Ring-necked Snake, a harmless charmer

In a recent post, I included this photo and made mention of a cool reptile that was on that flat rock and that had captured the attention of the assembled throng. I also said that I'd be back later to highlight the animal, and give it some air time on the vast World Wide Web. So here we go...

A gorgeous animal by any possible criteria, this Northern Ring-necked Snake, Diadophis punctatus edwardsii, is what had us so enthralled. From the outset of this August 18 trip to the wilds of southern Ohio, I had been exhorting my expedition comrades to "find a ring-neck, find a ring-neck, find a ring-neck". We had three topnotch snakers along: John and Vince Howard, and David Hughes. I am NOT much of a snake-finder. I really like them, but get too fixated on other pursuits while afield to devote much time or energy to turning rocks and logs, and doing what is required to produce snakes.

Anyway, the three aforementioned snakists spent a fair bit of time flipping objects, and one of them (can't remember who) eventually produced this beauty, which was carefully placed on this rocky runway for a modeling/photography session.

If I had to pick a favorite snake, it would be the Ring-necked Snake. What's not to like here? Ring-necks are stunning little animals, and a wonderful entree into the world of snakes. They are small - a whopper only reaches a bit more than a foot in length - and exceedingly gentle. I've never had one attempt to bite, nor have I heard of that happening. Even if a ring-neck snapped someone's finger, its mouth is so small it couldn't do anything. Thus, the ring-neck is a wonderful animal to introduce to someone with a fear of reptiles, or who has had little experience with snakes.

The colors and patterning of the Ring-necked Snake are striking indeed. The dorsal, or upper, surface is plated in a dark steely blue-black, and the ventral (lower) side of the animal is a beautifully contrasting golden-orange. The effect is quite striking - no pun intended - and is augmented by the pale yellow neck collar.

Ring-necked Snakes are common in parts of southern and eastern Ohio, where they inhabit rocky streams such as where this one was found, moist forested slopes, regenerating clearcuts and other such wooded habitats. They're a bit of work to find, though. Occasionally I just stumble into one that is out and about, but apparently ring-necks are primarily nocturnal. Hence the need to go poking under hiding spots in good habitat to find one.

We noticed that this specimen had a hitchhiker. The orangish object on the snake's neck collar is a mite. Snakes can become afflicted with parasitic mites, which apparently can become a real problem with captive animals. In the wild, mites are probably not so much of an issue for the animals. I know very little about mites, especially those that parasitize snakes, but I don't think this mite is the same species that plagues captive animals. For all I know, it is just using the snake to ride to a new locale - mites often hitchhike on animal taxicabs. Anyway, it made this snake experience all the more interesting. Perhaps one of the herpetologists out there can shed some light on this.

I'm sure that I'm preaching to the choir here, but I want to reinforce that snakes are beneficial and should be protected at all costs, whether relatively "cute" species such as this Ring-necked Snake, or less enchanting behemoths such as Black Rat Snakes. If you don't like them, let them be and they'll do the same. If a snake is somewhere you'd rather it wasn't, such as an Eastern Garter Snake in the garden or an Eastern Milk Snake in the shed, please just relocate it to somewhere else. Or have someone move it for you. I get a disconcerting number of photos sent to me each year from people wanting to know the identification of a snake, often thinking it might be a venomous species. They're invariably harmless species, but what bothers me is how many of the snakes in these photos are dead - slaughtered by the blade of a shovel. The ignorant killing of snakes absolutely disgusts me, and it is almost never, if ever, neccesary to slay them.

If everyone had firsthand exposure to a gentle Ring-necked Snake, and could see up close and personal just how cool snakes are, I'm sure our tubular reptiles would have many more fans.

Barn Owl and cat hit it off, big time!

I'm on a bit of an owl jag, but one can never get enough of owls! A friend shared the following video with me, and it is amazing. It features a Barn Owl, Tyto alba, that was raised from a chick and trained for falconry, of all things. The owl is named Gebra, and her most unlikely buddy is a black housecat dubbed Fum. These animals live in Spain, and were born in early spring of 2010. They were introduced when only a month old, and as you'll see, hit it off rather grandly.

Sorry, for some reason YouTube won't allow me to embed this video, so just click on the following link to view it: http://youtu.be/mWhD5bc6Fmg

Eastern Screech-Owl becomes one with the tree

This stretch of bike trail along Alum Creek in Westerville gets lots of traffic - runners, walkers, bikers - just not at the moment that I made this photo. The trail has of late seen an uptick in a new element of user - birders. For some time, there has been an especially cooperative Eastern Screech-Owl, Megascops asio, roosting in a tree in the swatch of scruffy riparian woodland shown in this image. As this locale is only 12 minutes from my office, I've been wanting to pay a visit, camera in tow, for some time. Finally, after seeing another post to the Ohio Birds Listserv about the owl from Ira Shulgin, I had to trot up there yesterday over the lunch hour. Ira was good enough to give me precise directions to the roosting tree, which enabled me to quickly locate the little hooter.

Young riparian, or streamside, woods are often scruffy places, in part due to a proliferation of Box-elder trees, Acer negundo. These gnarled and scraggly maples are often a dominant tree in early successional habitats, and what they lack in aesthetics they more than make up for in wildlife value.

This is the owl's home turf, as seen from the edge of the bike path. The spot that is circled in red marks the owl cavity about 20 feet up in a Box-elder, and it would be extremely easy to walk right by and never notice. Scores of people do just that every day.

However, a close look at the Y-fork in the tree reveals a sleepy little owl, soaking up early afternoon rays. Eastern Screech-Owls are consummate bark mimics, and their plumage can match the bark of trees to a remarkable degree. Such camouflage serves to hide them well from potential predators, and the owls tend to hole up tight in spots such as this during the daylight hours.

That doesn't mean that they'll be missed by everyone. Tree-gleaners such as chickadees, nuthatches, and titmice often stumble into roosting screech-owls as they go about their business of inspecting tree trunks. When this happens, quite the hue and cry will be made and before long an entire gang of noisy chickadees and other songbirds will form a conspicuous twittering crowd around the hapless owl. Many a birder has discovered a roosting owl with the assistance of mobbing tree-gleaners.

Eastern Screech-Owls come in two classic color morphs: red, and gray. This individual is a gray, and this color form really blends well with bark. For the 20 minutes or so that I admired the bird, it never bothered to open its eyes and give me a glance, near as I could tell. Such slothfulness is typical daylight behavior for a screech-owl.

These owls are very common throughout Ohio - easily our most common owl species. They have a strong affinity for streamside habitats, and places such as the site depicted in this post almost always have them. This is in part due to the Box-elder trees, which often form good roosting cavities. It's a great irony that tree species that are typically derided as worthless by loggers, foresters and the lumber industry are often of the greatest value to wildlife.

If you are interested in owls - and who isn't! - mark your calendar for the weekend of February 15-17, 2013. That's when the Ohio Ornithological Society and Greater Mohican Audubon Society will be holding its Owls of North America Symposium at beautiful Mohican State Park. The event is headlined by the incomparable Denver Holt of the Owl Research Institute, and what a speaker he is! In addition to talks, there'll be field trips, owl-banding for Northern Saw-whet Owls, and much more. GO HERE to register.

Short-eared Owls at Lawrence Woods

A pair of Short-eared Owls, Asio flammeus, hunt over an old field in the gloom of post-dusk. The other bird is in the background, bottom righthand corner of the photo. Don't expect award winning owl photos in this post - the short-ears didn't take to the wing until it was nearly dark and it was all my camera could do to make any images at all.

Short-eared Owls can be curious and this fellow suddenly materialized over my head. It's always a treat to watch these owls hunt the grasslands and meadows, barking and scuffling with neighboring owls and occasionally plummeting earthward to Whack-A-Mole (or vole). I saw four, and possibly five, owls tonight. A Northern Harrier was working the fields earlier, and a dark morph Rough-legged Hawk was also nearby.

This was the place of the owling - Lawrence Woods State Nature Preserve in Hardin County, Ohio. We're looking east down Township Road 190, with the preserve lands on the right, and a big prairie/grassland on the left, the latter courtesy of Pheasants Forever. The big woods - the preserve's namesake - can be seen way off to the right. This preserve encompasses over 1,000 acres, and roughly half is the woods, and the rest is meadow. The owls were hunting the field on the right, and were easy to view until conditions grew too dark.

This map shows the locale, should you wish to go Short-eared Owling at this spot. The area outlined in blue are the good owl fields. The section of Township Rd. 190 highlighted in red bisects the fields, and there is virtually no traffic along here and the verges are wide and flat, so viewing from an automobile should be no problem. The red line heading south from 190 is the gravel drive back to the preserve parking lot, and good viewing can be had from there as well. Note that the preserve is open only during daylight hours, though.

U.S. 68 can be seen on the left of the photo, and the city of Kenton is a few miles to the north. This site is less than an hour from Columbus, and makes for a great field trip. There is a fabulous boardwalk through the woods, and traipsing its length prior to nightfall should produce Red-headed Woodpecker and all of the other expected woodpeckers. Barred, Eastern Screech, and Great Horned Owls are also present, so with a bit of luck and careful listening you might tally four species of owls at this site.

Those hard-working Beaver (with video)

 

A Beaver, Castor canadensis, at his work station. I photographed this individual a few years back in Delaware County, Ohio, as the animal busily girdled huge Eastern Cottonwood trees along the shoreline of a lake. If a tree is too large to gnaw through and drop, Beaver will often girdle it, which eventually kills the tree.

 

Beaver are the consummate mammalian engineers, and their labors modify their environment to a degree that is probably unmatched by any other among our mammals (excepting Homo sapiens). These animals are clever, and hard-working to a fault. I've had the good fortune to see them on many occasion, and see the fruits of their labors many times. But few of us will experience the views of a Beaver at work that is shown in the trail cam video later in this post. David and Laura Hughes have been at it once again, and outdone themselves with this clip.

 

We should be grateful that Beaver are still around and making wetlands. The pelts of these animals have long been highly valued, and the pursuit of Beaver furs led to their extirpation in Ohio by 1830 or so. Eventually laws were enacted to govern their protection, and populations began to increase. Beaver began to trickle back into the state in the early 1900's, and by 1947 Ohio's population was estimated to contain 25 colonies in 11 counties. By 1972 their ranks had swelled to over 4,400 in 37 counties, and just four years later (1976) an estimated 7,500+ Beaver ranged over 40 counties. Today, there are probably in excess of 27,000 animals in the state, in all 88 counties. Trapping of Beaver is highly regulated, and current prices for a large grade A pelt is about $25.00.

A Beaver slices through the still waters of a pond that he and his predecessors created in northern Michigan's Presque Isle County. Few mammals are as at home in the drink as are these flat-tailed swimmers. A Beaver's entire life is spent in or adjacent to water, and all of their efforts go towards manipulating the hydrology of streams to better suit their purposes.

The animal in the above photo was a big 'un. A robust specimen can tip the scales at 70 lbs., although 40 lbs. would be a more typical poundage. You'll often hear a Beaver before seeing it. When danger is spotted, the animal will often slap the water's surface with its paddlelike tail, which creates an astonishingly loud SMACK! That sound alerts his fellows to potential peril, and then the tail-smacker will submerge. Extraordinarily oversized lungs allow it to remain below for up to 15 minutes.

This Google Earth photo shows an incredible Beaver-engineered and maintained wetland complex in southern Ohio's Lawrence County. Two huge dams (traced in red) back up two ponds in the small valleys of a forest. The area outlined in blue - which disappears off the left side of the image - is a fantastic wetland spawned in the soggy overflow from the Beaver's primary ponds. A well-developed dam can be in excess of 50 feet in length, and often has a sinuous shape as these two dams do. The Beaver are dligent about maintaining these structures and keeping water levels at precisely the levels that their needs dictate.

I stumbled into the wetland complex above in 1999, and was awestruck by its compexity. The wetlands in the wake of the dams' outflow contained a remarkable diversity of flora; far more plant species than would have been present had the Beaver not taken up residence. The botanical diversity in turn sparks an enormous spike in animal diversity. We found American Bittern and Prothonotary Warbler in this wetland, both of which are rare in that part of Ohio. Dragonflies and other aquatic insects abounded, as did scores of other wetland-dependent animal life. When I first saw this Beaver wetland about a dozen years ago, it was obvious that the dams had been in place for some time. And as the Google Earth image is a recent one, they're obviously still there, and hopefully will be for some time to come. I want to make a return visit next summer, and marvel at this engineering feat firsthand once again.

If you regularly follow this blog, you may have seen the exceptional videography of Bobcat and River Otter made by David and Laura Hughes, which they kindly allowed me to share. Well, they've outdone themselves with this video, also made in Monroe County, Ohio, which shows a Beaver hard at work as it labors to drop a tree. Turn up the volume and you'll hear the sound of gnawing as the oversize rodent busily endeavors to bring down the tree. Note too the size of the wood chips that spew from the animal's maw as its huge incisors make mincemeat of the wood.

Thanks again to David and Laura for once again sharing their work with us.

The moths' last hurrah

One of the many plume moth species at rest under your blogger's porch light, tonight. It's certainly cool outside, but a chill 50 degrees is warm enough to bring out the last of our straggling moths. Plume moths - at least some of the species - seem to be among the last of the moths to survive into late fall and early winter.

A gentle prod with a finger stimulated the animal to splay its legs and antennae. I believe this is a female, going by the narrow wiry antennae, and I will take a semi-educated guess that it is the Morning-glory Plume Moth, Emmelina monodactyla.

Plume moths are very distinctive as a group. When at rest, their tightly inrolled wings and cylindrical body form a T-shape. As you may have guessed from the common name, the caterpillars of this moth feed largely on members of the morning-glory family, although they also apparently eat a number of other low weedy plants.

Taking photos at night, and/or of macro-type objects is always a tricky business. Thanks to a tip from Jack Hoying, I recently got the cumbersome looking boxlike contraption above. It is a Lumiquest Softbox III, and it quickly attaches to the camera's Speedlite flash via quick-release velcro tabs. Tonight is the first time I've had a chance to fool with it, and I look forward to working more with the softbox. Under friendlier conditions, too - shooting moths on a rather blase wall under the glare of a nearby porch light never achieves really great results, no matter what one does.

Diffusers such as this device soften the flash, and can help achieve some really remarkable photographs.

Northern Saw-whet Owl

Lisa holds a Northern Saw-whet Owl, Aegolius acadicus, shortly after it was captured in a mist net near Chillicothe, Ohio. I was down for my annual visit to this banding operation lasat Friday night, and this was one of two birds caught that evening.

Until the mid-2000's, no one had any clue as to just how common Northern Saw-whet Owls were in Ohio. If one were to go only by the relatively few reports made by birders who lucked into roosting birds, you'd have had to assess their status as rare, or uncommon at best. Of course, it stands to reason that such a secretive animal would largely go undetected. In my guide, Birds of Ohio, which came out in 2004, I made the statement: "...the vast majority of Northern Saw-whet Owls no doubt go undetected in Ohio".

Such opinions are speculative, however - concrete research is needed to prove or disprove such things. Well, 2004 was the year that the Chillicothe banding station whose work is featured here got fired up. Since that time, they have captured well over 300 owls, in a habitat and a locale that no one would have predicted as being optimal for saw-whets. Their efforts are not solo - a few others also focus on saw-whets in Ohio or nearby, and they too have captured a great many birds. Thesee banding stations are part of a systematic nationwide survey of Northern Saw-whet Owls known as Project Owlnet, and this research collaborative has revealed reams of information about the migratory habits of what was not long ago one of our most poorly understood North American birds.

Having an accurate  knowledge of an animal is key to successfully conserving its populations, and in the case of the Northern Saw-whet Owl, it is the efforts of banders who have revealed the mysteries of what could be our most charismatic owl.

The team works on an owl back at the research station a short walk from the nets. Dan and Ryan, in the foreground, and Lisa and Kelly Williams-Sieg in the back. Kelly is the driving force behind this banding station, with much help from this crew, and Bill Bosstic and Bob Scott Placier.

Owls caught and banded in Chillicothe have been recaptured numerous times at far-flung places across eastern North America, and the Chillicothians have captured a number of owls that were banded in other areas. All of this work via Project Owlnet has revealed a scope of migration that no one was previously aware of. October through mid-December is the tiime of the big southward push, and it appears that such irruptions are cyclical, and probably related to populations of voles and other small animals which are the owls' primary prey.

Dan checks the keel, or breastbone, of this owl, feeling for muscle and fat depositions. Many data points are collected, and an effort is made to determine how much fatty reserves the birds have built up. If it looks like the bird is enjoying this inspection, it probably is. Saw-whets seem to respond to touch in much the way that a house cat does: hooding their eyes and pushing into one's finger as if to urge the holder to continue the stroking.

Few birds are as mellow as saw-whets. For the most part, they make no attempt to struggle or otherwise indicate displeasure; mostly just staring curiously at their captors. After all, most of these owls have probably never seen people, coming from the wilds of the vast boreal forest as they do. Furthermore, saw-whets have low metabolisms and are not high-strung or fidgety, which probably serves them well to conserve energy.

The odd black light test. Porphyrins in the feathers can help reveal the age of the bird, and these compounds glow pink when exposed to black light. These is a hatch-year bird; porphyrins fade with age and become less pronounced on older individuals.

Deb came along on this Friday evening outing, and got the opportunity to witness a few Northern Saw-whet Owls up close and personal, and learn about the fascinating morphology of owls up close and personal. Well over a thousand people have been exposed to the marvelous but mostly unwitnessed life of owls at this banding operation.

One aspect of owl morphology that saw-whet banders quickly become acquainted with is powerful talons. Small as these micro-hooters may be, their talons are sharp as hypodermic needles and those little - although proportionate to the bird, huge - feet are strong indeed. Woe to the mouse that falls victim to one of these predators, and double woe to the careless bander whose finger is seized.

Now that's an ear! Proportionate to the size of their skull, saw-whets probably have among the largest ears in the animal kingdom. Not only are they big, but saw-whet ears are doubly asymmetrical. Each ear is shaped slightly differently than the other, and the ears are also offset from one another. These adaptations allow the bird's "micro-processor" to better triangulate on sound and almost instantly calculate the precise location of prey in utter darkness - even a vole moving under the snow.

The eyes of a Northern Saw-whet Owl are enormous; the pair can comprise up to 5% of the bird's head! Big eyes coupled with double the number of rods and cones that you or I have allow the owl to see well in the dimmest of conditions.

Once the hapless mouse has been located, it'll never hear its cute grim reaper coming. The leading edge of the foremost primary flight feathers are "fimbriate", or fringed with soft comblike extensions. These serve to muffle the sound of flight, and are the reason that owls are silent fliers.

Before long, it's time to release the owl back into the dark woods. We put it in a soft bag, and walk it to the base of the hill, near where it was caught. By then, it's been in the dark for ten minutes or so and its eyes have re-acclimated to the nighttime forest. Oftentimes, the banders will place the owl on the outstretched arm of a visitor, to let the owl fly off on its own terms. The little fellow above was set on my arm, where it sat... and sat... and sat. It was a good seven minutes before the little hooter finally set sail, flitting up into the cover of a nearby red cedar tree.

An enormous side benefit of Northern Saw-whet Owl research is the opportunity to expose people to the little owls. Most people have not only never seen one, they did not even imagine that such a beast existed. The chance to see a saw-whet up close, and learn firsthand about their various morphological and behaviorial aspects that I discussed above wins many converts to birds, nature, and conservation.

The bulletin board above is one of several in the research lab, and they are papered over with newspaper articles, stories from magazines, and above all, notes from kids who have visited. The latter crowd is especially important, if we want to grow a new crop of conservationists. Seeing a magical little owl that seemingly appeared miracously from the gloom of the nighttime forest is sure to make an impression, and I'm sure that some of the saw-whets capured at this station have served as "spark birds" for budding young conservationists-to-be.