The Mackinac Bridge

 

As always, click the photo to enlarge

The Mackinac Bridge, as seen the night of July 8, 2026, from the Upper Peninsula. The famous Michigan bridge is a marvel of human engineering. It spans the Straits of Mackinac (mak-in-aw) which separate lakes Michigan and Huron and connects the Upper and Lower peninsulas.

Opened on November 1, 1957, the bridge is five miles long, and those twin towers are 552 feet tall. The straits regularly experience gale force winds, and the center lanes are an open grid of steel mesh to allow air flow through and minimize lift of the deck during gales. The center span can laterally shift a remarkable 35 feet during high winds.

The Mackinac Bridge Authority offers a driver's assistance program, as some drivers are too frightened to drive across (motorcycles, too). I do not know what the drivers do - hide in the trunk? 

Looking for an exciting job? All of those lights on the cables (42 thousand miles of wire in the main cables) are replaced by hand. Workers (steeplejacks) climb the cables to reach the fixtures.

I've been across this bridge many times, and it never grows old. If you want to walk across, the bridge is closed every Labor Day, and anyone that wants to walk across can do so.

PHOTO NOTE: I think the bridge photographs better at night, and not just because the lights are visible and create a cool effect. During the day, big as it is, the bridge can get a bit lost in the mass of water around it. Probably, with certain early morning or late day lighting it could look great, but I've not yet had the fortune to be there at such times. But the Big Mac certainly pops at night.

A wide-angle, such as my go-to Canon 16-35mm f/4, is too wide in my opinion. Even at full zoom, it leaves too much blank water space around the bridge. This is a case where a moderate-range zoom lens is great, and I used my 70-200mm f/2.8 for this shot. I zoomed a bit - to 145mm - to cut off much of the long approach on the left that is on a built-up earthen berm rather than a proper bridge (even though it counts as part of the bridge). Once the camera rig is set up, it is just a matter of zooming and composing to position the bridge so that it looks good to you.

A tripod is an absolute must in order to photograph the Mackinac Bridge properly, in my view. Especially at night, due to the long exposure that will be required. I made this photo at f/22 (lots of depth of field), and ISO 400 (a low ISO is always desirable for clean files, and I could have gone even lower. But the R5 handles higher ISO's very well, and 400 is hardly a high ISO). The shutter speed was a turtle-like VERY slow 4 seconds. But who cares about that - shutter speed is essentially irrelevant if your camera is on a stable platform (tripod) and the subject is not moving.

As almost always when making such long exposure images, I use the two-second timer delay that is built into the camera's drive mode menu. Once I activate the shutter button, I move away from the rig while the camera beep beep beeps... and two seconds later the shot is fired. That ensures that the operator can't accidentally wiggle the rig while depressing the shutter.

Northern Cardinals feeding their offspring

I've been remiss in posting this video I made of the Northern Cardinals that had a nest less than three feet from my kitchen window. I could peek around the blind and watch activities - and make photos and videos - at close range without the birds knowing that I was there. 

While the female did all of the nest construction work, and egg incubation, the male was very supportive and an active participant. He would bring her food when she was on the eggs and constantly sing to her. Female cardinals sing very well, and she would frequently duet with him.

When the chick hatched - there was only one - he would help feed it, as the following video shows. This would certainly be a second nesting, given the lateness of the season, and second broods can be smaller than the preceding brood. But a Brown-headed Cowbird laid an egg in this nest shortly after the first cardinal egg appeared. The cowbird egg somehow disappeared, but that may have dissuaded the female cardinal from laying more.

I had to leave for a trip to northern Michigan about 5-6 days before the young cardinal would be due to leave the nest, and it was gone by the time that I returned. Hopefully the little fellow/girl is doing well. I will keep my eyes open for it.

UPDATE: The little fellow is doing fine. I glanced out the window a bit ago, to see the adult female cardinal with a big beetle in her bill. I knew she'd lead me to the little guy, and she did. He's in the same trumpet-creeper liana where the nest is, well concealed in its foliage. Both adults are delivering food to him, and all looks good!

Anyway, enjoy the video (sorry for the mediocre quality, the uploaded version is fairly low-resolution).

COPYRIGHT ©Jim McCormac. Shot on June 29, 2026, with my iPhone 14. Worthington, Ohio.

 

A northern bog

As always, click the photo to enlarge

We just got back from an epic week-long trip through northern Michigan, from the jack pine plains of between Grayling and Mio to the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Lots of interesting stuff and I'll probably be sharing some more of it here.

Here's a few photos of a gorgeous tamarack bog near Grayling in Oscoda County, from this morning. This one is far along in ecological succession and no longer has open water. The pale whitish (glaucous) plants in the foreground of the first image are Bog Rosemary (Andromeda glaucophylla). It was once found in five NE counties in Ohio but is now considered extirpated. The leafy green shrublet with it is Leatherleaf (Chamaedaphne calyculata). 

This scene is dominated by Virginia Chain Fern (Woodwardia virginica [perhaps now best placed in the genus Anchistea]). The robust fern is common in such places.

More to follow...

Update on my nesting Northern Cardinals

An update on the cardinals nesting less than three feet from my kitchen window. Her lone egg hatched this morning, and in this photo (taken from my kitchen window this morning) the female is brooding the lone chick. While a clutch of two eggs is apparently not that unusual, at least for second nestings, one egg is. However, I think a cowbird may be the reason. I saw a female cowbird go to the nest - first time I've ever caught one in the act - but she didn't drop an egg then, as the cardinal had not yet laid any eggs.

However, at some point, probably after the cardinal laid her second egg, it returned. Cowbirds are known to shove a host species' egg from the nest and replace it with their own. That would have left one cardinal egg. However, something happened to the cowbird's egg, and it somehow disappeared. Hopefully the cardinal chick will now flourish.

This has been very interesting to watch at less than arm's length. While she did all the brooding, the male was quite attentive and brought her food. He also sings to her constantly, often from right above the nest. Female cardinals sing very well, and she would duet back and forth with him while incubating her egg. Now that the chick has popped out, he will be an equal partner in feeding it. While adult cardinals are primarily vegan, they feed nestlings an insect-rich diet - babies need the protein to grow. I saw both adults feeding the baby masticated insects this morning, even though it is a brand-new hatchling.

I live on a typical suburban lot, just over one-third of an acre. But my yard is awash in native flora - this nest is in a trumpet-creeper liana - and there are lots of shrubs and trees. It is an oasis in a sea of lawns mowed in diamond patterns that are overly treated by Chem-lawn and filled with nonnative species in overly manicured gardens. Thus far this year, in addition to the cardinals, I have hosted nesting Downy Woodpeckers, Blue Jays, Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmouse (probably), House Wrens, Carolina Wrens, Gray Catbirds, Eastern Bluebirds, American Robins (probably), Song Sparrows, Eastern Towhees (probably), and possibly other species. And scores of other species, including migrants and other species nesting elsewhere locally, use my yard frequently.

North Carolina's famous "vertical bog"

In mid-July of last year, I was fortunate indeed to get to attend the 2025 Cullowhee Native Plant Conference, which began about 40 years ago. It is a humdinger of a natural history conference, one of the best that I have been to. I was there to speak about moths and their over-sized role in food chains, based on THIS BOOK.

Many experienced botanists attend this conference, and it wasn't long after arrival that I started hearing about the "vertical bog" or "hanging fen". It's only an hour or so away from the conference site, right along the Blue Ridge Parkway and near the highest elevations to be found in the area. Following the conference, I beat feet up into the mountains.

This marker isn't too far from the vertical bog. We're over a mile high at this point.

Here's the viewscape from the vicinity of the vertical bog. Dramatic scenery at every turn, and scads of interesting plants.

The vertical bog in all its glory. I prefer the term hanging fen, as that's what this interesting ecosystem is. Constantly flowing groundwater creates constant moisture, and alkaline conditions. Those rocks are full of interesting plants, including many species that an Ohioan fen enthusiast would be familiar with.

Another view of the fen. This spot made for fascinating botanizing, and I highly recommend a stop if you're ever in the area.

It didn't take long to spot familiar fen plants from the Midwest, such as this Grass-of-parnassus (Parnassia glauca). I wish this place were closer, as it would be interesting to visit it at different times throughout the growing season.

False Asphodel (Triantha glutinosa) was thriving on the seepy cliff face. This interesting lily was recently documented as being truly carnivorous. Its upper stem is very glutinous/sticky, and small insects adhere to it, die, and their soft parts are digested by the plant.

Another better-known botanical carnivore is also common here, the Round-leaved Sundew (Drosera rotundifolia).

A number of beautiful Club-spurred Orchids (Platanthera clavellata) grew in damp mossy spots. I was lucky to be there when this species was in full flower. Like many (most? all?) Platanthera orchids, this one is moth pollinated. Each flower is appendaged with an elongate nectar spur. Moths are probably the only pollinators that can a) hover in place in front of the flowers (which lack landing pads), and b) have proboscises long enough to plumb the depths of the nectar spur and in the process pollinate the flowers.

I was pleased indeed to see this small member of the St. John's-wort family (Clusiaceae). It
is the Canada St. John's-wort (Hypericum canadense) which is endangered in Ohio. It was only the 3rd or 4th time I had clapped eyes on this species.

This little shrubby St. John's-wort formed patches of showy ground cover, and it was completely alien to me. It turns out to be Appalachian St. John's-wort (Hypericum buckleyi). This species is a true rarity and extremely localized. It occurs in a smattering of sites in only eight counties, high in the mountains, where North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia meet.

One last species from my all too brief excursion, Michaux's Saxifrage (Micranthes michauxii), which was another "life" plant for me. This one, while not as rare and local as the previous Appalachian St. John's-wort, is largely limited to the same Appalachian highlands, although the delicate little saxifrage extends north into Virginia.

I'll look forward to another visit here someday, hopefully in July when there would be a whole new cast of botanical characters to ogle.

How to rank the world's most painful insect stings

 

Bald-faced hornets pack a stinging punch/Jim McCormac

How to rank the world's most painful insect stings

Columbus Dispatch

June 21, 2026

NATURE

Jim McCormac

While pain can be somewhat of an abstract thing, those of us who have been stung by a bald-faced hornet, such as the one pictured with this column, know that it hurts. I’ve been stung by the burly hornets several times. The shock is instant and electric.

One time, I came across one of their football-sized paper nests hanging at eye level in a tree. Ah, thought I – a rare chance to photograph these interesting hornets at close range. Normally, the big nests are much higher in trees. I crept ever closer, firing away at the insects as they came and went.

Suddenly – WHAM! An intense pain! A hornet had stung me on the hand in a drive-by stinging. I quickly retreated to my vehicle but soon grew irritated that a bunch of insects made me back down. Back I went, moving ever closer, capturing the hornets as they entered and exited the nest.

WHAM! Another electric shock by another drive-by stinger and I decided to leave them be. The warriors’ powerful venom had served its purpose – driving off potential enemies.

Incredibly, the sting of the bald-faced hornet is only Level 2 out of 4 (4 being the most painful) on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. Here’s how the index’s author, Justin Schmidt, describes the sting of this hornet: “Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.”

If a 2 is equivalent to having your hand smashed in a door, what the heck would a Level 3 or 4 feel like?! We shall see.

Schmidt (1947-2023) was an academic entomologist who specialized in the order of insects known as Hymenoptera. Ants, bees, sawflies and wasps make up its ranks, and as many of us know, the females of many species can sting, often inflicting significant pain.

Ever the analytical academic, Schmidt wanted to objectively measure this pain, and rate it by species. And what better way to do so than to intentionally get stung by as many bees, wasps and their allies as possible, then place the pain levels somewhere on a scale from 1 to 4. During his long career, Schmidt was stung over 1,000 times, by approximately 100 species of Hymenoptera. That’s dedication.

Level 1’s are the mildest stings, such as from tiny bees known as sweat bees. Many species occur in Ohio, and they are important pollinators. Schmidt’s description of a typical sweat bee sting: “Light and ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.”

Some Level 1’s, like the great black wasp, look ferocious but pack no punch. Here’s Schmidt’s sting assessment: “Simple and presumptuous. Your younger sibling just nipped at your pinkie finger.”

The sting pain increases dramatically with each level, as in the Level 2 bald-faced hornet mentioned above. Another common Level 2 in Ohio are western yellowjackets. They’re the ones that can put picnickers in a tizzy when they try to drink from soda cans.

Schmidt: “Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W.C Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.”

I am unaware of any Level 3 or 4 stinging insects in Ohio, and for that, I suppose we can be grateful. We do have an interesting and beautiful species of velvet ant (a type of wasp) known as the “cow killer.” That sounds ominous but is the stuff of urban legend. Schmidt only rated its sting a 1.5.

A western species, Klug’s velvet ant, is a legitimate 3, and Schmidt describes its sting thusly: “Explosive and long-lasting, you sound insane as you scream. Hot oil from the deep fryer spilling all over your hand.”

How could a sting get any worse than that?! Only a handful of species achieves Level 4, including the tarantula hawks of the southern and southwest U.S., the bullet ants of the tropics and the warrior wasp of California and South America.

Here’s Schmidt’s flowery prose regarding a tarantula hawk sting: ”Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair dryer has just been dropped into your bubble bath.”

I have seen many bullet ants in the Central American tropics, and we always alert the group to their presence, and with good reason, once one reads Schmidt’s description of their sting: “Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail embedded in your heel.”

Fortunately for us, most stinging insects do not sting unless there is no other resort. The production of venom is biologically costly, and it does not behoove them to waste it. And unless one has dangerous anaphylactic reactions to stings, none of the Ohio stingers are any more than a mild, short-term annoyance.

Next time a yellowjacket nails you, be grateful it wasn’t a bullet ant or tarantula hawk.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

A great black wasp is all bark and no bite/Jim McCormac

Dickcissel, along with a few photo notes

 

A Dickcissel, freshly landed in a Canada wild lettuce, which served as one of several regular singing perches for the little cardinalid (this species is in the same family as the familiar Northern Cardinal).

In this next shot, he has summited the plant and is delivering his mechanical-sounding onomatopoeic song: dik-dik-cis-cis-cis!

Like so many other denizens of the Great Plains prairies, Dickcissels reach the eastern limits of their breeding range in Ohio and occur in varying numbers each year.
Ross County, Ohio, June 21, 2026.

PHOTO NOTE: More reach is a very desirable thing when it comes to bird photography, and to that end I acquired Canon's amazing (but pricey) EF 800mm f/5.6 prime lens about a decade ago. This lens has been worth its weight in gold and enabled me to obtain scores of shots that I could not have gotten with a lesser lens. It has its detriments, I suppose, other than price, the main one being its weight. The 800 weighs about 10 pounds. No one is going to be handholding this beast for long, so a very stout tripod is a must. I use a Gitzo, along with a Wemberly head. That combo probably adds five or so additional pounds. Once one is used to carrying this rig, it isn't a big deal, though, and I routinely cover serious ground on foot with it.

For these shots, I used Canon's 1.4x teleconverter, which gives the lens a whopping 1120mm of reach. You can be a long way from your subject and still get high-quality keepers. But it comes with a cost: the loss of one stop (the lens' base aperture goes from f/5.6 to f/8). So, plenty of light is desirable, if not a must, when using this combination. And it doesn't work football field length miracles, but it does allow me to be far enough away from my subjects that they often ignore me and behave naturally, which is what I want. Also, the further one is from the subject, the harder it becomes to get tack-sharp images. The teleconverter also can create more softness to the subject, which is exacerbated the further away one is.

I'd love to play with Canon's new RF-mount f/8 1200mm lens, but then I'd surely want it. And I might have to sell my vehicle to do so. It costs about $23,000, new. I cannot imagine having an additional 400mm in reach beyond the base 800mm in one lens, and if the 1200 is like all other Canon telephotos, I am sure that it is crazy sharp - sharper than my 800 + 1.4x converter = 11200mm combo is.

Rose Pogonia, a beautiful orchid, and two photographic tactics to document it

 

Brown's Lake Bog, a relict kettle bog in Wayne County, Ohio. It is owned by the Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. There isn't much open water left. The natural process of ecological succession dooms these interesting habitats eventually. Its ultimate fate is to become forest, following the shrubby succession that we see in the foreground. The treelet at the front left is one of our most interesting and beautiful bog plants, Poison Sumac (Toxicodendron vernix). Were it not infused with urushiol, the same itchy substance in Poison Ivy, I have little doubt that this sumac would be sold in the nursery trade.

I first saw this place probably 30+ years ago, and it's probably been 15-20 years since I last visited. Shauna and I made the trip up last Monday, June 15. There's lots of rare plants in this bog - indeed, nearly everything in Brown's Lake Bog is rare, even if not formally state-listed as is the protagonist of this post.

As always, click the photo to enlarge.

Mid-June is the time to catch Rose Pogonia (Pogonia ophioglossoides) at the peak of its glory. The little orchid is listed as threatened by the Ohio DNR's Division of Natural Areas, the Department's botanical and ecological agency. There are probably hundreds of these orchids blooming in a good year.

We were there literally at the crack of dawn, when the light is probably best for botanical photography. A good thing, too, as it became a bright sunny day and those are terrible conditions for plant photography, except at the very beginning or end of the day.

The only tricks to making the shot above were 1) going prostrate on the boardwalk to get on my subject's level (very important in plant photography) and 2) finding a subject largely free of immediate background subjects that would create a cluttered look and minimize the focus on my target. I was - as nearly always these days - using my Canon R5. The lens is Canon's amazing 180mm f/3.5 macro, possibly the sharpest lens Canon has ever made. My settings were f/11, ISO 200, and 1/13 second exposure.

The shutter speed may seem slow, and it probably wouldn't work if one was handholding the camera. It'd be hard to impossible to get sharp images. Especially with the old, discontinued 180mm macro lens, which is heavy and lacks image stabilization. But unless I am using flash with this setup, and that's primarily for insects, I almost always work this rig off of a tripod. That's what I did here, using my tiny Oben CIT-1000 tripod. When its legs are splayed out, the tripod is flat on the ground, and your camera rig isn't much higher

Once I have a composition that I like, I fire away using the camera's two-second timer delay feature. That way, nothing is touching the camera when it fires, eliminating any possible human-caused movement. Of course, if the plant moves due to breezes, the shot will not be sharp. That's another reason to be afield very early, when wind is often absent or far less than it might be as the day progresses.

This is the same plant as above but using black velvet. This technique can be overdone, but it is cool on special occasions such as this. I use 8.5 x 11-inch sheets of black velvet with sticky backs. I glue them to cardboard of the same dimensions, for rigidity. Then merely hold or otherwise place the velvet behind the subject, which can create a dramatic visual effect as well as eliminate any and all background distractions while doing no harm to the plants.

Settings will always vary from the same shot without the velvet, due to changes in how the camera's sensor interprets the light with and without the velvet. In general, I prefer wider apertures with plants - anywhere from f/4 to f/7.1, typically - but velvet allows for the use of narrow apertures as there is no background clutter that would create a lot of undesirable mess behind the subject if very small apertures were used.

For this shot, I chose f/16 while keeping the ISO at 200. This dropped the shutter speed to a very slow 1/6 second, but who cares what the shutter speed is as long as the subject isn't moving. Shutter speed, at least under good plant photography conditions, is the least important setting in my opinion. I have taken many plant shots at multi-second exposures (up to 10 seconds!) and they are tack sharp. Wind, even mild breezes, is not the plant photographer's friend and windless periods are the best time to shoot plants.

Plant photography would seem easy on its face, as they don't move. It is certainly easier than shooting a Chimney Swift in flight, or a hummingbird darting around a flower patch. Nonetheless, making good botanical imagery involves some patience, thought, and special camera techniques.

House Centipede

 

Here's my CCC (Cute Cuddly Critter) of the week. I found this House Centipede (Scutigera coleoptrata) in my garage the other night, and it is probably the largest one that I've seen. At least four inches in length, counting the legs. It's hard to tell which end is which, but in the full body shot, the head is at the bottom. In the other photo, we're looking right into its face, and you can see the venom claws.

This species is endemic to the Mediterranean region but now occurs nearly worldwide and is typically associated with houses and other such structures. Centipedes are venomous and some species can issue nasty bites, but not this one. It does have a venom gland and injects venom into prey via its forcipules (venom claws), but it isn't harmful to people - if they can even penetrate skin, although this big boy might be able to. But they are nothing to worry about, although centipedes certainly wig some people out.

With some 15 sets of legs, a House Centipedes glides like a living feather across the walls. One at full tilt can cover nearly 1.5 feet a second! So, when you're awakened by the soft brush of a feather on your cheek, only to discover it is one of these centipedes, have no fear - it can't hurt you And they are working to rid your house of various insects and spiders.

As always, click the image to enlarge

Birds of Cedar Bog: talk, followed by a tour of the bog

On Saturday, June 20, I am giving a presentation on the breeding birds of Cedar Bog, followed by a trip around the bog's (actually a fen) boardwalk. The event starts at 9 am and is over around noon. My presentation will be geared around the breeding species of the bog - a very diverse assemblage for a 450-acre site.

While the walk may veer into a natural history free-for-all - there is so much interesting ecology, rare plant species, and unusual animal life such as skinks, endangered Elfin Skimmer dragonflies, and much more - I will do my best to prioritize birds. It should be a blast, and we will see lots of stuff.

I believe it is $5.00 per adult, $4.00 for children, and kids 5 and under are free. Hope to see you there, and complete details are RIGHT HERE.

Northern Cardinal nest in backyard

 

This Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) has shown great taste in selecting a particularly showy spot: a thick liana of Trumper-creeper (Campsis radicans) vines only about two feet from my kitchen window. I should say "cardinals" as even though the female does all of the work regarding nest construction, the male assists with site selection, and feeds her while she is engaged in construction.

Here she is, busily weaving together her nest. This shot was made yesterday morning (June 11, 2026), and it's been about a week since I first noticed the commencement of construction. The nest appears to be nearly complete. While the nest is in a difficult area to avoid regular disturbances, I will do everything within my power to see that they have success.

While cardinal nests don't look like much at a glance, they are more complex than it appears. There are four distinct layers: a very rough twiggy outer layer, a loose leafy zone, grapevine strips, and a soft inner bowl of fine grasses. Interestingly, the rough-looking cup is not directly anchored to the branchy substrate, it is more or less just wedged into place.

As cardinals can nest quite early in spring, I imagine this is a second nesting.

A male Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater) performs his "Dracula" courtship display to a seemingly disinterested female. Cowbirds must be given credit for their interesting courtships, and this activity, if successful, leads to the production of cowbird eggs.

An ever-vigilant female cowbird, scanning her surroundings for potential host nests. As I am sure you know, cowbirds are parasitic in that the female dumps an egg(s) in host nests of unrelated species. Many species can serve as hosts, and the Northern Cardinal is a common victim/host.

Today, I was out back with a contractor doing some work for me, and we were about 30 feet from the nest. Suddenly a female cowbird flew in and landed on the ground, perhaps 10 feet from the nest. She then walked over to the base of the Trumpet-creeper vine and flew up to the nest. She didn't stay long, and after her departure I took a quick look within and she had not laid an egg. However, the cardinal has not yet laid any eggs, and as I understand it cowbirds mostly dump their egg (sometimes multiples) in nests that already have host eggs. My hunch is that she'll be back after some cardinal eggs appear.

This may be a case in which I will feel the need to intervene. While Brown-headed Cowbirds are not "invasive" or "nonnative" they have expanded their range tremendously. Why? Us. People. Cowbirds originally were tightly tied to bison herds, which they stayed with and depended upon for food. The cowbirds feed on insects and other fare disturbed by the bison's feet. One still sees this behavior, although cows are now the herding animals that they follow. When we opened up the eastern deciduous forest region, cowbirds aggressively pioneered new and favorable habitats and learned to exploit cattle.

As bison herds are quite nomadic and often not in one place for extended periods, the cowbirds evolved their nest parasitism habits. This freed the adult birds from the lengthy process of parental care. Just let someone else do the dirty work for you. Unfortunately, cowbirds are hard on their hosts. The young cowbirds often get a jumpstart on host species and outcompete the rightful young. While perhaps playing god a bit, I want "my" cardinals to have the greatest possible chance of successful reproduction. 

Learn about the hairy-tailed mole hiding in Ohio woods

 

The bizarre hairy-tailed mole, digger extraordinaire/Jim McCormac

Learn about the hairy-tailed mole hiding in Ohio woods

Columbus Dispatch

June 7, 2026

NATURE

Jim McCormac

Insofar as I am aware, this is the first time that the hairy-tailed mole has gotten ink in the Columbus Dispatch. Not surprising, given the strange mammal’s predilection for subterranean haunts.

Indeed, I would be surprised if many readers are aware that this odd beast even exists. There are three species of moles in Ohio, and only the common and widespread eastern mole is known to most. This is the little mammal that tunnels in your yard, leaving telltale ridges of dirt in its wake.

Eastern moles prefer open country, while the protagonist of this column, the hairy-tailed mole, favors wooded habitats. While inspecting mole tails is not perhaps the easiest task, these two species are easily separated by this feature. One has a furred tail; the other does not.

The holy grail for mole-seekers is the utterly bizarre star-nosed mole. This alien-looking creature looks like a sea anemone was welded to the tip of its snout. It occurs primarily in the northeast corner of Ohio and favors wet sites.

When I finally clap eyes on one, it’ll make the news, at least in this publication. Hairy-tailed moles are common in appropriate habitats, and that means they are most frequent in eastern Ohio where forests are still commonplace. It probably is in larger forested tracts in central Ohio, such as Blendon Woods and Highbanks metro parks.

Prior to European settlement, the hairy-tailed mole was certainly the most common mole in the state, as Ohio was about 95% woodland in those days. While I would like to think I am a seasoned outdoorsman, natural philosopher and wildlife photographer with many decades of experience, I can report that finding and photographing a mole is not a simple task. And regarding the image that accompanies this column, I cheated a bit.

Moles have extremely high metabolisms and occasionally seem to just detonate. Three times now, I have come across dead hairy-tailed moles that were fresh as could be, laying on the ground. Without benefit of an autopsy, I suspect they just imploded, perhaps victims of a heart attack. Not one to let an opportunity go to waste, I dug a small tunnel in the leafy humus and positioned the mole in the tunnel, as if it was just emerging from the ground. That produced the image that you see here.

But my staged photo op is accurate. Hairy-tailed moles spend much time in the soil’s upper strata and frequently forage in the leaf litter. Two years ago, while leading a field trip in the vast Shawnee State Forest in Scioto County, I caught a glimpse of one scuffling through leafy litter and managed to pounce and grab it so my group could ooh and aah over the weird mammal.

After a brief learning experience, we released it unharmed. It takes a close inspection to truly appreciate a mole’s incredible adaptations for a fossorial (burrowing) lifestyle. An elongated tubular body helps with efficiently slipping through narrow tunnels and fissures.

There are no external ears to impede progress. Their forelimbs are rotated to facilitate digging, and my oh my, those “hands”!

Imagine if you had feet larger than your head with toenails as long as your legs. An incredibly silky pelage sheds dirt like water hitting wax. When most of your time is spent in subterranean gloom, there’s little need for eyes, and those have devolved to tiny pinpricks.

Moles essentially see only light and dark – they are nearly blind. They compensate for sightlessness with incredibly acute tactile sensors known as Elmer’s organs. The elongate snout is beset with these, which allow the mole to feel its food.

To wax anthropomorphic, a hunting mole is a raging beast, a mammalian psychopath storming through the soil’s upper strata overpowering, killing and eating virtually anything that it can capture. It’s probably a good thing for us that they are only 6 inches long and weigh only 2 ounces. Were moles the size of badgers, we’d possibly be in a heap of trouble.

Most of their food is worms, beetle grubs, fly larvae, slugs and other such invertebrate fare. Moles are voracious eaters, and captives have been documented consuming three times their bodyweight in earthworms daily.

In prime habitats loaded with prey, they likely eat even more than that. As a point of comparison, a 180-pound man would have to eat 720 McDonald’s quarter pounders daily to keep up. Dr. Ornish would disapprove.

Even though hardly anyone knows anything about moles, or that they even exist, these mammals are incredibly important ecosystem engineers. In addition to being major mitigators preventing overpopulation of various invertebrate populations, their labyrinths of tunnels are used by many other organisms. These include mice, shrews, voles, snakes and salamanders.

Just because something is mostly out of sight and out of mind doesn’t mean it isn’t important.

Further ahead

I am giving a pictorial talk based on my book, "Wild Ohio: The Best of Our Natural Heritage," for the Worthington Public Library on June 17 at 7 p.m. at the Griswold Center, 777 North High St. in Worthington.

To register, visit worthingtonlibraries.org

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

Ohio park officers rescue and release a bald eagle

 

Sergeant Logan Curfman with Preservation Parks of Delaware County kneels by the cage holding a soon to be free bald eagle. From L to R: Senator Beth Liston, Mary Van Haaften (Preservation Parks director), and Heather Tuttle (Ohio Wildlife Center director).

Ohio park officers rescue and release a bald eagle

Columbus Dispatch

May 31, 2026

NATURE

Jim McCormac

On March 24, Sgt. Logan Curfman, an officer with Preservation Parks of Delaware County, was on patrol when a citizen flagged him down. A sickly bald eagle was nearby, and in obvious need of help. Curfman and his partner, Officer Eric Tanner, managed to wrestle the big bird into a container. Their bulletproof vests served an unintended purpose.

Eagles have large, powerful talons, and this bird wasn’t so ill that it couldn’t put them to use. In addition to stopping bullets, the vests proved effective at preventing mauling by talon.

The Ohio Wildlife Center (OWC) was contacted, and the officers soon had the bird, our national symbol, in the hands of the rehab professionals at the center.

An examination revealed that the eagle was suffering from an acute case of lead poisoning. Amazing, lead is still used in some ammunitions and is common in fishing tackle. It is likely that the eagle ingested lead from bullet fragments in a white-tailed deer, or from fish that had swallowed tackle.

Bald eagles scavenge heavily on carrion such as dead deer, and fish are dietary staples. The American Eagle Foundation reports that up to 47% of bald eagles have some level of lead poisoning.

After nearly two months of chelation therapy, a process in which medications leach lead from the blood stream, the eagle was much improved. Tests in a flight cage showed the raptor could fly well, and that it could catch food. The bird also was blind in its left eye, but whatever caused that injury had occurred long prior to its rescue, and the eagle seemed to function perfectly, despite that handicap.

May 24 was a big day for the rehabilitated eagle. The OWC’s communications manager, David Donahue, had arranged for its release to take place at Deer Haven Park. He also invited interested parties, including this writer.

Once everyone had assembled, the star of the show was brought out in its cage, the door opened and, after a bit of hesitation, the big bird launched itself and winged eastward toward the Olentangy River. The accompanying photo shows the eagle taking its first post-treatment flight, and I can report that it showed no signs of weakness.

This eagle surely would have perished were it not for the hard work of Preservation Parks’ employees and the OWC. The latter is one of Ohio’s premier wildlife rehabilitation facilities and does tremendous public education and outreach work. I highly recommend a visit to its facilities at 6245 Clark Road near Powell.

While bald eagles are now flourishing, such was not always the case. By 1963, there were only 417 pairs known from the lower 48 states. Liberal use of the pesticide DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) was largely to blame. This toxin entered eagles via contaminated fish, and triggered a collapse of their reproductive systems, particular eggshell thinning.

This resulted in plummeting reproductive rates and an enormous decline in eagle numbers. In Ohio, breeding bald eagles had dropped to only four pairs in 1979, and again in 1983. On Nov. 5, 1968, Richard Milhous Nixon was elected president. Responding to overwhelming concern from the citizens of worsening environmental conditions, Nixon proposed the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on July 9, 1970.

After congressional review and approval, the EPA launched on Dec. 2, 1970. One of the first issues the fledging EPA set its sights on was the elimination of DDT. On Dec. 31, 1972, following some time to transition to less toxic pesticides, DDT was officially banned. DDT slowly disappeared from the environment, and adversely affected animals such as eagles began to rebound. Today, there are over 71,000 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the lower 48 states, and Alaska boasts over 100,000 eagles – by far the most of any state.

According to the Ohio Division of Wildlife, there are now over 1,000 eagle nests known in 87 of the 88 counties. Only Meigs County lacks a nest report. But even there, a nest occurs a stone’s throw from the county line, on a West Virginia island in the Ohio River.

Delaware County, where officers Curfman and Tanner rescued the protagonist of this column, hosts 16 nests. Franklin County supports six nests. The motherlode is the western Lake Erie marsh region, where one is seemingly never out of sight of an eagle nest.

The return of the bald eagle is a modern-day environmental success story, and kudos to Preservation Parks, the Ohio Wildlife Center and officers Curfman and Tanner for ensuring that one more bald eagle graces our skies.

I should note that this eagle was found near the aptly named Eagle Ridge Park, a new Preservation Parks site that will officially open this fall.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

A bald eagle is released by the Ohio Wildlife Center in Deer Haven Park. L to R: Kristen McFarland, reporter with WBNS 10TV, Melissa Muth, chair of the OWC board, Senator Beth Liston, Heather Tuttle and (barely visible) Logan Curfman/Jim McCormac

Acadian Flycatcher

 

We had a wonderful morning photographing birds at the Denison Bioreserve in Licking County (Ohio) this morning. Lots of cool photo subjects: nesting pair of Orchard Orioles that included a first-year "helper" male, an Eastern Bluebird with large prominent caterpillar for its nestlings, Indigo Bunting, Common Yellowthroat and some other stuff.

But it was this inconspicuous flycatcher that pleased me the most. In all my years of bird photography, I had never gotten presentable imagery of an Acadian Flycatcher, despite having seen and heard hundreds (thousands?) of them. They live in the subcanopy gloom of older forests and are most easily detected by their calls and songs. I include a photo of the very spot where this bird - and its mate - are nesting. Both birds were hunting at close range and presented themselves rather nicely on occasion. Nonetheless, despite using the slowest shutter speed I thought I could get away with, and the lens aperture wide open, the ISO was still 12,800. The Canon R5 deals with high ISO's better than any camera I have ever had, though.

Acadian Flycatcher breeding habitat. This is the very spot where I photographed the male in my photos. His mate was hunting nearby, and we saw her well but could not manage images. I know the bird that I photographed was a male because he was singing. Separating the sexes visually is impossible, insofar as I know.

The breeding range of the Acadian Flycatcher mirrors that of the original eastern deciduous forest, and it is a common breeder wherever suitable woods occur in Ohio. This species winters from southern Central America south into South America, as far south as Ecuador. While songs/calls are the best way to identify this species - and the other four Empidonax flycatchers that occur in Ohio - the Acadian has some distinctive characters. It is quite green on the back and has the longest primary feathers of this group, as well as the widest bill. The very long wings and broad-based bill can be seen in my photos, especially the image above.

May 25, 2026.

New 'Birds of the Toledo Area' guide is a great book for birders

 

Cover photo by Rick Nirschl

Nature

Columbus Dispatch

Jim McCormac

May 17, 2026

One of the legendary regions for birding in North America is right here in the Buckeye State. As I write this, tens of thousands of birders are in the Toledo region, savoring the bounty of spring migrants along Lake Erie.

Thousands of others – this writer included − will soon make an appearance. And now we have a comprehensive, newly released guide to the region, "Birds of the Toledo Area."

Up to100,000 birders visit this region annually, but spring sees the biggest human migration. An estimated 80,000 people travel here from all over Ohio, scores of other states and even from overseas. All these birdwatchers dump about $40 million annually into the local economy during spring alone.

Why is this region so attractive to birds, and birders? Three primary reasons:

- The western basin of Lake Erie (the most biologically rich of the five Great Lakes) is fringed with large marshes that are great bird attractants. Fortunately, many of these wetlands have been conserved by various state and federal agencies. The most famous of these coastal marshes among the birding crowd is Magee Marsh Wildlife Area, which is owned by the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

- Lake Erie itself serves as a major speed bump to migrant birds. Some species have traveled from as far south as Argentina, on their way to boreal or even Arctic nesting locales. Even though it’s a paltry 25 miles or so across the water to Canada from Magee (many migrants have already flown 500-plus miles across the Gulf of America, formerly known as Gulf of Mexico), the birds don’t know that and see a wall of water. They stop along shoreline habitats to rest and refuel before venturing across the lake. On prime days, spectacular numbers congregate in lakeside haunts such as Magee, Maumee Bay State Park, Metzger Marsh Wildlife Area, and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.

- A third major factor in the region’s rich avifauna is the Oak Openings. Located primarily in western Lucas County, the Oak Openings covers about 1,300 square miles and is characterized by sand: the old dunes and beach ridges left from a time when Lake Erie was larger. Several regional specialties such as lark sparrow breed here. Irwin Prairie State Nature Preserve is this author’s favorite Oak Openings site, and it, along with all the other must-see Oak Openings sites, is detailed in the book.

About 454 bird species have been recorded in Ohio, and 381 (84%) of them have been recorded in the western Lake Erie region, including numerous rarities. Perhaps the oddest among them is Ohio’s only record of Atlantic puffin. One never knows what might turn up, but rarities aside, the sheer numbers of warblers, waterfowl, shorebirds, and others can be mind-blowing.

In 1968, legendary naturalist and Toledo Blade writer Louis W. Campbell’s book, "Birds of the Toledo Area," appeared. It served as the birder’s first guide to this amazing region. In 2002, Toledoan and expert birder Matt Anderson spearheaded an update of Campbell’s informative publication, which was packed with much new information.

Twenty-four years later, a new edition of "Birds of the Toledo Area" is hot off the press and it is a publication that all birders visiting this area should have. For that matter, anyone interested in Ohio’s bird life should have a copy.

Anderson is editor, and he had help from a fine cast of northwest Ohio birding luminaries. Co-editors are Tom Kemp, Greg Links, Elliot Tramer, and Steve Lauer. Matt Kemp and Robert Harlan provided editorial oversight. Layout and design were handled by Abby Anderson.

This 326-page book is a gem and includes nestfuls of new information. The overall look and layout are superb and especially striking are the hundreds of color photographs. The team enlisted some of the state’s best bird photographers, including such well-known shooters as Jamie Cunningham, Paul Jacyk, Rick Nirschl, and the legendary Brian Zwiebel. The photos alone are worth the price of admission.

The introductory material offers a good overview of the region that it covers, which is Lucas County (Toledo is the county seat) and parts of five other adjacent and nearby counties. A small portion of southeastern Michigan is also included. There are interesting sections on the region’s history, recent changes in bird abundance, habitat alterations wrought by man, and much more. In the back of the book is a comprehensive checklist of birds of the region.

Also quite useful is a map depicting the locations of 42 of the best birding locations in the Toledo area. This precedes accounts of each hotspot, and many include a photo of the site. The sites are split into five regions, and introductory text for each offers a good general description of the region. Each site account offers a comprehensive overview of the location, along with notable bird species that might be found, including rarities.

Other natural history information is often included, such as the teeming amphibian life at Irwin Prairie.

Making up the meat of "Birds of the Toledo Area" is the species accounts. Each includes a summation of the species’ status and habitat, and many include an excellent photo of the account’s protagonist. The authors even managed to drum up an image of the Atlantic puffin from 1980. That account’s text imparts a bizarre story, which I will not spoil for book-buyers, but imagine walking out the front door and finding a live puffin in your driveway!

"Birds of the Toledo Area" is a must-have for those interested in the feathered crowd, especially those who routinely visit northwest Ohio. I highly recommend it.

Get a copy at Amazon, RIGHT HERE.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

A pair of nightjars: Common Nighthawk and Eastern Whip-poor-will

 

As always, click the image to enlarge

A Common Nighthawk roosts about 20 feet off the ground, on a horizontal tree branch. This is a typical roosting spot for these nightjars.

Almost immediately after arriving at the Magee Marsh parking lot last Wednesday, some friends informed me of not one, but two roosting nightjars along the nearby Estuary Trail. Never one to miss out on good looks at nightjars, I soon arrived at the scene. The above is a classic nighthawk roosting spot, off the ground on a horizontal limb. Because of the situation, this bird stuck out pretty well, sometimes they are far harder to see.

At one point, the nighthawk had to relieve itself. It stood on its impossibly tiny feet and legs, waddled 90 degrees so that it was perpendicular to the limb, and blasted its effluvia to the ground. It did not want to foul its roosting spot.

This posture better showcased its barred underparts, and we can see the white patch on its primary flight feathers that is so conspicuous in flight. This bird likely wintered somewhere in South America, although the wintering range of Common Nighthawk is imperfectly understood. Suffice to say, this nighthawk has already come a LONG way and may still have some distance to go (this species breeds well into Canada and even gets into Alaska).

A hundred yards or less away was this Eastern Whip-poor-will. As is typical, it was roosting on a log on the ground, in a tangled area, and was much harder to see.

For photography purposes, it was fortuitous that these animals were not along the famed "bird trail" boardwalk. Because of all the birder traffic, taking a tripod onto the boardwalk is taboo, as it should be. There simply isn't room, and all shooting should be handheld. But I was using my 800mm, and it is a tank of a lens and not something most people would want to handhold for extended periods, me included. But there's no such problem on the wide-open estuary trail, thus I could use my 800mm f/5.6 lens and the extra reach of the big lens was hugely helpful, especially for the nighthawk which was further away. For some reason, I did not have my 1.4x teleconverter in my backpack, or I would have used that too. The 800/1.4x combo makes for an 1120 mm f/8 lens, and for subjects such as these roosting nightjars, it works perfectly. Nonetheless, even the bare 800mm was okay, even with a fair bit of cropping.

Baltimore Oriole

 

As always, click the photo to enlarge

A male Baltimore Oriole pauses in a copse of smooth sumac (Rhus glabra). This vibrant blackbird is one of the most colorful species in North America and looks quite tropical. And it is. Baltimore Orioles primarily winter in Central America and northern South America and spend more time down there than up here. I saw and heard many yesterday. One should never tire of the male's glorious flute-like whistling. Magee Marsh, Lucas County, Ohio, May 13, 2026.

I made an epic trip to Lake Erie yesterday, primarily visiting Sheldon Marsh State Nature Preserve and Magee Marsh Wildlife Area. At Sheldon along, I saw 21 warbler species and added several more at Magee. Tons of other stuff as well, and I returned from 14-hour door-to-door excursion with nearly 4,000 images. That's in large part because I was shooting my Canon R5 in electronic mode at the maximum frame rate, which yields 20 frames per second. Birds are fast, and fast burst rates are best to capture interesting postures.

I've got some really cool stuff from this trip and will share some more imagery later.

Swainson's Warbler in Ohio: Breeding?

 

A Swainson's Warbler (Limnothlypis swainsonii) belts out its loud, whistled song, which is somewhat reminiscent of a Louisiana Waterthrush. The latter sometimes occurs within earshot of the former on breeding grounds. I made this image in West Virginia, where this species nests within dense stands of great rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum).

While I find this species to be a handsome animal, it probably would rank low among eastern North America's 38 breeding warbler species in the looks department, to most people. There's a lot of competition, including gorgeous lookers such as Common Yellowthroat, Magnolia Warbler, Prairie Warbler and many others. But who cares? All of that is superficial. To me, the Swainson's Warbler - a species I have come to know well over the past few decades - is fascinating on several fronts.

One is its rarity. Swainson's Warbler is the third rarest breeding warbler in eastern North America, with a total population estimate of about 140,000 birds. The Kirtland's Warbler eclipses it in rarity, by a longshot. A census conducted in 2025 produced only 1,489 pairs, or 2,978 individuals. Rarer yet - WAY rarer - is the Bachman's Warbler. Most people consider it extinct, including me, and the last documented, acceptable sighting was in 1961 in South Carolina.

Undated photo, photographer unknown (at least to me)

The above photo shows a man on horseback in front of a stand of giant cane (Arundinaria gigantea). It was obviously taken long ago. This enormous grass, the bamboo of eastern North America, forms extensive stands known as canebrakes. This was the primary habitat of Swainson's Warbler. I say "was" because humans have destroyed nearly all of the canebrakes, which used to occur commonly along streams and river across much of the eastern U.S. That undoubtedly included the north side of the Ohio River and its immediate tributaries.

Map courtesy BONAP (Biota of North America Program)

The light green counties on the above map show where giant cane occurs, or mostly, USED to occur. As noted, most of the large canebrakes no longer exist. These records are based on plant specimens, most of them probably very old.

Map courtesy of Birds of the World (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

This is the range map of the protagonist of this post, the Swainson's Warbler. The pinkish areas represent the breeding range. You'll notice a lot of overlap with the giant cane map.

Although there's no way to prove it, I would bet that the north side of the Ohio River, in Ohio, hosted breeding Swainson's Warblers. There certainly must have been large canebrakes. There are numerous other plant species that also reach their northern terminuses on the Ohio side of the Ohio River.

One of the great tragedies was the shockingly fast and sweeping destruction of canebrakes. Rivers were the highways for settlers invading the Ohio Country and elsewhere in the interior, and the cane would have been quite easy to destroy with fire or simple tools. Canebrake land would have made for very fertile croplands and potential town sites. Anyway, it was pretty much gone before anyone had a chance to document the extent of the canebrakes.

As always, click the photo to enlarge

Nonetheless, scraps and fragments of canebrakes persist. Including the one above. Most of the understory in this shot is cane, growing along a small stream in Shawnee State Forest in Scioto County, Ohio. I was standing approximately in the middle of the stand when I made this image on May 7, 2025.

In 2024, a singing Swainson's Warbler was found here, and it stayed for quite a while. The following year, 2025, it or another returned and summered, but apparently was without a mate.

While I had heard the 2025 bird, I saw no evidence of a mate or breeding. But I did discover something very interesting, that might account for the birds' interest in this site. On May 7, I visited this location, but came in the long way, from the heart of the forest to the north. As I neared the location, windows rolled down and listening intently, I noticed cane thickets through the woods, along the stream. Come leafout of trees and shrubs, the cane is completely concealed but leaves were still undeveloped by the time of my visit.

I bushwhacked back to the cane and saw that the stand was fairly extensive, although I still need to go back in there and get accurate measurements of its extent. It is by far the largest canebrake I have seen, and indeed, the only one I have seen in Ohio.

So, I don't think it is a coincidence that Swainson's Warblers are smitten with this site. And I wonder if and how long they may have been summering here before some sharp birders discovered them in 2024. Also, on my visit this spring, I found four Swainson's Warblers! I watched what was undoubtedly a pair: a singing male closely hanging with another, even together on the same branch. This species is monomorphic and as far as I know, cannot be sexed visually. Walking down the road produced two other singing males. I have no idea whether they also had mates.

I imagine finding a Swainson's Warbler nest is not easy, even though they are often within 4-5 feet of the ground, although they've been found as high as 12 feet. Their nest is the largest of any wood warbler, but its exterior is covered with dead leaves, so the nest can look much like an old clump of leaves or flood debris. The female does all the construction, but the male is often close at hand. Sometimes the nest is woven into the cane, or it might be placed in dense shrubby growth nearby.

While the first Swainson's Warbler in Ohio was discovered in 1947 in Lawrence County, and there have been at least eight territorial singing males in or near Ohio River counties since (not counting the birds described in this post), and at least two of those older reports mention two birds were present, breeding has never been documented in the state.

As there are most definitely at least one pair at the Shawnee site, I would think they would attempt nesting. But given their rarity, it probably wouldn't be a good idea for lots of people to traipse about the site seeking a nest. Hopefully a careful, targeted search can be undertaken by one or two stealthy, knowledgeable people. It would be most useful to know for sure if they are breeding, not only for potential management considerations, but to document the first nesting of this species on the north side of the Ohio River.