Moose Ruminating
Moose are ruminants, as are cattle, goats, sheep and deer; they have a four-chambered stomach, which is necessary in order to digest the cellulose in the vegetation they consume. Food goes to the rumen and the reticulum, the first two chambers, which contain bacteria and other microorganisms that help digest the cellulose as it mixes with saliva. Here the food separates into solids and liquid material and the solids clump together to form the cud, which is regurgitated and chewed a second time in order to break it down into smaller bits. The third chamber, or omasum, functions as a pump, sending the food to the final chamber, the abomasum, where the digestion process is completed.
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Today’s Post Unintentionally Published Early
In case you missed it last night, here it is!
Roughly 30 years ago Western Conifer Seed Bugs (Leptoglossus occidentalis) started moving east. They are now well established coast to coast. Here in the East they seek shelter during the winter, often choosing to share our domiciles with us. Fear not – though they look fairly menacing, they will do you no harm. Western Conifer Seed Bugs do not bite or sting, and in their semi-dormant condition they do not feed or breed. If you choose not to co-habit with these bugs, be forewarned. When disturbed, they can emit a noxious smell.
In the spring they will vacate your house and feed on the sap of the young cones and flowers of conifers, including Eastern White Pine, Red Pine, Scotch Pine, White Spruce and Eastern Hemlock. Mating takes place, eggs are laid and the young nymphs feed on conifer seeds which they find by detecting the infrared radiation that the cones emit.
These bugs are also called “leaf-footed bugs,” and if you look at their hind legs you will see that a section, the tibia, is flattened. Some species display this specialized leg structure during courtship, and others may use it for defense purposes.
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Giving Thanks For Naturally Curious Readers
I would like to devote this Thanksgiving post to expressing my heartfelt appreciation to all of my readers – those who take the time out of very busy days to read my posts, those who participate in Mystery Photo challenges, those who share my blog with others, those who use it to foster a love of the natural world with youngsters, and those who have chosen to support my blog through a donation. You have all been so generous, and your generosity has allowed me to focus on the work I am so passionate about. Thank you for valuing and supporting this blog – hopefully in some small way it contributes to fostering an awareness of and concern for all things natural, especially in younger generations. (Photo: Otis Sumner Brown, member of our youngest generation and avid reader of the “Naturally Curious” blog)
Black Cherry – well known to most readers!
Black Cherry, more than most tree species, often has several identifying features even after it loses its leaves. The buds of Black Cherry have about ten scales, each of which is brown at the tip and green at the base. The bark of young Black Cherry trees is typically smooth, reddish in color and covered with grayish, horizontal lines called lenticels — small openings that allow the passage of gases in and out of the tree. The bark on older Black Cherry trees consists of squarish scales, curved outward at their vertical edges, somewhat resembling burnt potato chips. Black Cherry is one of several trees on which the fungus Apiosporina morbosa causes Black Knot Galls. Lastly, Black Cherry is the primary host for the Eastern Tent Caterpillar moth. These moths encircle Black Cherry branches with their egg masses, and the eggs hatch just as Black Cherry’s leaves emerge from their buds, providing food for the young larvae.
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Mystery Photo
Can you identify the species of tree on which all of these images were taken? Please enter answers under “comments” on my blog. (Enter your response before reading others,’ please.) Thank you!
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Bird Nests: Look But Don’t Collect
It is prime time to look for bird nests now that leaves have fallen and heavy winter snow has not arrived. Nests such as this Mourning Dove nest are visible and still in fairly good condition. Much can be learned from examining the habitat, exact location, size, shape and construction material of these avian nurseries. But the nests must be left where they are, for possession of not only a bird, but of a bird nest, egg or feather of most migratory birds, even for scientific research or education, is illegal if you do not have a Federal Migratory Bird Scientific Collecting Permit.
Ninety-seven years ago the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), one of our oldest wildlife protection laws, was created. Basically it is a law that protects birds from people. It was made in response to the extinction or near-extinction of a number of bird species that were hunted either for sport or for their feathers. According to the United States Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), “The MBTA provides that it is unlawful to pursue, hunt, take, capture, kill, possess, sell, purchase, barter, import, export, or transport any migratory bird, or any part, nest, or egg or any such bird, unless authorized under a permit issued by the Secretary of the Interior.” A list of the species this law pertains to can be seen at http://www.fws.gov/migratorybirds/RegulationsPolicies/mbta/MBTANDX.HTML.
Not all North American bird species are protected under the MBTA. (Passenger Pigeons were not protected, and they no longer exist.) Birds that are considered non-native species such as the House Sparrow and the European Starling are not protected, and many hunted or game birds, including ducks, geese, doves, and many shorebirds are subject to limited protection and can be hunted in season.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently working on strengthening this bill to better protect birds from modern-day threats (windmills, cell phone towers, etc.). According to USFWS estimates, power lines kill up to 175 million birds a year. Communications towers account for up to 50 million kills, and uncovered oil waste pits account for up to another 500,000 to 1 million deaths. Data on wind turbines are harder to come by, but current estimates are around 300,000 bird fatalities a year. A number of companies in the oil and power-line sectors have already developed and implemented best practices to protect birds. Let us hope that this trend continues.
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Fishers Eating Fruit & Marking Territory
When one thinks of fishers, meat-eating predators come to mind. While it is true that the fisher is a generalist, opportunistic hunter and scavenger, and feeds on any prey it can catch and kill (snowshoe hares, rabbits, squirrels and other small rodents, birds, bird eggs, smaller weasels, shrews, porcupines, raccoons, amphibians, reptiles, carrion and a very occasional cat or chicken), it also consumes fruit and nuts, especially when prey is scarce.
Given the amount of apples that are available this fall, even if prey isn’t hard to find, it is not too surprising to see fisher scat composed solely of apples at the base of this scent marking post (confirmed by fine fisher hairs at the very tip of the stump as well as scat).
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Thimbleweed Seeds Dispersing
Often Thimbleweed (Anemone virginiana) is overlooked when its white flowers are blooming during the summer, but its seed head is rarely missed in the fall. When flowering, stamens surround a green cone that elongates into a cylindrical fruit twice as long as it is wide, giving this member of the Buttercup family its name. The seeds mature in the fall, and the style, part of the female reproductive structure that remains attached to the developing seed, develops a woolly texture, turning the “thimble” into a ball of fluff. A close look reveals that this “cottonball” consists of many tiny dark seeds, each of which bears a cottony tuft to enhance its dispersal by the wind.
Thimbleweed produces chemicals which inhibit seed germination and seedling growth in many species of plants, so often the ground is relatively bare around this plant. Mammalian herbivores usually leave Thimbleweed alone because the foliage contains a blistering agent that can irritate the mouth parts and digestive tract.
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Red Squirrels Winter-proofing Nests
Red Squirrels are active year round and have nests that they can retreat to at any time of the year. These nests are used for shelter and rest, for over-wintering and as brood chambers. Red Squirrels build them in a variety of spots (tree cavities, old woodpecker holes, middens, rock piles, rotting logs, tree canopies) with a variety of material (twigs, branches, leaves, shredded grape bark, etc.).
Regardless of where they build their nest or what they build it with, Red Squirrels line it with fine, relatively soft material, such as grasses, bark fibers, feathers and fur. If a Red Squirrel happens upon potential nest-lining material, including an old dog towel hung out to dry, it will readily chew it into shreds and carry them back to its nest.
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“Animal Mouths” Selected as a 2016 Outstanding Science Trade Book
Good news to share with my readers — my most recent children’s book, Animal Mouths, has been selected as one of the 2016 Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12, a cooperative project of the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and the Children’s Book Council. Ferdinand Fox’s First Summer received this recognition in 2013.
Black Bears In No Hurry to Den This Year
Bountiful acorn and apple crops have enabled black bears to delay denning this fall, as this recently-discovered apple-filled bear scat attests to. Denning is triggered by a seasonal shortage of food, low temperatures, and snow cover on the ground. When these conditions cause bears to den, they typically stay within their summer range boundaries. On average black bears enter their dens in November and emerge in April, but this varies considerably with crop and temperature conditions.
Denning sequence usually begins with yearlings, followed by pregnant females, then solitary females, females with cubs, adult males, and last, subadults (not sexually mature) of both sexes. Most dens are excavated below ground, and on well-drained, upland sites. Rarely are they re-used in consecutive years. Adult males are the first to emerge in the spring, followed by subadult males and females, then females accompanied by yearlings, and finally, females with cubs of the year.
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Jelly Fungus Fruiting
The term “jelly fungus” is an informal one applied to species of fungi that have a gelatin-like consistency. The reason for this texture is that the structural filaments, or hyphae, of these fungi have walls that are not thin and rigid as they are in most other species, but instead shrink and expand in response to moisture. The hyphae are expanded and gelatinous when moist, but during dry periods they collapse and become rather hard and resistant to bending. These tissues are able to exist in a dry state for many months and, when exposed to moisture, quickly expand to full size. They may be among the earliest fungi seen in the spring because they have remained dry and inconspicuous all winter, only to revive with the first melting snow or during winter thaws. Jelly fungi come in several colors. Some of the orange and yellow forms found growing on deciduous trees, especially oaks and beech, are called “witches’ butter.”
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2016 Naturally Curious Calendars Still Available
I have a few extra 2016 Naturally Curious calendars — if there’s anyone out there who would like one (or more), just email me at mholland@vermontel.net. $30 includes postage. (see 9/14/15 NC post for details) They make great Christmas presents!
Pileated Woodpecker Droppings
Pileated Woodpeckers usually defecate frequently during the day at their foraging sites. As they pry off long slivers of wood to expose carpenter ant galleries, the wood chips pile up on the ground. A substantial pile usually indicates that the woodpecker has been working long enough at this site for there to be some droppings in the pile.
Pileated Woodpeckers eat ants, primarily carpenter, and beetle larvae throughout the year. Fruit and nuts are eaten when available. The primary food shifts seasonally, with fruit mainly in the fall, carpenter ants in the winter, wood-boring beetle larvae in early spring, and a variety of insects in the summer.
Like humans, birds excrete metabolic waste products, mainly nitrogen, which remains after food is broken down. Humans excrete waste nitrogen as urea in urine, which is diluted with water. Birds, needing to be as light as possible for efficient flight, do not have heavy, water-filled bladders. They excrete nitrogen as a chemical called uric acid in a concentrated form with no dilution necessary. The white outer coating of bird droppings is uric acid. The insides of the droppings are the actual feces, or the indigestible parts of a bird’s diet. A Pileated Woodpecker’s droppings at this time of year consist of bits of carpenter ant exoskeletons and a surprisingly small amount of wood fiber (see insert). Birds simultaneously evacuate uric acid and feces from an opening just under the tail called the cloaca or vent.
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Mystery Photo
Can you identify this? It measures approximately one inch by one inch. Hint: it was found at the base of a tree. Please respond on the Naturally Curious blog under “comments.” Thank you!
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Bring Bird Feeders In At Night!
For those of you who live in black bear country, it’s advisable, if you have put up your bird feeders as today’s post suggested you might want to do, you had best bring them in at night. The extended warm weather this fall has bears still very active and seeking high-protein food. Thanks to astute reader and nature photographer Erin Donahue for questioning the timing of bird feeder hanging this year!
Canadian Conifer and Deciduous Tree Seed Crops Affect New England’s Winter Bird Population
Every year Ron Pittaway publishes a forecast of the movements of winter finches in the upcoming winter (http://ebird.org/content/canada/news/ron-pittaways-winter-finch-forecast-2015-2016/). Although his report focuses on Ontario, he includes the effect that the Canadian seed crops have on northern New England’s winter bird population. A poor crop of a given seed (spruce, birch, etc.) in Canada inevitably drives finches that feed on that seed to search for food elsewhere, often further south. For instance, because White Spruce crops are low in Ontario this year and high in northern New England, we may well see high numbers of Pine Siskins (see photo).
Pittaway predicts we may also see higher than usual Purple Finch numbers (poor cone and deciduous tree seed crops in Ontario), perhaps White-winged Crossbills (poor spruce cone crop in Ontario), and more Common Redpolls (poor birch seed crop in Ontario) this winter. Time to fill feeders, sit back and see how accurate his forecast actually is!
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Blackberry Psyllids Heading for Conifers
Occasionally you see a wild Blackberry bush with leaves that have stunted growth and are often curled up. This malformation is due to the Blackberry Psyllid (Trioza tripunctata), also known as the Jumping Plant Louse. Closely related to aphids and scale insects, psyllids are plant-feeding bugs which typically have one specific host on which they feed and lay their eggs. Blackberry Psyllids, small, cicada-like insects that hold their wings tent-like over their body, feed only on Blackberry and in so doing, cause this leaf distortion.
Blackberry Psyllids have one generation per year. The adults mate and lay eggs (39-202) on Blackberry bushes in early summer. The nymphs, small and wingless, also feed on the sap of Blackberries. They are often found inside the curled leaves during the summer months where they secrete several types of waxy structures as they feed. In the fall the nymphs mature and overwinter as adults in conifers (pines, spruces and cedars) prior to returning to Blackberry bushes in the spring. If Blackberries are one mile or more from conifers, no psyllid damage will be found; those growing within one-eighth of a mile from conifers are at the greatest risk of psyllid damage.
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Green Frogs About To Take The Plunge
Most Green Frogs have disappeared over the last few weeks, but this male (eardrum, or tympanum, is larger than his eye) was basking in the last bit of sunshine he will see or feel for the next five or six months. Soon he will take the plunge and bury himself in leaf litter at the bottom of the pond or lay, partially exposed, on the mud beneath the leaves. (Green frogs typically hibernate in water, but occasionally overwinter on unfrozen stream beds or seeps, as well as underground.) Aquatic turtles can shut down their metabolism to a greater extent than frogs, so they are able to survive hibernation buried in mud, where there is little oxygen, but frogs overwintering in a pond must have their skin at least partially in contact with oxygen-rich water. Green frog tadpoles will typically, but not always, overwinter prior to metamorphosing the following spring.
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Eastern Chipmunks Soon To Encounter Round the Clock Darkness and Periodic Torpor
Although Eastern Chipmunks are much in evidence during our current November heat wave, these lively rodents will soon retreat underground to their maze of interconnecting tunnels for the winter. This burrow system usually has one unobstructed entrance with the opening of other tunnels that lead to the surface plugged with leaves. A chipmunk may dig part of the burrow system using its forefeet and cheek pouches to loosen and transport soil, but the renovation of old root channels and existing burrows of other mammals is the primary method of burrow construction. The two-inch diameter tunnels are roughly 12 to 30 feet long and typically 18 to 36 inches deep. Off of these tunnels are several food galleries as well as a chamber six to ten inches in diameter which contains a nest of leaves.
Chipmunks reside in their subterranean environs from mid-November until early March – late April, with local snow depth and temperatures influencing the duration. They are not true hibernators and accumulate little body fat prior to winter. Throughout the winter chipmunks are aroused from their state of torpor every week or two and snack on their underground caches of food (up to 5,000 – 6,000 nuts per chipmunk, according to one source). During mid-winter thaws, some chipmunks may leave their burrows, even digging through several feet of snow to forage for seeds in nearby areas where the snow has melted and the forest floor is exposed.
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Bountiful Apple Crop A Double-edged Sword When It Comes To Porcupines
The outstanding apple crop this year bodes well for the fecundity of the white-tailed deer, mouse, black bear, raccoon, wild turkey and porcupine populations this coming year. There are other more subtle ramifications of this year’s bountiful soft mast production, however, one of which is an increase in porcupine salt-seeking behavior.
Porcupines are avid consumers of apples. Typically, the supply of apples is depleted by the end of August, when porcupines move on to beechnuts and acorns. However, this year the apple crop was so plentiful that many apple trees still bear fruit and will provide sustenance for wildlife well into the winter. High in carbohydrates, apples help porcupines gain the extra weight necessary to help them survive through the winter months.
That said, apples have a relatively low pH and are acidic, some varieties more than others. Porcupines prefer the less acidic apples, but even these contain several hundred times more organic acid than other food, such as poplar or basswood leaves, that porcupines consume in the summer. High acid intake impairs sodium resorption in mammalian kidneys, causing porcupines to lose sodium in their urine. Consequently, as a result of a high proportion of apples in their diet, porcupines seek extra sodium. While they find salt in aquatic plants, insects, animal bones and outer bark, porcupines are also drawn to plywood, car tires, outhouses, sweat-soaked tool handles and other human-related sources of sodium. This would be a good year to make sure your hammers, hoes, rakes and shovels are well out of the reach of quill pigs. (Insert shows porcupine incisor grooves in flesh of apple. Porcupines often leave cores, avoiding eating the cyanide-rich apple seeds.)
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Eastern Red-backed Salamander
A typo in today’s post referred to the Eastern Red-backed Salamander as the “Northern” Red-backed Salamander. While its range is throughout the Northeast, this salamander’s common name is Eastern Red-backed Salamander!
Eastern Red-backed Salamanders Migrating Downwards
Eastern Red-backed Salamanders reside in the leaf litter throughout the Northeast during the summer months. Here they scent-mark their territories on the forest floor with pheromones and fecal matter in order to convey information concerning their body size and gender to other Red-backed Salamanders. If the temperature soars or the humidity drops, these salamanders do just what they do in the fall – seek deeper, moister protected areas such as beneath stones, under and within rotting logs and stumps, or underground in animal burrows.
Whereas they migrate downwards in summer to avoid the heat and dry air that would impair their ability to breathe through their skin, these salamanders are avoiding the approaching cold when they migrate downwards in the fall. Red-backed Salamanders are not freeze tolerant, and thus must avoid freezing temperatures. Once ensconced in a freeze-free hibernaculum, they usually remain there until snowmelt.
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Bald-faced Hornet Nests No Longer Inhabited (if you live where there has been a hard frost)
If you research bald-faced hornet nests you will find that their average size is often compared to that of a football or basketball. The maximum size is said to be between 14 and 18 inches in diameter, and up to 23 or 24 inches in length. The pictured nest (which hung 20 feet above the roof of my house) measures 14 inches wide and 29 inches long – far larger than the average hornet nest!
This entire nest was built in roughly four months. It was started by a queen bald-faced hornet that, after emerging from hibernation this past spring, chewed some wood fiber, mixed it with her saliva and created a few brood cells surrounded by one or more paper “envelopes.” She laid an egg in each cell, and fed the hornet larvae insects which she first masticated into tiny bits. When the larvae pupated and emerged as adult workers, they assumed the duties of nest building, food collection, feeding the larvae and protecting the nest, while the queen continued laying eggs in horizontal tiers of cells. This ongoing activity produced a colony of anywhere from 100 to 400 workers by the end of the summer. Shortly before the first hard frost this fall, the queen left the colony and found a protected spot in which to spend the winter. When freezing temperatures arrived, the workers all died, leaving a nest that will never again be inhabited by bald-faced hornets. (Thanks to Nick Burnham, who ingeniously managed to collect the nest for me, and Gary Trachier for the photo.)
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