Skunk-cabbage in bloom?!?!

One of our weirdest flowers and the true harbinger-of-spring, the fleshy liver-spotted spathe of a Skunk-cabbage, Symplocarpus foetidus, thrusts from the mire. I was at a local patch yesterday, Kiwanis Park in Columbus, and was at least semi-shocked to see the skunkers up and doing their thing. This is the earliest that I've seen them in bloom, by nearly a month. I usually make my annual trek into the supersaturated springy sites where Skunk-cabbages thrive in late February, and am sure to find them beginning to bloom by then. To be fair, I'm not sure that I've been anywhere I'd cross paths with these foul-smelling members of the Arum Family this early in the year. Nonetheless, I can't imagine that they'd be this far along in a "normal" year. And for the most part, this crop of botanical skunks was not yet in full flower, but a few surely were. The strange dunce cap looking thing in the photo is NOT the flower - that is the protective spathe, which forms a tent in which dwells the spadix. The tiny flowers speckle the exterior of the spadix, and to see them one must peer into the gap in the spathe. I've written more about the workings of these vegetative oddities HERE.



I had but a few minutes to snap a some shots of the Skunk-cabbage, because I was at Kiwanis Park to do an interview with fabled NBC4 TV weatherman Ben Gelber. We were ostensibly there to talk about conservation of riverine habitats, but when I saw that the skunks were up, we couldn't let the opportunity pass by.

Ben Gelber is a real jewel. He's very keen on the environment and natural history, and works in pieces about nature when he can. Kudos to the leadership at NBC4 for running these sorts of stories on a regular basis, too. Our brief Kiwanis Park clip is above.

Some heavy raptoring approaches!

Your narrator's car perches along a long and lonely stretch of highway near the Wilds, in Muskingum County. This is Big Sky country for Ohio: thousands of acres of "reclaimed" strip mine grasslands. Shortly after I made this image, several Short-eared Owls lifted from the snowy fields and put on a show.

This Saturday is the Ohio Ornithological Society's 9th annual Winter Raptor Extravaganza at the Wilds, an event that has become a high point of the winter season. Nearly every year since the event's inception, it has attracted about 150 birders from all quarters of the state. We might get even more, but 150 people is the most that we can accommodate. I've only missed one - last year - and am looking forward to being a part of the scene again.

This photo was taken a few years ago, during the one Wilds raptor fest that did NOT attract a full house. There WAS a full complement of birders registered, but not everyone showed. That may have had something to do with the MINUS 12 Fahrenheit temperatures that morning! It won't be that way this Saturday - temperatures should be a far balmier 30 degrees when we meet, warming into the 40's as the day progresses.

With luck, everyone will see Golden Eagle, and perhaps Northern Shrike. We had a really cool experience with a shrike a few years ago, HERE. Northern Harriers, Rough-legged Hawks, and Short-eared Owls (for those who stay until dusk) will be a given, and who knows what else 150 sets of eyes will turn up.

Look forward to seeing everyone who makes the scene this Saturday, and you can expect a pictorial report here afterwards.

Bit of a sissy-boy, this Bald Eagle

David and Laura Hughes have done it again. If you follow this blog much, you've probably seen some of their camera handiwork, such as HERE, and HERE. This time they've hauled the trail cam out in to the open, and wisely set the camera's lens on some tasty deer carcasses.

In the following video, we see a hungry Red-tailed Hawk really ripping into the carrion, while a young Bald Eagle stands forlornly by, shuffling its feet. Early on in the video, the eagle lets loose with its effeminate little piping screech - the reason that ornithologically inaccurate TV ads typically dub in the fierce scream of a Red-tailed Hawk while showing a soaring eagle. The cry of the eagle has zero effect on the much smaller hawk, which doesn't even turn to acknowledge the bigger bird of prey.

The Red-tail, clearly the Alpha in this scene, later lets loose with its much manlier scream. Its impact on the eagle is comical - our national symbol quickly exits stage left, thoroughly punked.

Thanks as always to Dave and Laura for sharing their wonderful films.



Film by Laura and David Hughes.
Monroe County
(I think the cam's date stamp is not set - pretty sure this video was shot a few days ago, in 2013)

Red-shouldered Hawks rebound

A stunning Red-shouldered Hawk, Buteo lineatus, peers curiously down at your narrator. I probably would have reacted the same, had some strange guy rolled up under my telephone pole and stuck a long cylindrical object out the sunroof. The mild-mannered raptor never even flew. It was one of nine Red-shouldered Hawks that Peter King and I found in our piece of turf for the Hocking Hills Christmas Bird Count, last Saturday.

Everyone has their faves, and when it comes to Buteo hawks, the Red-shouldered Hawk is hands-down my #1 pick. The bird in this photo was yet another that Peter and I found on the Hocking Hills CBC. It's easy to see how the "red-shouldered" label came to be.

This particular bird came coasting over the territory of a pair of Red-tailed Hawks, which quickly rose to push the interloper away. Red-taileds are easily the most numerous Buteo in Ohio, but in some regions Red-shouldereds are gaining ground fast, or have even eclipsed their rusty-tailed brethren. We had nine Red-shouldereds, and eight Red-taileds, on this bird count and the former outnumbering the latter has become the norm in our piece of the count.

This graph displays the upward surge in Red-shouldered Hawk numbers on the long-running Cincinnati Christmas Bird Count over the past three decades. There are peaks and valleys, but the general trend of increases is indisputable. Many other CBC's in Ohio would probably show a similar trend, at least in southern, eastern, and parts of central Ohio.

This wonderful Google earth map (thank you Google earth!) shows the section of Hocking County that Peter and I covered for the aforementioned bird count. Perfect Red-shouldered Hawk country. Red-shouldered Hawks are by and large forest dwellers, peaking in areas with a blend of older-growth woodlands, stream valleys, and occasional pastures. Their nighttime counterpart is the Barred Owl - if one of these species is present, the other likely is as well.

Hard as it is to believe these days, at one time forest cover in Ohio had been reduced to about 10%. All of those heavily forested Smokeyesque places, such as the Hocking Hills, Shawnee State Forest, Mohican State Forest, etc once resembled lunar landscapes. Forest-dependent animals such as the Red-shouldered Hawk did not fare well in those dark days of deforestation. As our forests recover and mature, the hawks are recolonizing the Ohio country in ever-increasing numbers. This is even true in heavily wooded urban and suburban 'scapes. Red-shouldered Hawks are not an uncommon sight in many wooded Columbus neighborhoods, for instance. They weren't there not all that long ago.

This is another piece of Christmas Bird Count data, showing the 30-year trend for Red-shouldered Hawks statewide. A good piece of news, to be sure, especially in light of numerous species that are going the other direction.

Snow Fleas (you read that correctly)

Cedar Bog, snowy and dormant on a cold winter day. I had a meeting in Dayton last Sunday, and took the opportunity to make a quick stop at "the bog" (which is actually a fen) on the return trip. It's always good to become familiar with various habitats at all seasons, so I popped in to Ohio's favorite fen to make a few wintertime photos and a circuit of the boardwalk.

The famous Y-split in the trail, which was blanketed by several inches of snow. As I paused here to compose an image, I was surprised to spot a small spider balloon by on a silken strand. The arachnid siphoned off my attention, and I paused to watch the animal swing over to a sapling, alight, and slowly clamber up the branch. This made me recall an exchange that I'd had a few days before with Jim Dolan, about the various insects and spiders that can sometimes be rather plentiful in snowy wintertime woodlands.

Seeing the spider reminded me to peel my eyes for one of the strangest insectlike animals of winter, so I shifted from landscape mode to macro mode.

Boom! Not eight feet from where I saw the spider, the crystalline surface of the snow appeared to be dusted with pepper. Snow Fleas!

They may be small, but Snow Fleas rank high on the scale of intriguing "bugs". When I made these photos, the air temperature was 31 degrees and the "fleas" were hopping about like Mexican jumping beans. This find was just too good to pass up photographically, so I galoshed my way back to the car and rigged up the macro lens and flash unit. Upon returning to the scene of the fleas, I threw my coat down on the boardwalk to serve as a snow blanket, and prostrated myself before the tiny animals. These arthropods measure only a millimeter or so, and are too wee for even Canon's very competent 100 mm macro lens. I did the best that I could, and thought expensive thoughts regarding this BIZARRE LENS.

Snow Fleas, of course, are NOT fleas at all. They will not hop on you or your dog, bite, or otherwise annoy you in any way, shape or form. These curious critters are springtails, in the Class Collembola. And they're not  technically insects, although they once were placed in the Class Insecta. Apparently there are two species in these parts, both in the genus Hypogastrura, and I believe this is H. nivicola. We'll just call 'em Snow Fleas. They're referred to as springtails because of a barlike appendage on the animal's undersurface that is held under tension. When suddenly released this bar snaps the springtail high into the air, in a rather out of control fashion.

So why are they hopping around on the surface of the snow, on a subfreezing day? Good question. Snow Fleas are decomposers, feeding primarily on decaying leaf litter and apparently are active throughout the winter, snow or not. For reasons unclear to me, they are well known for their habitat of massing atop the snow's crust, as seen in these photos.

Scientists have looked into the physical mechanisms that allow Snow Fleas to operate in the dead of winter. Their bodies are infused with a glycine-rich protein - an antifreeze of sorts. Apparently Snow Flea protein is utterly unique, and is being studied for possible synthesized spin-offs that could have utility to humans, such as cryo-preservation of organs.

Snow Fleas are common enough, and if you find yourself traipsing around a snowy woods, keep an eye out for the Lilliputian beasts. They're easy to miss - from afar or even near their collective masses look like niger seed sprinkled across the snow. They often seem to collect around the bases of trees or along logs.

After watching the Snow Fleas for a while - there were probably thousands - my thoughts turned back to that cold spider that I had seen. I wonder if it, and perhaps other predators unexpected in winter's midst, remain active and prey on the "fleas".

More Short-eared Owls (because you can never have too many owls)

Photo: Dane Adams

A Short-eared Owl, Asio flammeus, flops its way over a Hardin County grassland. The owl's fierce visage is somewhat neutralized by its amusing mothlike flight. At least they may be amusing to us - large bipeds have little to fear from these hooters. Put yourself in the paws of a small rodent, and the owls are no laughing matter, as we shall see.

I recently wrote about the Lawrence Woods Short-eared Owls, HERE, and then later received a report from Cheryl Erwin that even more owls had appeared at this locale and were at least on occasion hunting well before dusk. That sounded positive for obtaining photos, and better admiring the owls' curious antics, so I stopped by a few days ago. Dane Adams visited the following day, and made some of his always outstanding images, some of which he was kind enough to allow me to share.

This is the entrance drive to Lawrence Woods State Nature Preserve, and the owls can usually be seen quite well from this road. Although the preserve's centerpiece is the big woods, seen in the backdrop, there are hundreds of acres of meadows that are frequented by birds of prey.

The Short-eared Owls have a penchant for perching on the fenceposts adjacent to the lightly traveled county road that abuts the preserve's north boundary. It didn't take long to spot an owl teed up and ready for photos.

Short-eared Owls are the extroverts of the owl world, and generally pay people little mind. With a modicum of basic courtesy, they can be admired without bother. As long as one stays in the car, and doesn't approach too closely, the owls will utterly ignore their admirers. This is NOT true of most owls, such as the closely related Long-eared Owl. CLICK HERE for some pointers on how to admire the spookier owl species without disrupting them.

Support your local state nature preserves. Ohio is fortunate to have over 100 preserves which collectively support most of the floral and faunal biodiversity found in the state, including the rarest of the rare. CLICK HERE to become an active supporter of the Ohio Division of Natural Areas and Preserves.

At one point, a female Northern Harrier, Circus cyaneus, attempted to cross the big meadow. Big mistake. The harrier was like a Blood attempting to infiltrate Crip turf. Several Short-eareds immediately scrambled skyward, barking like annoyed terriers, and gave chase. In this distant photo of the action, the harrier is at the far right, about to suffer another owl strafing. It was just bushwhacked by the owl at the far left. Mrs. Harrier did not linger long.

Photo: Dane Adams

An owl carts off a little furry hotdog with legs, a Meadow Vole, Microtus pennsylvanicus. These small rodents have lemmingesque boom and bust years, and this apparently is a boom year. Watch the snowy ground at your feet for a bit at a place like Lawrence Woods, and you'll see one of the little rodents make a dash across the snow. Raptors quickly figure out where the voles are high in number, and move in to capitalize on the mammalian bonanza.

It does not behoove the long term survival of a Meadow Vole if it shows itself. Not that they live long anyway, but if one foolishly sticks its nose above ground, it's odds of ending up as an owl pellet rise exponentially. Therefore, voles craft tunnels under the snow and grass; sort of like rodent subways. But every now and again a vole must come topside and that's when the ever vigilant owls are there to pounce. CLICK HERE to learn more about these important rodents.
 

I made this image from the vehicle, from 75 or so feet off using my Sigma 150-500 telephoto lens. That was obviously plenty close enough to admire the animal, and make some nice images, but not near enough to pester the bird. In fact, to momentarily divert its attention to look at the camera, I had to squeak like a mouse. I suppose you might say that squeaking at an owl is pestering it, but I don't think so. The owl briefly stabbed me with those glaring yellow eyes, then resumed its constant scanning of its surroundings.

Photo: Dane Adams

One can never have too many owls in their life, and should you wish to enrich your owl quotient, don't forget the Ohio Ornithological Society's upcoming Owls of North America Symposium. All are welcome, and all of the details are RIGHT HERE.

New book! Common Spiders of North America

A beautiful lime-colored Green Lynx Spider, Peucetia viridans, keeps close watch over her spiderlings. Spiders are among our most abundant, ecologically important, and interesting groups of animals. I shot the above image in Georgia. You'll not see this species in Ohio, but if you travel south and bumble into one of these spiders, you'll surely wonder what it is.

This book will be a great help in identifying the Green Lynx Spider, and 468 other spider species that occur commonly in North America.

Common Spiders of North America, by Richard Bradley, with illustrations by Steve Buchanan. University of California Press, 271 pages.

Bradley is a professor at Ohio State University, and has made a serious study of the eight-legged crowd for several decades. In the course of his studies, he's examined untold thousands of specimens from all quarters of Ohio and beyond, and spent scores of hours afield studying the animals. His expertise shines through in Common Spiders. All 68 families of spiders are treated, and the author has done a masterful job of including the species that are most commonly encountered, and asked about. If you are a spider enthusiast, or even an arachnophobe who can handle seeing spiders in print, this book is for you. There is absolutely nothing like it.

The world of spiders is full of crazy and impossibly cool creatures. This is one of the "ant mimic" jumping spiders. It really, really resembles an ant - so much so that that's what most casual observers would dismiss the spider as, unless they looked closely. I photographed this one in Pennsylvania. The text of Common Spiders delves into the quirks and oddities of the spider world, such as this ant-jumper. The book is really a natural history treatment, in addition to being an identification guide. Introductory material does a great job of describing spiders in broad terms, then tightens down to a user-friendly key which should allow you to place your mystery spider into the appropriate group. The meat of the book is the spider accounts, which are arranged by family. Each family section has a well-crafted and succinct overview of the family, often spiced with interesting facts or trivia. Depending on the family and its diversity, there will be anywhere from one to many species accounts that follow the family description.

The illustrations are incredible, and worth the price of admission alone. Artfully rendered by Steve Buchanan, these paintings transform the book into an objet d' art. Just as the best (in my opinion) bird guides utilize illustrations because they can depict a perfect composite of the bird in question, Buchanan's illustrations allow us to see details that would be much harder to show with photographs. The above is one of the plates that shows jumping spiders. Symbols indicate male or female, and both sexes and sometimes even variations within a species are shown. There is nothing else available, insofar as I am aware, that shines such a clear, gorgeous light on spiders as do these illustrations.

Bradley singles out particularly fascinating spider families via inset boxes, and discusses their habits. The page above digs into the incredible Bolas Spiders, and brings out the almost unbelievable hunting techniques employed by the female spiders. It is these profile boxes, in part, that transform the book into a natural history treatment in addition to an ID guide. I'm glad that Bradley regularly detours down more detailed side roads so that we can learn more about the fascinating behavior of spiders. All too many guides stop abruptly at the pertinent identification field marks, and those of us with the desire to know more about the animal are left hanging.

Common Spiders of North America is not a field guide. It's a 7" x 10" hardbound book with a fair bit of heft to it. You'll not be slipping it into your back pocket. That's probably not an issue, though - with the proliferation of digital cameras and cameras imbedded in smart phones, most would-be users can just snap a photo of a mystery spider, and consult the book later.

You'll also have to dig rather deeply into your wallet to make a copy of Common Spiders your own. It lists for $60.00, definitely at the high end of the monetary spectrum for such fare. Parting with a half-dozen tenspots is really a small price to pay for such a novel book, though, and I highly recommend it. My copy is in hand, and I've enjoyed paging through it. And I really can't wait until warm weather returns scores of spiders to the landscape, and I can better put Common Spiders of North America through its paces.

PICK UP A COPY HERE.