Mystery Photo
Can you identify these tracks and traces? Hint: mostly seen in the month of June. Please go to the Naturally Curious blog site, scroll down to “Comments” and enter your answer. Identity of track-maker will be revealed in July 2nd post.
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Mourning Cloak Caterpillars Pupating
Having overwintered as an adult, the Mourning Cloak butterfly (Nymphalis antiopa) is one of the first butterflies seen in early spring. Mating takes place and eggs are laid in a cluster encircling a twig of a willow, cottonwood, elm, birch or hackberry tree. The hatching caterpillars stay together until they move off their host plant to pupate, which is what is happening right now and why you can find these distinctive spiny black and red caterpillars at this time of year. Adult Mourning Cloaks emerge in midsummer, enter a state of dormancy until fall and then seek a sheltered spot in which to hibernate until spring.
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Parental Feeding Techniques of the Great Blue Heron
Great Blue Herons are colonial nesters – a rookery can have hundreds (up to 500) of nests, usually in dead snags, with one, two or three nests in a single snag. Because the chicks are in the nest for roughly two months before fledging, their interactions with both parents, especially when food is delivered to the nest, has been observed and well documented.
Newly hatched chicks peck at the adult’s bill, the nest and each other. Initially the adult returns to the nest where it stands on the rim and regurgitates food into the open bills of the chicks. The chicks get quite proficient at grabbing the adult’s bill and pulling it into the nest as soon as the parent returns. As the chicks age, the adult often regurgitates onto the floor of the nest and the chicks eat it. When the nestlings are about a month old, they take food directly from their parents.
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Tadpoles Vulnerable To Drought
Congratulations (again!) to Kathie Fiveash, the first Naturally Curious reader to correctly identify the rough patch in Monday’s Mystery Photo as tadpoles that were stranded in a puddle that was drying up.
Most tadpoles acquire oxygen in a number of ways — through gills, through their skin, and by breathing air into their lungs. In this case, a lack of access to oxygen in the water has left them high and dry, as their lungs are not developed enough to provide them with the necessary amount of oxygen from the air. A sad ending for these young frogs, but a goldmine for scavenging raccoons, skunks, foxes and birds.
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Mystery Photo
Photo: a 15′ x 5′ puddle in a grassy field after many days without rain. Any guesses as to what the rough patch is? Please submit all interpretations under “Comments” on the Naturally Curious blog site. Answer will be revealed on June 18th.
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The Perils Of Being A Duckling
Recently I encountered a single Common Goldeneye duckling frantically peeping as it swam around and around a pond with no other ducks or ducklings in sight. The gray-brown color of its eyes and the remains of an egg tooth at the tip of its bill indicated that it had hatched very recently. Because it couldn’t fly (it takes 50-70 days for most ducklings to attain flight status) nor swim fast enough to escape predators (such as largemouth bass, northern pike and other big fish, bullfrogs, snakes, snapping turtles, foxes, mink, raccoons, hawks, owls, gulls, crows and herons), it was extremely vulnerable.
In addition to predation, weather conditions threaten duckling survival. While their fuzzy down feathers are an excellent source of natural insulation in dry weather, they are of little value when wet. In addition, ducklings also lack the thermal protection of adult contour feathers. Cold, rainy, and windy conditions can lead to death from exposure (hypothermia) and may reduce food availability.
There was no obvious explanation for why this duckling was not in the company of its mother and siblings. One can only hope that they were reunited in short order, as there is a bit more safety in numbers. Hopefully the fortitude it took for this youngster to leap from its nest cavity to the water below will serve it well in the days to come.
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Painted Turtles Laying Eggs
The courtship of Painted Turtles begins shortly after they emerge from hibernation in April and May. It is quite an elaborate process, with the male swimming in front of the female and rapidly vibrating his long toenails along her head. Mating follows and a month or two later females look for terrestrial nesting sites, often late on a rainy afternoon.
Frequently the female will dig several “false” nests before depositing her half a dozen or so eggs in a nest. After carefully covering her eggs with soil and leaving the ground looking relatively undisturbed, she returns to her pond, providing no care for her offspring.
Painted Turtle eggs hatch in the fall. In the Northeast some young Painted Turtles emerge above ground shortly after hatching, while others remain in the nest and don’t dig their way out until the following spring. (Turtles from the same nest can emerge at different times.) Those turtles emerging in the fall usually have an egg tooth and a fresh yolk sac scar; those that overwinter and emerge in the spring lack both of these. (Thanks to Jody Crosby for photo op.)
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Common Grackles Raising Young
Although female Common Grackles do all the incubating, both males and females provide food for their nestlings. Males average almost two feedings an hour, females almost four. Judging from the size of the larvae the pictured Grackle has in its beak, its nestlings are midway to fledging, perhaps a week old. The older/larger the nestlings, the greater the size of the food they receive. Male and female nestlings received items of equal quality and quantity.
During the breeding season, both nestlings and adults feed primarily on insects in addition to a small amount of grain (and an occasional fish, small rodent or leech). During the winter, their diet consists mostly of agricultural grains and tree seeds such as acorns.
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