Climbing Fern

 

Last Saturday, Shauna and I participated in the Beaver Christmas Bird Count. Our area of the count covers a very remote area of Jackson County, Ohio, and it was quite birdy, at least in regard to species diversity. Overall numbers were not great. Highlights included five Hermit Thrushes and two Eastern Phoebes. In all, we found 43 species. And reconfirmed the existence of this population of Climbing Fern (Lygodium palmatum).

ASIDE: Hermit Thrushes are undoubtedly far more common in wintertime southern Ohio than is generally imagined. One key to finding them is getting an eye for suitable habitat, which is hardly rocket science. They favor early successional habitats with plenty of fruiting sumac (genus Rhus) and most commonly from my experience, Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina). The copious and long-persistent sumac fruit is a staple of their wintertime diet. Once in a while, one will hear the easily recognized low chuck call note of a thrush and find it that way, but mostly, the birds remain silent in dense cover and are easily overlooked. But judicious playing of the thrush's call note - not the song - will usually elicit a response, quickly. Had I not done that, we probably wouldn't have found any on this excursion. Had we had more time to just work Hermit Thrushes, we may well have doubled that number.

Back to the fern. The above photo shows Climbing Fern's scrambling growth habit. It isn't hard to spot a colony, but colonies tend to be fairly rare and local and widely scattered. At one time, it was on the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' official list of rare plants but was rightly removed long ago as it isn't rare enough to merit listing.

Map courtesy of the Flora North America

This is the only member of the largely tropical fern family Lygodiaceae that occurs entirely within the Unites States, and by far the most northerly species. Two others, Asian species and both in the genus Lygodium, have been introduced. One of them, Japanese Climbing Fern (L. japonicum) is widely established across the southeastern states but has not yet managed to make it as far north as Ohio. The other is Climbing Maidenhair (L. microphyllum) which thus far is confined to Florida but seems to be rapidly spreading.

Aptly named, Climbing Fern is adept at scrambling up supporting vegetation, and can climb to several feet in height via its spaghetti-like orangish stems. The green conspicuous fronds are the sterile leaves that are long-persistent. The fertile spore-bearing leaves are short-lived and quite different in appearance. Remnants of these can be seen at the bottom one-third of the plant in the image above. They are the lacy brown extensions from the stems.

The fern's specific epithet, "palmatum" essentially means "hand-like" and the fronds certainly suggest hands. In the fern world (Pteridophytes), which encompasses about 80 species in Ohio, Climbing Fern is among our most distinctive species.

I first saw this Climbing Fern colony over 20 years ago, and it's always rewarding to revisit it each year. The general area in which it occurs has a large silica mine that is still operational and has laid waste to lots of interesting and valuable habitats since it started. Hopefully this fern colony and its vicinity will be spared, especially as there are several other rare plant species nearby, including some that are truly endangered.

The fascinating life of the yellow-bellied sapsucker

 

A male yellow-bellied sapsucker tends a well field

Columbus Dispatch

December 20, 2025

NATURE

Jim McCormac

“And you tell him if he don’t show up himself, he ain’t nothing but a yellow-bellied sapsucking coward.”–Denzel Washington as Sam Chisolm in the 2016 remake of "The Magnificent Seven"

Arguably our coolest woodpecker, the yellow-bellied sapsucker has provided plenty of fodder for insults and jokes. Yes, there really is such a bird, and in my opinion, it is the most interesting of the seven common Ohio woodpeckers.

Unlike the other six woodpecker species which commonly nest in the state, the yellow-bellied sapsucker occurs mostly as a migrant and winter resident. It’s a northern species, breeding across the northern boreal forest, from Alaska to Newfoundland. Nearly all Ohio nesting records come from the extreme northeastern corner of the state, which represents the southern edge of the nesting range.

Sapsuckers are normally mostly non-vocal outside of the breeding season, but occasionally deliver their loud cat-like call, which sounds a bit like a feline with its tail caught in a vise. That will draw a birder’s attention to the bird, which otherwise can easily be missed.

Woodpeckers “sing” by drumming rhythms distinctive to their species. The sapsucker’s “song” is an erratic series of taps that sounds like something a drunken Morse code operator would produce. One hears this frequently on the breeding grounds, but sometimes sapsuckers heading north in spring will deliver their peculiar pounding patter.

One reason that sapsuckers can easily be missed is that they spend much time creating and maintaining complex “well fields” on tree trunks. While so engaged, a sapsucker quietly works with the horizontally arranged rows of neat holes in the trunk that it has created. The holes, which might number into the dozens in a single well field, ooze sap. And tree sap is a coveted food for the sapsucker, and the reason for the bird’s curious name.

Sapsuckers will “frack” hundreds of different tree species, in which they construct two types of well fields. In spring, when sap flows upward through the xylem tissue in the bark, the individual wells are small and round. After leaf-out, their sap-mining is concentrated on the phloem tissue layer, in which sap flows downward. These holes are larger and rectangular. The male sapsucker in the accompanying photo is working a phloem well field.

In warmer weather, insects galore are drawn to the sugary sap, and these bugs are eagerly scarfed down by the feathered engineers. For a sapsucker, the perfect food is a gooey ball of sap with bugs rolled into it, an insectivorous nougat for birds.

It isn’t just sapsuckers that benefit from their sap wells. Ruby-throated hummingbirds visit frequently to lap up sap, which can be up to 10% sugar. Evidence suggests that hummingbirds may sync their movements to stay in proximity to sapsuckers, and even nest near active well fields. Long before the first manmade hummingbird feeder was created, yellow-bellied sapsuckers were feeding hummingbirds.

I have spent much time in northern Michigan, where sapsuckers can be the most common breeding woodpecker species. A favored nesting tree is quaking aspen, especially those afflicted with a heartwood decay fungus called Phellinus tremulae. The fungus weakens the inner wood, making it easier for the sapsuckers to excavate their dwelling. The hardworking male sapsucker does nearly all the excavation. By all appearances, the female supervises his work, flying in periodically to inspect progress, while the male looks from the hole and receives instructions from his better half.

Once construction is complete, the female lays four to five eggs, which are brooded by both sexes. About two weeks later, the sapsucker-lets hatch. After the nest is vacated, they are often appropriated by flying squirrels or other cavity-nesting species unable to create their own dwellings.

Sapsuckers begin to move south into Ohio in late September and can be fairly common in October. Many remain throughout winter and become more common southward in the state. The longest distance migrant of our woodpeckers, sapsuckers range south through Central America nearly to South America, and throughout the Caribbean countries. I have seen them multiple times in the jungles of Costa Rica and Guatemala. That was rather a shock the first time, seeing this woodpecker of the northern forests in proximity with manakins, motmots and toucans.

A great local place for migratory and wintering yellow-bellied sapsuckers is Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus’s south side. The cemetery, Ohio’s second largest, covers 360 acres and is a true birding hotspot. Wandering between the central pond (‘the pit”) and the old bridge and ravine to its west can be especially productive for sapsucker-seekers.

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 sapsuckers, male below, female above

Northern Coralroot: A wee orchid

I wanted to share some imagery of a really cool little orchid that I made last spring, in the mountains of southern West Virginia. This is a species that is listed as endangered in my home state, and I've never seen it in Ohio. Here, it's known only from a few sites in the extreme northeastern corner of the state.

A quintet of Northern Coralroot (Corallorhiza trifida) arises from the cold, boggy mire of a high-elevation bog in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. It was nearing full bloom on the very early date of May 4 (2025). At that locale, snow is still a likely possibility. The early blooming of this elfin orchid leads to another common name: Early Coralroot.

ASIDE: There is essentially no standardization for plant common names, thus it is vital to know and use scientific names, like Corallorhiza trifida, when researching flora, to ensure that you are harvesting data on the correct species. I prefer Northern Coralroot for this species, as it certainly is that. Although there is other northern species of coralroot, just as there is another eastern coralroot that blooms in spring.

Northern Coralroot is an elfin plant, and that short individual - second from left - in the above photo is probably only 2-3 inches in height. It'd be quite easy to pass this one by, as from an upright position - and I assume most readers are hominids that walk with an erect posture - the plants are easy to miss due to their small stature. Fortunately, when in flower, the tiny petals are a somewhat luminescent yellowish-white and their faint glow can draw the eye.

Here is the overall lower US distribution of Northern Coralroot (map courtesy of BONAP). It barely extends south of the Great Lakes, and the plants in my photos were made in one of the two southernmost counties in West Virginia, both depicted in yellow (which means "rare").

BONAP maps are misleading, insofar as the big picture is concerned, as they don't portray records north of the lower 48 states. This coralroot ranges across Canada and extends north to Alaska and southeastern Greenland and also occurs across Eurasia.

Here is the Flora North America map, which makes clear why I prefer the name Northern Coralroot. This tough plant probably gets stepped on by Polar Bears on occasion!

Northern Coralroot also occurs widely across Eurasia, including Siberia. The species has been cleft into two varieties, and most of the North American plants are apparently Corallorhiza trifida var. verna. I assume the Eurasian plants would be mostly/all the nominate variety (C. trifida var. trifida).

A tight shot of the inflorescence. Very beautiful flowers, but on a tiny scale. All of those floral parts would be measured in millimeters.

Reproduction is interesting in that Northern Coralroot flowers are mostly, maybe often entirely, self-pollinated. When ripe, the pollinia, or pollen sacs, fall off and land on the stigma (pollen receptor). Thus, insect transport agents are not required. A wise strategy for a plant that often blooms when it can still be quite cold. But insects can transfer pollen if conditions allow for their movement. About the only group of insects that I could find reference to are various flies (Diptera). Go flies! There may be no order of animals as underappreciated as the Dipterans. But I'll leave flies for another day.

A botanical reminisce: Gall-of-the-earth (Prenanthes trifoliolata)

About this time of year - early winter - I begin to internally lament the lack of flowering plants. We recently had about five inches of snow, and nighttime temperatures are dipping into the low to md-20's F, with teens soon to come. For the botanically inclined, such as your narrator, this means a few months of a floral dry spell, which occasionally makes me pine for warmer seasons (much as I love winter, snow, cold, diving ducks, raptors, etc.).

I've been spending scads of time with the photographic files, catching up on labeling and archiving a backlog of unprocessed material, and digging out material for a few new projects. In the course of that, I often run across old stuff that brings back good memories, and this post features one of those subjects - one that I never got around to blogging about (I did have a blog in 1997 - the year the word "blog" was coined, although I didn't know to call my site that, then).

On August 26, 1997, I was botanizing a high, dry ridge deep in Shawnee State Forest. This is Ohio's largest contiguous forest at around 71,000 acres, and it is a hotbed of biodiversity, both floral and faunal. Shawnee is truly a state and national gem, and enormously significant to the conservation of scores of species. Many state-listed endangered and threatened species occur here.

WAY back in 1997, the forest was not as well explored botanically as it now is and wasn't as much on the radar screen. Nonetheless, I am sure that rarities remain to be discovered.

Anyway, at that time, I was keen on discovering a plant species that I figured surely must occur in Ohio and constantly kept my eyes open for it. And it was on this date, at the exact spot in the photo above, that I finally discovered it. While the plant in question is quite tall, with some specimens towering to six feet or more, it is a spindly species that can be passed by. Several flowering specimens are in my photo, but good luck spotting them. To compound matters, the plant in question closely resembles another species in the same genus and could easily be dismissed as its commoner brethren.

Here's the USDA Plants Database map of the species in question (click to enlarge, if so desired), which is known as Gall-of-the-earth (Nabalus trifoliolatus). Field botanists pore over maps such as this, seeking likely new native plants to discover in their state. In this case, it seemed that there was a high likelihood that Gall-of-the-earth (weird common name; "gall" means bold or impudent) should be in extreme southern or eastern Ohio, as it ranges right up to our borders in those regions.

I should note that there are two errors on this map, in regard to Ohio. The Ashtabula County record (farthest NE county) is apparently in error, based on a mention in Gray's Manual of Botany. No documenting specimen can be located, so that record must be regarded as hypothetical. The southern county highlighted in green is Adams County. It should be Scioto County, the county immediately to the east. That's apparently an error by the USDA Plants Database.

Anyway, back to the find. As I walked the road banks in the first photo, I saw a number of towering specimens of "wild lettuces" (as members of the genus Nabalus [at the time of this discovery, Prenanthes] are sometimes known. The rub with an easy identification is White Rattlesnake-root (Nabalus alba). It resembles Gall-of-the earth to a great degree and is locally common in Ohio with records from at least 35 counties.

A flower and buds of Gall-of-the-earth. The smoking gun for identification of this species, which is easily enough seen in the field, is the color of the pappus hairs, which subtend the flowers and fruit. I located some mature flowers, mostly past, pulled some of the pappus for inspection, and Voila! The pappus was pale white - quite unlike the cinnamon-brown coloration of the look-alike White Rattlesnake-root. I finally had found Gall-of-the earth in Ohio.

Here's my original specimen of Gall-of-the-earth, collected on August 26, 1997 - the same day I made the above photos. This one is housed at the Ohio State University herbarium. A duplicate specimen is at the Miami University herbarium.

Twenty-eight years have now passed since this find, and no other populations of Gall-of-the-earth have been found. In a good year, the tiny area where it occurs in Shawnee State Forest might host 80-100 plants - a true endangered species, which is how it is listed by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. You can see that list RIGHT HERE. It'd be awesome if someone could find more Gall-of-the-earth, ideally in another county (or two, or three...).

Finding a new native plant species for Ohio is always a thrill, and the experiences remain etched in my mind. To date, I've discovered or co-discovered a dozen new ones and rediscovered nine extirpated plants - species that no one has seen in at least 20 years, and in most cases, it's been far longer than that.

Winter snowstorm

As always, click the photo to enlarge

I awoke to a winter wonderland. About five inches of powdery snow fell overnight (for us, that is a snowstorm), encasing everything in a blanket of snow. The aftermath of such snowstorms is often ephemeral, so I headed out before daybreak to bask in some real winter, one of my favorite seasons. This is the Olentangy River in Worthington, Franklin County, Ohio.

Scioto Brush Creek earns Scenic River status

Scioto Brush Creek earns Scenic River status

NATURE

The Columbus Dispatch
November 30, 2025

Scioto Brush Creek in Scioto County, Ohio

Gov. Mike DeWine and Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Mary Mertz announced recently that Scioto Brush Creek had been designated as Ohio’s 17th State Scenic River. They did so in the shadow of the beautiful Otway covered bridge in rural Scioto County.

Scenic river status allows the DNR to commit expertise and funding to ensure best management practices along the stream. Rivers receiving this designation are the best of the best, and ODNR wants to ensure that they remain that way. Local officially designated scenic rivers include the Big and Little Darby Creeks, and the Olentangy River. Nearly 1,000 river miles have been enrolled in the state’s Scenic River Program.

Scioto Brush Creek has its headwaters near the Adams-Scioto county line, near the village of Peebles in Adams County. It flows 41 miles in a southeasterly direction, confluencing with the Scioto River at Rushtown in Scioto County.

I’ve been familiar with the beautiful blue-green waters of this biologically rich stream for nearly 40 years. In the infancy of my career with the ODNR (early 1980s), I was fortunate to serve as grunt labor for two of the most knowledgeable ichthyologists in Ohio: Ted Cavender of Ohio State University, and Dan Rice, former zoologist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

“Fishing” the Cavender-Rice way is hard work, involving a clunky john boat, a heavy gas-powered generator, fish-shocking gear and large seines. The scaled crowd can’t hide from the “shocker,” which sends a mild electric current into the water, stunning fish to the surface. They soon recover, but each is identified and tallied before release.

Both men were researching the as-then poorly known fisheries of Scioto Brush Creek and producing amazing finds. The popeye shiner, thought to be extirpated from Ohio (known only from 1893 specimens from the Maumee River and not seen since) had been discovered in Scioto Brush Creek in 1985 by a crew of Ohio EPA biologists, and Cavender and Rice were expanding fish surveys of the stream.

The state-endangered popeye shiner occurs only in Scioto Brush Creek, in Ohio

In all, 86 fish species have thus far been documented – over half of all the species found in the entire state. Scioto Brush Creek remains the only known Ohio location for the state-endangered popeye shiner, which is common in the stream’s lower reaches. Far more conspicuous than the shiner are amazing numbers of longnose gars. The big, primitive fish often float at the surface, looking like sticks scattered in the water. I have seen dozens loafing in pools.

Far rarer is the endangered shortnose gar, which occurs at least occasionally in the stream’s lower reaches. Both gar are ecologically important in that they serve as hosts for the glochidia (larvae) of various freshwater mussels. Three species of endangered mussels call Scioto Brush Creek home.

In 1991, botanist Stan Stine discovered a population of the federally threatened Virginia spiraea on a remote gravel bar in the stream. It has since been found on five other gravel bars, all along Scioto Brush Creek.

On a hot August day in 1993, Stine and I were wading up Scioto Brush Creek – easiest way to explore the stream – when we spotted a glimmer of purple on a steep, muddy bank. Sloshing over for a better look, we quickly realized that we had found the first Ohio record of southern monkshood in Ohio. This site and a few others along the stream are the only Ohio populations of this gorgeous buttercup family member. Numerous other rare plant species are found along the stream.

The endangered hellbender – a gigantic aquatic salamander – occurs in the creek, along with many other amphibian species. Nearly 100 bird species breed along the Scioto Brush Creek corridor, whose riparian forests are largely intact. Their ranks include many Louisiana waterthrushes and cerulean warblers, the fourth and fifth rarest warbler species in eastern North America.

Thanks to the Friends of Scioto Brush Creek for petitioning for designation of their namesake stream as a State Scenic River. Founded in 1998, the organization has labored tirelessly to promote stream conservation. Kudos too to ODNR’s Scenic Rivers Program within the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves. Launched in 1968, that successful program has made Ohio a frontrunner in stream conservation. We are fortunate to have such groups working hard to protect our waterways.

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.

Rufous Hummingbird and other vagrant hummingbirds

 

An adult female Rufous Hummingbird (Selasphorus rufus) perches atop her favorite perch. This species, a rare visitor to Ohio, was visiting a feeder at a home only 10-15 minutes from my house. On November 23, Shauna and I ran down to have a gander at the little beauty.

The hosts, Dan and Sally Carlstrom, were exceptionally gracious in allowing visitors. Probably 150 or more birders visited, and nearly all saw the bird.

Ohio's first record of Rufous Hummingbird dates to August 15, 1985, when a male appeared at the feeders of Midge and Perry Van Sickle in Westerville. It remained for three days and was seen by over 100 people, your narrator included. As is the case with all first state records, the hummingbird generated great excitement, but at that time, none of us knew what was in store.

Since that inaugural Rufous Hummingbird, dozens of other records have been documented. While still a rarity, one or two appear most years. An exceptional year was 2003, when over a dozen birds were reported. Many Ohio extralimital hummingbirds have been banded and thoroughly documented by hummingbird bander Allen Chartier of Michigan, the bird in the photo included. Right now in Ohio, there is a Ruby-throated type (possibly Black-chinned, banding should resolve that tricky identification), another Rufous Hummingbird (or Allen's, also hopefully to be resolved by banding), and our second state record Mexican Violetear (visitation by the public is not possible for this one).

The 1985 Rufous Hummingbird was the first non-Ruby-throated Hummingbird (our only breeding species) recorded in Ohio. Since then, five other species have turned up, making for seven hummingbird species for the state, and there will likely be more additions to the list.

While the advent of hummingbird feeders is often implicated in this increase, I don't think that we know with certainty that that's the cause. It may be that there have always been out-of-range hummingbirds, and their propensity for visiting feeders just brought them to light. Also, the horticultural industry has managed to produce many plants with flowers that produce blooms late into the year, and this may be a contributing factor in the eastward wandering of western hummingbird species - which all of our vagrants (with one exception) are. The exception is the Mexican Violetear (Colibri thalassinus), a species of southern Mexico and Central and South America.

Wayward birds such as these are often termed vagrants. That's not a good word for them, in my opinion. "Vagrant" means someone/something without a home, that idly wanders about. That's not the case with these hummingbirds. They have well-defined breeding and wintering grounds, and their seasonality in both is also well-defined, as is their migration. Furthermore, a number of so-called vagrant birds, including some hummingbirds, have returned to their "vagrant" haunts year after year. While no one knows exactly where they go for the breeding season (most extralimital hummingbirds turn up in late fall/early winter), for all we know they return to the breeding grounds, find a mate, and nest.

I wonder if they might be better termed "scouts". Virtually all populations of animals, especially highly mobile birds, are constantly expanding/contracting their ranges for a variety of reasons. And the former - expansion - can only occur if scouts are exploring beyond the normal range, in search of new inhabitable lands.

Two cool plants: Creeping Phlox and Twisted Sedge

As I may have mentioned in previous posts, I've been laboring away to eliminate a backlog of un-curated photos. Some date back to 2016. Most come from the spring/summer seasons, when sometimes I would return from trips with scads of images, but immediately get sucked into all manner of activities upon return. So, some folders would go into a to-be-archived folder. Fortunately, there's only about 50-60 such folders, but it's still a lot of work. I do keep current on archival of most photos, fortunately. I'm particular about how images are labeled and archived. All of mine are tagged with metadata that at a minimum includes species name, scientific name, county, state, date, and often more specific site names. Sometimes other short notes as well.

Once the images are labeled, they go onto the Cloud (good to have a storage facility completely removed from base camp, I think) and on two hard drives (duplicity is good). Careful labeling helps me find things fast, no matter when they were taken, and I can drum up about any photo I'm looking for quickly. But it isn't just about me. Having detailed metadata associated with images could be useful in the distant future. Who knows how long our digital photos could hang around, but it could be centuries or more. Someone stumbling across my images in the year 2225 could have a treasure trove of well-documented photos at a time when the earth might be very different than it currently is.

Anyway, one of the fun elements of this photo curation is revisiting sites through the images. Here are a few plants from a trip to Hocking County, Ohio on April 28, 2017. I include them here in part because I think that both would make good, interesting plants for home landscaping. While I'd think some nurseries would sell Creeping Phlox, so that one probably is accessible, I doubt if any nurseries carry Twisted Sedge.

This streambank along a small creek in Hocking County, Ohio is covered with a dense stand of Twisted Sedge (Carex torta). The sedge is densely rhizomatous, and its cord-like roots bind the unstable soil. Twisted Sedge is a pioneer species of newly exposed banks and gravel bars in riparian habitats, usually smaller streams like the one in the image.

Sedges in the genus Carex offer quite the potential buffet for the adventurous gardener. In Ohio alone, there are over 180 species, and Carex is probably the most speciose genus in all of the eastern states. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them have not been brought into captivity, and most never will.

As always, click the photo to enlarge

Here's the flowering/fruiting culm of Twisted Sedge. It's quite ornate. The long, skinny terminal spike is comprised of the staminate (male) flowers. The three bristly lower spikelets are the pistillate (female) flowers, now mostly developed into fruit. In Carex-speak, the fruit are known as perigynia. And in this case, the perigynia are exceptionally striking. Their lime-green coloration is punctuated by rich chocolate-brown scales.

Twisted Sedge favors shady environs, which could be a further asset for the landowner having trouble finding interesting natives for such places. I hope to get some of this sedge next year, and experiment with it on my property. My hunch is it'll be pretty easy to successfully grow.

This photo was made in nearly the same spot as the Twisted Sedge above. Indeed, the grassy-looking clumps along the steam banks is that sedge. But this is also habitat for one of our showiest phloxes. And all phloxes are showy.

We move in on some Creeping Phlox (Phlox stolonifera). This image illustrates the common name. The plant sends out stolons (basically small rhizomes on the ground's surface) that creep about. A colony will often have relatively few flowering spikes relative to the number of leafy stolons.

It is no coincidence that this phlox and the Twisted Sedge have similar growth habits. Life along the stream means scouring floods. Because of their anchoring rhizomes and stolons, Creeping Phlox and Twisted Sedge can hold their ground.

The gorgeous flowers of Creeping Phlox, but are not the flowers of ALL phloxes gorgeous?

In addition to providing aesthetic beauty, the flowers lure Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, hummingbird clearwing moths in the genus Hemaris,  swallowtail butterflies, and all manner of other insects.

Creeping Phlox reaches the northern limits of its range in Hocking County, Ohio, where I made these shots. To the east of Ohio, in more mountainous areas, it extends all of the way north to southern Maine.

With its propensity for shady haunts, Creeping Phlox might also make an interesting native plant for tough-to-grow places.

Three special understory warblers

I recently ran across the following images while doing archival and curation of my photos. All of them were made at the same locations and on the same day, May 1, 2022. The site was a remote locale in the Monongahela National Forest of West Virginia.

A Hooded Warbler (Setophaga citrina) tees up in a fascicle of Great Rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum) leaves. This site was quite warbliferous and I photographed a few species at this very spot. One of them is the second most coveted species of eastern warbler, but it can't hold a candle to the Hooded Warbler in the looks department. Hooded Warblers certainly breed in and around rhododendrons but occur in a variety of woodland understory habitats.

A male Black-throated Blue Warbler (Setophaga caerulescens) peeks from a rhododendron snarl, a favored breeding habitat in the Appalachian Mountains. This one is near the southern limits of the species' breeding range, in southern West Virginia. He little resembles the plain brown female, and early on males and females were considered separate species. Eastern Hemlock trees (Tsuga canadensis) often co-occur with Great Rhododendron, and I think this warbler species is more connected to that tree rather than the rhododendrons. Next photo is of the most coveted warbler in this habitat, even if it is the drabbest.

Here's the third warbler of my Appalachian rhododendron thicket series. And the most coveted, the Swainson's Warbler (Limnothlypis swainsonii). By numbers, it's the second rarest eastern warbler. Only the Kirtland's warbler is fewer in number. About 140,000 Swainson's warblers are thought to still exist. As a point of comparison, the most abundant warbler, the yellow-rumped warbler, has around 170 million individuals. The monotypic Swainson's warbler (only species in the genus Limnothlypis) favors two distinct habitat types: rhododendron thickets, and cane breaks (Arundinaria gigantea).

Interestingly, an apparently unmated male spent much of last summer in Shawnee State Forest in Scioto County, Ohio. The site is not too terribly far from West Virginia nesting populations, but breeding has never been documented in Ohio. I made a visit to see it last June and was surprised to find the largest wild stand of giant cane I've seen in Ohio nearby. Coincidence? Maybe, but it'll be interesting to see if Swainson's warblers return to this locale. Note the bird's huge toes. All the better to forage on the ground, in dense leafy detritus.

Red-shouldered Hawk, in autumnal foliage

A gorgeous adult Red-shouldered Hawk hunts from the boughs of a fruit-laden sycamore tree. By moving my position a bit, I was able to get a solid wall of autumnally tinted foliage behind the bird.

Shauna and I made a run up the Olentangy River last Tuesday, November 4, seeking fall colors to photograph, along with anything else that might be reveal itself. Highbanks Metro Park was one of our stops, and I spotted the raptor perched atop a bat house in Highbank's "Big Meadow" down by the river. Eventually some walkers flushed the hawk, and it flew to this much more visually pleasing spot and we set about making photos.

Red-shouldered Hawks are often fairly tame, especially when in regular contact with people. This bird is one of the local breeding pairs, and as Highbanks gets over 1.3 million visitors annually, its sees lots of humanoids. This species ranks high among our showiest raptors, and I'll never miss an opportunity to work with Buteo lineatus.

PHOTO NOTE: Although our primary goal on this relatively brief outing was landscapes and fall color, photographically I was armed for bear. One never knows when something like this hawk might present itself. As always, at least for the past 5+ years, I was armed with the Canon R5, a truly amazing mirrorless camera. It's update, the R5 II, emerged last year, and I'd like to update to that, but that's yet to happen.

Anyways, when I saw the hawk, I parked some distance away, and Shauna moved in with her handheld Nikon Z8 and 150-600 lens. She got some awesome shots. It took me a bit longer to get in position, as I installed the Canon 800mm f/5.6 lens, and Canon's 1.4x teleconverter, making for a focal length of 1120mm. It's almost always better to work as far from animal subjects, especially birds, as possible - or at least stay far enough away to not bother them.

The 800mm can turn in mixed results with a teleconverter attached. It's more glass to shoot through, focus acquisition slows a bit, and achieving tack-sharp images can be difficult. I also have Canon's 2x teleconverter, which makes the 800mm a whopping 1600mm. That sounds good on paper, but in reality, it's very hard to get sharp, crisp images with the 2x, and you lose two stops, so f/11 is the lowest aperture one can shoot at. It's f/8 with the 1.4x. You'll want lots of light to attempt the 2x. But if the subject is close enough, especially larger subjects, the 1.4x/800 combo can produce nice images. I don't know exactly how far I was from this hawk, but it was distant enough that it paid me no mind. I was really hoping it's drop down and grab a gartersnake - it was warm enough for one to be moving about - and return with it to a convenient perch for snake/hawk pics. Red-shoulders eat lots of herps: amphibians and reptiles.

I made this image at f/8, 1/500 shutter speed, and ISO 1250. I used a tripod, of course - handholding the 11.5 pound R5/800 unit is tough, and the keeper rate will plummet without a tripod.
 

Why I disagree with those defending turf grasses

 

Drifts of native plants threaten to engulf the author's front yard/Jim McCormac

Why I disagree with those defending turf grasses

NATURE
Columbus Dispatch
November 2, 2025

A friend recently sent me a column entitled “Dispelling social media myths about gardening, pollinators and more.”

Myth-busting is always a step forward in our intellectual progress, whether said myth originates on social media, or anywhere else. The problem with this column, which is making the rounds, is that it perpetuates many falsehoods, rather than correct them. It essentially appears to be a defense of turf grass, and other biodiversity-reducing landscape activities.

Turf grass, sod, lawn — whatever you want to call it — is conspicuous and pervasive. An estimated 40-50 million acres of the stuff blankets America, and perhaps two million acres cover Ohio. It’s highly likely that most readers manage a lawnscape, as do I (but a much diminished one).
Lawn is typically a monoculture of one species, often bluegrass, fescue, or perhaps rye grass. They’re not species native to North America, hailing from Eurasia. These species are selected for traits such as shallow root systems and quick growth. They create a high-maintenance and utterly artificial ecosystem that supports little in the way of biodiversity.

For much of the growing season, turf grass requires weekly mowings. Such maintenance in the pursuit of superficial aesthetics uses an estimated 800 million gallons of gas annually in America, which is fed to mowers that emit much higher rates of pollution than cars do. The U.S. EPA estimates that 17 million gallons of gas are spilled annually in the pursuit of lawn mowing.

Worse yet, America’s lawns — which collectively blanket an area about the size of New York state — are doused with an estimated 2.4 million tons of fertilizer each year. Turf grass is the United States’ third largest crop, after corn and soybeans. Fertilizer usage pales compared to herbicides, fungicides and pesticides. About 80 million pounds of 2,4-D, malathion, azoxystrobin and all manner of other unpronounceable nasties are dumped on lawns each year. Most of them have deleterious — even fatal — effects on bees, birds, mammals, fish and other aquatic species. Furthermore, these toxins don’t just stay in your yard. Most of them have been detected in groundwater.

I noticed that the column did not mention any of the statistics cited above. The author did cite an expert who informs us that fireflies are not declining. This apparently is part of making a case that light pollution and turf grass has no impact on these charismatic flashers. In other words, don’t worry about leaving those nightlights on and turf grass is just fine for the bugs. That’s not the consensus among groups like The Xerces Society, which is devoted to the study and conservation of invertebrates. I wrote my column of July 20, on fireflies: “Fireflies are scarcer than a few decades ago.” The evidence leaves little doubt that “lightning bugs” are in a downward slide, and lawns and nightlights are part of the problem.

Elsewhere in the columm it is stated: “Many on social media suggest lawns are sterile and have no use.” Guilty as charged, and I do not know of a botanist, ecologist, entomologist or zoologist who wouldn’t feel like I do. And I know a lot of those types.

Biodiversity plummets in largely sterile monocultures of nonnative turf grass. Most of our native insects — the base layer of the food chain — are tightly tied to native flora. This makes sense, as those relationships were forged over very long time periods, far longer than the comparatively recent arrival of Europeans in America and the Old-World flora that they brought and continue to bring.

One insect group that does not flourish in turf grass are the so-called grass skipper butterflies. “Do you like skipper butterflies? Turfgrass is needed for many species of skippers as their larvae feed on insects in the turfgrass.” So states the column.

All grasses are not created equal, and the native grasses such as bluestems, redtop and rice cutgrasses far outshine turf grasses. Of the 16 species of grass skippers that regularly occur in Ohio, all of their caterpillars feed on native grasses (not “insects in the turfgrass”).

Moths are far more speciose than butterflies and vital to food chains, especially their caterpillars. Their diversity sinks to nearly nothing in turf grass meadows. A handful of species can endure the botanical desert, such as some armyworms, cutworms, grass-veneers and sod webworms. Lawns are effective at creating biological dead zones.

Those who wish to help wildlife and create a more environmentally friendly landscape should look to using native plants. There are over 1,800 native plants species in Ohio, and an ever-increasing number of them are finding their way into the nursery trade. As I and scores of others know from experience, adding native flora fosters fireflies, skipper butterflies and all manner of cool moths. Birds such as Carolina wrens, tufted titmice and migrant warblers benefit as a result.

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.

Moth talk and hike, Highbanks Metro Park, November 8, 3 pm.

 

Thanks to Claire Whillans, naturalist at Highbanks Metro Park, for creating this nice flyer!

On Saturday, November 8, I'm giving a talk about moths and their amazing roles in food webs and ecology, at Highbanks Metro Park just north of Columbus, Ohio. It's free, and all are welcome.

After the talk, we'll - at least those that wish - will talk a mile or so stroll around Highbanks, seeing what we can see (and hear). While moths will probably be in short supply, birds and botany won't and we'll look at whatever presents itself. A natural history free-for-all, if you will.

Hope to see you there!

Gibellula fungus, a spider killer

 

An unfortunate spider, engulfed by a Gibellula fungus. If an airborne Gibellula spore lands on a suitable victim, the fungus will grow and enter its body, eventually consuming much of the spider's soft inner parts. In a grisly last hurrah, fruiting bodies erupt from the carcass's corpse, sending legions of spores into the air stream to seek new spider victims. And to think, you have probably had many of these microscopic spores land on you. Hopefully the fungus never manages to jump ship to Homo sapiens, or some tough times lay ahead. Highland County, Ohio, July 16, 2022.

NOTE: I am laboring hard to delete my photographic backlog and am making great strides. There have been periods where I was taking FAR more images than I could curate and archive, so some of those folders got stuffed into a "to-do" file. Now is the time to buckle down and get all of these images into my system, where I can easily lay hands on them if needed. So, from time t time, I will probably out a photo or two from the past, as I come across temporarily forgotten gems (although I'm not sure anyone would consider a Gibellula fungus and its unfortunate victim a "gem").

Lawrence's Warbler

A scrubby successional habitat in Medina County, on a fine morning. I visited this site on June 11, 2025, to seek a very special bird. Letha House Park is part of the Medina County Park District, and it contains a diverse mixture of habitats: old fields, young forest, wetlands, a pond, and most germane to this story, young shrubby thickets.

On April 29, the rare hybrid Lawrence's Warbler was discovered in the very patch in my photo above. The white flowers, by the way, are Smooth Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis). It wasn't that herb that lured the Lawrence's Warbler, though, it was the mixture of young pole-sized trees and associated brushy growth.

While I can't recall now who found the bird, I think it was Debbie Parker, and/or Joe Wojnarowski. Both reported the bird to eBird on April 29, the first date it was reported. I watched the reports with great interest as time went on but was too busy with various activities to make the trip, although the Lawrence's was reported daily throughout May.

As always, click the photo to enlarge

Finally! June 11 arrives and so does a free and clear day. I hit the road long before sunup and arrived on a beautifully sunny morning with excellent light for photography. I don't think I had even fully exited the vehicle before I heard the hybrid's distinctive buzzy song and soon found the singer in a young sycamore.

The Lawrence's Warbler is a hybrid between the Blue-winged Warbler (Vermivora cyanoptera) and Golden-winged Warbler (V. chrysoptera). The former parent species remains fairly common where appropriate habitat remains, while the latter parent has declined alarmingly across much of its range.

If one uses the Biological Species Concept as a framework for deciding what constitutes a species (as many scientists do), they will be confronted with this tenet: The biological species concept defines a species as members of populations that actually or potentially interbreed in nature, not according to similarity of appearance. Although appearance is helpful in identifying species, it does not define species.

Differing visual appearances sometimes have little to do with speciation. Take the Eastern and Western meadowlarks (Sturnella magna and S. neglecta). Most birders would struggle mightily telling those two apart visually. But their songs are different as night and day and with the slightest experience, anyone would instantly recognize them. Those songs probably serve as a primary barrier in limiting contact between the two. There is a narrow band of overlapping range, but even there, hybridization is apparently very rare.

Yet the Blue-winged and Golden-winged warblers look completely different. Anyone would think they were different species with just a glance. And indeed, they are and always have been treated as separate species. But should they?

The Medina County Lawrence's Warbler strikes a pose. I would argue that it is more beautiful than either parent species, or its fellow hybrid the Brewster's Warbler.

About 190 years ago, the legendary frontier ornithologist John James Audubon wrote a letter to his mentor and confidant, John Bachman, in which he speculated that Blue-winged and Golden-winged warblers were the same species. Audubon, a keen observer if there ever was one, no doubt noted mixed pairings and similarities in songs and structure.

It wasn't until 1886 that the inaugural American Ornithologists' Union Checklist of North American Birds appeared, over 50 years after Audubon's prescient Blue-winged/Golden-winged observations noted in his September 15, 1835, missive to Bachman. This checklist is widely considered the standard for North American bird nomenclature. Numerous editions and supplements to the checklist have been published since, but from the first to the current checklist, Blue-winged and Golden-winged warblers have been maintained as separate species. I would note that the scientific name of the Blue-winged changed three times over the checklist's history, and the Golden-winged's twice. English names tend to be far more stable than the ever-shifting landscape of scientific nomenclature.

In the mid-2010's, scientists with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology undertook an intensive study of the genetics of the Blue-winged and Golden-winged warblers. The results weren't very surprising, in my estimation, but provide solid evidence of their genetic similarity. In short, the two "species" are 99.7% genetically identical. Only six regions (0.3%) of the genome reflect distinct differences. This is basically akin to the differences between a human with red hair, and one with blond hair. The Cornall researchers note that the genetic differences between the two groups of Swainson's Thrush (each comprised of three subspecies) are greater than the differences between the two warblers.

When they come into contact, Blue-winged and Golden-winged pairings result in two distinct - and fertile hybrids: the Brewster's Warbler, and Lawrence's Warbler. Brewster's manifests the dominant traits such as the yellow throat and white underparts, while the Lawrence's Warbler manifests recessive traits such as the black throat and yellow underparts. Brewster's hybrids occur more frequently, hence my interest in seeing and photographing the protagonist of this blog post (only the second Lawrence's that I've seen).

The only other member of the genus Vermivora is the now extinct Bachman's Warbler, named for Audubon's confidante and a great naturalist in his own right. That species, which was a specialist of canebrake habitats in the southeastern U.S., is now extinct with the last documented observations dating back to the 1960's.

Blue-winged and Golden-winged warblers have probably long hybridized, and for whatever reasons this species complex never fully separated. Their hybridization may serve them well; in helping the Blue-winged/Golden-winged group (I don't think they should be treated as separate species) adapt to changes in the environment, much of which is man-caused. While the recessive and more fragile Golden-winged group of this species complex may die out (and I certainly hope that it does not!), at least the species in the bigger picture may carry on.

Moth talk, and screening new movie, Nocturnes, this Friday evening, Franklin Park Conservatory

 

A male Polyphemus Moth (Antheraea polyphemus) stares us in the face.

Franklin Park Conservatory, at 1777 East Broad Street in Columbus, is hosting what should be an interesting evening with the moths this Friday, October 10. The event starts at 7pm and begins with a talk by your narrator entitled Mysterious Moths: The Darker Side of Butterflies. That'll be all about the role of moths within the eastern deciduous forest region of eastern North America, the important roles that they play, and their numerous curious quirks. The program will be rich in imagery, needless to say.

Following that, there'll be a screening of a fascinating movie, Nocturnes. Two researchers illuminate the incredible diversity of moths in an especially biodiverse region of the Eastern Himalayas. The movie is exceptionally well done and exposes the audience to a mind-blowing assemblage of seldom seen moths.

All of the details are RIGHT HERE and hope to see you there!

Toadlike Bolas Spider

 

As always, click the image to enlarge

We were ecstatic to encounter this Toadlike Bolas Spider (Mastophora phrynosoma) during an epic nocturnal outing at Fernald Preserve in Hamilton County, Ohio, back on September 13. She has spun a simple silken trellis underneath a redbud leaf, and from this position is hunting moths.

The large, bulbous spider (which looks remarkably similar to a bird dropping when at rest) emits pseudo pheromones from her body that mimic those of certain groups of moths. Males of those species flutter closer, thinking a female moth is nearby. When one gets in range, the spider flicks that sticky silken droplet on its fishing line of death and snares the hapless creature.

Upon impact, the tightly woven sticky silken ball essentially explodes, further entangling the moth, which is then reeled in and eaten. We actually watched a moth come in, land on the leaf over the spider, then flutter downward at which point the bolas spider began whirling its glue-like droplet at it. It missed, but it was amazing how fast the spider reacted and the rapidity with which it could fling its bolas.

Katydids have their ears near their knees

 

Up close with a Greater Anglewing katydid (Microcentrum rhombifolium). Katydids "sing" with their wings, rubbing the bases together in a process known as stridulation. One wing contains a file, the other a scraper. In the case of the Greater Anglewing, males create a series of soft clicks, as if two pebbles are being tapped together. It stands to reason that these insects would have good hearing, as males create the songs to attract females or maintain unique territories. Indeed, they do hear well, courtesy of ears on their forelegs, just below the knee. It's that elongate vertical slit on the katydid's foreleg in the photo.

Katydids and their orthopteran allies represent the genesis of intentional sound. Fossil records of katydid relatives date back 250 million years ago, replete with the file/scraper sound system. Although life on earth began over 3.5 billion years ago, the earliest animals were mute. Animal sound didn't originate until the katydids came along, and over the eons the faunal soundscape has evolved into a gorgeous, complex aural tapestry that involves legions of different animals making their own types of music.

Alas, the orthopteran symphony will soon cease at northerly latitudes, like where I live in central Ohio. But they're still going strong, and we've probably got another two weeks or so to enjoy their ancient melodies.

A greater Anglewing poses on the foliage of Winged Sumac (Rhus copallinum). The large katydid is a remarkable leaf mimic.

An Ohio farm attracts migratory congregations of monarch butterflies

Dozens of monarchs in a silver maple/Jim McCormac

NATURE-WILDLIFE

Jim McCormac

Columbus Dispatch

September 21, 2025

An Ohio farm attracts migratory congregations of monarch butterflies

 

"The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity."

— George Carlin

Monarch butterflies undergo a complete metamorphosis, or a four-part life cycle. Life begins as a tiny egg, which soon hatches an elfin larva, or caterpillar. The caterpillar does much of the heavy lifting on the road to butterflydom. It is an eating machine, increasing its body mass scores of times as it grows through, in the case of the monarch, five molts.

Life is fraught with peril as a caterpillar, and many are eaten by predatory insects, birds and even some amphibians and reptiles. Less than 10% of caterpillars survive to enter phase three, the chrysalis. This seemingly low survival rate is better than most species of butterflies and moths. Monarchs' host plants are milkweeds, which are infused with toxic cardiac glycosides. The caterpillar, and the butterfly to come, sequester these poisons, which render them distasteful if not unpalatable to many would-be predators.

Butterfly chrysalises are magical chambers of transformation in which the tubular caterpillar morphs into an entirely different body form. The monarch takes chrysalis creation to a high art form. The two-inch-long shiny case is a beautiful emerald green, adorned with a showy black and gold band. As the chrysalis ages, it becomes opaquer and toward the end, the black and gold butterfly can be seen within.

After about two weeks, the butterfly emerges. From egg to butterfly takes about a month.

America’s best-known butterfly is a source of endless fascination. Perhaps the most incredible aspect of the monarch is its incredible migration. Virtually all monarchs breed in North America north of Mexico, some as far north as southern Canada. Excepting a small resident population in southern Florida, the butterflies stage a mass migration to oyamel fir forests in the mountains of central Mexico. Some butterflies travel over 3,000 miles from their site of origin.

Once ensconced in the Mexican fir forests, the gregarious monarchs blanket the trees. Accurate estimates of individual numbers are nearly impossible, so researchers measure the acres covered by the butterflies. Assessments of the wintering population began in 1993, and the highest number of butterflies was in winter 1996-97, when a whopping 45 acres of forest was cloaked in butterflies.

As time has elapsed, it’s clear that monarchs are on a downward spiral. The lowest winter count was in 2013-14, when only little more than an acre and a half of forest harbored butterflies. Winter 2023-24 found butterflies in only 2.2 acres of oyamel forest. For the first decade of wintering ground surveys, monarchs covered an average of 21 forest acres. For the last decade, that’s plummeted to 11 acres. An estimated 80% of the migratory eastern population of monarchs has vanished since surveys began.

Ever-increasing use of herbicides and insecticides, habitat loss due to various development, disease and degradation of wintering habitat are all key contributors to monarch reductions.

But there is much that people can do to help. And some people are helping on a grand scale.

Lorene and Robert Miller of Plain City, in Madison County, farm 120 acres. Their farming practices are organic: no fertilizers or pesticides, use of cover crops, composting to increase soil health and crop rotation. Every three years, the Millers plant large swaths of their land in red clover, which enriches nitrogen in the soil. After the growing season, the clover is tilled into the soil, further enriching it.

A fabulous benefit of the clover crops is the formation of enormous migratory congregations of monarchs. The butterflies are drawn to the clover flowers, and gather there en masse, and form impressive nighttime roosts in an adjacent windbreak of Norway spruce and silver maple.

The Millers first documented the monarch swarms six years ago, then again three years ago, and in keeping in sync with the clover crop cycle, they are back again this fall.

I visited the Miller farm on Sept. 10 and was stunned by the spectacle of 1,000 or more monarchs swarming the trees as they came in from the fields near dusk. Dozens of fellow butterfly enthusiasts were there as well.

One visit was not enough, and I returned with Shauna on Sept. 14. That’s when I made the accompanying photo. The butterflies in my shot are just the tip of the lepidopteran iceberg. Almost as cool as seeing the butterflies was observing the reactions of the onlookers. Hundreds of people from as far as Kentucky and Michigan have visited. Admirers formed a ring around a favored silver maple roosting tree, staring in slack-jawed reverence at the scores of beautiful butterflies.

The migratory swarm will soon disperse, probably by the time that you read this, and the butterflies will continue to work their way south to the Mexican fir forests. They’ve still got about 1,700 miles to go to get there.

Major thanks to the Miller family for allowing so many visitors to come revel over the monarchs. And even more thanks for their excellent environmental stewardship and strong land ethic.

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.