Sawfly Larva
Although it looks like a caterpillar, this larva is not going to metamorphose into a butterfly or moth. This is because it is a sawfly larva, and is closely related to bees and wasps. (It gets its name from the adult female’s saw-like, egg-laying ovipositor that opens like a jack-knife from the tip of her abdomen.)There are several ways to distinguish between these two types of larvae (sawflies and butterflies/moths). While both have three pairs of true legs on their thorax, caterpillars (larvae of moths and butterflies) have up to five pairs of prolegs (fleshy structures that resemble legs) located on their abdomen behind their true legs, while sawfly larvae have six or more pairs. A closer look at the tips of the prolegs on caterpillars will reveal tiny hooks called “crochets,” which are lacking on sawfly larvae prolegs. Sawfly larvae also exhibit distinctive behavior. If you see something that looks like a caterpillar feeding along the margin of a leaf and it rears up its hind end when disturbed (perhaps to frighten predators), chances are great that you are looking at a sawfly larva.
Yellow Lady’s Slipper Flowering
There are only about three short weeks in the late spring when the blossoms of Yellow Lady’s Slippers grace our woodlands and wetlands. The production of an orchid is a complicated process. If pollination and fertilization are successful, hundreds of thousands of some of the smallest seeds of any flowers are scattered by the wind. The seeds of Yellow Lady’s Slippers (and other orchids), unlike those of most flowering plants, contain no food for the seedling plant. In addition, the coating surrounding the seed is extremely tough, so much so that the seed can’t germinate until Rhizoctonia fungi digest the outer coating, which allows the inner seed to access soil nutrients. This can take two years or more and then it may take another few years for the plant to produce a flower.
Black Bear Mating Sign
We’re approaching the peak of the black bear mating season in late May and June, and there’s no better time to look for bear sign than right now. Both male and female bears increase their movements during this time of year. According to the North American Bear Center, males have mating ranges 10-15 miles in diameter and each mating range contains 7-15 female territories. During May and June, both sexes, but particularly the males, mark their territory by leaving their scent on trees, shrubs, telephone poles, sign posts, etc. They do so by thrashing around, rubbing their shoulders and neck against trees and poles, biting and clawing them and urinating on young trees and bushes that they straddle as they walk along. Often the tops and many branches of saplings are broken off, as is evident in this photograph taken recently by Alfred Balch of Lyme, NH.
Male House Sparrows Rise to the Occasion
The House Sparrow’s (also known as English Sparrow) reputation leaves a bit to be desired. It is an introduced species which has thrived in North America to the point where it is considered a nuisance species and an agricultural pest. Its tendency to displace native birds such as Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallows from nest boxes does not endear it to many bird lovers. However, one has to acknowledge the fact that male House Sparrows are the exception rather than the rule when it comes to parenting. Males help choose the nest site, build the nest, incubate the eggs, brood and feed the nestlings and keep the nest clean by removing the nestlings’ fecal sacs. That’s more than can be said for some of our most admired species, such as male Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, which disappear shortly after copulation.
Aspen “Snow”
Even though it snowed in Vermont this weekend, there is something else white and fluffy that is also being blown about, and it doesn’t melt when it hits the ground. The tiny white bits of fluff that are floating in the air are the seeds of aspens (also referred to as poplars), primarily Bigtooth Aspen (Populus grandidentata), that are borne in capsules that develop along a 3 to 6-inch dangling stem. These former flower clusters, and the capsules and seeds they developed into, are referred to as catkins. The capsules split apart when the seeds are mature, releasing the cottony-tufted seeds that are well-designed for dispersal by the wind. Looking into the fluff-filled sky, it’s not hard to believe that a single Bigtooth Aspen tree can produce over a million seeds.
Hooded Merganser
Yesterday’s mystery duckling was a Hooded Merganser. Wood Duck and Hooded Merganser ducklings are very similar, however Wood Duck young possess a dark, horizontal line behind their eyes which Hooded Merganser ducklings lack. There are several ducks that nest in tree cavities in New England, including Wood Ducks, Common Goldeneyes, Common Mergansers and Hooded Mergansers. Hooded Merganser ducklings leave their nest cavity within 24 hours of hatching, in response to their mother’s calls below. They jump/climb up the wall of the cavity and hurl themselves out of the tree. Depending on where the tree is located, they fall either onto the ground, where they bounce like a tennis ball upon landing, or straight into the water. Hooded Merganser fledglings have been known to fall as far as 50 feet to the ground and then walk as far as half a mile with their mother to the nearest body of water.
Mystery Duckling
Do you know which species of waterfowl this ball of fluff is? Hint: it had to jump out of a tree cavity in order to reach the water.
Jack-in-the-Pulpit Corm: A Black Bear Delicacy
When black bears first emerge from hibernation, they survive mainly on emerging green vegetation in wetlands. As the season progresses, there are more and more food options to choose from, including a favorite – the corm, or underground bulb-like storage structure, of Jack-in-the-Pulpit. Even though they are large, somewhat lumbering creatures, black bears dig up and remove these corms as if they had a tiny tool designed just for this purpose. They barely disturb the earth, leaving only very small holes as evidence of their presence. A friend of mine witnessed this just outside his window one spring day, and could not believe the delicacy with which the bear extracted these morsels of food from the ground. Apparently the calcium oxalate crystals in Jack-in-the-Pulpit that cause the burning sensation in human mouths doesn’t affect bears, at least not enough to protect the plant.
Hermit Thrushes Nesting
Hermit thrushes, Vermont’s state bird, are typically ground nesters east of the Rocky Mountains (west of them, they tend to nest off the ground) and often, as in this case, choose a nest site that is in a patch of Lycopodium, or ground pine. Usually a branch from a nearby tree, a fern, or some other taller vegetation provides cover and effectively conceals the nest. The female hermit thrush builds the nest and begins incubation after the last of her three or four eggs is laid. Twelve days later the eggs hatch, and twelve or thirteen days after that the young fledge.
Baby Painted Turtles Migrating to Ponds
In May, at the very same time that adult painted turtles are laying their eggs, some of last year’s young turtles are migrating from their nest site to ponds or rivers. Painted turtle eggs actually hatch in late summer, with the young turtles remaining inside the nest cavity for varying amounts of time. Here in New England, in the northern part of their range, they often overwinter in their nest and emerge the following spring.
Red Fox Mother Grooming Kits
With all the romping around that they do this time of year, red fox kits manage to get all kinds of leaves, sticks and burrs caught in their fur. It’s a daily battle to keep the kits’ fur from matting, but their mother rises to the occasion and spends hours a day grooming each of her kits. She grabs hold of the burr or other foreign matter with her teeth, slowly pulls it out of the kit’s fur and then spits it out. As you can see, the kits tolerate these sessions with great patience.
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!
Raven Chicks About To Fledge
Looking as if it were stuck to the vertical cliff wall by crazy glue, a raven’s nest is often used for several years in a row. The nestlings remain in the nest for about 5 to 7 weeks, during which time they go from being an orange/pink color, sparsely covered with gray down, to the black plumage of an adult. The pictured nestlings are approximately five weeks old, and have just started to exercise their wing muscles in preparation for their first flight. They are panting with open beaks in an attempt to dissipate the heat of an unrelenting May sun. Within a week or two they will leave the nest, but will stay nearby for a few days. I couldn’t get close enough to give this nest a smell test, but supposedly raven nests can have an unbelievably unpleasant odor (due to the remains of leftover food/ carrion and feces).
American Toads Calling
Most of us are familiar with the American toad’s breeding call – a long trill that advertises his presence to potential mates in the area. However, American toads have three other calls, as well. A shortened version of the courtship trill, which sounds like a chirp, is given by male toad with its vocal pouch just slightly inflated. A second, release call, is often heard when a male is clasped by another male. (If you want to hear it, just pick up a male toad during the breeding season – it will vibrate as it chirps right in your hand. The combination of the call and the vibrations usually causes a clasping male to release his grip.) A fourth call, which has been recorded in the lab but not in the field, is a series of quiet clicks given by the male while clasping a female.
Wood Turtles Laying Eggs
Congratulations on correctly identifying the trails as being made by turtles! Even though you did not have the benefit of knowing their width, many of you took a stab at the naming the species of turtle that made them. Hats off to Jason, who correctly identified them as wood turtle trails, especially as it is relatively early in the season for them to be laying eggs.
Two female wood turtles (so-called because of the resemblance of their top shell, or carapace, to wood), were on their way out of a shallow wetland to dig into soft sand about 6” deep and lay their (4 – 18, usually 8 or 9) eggs. The size of the footprints, tail drag and 7-inch flattened shell path help to identify these trails as those of wood turtles. Although you can follow the tracks and see exactly where the trails end, it would be hard to detect that excavation and egg-laying has taken place at these sites, as the holes have been filled in and smoothed over with the turtles’ bottom shells, or plastrons. Predators with a good sense of smell, such as foxes, raccoons and skunks, however, have very little trouble locating turtle nests. Research shows that 85% of wood turtle eggs and hatchlings are lost to predation. The wood turtle population is in decline in the northeast in part due to human development which not only decreases wood turtle habitat and increases the number of people collecting these turtles, but also increases the number of predators. (The wood turtle in the photograph has just laid her eggs and smoothed over the nest site in front of her head by walking backwards over it while pressing her plastron to the ground.)
Mystery Photo
Two strangers passed in the night (or day)…do you know who they were and where they were going?
Early Saxifrage Flowering
Early saxifrage (Micranthes virginiensis) is well named – it flowers early in the spring, and is often found growing in or on rocks. (The name saxifrage derives from the Latin words “saxum” meaning rock and “frangere,” to break. When the small seeds of saxifrage lodge in rock crevices and germinate, the plant looks as though it split the rock.) If you look closely you’ll see that early saxifrage’s flower stalk has many hairs – they are glandular and their stickiness is thought to deter ants from taking nectar from the flowers, so that it can attract more efficient pollinators.
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)
Muskrat Division of Labor
Although muskrats are primarily nocturnal, you occasionally see them in the daytime, especially in the spring and fall. They often reside in ponds or marshes, where they live in the pond bank or build their own house out of mud, cattails and other available plant material. Muskrats are herbivores, favoring cattail roots, arrowhead, bur reed, pickerelweed and other aquatic vegetation. The pictured muskrat is not feeding, however — more often than not muskrats eat their food where they find it, especially during the warmer months. It is doing its share of parental care — this is the time of year when the first of several litters of muskrats are born. While the mother nurses her four or so young, the father spends time gathering bedding material for his offspring. The muskrat in this photograph spent a morning cutting and gathering several mouthfuls of grasses growing by the side of the pond. When he couldn’t fit one more blade of grass in his mouth he would scurry down the bank and disappear into a burrow which most likely led to a chamber where his young are being raised. Like their beaver cousins, muskrats tend to keep a tidy house and forage for fresh bedding for their young with some regularity.
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.
Pickerel Frogs Calling
If you’ve spent time at a pond recently and heard what sounded like someone snoring, you weren’t hallucinating! Male pickerel frogs have started calling to attract mates, and each species of frog, just like birds, has its own distinctive call. Spring peepers peep, wood frogs clack and pickerel frogs snore. Their snore isn’t long – it only lasts a second or two — but it’s unmistakable. Pickerel frogs call from under water, as well as on top of mounds of vegetation, so if you hear one and then search for it, it’s very possible you may not find it. (My sincere apologies-computer failure prevented me from posting on the previous two days.)
Naturally Curious with Mary Holland 
What Other Naturally Curious People Are Saying