Kirtland's snake

 Photo: Gina Smith

A few days ago, I was intrigued to see an email drop into my box with the curious heading of "mystery snake" or something to that effect. I clicked on the attached photo, and this is what I saw.

The email was routed to me from our communications people at work, and came from Gina Smith. She had found the reptile near a central Ohio stream, and wanted to know what it was. Now, I am not a huge snake guy. I love 'em, but just don't have enough experience with snakes to know all of the species inside and out. Still, I've seen all but a few of the species that we have in Ohio over the years, and can usually tell what they are. This one flummoxed me.

 Photo: Gina Smith

Here's an even better photo; in fact, a darn good photo. For a died-in-the-wool snake person, there should be no excuse for not being able to identify this beast from this photo. Still, I wasn't sure. Best as I could tell, it was a red-bellied snake, Storeria occipitomaculata, but that identification rang hollow, and I didn't really think that's what it was.

So, I sent off this photo to herpetologist Jeff Davis (he's the one who showed me wall lizards last year). Jeff knew what it was - a Kirtland's snake, Clonophis kirtlandii - and was quite excited by the find for two reasons. One, Kirtland's snake is quite rare and local in Ohio, and is currently listed as a threatened species. Two, it was a bizarre aberrant individual - this Kirtland's snake was completely unpatterned and quite different in appearance than would be a normally marked individual. I didn't feel as bad about not knowing the animal after learning this; had it been a normally patterned snake, I probably would have been able to make the ID. As an added bonus, Gina found the animal in a county where there have been no reports of Kirtland's snake in several decades.

Photo: Todd Pierson/Flickr

Here's what a normal Kirtland's snake looks like. It sports a beautifully symmetrical pattern of nearly round dark blotches on a pale cream-yellow background. Notice the head is black, just like Gina's odd snake, and the overall shape of the animal is the same.

These harmless little snakes don't bite, and a whopper would be lucky to stretch to two feet. Gina reported that hers was little more than a foot in length. They apparently ape hog-nosed snakes when approached, and a threatened Kirtland's snake will flatten its body to paper-thin dimensions in an effort to appear larger, and launch ineffective strikes. Pick it up, and it drops the charade and makes no attempt to bite.

Apparently Kirtland's snake tends to be quite secretive, and spends its daylight hours hiding under logs, boards, rocks or other objects. They are also said to inhabitat crayfish burrows and other subterranean haunts, which would make detection quite difficult. There are probably more of them lurking out there than we think. The Kirtland's snake is not much of a gourmand, and prefers to feast on slimy wrigglers such as earthworms and slugs.

Birders will be well familiar with this snake's namesake - Jared Potter Kirtland. He, of course, also has a fabulous warbler named in his honor.

The Kirtland's snake is confined to the upper Midwest, as shown in blue on this map (courtesy of Herpedia). But the actual known distribution within that blued out region is much smaller. This snake is listed as some category of imperiled - endangered, threatened, etc. - in every state in which it is still found. Habitat loss has certainly played a role in the Kirtland's snake's demise, but other detrimental factors may be at work, too. Much remains to be learned about these gorgeous, secretive little animals.

Congratulations to Gina for a fabulous find, and for allowing me to share her photos.

Merlin becomes TV star!

Ben Gelber, NBC4 meteorologist (L) and Buzz the camera man bask in the presence of a very extroverted female Merlin in Columbus, Ohio's Green Lawn Cemetery. The bird is perched in the gnarled boughs of a Kentucky coffee tree, only 30 feet above Buzz's camera.

NBC4 and Ben are great about airing short natural history segments, and I've worked with Ben on several of these episodes. After our last shoot, I suggested going after this Merlin and seeing if we could manage any footage of her. Ounce for ounce, this particular Merlin must be one of the world's most fearless birds. She's been in residence at Green Lawn all winter, and has been seen by hundreds of people. You can walk right under her perch, and she'll not even bother to give you a glance.

We managed to work some other sights into the shoot, including this massive bur oak, Quercus macrocarpa. About 90% of all of Ohio's native trees can be found in Green Lawn, which is also considered an arboretum. This oak is my favorite of all of the giant trees in the cemetery, of which there are many. It's got a gargantuan pillar of a trunk, and anastomoses into an elegant snarl of branches that form a canopy the size of a large building. Green Lawn was founded in 1848; this tree is considerably older.

Gelber provides a size scale to the monstrous bur oak.

But back to our primary quarry, the Merlin, seen here giving your blogger a haughty stare. When Ben, Buzz and I arrived at the scene, no Merlins were in evidence (as many as three - one female and two males - frequent the cemetery). They have a favored section of the cemetery, and more often than not can be found loafing on conspicuous treetop snags. Of course, when you really want 'em, they're nowhere to be found. So we launched into another story, but I was quite disappointed that we couldn't produce one of the exciting little falcons.

I was in mid-sentence, bloviating about something, when I saw the Merlin torpedoing through the trees. Yes! She shot to the top of her lofty sycamore snag, and Buzz whipped the camera around and locked her in. Beautiful, now we had our story and the subject was cooperating, albeit at a distance.

To our astonishment, Mrs. Merlin suddenly dropped from her perch and came sailing right at us. As if in slow motion, she flutter-glided a mere 20 feet over our heads, and swooped up onto a branch only 30 feet away. She was clearly checking us out; I could see her cocking her head sideways to better scope us out as she soared overhead. Once on the branch, she cast a few more disdainful looks our way, then set about grooming herself. This was just too cool - FAR better than I could have hoped for! Buzz got some great footage of her in flight, and once she was perched on the nearby branch he was frame-filling her.

Our fearless little Prima Donna poses for the camera. She was still there when we left. It may be that she is an attention-hound, saw the camera and the newsman, and knew a limelight opportunity when she saw one. More likely, she is starting to feel territorial. Merlins have overwintered in Green Lawn Cemetery for about five years now, and for the last two or three winters there has also been an adult male present. I think it's just a matter of time before they nest in the cemetery, and this girl may have been a bit feistier than normal because she is plotting out a household somewhere nearby.

John Pogacnik documented the first modern nesting of Merlin in Ohio in 2009, in Lake County. The following year, Danielle McCament found a nest in the middle of the city of Mt. Vernon, in Knox County. I think Green Lawn will soon be added to the registry of Merlin nesting sites.

If you'd like to read a bit more about these interesting little falcons, HERE is a brief general interest article I wrote about them a few years back. For today's NBC4 video of today's Merlin adventure, CLICK HERE.

Thanks to Ben Gelber and NBC4 for their efforts to bring natural history to a wide audience. And major props to this Diva of a falconiform. I hope her TV appearance nets some new nature enthusiasts.

A blizzard of gulls!

 Photo: Chuck Slusarczyk, Jr.

A seemingly impenetrable thicket of gulls fills the air over Lorain Harbor. Lorain is a Lake Erie port city not far west of Cleveland, and is a legendary site for gull-watchers. As of late, Lorain has been especially dense with gulls, and Chuck Slusarczyk was there today, camera in tow. When I saw Chuck's amazing series of photos I had to beg permission to share them. Larophile (gull fanatic) or not, I think you'll be impressed!

I made this photo of the Lorain Harbor several years ago, while helping on an aerial waterbird survey. The Black River enters Lake Erie here, and wherever large rivers confluence with the lake, large numbers of ducks and gulls often congregate. The interaction of river and lake seems to supercharge prey populations such as shiners and other small fish, and the birds are there to feast on the bounty.

Lake Erie is world class when it comes to gulls. An incredible twenty species have been found in Ohio's Lake Erie waters thus far, and there'll be more. We'll eventually get an indisputable Slaty-backed Gull, and there are other potential first state record candidates. The most recent addition to our slate of gulls is the famous Black-tailed Gull, which is still present.

 Photo: Chuck Slusarczyk, Jr.

When you arrive at Lorain Harbor and it looks like this, you know the gulling will be good. Back in the day, we called this area the "hot waters", as a nearby now decommisioned power plant piped warm water into the lake. No matter how cold and ice-choked Lake Erie got, the harbor always remained open.

 Photo: Chuck Slusarczyk, Jr.

An obvious challenge when tens of thousands of gulls are milling around in one harbor is picking out the goodies. This is the sort of challenge that Larophiles live for. The vast majority of gulls currently at Lorain are Ring-billed Gulls, which under most circumstances is the most frequent gull in Ohio. Herring Gulls are a distant second right now, although in tough, frigid winters they can dominate (the lake is completely ice-free this winter). Between these two species, we've got 99% of the gull biomass at this season. So you'll have to have a trained eye to pick out the rarities.

Lorain certainly does attract the uncommon gulls, and mega-rarities. This is the site that hosted our only Ohio record of Heermann's Gull, back in the winters of 1980, and 1981. Same bird, almost certainly, that liked Lorain so much it had to come back.

 Photo: Chuck Slusarczyk, Jr.

An ideal situation for picking through this many gulls is to have them all peacefully loafing on placid waters, where one can scope through the flocks looking for non-Herring/Ring-billed birds. A collective groan often goes up from observers when something spooks the horde, and all of the birds reshuffle themselves. If you had something good, say an Iceland Gull, and were pointing it out to people, you'll have your work cut out refinding it.

 Photo: Chuck Slusarczyk, Jr.

Forgetting about needle-in-the-haystack rarity-seeking for a second, to me one of the great pleasures of birding gull-choked harbors is the sheer ambience created by this many birds. The collective din of so many large gulls bugling their yelping wails, fighting, stealing fish, and gracefully performing all manner of aeronautics is a sight to behold.

 Photo: Chuck Slusarczyk, Jr.

But of course it is the rare and uncommon that keep birders eye-balling the gray and white masses, and here Chuck has lensed one of the uncommon species. It's an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull, easily standing out from the Ring-billeds and Herrings by its much darker charcoal-colored mantle. Lesser Black-backeds used to be a big deal when I first began making trips to The Lake. The first Ohio record dates to 1977, and that bird was a huge deal. This European species has increased tremendously in North America in the intervening years, and now small numbers are to be expected at gull hotspots along Lake Erie.

Photo: Chuck Slusarczyk, Jr.

Cool photo showing the beautiful sooty mantle of the Lesser Black-backed Gull as it plunges for a gizzard shad or some such tasty morsel.

In recent days Lorain has hosted Great Black-backed Gull, Glaucous Gull, Iceland Gull, Thayer's Gull, Bonaparte's Gull, and at least two California Gulls, in addition to the aforementioned species. I wouldn't be surprised if someone turns up a Mew Gull or some other really rare larid.

Should you get the chance, visit the gullapalooza at Lorain while the getting is good. Thanks a million to Chck Slusarczyk for sharing his amazing photos!

Cecropia cocoon

On a recent foray in search of winter birds, I found myself crashing through a dense thicket of gray dogwood, various well-thorned Rubus blackberries, and sundry other saplings and shrubs. I didn't produce any exciting avifauna during my brush wading, but the effort was time well spent. At one point I paused to look and listen, and there, nearly in front of my face, was the cocoon of a cecropia moth!

The cecropia, Hyalophora cecropia, is one of our silkmoths and every aspect of their life cycle is of great interest. Excepting the eggs, their cocoons are the least conspicuous phase of this moth's four-part life cycle. It's a hefty cocoon, but looks just like a leaf that has fallen and draped itself over a twig.

I was sorely tempted to carefully open it to photo-document the pupa within, but decided against it. Better to leave well enough alone and not hinder the stunning transformation that will take place this spring. Although the cocoon looks like nothing more than a dead leaf, its contents are very much alive albeit in a state of suspension for the winter. However, Nina of Nature Remains did successfully reveal the contents of a cecropia cocoon, photo-document the whole thing, and put it back together and eventually hatched the moth. See that spread HERE.

Photo: Shawn Hanrahan, Wiki Commons 

Few people notice the eggs of the cecropia, which are laid on one of the myriad woody plants that serve as host plants. The eggs aren't there long - in short order tiny first instar caterpillars will hatch.

Photo: Michael Hodge, Wiki Commons

By the time the caterpillars have molted into their fifth and final instar, they have become behemoths adorned with spiky clubs. A mature cecropia cat is an eating machine, and stuffs itself with foliage to prepare for the long winter's siesta in its cocoon.

 Photo: Tom Peterson, Wiki Commons

Finally, if all goes well and none of the moth's numerous predators takes it out at some early stage, a gorgeous moth will emerge. The cecropia is the largest moth species that commonly occurs in North America and an adult is an unforgettable sight. Last year seemed to be a good year for cecropias in Ohio, and I fielded several queries about them from people who had never seen one. In every case, these cecropia newbies were floored by the size of the moth, and typically described them as the size of a bird or bat. Big females can have a wing spread that spans over 6 inches!

Silkmoths have no functional mouthparts, and live only to mate and produce eggs. Thus, the ultimate phase of this complex life cycle, the moth, lives for only a week or so.

American Alligator

An American Alligator, Alligator mississippiensis, cruises slowly down a blackwater canal in southern Georgia's Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.

This post is a bit of a blast from the post - from my November 2011 trip to the Okefenokee. I had intended to share some gator photos shortly after the trip, but a crush of other subjects nearly relegated the giant reptiles to the scrap bin.

There are several thousand alligators in the Okefenokee's 438,000 acres, and if you visit, you're almost sure to see some. This stegosaurus-tailed bruiser was hauled out on a muddy embankment, and gave us his best repilian grin as we slowly cruised by in our swamp boat.

This old boy was in repose along a road, and apparently some fool tossed a pebble on its head. A "sleeping" gator looks dead and still as stone, but only an idiot would closely approach one. While attacks on people are very rare, only Darwin Award candidates test their luck.

An exceptionally massive old male can reach 14 feet in length and weigh half a ton. In spite of their bulk, big gators can move with astonishing speed, and become scaly Esther Williams' when in the water. They'll occasionally attempt to snap perched birds from limbs overhanging the water, and can nearly lunge free of the water. There is a great story of an Okefenokee swampman who was cruising a canal in his motorized johnboat when he rounded a bend only to meet a big gator that was hotfooting it right at his boat. The spooked reptile leapt free of the water and right into the guy's boat! After a wild tussle the boatman managed to lever it over the side with a pole, nearly capsizing in the process. He got a cool story out of that encounter!

Ohio Rules the Roost!

A young Eastern Bluebird, Sialia sialis, peers from its abode. Someone kindly made and placed this nest box, to the benefit of these Vinton County bluebirds.

One of the many valuable projects spearheaded by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is Project NestWatch. Participants in this program register nests with the Lab, thus helping to create a database of North America's nesting avifauna. The NestWatch e-newsletter just arrived today, and Ohioans can be proud.

This is the top 20 list - the species for which the most nests were reported. The Eastern Bluebird is Numero Uno and no surprise there. People love these gentle little thrushes, and have placed thousands and thousands of next boxes for them. And monitor the boxes diligently. I see the dastardly House Sparrow (one of my favorite birds, Shhh, don't tell anyone) checks in at #6. I suspect a good chunk of those sparrow nests were in boxes built for bluebirds and other far more desirable native species.

This chart lists the top 20 states in regards to nest submissions, and looky there! Ohio is smack on top of the pyramid! The Buckeye State probably doesn't get its due in terms of landscape diversity, and the sheer number of natural history enthusiasts that are doing wonderful things within our borders. Thus, it's immensely pleasing to see a stat like this.

Here we have the nuts and bolts of who is doing what and where. Ohio takes five of the twenty slots, including #1. I suspect that most of those 721 nests that were submitted by the Ohio Bluebird Society - Delaware Chapter were built and placed by Dick Tuttle, a local legend and major frind of the bluebird, Tree Swallow, and other cavity-nesting songbirds.

Holden Arboretum, a national and local treasure, is also high on the list. If you haven't visited Holden, be sure and get there soon. The place is utterly spectacular. Darlene Sillick, who is involved with the aforementioned Tuttle and the Delaware Bird Club has contributed an impressive number of nests.

And Charlie Bombaci, setting all kinds of records in the world of Prothonotary Warbler nest box trails. Where would the Golden Swamp Warblers be without Charlie, at least in central Ohio? He slots in at #10 and is cited for 160 nests, and I bet most of them are of our only eastern cavity-nesting warbler. Most of these nests are probably in boxes that Charlie placed for the birds at Hoover Reservoir, just north of Columbus.

I made the above video a few springs back, of a Prothonotary Warbler investigating a natural cavity along the bird trail at Magee Marsh Wildlife Area. It offers a taste of the spring that will be on us before we know it, and a nice look at the species that Bombaci has done so much to help. Who wouldn't want more Golden Swamp Warblers?

The Undertaker in action

Photo: Hallie Mason

Hallie Mason, who lives in the northeastern portion of Ohio, saw my last post on the American burying beetle and sent along this photo. She walked out of her house to see this epic struggle taking place in her driveway. We should all be so lucky!

It's another species of burying beetle, and it looks like a roundneck sexton beetle, Nicrophorus orbicollis. I wrote about those last fall, HERE. The beetle has found an expired eastern mole and is grappling with the corpse in an effort to transport it to a suitable burial ground. Hallie reports: "I watched him valiantly move the carcass toward an area of dirt.  I finally went to bed and when I arose the next day, there was no sign of either rodent or insect."

Keep in mind the mole probably weighed 50 grams or so - dozens of times more than the beetle! In the strength department, one of these bugs makes Arnold Schwarzenegger at his prime look like an anemic Richard Simmons. Proportionately, a burying beetle is far stronger than that, actually. For one of us to match the mole-toting feat, we'd probably have to do something like toss a full-sized telephone pole over each shoulder and run a hundred yard dash.

Thanks to Hallie for sharing her photo and story!