On Ohio's Wild Side Archive
Skunk-cabbage: Earliest Spring Wildflower
After a long, frosty snow-filled winter, scores of outdoor enthusiasts eagerly anticipate the appearance of spring wildflowers. Come April, the explosion of phlox, spring-beauties, trillium and others paint the forest floor in a riot of color. Their emergence sends a welcome message: Winter’s icy hold has been broken; warmer days are ahead.
However, long before the first trout lily or bloodroot pops forth, one of our strangest “wildflowers” has pushed from the mire. The blooming of skunk-cabbage precedes the full wildflower symphony by two months. Skunk-cabbage is not a cabbage – not even close. It is closely related to a well-known wildflower that will follow later in spring, the jack-in-the-pulpit. All parts of this bizarre plant, when bruised, produce an odor that will call to mind malodorous black-and-white four-legged beasts.
Skunk-cabbage is finicky about its haunts. The botanical stinkers grow in springy quagmires of swampy woods. Investigators seeking a closer look are liable to discover that good skunk-cabbage sites are carpeted with boot-sucking soupy muck with the texture of quicksand.
By early February, skunk-cabbage will be in full bloom in many areas. It takes effort to admire the flowers, such as they are. Far more noticeable than the actual blossoms are the fleshy purple and green spathes. These liver-spotted hornlike structures are fleshy tents that shield and protect the skunk-cabbage’s flowers. Enclosed within the spathe and visible through a gap – the tent flap – is a columnar structure called a spadix. Sprinkling the surface of the spadix like tiny greenish-yellow snowflakes are the true flowers of the skunk-cabbage.
How does skunk-cabbage beat other wildflowers to the punch? It blooms well before winter has abated, often forcing its spathes through ice and snow. Basically, skunk-cabbage has a built-in furnace. The plant is thermogenic, which means it produces heat as a by-product of cellular respiration as it grows. A skunk-cabbage can be 40 degrees or more warmer than the surrounding air temperature. Thus, the interior of the spathe is toasty warm and attracts early-appearing flies and other small insect pollinators.
After skunk-cabbages’ flowers have mostly withered, the huge leaves emerge. A skunk-cabbage colony in full leaf-out is a spectacle that can’t be missed. Do a scratch and sniff on a leaf, and you’ll wrinkle your nose in disgust at the olfactory assault. No one will garnish their salad with this stuff! But not all mammals turn up their noses at skunk-cabbage. Newly emerged black bears, arisen from their Rip Van Winkle winter-long slumber, relish the smelly leaves. It may be that skunk-cabbage leaves help the bear to break down the hard anal plug that kept the animal stopped up tight during its hibernation.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
Please credit the Ohio Division of Wildlife for the article and images, unless otherwise noted.
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Robins No Longer a Sign of Spring
For as long as people have been watching birds in North America, the American robin has served as the quintessential harbinger of spring. This distinctive thrush, with its brick red underparts and penchant for stalking suburban lawns, is familiar to nearly everyone. The arrival of robins at winter’s end heralds warmer days, and the red-breasts usher in an ever-increasing cascade of spring flora and fauna.
John Maynard Wheaton, in an 1879 report on the birds of Ohio, noted that: “…the Robin arrives about the middle of February and remains until November”. While small numbers of robins have probably always overwintered in Ohio, even in Wheaton’s time, most of them fled south. The status of wintertime robins has changed a lot since the olden days, and if you think you’re seeing more of them when the snow flies, you’re right.
Perhaps the best gauge of wintering bird populations is provided by Christmas Bird Counts (CBC). Overseen by the National Audubon Society, CBC’s began in 1900 and have mushroomed from 25 counts to 2,200 worldwide, mobilizing an army of 63,000 birders. Ohio has its fair share of CBC’s – about 75 at present, in all quarters of the state. As each count covers a 15-mile diameter circle and are undertaken from mid-December through early January, they do a good job of assessing Ohio’s winter bird life.
The last five decades of Christmas Bird Count data illustrates that there are indeed more robins with frosty toes. Ohio counts from 1962 thru 1971 collectively tallied an average of 4,370 American robins each year. That total is peanuts by today’s standards. The number of wintertime robins has skyrocketed over the last 50 years, and the annual average of Ohio CBC’s over the last decade was a staggering 29,373. The wintering robin explosion is a widespread trend across northern North America. For instance, the province of Ontario, Canada – our neighbor to the north – has documented a similar spike in robins.
The million dollar question: why the major increase in wintering robins? It would be easy to point a finger at climate change, but warming temperatures are probably a minor factor, if a factor at all. Nonnative plants are the true culprit enticing robins to stay north. In the colder months, robins turn largely to a diet of fruit, and the abundance of ornamental crabapples, hawthorns and other berry-producing landscape plants offers an ever-increasing buffet for the birds. Even more prolific are various invasive bush honeysuckles, which jumped the garden fence and now run rampant across the land. Honeysuckles produce bumper crops of berries, which robins feast upon.
The availability of a prolific new food supply is not necessarily good for the robin. In general, berries produced by these nonnative plants are the equivalent of vegetative M & M’s. They are high in sugar and low in lipids and proteins. It’s the latter two ingredients that are vital to providing long-term sustenance for birds attempting to overwinter in harsh climates. If an ice storm or heavy snowfall keeps the birds from the berries, they’ll quickly find themselves in peril. A diet dominated by nonnative fruit doesn’t provide robins with adequate energy resources to ride out prolonged bouts of bad weather.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
Please credit the Ohio Division of Wildlife for the article and images, unless otherwise noted.
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Southern Flying Squirrels: Furry Spidermen
Four species of tree squirrels occur in Ohio, and most people are familiar with three of them. Anyone who feeds birds probably knows fox, gray, and red squirrels, all of which are expert feeder raiders. Indeed, this larcenous trio is so adept at plundering bird feeders that homeowners often engage in a battle of wits with the furry seed-stealers, which the squirrels frequently win.
At the end of the day, squirrels retire for the evening – or so it would seem. But darkness brings out our fourth squirrel species, the southern flying squirrel. These acrobatic little sprites can be common feeder visitors, but are often overlooked, shielded as they are by the blackness of night. If there are big trees around, even in suburban areas, chances are great that flying squirrels are present.
A southern flying squirrel is an animal of great beauty. Impossibly large eyes, all the better to see in darkness, dominate the small, mousy head. Their silky fur is a lustrous gray-brown above, contrasting with the animal’s snowy-white undersides. It is the adaptations for “flying” that is truly eye-catching, though. A flying squirrel doesn’t really “fly;” it glides. Loose flaps of skin called patagium stretch between the legs and when snapped taut form a winglike membrane. When ready to parasail, the squirrel leaps from high in the tree, stretches its legs wide, and glides like a furry dart for up to 150 feet. As the airborne squirrel prepares to land, it flips its flat tail to a vertical position, which then becomes an airbrake. Upon alighting, the squirrel invariably scurries to the other side of the trunk, in case an owl has followed it.
Measuring less than a foot long and weighing only 2 ½ ounces, a flying squirrel is truly elfin. It would take eleven of them to equal the mass of a fox squirrel. What these bantamweights lack in size is more than made up for in speed and agility. Watching these speedsters rocket around the branches of a big tree is a surreal experience. When at full tilt, a flying squirrel runs up, down, and sideways at velocities that leave an observer awestruck and wondering if the squirrel’s paws are made of Velcro. The grand finale comes when the squirrel launches itself into space, sailing off into the dark.
In most regions that are well-forested, the flying squirrel is the most abundant of our squirrels, albeit the least commonly encountered. They are vital cogs in woodland ecology, scavenging scads of tree nuts and caching them. Many squirrel-harvested acorns and other mast will be forgotten, the lost nuts destined to grow new trees. In turn, the squirrels serve as prey for predators such as owls and black rat snakes.
If you’ve got big trees in your yard, keep a sharp eye on your bird feeders after dark. Better yet, slather some crunchy peanut butter high up on a tree trunk – flying squirrels seem to find it irresistible.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Winter Finch Invasion
Everyone knows what an eruption is. When a volcano blows its top and spews ash and lava from the cone, that’s an eruption on a grand scale. People prone to temper tantrums can erupt. So can shook up pop cans. But there is a homonym of eruption that’s not nearly as well known: irruption.
When applied to biology, irruption means a sharp increase in numbers. This term is probably most familiar to birders, many of whom eagerly anticipate irruptions of boreal songbirds. Boreal refers to the vast belt of northern forest that covers much of Canada, Alaska, and the northernmost United States. Sometimes referred to as taiga, the sprawling boreal forest blankets over 1.5 billion acres in North America. The boreal forest is home to several species of songbirds that specialize in feeding on the fruit of conifer (evergreen) trees, and other northern tree species such as birch.
Most boreal tree species are cyclical in their production of fruit – there are boom and bust years. It’s the bust years that create interesting birding for Ohioans. A lack of food up north can send scads of winter finches and other boreal songbirds south into Ohio, and in some years these irruptions are especially noticeable.
The fall and winter of 2012 is shaping up to be a good invasion of boreal irruptive songbirds. Leading the pack is the pine siskin. These little finches are closely related to American goldfinches, and often share space with their yellower brethren at backyard feeders. Siskins are about the same size and shape as goldfinches, but are much browner and heavily striped with blurry brown streaks. Tinges of gold in the wings and tail are distinctive. Pine siskins are turning up in big numbers all over Ohio, and dozens are descending on favored backyard feeding stations, especially those that stock thistle seed.
Red-breasted nuthatches have also appeared en masse. These dinky tree gleaners resemble the more familiar year-round resident white-breasted nuthatch, but are an inch shorter and weigh half as much. They also sport a bold black line through the eye and are washed with cinnamon-orange underneath. Red-breasted nuthatches are particularly fond of suet, and slapping a cake of the fatty meat byproduct to a tree trunk may lure these interesting visitors from the North Woods.
Other possible boreal visitors to the backyard feeders include common redpoll, evening grosbeak, purple finch, and red crossbill. If you don’t already have one, get a good bird field guide so that you can better identify any strangers that appear at the feeders. Keep those feeders stocked, too, and prepare for heftier seed bills if you are inundated by siskins or other boreal finches. Hungry packs of these feathered piglets can make mincemeat of vast quantities of seed in short order. A short term spike in the bird feeding budget may be worth it, though – it isn’t every year that we experience these feathered invaders from the North.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Hide-and-seek: Nature’s Camouflage Artists
When you’re out on the trail, rest assured that many sets of eyes are watching your every move. Nature is full of animals that excel at being wallflowers. For these hidden animals, life is a game of hide-and-seek, with life or death consequences.
Crypsis is a term that refers to an organism’s ability to blend with its surroundings. Our most cryptic creatures have evolved camouflage to a fine art; some of the best are nearly impossible to spot, even at point blank range. There are two primary reasons to adopt a cryptic lifestyle: to eat, or avoid being eaten. Natural selection exerts powerful forces that can drive an animal to increasingly resemble its surroundings, and better avoid becoming a meal. Conversely, predators that are ambush hunters are more likely to capture prey if the meal-to-be can’t spot the hunter.
Caterpillars may be the masters of camouflage. A significant proportion of Ohio’s 3,000+ caterpillar species – the larvae of butterflies and moths – blend extraordinarily well with their surroundings. It works well. Although caterpillars are abundant and by far the most numerous plant-eating animals in Ohio, how many do you see? Some species, such as the checker-fringe prominent caterpillar, take camouflage to a fine art. It mimics the edge of a leaf, with the caterpillar’s back being jagged and uneven, like a leaf margin. The prominent caterpillar is even dappled with brown and green coloration, like an old leaf. Birds, which are voracious caterpillar predators, drive the evolution of crypsis in caterpillars.
Birds can also be masters of camouflage. The chuck-will’s-widow, a large relative of the whip-poor-will, relies on its cryptic plumage to avoid detection during the day. It actively forages for moths and other flying insects at night, but during the day chuck-will’s-widows settle onto the leaf litter of the forest floor. The coloration and patterning of their feathers matches the surrounding dried leaves to a remarkable degree.
A common summer sound is the birdlike trill of the gray treefrog. This small amphibian is highly arboreal, spending much time in the trees. Even when the frog is at eye level, good luck spotting it. Treefrogs are chameleon like in that they can change coloration to match their backdrop. If the frog is on a tree trunk, it’ll be shaded in tones of gray – a perfect match for bark. If perched on a leaf, the frog will morph to a beautiful shade of green that resembles the foliage.
Pollinating insects are addicted to nectar, but landing on a flower can be fraught with peril. There are ferocious predators that mimic flowers, and blend with blossoms to an eerie degree. Ambush bugs can look so much like the flowers that they lurk amongst that an approaching bee has no hope of spotting it. When the would-be pollinator alights, the ambush bug lunges forth and impales the victim with a syringe-like proboscis. The prey, which is often much larger than the predator, is instantly paralyzed by neurotoxins injected by the ambush bug. Crab spiders are also effective flower hunters and can alter their coloration to match the color of the blossom that they are perched upon. A hunting crab spider will sit with its forelegs outstretched, ready to pounce and embrace a hapless butterfly with an inescapable death grip.
Tune your eye to Nature’s camouflage artists, and you’ll soon see masters of mimicry everywhere you go.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Invasion of the Little Blue Herons
Birders all across Ohio have been thrilled by an invasion of southern herons that are rarely seen this far north. The source of their excitement? The little blue heron, a denizen of southern swamps. In a normal year, only a few of these waders makes it north to Buckeye Country. This year several dozen birds have been sighted, in nearly all corners of the state.
Little blue herons occasionally engage in large-scale late summer and fall northward movements. Such flights are termed post-breeding dispersals. The reasons for these migrations are not totally clear, but a likely factor is a diminishment of good habitat in core areas of the breeding range. Droughts can dry up marshes and other wetland habitats, forcing the herons to disperse far and wide in an effort to find food. If summer droughts combine with good nesting success in the heronries, the young birds are forced to go nomad en masse.
The little blue heron’s main breeding range in the U.S. is in the southeastern Atlantic and Gulf coastal states. These lanky-legged waders occupy a much larger region than that, though. Little blues are primarily tropical, nesting from Mexico and the Caribbean south to Brazil and Peru. Birds that make it to Ohio – about as far north as the species routinely occurs – are 5,000 miles north of the southernmost populations of little blue herons in coastal Brazil.
Massive irruptions of little blue herons into the upper Midwest are rare, especially in recent decades. The 1920s-30s saw large influxes of herons into Ohio, and 1930 was the biggest invasion year ever. That year, observers tallied nearly 1,200 little blue herons. The 2012 little blue heron flight has totaled about 50-60 birds – excellent numbers for modern times, but a shadow of the invasions of 80 years ago.
Most of the little blue herons appearing in Ohio are not really blue – they are juvenile birds, which are white. It’d be easy to dismiss one as an egret, and indeed little blues are closely related to the snowy egret. It takes a little blue heron two years to acquire full adult plumage, at which point they are clad in feathers of rich slatey-blue offset by deep maroon head and neck feathering.
Nearly any marshy wetland where herons congregate might be playing host to little blue herons right now. They’ll probably be in association with two of our most common heron species, the great blue heron and great egret. The latter is all white, as are juvenile little blue herons, but that’s the extent of the resemblance. Little blues are far smaller and have dull grayish bills, while the comparatively giant egrets have large dagger-like yellow bills. A more likely source of confusion is another southern heron, the snowy egret. There have been above normal numbers of these southerners in Ohio, too, and little blues and snowy egrets often forage together. Snowy egrets are about the same size as little blue herons, but are easily recognized by the yellow skin between the bill and eye, and black legs with golden-yellow “slippers” (feet).
Little blue herons are fun to watch as they hunt the shallows. A foraging bird moves slowly and methodically, keeping a sharp watch on the nearby waters. Occasionally it’ll stir a foot in the muck to spook aquatic animals to the surface. Anything small enough to swallow that enters the heron’s sphere is fair game: fish, tadpoles, frogs, crayfish, dragonflies, etc.
Our little blue heron invasion began in early July, and should continue into September. Keep your eyes peeled for these southern visitors.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Wandering Glider: An Incredible Dragonfly
Dragonflies rank high among the world’s most successful animals. They’ve had a long time to hone their skills. The first dragonflies took wing some 250 million years ago, during the Permian period. These predatory insects snatched up lesser bugs over the backs of dinosaurs, and have long outlasted those giant extinct reptiles. The Odonata – damselflies and dragonflies – have diversified into about 6,500 species and occupy nearly the entire globe.
Many species of dragonflies are uncommon and local, tightly tied to very specific habitats, while others are widely ranging generalists. Perhaps the most adaptive of all is the wandering glider, Pantala flavescens. This large dragonfly occurs across more of the planet than any of its kin, and is found on every continent but Antarctica.
Perhaps you’ve noticed large tawny-yellow dragonflies effortlessly floating between cars stuck in traffic, over yards and fields or around the parking lot. These are most likely wandering gliders, and there are plenty of them on the wing right now. Occasionally one will hover over a parked car and dab its abdomen tip at the shiny paint. Female gliders are sometimes fooled by glistening cars, and think the paint is water. It looks as if the wandering glider is “stinging” the auto, but she’s actually ovipositing, or laying eggs.
Glider eggs deposited on car paint won’t fare well, but fortunately most are dropped in water. An egg eventually spawns a strange alien-looking nymph. This larva lives a completely aquatic existence, feeding voraciously on lesser animal life. In as little as two months – incredibly brief by dragonfly standards – the glider nymph is ready to commence an amazing transformation. Under cover of darkness, the nymph clambers from the water and affixes itself to a plant or other structure. Its shell begins to rupture, and the young dragonfly hidden within starts to push forth.
After an hour or so of struggle the young dragonfly pops free of its larval case, and begins pumping fluid through its veins. Its wings rapidly expand, and the body quickly hardens and changes from bland greenish-brown to the tawny tones of the adult. By morning, the dragonfly is ready to spread its wings and take up an aerial existence. It’ll cover a lot of ground over the course of its several month long lifespan.
An adult wandering glider is a master of the sky, its aeronautic prowess rivaling anything with wings. Small wonder this species has successfully colonized most of the globe. Seemingly casual flicks of its wings send the dragonfly sailing effortlessly along, its lazy glides punctuated by blindingly fast bursts of acceleration and abrupt jigs and jags. Each time the glider darts, it is capturing some hapless flying victim, and that includes horseflies and other biting insects.
Like many birds, wandering gliders are highly migratory, but the dragonfly’s movements remain somewhat of a mystery. Their known feats of migration can be spectacular. Sometimes large swarms, numbering into the dozens or even hundreds, materialize. These “flocks” are presumably headed to warmer climes before the onset of cooler fall temperatures. Migrant wandering gliders have turned up on ships hundreds of miles at sea, and at elevations of 20,000 feet in the Himalayas. Millions pass through the Maldives Islands in the Indian Ocean, on a 1,100 mile round trip between India and Africa.
The rapid reproductive cycle of the wandering glider, coupled with its extraordinary powers of flight, has enabled this insect to become one of the most widespread animals on earth. Those cool looking yellow dragonflies swirling around the parking lot may travel further than you do over the next few months.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Eastern Bluebird: America’s Most Beloved Thrush
Two of Ohio’s best known and most beloved birds are thrushes. One of them, the American robin, is a ubiquitous fixture in suburbia and nearly every other habitat. Robins are often the first bird one encounters upon stepping outside in the morning.
The other thrush may be the recipient of more human assistance than any other bird species in the Buckeye State. It is the eastern bluebird, which looks and acts so unthrushlike that some bluebird enthusiasts may not recognize its family ties. The other six species of thrushes that occur regularly in Ohio are habitual ground-feeders. Bluebirds, on the other hand, typically hunt prey from posts, small trees and other elevated perches. Bluebirds have keen vision, and can spot grasshoppers, caterpillars, and other small prey from distances up to 130 feet. When a victim is spotted, the bluebird quickly flies to the spot and pounces.
A male eastern bluebird is an avian work of art. Avid bluebirders insist that the gorgeous shade of blue that paints a bluebird’s topside is the prettiest color found in nature. They may be right. The rich blue is countered by deep cinnamon-brown below, and the contrast is striking. Female bluebirds resemble a muted version of the male. Juvenile bluebirds are heavily speckled below, a trait that reveals their thrush family lineage: most thrushes are spotted below, at least when immature.
Eastern bluebirds are unique among Ohio thrushes in that they nest in cavities. It’s this habit that has forged the strong bond between bluebirds and people. For cavity-nesting birds, the availability of suitable nest sites is always a pinch point. Way back in the 1930’s, one of America’s premier ornithologists, Frank Chapman, predicted that bluebirds would suffer due to increased competition with nonnative cavity-nesting European starlings. How right he was. Starlings, along with the introduced house sparrow, began to greatly diminish bluebird populations by usurping bluebird nest sites.
About the time of Chapman’s gloomy prediction, Thomas Musselman of Illinois had discovered that bluebirds would readily take to artificial nestboxes, and before long Musselman had a strung a trail of over 1,000 boxes. He met with great success, and the bluebird trail was born. Today, there are tens of thousands of bluebird nestboxes in the eastern U.S. and Canada, and collectively they spawn a blizzard of bluebirds. Ohio is at the forefront of providing bluebird housing. In 2011, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Project NestWatch reported that Ohio bluebirders fostered 4,490 nesting attempts from their boxes – more than any other state.
Few animals light up a meadow like a bluebird. The stunning males illuminate the summits of fence posts like Christmas ornaments, and their rich throaty warbles add music to the pasture. Thanks to the dedication of scores of bluebirders who build and maintain nestbox trails, Ohioans can enjoy more bluebirds than ever.
For an interesting and delightful read, check out the newly published book The Bluebird Effect: Uncommon Bonds with Common Birds, penned by Ohio author Julie Zickefoose. It is available through Amazon.com or most major booksellers. For more information on all aspects of bluebirds, visit the Ohio Bluebird Society at ohiobluebirdsociety.org.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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White Lady’s-slipper Orchid
Two hundred thousand acres is a lot of land. That’s the acreage that the Ohio Division of Wildlife owns or manages, spread between approximately 120 different holdings statewide. Wildlife areas can be found from the Lake Erie Islands to the Ohio River; in the rugged hill country of eastern Ohio and the flatlands of the west. These diverse properties collectively harbor an incredible array of plants.
There are nearly 1,900 species of native plants in Ohio, and state wildlife areas provide homes for most of them. Some plants, such as red maple, spring-beauty, or Virginia creeper, are widespread and abundant. Others are far rarer, and it is these botanical gems that inflame the passions of avid flora-questers.
Orchids pique the interest of nearly everyone, botanist or not. Many people probably aren’t aware that representatives of this exotic family grow wild in the Buckeye State. But 46 species can be found, although some know-how is usually required to find them. Most are rare: 59 percent of our orchid species are listed as endangered or some other level of imperilment by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
Our 46 species are but a smidgen of the massive orchid family, which may be the largest tribe of flowering plants on earth. About 25,000 species are known, with peak abundance in the tropics. All of the Ohio species are exotic in their own right, but the lady’s-slipper orchids are particularly stunning.
Especially noteworthy among the lady’s-slippers is the white lady’s-slipper, Cypripedium candidum. This Ohio endangered species occurs in only two locales, at opposite ends of the state. A population near the Ohio River in Adams County is tiny; a dozen or so plants. The other site is comparatively huge, and is found in Resthaven Wildlife Area in Erie County near Lake Erie. Resthaven protects the best surviving tract of the formerly vast Castalia Prairie, and the wildlife area harbors numerous rare animals and plants.
Come mid-May, the spectacle of thousands of white lady’s-slippers blooming on the prairie is hard to top. Division of Wildlife staff periodically burn parts of Resthaven to promote biodiversity. Some species of prairie plants are fire-dependent and require regular burnings to prosper; the orchid is one of them. In a spring following a fire, the white lady’s-slippers burst forth in mind-boggling profusion.
The pouch like flower of a white lady’s-slipper is a botanical objet d’art; it resembles an elfin shoe made of lacquered ceramic. Small bees are the primary pollinators, and the flower’s structure forces them to navigate the blossom in such a way that pollen is spread on their densely hairy abdomen and thorax. The pollen-dusted bees – also an important part of the prairie’s ecology – then fly to the next orchid, and provide cross-pollination services.
As always with wild plants, and orchids especially, look but don’t dig. White lady’s-slippers are so showy that gardeners sometimes lust for them, but the finicky orchids are nearly impossible to transplant. They require specialized soil fungus that forms an alliance with the plants’ roots, and placing lady’s-slippers in unnatural haunts dooms them. Besides, it’s illegal to harvest plants from state lands without a permit.
White lady’s-slippers are a fascinating component of Ohio’s prairie heritage. Over 99 percent of the state’s original prairies have been lost, thus protection of places such as Resthaven Wildlife Area is vital to the conservation of these rich habitats.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Eastern Fence Lizard
Most people probably don’t think of Ohio and lizards in the same breath; maybe Florida, or Arizona, where anoles, geckos, and racerunners dart about landscape. Lizard abundance does decline as one moves north to the latitude of Ohio, but we’ve got five native species. Most of them are uncommon and local, and take some work to find.
A fairly common Ohio lizard, at least within its southern Ohio range, is the Eastern fence lizard. Spend enough time hiking around dry woods in any of the counties in which they occur and you’ll eventually stumble across one. Chances are you’ll hear it first. Fence lizards blend with the dried leaves of the forest floor remarkably well, and skitter away when disturbed. A fleeing fence lizard moves so fast you might miss it, but you’ll hear the crackle of leaves as the animal races off.
If you do spot a fence lizard at rest, you’ll be rewarded by the spectacle of a darn good-looking reptile. A mature adult tapes out at around seven inches in length, and is grayish-brown overall. An ornate pattern of tan chevrons outlined in black decorate the back. Incredibly long spindly toes aid the lizard’s frequent forays into trees or over jagged rocks.
While fence lizards may appear somber in tone up top, an adult male’s underside offers a jarring contrast to its earth-toned upper side. The throat and sides of the belly are trimmed in swaths of brilliant iridescent blue. When the lizard is in its typical hunched posture, its flashy blue undercarriage is invisible. However, when the fence lizard stilts upwards on its long legs the bright blue coloration flashes into view. This colorful display presumably impresses the girl lizards.
The natural inclination of many a naturalist is to catch a fence lizard when they spot one. Good luck. These scaly speedsters generally dart to the nearest tree, and race up the trunk. Quite cleverly, the lizard will then stay on the opposite side of the trunk making its capture nearly impossible. Such agility serves them well when running down prey, which includes everything from beetles to crickets to grasshoppers.
Fence lizards are very active now, following their winter hibernation. The males’ blue bellies are at their brightest, and they’re chasing the females and mating. Before long, breeding females will lay up to 15 tiny eggs under a rotting log or in some such hiding spot. A month and a half later, the little lizards will hatch, looking like mirror copies of the adult, but only two inches in length. If all goes well, an Eastern fence lizard can live to eight years of age, if not longer.
Good places to find fence lizards include Lake Katharine State Nature Preserve in Jackson County, Shawnee State Forest in Scioto County, and Waterloo Wildlife Area in Athens County. Visit www.wildohio.com for more information about fence lizards.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Tree Swallows Enliven the Landscape and Eat Bugs
March is as much winter as spring in Ohio, a yo-yo ride of lamb to lion weather changes. As I write this, a dusting of snow frosts the ground and the air temperature hovers just below the freezing mark. A week ago it was comparatively balmy and our first flowers were poking forth.
March hardly seems the time for insect-eating birds to return.
Yet our third month is when the tree swallows tumble into town. The earliest scouts venture into Ohio by the first week of March, and by month’s end these perky little swallows are far and wide and in big numbers. It’s a bit of a gamble, venturing into a still wintry landscape when your primary fare is insects.
But these shiny blue-green birds are tough customers – far hardier than the other five species of swallows that nest in Ohio. Tree swallows do venture to tropical haunts for the winter, as any self-respecting swallow should. They’re no dummies, and many of our Ohio birds probably winter in Florida – true snowbirds. Tree swallows also range into Mexico and along the Caribbean coast of Central America, all the way to northern South America.
The pull to return to northern breeding grounds is intense, and tree swallows don’t dilly-dally when it comes time to head north. Early birds sometimes appear by February’s end, and there are always sightings by early March, and they’re abundant by April.
Tree swallows subsist primarily on flying insects, which they deftly pluck from the sky. Aerialists supreme, a tree swallow can put the best stunt pilot to shame. Jigging and jagging with impossible speed and agility, no bug that bumbles onto a tree swallow’s radar is safe. They even bathe on the wing, skimming low over water and bumping the surface to create a shower of spray.
Why would an insect-dependent bird return to Ohio so early as to expose itself to the peril of March freezes? Competition for nest sites, mainly. Tree swallows nest in cavities, and suitable holes are in great demand. The early bird truly gets the worm, and the earliest swallows to return can claim the best nest sites. On the downside, these early arrivals may perish in a fierce bout of wintry weather.
Tree swallows have a few tricks that help them to survive inclement conditions, at least for a while. When temperatures nosedive, a swallow can lower its metabolism and greatly reduce energy expenditure – a condition knows as torpor. They are also our only swallow that will eat fruit in a pinch, in addition to various seeds of wetland plants.
These dapper-looking birds, with their two-toned coats of glossy green and white, greatly enrich the landscape. Tree swallows are even a treat for the ears, talking more or less constantly in a language of rich liquid gurgles. If you’ve got the space, you may even be able to offer them homes. Tree swallows take readily to nest boxes, just as Eastern bluebirds do. Having a squadron of voracious insect-eaters working your air space is just another perk of their companionship.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
Please credit the Ohio Division of Wildlife for the article and images, unless otherwise noted.
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Barn Owl: A Ghost in the Loft
There’s a grain of truth to most tales, including haunted houses. Spooky old buildings, long abandoned and creaky, are surefire lures for ghost-seekers. And sometimes they find one, or so they think.
More than a few people have been scared witless by shadowy white specters floating through an old barn’s loft, or the sounds of hideous blood-curdling screams issuing from an abandoned house.
I hate to be a ghost-buster, but some spooky reports can be traced to barn owls. These medium-sized, light-colored owls are intimately associated with man and often take up residence in our structures. To the uninitiated, barn owls can be eerie. They typically roost in shadowy corners in the upper elevations of the barn or house that they’ve appropriated, and when flushed, one often gets just a glimpse of a shadowy white object floating by.
If you hear one of these owls, chances are your hair will stand on end. Barn owls deliver a terrifying scream, like a person chased by a homicidal maniac in a slasher movie.
Scary first impressions aside, barn owls are one of Ohio’s most interesting birds. All owls have highly evolved sensory organs, but barn owls stand out even in this field of avian superheroes. Their night vision is extraordinary, and it is coupled with a sense of hearing so acute that the owls can pinpoint sounds even in total darkness. Woe to the mouse that enters their sphere.
Identifying a barn owl is no problem. The combination of a monkey-like face, brown eyes, and light under parts renders them unmistakable.
This is the world’s most widely distributed owl, occurring on every continent but Antarctica. Ohio is at the northern limits of their range. Prior to European settlement and the clearing of the state’s extensive blanket of old-growth forest, barn owls probably weren’t even present. The first specimen was taken in 1861, and as open agricultural lands proliferated, the owls became more common. Barn owls require extensive open meadows, which support large numbers of their favored prey, a mouse-like rodent called the meadow vole.
The loss of grassland habitat was the main cause for Ohio’s barn owls to go bust in the late 20th century. By 1990, the number of known pairs had dwindled to perhaps 20 and the owls were listed as endangered. The Ohio Division of Wildlife began working to restore populations, and placed over 200 nest boxes for this cavity-nesting species in suitable sites. Many landowners followed suit, especially in Holmes County’s Amish community, and the owl population began to spike upwards.
In 2010, there were at least 70 pairs nesting in Ohio – much improved over 20 years ago, but still very much the threatened species. Most owls are concentrated in Holmes, Tuscarawas, and Wayne counties, with another stronghold in Pike and Ross counties.
We are interested in learning of additional nesting pairs. If you are aware of any please contact Ohio Division of Wildlife Olentangy Research Station at 740-747-2525.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Golden-crowned Kinglet: Tiny but Tough
Golden-crowned kinglets are truly dinky, weighing in at just six grams. That’s little more than a nickel. Thirteen kinglets would equal the weight of an American robin, and 75 would be required to make a crow. Kinglets may be small, but they’re tough as nails.
These ping-pong ball-sized songbirds are branded with the scientific name Regulus, which means “little king.” A big title for a little bird and it stems from the brilliant stripe of gold that caps the bird’s head. In males, this crown patch also includes flaming orange highlights, and if agitated the kinglet will raise those feathers creating an explosion of color. This fiery crown provides a startling contrast to the rest of the bird, which is mostly drab olive.
Extreme hardiness is built into the golden-crowned kinglets’ constitution. These sprites nest in northern spruce-fir forests, mostly well to the north of Ohio. We get plenty of them in migration and winter, and it shouldn’t be hard to find a kinglet if you know how to look.
Most people – even veteran outdoors people – go through life unaware of kinglets. Not surprising – kinglets aren’t much larger than hummingbirds and flit discreetly in the boughs of trees. They are especially fond of conifers, and the dense needles of spruce, fir, and pine further serve to mask their presence.
The trick to discovering golden-crowned kinglets is to use your ears. The birds constantly emit a high-pitched Tsee-tsee-tsee, and with some practice these vocalizations are easily learned, and will lead the listener to the kinglets. A good visual cue to their identity from afar is the kinglets’ habitat of constant wing-flitting--the birds are in continual motion and a pause of even two seconds is rare.
How does a pint-sized, strictly insect-eating fluff ball like a kinglet survive tough northern winters? The answer, in part, is an almost supernatural ability to locate tiny caterpillars. There are far more caterpillars than one might think in the winter woods, riding out the winter fastened to twigs with silken strands. Most of these larvae are far too small to be noticed by people, but sharp-eyed kinglets are adept at discovering them.
Golden-crowned kinglets are also endowed with an incredible layer of down feathers. When puffed to fullness, these feathers create a wonderful insulating layer that traps warm air near the kinglet’s skin, and keeps frosty temperatures at bay. To up their odds of surviving long winter nights, kinglets also roost communally in sheltered spots. Several birds will huddle together, greatly reducing the loss of each individual’s body heat.
Next time you’re near some conifers, listen for the lisps of kinglets. With a bit of effort, you may be rewarded with the sight of one of the world’s tiniest, but toughest songbirds.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Short-eared Owl
Meadow voles are like big, burly mice. These furry sausages with legs are creatures of open fields, where they create grassy runways and browse on plant material. If a meadow vole lives a year, it’s ancient. They don’t last long, mostly because there are so many predators that eat them. And perhaps the coolest of the meadow vole munchers is the short-eared owl.
Quite the looker, a short-eared owl is painted in tawny-buff tones, and heavily streaked and speckled with black. Its long wings have a distinctive “C”-shaped dark mark at the bend of the wing. Fierce glaring yellow eyes are set in classic owlish facial disks, and punctuated with bushy white “eyebrows.” In flight, it appears as if the owl ran headfirst into a brick wall, leading to one of their many colloquial names, “flat-faced owl.”
Short-eared owls are one of the most cosmopolitan of birds, inhabiting at least seasonally nearly all of North America. They also range into South America, across much of Europe and Eurasia, and can even be found on the Galapagos and Hawaiian islands and in the Caribbean.
While these owls occasionally nest here, breeding is rare as Ohio lies at the southern limits of their nesting range. They mostly occur in migration and winter, when owls depart northerly nesting grounds in search of food.
And that’s where the voles come into play. Meadows voles have boom and bust cycles: some years there are few, and in others the populations explode. In peak years, concentrations of as many as 200 voles an acre have been reported. The owls are quite adept at discovering vole outbreaks, and the indications thus far point to a bounty of voles and owls in Ohio this winter.
Most owls are nocturnal, or active only at night. Short-eared owls are crepuscular-active in twilight hours when there is still enough light to observe them. Sometimes they’re even active in broad daylight. The owls probably keep odd hours as their activity tends to coincide with that of the voles, which forage day and night.
These charismatic owls propel themselves with deep floppy wing beats, looking like giant moths or bats. Favored hunting grounds often attract large concentrations of the owls, and as many as 100 birds have been tallied in single locales during vole outbreaks. Although the owls come together to share in vole bonanzas, an observer will soon see that the owls do not care for each other’s company. These are fiercely antisocial beasts, and whenever two owls’ paths cross, they’ll let loose with terrier-like barks and strafe each other like World War I flying aces.
A short-eared owl-watching safari can make a great winter adventure. The owls are best found towards the end of the day, especially at dusk. Cruise roads adjacent to large open grassy expanses. Listed below are some possible viewing sites:
Big Island Wildlife Area in Marion County has many owls; good viewing can be had from the observation platform on the north side of State Route 95. http://bit.ly/BigIWLA
Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area in Wyandot County http://bit.ly/KilldeerPlains
The Wilds in Muskingum County: http://www.thewilds.org/
Battelle Darby Creek Metro Park in Franklin County: http://bit.ly/BattelleDarby
The Ohio Division of Wildlife is now on Facebook. Join us there, and report your wildlife sightings!
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
Please credit the Ohio Division of Wildlife for the article and images, unless otherwise noted.
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Pine Siskin Invasion!
More than a few backyard bird feeders have been flummoxed by the identity of goldfinch-like little birds with lots of stripes. These mysterious little beasts typically appear in winter, and descend upon thistle feeders, small flocks plundering the seed like starving men at a pie-eating contest.
These little stripers are pine siskins, a close relative of the familiar American goldfinch. While siskins superficially resemble sparrows, a closer look will reveal telltale field marks. The best character to separate siskins from all others is the golden-yellow flashes in the wings and at the base of the tail.
Pine siskins are also avian motor mouths, the flocks keeping up a steady stream of high-pitched chittering calls interjected with buzzy ascending Zeeeeeeee notes. The birds can’t seem to keep their bills shut when in flight, and you’ll often hear siskins coming long before they’re visible.
Pine siskins that appear at an Ohio feeder probably have traveled all of the way from the boreal forest of Canada. These tough little finches breed across the vast belt of evergreen forest that sweeps the length of Canada and the northern U.S. Siskins even breed well into Alaska, and it isn’t inconceivable that some of our winter visitors came all the way from our 49th state.
These feathered nomads of the north invade Ohio in variable numbers each winter. In general, siskins appear in large numbers about every other year; there are relatively few in the alternate winters. For instance, last winter a paltry 37 siskins were reported from statewide Christmas Bird Counts. The winter prior to that, a record 3,205 were reported! True to form, following last winter’s lean siskin crop, this season is already showing signs of a decent invasion.
Why the major dips and spikes from winter to winter? One might think it would be cold, nasty weather in the North Country, where siskins live most of their lives. Nope; pine siskins are tough as nails and can endure temperatures as low as minus 40 F., if they have adequate fuel to stoke their metabolism. And that’s the primary reason for the southward invasions – technically termed irruptions: shortages of natural food crops. Pine siskin flocks will wander far and wide, seeking sustenance, and when they discover a thistle feeder, get the credit card ready! A ravenous flock can make quick work of a feeder full of food.
While your seed costs may soar when siskins are in residence, it’ll be worth it. These charismatic little finches put on quite a show, swinging acrobatically from perches, fussing and fighting amongst themselves, and filling the air with their curious twittering.
Wintertime siskins are often accompanied by other irruptive species of the north, such as purple finches, red-breasted nuthatches, and if you are especially fortunate, red or white-winged crossbills and common redpolls. These hardy little birds add a big dose of color and action to a snowy landscape, and wintery Ohio is their version of a Floridian escape.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Belted Kingfisher: An Antisocial Hammerhead
Many a streamside stroller has had their contemplative immersion in nature shattered by a sudden eruption of loud machine gun-like rattling. There’s nothing like an irate belted kingfisher to dismember the tranquility of a peaceful riparian forest.
Kingfishers are virulently antisocial, and the pair only comes together for as long as it takes to mate, create a nest site, and raise the young. Once those tasks are complete, they go their separate ways, but still claim favored waters and defend their territory. It’s their ill-tempered disposition that causes them to rattle at interlopers, such as us, that intrude on their turf.
The kingfisher family contains 92 species, but only the belted occurs in Ohio. Kingfishers are fantastically diverse and universally interesting. The tiny American pygmy kingfisher – a tropical species – is only a nip over five inches in length, and weighs just 18 grams. That’s about the size of a junco. A jarring contrast is the massive ringed kingfisher, another southerner that ranges north into Texas. It is 16 inches long and weighs 315 grams; equivalent in mass to about 17 pygmy kingfishers.
Belted kingfishers are birds of the water, through and through. One commonality with nearly all kingfishers is that they plunge-dive for fish, as does our belted kingfisher. They carefully watch the water’s surface from a conspicuous perch, waiting for some living sushi to appear. When a suitable target is located, the kingfisher launches from its lookout and hovers, helicopter like, over the prey. When all coordinates mesh, the bird drops headfirst towards the water, like a feathered Greg Louganis with a bad attitude.
Just before the kingfisher strikes the water, it closes its eyes, and a millisecond later snaps up the fish in its pincer-like bill. Thrusting itself clear of the water, the fisher-bird returns to its favored perch and pounds its catch headfirst into the branch. Once the fish is stunned into stillness, it’s swallowed, always headfirst.
Another of the quirks of belted kingfishers is that the girls are flashier than the boys. That’s certainly not the norm in the bird world. The male sports a blue belt that spans its breast, but not only is the female adorned with the blue stripe, she’s got a lovely contrasting cinnamon ring across her front. Belted kingfishers are unmistakable among our birds, and not just because of their colored bands and peculiar behavior. A stubby tail juts from the plump body, and their legs are so short as to be nearly invisible. But it’s the noggin that really stands out. The kingfisher’s bull-like head appears to be nearly half the mass of the bird, and it’s topped with a shaggy crest – sort of like a bad Mohawk haircut. The whole assemblage is tipped with a large, ferocious chisel of a bill.
Even their choice of abodes is unusual. Kingfishers excavate a tunnel into a steep earthen bank, preferably along a waterway. Their subterranean lair may extend for nearly 15 feet, and terminates in a chamber where the eggs are laid.
Next time you find yourself along a lake or stream, watch for kingfishers. You probably won’t have to look hard – they’ll give a shout out.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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An Explosion of Moths and Butterflies
This summer and fall saw one of the greatest booms in butterflies and moths in years. Apparently,the right amount of precipitation in combination with extended spells of warm weather allowed caterpillars to thrive. These wriggling bags of goo grow up to be spectacular winged creatures thatfill the air with magic.
The upshot is that we saw butterflies – lots of butterflies. Moths, too, and many people noticed virtual blizzards of the little brown jobs around their porch lights. In places, it was like driving through a lepidopteran snowstorm at night, so thick were the moths. While many of these nondescript flutterers hardly warrant a glance, quite a few jumbo dazzlers were reported this season. Lime-green luna moths, bat-sized cecropias, and huge fuzzy prometheas – they flourished along with their lesser kin.
But more people pay attention to the colorful day-flying butterflies than they do the oft-drab nocturnal moths. That’s probably not fair to the latter, as there is an estimated 2,500 moth species in Ohio, and only 136 species of butterflies. Can’t really blame ‘em, though – butterflies are in-your-face showy and conspicuous.
One butterfly that attracted lots of attention was the common buckeye. A gorgeous insect of the southern U.S., buckeyes wander northward in varying numbers each year. Some seasons, we get few; others, such as 2010, we’re inundated. Buckeyes were not named for Jim Tressel’s football team; the name stems from round spots on their upper wings that resemble the fruit of the buckeye tree.
Enormous numbers of yellow and black-striped Eastern tiger swallowtails roamed the landscape, delighting many a gardener by stopping to sip nectar. Tiny pinky fingernail-sized flecks of aqua blue – the Eastern tailed-blue and summer azure butterflies – skipped along the ground everywhere. There were even lots of the odd Pinocchio-like American snouts, with their insensibly long proboscis.
Butterfly and moth-watching is great entertainment, but there is a bigger picture to this story. Stunning monarch butterflies or jaw-dropping hummingbird moths are but the climax of a three-part life cycle: egg, caterpillar, and adult.
And it’s the caterpillars that make much of the natural world turn. For every butterfly or moth that we see, dozens if not hundreds of its sibling caterpillars never made it to adulthood. They became food for others. Like mobile little hotdogs with legs, caterpillars are coveted by everything from beetles to wasps to mammals to birds. So important are caterpillars to birds that our forests would largely fall silent were the “cats” to vanish. Species such as vireos, warblers, tanagers, and cuckoos make caterpillars a dietary staple.
Thus, the caterpillars that we produce in Ohio play into a bigger global picture, as the aforementioned birds migrate to the tropics of Central and South America. And the butterfly and moth bonanza of 2010, and all of their attendant caterpillars, could have only been positive for the feathered crowd.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Invasion of the Dragonflies
A fantastic insect invasion has been occurring recently. No worries – a plague of locusts hasn’t descended, nor are killer bees overrunning Ohio.
Our visitors are dragonflies: common green darners, Anax junius. Large swarms of these jumbo fliers have been reported from numerous Ohio locales and elsewhere in the Midwest in the past week or so.
Common green darners are easily recognized. They are one of the largest of the 160+ dragonfly species that have been found in Ohio. From stem to stern, a good-sized darner can measure 3 ½ inches, with a wing span of four inches. The thorax (main body) is a distinctive pea green. Males have a turquoise-blue abdomen (tail); in females the abdomen is rusty-brown.
This species is a common inhabitant of Ohio’s ponds and wetlands, and is found in all 88 counties. Like other dragonflies, their larvae – nymphs – are strictly aquatic. The bizarre, alien-looking nymphs remain under water for a year, hunting small animal life. When tripped by some internal alarm clock, the nymph emerges from the water shortly after dusk, climbs a plant, and begins an amazing transformation. The nymph’s husk is slowly split open by the young adult – termed a teneral – as it pushes its way out. Once it has broken free of its larval shell, the teneral darner quickly hardens and expands. By daybreak, the transformation into an adult dragonfly is complete and the green darner is ready to take flight.
And take flight they do. Incredibly powerful flyers, green darners spend much of the daylight hours on the wing, jagging about at impossible speeds as they snatch small flying insects from the air. While gnat-sized bugs form the bulk of their diet, the burly dragons can take down much larger fare. When opportunity allows, they’ll grab large horseflies, bees, and lesser dragonflies. They have even been reported to take hummingbirds!
A big mystery shrouds the common green darner. This is one of our highly migratory insects, as is the monarch butterfly. However, the movements of green darners are not nearly as well understood as those of the monarch, and scientists are still unraveling the secrets of darner migration. In late summer, massive “flocks,” perhaps better called swarms, are sometimes seen. This year, darner swarms have seemingly been more numerous than usual, with many scattered reports.
It is a striking sight to witness hundreds or even thousands of these large dragonflies swirling about. Sometimes they are seen high aloft, moving together on a steady southward trajectory. On other occasions, swarms descend to low levels and actively feed over meadows and other open areas.
Where are they going? No one is sure, but it’s possible that the darners are moving to warmer climes of the southernmost U.S and Mexico. Green darners also appear to migrate back north in the spring, much as birds do.
A lot remains to be learned of dragonfly migration, and observations of large swarms are helpful to researchers. If you have witnessed a dragonfly swarm, please report it to Jim McCormac at the Ohio Division of Wildlife: jim.mccormac@dnr.state.oh.us or 614-265-6440. Please note the date, time, location, and ideally an estimate of the number of dragonflies.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Mud Daubers: Kings of the Wasp World
Most people are probably familiar with those tubular columns of mud plastered under eaves, bridges, picnic shelters, and the like. Some of them resemble organ pipes; others look like globular mud canisters.
These adobe architectures are the work of various “mud dauber” wasps. The story behind these nests is fascinating, and depending upon your perspective, possibly horrifying.
In many habitats, spiders are the most prolific type of predator. Ohio has about 620 species, so there are plenty to go around. Nearly all spiders are venomous, and these toxins quickly immobilize the spider’s prey after it has been bitten.
Many spiders are tough customers, taking down prey larger than themselves. Some, such as the aptly named wolf spiders, utilize seek and destroy hunting strategies. They move rapidly through the vegetation, pouncing on prey that they’ve bushwhacked.
But there is always someone bigger and badder: enter the mud daubers. These jumbo wasps are spider-hunters, and the females spend much time flitting through the vegetation looking for spiders. They’ll even walk along the underside of leaves, patrolling for their arachnid prey, as the wasps know that spiders frequently hide in these places.
So, what happens when these two titans clash? Well, from my experience the spider is going to lose, big time. I’ve actually observed spider-hunting wasps in action as they find a victim. In the blink of an eye, the wasp seizes the spider and stings it. This jab doesn’t kill the spider; rather it is pumped with neurotoxins that almost instantly paralyze it.
Now comes the real horror show, if you are the immobilized spider. Female mud daubers are quite powerful, and like a Sikorski Skycrane helicopter, they lift and transport their paralyzed spider prey to their mud nests. Once at the nest, the wasp packs the paralyzed victim inside a partitioned chamber, which in essence becomes the spider’s crypt. After laying an egg on the eight-legged victim, the wasp seals it in. A few days later, a grub bursts from the egg, and enjoys fresh spider meat.
The wasp grub will grow to about an inch in length, fueled by its arachnid steak, and then form a cocoon within the nest. It will overwinter in this state, and then sometime the following year a gorgeous adult mud dauber will emerge to continue the ghoulish life cycle of these fascinating wasps.
People whose buildings host mud daubers understandably worry about having large stinging insects around. Not to fret; mud daubers are surprisingly passive towards humans, and one would have to really agitate one to get stung. And once they have built and provisioned their nests, the adult wasps leave. It’s better to let these valuable insects play out their incredible spider-hunting lifestyle uninterrupted, if possible. And if you don’t like spiders, you might appreciate having these wasps around.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Merlin: Feathered Rocket
Raptors, or hawks and owls, rank high on everyone’s list of exciting birds. Possessed of an innate savagery and the hardware to kill quickly and efficiently, most people find raptors fascinating.
Owls might be thought of as stealth bombers, buteos (soaring hawks) such as the red-tailed hawk could be considered B-52s, and accipiters – Cooper’s and sharp-shinned hawks – would be the P-51 Mustangs.
What of the falcons? Well, they’d be F-15 supersonic jets. Falcons are unmatched in aerial superiority, and any bird caught in one’s sights is unlikely to survive the ensuing dogfight.
Four species of falcons occur in Ohio. The largest is the Arctic-nesting gyrfalcon, a bird that has attained legendary status amongst falconers. “Gyrs” (as in jeer-falcon) turn up about once a decade, almost always along Lake Erie in the dead of winter.
Our fastest resident avian predator is the peregrine falcon, a missile capable of hitting 70 mph in straight line flight and a mind-blowing 200 mph when in a steep dive. Peregrines have taken to nesting on skyscrapers and big bridges, which mimic their natural cliff-face breeding sites; about 30 pairs now reside in the state.
Our most common falcon is also the smallest: the American kestrel. Weighing a paltry four ounces, kestrels pursue small rodents and larger insects such as grasshoppers. They were once a familiar countryside sight, but have been rapidly declining in recent years.
Then there is the merlin – same name as the famous magician. Merlins are smallish birds of prey, and they notch in between the peregrine and kestrel in size. Primarily a bird of the boreal forest and the western U.S., merlins were long thought of as rare winter visitors and migrants in the Buckeye State. They once likely nested in the northeast corner of the state, back when that area was still mostly wilderness, but any breeders probably disappeared a century or more ago.
A consummate songbird hunter, a merlin at full tilt is nothing short of a feathered bullet. Astonishingly fleet of wing and capable of sports car-like maneuvers, any lesser bird landing on a merlin’s radar is likely to become a meal. Fortunately, these falcons are fond of snacking on introduced house sparrows, which should bring joy to all who have had their bluebird boxes pirated by these invaders.
In the last 15 years, merlins have been on the upswing in the winter. They are fond of open park-like woodlands, and large urban cemeteries often create such habitat. Merlins have become fixtures in many big cemeteries, and our wintering population has steadily increased to at least a few dozen birds. This increase fits with the overall swell in Midwestern populations, and merlins are reclaiming old territory and colonizing new turf.
Thus, while not entirely unexpected, it was great news when adult merlins were observed feeding young last year in Lake County. While the nest was not found, these birds must have bred locally.
The coup de grace of confirmed nesting came this summer, when Danielle McCament of Mt. Vernon found an active merlin nest on the outskirts of this Knox County city. As of this writing, the birds are incubating eggs, and Danielle is keeping a sharp eye on the situation. Hopefully all will go well and soon there will be young merlins learning to ply their trade.
In these times of all too much gloom and doom in wildlife news, it is encouraging to hear of the success story of the merlin, and here’s hoping it becomes an ever-increasing part of Ohio’s bird life.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Baltimore Oriole, Our Flashiest Whistler
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.
(From Sing a Song of Sixpence; author unknown.)
Not all blackbirds are black, and most of them don’t deserve to be baked in a pie. Nor are they all aggressive bullies, like the big-tailed common grackles that plunder your feeder and push the lesser birds around.
Orioles are exotic-looking blackbirds, and rank high among the world’s showiest birds. And perhaps the flashiest of them all is a common breeder in Ohio. Clad in the colors of Lord Baltimore’s family – orange and black – this oriole is electrifying in appearance. It is fitting that the Baltimore oriole is the state bird of Maryland, of which Lord Baltimore was the first governor.
Baltimore orioles have a penchant for towering cottonwood trees along streams, but they also commonly occur in a variety of mature suburban trees. By the time that you read this, they’ll be back in force and their loud, cheery flute-like whistles will alert us ground-dwellers to their presence.
This species is one of approximately 65 Neotropical birds that nest in Ohio. No dummies, Neotropical birds are long-distance migrants, winging their way to the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and even South America to escape harsh northern winters. Every year in May, the orioles tumble into our state, their melodious notes once again filling the air.
Our orioles spent the winter in tropical haunts radically different from Ohio forests. Ranging from southern Mexico into northern South America, the Baltimores mingle with many other tropical orioles – more than 20 other species occur in Central and South America. Baltimore orioles have evolved the ability to migrate north and escape the competition by breeding in forests such as those in Ohio.
If you are lucky enough to find an oriole nest, you’ll see the fruits of a master craftsman. Baltimore orioles are consummate weavers that put the best of knitters to shame. They carefully thread plant fibers into an ornate hanging bag, attached to a spindly branch high above the ground. Good luck pillaging an oriole nest, predators.
Conspicuous, beautiful, and pleasing to the ear, Baltimore orioles are excellent ambassadors for Ohio’s varied birdlife. That’s why this species was selected for the inaugural Ohio Wildlife Legacy Stamp. This stamp provides Ohioans with a tangible way of helping to acquire critical habitat, fund endangered species research, and support production of educational material such as the series of bird CDs created by the Division of Wildlife.
For further information about the Ohio Wildlife Legacy Stamp, please visit:
wildohiostamp.com or call 1-800-WILDLIFE.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
Please credit the Ohio Division of Wildlife for the article and images, unless otherwise noted.
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Ruby-throated Hummingbird
The ruby-throated hummingbirds are arriving in the Buckeye State, having survived yet another amazing journey. Our only native hummingbird, ruby-throats are familiar sights in many a backyard and feeding them is very popular.
But, the rest of the story…
Ruby-throated hummingbirds spend the winter in tropical climes very different from Ohio, and in habitats totally dissimilar to ours. Most of our hummers overwinter in Central America, from Costa Rica to the Yucatan region of Mexico. Hummingbirds nesting in Ohio will have traveled some 2,000 miles to get here, including a 525-mile flight across the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Take a nickel and hold it in your hand. The coin outweighs a ruby-throated hummingbird. Yet these elfin dynamos rank high among the world’s most specialized animals. At full whirl, a hummer’s wings beat up to 80 times a second; when a male hits full speed in a courtship display power dive, its wings might fan the air 200 times a second.
It takes serious muscle to fly like this, and a ruby-throated hummingbird’s muscle mass would make Arnold Schwarzenegger envious. About 25 percent of a hummer’s weight is the flight muscles. A big heart is also required to pump blood through this supercharged system; a hummer’s heart might tick over 1,200 times a minute in flight.
Good for us that these little beasts aren’t the size of great blue herons. Anyone who spends time around them knows how feisty and pugnacious hummingbirds are, and if they were much larger we’d probably be in trouble if we got in their way.
Fifteen species of hummingbirds breed in the United States, but the ruby-throated is the only one that nests in Ohio and the eastern U.S. They are common here, nesting in all 88 counties. The nest is a piece of work – a tiny golf ball-sized affair of plant down and lichens, bound together by spider webs. Once complete, two eggs the size of your pinky fingernail are laid. If all goes well, about a month later the young hummers make their first flight.
Luring hummingbirds into your yard is easy. Specialized feeders are readily available; just fill one with a mixture of one part white cane sugar to four parts water. Multiple feeders often attract more birds. Some large feeder operations bring in dozens of hummingbirds, making for a spectacular show. Another way to make a hummer-friendly yard is to plant suitable native plants. Good choices include blue vervain, cardinal-flower, touch-me-nots (Impatiens), wild bergamot, and wild columbine.
Add a few hummingbird-friendly touches to your yard, and you may play host to one of nature’s most incredible flying machines.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Pileated Woodpecker
A gargantuan woodpecker the size of a crow chiseling away at a tree is sure to grab the eye. We regularly get calls and e-mails at the Ohio Division of Wildlife from people who are startled and fascinated by their first encounter with a pileated woodpecker (pronunciation: Pie-lee-ate-id). Can’t blame ‘em – everything about these jumbo log-choppers is over the top.
There are seven commonly occurring species of woodpeckers in Ohio, most of which visit feeders and are familiar to backyard birders. The most frequent of the bunch is the downy woodpecker, a small black and white bird that often visits suet feeders. It would take about 11 downy woodpeckers to equal the mass of one pileated woodpecker.
Pileated woodpeckers are unmistakable. No other woodpecker in Ohio – or the United States – comes close in size. The only one that did was the now extinct ivory-billed woodpecker. Pileateds are mostly coal-black with prominent white stripes on the neck and head, and white patches in the wings. A distinctive feature is their bold red crest: red all the way to the bill in males; females have a black forehead. Males are further distinguished by their red “moustache.”
Their loud laughing maniacal calls carry long distances, often revealing the woodpecker’s presence long before it is seen. The listener is often surprised to learn that it’s a woodpecker that is creating these wild sounds. Another surefire sign of their presence are large, oval-shaped holes, created as nest cavities and also as bore-holes into beetle and ant-infested trees.
For the most part pileateds shun feeders, preferring to stick to natural foods, although sometimes suet feeders lure them in. They are carpenter ant specialists, adeptly locating ant colonies within trees. When a woodpecker detects ants, it uses its massive chisel-like bill to pry away large slivers of wood and expose the ant galleries. Woodpeckers are equipped with barbed tongues, and they are extremely effective at lapping lots of ants from their chambers.
Pileated woodpeckers are birds of mature woodlands, and they are doing well in Ohio. Our forests are increasing and maturing, and the woodpeckers are growing in numbers and occupying new areas.
Having lots of pileated woodpeckers is important for multiple reasons. They are agents of control for various insect tree pests. Pileateds are also what biologists term a “keystone” species, because many other animals benefit from the woodpecker’s work. Their large nest cavities are often later used by everything from flying squirrels, screech-owls, wood ducks, and black rat snakes. Feeding sites are often raided by other woodpeckers, wrens, and various species that otherwise could not get at the food exposed by the big woodpeckers.
Finally, pileateds are exciting to us: without a doubt one of our grandest birds. Everyone from veteran birders to people who know nothing about birds stops in their tracks by the sight of one. These huge woodpeckers greatly enrich Ohio’s woodlands and we’re fortunate to have them around.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Blue Jays: Down But Not Out
Anyone who feeds birds is familiar with the antics of blue jays, one of our most common and easily recognized songbirds. Bold and full of bluster, jays roar into the feeding station like a ton of bricks wrapped in feathers, startling more passive birds back into the shrubs.
According to Project FeederWatch, sponsored by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, blue jays are the sixth most common species to visit Ohio feeders. Of the 373 backyard feeding stations that reported results to Cornell, jays visited over 91 percent.
So, what’s going on this winter? Many Ohioans have reported seeing few if any blue jays, especially in the extensively forested regions of southern and eastern Ohio. West Nile Virus had a detrimental impact on this species back in the early 2000s, and some fear that West Nile has reared its ugly head once again.
Fortunately, the answer to our current shortage of jays is probably much less scary than the ravages of disease. When not plundering your feeders, blue jays are highly dependent upon the nuts of oak trees – acorns. These hard, woody fruit are like vegetative M & Ms to a jay, and collectively, blue jays harvest staggering numbers of acorns in fall and winter. Fully two thirds of a jay’s diet at this time is comprised of acorns and other tree mast such as hickories and beechnuts.
A hard-working blue jay can collect several thousand nuts in one season. If the nuts are small, such as pin oak acorns or beechnuts, a skilled jay can make off with five or more at a time. They’ll quickly consume plenty of their loot, but jays are inveterate hoarders, caching far more acorns than they can immediately eat. Like a feathered pirate hiding his treasure, a jay stockpiles acorns by burying them in the ground.
While jays remember the location of many of their nut caches, they also forget about others. As a consequence, the blustery blue birds are the avian Johnny Appleseeds of the oak world, planting untold scores of oaks each year. So prolific are they in burying – and losing – acorns that some scientists think that blue jays were the primary factor in the swift northward expansion of oaks following the last glacial period.
Oaks are cyclical in their production of acorns: there are boom and bust years. In 2008, scads of acorns were produced, and jays seemed to be everywhere. Last season’s acorn crop was pretty lean, especially in southern Ohio. As a consequence, there was less food for blue jays, and thus fewer screaming bolts of blue in our woodlands. Next winter, it’ll likely be a different story.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Sandhill Cranes
Scenes straight out of Jurassic Park were replayed over and over again in the past few weeks. Unsuspecting Ohioans were treated to the unforgettable spectacle of large flocks of enormous pterodactyl-like birds passing overhead, long necks outstretched, massive wings spanning some 6 ½ feet and easily powering the 10-pound feathered behemoths known as Sandhill Cranes.
Often, it was the guttural dry rattles of the flock that alerted observers that something very different was aflight in the skies. The hollow resonant bugling of a Sandhill Crane is a sound that seems as if it belongs back in the dinosaur days; a primitive tune that would make even the most hardened city dweller gaze up in awe. The collective cacophony of 50 or 100 cranes hundreds of feet in the air has real carrying power – they might be heard a mile away, leaving the listener to watch and wonder, waiting to see just what on Earth is coming.
Waves of cranes passing overhead is a good thing; a feathered success story. Unregulated hunting and habitat loss greatly reduced Sandhill Crane numbers in some parts of their range. After wildlife laws were enacted to protect them, and conservation of habitat improved, their numbers began to rebound and cranes are once again booming.
Sandhill Cranes pass through Ohio every year in migration. But the last few years have seen many more birds rolling through in their fall passage, which typically peaks in late November to early December. They were a bit later this year, but when the cranes showed – wow! Many thousands of cranes were reported statewide, mainly from December 10th – 16th. Lots of people saw flocks, even those who had never seen a crane, nor had any idea what these prehistoric-looking jumbos were. The Division of Wildlife received numerous queries about them, and birding networks buzzed with reports.
Although only distantly related, Sandhill Cranes resemble Great Blue Herons and the two are often confused. In flight, a crane is easily told from a heron by its outstretched neck; a heron folds its neck back so that only the bird’s head and bill juts forward. The preferred habitat differs as well. Herons like their feet wet, typically hunting for fish in the waters of a stream or pond. Cranes, which are closely related to sandpipers, favor drier fields and flocks are often seen foraging for grain in corn stubble fields.
As crane populations boom, nesting pairs are increasing in Ohio. While this species nested historically in the state, they had largely disappeared by the 1900’s. The first confirmed modern nesting record came in 1987, when a pair bred at Funk Bottoms Wildlife Area in Wayne County. Since then, nesting pairs have steadily increased, and perhaps two dozen pairs now breed in scattered northern Ohio locales.
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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Common Loon
Common loons symbolize wilderness, conjuring images of pristine northern lakes bounded by endless expanses of spruce and fir. Summertime travelers to the Canadian outback are serenaded by the wild haunting yodels of the males. Perhaps no other North American animal symbolizes North Country wilderness like loons, save perhaps the gray wolf. Canada is truly the world’s loon factory; the vast majority of the half-million loons in existence were hatched there.
Quintessential water birds, loons are consummate swimmers and divers. They eat fish almost exclusively, which are caught in underwater dives. To aid in their aquatic pursuits, loons’ feet are located so far back on their bodies that they can’t do much more than clumsily waddle like a penguin on dry land. But they can swim like feathered fish and are most at home in the water.
Birds as water-dependent as loons must leave the breeding grounds towards winter’s onset and the formation of ice. Most loons exchange their summertime freshwater haunts for the saltwater of the coasts.
Large numbers of loons pass through Ohio in migration, and the peak numbers occur in fall. November is THE month for migrant loons, especially the middle and latter half. The most impressive concentrations are found on Lake Erie. Recent Ohio Division of Wildlife aerial surveys have regularly turned up over 300 loons per flight, most far from the shoreline and not visible to onshore observers.
Flocks of loons aren’t confined to Lake Erie. Big numbers sometime turn up on inland reservoirs around Thanksgiving, such as the group of 400 once seen on Alum Creek Reservoir in central Ohio.
Common loons in fall are not the beautiful checkered black and white birds of summer; they molt into much drabber tones of brown by the time they pass through Ohio. Their overall look remains distinctive, though. Riding low in the water, loons resemble feathered submarines, and the bill is heavy and dagger-like. A loon nearly dwarfs the familiar mallard. The duck weighs about 2 ½ lbs and is not quite two feet in length; a loon tips the scales at 9 pounds and stretches the tape to nearly three feet.
Next time you are by a large body of water, scan the surface for common loons.
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Cooper's Hawk
Many a feeder-watcher has been either horrified or fascinated by the raids of Cooper’s hawks. Perhaps you’ve been there: watching cardinals and other songbirds nibbling the sunflowers, and suddenly, POW! Like greased lightning a large feathered streak barrels into the yard, bushwhacking the small birds. Songbirds flee madly in all directions, but the combative avian missile locks onto a victim and explodes into it. Little beyond a puff of feathers is left behind, and the hawk retreats to feast on fresh meat.
Knowledge of the Cooper’s hawk’s history may help mitigate for the damage done to your songbirds. Until fairly recently, these interesting raptors were vilified as “chicken hawks” and wanton killers of “valuable” birds. Persecution became intense enough that by the mid-20th century, Cooper’s hawks had become rare or absent from many regions, including much of Ohio. Another factor contributing to declines was pesticides such as DDT, which affected their ability to reproduce.
Enactment of laws to protect wild birds, and bans on harmful chemicals has allowed hawks like the Cooper’s to rebound. Today this species is plentiful, and has adapted well to suburbia. Because of its ability to co-exist with people, and penchant for whacking birds at the feeder, more Ohioans may be familiar with the Cooper’s hawk than any other bird of prey.
Cooper’s hawks are structurally distinctive. They are one of three species of “bird hawks,” technically known as accipiters. Agility is a key to their success, and accipiters have short rounded wings and a long rudder-like tail that allows for pursuit in close, wooded quarters. Adult Cooper’s are slate gray above and barred with orangish-red below; young birds are brown above and heavily streaked with brown below.
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. If you believe this, don’t look into a Cooper’s hawk’s peepers. To say these birds look fierce is an understatement, and much of their savage appearance stems from the glaring yellow eyes. Wild and fearless, the hawk’s stare must paralyze prey with dread. It should. Cooper’s hawks are a songbird’s grim reaper incarnate, a feathered ball of testosterone that lives for the kill.
But that’s nature. Predator and prey. By human standards these relationships sometimes seem violent and ferocious; unthinkably savage. But without a balanced corps of predators, the prey would soon overwhelm us, and they in turn would tip the ecological scales out of balance.
Cold weather means more birds at the feeders, and more Cooper’s hawks strafing in to make meals of the seed-eating crowd. Next time you see one in action, try to appreciate the hawk for what it is: one of nature’s most highly evolved predators, just doing its job.
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Midwest Birding Symposium
One of the world’s largest gatherings of bird watchers soon will congregate along the Ohio shores of Lake Erie. The lure that’s drawing over 800 birding enthusiasts is the biennial Midwest Birding Symposium (MBS), an event that rotates between Midwestern states. The inaugural MBS was launched in Michigan in 1993, and since has been held in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Ohio hosted it in 1997 and 1999, and attracted record crowds.
MBS 2009 will be held in the quaint, Chautauqua-style town of Lakeside, on the waters of our greatest lake. Shake off your commitments for September 17th through 20th – or any one of those days – and come on over. You’ll meet lots of new friends, learn major amounts of information about birds and birding, and hear some of the best speakers in the business.
The MBS marketplace will be brimming with vendors of birding paraphernalia. Scope out the top optics – binoculars and telescopes – from Eagle, Kowa, Leica, and Zeiss will be available. Want to learn more about your feathered friends? Literature will abound, with book peddlers such as Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Time & Optics, and Black Swamp Bird Observatory hawking their wares. If you want to put your newfound knowledge to use, talk to reps from tour companies that organize expeditions from Guatemala to Africa to Ecuador.
A staple of the MBS are the programs and speakers. One of the stars of the show will be the incomparable David Sibley, author of the ground-breaking Sibley Guide to Birds. His newest book, the Sibley Guide to Trees, is hot off the press and this is your chance to have the man himself sign your copies.
Jane Alexander may be a familiar face. This legendary actress has had roles in Kramer vs. Kramer, Brubaker, All The President’s Men, and the latest in the “Terminator” series, Terminator Salvation, to name a very few. She doesn’t only act; Ms. Alexander is a veteran birder and will deliver a fascinating program on Saturday night. In all, 23 speakers will deliver programs on wide-ranging topics during the course of the symposium.
Of course, there will be birds and birding galore. Event organizers have mapped out 15 of the most productive local hotspots, and will have experts posted at most. Mid-September is a great time to catch waves of southbound migrants – warblers, thrushes, flycatchers, sparrows, and the like – and Lake Erie’s south shore offers fantastic birding opportunities. The town of Lakeside is shrouded with stately trees, and offers outstanding views of the lake, so one need only step outside one of the buildings to find birds.
Whether you can come for one day, or the entire event, you’ll have a great time. For all of the details, visit: https://www.birdwatchersdigest.com/mwb/main.php or call 1-800-879-2473 ext. 314.
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Pink Katydids
Ohio produced a bizarre katydid this summer that would achieve fame that few individual insects ever match. During a mid-July natural history field trip at Killdeer Plains Wildlife Area in Wyandot County, a splash of brilliant pink caught attendee Jan Kennedy’s eye. Startled, she picked it up and our protagonist’s meteoric ascendancy to stardom began.
Officially anointed as “Pinky” by Ms. Kennedy, the katydid was transported back to Columbus, living large in a specially equipped terrarium stocked with the best in succulent vegetable matter.
Photos and stories of this outrageous beast soon made their way onto the Internet via blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. The Columbus Dispatch picked up the story, and ultimately ran three articles on Pinky. She even made a live appearance at a native plant conference in Dayton, where several hundred people were charmed firsthand. In all, Pinky may have been seen or read about by several hundred thousand people – a level of notoriety perhaps never achieved by any katydid.
There are about 30 species of katydids in Ohio, and nearly all are colored green. One in perhaps 100,000 – maybe even fewer – has a poorly understood genetic condition which causes it to be pink. And we’re talking bright, flaming pink: neon fuchsia.
So rare are these pink color morphs that Wil Hershberger, a leading expert on the group of insects known as the Orthoptera and co-author of the book The Songs of Insects, traveled to Columbus from West Virginia to photograph and study Pinky.
Hershberger’s trained eye noted something others had missed: a tiny puncture wound in Pinky’s abdomen, the telltale mark of a parasitoid fly. Sometime prior to her capture, a Tachinid fly had laid an egg on Pinky. When it hatched, the tiny grub bore into her body, and began feeding on non-essential tissue, growing rapidly. While this sounds horrible, scores of insects meet such fates, and only a miniscule percentage survive to adulthood.
As there was no way of knowing how long it would take for the parasitoid to do her in, plans were made to exhibit Pinky at the 2009 Ohio State Fair. Had she made this gig and lasted for the fair’s duration, tens of thousands of people would have been wowed by her pinkness.
But the night prior to the fair’s opening, the grub within went on its final growth spurt, consuming the last of Pinky’s innards and bringing about her demise. A subsequent necropsy revealed that the fly larva had nearly hollowed out the katydid, and was occupying most of the abdominal cavity.
The Pinky experience, both good and bad, provided a tremendous opportunity to educate people about little seen aspects of nature and the insect world. Her discovery also reinforces the importance of protecting large blocks of land, such as the prairies at Killdeer Plains where Pinky was discovered. The Ohio Division of Wildlife manages about 200,000 acres, and collectively these holdings protect nearly all of Ohio’s flora and fauna. And, as we have seen, these lands still produce startling surprises.
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Mississippi Kites Invade!
Kites are perhaps the most acrobatic aerialists of all the birds of prey, and seeing one of these buoyant, graceful raptors in Ohio is always a thrill. There are only 11 kite species that occur north of Panama; in general all are southerners found mostly in the tropics. Ohio has had a handful of records of two species in state: the Mississippi kite and swallow-tailed kite.
Most of the state’s kite reports pertain to the Mississippi kite, a gorgeous dove-gray raptor with a white head and black tail. Elegant in the extreme, they are the size of peregrine falcons, but weigh less than half as much. Light and graceful in flight, kites are incredibly agile. A favored food is dragonflies, which the kites deftly pluck from the air with ease.
Mississippi kites breed in the southern U.S., with scattered populations from Arizona east to the Carolinas, and ranging up the Mississippi River to southern Illinois. They’ve been on a northward march, and new breeding pairs have been showing up as far north as New Hampshire. After nesting, they migrate several thousand miles to the south, and disappear into the jungles of the Amazonian Basin where they winter.
Ohio had its first nesting record of Mississippi kites in 2007, when a pair successfully raised one youngster near Logan, in Hocking County. The nesting location was in the heart of a golf course, and such sites are typical breeding habitat. Kites are not put off by people or limited development, and throughout their range often nest on golf courses or in villages and towns. The small stick nest can be hard to spot; it is often high in a tree and tucked near the trunk.
Also in 2007 were intriguing reports of kites that were possibly nesting in Burr Oak State Park in Athens County.
The Hocking County kites are back this year, apparently nesting again. Causing great excitement is a male kite hanging around in Worthington, a northern suburb of Columbus. The latter bird may be breeding as well, but birders have not yet discovered the nest. The area is it frequents is perfect kite country-- an older neighborhood with scattered large trees, a moderate-sized river with plenty of big trees buffering it, and a nearby wide-open area in the form of an airport.
The appearance of breeding Mississippi kites in Ohio ranks high in the annals of exciting ornithological events of recent decades. There are undoubtedly other kites nesting elsewhere in the Buckeye State that we don’t yet know about. If you think you have found Mississippi kites, please contact Jim McCormac at the Ohio Division of Wildlife: jim.mccormac@dnr.state.oh.us or 614-265-6440.
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Dragonflies: Nature's Helicopters
Winged killers are in the sky, and close at hand. Warming temperatures and sunny skies are bringing out the dragonflies, which rank high among Ohio’s most interesting creatures.
These beautiful insects are artistry in motion, with the various species collectively painted in every hue of the rainbow. Green, blue, red, yellow, orange – name a color, and it’s splashed on at least one of our species. Many “dragons” are further adorned with conspicuous wing markings that create a dazzling kaleidoscope effect when they fly. Small wonder artists are so smitten with these beasts.
Dragonflies are aerialists supreme, shaming even the fastest birds. They can hover like a helicopter, and fly in any direction. If need be, the big ones can out-accelerate a Ferrari.
Each time a dragonfly jigs or jags, it is snatching up prey, including mosquitoes. They are consummate predators, living entirely on small insects plucked from the air. The largest and fiercest, such as the enormous Dragonhunter, often take butterflies and have been documented capturing hummingbirds!
Woe to the hapless victim who falls into view of a hunting dragonfly. Escape is nearly impossible. In addition to their supreme flying abilities, dragonflies have huge compound eyes comprised of numerous facets. In essence, the largest species have thousands of tiny eyes looking in every direction, and nothing escapes their notice.
The beautiful insects we see on the wing are but the short-lived ultimate phase of a largely underwater life cycle. Larval dragonflies are called nymphs, and might live for several years under the water before transforming into winged adults. Healthy waterways and wetlands are essential to dragonfly conservation, and these habitats offer the best viewing opportunities. Binoculars help, but aren’t necessary. With a bit of patience most dragonflies can be closely approached and admired.
Interest in dragonfly-watching is skyrocketing as more people discover the fascinating behavior and stunning good looks of these flying marvels. The Ohio Division of Wildlife produces a free guide to Ohio’s common species, and it is packed with information and color photos. To get a copy, contact the Division at 1-800-WILDLIFE or e-mail: Wildinfo@dnr.state.oh.us
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
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April 2009 - Spring Migration Explodes!
Millions of tropical visitors from south of the border are invading Ohio. In late March, the migrant songbird floodgate begins to crack, and our earliest arrivals appear. Species such as Louisiana waterthrush, pine warbler, and blue-gray gnatcatcher are the vanguards of a building tidal wave of birds.
By mid-April, others have joined their ranks, adding more color and song to Ohio’s forests. Beautiful yellow-throated warblers send down sweet clear notes from high in sycamores, and zebra-like black-and-white warblers make squeaky wheel whistles.
April’s end through May brings a deluge of colorful songsters. Warblers, tanagers, grosbeaks and more sweep through. Testosterone-pumped males burst with song and nearly every color on the chart is represented. Many people become birders when unexpectedly confronted with some colorful beast such as a scarlet tanager or indigo bunting.
These migrants constitute an enormous segment of Ohio’s bird life. About one-third of all the species that breed in the state are “neotropical”; that is, they winter in far-flung places like Guatemala, Panama, and Colombia. Numerous other neotropicals breed beyond Ohio, in the vast boreal forests of Canada, but pass through the state in huge numbers.
Among the best known of our migrant songbirds is the namesake of the legendary baseball team, the Baltimore oriole. Although a common nester statewide, perhaps few who witness its brilliant black and orange plumage or hear its silky flutelike song know where their orioles wintered. These gorgeous blackbirds spent the cold months in the steamy climes of Costa Rica and other near-equatorial haunts.
Fittingly, the Baltimore oriole will grace the inaugural Ohio Wildlife Stamp, which debuts on March 1, 2010. Stamp proceeds will help the Ohio Division of Wildlife do more to protect songbirds such as the oriole, and many other animals. Funds generated by the stamp will buy critical habitat, support endangered species conservation, and produce educational material about Ohio’s wildlife. Not only will your $15.00 buy a beautiful, collectible stamp, it’ll help keep colorful songsters in our forests.
To see the migration spectacle firsthand, visit Magee Marsh Wildlife Area on the shores of western Lake Erie on Saturday, May 9th. International Migratory Bird Day takes place on this date, and there will be thousands of birders, and thousands of birds, in the area. For details visit: http://www.friendsofmageemarsh.org/
Jim McCormac
Ohio Division of Wildlife
Jim.mccormac@dnr.state.oh.us
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March 2009 - Spring has Sprung: Waterfowl!
One of the spectacles of early spring is the return of waterfowl: swans, geese, and ducks. Ohio gets plenty – nearly every species of quacker, honker, and swan known to occur in North America has materialized here at some point. All told, we’ve had 43 species show up, including some species rarely seen in the state.
Now is the time to hit a marsh and admire vast numbers of migrants as they push north following ice-out and winter’s end. Get to the right spot, and you’ll be dazzled by hordes of gorgeous fowl such as green-winged teal, Northern shoveler, American widgeon, and ring-necked duck. Not only are the drakes (males) resplendent in their shiny, ornately marked plumage, they are pumped with testosterone and full of courtship antics designed to woo the hens (females). It’s easy to spend hours watching these beautiful birds put on their displays, and listen to the melody of the marsh created by the collective cacophony of hundreds of ducks and geese peeping, honking, whistling, and grunting.
Another fun thing about duck-watching is that it’s easy. Perhaps you become frustrated trying to find and identify little warblers and other songbirds high in the treetops amid dense foliage. Go ‘fowling! Seeing ducks and their kin out on open ponds and marshes is not a problem, although you’ll want to keep your distance, as they can be easily spooked. There’s nothing like a good pair of binoculars to help out, and a spotting scope is even better.
American widgeon are easy to find. Their curious two-part piping calls are a staple sound of spring marshes, and widgeon often frequent deeper waters, where diving ducks (species that completely submerge into the water to get food) occur. Why? They are kleptoparasites – widgeon grab succulent underwater plants from the hard-working divers as soon as they surface, as the tasty foliage is otherwise beyond their reach.
Another beauty to watch for is the green-winged teal, one of our smallest ducks. These tiny avian missiles are a treat to watch as tight flocks rocket into the marsh, zigging and zagging with impossible speed and precision. The males are showy beyond belief, bedecked in tones of emerald, chestnut, gray, and gold. Bizarre is one way of describing the Northern shovelers’, or “spoonbill’s” appearance. They somewhat resemble the abundant, ubiquitous mallard, but the drakes look as if their sides have been plated in rufous. Most distinctive, though, are their bills. It looks as if giant spoons have been bolted to their noggins, and the shovelers use these odd appendages to strain for food in the shallows.
Take advantage of March’s waterfowl bounty, and spend some time in a marsh. While watching the show, keep in mind that no group of birds has done more for conservation of America’s habitats than have ducks. Sportsmen’s groups such as Ducks Unlimited have contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire wetland habitat. Not only ducks prosper as a result of these efforts: herons, marsh wrens, yellow warblers, and scores of other animals and plants also benefit.
You can help the wide range of wetland wildlife by purchasing a Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, better known as the “Duck Stamp.” Initiated in 1934, stamp purchases have thus far generated over $700 million and 98 cents of every dollar lands on the ground in the form of habitat. Can’t beat that, and hunter or not, if you like wildlife, especially waterfowl, consider buying a stamp.
Information about Duck Stamps
Check the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s Web site for good wetlands near you.
Have fun at the annual Shreve Migration Sensation on March 28!
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February 2009 - Winter Hawks, Eagles, and Owls
Birders thirsting for a dose of raptors – birds of prey – should pay a visit to the Wilds. Located about 20 minutes from Zanesville in Muskingum County, this animal conservation facility offers 10,000 acres in which to roam. Factor in surrounding American Electric Power lands, and we’re talking a landscape larger than some Ohio counties.
A newcomer to the Wilds’ vast, rolling tundra-like terrain will be impressed. This is big sky country: miles of undulating grasslands, the result of former surface mining, now reclaimed to a sea of grasses.
Driving the raptor bonanza are small furry sausages with legs: rodents called meadow voles. In boom years, they seemingly scurry everywhere, and hawks that breed far to our north descend here to feast on the voles.
Northern harriers can’t be missed. Oftentimes the most numerous raptor, they quarter low over the fields, seeking prey. Graceful and buoyant, their flashing white rump makes identification easy.
Rough-legged hawks nest 1,800 miles or more northward, in polar bear country, but come to the Wilds in droves to winter. Boldly patterned in black, rufous, and white, or less commonly a stunning form that is mostly black – rough-leggeds often wind-hover, kiting in one spot as if tethered to a string.
The star of the Wilds is the golden eagle; one or more have wintered here for nearly a decade. North America’s largest, most powerful raptor, golden eagles feed mostly on rabbits. This is the best place in the state to spot this rare Ohio bird.
Intriguing is our only daytime flier in a family of darkness lovers, the short-eared owl. Some winters dozens are present, and they put on a show. These distinctive tawny-colored owls hunt the grasslands with a flight style suggestive of an enormous moth. Intensely antisocial, they sometimes mix it up with other raptors, expressing displeasure with harsh barks.
The Ohio Division of Wildlife partnered with the Wilds to build the Birding Station at Jeffrey Point. This impressive platform overlooks a stunning vista, and is one of the best places for raptor-watching in Ohio.
For more information, visit: http://www.thewilds.org/ or http://www.aep.com/environmental/recreation/recland/ or call the Wilds at 740-638-5030.
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