I could give. Part of the reason so many birds migrate is because once bugs die off for the year in the northern climes, their food source has dried up, so they better go somewhere else where the eatin's good if they want to survive.

Up until recently, I haven't really thought about bugs from a much broader perspective. So it has been a slow realization to me over the last 6 months or so that, while birds are serious insect predators, perhaps the bigger threat to insects are... other insects. Whether it's falling into the waiting jaws of a praying mantis, getting caught in a spider web, or perhaps the more gruesome fate of having some other insect larva eat you from the inside out (that's what parasitism is all about folks), it's tough to make it as an insect! The following snap-shots were taken during the beetle expedition in Scioto and Adams Counties. Obviously, we saw lots more than just the Amorpha Borer Beetle.

This is a very tiny (think size of a fingernail tiny) robber fly, commonly known as a gnat-ogre. They stalk their prey by hanging out on the tip of a blade of grass or the very edge of a leaf. This gnat-ogre looks to have just gotten started on a meal, and didn't seem to mind having some cameras shoved in its face.

Next up we have a grasshopper-hunting wasp, which is to say a species of wasp that specializes in hunting grasshoppers. The grasshopper blends in pretty well with its surroundings, but the camouflage apparently was no match for the keen eye of the wasp.

Since the grasshopper blends in so well, I thought it might be helpful to isolate the two actors in this scene: wasp is circled in pink/purple, grasshopper is circled in green.

Here you can see that the grasshopper is almost twice as large as the wasp, but she carried it with relative ease, at least to our eyes. We watched her haul this grasshopper several yards toward her burrow in the dirt.

She repeatedly stopped on top of the grass in an effort to locate her burrow, which she eventually found. We watched her excavate the burrow in preparation for the grasshopper (which she presumably would bury inside, where her young would eventually hatch and have a feast waiting for them). After observing that she had trouble finding her burrow, we also noticed she had difficulty relocating her prey after she had excavated the burrow. We finally surmised that our presence may have been the thing that was throwing her tracking off. We had originally hypothesized that she was using some kind of scent queues to help her find burrow and prey, but perhaps she was using visual cues instead, and our movements kept throwing off her bearings (i.e. her landmarks kept changing). At this point we backed off and left her to her job in peace. (Our apologies to you, Mrs. Wasp.)

Here, a praying mantis looks on innocently after it has just caught some species of ambush bug. We watched the ambush bug walk right into the mantis's well-camouflaged trap.

A face that only a mother could love. I've never seen mantis mandibles up close until now.

Chomp! Once again, a very cooperative subject, busy with its meal and obviously not feeling threatened by all the big creatures looming toward it with cameras.
I have some other buggy stuff to share, but we'll take a break and deal with birds for the foreseeable future. Stay tuned for reports from the Midwest Birding Symposium!

Counting down to time on the Lake

2011-09-05T20:15:00.001-04:00

I'm getting anxious for the Midwest Birding Symposium. As I write, it's just a few hours over being 9 days away. I can't believe it will be here so soon! And trust me, I really cannot wait!

This year I hope to spend a little more time out in the field looking for birds, and to that end we'll be heading up a little early to check out places like Magee Marsh and the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. Don't get me wrong, there will be birding field trips going on during the symposium, but I learned my lesson at the last symposium 2 years ago: allow extra time for exploring on my own!

While I hope to pick up some new water and shore birds while I'm there, I will also welcome opportunities to see the more common birds, like the ever-present gulls and herons.

Lone gull flying over Lake Erie

Gull silhouette

Gull wanna cracker?

Great Blue Heron in early morning light
Yes, the birds are the main draw for this event, but don't forget the sights, too. And local businesses!

We love this place for the food and the atmosphere. They will be seeing plenty of us.

Be sure to check out the Marblehead lighthouse.

And make time to enjoy as many Lake Erie sunsets as you can.
There's STILL time to sign up for the World's Friendliest Birding Event, AKA, the Midwest Birding Symposium.

If you've already signed up, please come join myself and the other Official MBS Bloggers in the Den of Blogniquity in the north end of Wesley Lodge. We'd love it if you would stop by and say "hi!"

Which of these items don't belong?

2011-09-04T17:01:00.000-04:00

I'm always amazed at the way some creatures are camouflaged in nature. The disguise is so good that sometimes its hard to see the camouflaged object even when it's right in front of your very eyes.

For example:

Can you find the Greater Anglewing katydid in this picture? (It's a leaf mimic. Hint: look for the legs.)

And how about the tree frog in this picture?
We humans, on the other hand, do a pretty good job of putting things out there that are not the least bit camouflaged and that stick out like a sore thumb. Here's an example of two of the more bizarre bits of discarded waste that I have come across during my trips out and about this year:

Okay, finding beer cans along the edge of the road is not terribly uncommon (unfortunately), but I had never heard of Bud Light with tomato-clam cocktail juice in it before (there's also salt and lime included), so that made this one especially strange. All of these flavors together are apparently "the perfect combination," according to the can. Blech!! Found in rural West Virginia.

Now here's something you don't see every day - the original king of the Dark Side right out in the middle of the woods. Well, his head anyway. Have you figured it out yet?

I rotated the picture 180° so it's not upside down anymore. It's a Darth Vader mask. Hanging upside down in some trees. What in the world?! Found in Scioto County during the Amorpha Borer Beetle expedition.

What kind of odd things have you found while you're out and about in nature?

One heck of a beetle

2011-08-31T20:00:00.001-04:00

Recently, I spent a perfect late-summer day in south-central Ohio with some folks who are keen on insects. Eight of us got together in hopes of finding a show-stopper of a beetle that is not well-known in Ohio. Our story starts right here, along the banks of the Ohio River.

Hello over there, Kentucky!
Before I go any further, let me just say that I am thankful that there are other folks out there who are willing to travel a few hours just to see one small insect. Some (okay, many) would call us crazy, and others would call us nerds. These are descriptions we would all agree to with a smile on our faces. Everyone has a special interest or two that makes them happy, and for which they would drive long distances to indulge. For some of us, that special interest is being outside, searching for new and exciting things, whether they be birds, flowers, or insects.

And so, back to our quest. Several hundred yards from the river proper is where we found what we were looking for. And what, exactly, WERE we looking for? Three years ago John Howard stumbled upon a beetle he didn't recognize, and it was very close to this area. John knows his insects, so for him to say he found something that he didn't recognize is saying something. Eventually some photos got posted to bugguide.net, where the knowledgeable folks there identified it as Megacyllene decora, or the Amorpha Borer Beetle. It gets its common name from the Amorpha plant that it bores into in order to lay its eggs.

Amorpha fruticosa, or False Indigo - host plant for the Amorpha Borer Beetle, seen here in flower.

As shown on this map from the USDA Plants Database, the plant has limited distribution in Ohio, occurring in only 5 counties in the southern half of the state (it's slightly more prevalent in northern Ohio, where it has been introduced). One of those southern counties is Scioto County, and that is where we spent our time along the river looking for the beetle. Or maybe I should say The Beetle, capital "T" and "B," since it seems to be a rarity for Ohio, and I'm all about seeing rarities first-hand. I remember reading about The Beetle on Jim McCormac's blog last year, and was delighted to be part of the search party this year. (To read Jim's account of this year's expedition, click HERE.)

I had an idea of what we were searching for, so my pulse quickened when we came across this beetle on late-flowering thoroughwort, Eupatorium serotinum. This, however, is not The Beetle. This is a Pennsylvania Leatherwing, Chauliognathus pensylvanicus, which is somewhat similar in markings to The Beetle, but smaller, and not as brilliantly colored.

Here is the charmer that got us all hootin' and hollerin', Megacyllene decora in the flesh!

This may not look like much, but it is a very large, shrubby late-flowering thoroughwort, a plant which was in abundance, and which is used by the Amorpha borer as a nectar source.

Here you see part of our group gathered 'round in order to thoroughly document and absorb the awesomeness of this cool beetle.

In case you're curious about the scale of things, the beetle is the tiny yellow dot in the middle of the purple flower in the center of this photo. I can't help but wonder how that beetle must have felt to see all of these huge bipeds with third-eye appendages and large flashing lights bearing down upon it.

And now... the star of the show! We decided to pose it on ironweed to provide a nice contrast to it's spectacular coloring.

Megacyllene decora posed on tall ironweed.

The true work of any naturalist, amateur or professional, is to spend time with their subject and observe it. One should make every effort at getting to know it and its habits, even if it is only for a few brief minutes. Being able to catch something as basic and elemental as grooming behavior, as seen here, was a real treat.

I don't know if the beetle really was mad or not, but this close-up certainly makes it look that way to my anthropomorphic sensibilities.

As to its awareness of us, well, it definitely had an eye on us. Being flanked on all sides by cameras held at very close range, we are lucky that this isn't an insect with a more aggressive defense strategy (as in, going for your eyes or squirting flesh-eating fluid from its nether regions). As far as we know, the main thing to fear from the Amorpha borer beetle is being munched by its mean-looking mandibles, but none of us tested those chompers, so I don't know what the real affect would be from that. Regardless, when an insect is eying each of its hunters, as The Beetle appears to be doing here (there was a camera to my immediate right, exactly in line with his gaze in the photo at right), you best not try messing with it!
I can now say that I have observed first-hand the appeal of this beautiful beetle, but the rare nature does beg some questions. While John Howard discovered this stronghold 3 years ago, no one has managed to find more than 2 individuals of this species in this area since the initial discovery. Two questions arise in my mind from this: 1.) Why are there so few of them around (compared to the leatherwings and other insects that we found in abundance)?; and, 2.) Why are they so localized? Well-known bug guy Eric Eaton says he lived in Cincinnati for 11 years and only came across this bug once. Intrepid nature explorers, ALWAYS keep an eye out. I know I will be out and about looking for this beetle next year, hoping to find another population.

Late summer

2011-08-30T21:30:00.000-04:00

Days are getting shorter. Nights are getting cooler. Fall, as they say, is in the air. It's the season of early-morning dew and fog, reminding us just how beautiful dawn really is. There's an aural shift from the dawn chorus of the birds to the evening chorus of singing insects. And there's a last hurrah of large, showy wildflowers, many exploding with huge pom-pom like heads to feed the butterflies and bees and myriad of other insects who are racing the clock to reproduce before the first frost hits.

What follows is a photo essay paying tribute to flowers photographed in the month of August. All hail late summer.

Field marks of an MBS-er

2011-08-24T21:10:00.001-04:00

Most days of the week find me outside with my binoculars at some point, even if it's just around our house and on our property. Ninety-nine percent of the time I'm checking out birds, but sometimes I also spy on butterflies, dragonflies, squirrels, and chipmunks.

This evening had me looking at some other things though. I had some strange sightings on the property that I had to check out.

For one thing, there were some odd markings on my car that were puzzling me.

Unfortunately, my field guides were of no help.

But then I remembered something. I had seen similar field marks on a publication I got in the mail earlier in the week. It was all becoming clear.

These were the field marks of a car that has been to the Midwest Birding Symposium before! How appropriate that my Ohio Ornithological Society sticker is right next to my MBS sticker, especially since the OOS is one of the hosts of this year's symposium, along with Bird Watcher's Digest and the Lakeside Association. If you're not already a member of the OOS, they can get you signed up right at the symposium. You ARE coming to the symposium, aren't you?

MBS-er field marks can also be found on people, like my husband. There's a great marketplace at the symposium, where you can get cool hats and t-shirts, ogle over optics, buy your next birdfeeder, plan your next birding vacation, or maybe even pick up a cool binocular harness, as modeled here by Dave along with his MBS hat (the harness helps reduce the strain caused by the weight of heavy bins around your neck).

But wait, Dave has his sights on something, too. When I asked him what he was looking for, he had to whisper his response, as he didn't want to spook his quarry. He was looking at the mysterious Blogger Bird.

Okay, maybe she's not SO mysterious, but she was hard at work. Oh wait - that's me! And I'm in the middle of crafting this very post.
Speaking of bloggers, there will be ten Official Bloggers at the symposium. They are as follows:

Yours truly, Heather of the Hills
Wren of Wrenaissance Reflections
Nancy Castillo of The Zen Birdfeeder
Corey Finger of 10000 Birds
Nina Harfmann of Nature Remains
Ruthie Johnson of Nature Knitter Blog
Robert Mortensen of Birding is Fun
Greg Neise of NA Birding
John Riutta of The Well-read Naturalist
Lynne Schoenborn of Hasty Brook
Julie Zickefoose of Julie Zickefoose on Blogspot

Many of these will be "life" bird blogger sightings for me, as I've only met a handful of these folks in person, and some of these blogs I am not familiar with at all (looks like I've got a little homework to do!). For those of you coming to the symposium (and I'm talking to YOU, right?!), us blog-folk will have our own special blogging spot in the north end of Wesley Lodge. Be sure to stop by and say "hi!" This is, after all, the World's Friendliest Birding Event!

Other cool things going on at the symposium include a Lake Erie Island sunset boat cruise, multiple screenings of the documentary film "Ghost Bird" about the search for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, songbird banding demonstrations, an exhibit of birds of prey by Back to the Wild, and so much more! Not to mention that there will be over 20 amazing speakers addressing all kinds of birding topics.

Oh, and let's not forget the birds themselves. This area of Ohio is a magnet for birds in both spring and fall migration. Great birding can be had right from the lovely town of Lakeside, but there are also other wonderful designated birding areas within driving distance of Lakeside, including the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, Magee Marsh, Black Swamp Observatory, Marblehead Lighthouse State Park, and Meadowbrook Marsh (a new birding sight for the area). When I attended the symposium in '09, I had to learn the hard way that there's just not enough time to see all these places during the course of the symposium itself, so this year we're gonna get there a little early to leave time for exploring on our own!

If you can swing it, bring someone you love, be it spouse, family, or friend. Birding is best when it's shared with someone special.

I really hope to see you there!

Awww, nuts!

2011-08-24T20:30:00.005-04:00

Walnuts, hickory nuts and beech nuts are all in relative abundance on our property this year. Trees that are not producing much mast this year are buckeyes and oak trees. Regardless, the squirrels are working hard, especially on the hickory nuts. It is not uncommon to wake up in the morning to hear little drops among the leaves, only to realize it isn't raining. Well, not from the sky, anyway. It is raining nuts, though! The metal roof on our house amplifies the sound when nuts and nut bits rain down from the trees. I have an image in my mind of the squirrels maniacally hurling husks and shell down at our house, laughing merrily in the early dawn light as they wake us from sound sleep.

Bits and pieces of nut shell fragments litter the property during late summer and early autumn. Can you pick them out among the gravel?

In addition to all the tiny shell remains, there are also a good number of nuts still in their husks. I can't tell if this one's been chewed, or if it's just rotten (or maybe both).

So what happened here? What caused a squirrel to gnaw and gnaw and gnaw on this hickory nut and then toss it away? Did it decide it wasn't yet ripe enough? Did it get disturbed by a hawk or another squirrel and decided it was better to abandon its post and its meal rather than stay where it was? Whatever the cause for abandonment, it gives us a good chance to see the kind of damage a squirrel's teeth can do. I sure don't ever want to be bitten by a squirrel!

This nut turned out to be a waste of time. It was more intact when I found it, but upon breaking it open, I found that the nut meat was not ripe. If you look closely, you can see some shininess to the meat right in the center of the photo. That is one raw nut. Yuck!

Just to give you an idea of size, here's a husked nut in the hand. I think this is a Shellbark Hickory nut. We definitely have Shagbark Hickories on our property, and this nut, along with some others I found, are much larger than the Shagbark nuts. I'll try to find some nuts from each species of tree to make some comparisons at a later date.

Much daintier is the nut of the Beech tree. I usually only find the husk after it has come open and dispersed the seed pods, but this year I have found quite a few where the seeds are still in the husk.

Without much effort, the 2 seed pods slip right out of the spiny husk. The seed pods kind of remind me of Hershey's kisses, but without the flat bottom.

What nuts are you seeing around these days?

Figuring it out

2011-08-23T20:30:00.001-04:00

I love field guides. I started off by borrowing my husband's Peterson's Guide that was given to him by his dad. Then a friend bought me my first flower field guide. I was off to the races after that. I have lots of field guides, and yet I don't have nearly enough. I have at least one field guide for each of the following subjects: butterflies, trees, mammals, wildflowers, birds, owls, reptiles and amphibians, insects, singing insects, tracks and scat, spiders, frogs and toads. I'm sure there's a few I forgot.

In instances where I have multiple field guides on one topic (birds, or wildflowers, for instance), each one serves its own purpose. Some of them are laid out so differently from each other, or contain such different information, that they complement each other nicely.

As much as I love my field guides, I will admit that they can be intimidating, especially when they cover a subject matter with which I am relatively unfamiliar (like anything that's outside of the realm of birds and wildflowers). This has been the case for me this year when trying to identify various spiders and insects. It reminds me of how I was when I first started birding: I would flip through virtually every page to find a bland brown bird that I had gotten a glimpse of for 2.5 seconds, only to find that every brown bird in the field guide looked virtually the same to my "new" birding eyes.

I figure it's frustrating for everyone at some time or another to use field guides, so I thought I would give you a quick run-through of how I narrowed the beetles in my previous post down to blister beetles (and more specifically, oil beetles).

First, I started off with a top-notch field guide to insects. If you spend any amount of time trying to figure out the identity of any kind of insect, BUY THIS BOOK:

One thing that I love about this book is what they call the "Pictorial Table of Contents." It not only lists the major groups of insects covered in the book, but it also gives a small photographic sampling of representatives of said group. Look closely at the shape and size of what is pictured, and you should quickly be on your way to the right portion of the book.

I had a good hunch going in that I was looking at some kind of beetle, and after looking at these quick visual representations of all the groups presented, I flipped with confidence to the beetle section, only to be somewhat daunted by 45 pages of photographs of many, MANY different types of beetles.

Looking at photos and paying attention to the description of the different families narrowed things down even further. For example, I knew that it WASN'T a type of lady beetle, nor was it an aquatic beetle, nor a stag or rhinoceros beetle. (Remember, knowing what something isn't can get you a long way toward what it actually is.) There was a good-sized section devoted to ground beetles, which I thought was a possibility, but none of the body shapes or sizes matched up to what I was seeing. As I got into the last quarter of the beetle section, I came upon the blister beetles. I finally had a visual match. There was mention of foliage feeding. Check. Then the specifics were spelled out for oil beetles, of which there are 21 species across North America: flightless ground-dwelling adults with short wing covers and bloated abdomens. A perfect match to what I was looking at. Oh, and there was mention of that funny kink in the antennae of the males. Bingo! Now, I ventured to guess the specific species as Meloe impressus, based on this guide and also photos shown on bugguide.net, but the jury is still out on the definitive ID of this blister beetle.

My trusty Kaufman guide also lead me to ID this fantastic metallic-looking beetle as a Dogbane beetle, which was found on - you guessed it - a dogbane plant.

So folks, I'd like your feedback. Was this post helpful and/or informative? Would you like to see more posts like this? I do write this blog for me, but I also like to know if what I'm putting out there is striking a chord with anyone else. Please let me know in the comments! Thanks.

One thing leads to another

2011-08-22T21:27:00.001-04:00

The other evening as I was putting the dog to bed, I came across a cicada laying belly up on the ground. It's white abdomen was easy to see, otherwise I never would have known it was there. It was obviously injured, as it made no attempt to flutter or put up a fight when I poked at it lightly with a stick to see if it was even alive. I picked it up and laid it on the deck railing, thinking I would take pictures of it the next morning if it had not managed to fly away by that time.

As luck would have it, the cicada was still there the next morning, where it had somehow managed to hang on through a mild rain storm. Unfortunately, it was not in good shape, and only it's front two legs seemed to show much movement.

I believe this to be a Swamp Cicada, Tibicen tibicen. This is an example of a perfect treat for the young Mississippi Kite I saw last weekend. (Did you miss that post? If so, click HERE to get more info about Ohio's only current breeding family of Mississippi Kites!)

The Swamp Cicada, along with a myriad of other cicadas, gets lumped into the category of annual cicada, which is a bit of a misnomer. The "annual" designation refers to the fact that there are adults out and about each year; their entire life cycle, however, lasts several years, most of which is spent underground. Alternately, there are the periodical cicadas, such as the 13-year or 17-year cicadas. These cicadas spend MANY years underground to emerge as adults synchronously (i.e. all in the same year) on a 13- or 17-year cycle. (The 17-year cycles are mostly in midwest and northern states, whereas the 13-year cycles are mostly in the southern states). For more information and brood maps showing when the next hatching of periodical cicadas is scheduled to hit your area, click HERE.

When I was a kid, I remember coming across the exoskeleton of a recently emerged adult of some cicada species, attached to a tree, and I was quite terrified. Who knew that so many years later I would nonchalantly hold one in my hand? I can attest to the grabbing power of the "feet" of this cicada. Here you can see how it was latched onto my finger by just these two little feet. While this poor swampie was in no condition to be "singing," I remember the song of the Swamp Cicada as THE cicada song of the hot summer days of my childhood. You can listen to it HERE.
After the photo shoot was over I was looking for someplace to put the cicada other than our deck railing when my attention was shifted to another odd-looking insect altogether. Actually, a LOT of odd-looking insects. There was quite a swarm of these blue-black beetles in my flower bed, and they were making short work of the leaves of my hellebore!

After determining that these are a type of blister beetle, I read that most of them feed on flower nectar or flowers themselves, but some species, like this one, feed on foliage. Hopefully the plant will recover, but honestly, it doesn't look good for the hellebore.

Okay, they might look odd, but they are also kind of handsome. I believe this is Meloe impressus. This turns out to be one insect species that is sexually dimorphic, meaning that there is a visible way for my human eyes to discern male from female. (di- meaning "two" and morph meaning "form" or "shape") Those funny looking "c"-shaped kinks in the middle of the antennae indicate that this is a male.

Here's where things get weird (at least to my non-beetle brain!), and fascinating. The males use that kink in their antennae as part of the courtship process. From what I was able to personally observe over a limited amount of time with these beetles, the male would mount the female from behind and use that portion of his antennae to stroke the antennae of the female. To make matters more interesting, I observed several mated pairs where male and female are going about their conjoined business, but then I also observed just as many TRIOS where a male and female were already joined, but a second male was on the female's back, doing the antennae-to-antennae tango! What on earth is THAT all about?! In the photo just above, the male on her back is the extraneous male (you can barely make out her actual mate, who's out of focus directly beyond her in this shot). Bet you never guessed you were going to get a discourse on beetle sex when you started reading this post, did you?!

In addition to the antennae giving away gender, the relative size is also an indication of sex. In general, the females are larger than the males, both in length and girth. In these side-by-side photos, the male (at left) and female (at right) are roughly the same length, but you will notice the much more swollen abdomen of the female, who is very likely gravid (carrying eggs).
In my next post, I'll talk briefly about how I came to identify this as a blister beetle in the first place. Stay tuned!

The kindness of birders

2011-08-15T20:40:00.000-04:00

Thanks to the kindness of birders, I was lucky enough to be able to see a family of nesting Mississippi Kites within easy driving distance of my home in southeast Ohio this weekend. Birders, in case you haven't already heard, tend to have a reputation for being extremely nice, and helpful, and will do just about anything to help you see a bird. There is a very gracious couple of birders who lives in a small gated community nestled near the Hocking Hills area, and their graciousness was extended out through this community when they opened their gates to approximately 100 outsiders this past Sunday. They opened their arms and welcomed us to see this fantastic spectacle of nature.

Juvenile Mississippi Kite from behind. You'll get a better view in a minute.
The thing that makes this bird species special is that this is currently the only known breeding location in the state of Ohio. Luckily, the birders in this community had a hunch at what they were looking at when a pair of Mississippi Kites raised a family there last year, and word got around in the Ohio birding community. Some other kind birders handled the logistics and arranged a special day to view the kite family last year, and then again this year. I am so grateful for this kindness.

From this angle it may look like jr. kite is eating something, but it's actually just preening.
To give you an idea of how spectacular it is to see this bird breeding in Ohio, I checked the first Breeding Bird Atlas done in the state back in 1982-1987, and it was not even on our radar at that time. Now, that's not definitive proof that it wasn't breeding in Ohio at that time, but in blocks where birders were surveying, they were not even observed. What has changed and brought them to Ohio since then? I don't know. Is it by luck that for two years now these kites have decided to nest in a woody area populated by people who would notice it? Maybe.

This is a reminder that conservation starts right in your own yard. These kites took up residence in a community that, from what I observed, seems to believe in disturbing the land as little as possible, so there is a lot of wonderful, suitable habitat for them to use. Great habitat = great biodiversity. And great biodiversity means you never know what might show up! (And with that in mind, it means you've got to keep your eyes open all the time, just in case something unexpected drops in to stay for a while. Well, I feel that's MY duty, anyway...)

Parental unit coming in with a juicy morsel for the youngster. Look how poised and ready that juvenile is to receive its meal!
The Mississippi Kite's diet is mainly comprised of insects like cicadas and dragonflies. They leave the exoskeleton (or outer shell) behind, only picking out the meat from within. I was amazed to watch bits of cicada wing flutter to the ground as the young one picked its way to the meat of its meal.

Getting ready for the hand-off. As soon as the juvenile kite demonstrates that it's able to feed itself, the family will begin their migration south toward their wintering grounds in central South America.

Birding and blogging friends Susan Gets Native (sitting) and KatDoc (with camera snapping) enjoying the view. This was a life bird for all 3 of us!

The adult takes off after dropping off a bite to eat. It's hard to get an idea of size in these photos, but the average wing span of this raptor is 3 feet (smaller than a Red-tailed Hawk, but larger than a Kestrel, for those keeping track). Notice the rufous, or rust-colored, primary feathers (the "finger tips") that are so nicely back lit by the sun here.

Here the juvenile is begging for food, calling to an adult in the vicinity. One theory being tossed around was that the youngster didn't actually start vocalizing until it had one of the parents within visual range. Speaking of begging behavior, when I was there watching the bird, I noticed it wasn't exhibiting the type of begging behavior I'm used to seeing in songbirds. Songbird youngsters, once out of the nest, will sit on a branch or a wire and peep almost continuously, with their wings puffed out and rapidly fluttering. This is an obvious visual cue to the parents, most likely to gain an upper hand over a nearby sibling who is also exhibiting similar behavior.

"I hear ya, kid. Just hold your horses, dinner's comin'!

Once I started looking at my pictures, though, I realized that while the begging is not as prolonged as a juvenile songbird's, the concept is still the same, as seen here: "I must make myself as large as possible so you know that you are supposed to feed ME!!" There was only one mouth to feed this year (last year's brood consisted of two young), but the instinct remains despite that fact.

This was one of the longer feeding sessions that we got to observe, and it made for great photo opportunities, thus giving me a chance to study field marks in-depth after I got home. Here you can really see the differences in appearance between the adult on the left and immature on the right. Notice the clean white breast and underside of the wings on the adult. Compare this to a chest and underwing area that is very dappled on the juvenile. Also, notice that the tail of the adult is completely dark with no banding (again, we've got a little but of rufous coloring peeking through at the tail tip). By contrast, the immature's tail has very distinct banding.

Once again, my sincere thanks goes out to the kind folks who brought this kite family to the attention of the Ohio birding community, and to those who arranged this get-together for us. It was a very special treat that made my day.

Late summer thoughts on birding

2011-08-07T14:45:00.001-04:00

I've never tried "hot" yoga (yoga practiced in a room heated to 90-105 degrees at 40% humidity, for 90 minutes), but I have to wonder if "hot" birding might catch on (birding practiced outdoors at temperatures between 90 and 100+ degrees at 70-85% humidity)? I mean, they both involve sweating, potential for passing out if you're not careful, and could lead toward the path of enlightenment if you let them. Birding's a little more passive than yoga, though, with the most taxing position of birding being the constant looking up - which leads, more often than not, to knotted muscles of the trapezius, as opposed to the stretched and relaxed muscles achieved with yoga.

Southeast Ohio, like much of the eastern half of the country, has been very sauna-like over the past month or so, and rolling heat advisories or warnings have been issued off and on throughout that time frame. Folks who work and play outside have been advised to take it easy, to seek shade often, and to drink plenty of fluids. We humans can do a number of things to thermoregulate when it gets hot outside: use fans or air conditioning, wear less clothing, go for a swim or mist ourselves with water, sip cold drinks, eat ice cream, etc. Oh, and we sweat. This is something our bodies do naturally to help us cool off. What are all those birds doing to stay cool? Birds don't sweat, but they do pant. If you see a bird standing around with its beak agape on a hot summer day, it's probably panting. They have other ways to move heat away from their bodies, too. Since there's no feathers on their legs and feet, excess heat can escape from there. They can also hold their wings away from their body and ruffle their feathers, which encourages heat to move away from their skin and body. They can also drink, bathe, and stay in the shade to keep cool. And maybe they even subscribe to one of our human mottos when it gets too hot: "Don't move, unless you have to." Unfortunately, the birds' survival depends on eating pretty frequently throughout the day, and they have to work waaaaay harder for their food than most of us do, so staying idle isn't really to much of an option for them.

Given that it has been so hot lately, it does beg the question of "why bother going outside, especially to WATCH BIRDS?!" Well, if I wasn't surveying for the OBBA II (Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas), I just might not be out there. But then I would be missing the opportunity to see new things and new places, and it would interfere with my continuous desire to study and observe birds. I will admit, however, to calling myself crazy at least once recently while standing out in the baking sun, waiting for a bird to reveal itself. I stayed in one spot for a good 10 minutes trying to ID a flycatcher that was carrying food (Willow Flycatcher), and also trying to get good looks at another bird that was skulking around in some scrubby brush, and who turned out to have a fledgling in tow (Orchard Oriole). Sweat was dripping down my back, the sun was blazing down, and I really questioned my sanity. If I weren't collecting this data for science, there is no way I would have waited these birds out just for an ID.

Back in early June, when it was decidedly more comfortable outside and the birds were much more active (establishing and defending territories, building nests, making babies and feeding babies), I was on a roll and I was able to find breeding evidence in spades. I was actively birding most evenings and a lot on the weekends, too. I was riding high on all that I was learning and experiencing for the first time. Then I had to put the brakes on birding for a number of weeks because projects around the house needed to get done, and, for whatever reason, the projects weren't going to finish themselves (that's inanimate objects for you!). Luckily I was able to squeeze in some reading during that time, and of course my reading topic of choice was: birding. I finally read Life List: A Woman's Quest for the Most Amazing Birds.

For those not familiar, it is the story of Phoebe Snetsinger, the person who held the world record (according to American Birding Association criteria) for the most species of birds seen by one person, as of her death in 1999 during a birding expedition in Madagascar (her record has since been broken). While reading Snetsinger's story, I couldn't help but feel a kinship with certain aspects of her passion. She started birding relatively late in life (i.e. it wasn't a hobby she took up as a child), she made it a point to study her birds before she went on any bird-seeking excursion, and she was committed to her hobby. The statements above also apply to my birding experience thus far. Unfortunately, what started out as a hobby for Phoebe eventually turned into an obsession that caused a division between herself and her husband and 4 children. I plan to keep my own birding slow and easy, with bits of excitement here and there. Surveying for OBBA has been one such tidbit of excitement for me.

Participating in OBBA appeals to me on many different levels, and opens a window onto what some of my personality is like. I like keeping lists, keeping track of things and working with numbers, and I especially like watching lists of things that I am keeping track of grow and grow, so this is right up my alley. Even though I am just counting things that are in front of me, it somehow gives me a sense of accomplishment. (Participating in Project Feederwatch in the winter feeds this same sense of accomplishment.) I've even managed to turn it into a game of sorts where I am the sole player and I'm in competition with myself. In this game, I pride myself in the fact that I took the numbers of observed species in "my" 2 OBBA blocks from less than 15 up to figures between 60 and 70 species. It also feels good to have built these numbers up over the course of only a few weeks (with a few incidental records from previous years added in). The flip side of this, however, is that when I work on other blocks, where I have spent much less time and am much less familiar with the territory, I somehow feel bad if I don't come up with what I would consider a "respectable" number during my observation period. I can't give myself a "win," even though I did my best with the time I had. This is what happens with a personality that is always working to best itself.

Surveying for OBBA also feeds my sense of adventure. I enjoy using maps to find my way, and going to new places, and I've now gone to some regions of the state that, while pretty close to home, are not areas that I've had occasion to visit and were thus previously unknown to me. While it's a little frustrating to bird in new places (because I don't know where the "hot spots" are), it doesn't take too long to figure out where the promising strongholds are. Once again, though, there is a flip side to the adventuring element, and it is the benefit of being intimately familiar with an area. My road, my neighborhood, the woods, creeks, streams, wetlands, farms and cemeteries in the two blocks that I "own" have been etched into the map of my mind over the years that I have lived here, and having first-hand knowledge of the available habitats to survey has proved invaluable (and had a direct impact on my ability to observe such large numbers of species).

The current breeding bird atlas is in its sixth and final year, which means I came into the game late, and missed a lot of "good" species as a result because I wasn't able to get out there to enough places during prime time (April-June). I feel bad about this, even though I know I shouldn't. As I mentioned earlier, I did what I could in the time that I had available, and that's all one can ask. Now that we are into August, some birds are already starting their migration south, and breeding is more difficult to confirm. The fecundity of spring, that rush of everyone coming in to set up camp and start a family - that's all gone until next year. Late summer birding is harder, that's for sure: many birds are singing less, they're harder to see, and they aren't as active in the heat. As much as I hate to say it, birding at this time of year is kind of a downer and slightly less rewarding. But there's always SOMETHING to see. Late in July I found Eastern Bluebirds still using next boxes, and I saw several Red-tail Hawks who were requesting food from parents, even though they looked like they were probably old enough to start hunting on their own. I also saw a Tufted Titmouse struggling with a very large caterpillar, and getting a very satisfying meal from it. I keep telling myself that even though it seems like things are slow and languid among the birds right now, it's always worth it to take a good look around. There's bound to be something good going on out there.

More critters from our woods

2011-07-29T22:30:00.001-04:00

One thing that I love about living in the woods is that there are so many cool critters around us all the time. I feel blessed to have such biodiversity right outside my door, and sometimes inside my house! Every year we come across something new that we've never seen before, and that will probably be the case for as long as we live here. In no particular order, here's a smattering of some non-arachnid visitors to our property from the past few months.

Luna moth, Actias luna, from an angle that you may not be used to. Their wings are that striking lime green, but we don't get to see their bodies very often, which are white.

The last few years have been strangely devoid of Lunas around our house, but they have been plentiful this year!

Host plants on our property that their caterpillars would use are hickories and walnuts.

Such intricate antennae, all the better to pick up your pheromones, my pretty...

The Luna is one of the many Saturniid species, and all moths in this family lack mouth parts because they do not feed as adults. They mate, lay eggs, and die. Still boggles my mind.

Another Saturniid moth species, Eastern buckmoth (Hemileuca maia), this time as a caterpillar, which will eat and eat and eat! It was its eating, in fact, that drew me to it. I could hear this caterpillar loudly munching its way through this leaf. They use all kinds of oaks as host plants. Beware of the spines on this cat - they contain a toxin that may cause some unpleasant symptoms (itching, swelling) if handled. I hope to someday encounter its adult form.

One last moth of the Saturniid family, this is an Imperial moth, Eacles imperialis. Host plant species on our property for the Imperial caterpillar include maples, oaks, and sassafras. There is a huge degree of variation in the coloring of this species. I believe this to be a male.

And I think this is the female. I always get excited to see pairs of moth species. It increases the chances that I will see more of them next year!

Lest you think we only have Saturniid moth species on our property, here's one from the Sphinx family. It's a Pandorus sphinx, Eumorpha pandorus. I think I've mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating: Dave is very good about alerting me when he sees a bug/creature/plant/etc. that he thinks will be of interest to me, as was the case here. Thanks, sweetie!

I REALLY dig the coloring and shape of this moth. It had made its way into the garage, and was quite agreeable to being put on a stick to be let outside before we closed up shop for the night.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, some of the critters make their way into the house, and this is one of them. Upon checking my Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America, I discovered that this is the adult form of some species of antlion. As it was flying around, it looked very much like a damselfly, but the wings at rest are not held in the correct position to be a damsel. Oh, so much to learn!

Last but not least, a complete switch in gears to one of our sweet American toads, Bufo americanus. We have lots of these hopping around our place, and I am always a little disappointed if I happen to go out at night and DON'T see one.
There you have it folks, a glimpse into some of the fauna from our woods!

The itsy bitsy spider(s)....

2011-07-24T21:20:00.019-04:00

NOTE: If you are squeamish about spiders, approach this post with caution. I encourage folks to face their fears head-on, and I firmly believe that knowledge and exposure can help to assuage fears about things such as spiders and snakes, but I am also sensitive to the fact that some people may run for the door if they see a picture of a spider. So, all I ask is that you try. Let's begin!

While birds have occupied a large portion of my mental resources this spring and summer, other creatures have been catching my attention as well. I've spent time in past years photographing moths, butterflies, robber flies, wasps and other insects, but this year I've been trying to photograph more spiders. Though much maligned, disdained, and feared, spiders are fascinating creatures. But aren't they poisonous and dangerous?

All spider species in Ohio possess venom, a necessary substance for paralyzing their prey. But keep in mind that spiders eat insects (and other spiders), so the tiny amount of venom that they might inject into a human, which is many, MANY times larger than their intended prey, coupled with human physiology (which is obviously much different from that of an insect), will protect us from 99% of spider bites. In Ohio, the only spider species whose bite would warrant a trip to the ER are the recluses (Brown and Mediterranean) and the Black Widow, all 3 of which are relatively rare in the state. Common sense (don't stick your hand into an area where you can't see what's inside) and shaking out of any loose clothing on the floor (including gloves and shoes) should keep you safe from harm.

Now - if that didn't scare you off and you're still with me, let's take a look at some of the spiders that I've found around our property. Let me note that I welcome any corrections to my identifications. I'm still learning when it comes to spiders, and as is the case with my first exposure to new taxonomies (classifications) and field guides, things tend to all look the same until I've spent enough time with the creatures to get a grasp of the things that set them all apart from each other.

Some facts to consider when trying to identify spiders include, type of web (or lack thereof), habitat, body shape, and seasonality (time of year when they are active). With spiders, the females are typically larger than the males, and often times more showy, and it will almost always be females that are on the webs.

Here is an orchard spider (Leucauge venusta). Not sure why, exactly, they are called orchard spiders, since they prefer to dwell in forests, but the clincher for the ID on this one was its web. My field guide* says that the web is "typically at an oblique angle, nearly horizontal." I don't have a diagnostic picture of the web, unfortunately, but I'll ask you to take me at my word when I say it was nearly horizontal. They build an orb type web, which is the kind you might typically think of when you think "spider web" - a basically round shape with parallel lines within, à la Charlotte's Web.

The coloration is fascinating and beautiful. Pretty colors are one thing that some of these spiders have going for them, and help me to have a better appreciation for them.

This view from the back shows an amazing silver color, with some nice black markings to boot. It's quite a piece of art, if you ask me!

Next up we have another forest dweller, although it can also be found in fields. It builds a funnel type web, the shape of which is pretty self-explanatory. This is a photo of its web. I love how it incorporated the fallen beech leaf into the web, using it as a kind of template, if you will, for the funnel itself.

This spider was hard to photograph because it was very wary of any movement near the web. This is a blown-up shot of the spider down within the funnel. The more I look at this, the more it seems like there are actually two spiders in this funnel. Needless to say, there's no real way to ID the spider from this vantage point.

Due to its skittish nature, I had to walk away from this web and come back a little later to try again. Unfortunately I was never able to get a face shot, but we can see an interesting detail at the back end of this spider. You may notice something pointy at the very back of the abdomen. Those are spinnerets (the finger-like silk spinning organs), and their placement is very telling for this type of spider, which is grass spider of some sort. There are apparently 5 different species of grass spiders in Ohio, but I do not know which one this is.

Grass spider, Agelenopsis sp., with closer view of spinnerets at rear of abdomen.

Speaking of spinnerets, here's a photo of said piece of anatomy in action. I have no ID for the spider, but I was pretty lucky to get some shots of it wrapping up this morsel of food in silk to be kept for a future meal. All spiders possess the ability to spin silk, but not all spiders make webs. Most wolf spider species, for example, do not make webs. Silk can be used for storing eggs (cocoon or egg sac), and some species of spiders will use silk for a process called "ballooning" or "kiting," which allows them to carried through the air by wind currents (I recall watching spiders ballooning in the field last fall - it was quite an amazing sight.) So silk production is definitely another cool thing spiders have going for them (in case I'm losing you to the "ick" factor!).

I mentioned that body shape can be helpful in identification, and that couldn't be more true in the case of this spider. Even from the silhouette shown on this leaf, one might be able to guess the spider. The shape of the abdomen is reminiscent of the shape of an arrow, so it is aptly named arrowshaped micrathena (Micrathena sagittata).

Here is the arrowshaped micrathena on its web (we can see it's an orb weaver by the shape of the web), hanging with its back to the ground, giving us a ventral view.

Her web happened to be hanging horizontally, and was very close to the leaves of this False Solomon's Seal, so it was difficult for me to get underneath to get a photo of her diagnostic yellow abdomen. But hopefully you get the idea. These are spiders that build webs in the understory, and are fond of moist woods.

Here's another spider in the Micrathena genus, and this is one you'd likely come eye-to-eye with when walking along a trail. The spined micrathena (Micrathena gracilis) is notorious for building its web across trails. While the spikes are certainly menacing in appearance, they would be of no harm to you.

I would have to think that that huge, spiny abdomen would be heavy and cause for some balance issues, but it's obviously evolved to be this shape for a reason.

Looking up from below, we can see all 5 sets of "spines" that are on the abdomen. Interestingly, as I write this and and compare my photos to other photos of this species of spider, I am drawn to how very round her abdomen is, which is not the typical shape for this spider. This leads me to conclude that this spider is gravid (swollen with eggs).

I spent a long time photographing this spider from many different angles, and I'm glad I was able to do so. I'm not sure I could have fully appreciated all of these interesting markings without the ability to enlarge the photos. And yeah, this lady is definitely pregnant.

One last look at this orb weaver on its web. The field guide says that the small (narrow) spaces between the threads indicate that this spider's typical prey is pretty small.
Finally, we come to the pièce de résistance, the last spider for this show-and-tell series. I'm taking a moment to prepare you because it might freak some of you out. There is no need to be alarmed. But it is a black widow.

This is not the first, nor will it be the last, black widow we have found on this property. Dave found this spider at the door to our garage, so she had to be moved in order to avoid an encounter where she might feel threatened.

I'm not quite sure what she was doing out and about with her egg sac. This door gets opened most days of the week, so it's not like she had had a lot of time to establish a web there. Regardless, Dave used a very long stick to remove her (and her egg sac) from the door. She chose to stay on the stick after it was laid down.

Some of you may be wondering where the characteristic hourglass marking is. The hourglass is only on the underside of the abdomen. I surely did not want to move her just to see that marking.

At no point did she show any signs of aggression. She stayed with the egg sac for a while, but I'm pretty sure that the sac had been abandoned by the time I checked it the next day, which I thought was odd. I'm not sure if the eggs ever matured. The sac is still on the stick, although it seems to be a bit flaccid at this point. These photos were taken about a month ago, but widow spiderlings typically hatch within 8-10 days of being laid. I have never observed spiders hatching from their egg sac, so I don't know what kind of state it would be in if they survived and hatched out.

This is just a small survey of countless thousands of spiders that surely live near my home, and yours, too. Spiders are important predators that help control pests in our landscape. If they were not around, we would surely notice other insect populations spiraling out of control. If you find one in your house and can't deal with it being there, at least attempt to escort it outside, rather than just killing it.

* The field guide that I consulted for the majority of the information presented here is the Common Spiders of Ohio Field Guide, published by the Ohio Division of Wildlife, Department of Natural Resources. It is Publication 140. Visit wildohio.com for more information and to request your own (free!) copy. Funding for this field guide and others (covering a wide variety of Ohio wildlife such as common birds, owls, butterflies, amphibians, mammals, reptiles, sportfish and more) comes from donations to the state income tax checkoff program, sales of the Ohio wildlife legacy stamp, and sales of the wildlife conservation license plate (the Cardinal license plate).

When nesting is over, then what?

2011-07-03T20:20:00.001-04:00

One thing that I have really enjoyed about taking part in Ohio's 2nd Breeding Bird Atlas is the fact that it's gotten me out exploring other habitats. I live in the woods - my house is in the woods, and our "neighborhood" is heavily wooded, with some bits of open field here and there. As a result, I have become very familiar over the last 6 or so years with woodland birds, and also those birds who prefer what is known as "edge" habitat (the edge between woods and open areas). I am not so familiar with birds of more open areas, nor of birds that like moderately wet places. Due to my work with the Breeding Bird Atlas, though, I have taken the first steps to learning more about the areas beyond my backyard. I have gained a better appreciation and understanding for what birds are likely to be found together in these surroundings that are new to me. I am far, far away from the flat lands of the upper 2/3rds of the state, though, so there are still many things I need to see and learn about all types of different habitats that just don't exist down here in the hilly, unglaciated portions of Ohio.

There is one place to learn about VERY different habitat from what I'm used to, and that's up along the northern border of the state, in a very special town called Lakeside. In just a couple of months, this quaint little town that juts out into Lake Erie, just south of Put-In-Bay and Kelleys Island and a few miles west of Marblehead, will became a haven for birders. We will be gathering for a very special weekend, where we will look, listen, learn, and laugh, and leave our cares behind for a few days on a mini birding vacation. I'm really looking forward to it. This little getaway takes place in the form of the Midwest Birding Symposium.

I went to my first Midwest Birding Symposium 2 years ago, and had a wonderful time. It was where I met a lot of my blogging friends for the first time, and I'm looking forward to meeting even more of you at this year's symposium! Don't get me wrong - you don't have to be a blogger to attend, but there will be a good number of us there. If you'd like more information about the symposium, you can get to the homepage right from my blog! See that little badge in the upper right-hand corner, the one that's got rotating images, just above my photo? Click on it and you'll find all the nitty-gritty details about this awesome event, including how to register!

Quoting from the homepage of the event, it's "the highlight of the birding year!" It will be the highlight of my fall, that's for sure. What with breeding season wrapping up pretty much by August, I'm sure I'll be going through a little birding withdrawal after having spent so much time intently looking for breeding evidence in this little corner of the state. The symposium will be the perfect cure for those blues.There will be many fabulous programs to attend, and wonderful things to see and do.

Gulls, terns and cormorants are commonplace up along Lake Erie, but for a "country girl" like me, all these waterbirds are still new and novel. They are waiting to welcome you to the symposium!

You can watch bird banding at the Black Swamp Bird Observatory. The folks there would love to see you!

The town of Lakeside is small, peaceful and quaint. Don't you want to come see it for youself?

Here's the entrance to the pier. Can you smell the lakeside air yet?

You'll likely see some folks fishing out on the pier...

... and you can enjoy a wonderful Lake Erie sunset from there.

Here's the auditorium. We all gather together here at various times throughout the symposium.

One of those seats is waiting for you. Won't you come join us?

New birding experiences

2011-06-26T18:00:00.001-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm currently busying myself with spending as much time in the field as I can to collect data for my two blocks of Ohio's 2nd Breeding Bird Atlas. What a wild ride it's been! Taking part in this survey effort has driven home to me the fact that there's so much to be seen out there, if only we take (and make) the time to look for it.

One of the blocks that I have claimed for the atlas is very convenient for me. My property and a good portion of my road are within the block, so I already had a lot of data to report about species just from my own back yard and neighborhood. That being said, however, I have been happily surprised to uncover breeding evidence (mostly in the form of fledged birds begging for food from their parents) for a good number of species in my neighborhood (and on my property) just within the last 10-12 days. A partial list of these species includes Eastern Towhee, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Blue-winged Warbler, Ovenbird (that one was 20 feet from my front door - just outrageous!), Wood Thrush, and this little bird:

Please forgive the picture quality - the camera on my iPod is not very good. But look how cute! I found 2 of these little buggers peeping at me from a ditch at the side of the road one evening. I was positively stumped as to what the species might be, though, and there was no parental unit around to tend to it at the time that I spotted it, nor when I checked in on it again the next morning. Seeing mom or dad feeding it sure would have helped me figure out what it was! After some online searches and consultation with a friend, the verdict is: Red-eyed Vireo fledgling. It was literally within seconds of finding this little one that a young Wood Thrush and one of its parents flew across the road and landed in a tree, giving me two breeding confirmations in less than a minute. SUCCESS!

It's funny what a difference a year can make. Last spring I considered joining the atlas effort, and even met with our regional director to learn more about it, but between being committed to classes for OCVN and general lack of knowledge, I just didn't feel comfortable trying to participate last year. Having made it a point to better educate myself about bird ID both by sight and by sound since last spring, I feel pretty good about what I can contribute to the atlas now. I will admit that I was still a little hesitant about the whole thing when I signed up, though. I thought to myself a number of times "how am I going to find breeding evidence for all these birds?" - and I still wonder that each time I go out, despite having had a number of successful outings. But the answer is much easier than I would have imagined. Just let nature show you, and it becomes simple. Allow your instincts to guide you. Watch the birds and really pay attention to their behavioral cues - they will tell you exactly what is going on in no uncertain terms.

Sometimes it's a matter of watching a bird sally back and forth over a field and then return to a spot over and over. I found an Eastern Kingbird nest this way. Sometimes it's a hunch of "maybe I should walk over this way," which gets rewarded with a scolding from a bird, which leads you to find its nest in a tree. That was how I found this Orchard Oriole nest.

Roughly 8 feet off the ground in a very young sycamore tree, I was delighted to have this nest within easy reach of my camera lens (the few oriole nests I've seen before this have been located 20+ feet up in very huge sycamores, sometimes hard to spot even with binoculars). The Cornell Lab's All About Birds website describes the Orchard Oriole's nest as "An open cup of woven grass, lined with fine grass, plant down, wool, and feathers, suspended from fork of tree branch far out on limb."

Given the small size of this sycamore, there weren't very many limbs to go far out on, so she chose instead to stick this pretty much next to the main trunk. What I love about this angle is that you can see all those strands of grass coming down from the top which help to actually suspend the nest (although it seems to be getting support from branches underneath it, too).

Male and female Orchard Oriole, left to right.

This male Orchard Oriole is one that can present an identification challenge for birders who are still learning IDs, myself included! Had this not been pointed out to me in West Virginia a few months ago, I would have been stumped for sure. Adult male Orchard's are normally a deep brick red color, but this fella is just a youngun. He's a first year male (meaning he was born last year), and he's also referred to as a "bearded" male due to the black coloring along his throat. Next year he will molt into his brick red plumage, his wings and tail will go black, and his entire head will be black, not just his throat. It will be interesting to see if an Orchard Oriole pair comes back to this same site next year. If I see a brick-colored male there next year, I can make an educated guess that it's this guy.

Here's the female. She's the first one of the pair who caught my attention by making scolding calls at me and thus giving away her nest. She can be differentiated from a Baltimore Oriole female by her yellow-olive coloring - lady Baltimores have a definitive orange cast to them. In this image I think her resemblance to some of her other Icterid cousins is very obvious, especially that long, pointy beak. I should mention, though, that the Orchard Oriole's size is diminutive compared to a Baltimore Oriole. I didn't notice this until they took flight, and had a seen them only in flight, I might have actually mistaken them for some type of warbler.
"Icterid" is the taxonomic classification for the blackbird family, which includes grackles, cowbirds, meadowlarks, blackbirds (think Red-winged and Yellow-headed), orioles and the bobolink. Interestingly, the orioles are the only birds in this family who seem to have a form of the word "icterid" in their latin name. Orchard Orioles are Icterus spurius, while Baltimore Orioles are Icterus galbula. The word icterus means "jaundiced" or "yellowed" in Latin, very appropriate for a lot of birds who are boldly colored in yellow and orange!

I would say that the drab yellow coloring of this female helps to keep her out of sight under the right circumstances. Here you can see how she easily blends in with the leaves around her.
It's camouflage like this that was part of my concern about being able to spot nests and birds when I signed on for doing the atlasing. But as I said, the birds really do tell you all you need to know. It does take patience and open eyes, but it is amazing what you can see when you really LOOK! I never imagined myself as being one of those birders who drives around slowly and stops frequently to hop out of the car to look around or get a better listen. And yet, here I am - surveying birds and learning, learning, learning all along the way. I wonder what people think when they drive past this "crazy lady" with her binoculars? Most of them slow down, smile and wave, but a few drive by at break-neck speed with little regard for the pedestrian at the side of the road. It is those folks who I most want to tell, to shout at the top of my lungs, "There's newly fledged birds right over there, begging to be fed! They are so cute, and so amazing! They will migrate hundreds, maybe thousands of miles to South America in a matter of months! Isn't that incredible?!" Mostly, I just want them to slow down and take time to smell the roses - and look at the birds.

Serious birding business

2011-06-19T20:34:00.001-04:00

Coming into this year, I already knew that 2011 would be a big birding year for me. It started off with a bang when I participated in my first-ever Christmas Bird Count up in the Hocking Hills on January 2nd. Then I had a number of speaking engagements where I talked about birds and birding. Then, of course, there was the New River Birding and Nature Festival in West Virginia during the first week of May. That event, in and of itself, served to catapult my birding knowledge and confidence into a dimension previously unknown to me.

The confidence I gained led me to finally offer my time and effort to a cause that is in need of my help (and yours, too, if you're an Ohio birder!). A little over a week ago I signed up to take part in Ohio's 2nd Breeding Bird Atlas. The first atlas was completed 20+ years ago, and it is strictly a volunteer effort. It's citizen science at its finest, in my opinion, and every bit of input helps. Here is a brief synopsis of the atlas, as stated on the OBBA II website:

The second breeding bird atlas for Ohio is generating extensive information that will be essential for the effective conservation and management of birds. By engaging Ohio's citizens in this cooperative effort OBBA II will foster interaction among bird enthusiasts of all experience levels and will heighten public awareness of birds in Ohio.

The atlas works somewhat like a Christmas Bird Count in that volunteers are counting birds within a pre-defined area (a "block" that is approximately 10 miles square), but information is tallied from the entire state over a period of 5-6 years. Also, it's not simply a matter of counting birds, but looking for specific cues that breeding is occurring or has occurred. With a little over 4,400 blocks to be surveyed across the entire state, even just a few hours of surveying can help out with this monumental undertaking. Unfortunately (and understandably), there are still a number of blocks throughout the state that have not been surveyed, and have no data. The two blocks that I recently claimed ownership of had some small numbers up until now, but I am working to quickly change that.

By claiming ownership of a block, I have committed myself to spending 25 hours (per block) of time out in the field looking for breeding evidence, as well as documenting 75% of the expected total species for each block (and confirming breeding for as many of those species as possible). Sounds like a lot of work, and I will admit that it's a bit daunting, but I've been very encouraged by each trip afield so far. I feel like I still have a good bit of ground to cover, but each time I've gone out I've either added a handful (or two!) of new species to the block, or upgraded previous observations from a "possible" or "probable" status to "confirmed." Granted, the more time I spend out there, the less new data I will have to report, but for now I'm riding high on all the wonderful new things I'm seeing.

Even if you've never done any surveying for breeding birds like this before, there's still time if you're interested. June and July is prime time, and there's lots of activity out there right now. Any of my Ohio readers, if you're not already involved but would like to be, please go to the OBBA II website by clicking HERE. You'll find all the information you need to get started. Not an Ohio resident? Other neighboring states are doing breeding bird atlases as well, and West Virginia is in the middle of their 2nd atlas project. Click HERE for links to BBA projects in other states (and Canada).

In my next post I'll detail some of the wonderful things I have had the opportunity to observe just within the last 10 days as a result of being part of this effort.

Plant oddity

2011-06-12T22:08:00.000-04:00

Dear friends, I have so many posts cooking in my brain right now that it's really not funny. A floral oddity caught my attention yesterday, though, and it begs immediate sharing with you, my curious readers.

There is a large population of Wingstem (Actinomeris alterniflora) plants in the woods across the road from my house. They won't be in bloom for another couple of months, but they are easily identified by their stem which looks to be, well, winged - thus the common name. I'll show you the stem shortly. But first you have to look at the leaves!

What the heck? An albino plant? Is that even possible? Apparently it is, but I had no idea - until now.

Yup, it's pretty much just white...

... except where it's green. Note the white ridges along the sides of the stem. Those are the "wings" that give the plant its common name. Normally, of course, those wings would be green, along with the rest of the plant. I am perplexed about the fact that the central portion of the stem is still green. All of the green leaves in the background belong to other, non-albino, Wingstems.

Not only is the center of the stem still green, but parts of some of the leaves are, too. This was the largest patch of green that I found on this plant. Most bizarre.

Aside from the fact that the lack of chlorophyll will likely hinder much more growth from this plant (no chlorophyll means no nutrients for the plant), it seems that the plant is potentially structurally weak, as well. The leaves are paper-thin, with an almost transparent quality, and if you look carefully, you can see my fingers right through the leaf.

I love it when nature throws me curve balls like this. Always keeping me on my toes, and making me ask questions. I'll keep an eye on this one - I'll be interested to see if it makes it to the flowering stage. I predict that it won't, though. Never a dull moment out there!

Still life

2011-06-08T19:28:00.000-04:00

I really think this wraps it up in terms of posts about my trip to West Virginia (I can't believe it's only been a month since we returned home - it seems like it was an eternity ago, somehow!). There are still some images I'd like to share though. I'll let them tell you the story of how lush and beautiful the hills of West Virginia are, and how magical they can be after it has just rained and everything is still dripping wet and bursting with life. Enjoy.

Fern getting ready to unfurl

Leaf of a Wild Ginger plant - perfect symmetry

The saddest-looking Squirrel Corn flower I've ever seen

That's a long way down for a snail...

Wild Geranium flower, in repose

An example of the diverse flora on one tiny swath of hillside

I kept my distance from here, thank you very much. A large arachnid lives within.

Fern Study, I

Fern Study, II

Almost in bloom...

... and in full flower
These images remind me of the cool, damp spring morning that it was when I took them, something that sounds positively delightful now that the weather is starting to heat up.

My attention, divided

2011-06-01T21:50:00.002-04:00

It was Friday, our next to last day at the New River Birding and Nature Festival. On one hand I was tired from a week so full of activity and learning, but on the other hand, I was not ready for this week to end. For one thing, I had spent very little time wandering the property of Opossum Creek Retreat. Nestled back in the woods, there was plenty to see just within a short walk from our cabin.

Our cabin at Opossum Creek. It felt just like home (except substitute oaks and maples for all the hemlocks).
Granted, I had poked my nose and my camera here and there, but there was still much more wooded bliss to be explored. One thing that both Nina and I wanted to check out was a small colony of Pennywort Gentian that was verified to be in flower by our buddy Jim McCormac. He gave us some rather cryptic directions as to where to find the colony on a hillside above the laundry facilities ("There's a downed log with a long stick propped up against it," he said. Sorry, Jim, but there were LOTS of downed logs with what appeared to be long sticks propped up against them!). Eventually, we found the little white beauties poking their heads out of the leaf litter. Nina and I spread out to each find our own little patch of flowers to work with (you can see Nina's Pennywort Gentian photos, along with a Blue-grey Gnatcatcher and a teeny, tiny spider HERE).

Pennywort Gentian, Obolaria virginica

Twin Gentians
I was supposed to be concentrating on the gentian, but I kept getting distracted by the delicate, fragile, skeletal remains of decomposing leaves.

This lacework is all that's left of a leaf in the process of breaking down, giving of itself back to the soil. Notice in the bottom of the photo a new Pennywort flower attempting to break through the leaf litter.

Same leaf, different angles

Even while the flowers bloom, the leaves vie for my attention.

Never have I seen the process of decomposition look so beautiful.
And so it goes, a quick walk in the woods to find one thing...

... quickly turns into a journey into a completely different world.

And so it goes.