Prairie White-fringed Orchid

A Prairie White-fringed Orchid (Platanthera leucophaea) shines like a beacon in a large prairie. At one time this site hosted nearly 6,000 of the orchids. Now, their numbers are just a pittance, victims of invasive plants such as Reed Canary Grass (Phalaris arundinacea) and others. Habitat destruction and degradation have caused this orchid to nosedive, and it is listed as federally threatened - among the rarest of the rare.

Last Saturday, July 8, I was fortunate enough to be included on an epic botanical excursion with Tomas Curtis, Chelsea Gottfried, and Shaun Pogacnik. We visited several sites in northwest Ohio and sedges in the genus Carex were our major targets. Shaun and Tomas are two of the finest botanists working in Ohio (and beyond) and have many major finds to their collective credit. Tomas had found a site for the state-endangered Handsome Sedge (Carex formosa), and Shaun had found a new station for Northern Fox Sedge (Carex alopecoidea), also endangered. We saw both, along with plenty of other sedges. I made lots of sedge images, and really need to make a post about those here. I'll try.

The inflorescence of Prairie White-fringed Orchid in all its glory. Well, maybe just a hair past prime but still looking magnificent. Big plants can be a few feet in height. It is pollinated by large sphinx moths, and I tell that story, with photographic proof, RIGHT HERE.

As our sedge sites were quite close to this orchid prairie, we could not resist a visit to see the flashy plants. We also found many other interesting plants there, such as Sullivant's Milkweed (Asclepias sullivantii), which was originally discovered in Ohio. And one of our party had never seen the orchid, which meant that a stop here was absolutely mandatory.

Hopefully the powers-that-be that own and manage this site can determine a strategy to increase orchid numbers. I imagine the plants come up in greater abundance after controlled burns, but I do not know the frequency of fire at this site. But fire probably won't do much to stymie the canary grass, and that pernicious nonnative seems to be a major culprit in reducing the orchids.
 

Our nature writer tracked the birth of seven wrens

Two baby house wrens peer from their nest box/Jim McCormac

Our nature writer tracked the birth of seven wrens

Columbus Dispatch
July 2, 2023

NATURE
Jim McCormac

Early this spring, I hung a small bird box from a pergola rafter ten feet from my kitchen window. I had high hopes that either Carolina chickadees or house wrens (both are cavity-nesters) would appropriate it. Both species are common here, the chickadees year-round and the wrens from mid-April into early October.

Right on cue, a male house wren appeared in the yard around April 20, loudly announcing himself via his rollicking, trilled song. He wasted no time investigating potential nest sites, and my new bird house was one of them.

Males typically precede females by a few days, and almost immediately begin constructing dummy nests. They stuff twigs and other material into cavities that they deem suitable nest sites. When a female appears within his turf, and they bond, she examines the male’s potential home sites and selects one.

At this point, Mrs. Wren takes over the homemaking. He is banished from the premises while she rearranges or discards his contributions, and busily adds new material.

Fortunately for me and my curiosity, she selected the bird box and I had a ringside seat to the whole nesting process. In a few days, she had whipped the nest into shape. This involved the collection of hundreds of twigs and sticks, and grasses, hair and feathers for the soft inner cup.

The typical house wren clutch ranges from four to eight eggs, and the female lays one a day. This took another week. After that, the female settled into incubation duties. The male hovered around the vicinity, often gushing enthusiastic with song, but of little help in this phase other than attacking and driving off squirrels that roamed too near the box.

After almost two weeks, it became clear that the chicks had hatched. Both parents began carting all manner of insects to the nest: lots of spiders, beetles, moths, caterpillars, flies and about anything else they could catch. I’d estimate that over 8,000 meals were delivered to the nestlings.

At first, a wren with food would disappear into the cavity. As the chicks grew and got nearer to the entrance, eventually the parents had only to stick their head inside to deliver meals. An adult’s arrival sparked a cacophony of raspy squeaks from the brood. And what goes in must come out. The adults occasionally emerged with fecal sacs – neat little bundles of baby wren effluvia. These would be flown to distant shrubs or trees and discarded.

At 6:40 am on the morning of June 24, I saw a baby wren stick its head out the hole for the first time. I knew this would be the morning of departure. The parents’ behavior changed markedly, too. The female called continually and stridently, and the male commenced regular bouts of singing, to entice them from the box. After much wide-eyed wonder at the huge new world outside its box, baby #1 launched itself at 6:55. Its flight was surprisingly strong and took it 30 feet to a redbud.

Eleven minutes later, #2 departed to another shrub. The two wrens in the accompanying photo were #3 and #4, and they left at 7:14 and 7:16 a.m. Baby #5 didn’t tarry, emerging three minutes later. Then, nothing. I began to think everyone was out, but 25 minutes later, another baby peeked out. The shrinking violet gawked out the hole for a while, then flew the coop at 7:51 a.m. And yet one more lingered, but it didn’t want to be left alone and shot out the hole a minute later.

Seven wrens! All of them disappeared into the wilds of my backyard, and I wish them the best of luck. They will need it. After feeding locally – and dodging predators – the wrenlets will undertake a lengthy and perilous southward migration that could take them all the way to Mexico.

They’ll make this journey independently, relying on an amazing built-in GPS. If all goes well in the wintering grounds, they’ll fly northward next spring and most likely return to this general area. The parents that spawned them, or one of the offspring, will probably return to my Worthington yard to produce more wrens. And the world can use more house wrens.

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

Spot-winged Glider: New yard insect

A Spot-winged Glider (Pantala hymenaea) perches on a dead twig in my front yard serviceberry. The stout dragonfly made occasional patrols over my front garden, which is how I first saw it. If you didn't see it rocket into the serviceberry and this perch, good luck ever spotting it.

I made a short early morning foray to photograph a really interesting - and photogenic - plant, the Ragged Fringed Orchid (Platanthera lacera). They were in absolutely peak bloom, and some specimens towered to two feet. I'll post more on these orchids later. Upon return to the homestead, I saw this dragonfly hunting above the garden, and knew what it was. As Spot-winged Gliders seldom seem to land, at least where a photographer can get at them, I didn't have much hope of making photos. And was pleasantly surprised when it did perch in an accessible spot.

As the animal was fairly high in the treelet, and gliders can be quite wary, I pulled out the 800mm lens, mounted it on a tripod, and worked the bug that way. It was still there when I went inside, and likely hunted the yard the rest of the day. This is an oft-adopted perching posture for Spot-winged Gliders: abdomen tip curved upwards.

Rainpool gliders in the genus Pantala are great wanderers and very nomadic, staging large and conspicuous migrations. They are sometimes in mixed swarms of other migratory dragons such as Black Saddlebags (Tramea lacera), Common Green Darners (Anax junius), and Wandering Gliders (Pantala flavescens).

Spot-winged Glider on the wing, as they are usually seen. I shot this one, bizarrely enough, exactly one year ago today: June 28, 2022, at Kankakee Sands in northwestern Indiana. As described above, it was in a mixed species swarm feeding over a diverse prairie.

My dragonfly list for the yard is pretty robust and I'm sure I've missed many species that have visited. All of the native flora in the yard produces good insect crops, and this means plenty of aerial prey for the dragonflies.

House Wren production in the yard

 

A House Wren peeks from its nest box. Their abode hangs ten feet from my kitchen window. 

When I placed this box early this spring, I had high hopes that the local wrens would select it. As always, the male returned in mid-April about a week ahead of the female, and busily began ferreting out potential nest cavities. He quickly became - to my eye - especially interested in this box.

Male House Wrens create several dummy nests - aggregations of twigs and other material in potentially suitable cavities. When the female arrives, she sets about investigating these dummy nests, while the male, presumably nervously, looks on. If she likes one, she selects it and then takes over finishing the construction.

Before long, it was clear that the nest box was her choice and she busily set about completing the nest. All manner of vegetable matter was brought in, and once all is done and the wrens are gone, I look forward to seeing inside the box. Apparently, it should be a fairly massive cave-like structure with a den cavity towards the back. The final stages of nest construction are done by the female, as is incubation of the eggs.

After a few weeks of relative calm as the female wren incubated the eggs, the nestling hatched. The onset of this stage was obvious, as both birds began busily harvesting all manner of food items and bringing them in. This one has a spider. Arachnids are a common prey item.

This wren brings the chicks a de-legged daddy longlegs. Other items include moths, caterpillars, beetles, earwigs, and various small insects that I cannot identify. When the pair is on a roll, they're returning with perhaps two meals every five minutes. This continues to this day, but the chicks will soon leave the nest.

What goes in must come out and a wren departs the nest with a fecal sac. They are fastidious about removing these to far-flung places, often apparently sticking them to a branch high in a tree.

It's been about two weeks since the eggs hatched. While I still have not seen any chicks at the nest box entrance, they have clearly moved nearer to the hole. While the adults used to disappear into the box with food, now they just poke their heads inside - the chicks are that close to the entrance. This means that VERY soon they'll make their inaugural flight from the box, and I hope that I am here to see it. If I had to bet, it'll be tomorrow, or at the latest, Thursday.

Fawns, reunited!

Back on May 22, I glanced into the front garden and lo and behold, a tiny face was peeking at me from the plants. A few day old White-tailed Deer fawn! This is an annual event around here but one I never tire of. My yard, because of its abundant plant life, is used as a fawnery by local does.

A young fawn stands in my neighbor's much more neatly manicured backyard yesterday. This may well be the one in the previous photo.

I've seen this fawn (or perhaps another) a few times over the last week or so, with the doe.

The fawn nurses. Fawns as young as this tend to stay in close proximity to mom, although by now they are very curious about the world around them, although still intimidated by new things.

As I watched from an upstairs window, out came the other fawn! Well, I did not know there was another, for sure, until this moment but does often do have two offspring. I was able to run downstairs, grab a camera, dash out and peek around the corner of the garage for some unobstructed photos. The doe still made me and stared bullets at the big round lens (she couldn't see me).

The youngsters remained oblivious and cavorted about. Fawns are very playful and often filled with the "zoomies". They'll run at and chase one another like romping puppies. It's hard not to like and appreciate a fawn.

For the first few weeks of life, the doe keeps the fawns (if she has two) in separate locales. They may not be very far apart, but they won't be together. After two weeks or so, she reunites them (they were born together). I'd say this was one of their first days back together, if not the first.

Blue Grosbeak

 

A male Blue Grosbeak (Passerina caerulea) atop his singing perch, a sprig of Yellow Sweet Clover. This impossibly good-looking bird is much easier to find in Ohio than it once was. During Ohio's first breeding bird atlas (1982-87) this was a rare bird found sparingly in our southernmost counties. Since then, the population has grown by nearly 12% annually and Blue Grosbeaks can be found routinely to Lake Erie. A colorful Exhibit A of a recent range expansion of a southern species. This one was in Franklin County, and I photographed it on June 4, 2023. I'm going to soon write a more in-depth piece on Blue Grosbeaks and their continuing northward range expansion for my Columbus Dispatch newspaper column and will post that here after it runs.

Moth talk June 13, 7 pm, with Black Swamp Bird Observatory - webinar

I'm giving an online talk about the mysterious and wonderful world of moths on Tuesday, June 13 at 7 pm, sponsored by the Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO). It is free if you are a BSBO member or Ohio Young Birders Club member, and a mere $5.00 if not. And that five-spot will go to support BSBO's multi-pronged avian outreach work.

Following is the talk description and GO HERE to register.

Mysterious Moths: Growing the Darker Side of Butterflies
Presented by: Jim McCormac
Date: Tuesday, June 13, 2023
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Presentation takes place on Zoom

Our enchantment with butterflies isn’t surprising. These daytime flyers are easily observed and collectively encompass a rainbow palette of colors punctuated with ornate patterns. However, their close relatives the moths overwhelm butterflies in species diversity and sheer numbers. Most moths are nocturnal and largely out of sight and mind. Nonetheless, they are one of the most important animal groups. Moths are inextricably intertwined with native plants, bats, birds, and the whole of the eastern deciduous forest ecosystem. They play an enormous role in the pollination of native plants. In addition, they are often far more interesting than butterflies, both visually and behaviorally. This talk will be a pictorial journey into an intriguing and little-known world that unfolds all around us. We can greatly benefit the ecosystem around us by “moth-gardening” in our yards.​

Again, CLICK HERE to register.