Meadowhawks

The last dragonflies to be on the wing, at least in appreciable numbers, are the meadowhawks. And of the eight Sympetrum meadowhawk species that have been found in Ohio, the one above is the hardiest of the lot. It is the autumn meadowhawk (formerly yellow-legged meadowhawk), Sympetrum vicinum. I made the photos above and below yesterday while on a lunchtime stroll around the grounds where my office is located.

Male meadowhawks are striking animals. The cherry-red abdomen is a conspicuous feature, but these are small dragonflies and often dart away with such rapidity that an average hiker may not see them well enough to appreciate their fiery tones. Separating the various species can also constitute an issue of identification, especially with the females. Males are easier, and two of the features to look for on autumn meadowhawk is the blood-red face and the pale straw-colored legs.

It's routine to see autumn meadowhawks on the wing in November, and I've even seen them out and about on cool blustery days with temperatures in the 50's. Yesterday and today was nice, sunny, and in the 60's and the meadowhawks were quite active.

This meadowhawk is a much rarer insect than the species above, at least in these parts. Or at least I think  it is. It is a blue-faced meadowhawk, Sympetrum ambiguum, and this specimen was the first one that I had seen. I found it back on September 5th in Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus. The animal was wary and hard to approach, and would only alight on the lawn, so it made for tough photos. Note its beautiful bluish-white face.

There is a small pond not far from where I observed this blue-faced meadowhawk, and perhaps they use it as breeding habitat. Or it could be that blue-faced meadowhawks wander as do some of the other dragonfly species, and this individual had come from some distance away. Green Lawn Cemetery is an oasis of greenery in a sea of heavily urbanized cityscape, and attracts large numbers of migrant birds and other flighted organisms.

Here's the range map depicting the Ohio distribution for blue-faced meadowhawk, courtesy the Ohio Odonata Society. Records in RED are pre-1950 reports, as is the case with Franklin County, which is where I made the photo above. So unless I've muffed the identification, there is now a modern record of blue-faced meadowhawk for Franklin County.

Interesting Bonaparte's Gull feeding strategy

Five hundred feet over Lake Erie and looking due south to the mouth of the Huron River at Huron, Ohio. I took this photo about two years ago, during a survey flight to document waterbirds on the lake. Nickel Plate Beach, where I made the Bonaparte's Gull photos that accompanied the preceding post, is the snow-covered bare patch on the photo's upper left corner.

A few hours after I made yesterday's blog entry about Bonaparte's Gulls, Doug Overacker made an interesting post on the Ohio Birds Listserv, as follows:

"Julie Karlson and I stopped near the Corps of Engineers Visitor Center at Buck Creek State Park this morning to scan the lake for waterbirds. I started scanning the lake and spotted some Horned Grebes. A Bonaparte's Gull was there with them. I scanned some more and found another Horned Grebe also accompanied by a Bonaparte's Gull. Then I found a Pied-billed Grebe and it was also accompanied by a Bonaparte's Gull. I watched the grebe dive and the gull flew. Soon the grebe came up and the gull landed right next to it. Again the grebe dove and the gull flew only to land next to the grebe when it came up. It repeated this one more time while I watched. My guess is that if any of the grebes came up with a small fish the gull would try to claim it. Are there any other explanations?"

Common Loon in basic plumage, Lake Erie. Photo courtesy Ernie Cornelius.

Doug's observation is an interesting one, and a phenomenon that I have observed dozens of times. During our Lake Erie surveys, we would fly at an altitude of 200 feet, and follow rigid transect lines that criss-cross the lake. Such a perspective offers a magnificent study of huge swaths of Lake Erie, and a unique angle on its bird life. During late fall surveys, we would encounter as many as several hundred loons resting or feeding far out on the lake. It wasn't long before we noticed that actively diving and feeding Common Loons would usually be attended by small squadrons of Bonaparte's Gulls, anywhere from a few birds to a dozen or more. Indeed, we quickly learned that we could spot feeding loons from far away by the concentrated little clouds of Bonaparte's Gulls. This was most helpful as things happen quickly in a fast-moving airplane and the gulls put us on alert to be prepared for loons.

As with all photos on this blog, you can click the photo to expand it. This photo and the next are not great, but I took them in flight as we passed over loons being attended by Bonaparte's Gulls. In the photo above, the loon is easy to see as the big brown surfaced submarine of a bird. A few gulls are hanging with it waiting for some action.

What sort of action? Gulls are well known kleptoparasites, a term that refers to thievery. It is applied to gulls, jaegers, and other creatures that routinely steal food from another animal. We've probably all seen gulls harassing some hapless tern until it disgorges its catch, which the gull then snaps up and swallows. That's kleptoparasitism.

When we first observed the loon-Bonaparte's Gull interaction, we assumed we were witnessing a case of kleptoparasitism. The loon would surface, and the gulls would attempt to snatch its fish away. Except that it became apparent that the gulls never made contact with the loon - and a Common Loon outweighs a Bonaparte's Gull by 21 times. Rather, the surfacing of the loon would send the pack of gulls into a frenzy and they would alight and dip at the water's surface in the immediate vicinity of the just-surfaced loon.

This photo shows a small mob of Bonaparte's Gulls in a frenzy induced by a surfacing Common Loon. What it turns out is happening is that the loons, obviously, are hunting over schools of small fish. It seems that the entrance of a large fast-swimming underwater avian predator throws the fish into a panic, and small fry such as emerald shiners are flushed to the surface. The gulls have learned this, and are poised and ready to attack the fish that arise along with the loon. Such a relationship is known as commensalism: one species benefits from an interaction while the other is unaffected.

I plumbed the literature to see if anything had been published specific to commensalism involving Bonaparte's Gulls and loons or other diving waterbirds, and sure enough, there are a few snippets of information out there. The Birds of North America account of Bonaparte's Gull has this to say:

"Also forage in association with Hooded Mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus) and Red-breasted Mergansers (Stedman and Stedman 1989), Common Loons (Gavia immer; Svingen 1999, JB), Double-crested Cormorants (JB, MG), Horned Grebes (Podiceps auritus; Dusi 1968), Red-necked Grebes (P. grisegena; Svingen 1999), and Brown Pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis; Cruickshank and Cruickshank 1958). Bonaparte’s Gull often hovers over the feeding mergansers, cormorants, or grebes, dipping into the water to obtain small items, such as fish, forced up by the diving birds; also swims with loons and grebes, picking up small items from the surface. Feeding with these species is a form of social parasitism." (Burger, Joanna and Michael Gochfeld. 2002. Bonaparte's Gull (Chroicocephalus philadelphia), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/634)

A brief note from The Auk, Vol. 85: 1, 1968 is entitled Feeding interaction between Bonaparte's Gulls and Horned Grebes. It reads as follows:

Several times between 19 and 28 December 1966 at West Panama City Beach, Bay County, Florida, my wife and I saw Bonaparte's Gulls (Larus philadelphia) and Horned Grebes (Colymbus auritus) feeding together, the gulls eating food the grebes brought to the surface. The grebes fed leisurely about 150 feet offshore, usually in groups of three to six. Two to three times as many immature and adult Bonaparte's Gulls usually fed with them. As the grebes dived, the gulls swam or flew above them. When a grebe surfaced, a gull was usually at the spot for any bits of food it could salvage. We observed no physical contact between birds during these encounters. Neither A. C. Bent (U.S. Natl. Mus., Bull. 107, pp. 23-25, 1919, and Bull. 113, pp. 177-179, 1921) nor R. S. Palmer (Handbook of North American birds, vol. 1, New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1962; see p. 79) mention such associations between these species or between either of these species and other species.--Julian L. Dusi, Department of Zoology, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama.

Bonaparte's Gull

Last weekend, I spent some time on Nickel Plate Beach, which is just east of the Huron River's confluence with Lake Erie. That's the Huron lighthouse in the distance, anchoring the terminus of the Huron Municipal Pier. The lighthouse and its pier are well known to birders, and many a rarity has been spotted over there.

If you hit the pier, you'd do well to drive around to the other side of the river and have a look at Nickel Plate Beach. Lots of interesting birds can be seen just offshore, or on the beach itself.

While stalking some Snow Buntings on the beach, I noticed a few hundred Bonaparte's Gulls, Chroicocephalus philadelphia, loafing and feeding in the nearshore waters. After I was through photographing buntings - more on those in a later post - I turned my lens to the gulls.

Bonaparte's Gulls are very handsome, and elegantly ternlike on the wing. The bird above is an adult, showing its prominent white wing flash on the forewing. In the breeding season, adult "Bonies" have a solid black head, as if someone dipped them in a can of ink. By now, they've lost the dark hood and sport only a bold black dot behind the eye. This is one of the small gulls, and it takes but two years for a Bonaparte's to gain its full adult plumage. The largest gulls, such as Herring or Great Black-backed Gull, require four years to achieve adulthood. While the Bonaparte's Gull is not the smallest of the world's gulls, it's close. It would take almost nine of them to match the weight of a Great Black-backed Gull.

There are always plenty of fish to be found where large rivers meet Lake Erie, which is one reason that sites such as Huron are often bird-filled. This day, the Bonaparte's Gulls were actively fishing just offshore from the beach, and the feeding birds had a regular pattern of foraging. I was able to get fairly close to the small gulls as they would hover over schools of shiners or some other small fish before dipping to the surface and snagging a victim.

The sound effects that accompany a large flock of Bonaparte's Gulls is distinctive, and somewhat comical. They make loud sharp calls that sound like a squeaky growl. Dozens or hundreds concentrated in a small area can create quite a cacophony.

Bonaparte's Gull breeds throughout much of the Canadian and Alaskan taiga - the northerly reaches of the boreal forest. Bonies are unique among the gulls in that they nest in trees. I have seen their arboreal stick platforms, and while in Churchill, Manitoba even climbed a stunted black spruce once to have a look at the eggs. The adults were quite displeased and did their best to knock some new holes in my head.

The Ohio waters of Lake Erie is one of the major staging areas for migrating Bonaparte's Gulls. Last weekend, there were perhaps 1,000 of them in the general vicinity of Huron. Those numbers will continue to grow through November, and will reach a crescendo near month's end. Estimates of up to 100,000 birds have been made in a morning from favored Lake Erie locales. That's just a smattering of the true numbers that are probably present, as many of the gulls will be far from the view of onshore observers, well out in the lake.

Some sources peg the total population of Bonaparte's Gull at a high of around 350,000 birds. Even factoring in a liberal percentage of error on estimates, it's very obvious that a very significant portion of the global Bonaparte's Gull population depends upon Lake Erie.

A very rare plant rediscovered

For better or worse, I get dozens of emails and calls every month from people who have questions about natural history. Many of these queries relate to mystery plants or animals. Fortunately, with good digital cameras now being ubiquitous, I often get a photo or two to help out in the quest for a name.

The strange looking plant above is not a pipe cleaner vining its way up that sunflower. It is the very odd -  and quite rare in these parts - rope dodder, Cuscuta glomerata. Dodders are bizarre parasitic plants that tap their nutrients from host plants, which they usually end up killing. There are eight species of dodders that are native to Ohio, and the rope dodder is perhaps the only one that is easily and instantly recognizable.

From my experience, many field botanists tend to shun dodders, perhaps because recognizing many of them to species is difficult. I've always rather enjoyed them, and even published a paper on the role of fire in germinating rope dodder, Cuscuta glomerata (above). I've also had a bit of luck with finding dodders in the field, and discovered the cuspidate dodder, C. cuspidata in western Ohio in 2002, which was a new record for the state. It has since been found in a few sites near to where I first found it, and is listed as endangered in the state.

Cuspidate dodder is not the only official rarity in Ohio's dodder world. Of the eight natives, two species are endangered, two are listed as threatened, and two are considered extirpated. The latter category refers to plants that have not been seen for at least twenty years in Ohio, and to botanists rediscovering one of them is somewhat akin to finding a Holy Grail.

This is good ole common dodder, Cuscuta gronovii, which is our default dodder. If you see a dodder, chances are enormous that it'll be this species. Some people call it "spaghetti vine" as the orangish stems can twine over host plants in such luxuriance that it indeed looks as if someone tossed a colander of spaghetti over the plants. Separating some of the rarer dodder from this one can be tough.

About a week ago, I was forwarded the photo above from a forester in DNR's Division of Forestry. A Jackson County landowner had sent them a few photos of this odd plant, and he wondered what it was. To me, this was sort of like finding a botanical pot of gold at the rainbow's end. The VAST majority of queries I receive are of common things: Cooper's hawks, ox-eye daisies, garter snakes, chipmunks, and so on. But every thousand or so contacts, BOOM! Something amazing comes to light.

The Jackson County mystery plant was obviously a dodder, and I had a pretty good idea as to what species it was. So, I encouraged the landowner to go out and collect some specimens and ship them to me. And, bless his heart, he did. By the time we reached this point, the dodders were rather far gone, as can be seen in the above photo. But the pertinent parts were all still there, albeit a bit dry and crispy.

Two features stood out in the photos that I saw that sparked this tale. One, the rather dense ropelike growth habit - not that different than the rope dodder in this post's first photo. But these flowers were not bunched that tightly, and the habitat and host plant were all wrong for rope dodder. And it was the host plant that was also a major red flag that something interesting could be afoot. This dodder was growing on smooth alder, Alnus serrulata, in wet soil on the margins of a wetland. Very few of our dodders grow on woody plants, so the host should eliminate most of the species.

Anyway, with the dodder specimen in hand, I could look at the technical characters of the flowers in detail, which is necessary. Above is a close up image of a flower corolla and its bracts and sepals. Close examination of such features is essential to arriving at an identification.

The upshot is that our Jackson County landowner had found compact dodder, Cuscuta compacta, which was one of the species listed as extirpated in Ohio. Compact dodder had only been collected once before, in 1958, in... Jackson County! Although the location data on the 1958 specimen is sparse, it almost certainly was collected within a few miles of the site where it was rediscovered in 2011.

So, a plant thought to be long gone from Ohio has been rediscovered, thanks to the intellectual curiosity of a landowner who wondered about an odd plant and made the effort to get an answer. I'll look forward to visiting this site next fall, when the compact dodder is in full flower and looking good.

By the way, the specimens of compact dodder will not go to waste. I'll provide the material to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History herbarium as a permanent record of this discovery.

The Amazing Monarch

Despite the late date, and cool temperatures just cresting north of 60 degrees, I saw several monarchs passing through Columbus today. This male - males have the dark glands on a vein of the lower wing - was busily fueling on stilll vibrant shale-barren aster, Symphyotrichum oblongifolium.

This insect still has nearly 2,000 miles to go in order to reach its Mexican wintering grounds. The migration of the monarch never fails to stupefy me. The butterfly in this photo has plunked down in a tiny green oasis in one of Columbus's very urban 'hoods. After refueling, it will launch on an unerring southwestern trajectory. This path will take it right through or at least by downtown Columbus and its towering buildings and on through at least four or five other states before it makes the Mexican border crossing.

If all goes well, our monarch will join millions of others in high elevation fir forests near the village of Angangueo, about a four hour drive west of Mexico City. Once there, the butterflies will ride out the winter, draping fir trees in a living shimmering cloak of burnt orange and black. Seeing "our" monarch butterflies festooning Mexican fir trees must be one of the world's great spectacles of natural history, and a phenomenon I hope to witness personally some day.

A "Silver" Red Fox

 Photo: John Howard

Just about everyone loves red foxes, Vulpes vulpes. Well, maybe not everyone. Chicken farmers who are unsuccessful in defending the coop don't like foxes. Conservationists trying to protect certain species of birds and other small animals may take issue with the bushy-tailed beasts. And the folks who put together the International Union for Conservation of Nature's list of the top 100 species of worst invasive species put the red fox in the lineup.

The red fox is found far and wide; it is distributed more widely than any other animal in the Order Carnivora. They're now found in places where they weren't, historically. In fact, the line between native and non-native foxes in North America is very blurry. Some authorities believe that prior to European settlement, red foxes were found only in regions to the north and west of the once vast eastern deciduous forest, while the woodland-loving gray fox occupied the latter habitat. But as has happened elsewhere, people didn't waste any time introducing red foxes to parts of North America where they probably weren't, and the clever adaptive little mammals quickly ran wild.

But, unless a fox is caught making off with their kitten, puppy, or steak on the grill, most people just love red foxes. I wrote one of my Columbus Dispatch columns on the red fox back in March, HERE, and was fairly inundated with email from infatuated fox enthusiasts.

 Photo: Daniel Redfern

But most fox hounds ain't seen nothin' like this! Dan Redfern of rural Geauga County, Ohio sent along some photos of a most amazing fox. I can see why someone would do a doubletake, lunge for the camera, then grab the field guides to sort this one out.

Photo: Daniel Redfern

Quite the handsome fellow, and that's saying something as "normal" red foxes aren't too shabby in the looks department. This is a "silver" red fox; a melanistic form that is apparently quite rare. At least I've never seen one, and I'm not sure I know anyone who has. While this form is selected for and bred on "fox farms", it does occur rarely but regularly in the wild. Chances are that all of this animal's litter mates were of the normal red color.

Photo: Daniel Redfern

Red fox can be quite variable in coloration, although at least in these parts the vast majority are reddish, just as the one in John Howard's beautiful photo at the top of this post. At least eight different consistent color forms have been described, but this silver form may deserve the tiara for winning the beauty contest. Apparently silver fox pelts were highly coveted by European nobility at one time, and an excellent skin was more valuable than 40 beaver pelts. John James Audubon said this of the silver form:

"In the richness and beauty of its splendid fur the Silver-gray Fox surpasses the beaver or sea otter, and the skins are indeed so highly esteemed that the finest command extraordinary prices, and are always in demand."

An extraordinary find indeed, and thanks to Dan Redfern for sharing his photos!

Duck Stamp Winner

In case you hadn't heard, Joseph Hautman of Plymouth, Minnesota won the competition for the 2012-13 Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp, which is far better known as just the "Duck Stamp". Hautman's gorgeous rendering of a drake Wood Duck (above) will grace the new stamp, which goes on sale July 1st, 2012.

Incredibly, this win is Joe's 4th - quite a feat. Many cream of the crop artists vie to have their work featured on the stamp, and the competitions are always ferocious. Adam Grimm, a former Ohio resident and well known to many here, placed second with his painting of a Gadwall.

The Duck Stamp was first unveiled in 1934 as a vehicle to raise much needed funds for land acquisition. It's been a successful program, having raised over $750 million to date. Ninety-eight cents of every dollar raised by stamp sales goes to land acquisition - a percentage probably unmatched by any conservation organization. Nearly 5.5 million (MILLION!) acres have been purchased or leased with Duck Stamp dollars. Over 90% of the funds for Ohio's only federal refuge, Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, came via the stamp program.

While waterfowl conservation is the driving force behind the Duck Stamp program, it's always important to keep in mind that an enormous collage of flora and fauna comprises the wetlands and prairies that are protected through this program. Botanists, birders, entomologists, and even mushroom hunters benefit in addition to waterfowl hunters. If you support conservation, consider buying a $15.00 Duck Stamp. They can be ordered RIGHT HERE. Besides, the stamps are miniature lickable works of art.