Wild Columbine & Ruby-throated Hummingbirds
Wild Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) is in full flower, and its design and color beckon to a recently-returned migrant that is attracted to red as well as tubular flowers – the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. Not only does the flowering of Wild Columbine coincide with the arrival of hummingbirds in May, but the ranges of these two species are much the same. Wild Columbine’s five petals are in the shape of spurs, the tips of which contain nectar. Only hummingbirds and long-tongued bees can reach the nectar, and thus are its primary pollinators (there is a short-tongued bumblebee that tears open the tip of the spur in order to reach the nectar). While the hummingbird hovers beneath the flower and drinks nectar, its head rubs against Columbine’s long anthers, and the resulting pollen on the hummingbird’s head is brushed off onto the long styles of the next (Columbine) flower it visits, thereby pollinating it.
White Admiral/Red-spotted Purple Caterpillars Emerge from Hibernation
Butterflies in the family Nymphalidae are also referred to as brush-footed butterflies (their front pair of legs are much reduced, brush-like and nonfunctional). Several species of Admiral butterflies belong to this family, and one of the most common in New England is the White Admiral, also known as the Red-spotted Purple. White Admirals overwinter as caterpillars and emerge in late April to feed for several weeks on the young leaves of cherries, willows, poplars and birches, as well as other trees, before forming chrysalises and transforming into butterflies. It is relatively easy to recognize the larva of any species of Admiral butterfly, as they are our only horned bird-dropping mimics. Quite an effective way to discourage predators!
Killdeer Nesting
This is the time of year when it pays to watch where you walk – there are a number of ground nesting birds, some of which, including killdeer, may choose your lawn or even your garden to build their simple “scrape” nest. Typically killdeer nest on the shoulders of roads, gravel roof tops, fields and gravel parking lots. The nest is very primitive, and there’s actually very little to it — killdeer scrape a slight depression in the ground, to which they often add bits of material, including white objects such as shells and bones. Their pigmented eggs are extremely well camouflaged. The young precocial killdeer chicks are on their feet and feeding themselves as soon as their down feathers dry. (Photo by Sadie Richards)
Common Grackle Threat Display
Although the common grackle, a member of the blackbird family, is the bane of many corn growers as well as a threat to songbirds trying to raise young (grackles eat other birds’ eggs and nestlings), it is quite a colorful bird, with its pale yellow eyes and iridescent purple plumage. Grackles have already begun nesting and defending their territory, as can be seen from the stance of the bird in this image. This “bill-up display” is a position assumed when a male is being approached on its territory by another male. It moves its head upwards so that its bill is almost vertical, signaling to the approaching grackle that it would be in its best interest to depart.
Beaver Scent Mounds
This is the time of year when two-year-old beavers leave their lodges and strike out on their own, primarily because the woods surrounding a pond usually can’t support more than one family of beavers. Beavers are exceptionally territorial; once they’ve established a lodge, they do not take kindly to interlopers. In order to make this perfectly clear to house-hunting young beavers, in the spring resident beavers build what are called scent mounds — piles (up to three feet in height, but usually much smaller) of mud, leaves and pond-bottom debris — around the perimeter of their territory. They then smear castoreum, a substance that comes from their castor sacs, over the mound. Chemicals in the castoreum convey to roaming young beavers that this particular pond is spoken for.
Porcupines Giving Birth
It’s not easy being a female porcupine. You mate in the fall and are either pregnant (7 months) or lactating (4 months) for the next 11 months before you have one month’s break and begin this cycle all over again. This time of year porcupines are giving birth to one young that is covered in fur and quills and weighs about a pound. The young porcupette is born headfirst in a sac, in order to protect the mother from quill damage. Its quills are soft at birth, but harden within an hour. (Thanks to Kay and Peter Shumway for photo op.)
Frog Vocal Sacs
“Peeps” and “quacks” fill the air these days. How is it that these frog calls travel so far? It’s all thanks to a thin membrane , or sac, that most frogs have. Note the single inflated sac of the spring peeper, and the paired sacs on either side of the wood frog’s head. These vocal sacs act as resonating chambers, causing the male frog’s mating call to be amplified and carried far (some species of frogs can be heard over half a mile away). Most frogs have one of three basic types of vocal sacs: a single throat sac (the most common), paired throat sacs (partially separated by connective tissue) and paired lateral sacs (completely separate chambers on either side of the head). Vocal sacs are outpocketings of the floor of the frog’s mouth. When calling, a frog closes its mouth and nostrils, and expels air from its lungs through the larynx and into the vocal sacs. The vibrations of the larynx emit a sound which resonates within the vocal sacs. The frog continues calling as muscles within its body wall force the air back and forth between the lungs and vocal sac. The thickness of the vocal sac wall in frogs varies. Typically, small frogs that call in the air (spring peeper) have thin vocal sac walls, whereas those that call in the water, particularly large species (green and bull frogs) often have thick-walled vocal sacs that appear swollen, not inflated like a balloon, when filled with air.
Killdeer Distracts Predator by Feigning Injury
Killdeer arrived back in northern New England last month and have already begun nesting. Being a ground nester, the killdeer has many mammalian predators from which it needs to protect its eggs, including weasels, skunks, opossums and raccoons. Nesting killdeer have a number of responses to predators, which include several different types of distraction displays which draw attention to the bird away from its nest. One of the most common displays is to feign injury by assuming a position which makes the bird appear vulnerable. When a predator approaches, the bird runs away from the nest, crouches with its head low, wings drooping and tail fanned and dragging the ground to display its rufous rump-patch. The predator typically follows, seeing an easy meal, and as soon as it gets too close for the killdeer’s comfort, the killdeer continues to lead it off by alternate flights and sprints.
Spring Peepers Emerging
Sitting on top of the snow, still as a statue, a spring peeper gathers strength to make the long trek to open water, where, if it is a male, it will exercise its voice for the first time in many months. Like the gray treefrog and wood frog, spring peepers can freeze as solid as a rock for several months during hibernation and then, on a warm day, thaw out in a few hours and resume a normal, active life. The formation of glucose and ice crystals that form outside of cells enable this phenomenon to occur. Once hibernation has come to an end, peepers seek out wetlands, vernal pools and ponds to breed and lay eggs before they return to their home on the forest floor.
Long-tailed Weasels Completing Their Spring Molt
Two species of weasels (smaller relatives of mink and otters) are found throughout New England – the long-tailed weasel (pictured) and the short-tailed weasel (also known as an ermine). Both are roughly the same size (somewhere between 9 and 16 inches), with long thin bodies and short legs. Visually telling these two species apart can be challenging unless you get a good look at both the tail and the body, and even then, it can be difficult. A short-tailed weasel’s tail is about 40% of the head and body length, whereas the long-tailed weasel’s tail is more than 45% of the head and body length. In the northeast, in November, both of these carnivores usually start shedding their brown summer coat for a white winter coat, and then molt and start growing in a brown coat again beginning in March. Further south, in Pennsylvania, less than half of the long-tailed weasels turn white, and none do south of the Pennsylvania/Maryland border. (Thanks to Tom Kennedy for photo op.)
Red Foxes Giving Birth
Much is happening below ground at this time of year, including the birthing of red fox pups. In late March or early April, about 7 weeks after mating, female foxes give birth to four to ten young. Each pup weighs about a quarter of a pound, and the white tip of its tail is often already evident. During the first month, the pups grow a dark grey coat (they shed this coat and grow a sandy-colored coat about the time they venture out of their den, which is usually dug in a sandy bank). The mother stays with her young in the den, nursing and curling her body around them to help keep them warm for about two weeks, while the father brings her food. She then resumes her normal activity, returning to the den to nurse, clean and play with her pups.
Owl Ears
It’s well known that owls have an acute sense of hearing — some species, such as the barn owl, hunt nocturnally by sound alone. An owl’s asymmetrically-placed ears are located beneath the feathers at the edge of its facial discs. This placement, along with the shape of the external ear canals, is thought to contribute to an owl’s keen ability to locate sound. The flesh-colored fold of skin that you see in front of this barred owl’s ear is movable, and reflects and concentrates sound waves coming from behind the bird.
Goldenrod Ball Gall Fly Larva
The round “ball” that is often present on the stem of goldenrod plants contains the overwintering larva of a fly (Eurosta solidaginis). A year ago an adult female fly laid an egg in the stem of the goldenrod plant. The egg hatched and the larva proceeded to eat the interior of the stem. As it did so, the larva excreted chemicals which caused the plant to grow abnormally, creating a ball-shaped “gall.” If you were to open a goldenrod ball gall today, you would probably find an overwintering larva (if a downy woodpecker or parasitic wasp hadn’t gotten there before you). Within the next few weeks the larva will pupate, and as early as April the adult fly will emerge from the gall, having crawled out the passageway that it chewed last fall. An inflatable “balloon” on its forehead allows the fly to burst through the remaining outermost layer of tissue at the end of the passageway. The adult fly lives about two weeks, just long enough to mate and begin the process all over again.
Annual Moose Molt
Many mammals have two molts a year, producing a winter and summer coat. Moose only have one annual molt, and it occurs in early spring. Their winter coat consists of long (up to six inches on neck and shoulders), hollow guard hairs and a thick undercoat. In early spring the faded and ragged winter hairs are shed and replaced with short, dark, shiny hairs. Molting starts on the shoulders and proceeds along the sides of the neck and back over the moose’s body. Adult bulls molt first, the cows and yearlings shortly after. Pictured is a beaver-cut tree which was used by a moose to scratch off loose winter hair.
Mourning Dove Remains
A cooper’s hawk made short work of a mourning dove near my bird feeder recently, killing and apparently, given the large number of feathers scattered on the snow, plucking the dove on a nearby snow bank. If you look closely you can see whole sunflower seeds in amongst the feathers. These came from inside the mourning dove’s crop. Mourning doves generally feed quickly, filling their crop with seeds which they digest later, when they’ve found a safe spot in which to roost. Unfortunately for this particular dove, it didn’t live long enough to have that opportunity.
Red-winged Blackbird Epaulettes
Male red-winged blackbirds have returned to Vermont, and their most notable features are the brightly-colored reddish-orange feathers on their “shoulders”, referred to as epaulettes. In the military, an epaulette is a shoulder ornament that indicates, through its position, color, length and diameter, the bearer’s rank. Some birds, including male redwings, also possess this badge, or visual cue, which indicates the social status of the bird to other birds of the same species. Studies of male red-winged blackbirds and their epaulettes indicate (through dyeing their bright orange/red shoulder patches black) that epaulettes play a significant role in the male’s defense of his territory. Over 60% of the redwings that had their epaulettes dyed black lost their territories to other males. Further research revealed that aggression by a territorial male redwing is proportional to the epaulette size of the encroaching male redwing. It also indicated that male redwings intruding into redwing-occupied territories greatly limit the exposure of their epaulettes by covering them with black feathers. (Female red-winged blackbird plumage is brown and lacks epaulettes.)
Shrew Defense Mechanism
Coyote tracks led to a hole dug in the snow, with the body of a shrew lying on top of the snow next to the hole. Apparently a coyote had succeeded in catching the prey it had heard, but upon smelling this tiny insectivore, the coyote decided it wasn’t that hungry. In addition to having poisonous saliva that immobilizes small prey, shrews possess two glands on their sides that emit an unpleasant odor, detectable even by human noses. Although this odor did discourage the coyote from eating the shrew, it wasn’t enough to save its life.
Hibernating Queen Wasps
The queen is the only wasp in a colony to live through the winter (the others all die), and she usually does so in a sheltered spot such as a rotting log or under the loose bark of a tree (pictured). I wasn’t aware, until discovering this wasp, that queens actually chew a cavity in which to hibernate, but that appears to be the case in some instances. You can see the woody bits of fiber under the wasp that accumulated from her excavating the chamber. The cavity is roughly one inch long and ¼-inch deep. As a rule, hibernating queen wasps protect their wings and antennae by tucking them under their bodies. Some species produce glycerol, which acts as an antifreeze, while others allow ice to form around their cell walls and simply freeze solid. Most queen wasps die over the winter, primarily from predation by other insects and spiders, not the cold. (The pictured wasp had succumbed.) Warm winters are more likely to affect queens, as they emerge from hibernation too soon and starve due to lack of food.
Ruffed Grouse Roosts and Scat
A trail of ruffed grouse tracks in the snow led me to the spot where two grouse had bedded down for the night behind a fallen tree. With snow too shallow to burrow into, this was as protected a location as they could find. More often than not, a grouse defecates in its night roosting site before leaving in the morning. Grouse scat comes in two forms, one a dry, fibrous cylindrical pellet with a white-wash of uric acid at one end, and the other a softer, darker brown plop. The vast majority of a grouse’s diet (buds, twigs, leaves, catkins) goes directly through its digestive system and forms the dry, courser scat. Finer (and more nutritious) material such as the cambium layer of woody plants enters the caeca, two specialized pouches, before passing through the large intestine. The caeca contain bacteria which break down cellulose and produce the more digested, and therefore more liquefied, scat. Sometimes the two kinds of scat are deposited separately and sometimes, as in the bed on the right in the photograph, together. (Thanks to Dr. Alcott Smith who clarified grouse digestion for me.)
Avian Heat Regulation in Winter
On a cold, winter day, why would any bird choose to sit down on ice? While feathers are excellent insulators, the legs and feet of most birds lack this protective covering. Because of this, legs and feet are a major source of heat loss for birds. Physical adaptations to this loss of heat include constricted blood vessels in a bird’s feet, as well as the proximity of arteries and veins to each other which aids the transfer of heat. Birds exhibit behavioral adaptations as well, such as ducks and gulls standing on one leg and tucking the other among breast feathers, reducing by half the amount of unfeathered limb surface area exposed. By sitting down and covering both legs, even on ice, heat loss from limbs is minimized. If you observe closely, you will see many of the ground-feeding finches such as sparrows and redpolls also occasionally drop down and cover their legs and feet with their breast feathers for a few seconds.
White-breasted Nuthatch Winter Roosts
Birds that remain in New England year round use various strategies to withstand cold winter nights. One such strategy involves choosing a site well-protected from the wind, such as a thick stand of conifers, in which to spend the night. Birds that nest in cavities, such as nuthatches and woodpeckers, often roost in holes as well. White-breasted nuthatches usually roost singly. Occasionally two may share a hole, and as many as 29 have been found in a large tree cavity.
Ruffed Grouse Snow Cave
When the snow on the ground is 10” or more deep, and the night is very cold, ruffed grouse often seek shelter from the elements by diving into the snow and spending the night there. Sometimes they burrow five or ten feet into the snow, but sometimes, as in this case, they stay pretty much where they landed, perhaps a foot or so deep in the snow bank. This adaptive behavior not only hides them from predators, but serves to insulate the bird, as it rarely goes below 20 degrees F. in the cavity, regardless of how cold the air is. More often than not, the grouse defecates during its stay in the snow (dark matter in photograph). When leaving its snow cave, sometimes a grouse will burst out of the snow as it flies away, but as you can see from the groove in the snow in this photograph, this grouse chose to travel by foot.
Ruffed Grouse Winter Adaptations
The Ruffed Grouse has both behavioral and physical strategies for dealing with the cold, snow and ice of New England winters. Three of the physical changes that take place in the fall are evident by looking closely at a grouse’s legs, feet and beak. The feathers on its legs grow thicker and further down towards its feet, to provide better insulation. Small comb-like growths of skin, called pectinations, develop along either side of each toe. These increase the surface area of a grouse’s foot, and serve as snowshoes in deep snow. They also help the grouse cling to icy branches while it quickly snips off poplar and other buds at either end of the day. And on its beak, feathers expand downward to cover its nostrils, slowing the cold air and giving it a chance to warm up before it is inhaled by the grouse.
Virgin’s Bower
My apologies. I inadvertently mis-identified today’s flowering plant, Virgin’s Bower (Clematis virginiana). There are several members of the Buttercup family, Ranunculaceae, that are very similar, however, Clematis virginiana is pictured! It is a native perennial vine that is also known as Devil’s Darning Needle, Love Vine and Woodbine, among other common names. The styles, or female structures of its small, greenish-white flowers, develop into long feathery appendages on each of its seeds. Together the clusters of white “hairy” fruits give this plant its common name. The delicate beauty of its seed heads cannot be denied.
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