Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens
Good Birders Don't Wear White
NUTHATCH IS ONE OF THE AUTHORS!
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce, and Obsession
We are about to use the last of this year's 50 Monarch tags, used to track these migratory butterflies. I'm sure we'd be done by now, but I spent 10 days completely out of it with a really bad virus; as soon as I got better, Kingfisher came down with it. All better now, and trying to catch up...
Normally we raise a couple dozen Monarchs from eggs and tag those that are the late summer, migratory generation, and use the rest of the tags on butterflies we catch in the yard. This year, we spread out a bit. At a location where I'm doing some insect surveys for a grant project, there is a big field of Tall Boneset (Eupatorium altissimum) along a major river, a great stopover for Monarchs. We tagged a bunch there.
The tags are super sticky, and Monarch wings are much sturdier than other butterflies, so these tags last through the fall migration. At the Mexican wintering grounds of the Monarchs, folks are paid to find butterflies with tags, and a database is maintained with recovery information.
There's more on the Monarch Watch web site, or this cool article from the New York Times.
There are pros and cons to being the coordinator for a big field project. The upside is that I get to spend a lot of time in the field myself. The downside is that it is often in places that volunteers don't want to cover. Sometimes it turns out to be interesting; it's how I ended up exploring Detroit's urban prairie. This week I got stuck doing areas in some of Detroit's older blue-collar suburbs, miles and miles of nothing but endless residential streets of small homes, bordered by commercial streets of stores and strip malls. Actually, the urban prairie areas in the city have more habitat.
I previewed my destination on Google Earth, and therefore sought out a lone green spot in a sea of homes: a triangle of trees wedged up hard against the interstate. It was a park, with a little picnic shelter, an expanse of unkept lawn, and a little woodlot. I picked up a few decent birds, such as Cooper's Hawk, Red-eyed Vireo, and Indigo Bunting, although I could barely hear myself think with the freeway noise. Soon, I was more interested in the insect life.
All around the trunks of the oaks, dead ashes, and maples in the lawn area were dozens of moths. I realized what they were before I netted one: gypsy moths. Most seemed to be males. I wandered about a bit, looking for females, larvae, or egg cases. At the base of one living oak, I noticed a lot of nickel-sized holes (there are over two dozen in the photo).
Gypsy moth larvae are defoliators, so they had nothing to do with the holes in the tree. The emerald ash borers that killed the ashes are minute creatures that create exit holes barely wider than a pencil lead. The thick bark around many of the holes was flaked away, perhaps indicating an exit of some force. I leaned in for a closer look.
In the nearest hole, I could see something sticking out. Brown
and papery, it appeared to be an empty pupae. I grabbed a corner and began extracting it, going slowly and carefully so it wouldn't tear.
I was astonished that it just seemed to keep coming and coming. Finally, I was holding a pretty revolting-looking pupae a whopping 6 cm long. It was molded mostly in the shape of an abdomen, which looked like a moth abdomen -- it reminded me of a sphinx moth. The head area was split open but did not resemble a moth pupae much to me, as the wing impressions were absent (or so reduced that I could not see them without my reading glasses!). I extracted another one and explored a little more before I left. I found not other trees with holes, or any moths or other insects large enough to be responsible for this damage or to be former tenants of the pupae.
Part of what I enjoy about photographing insects is the challenge of identifying them. Frankly, I had never heard of a humungous wood-boring moth. Impatient to know what I'd found, I called my buddy Mark, the coolest entomologist ever. Although his specialty is wasps and dragonflies, he was only stumped for a minute, and spewed out a Latin name which meant nothing to me. We both reached for a reference, which confirmed his guess. I'd found evidence of Prionoxystus robiniae, the Carpenterworm Moth (Hodges#2693).
These moths look a bit like sphinx moths, but are unrelated. Instead, they are in the same family which brings us the worm found in the bottom of a bottle of mescal or tequila. The larvae of the Carpenterworm Moth take three years to fully develop, apparently smell like goats, and can sometimes be seen peeping out of their holes in summer when they are getting ready to undergo metamorphosis. I think, given the photo I found of a mature larvae, that would have probably grossed me out a bit. I would have been hard pressed to distinguish this from a big, disgusting beetle grub.
I've tramped through a lot of woodlots and tend to be quite observant, yet this is the first time I've encountered this insect, or the remains of one. Although this area is full of older homes (1940s to 1960s), there really aren't a lot of mature trees, except in this woodlot. It must have one of the only concentrations of food for the gypsy moths and the Prionoxystus for miles.
I'll try to do a follow up visit in a week or so.
Larva photo by James Solomon, USDA Forest Service, Bugwood.org.
Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is just a super-nasty invasive plant, with some very profound negative impacts on forest ecology. Our entire campus is full of it. I have one study plot where I've managed to keep it under some semblance of control. Next year, I plan to do some invertebrate trapping to see if there is any difference in the types of soil-surface creatures in Garlic Mustard plots versus the plots where I have prevented it from taking hold. I'd like to know what types of prey items are available to ground-foraging migrant birds in invaded areas.
Last week while doing a bird survey, I encountered this interesting individual plant, in which most of the leaves were variegated. Of the literally thousands of Garlic Mustard plants I have seen, this is the first I've encountered like this, and yet a day or so after, another blogger posted a similar finding in Canada. A quick search revealed someone on a native plant forum finding a variegated plant last year in PA.
Leaf variegation is the result of a lack of chlorophyll-producing cells. Sometimes this may be caused by viral infections. In any case, this variegation may weaken the plant, as the pale tissues are not manufacturing food via photosynthesis. Viruses can have other negative side effects. Maybe these instances of Garlic Mustard chimeras are a good sign!
The same day, I took a leaf sample from the handiest patch of Japanese Knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum) on campus. This is another bad actor, but not as widespread around here. I put the sample in a tube of dessicant for DNA analysis. Apparently, not a lot is known about genetic diversity of this invader in the U.S., and University of Massachusetts-Boston grad student Jonna Grimsby is embarking on a study. You, too, can contribute to her project. Read all about how to get a sample kit over at the Invasive Species Weblog and do a little pruning for science.
May 26 -- the first morning this month that I haven't gotten up before dawn to go to work (it's raining). The older I get, the harder it is to withstand so little sleep for a month. The fatigue feels like walking through molasses. I get depressed. And -- disturbingly -- I have distinct memory loss. I have a couple of metabolic health issues that really exacerbate this, so it's really frustrating.
For the first spring in 15 years or so, I've done as many intensive surveys as banding days. This has been a truly strange spring. The widespread and relatively lengthy "Easter freeze" in the eastern U.S. seems to have had some very profound effects on bird populations. Birds are adapted to spring freezes, of course, but this one was exceptional in many ways. It covered a wide geographic area, below-freezing overnight temperatures in southern latitudes lasted more than one or two nights in many places, daytime highs were also below normal for nearly a week or more, and it followed a late March very warm period which pushed vegetation and insect emergence up to two weeks ahead of schedule. I've seen very notable declines in particular in short-distance migrants that would have been caught transitioning to insects when the freeze hit, such as Hermit Thrush, House Wren, Gray Catbird, Yellow Warbler, Common Yellowthroat. In general, nearly all migrants have been present in well-below-normal numbers here. We did have some long periods of strong east winds -- I hope that this pushed migrants west and that some of these missing birds just bypassed southeast Michigan.
It will take awhile to see how this freeze really impacted birds.Those that have survived to reach breeding areas may be in poorer condition and have less reproductive success. Southbound migrants in many areas will find less fruit to feed on, as fruit-bearing shrubs and plants either lost their blossoms in the freeze, or lacked pollinators. I was in Kentucky at the end of April, and the entire canopy and sub-canopy had just begun to get leaves, having lost the first set in the freeze. It was really dramatic!
At any rate, as my research focus becomes more defined, the utility of my spring banding program, versus the very productive fall season, is coming more into question. I'm most interested in the challenges faced by migrants in urban areas, particularly resource availability and quality. My study site is more appropriate for addressing this for southbound migrants. In spring, birds tend to gather around our small lake (top two photos). This area is so popular with humans, however, that I can't band there without suffering from constant vandalism.
I do get a good variety of birds in the spring. Here are a few examples, top to bottom:
My garden is out of control, and my desk at home full of neglected chores. Time to play catch-up...
Today is the day I chose to contribute to the Blogger BioBlitz by censusing birds at work (first blitz day here). I had grandiose plans of including other taxa and really getting out and doing a good survey. But circumstances had me distracted and multitasking, so I was really only able to keep track of birds in my immediate study area while I also had some mist nets up. After that, I only had time for a quick walk after lunch, when there were many people out on the trails and most birds were taking a little siesta. So the list only covers perhaps two hours of birding. Numbers are observations; any banded birds are noted. Birds in bold are first-of-the-season for my southeastern Michigan site.
Canada Goose -- 6
Mallard -- 1
Great Blue Heron -- 2
Turkey Vulture -- 3
Cooper's Hawk -- 3
Red-tailed Hawk -- 1
Killdeer -- 2
Ring-billed Gull -- 7
Rock Pigeon -- 5
Mourning Dove -- 2
Chimney Swift -- 6
Belted Kingfisher -- 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker -- 6
Downy Woodpecker -- 4
Hairy Woodpecker -- 1
Northern "Yellow-shafted" Flicker -- 7
Blue-headed Vireo -- 1
Blue Jay -- 1
N. Rough-winged Swallow -- 1
Barn Swallow -- 3
Black-capped Chickadee -- 5 plus 2 banded, both recaps from 2006
Tufted Titmouse -- 1
White-breasted Nuthatch -- 4
Brown Creeper -- 1
Carolina Wren -- 2
House Wren -- 1 banded
Winter Wren -- 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet -- 2
Ruby-crowned Kinglet -- 17 plus one banded
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher -- 5
Hermit Thrush -- 1
American Robin -- 24 plus 2 banded
Brown Thrasher -- 2 banded, one was a recapture from last fall. The photo is of the one that was not a recapture. Note the gray fringing to the iris; that and a couple plumage characteristics indicated this was a bird born last year. The recaptured bird had totally yellow eyes, a shade deeper yellow that this. 
European Starling -- 4
Yellow-rumped "Myrtle" Warbler -- 17
Black-and-white Warbler -- 1
Eastern Towhee -- 1
Chipping Sparrow -- 6
Field Sparrow -- 1
Song Sparrow -- 5 plus 2 banded
Swamp Sparrow -- 2 plus 2 banded
White-throated Sparrow -- 120 plus 6 banded. The photo is of an especially pretty one.
Dark-eyed "Slate-colored" Junco -- 1
Northern Cardinal -- 15
Red-winged Blackbird -- 2
Common Grackle -- 1
Brown-headed Cowbird -- 8 plus 2 banded
House Finch -- 2
American Goldfinch -- 6 plus 1 banded
House Sparrow -- 6
Yesterday was the first day of the week-long Blogger BioBlitz event. I spent an arduous day in the field, but I was putting up deer fencing through second-growth forest surrounding my main field site. The whole thing was an ordeal, and needless to say, no "blitzing" was done.
Today, Kingfisher and I worked around the yard. It's a small yard in a metropolitan Detroit suburb of 90,000 people. It was a great day -- 80F and sunny, but windy. It has just turned warm again after a long cold spell, and it's been dry. I think this all factored in to our disappointing tally. We had only 54 species total; we were focusing on Kingdom Animalia. Here's how it broke down:
The coolest thing we found (when we removed our air conditioner compressor cover) was a Woodlouse Spider (Dysdera crocata). We have bucketloads of wood lice (sow bugs, rolly-polly bugs) under every log and rock, and yet we've never seen one of these impressive introduced species. It had huge fangs. We only found a couple of other spiders all day.
Because we have so many native plants in the yard, bees and wasps (Hymenoptera) are usually very well represented. Trees just began flowering the last couple of days, and pollinators really seemed scarce. We're concerned that some may have been killed off when they appeared in the last warm spell (late March) which 
was followed by nearly two weeks of freezing weather. The most common Hymenoptera in the yard today were many miner bees in the genus Andrena. There were two species of syrphid flies. I think this one is in the genus Helophilus (you can enlarge that photo).
I'll try to compile another list from the yard later in the week, and probably at least one day at work. We are supposed to get some rain, maybe that will help.
I'm tardy in announcing that I'll be participating in the first Blogger BioBlitz the week of April 21-29, which is the National Wildlife Federation's Wildlife Week.
I'll be in the field that week, and will blitz my field site for birds one or a few days. If I have a chance, I'll include other taxa, but it depends on how busy I am or if I can rope in a few students.
P.S. I, rather amateurishly, modified the bird logo for the BBB to accurately reflect the colors of the Common Yellowthroat, even though it looked pretty cool in blue!
Working on my computer, I have a handy view of the feeders in the yard. Here's the set-up:
Two poles with stovepipe baffles, three feeders each. From left to right: a hardware cloth tube for sunflowers, cheap octagon feeder, usually only used on days we band, upside-down "thistle" feeder, suet feeder, another upside-down feeder, regular tube feeder. I trim off about a half-inch of each plastic perch on the upside-down feeders before inserting the perches through the holes. Thwarts House Sparrows and House Finches. The dark hole to the right is our little pond, heated and with a pump to stay open all year. The horizontal black lines between poles are furled mist nets.
As you can see, we had quite a mob of Mourning Doves today, with about 30 present most of the day. Two Fox Sparrows have been in the yard since fall, and both put in an appearance (they are both banded, on different legs). Ditto our pair of Carolina Wrens, which go to the suet but more often to my windowsill to partake of the mealworms,
bird grubs (from Gardens Alive), and peanut butter that I put under a propped up brick (to discourage thieving squirrels). Here is one of them, and you can see a grub there (they are meatier than mealworms, and the wrens love'em):
A couple robins visited the pond, and a juvenile Cooper's Hawk buzzed by as well. Here is the count I submitted to the GBBC:
Yesterday was the first day of the Great Backyard Bird Count, which I introduced here.
I tried to keep an eye on the bird feeders at work. They are outside the opposite end of my building, so I only got in about an hour in the morning when there weren't people disturbing the action at the same time I had a break. My checklist was not very impressive:
| Species | Count |
| Mourning Dove | 1 |
| Red-bellied Woodpecker | 1 |
| Downy Woodpecker | 2 |
| Hairy Woodpecker | 1 |
| Blue Jay | 3 |
| Black-capped Chickadee | 3 |
| Tufted Titmouse | 2 |
| White-breasted Nuthatch | 3 |
| American Robin | 3 |
| European Starling | 1 |
| White-throated Sparrow | 9 |
| Dark-eyed Junco | 7 |
| Northern Cardinal | 9 |
| House Finch | 14 |
| American Goldfinch | 6 |
| House Sparrow | 15 |
When I submitted this report this morning, only two other checklists from my city had been turned in. The maximum number of checklists in one city in Michigan was ten, from Oscoda. A total of 92 species have been reported so far, all of which seem plausible for the state, although I see a few obvious and some probable errors. The checklists are vetted by regional experts, but there are just some records that are potentially wrong (hard-to-differentiate species, for example) that are really difficult to weed out. It's a serious shortcoming of citizen science, but so long as users of the data are aware of the weak spots, the GBBC can be quite handy.
Our feeders here at home were hopping this morning, and we're keeping track -- will provide another report later.
