All of Nature

Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers and a Hermit Thrush

2011-12-05T11:50:00.000-06:00

Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers look almost identical. Hairys are bigger than Downys, but unless they are seen side by side outdoors, that doesn't help much. One of the easiest ways to tell the difference is in the length of the beak. In proportion to its head, the Hairy's beak is quite a bit longer and stouter than the Downy's beak, pictured below.

The white feathers around the eye are different with each individual of both species, so that is no help in telling the difference in species.

I photographed these two woodpeckers at yesterday's bird banding program at Springbrook

Another way of telling the difference is in the red on the back of the head of the male woodpeckers. In the Hairy Woodpecker the red is separated by a black patch in the middle, as seen in the picture to left. But in the Downy's, as you can see in the next picture below, the red is one solid band across the back of the head.

An unusual capture at Springbrook's bird banding yesterday was this Hermit Thrush. They should have migrated south long ago. The light colored stripe under the wing is one way to identify these thrushes in flight. Primarily though, the easiest way to sepatate this thrush from all the others is the rusty red color of the rump and tail, as seen in the picture below.

Burdock Burrs-Nature's Velcro

2011-11-27T16:44:00.000-06:00

Sorry, it has been a long time since my last post---life! If you walk off the trails at Springbrook this time of year, you may get a surprise hitch-hiker firmly attached. Burdock burrs are waiting for any passerby to attach to. This is this plant's mechanism to move to a new location-seed dispersal. And this plant has a unique method that humankind now uses everywhere.

I sliced this burr in half so the hundreds of seeds are exposed inside. But look at all the "hooks" waiting to snag a coat cuff, sock, scarf, dog tail, or kids mittens. I was told long ago that this plant was the inspiration for a scientist's idea for velcro, and, if true, you can see why. There are over a thousand hooks on each burr, enlarged below.

This is a great idea taken from nature. But it is a good thing there are no weed seeds in velcro.

Fox Snake Eggs Hatching

2011-09-05T22:41:00.000-05:00

At the end of June Fridley Police found a Fox snake in the parking lot at a local hospital and brought it to Springbrook. On July 13 the small snake laid 8 large eggs. On September 1st, after 50 days of incubation, the eggs started to hatch all at once. You can see the slits in the leathery eggs made by an egg 'tooth.' Lots of fluid is released from the holes, and the hatchlings wait a day to absorb the remaining yolk sac before leaving the egg.

You can see the one above is 'tasting' the air with its tongue, and then emerges further out of the egg when all seems safe. The dark material on the egg is vermiculite from the moist incubating bed I kept the eggs in. The bubbles come from all the fluiod in the eggs and the babies breathing after they make the slits in the eggs.

Fox snake eggs stick to each other when laid, so you see them here as they were laid.

While all the eggs started to hatch at the same time, some babies took longer to emerge than others. The eggs on either side of this one are empty and have begun to dry and shrivel up. The ones to the lower left are still occupied, so are still moist and pliable.

Within minutes after I took this picture the snake emerged from the egg and sat on top of the eggs. The eggs are 2 1/2 inches long, and the snakes are 12 inches long. Hard to imagine how they fit into what seems a little egg.

At about seven days old the young snakes will shed their skins, getting rid of the left over egg smell on their bodies. After they shed they will be hungry, and looking for a meal of baby mice, or something similar.

The babies are totally on their own. The mother snake leaves the eggs after laying them and never sees them again. The baby snakes will turn the more traditional brown pattern color over the next few years.

Cecropia Caterpillars Make Silk Cacoons

2011-08-29T22:56:00.000-05:00

The Cecropia moth caterpillars at Springbrook have become almost groteskly huge and fat. All they do is eat day and night until they can barely waddle to a new leaf.
Of course they need to eat now to have enough fat to overwinter in their cacoons and have the resources to emerge next spring as one of Minnesota's largest and most beautiful moths.

But since late May they have been eating machines.

Take a look below at the huge green eyes and the mouth on this caterpillar. It has a transparent upper lip! And pretty weird "teeth" below. I took these pictures in the last few days as I waited to photograph the caterpillars as they transformed into cacoon makers. Scrool down to see the action.

After finally eating all they can hold, the caterpillars sit still for several hours, seemingly transforming their mouth from leaf eating to silk making.
This moth is a member of the Saturnid moth group that includes the caterpillars that silk cloth comes from.

Notice the light blue "spiracles" on each segment of the caterpillar. These are the breathing holes that allow insects to breathe. Also notice the three little "true" legs near the head. Three more on the other side account for its six true legs. The large projections from its abdoman that look like legs are called pseudo or false legs. These "legs" will now dissappear for the rest of this insect's life.

You can see in the picture below how the caterpillar begins to have a glistening silk thread emerge from its mouth, wrapping it all around itself and the branch it is on. Meanwhile its body seems to begin turning white. The silk is sticky when it first comes out but hardens to one of the strongest tensile strength "lines" known on earth.

It takes the caterpillar about 12 hours to get a good start on the cacoon. In another 12 hours it is completely covered but can still be seen, as you can see below. At this time the silk is white, which is the color that the silk stays with real silk worms. Their cacoons are unwound into one long silk thread and then woven into wonderful silk cloth.

But with the wild "silk" moths, the Polyphemus, the Cecropia, and the Luna, here in Minnesota, the "silk" turns brown after another day, as this one was doing yesterday. Some of it is still white but will turn brown within a day.
The caterpillar will continue inside to make a thick wall of silk, and after several days will stop, and in a couple of weeks it will turn into the pupae and wait for the warmth of next May and June to emerge as the adult moth. I'll post more pictures then of the moth.

Cicadas

2011-08-21T13:11:00.000-05:00

The annual cicadas are out and announcing their presence with their high pitched buzzing call. They are usually high up in the trees but they live short lives as adults and soon drop onto driveways or decks and become food for other creatures. This one was alive but lying on my driveway this morning.

Some cicada species live underground for many years. 13 years is one, along with the well known 17 year cicada. But our common cicada is only underground one year.

Cicadas are in the group of insects called Hemiptera, or True Bugs. This group of insects all have straw-like sucking mouth parts and most use their "straw" to pierce plant tissue and suck out nourishment from the plant. After mating, female cicadas lay eggs in the stems of tree branches. The hatchlings drop to the ground and burrow down to one of the tree's roots. They attach their straw like mouth to the root and stay attached for the next year, growing as the tree feeds them.

After their year in the ground the larvae crawl out on a late summer night and climb a few feet up the trunk of the tree. In the picture below you can see the shell left after they emerge from the ground with the dirt still attached.

Most everybody has found these left over "skins" of a larvae cicada attached near the bottom of a tree with the obvious split in the back where the adult emerged and crawled up the tree to let its wings dry and expand. I found this empty shell on the tree near my driveway where I found the adult cicada. The adult then flies into the branches and seeks a mate.

This is the male cicada that I found. You can see the slender tube like sucking mouth part sticking down beneath its front legs.

Cicadas are very heavy bodied insects and not very good fliers.

The females listen for the "singing" males, and pick one out that sounds perfect to her. She then flies to the tree and locates the male by his buzzing call. After introductions, if all goes well, they mate and the female then finds an appropriate branch to lay her eggs in.

The male makes his buzzing call by slapping or clapping two pair of plate like body peices together. Here you can see one pair just below the hind leg and to the left of the green wing edge. One lays ontop of the other. As he snaps the top plate down onto the other it makes a snapping sound. When he does this very fast with both pair of double "plates" the loud high pitched buzzing sound is the result.

Hearing the cicadas always means the peak of summer is past, and I'd better enjoy what is left.

Deer Fawns

2011-08-11T22:06:00.000-05:00

Springbrook's white tail deer fawns are growing up, but they will keep their spots for several more weeks to help hide them in the dappled sunlight of their forest habitat.

They are very curious, but still never get very far from mom, as you can see in the bottom photo. I took these pictures today by Springbrook's feeders

The fawns watch their mom closely, and learn when to be cautious and when it is ok to play.

Dragonflies Predators and Prey

2011-07-31T22:00:00.002-05:00

Dragonflies, like this Blue Dasher, are one of the insect world's most effective predators. There were many when I took these pictures this morning in Springbrook's south prairie.

But dragonflies also get eaten, mostly by birds, who pluck thier wings off and then eat the nutritious bodies. Cast off wings can be found beneath bird's perches, like this plucked wing I found this morning on this blade of grass.

Monarch and Viceroy Butterflies

2011-07-31T21:47:00.000-05:00

Viceroy butterflies taste good, to those that like to eat butterflies. But they don't want to get eaten. And time has favored those that look more like a Monarch butterfly to not get eaten as often, so today we have a Viceroy butterfly that looks more and more like a Monarch butterfly with each passing generation. Evolution at work.

I took these photos today in Springbrook's south prairie about 100 feet apart from each other.

This Monarch tastes terrible because the caterpillar below eats milkweed leaves that are very bitter. After trying to eat one most predators will not try to eat a second Monarch, and most are fooled into thinking the Viceroy is also a Monarch. Mimicry works!

The Viceroy's hind wing stripe is not present on the Monarch as you can see in this picture. This is a male Monarch, identified by the black "scent pouches" along the inside vein on the hind wing. But the two butterflies do look a lot alike.

The Monarch caterpillar chews a notch in the middle vein on the underside of a milkweed leaf so the leaf will fold down. Then the caterpillar hangs from the underside and eats the leaf in relative hiding. But the bright colors on the caterpillar tell all predators that it tastes bad and will make them sick if they eat it.

This caterpillar was on the east end of Springbrook's south prairie this morning, shaking the raindrops off from last night's storms and eating as fast as it could.

Butterflies and Summer

2011-07-23T13:13:00.000-05:00

I haven't had time to post anything for a few weeks as there has been no time to go out with the camera. But yesterday this Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly was on the bergamont in front of the interpretive center and I was able to take a few photos. They are large and beautiful butterflies that attract a lot of attention.

This Painted Lady Butterfly was on some thistle near by. They are medium sized, quick flying butterflies with different colors on the underside of the wings than on the top side.

This little skipper butterfly is one of the smallest around and was also on the thistle flowers. These guys fly very fast and stay low in amongst the stems and leaves of the plants, for good reason, as I discovered.

Right after I took this picture a female Eastern Pond Hawk dragonfly swooped in and grabbed the little skipper and flew off to eat him for lunch.

So, life is not just fun in the sun for these pretty decorations in our gardens. They are working hard to find mates and lay eggs before the needs of other critters intersect with theirs!

See dragonfly below enjoying lunch!!

Green Frogs Calling

2011-07-04T19:00:00.001-05:00

The large male Green Frogs were getting serious about territory and mating this past week at Springbrook as they called all through the day and night. Walking on the floating boardwalk I could see dozens. 30 years ago these frogs were not present at Springbrook but now are the most common frog.

They are attractive frogs with bright yellow throats, green colors, and jewel like big eyes. The large circular "button" behind the eye is the tympanic membrane of its ear.

The frogs suck in air through their nose until they fill up like a balloon. You can see this one looks like he is holding his breath--he is. Then he blows it out quickly, expanding his yellow throat while relaesing the air, making a sound that is compared to a banjo string being plucked.

Other male green frogs hear the sound and see the throat patch size and determine if he is too big for them to take over his territory. Female green frogs hear it and determine if he is the one for them.

Notice the reflection of the boardwalk railing in the eye of the frog below. Lay on your stomach on the baordwalk and you can get close up pictures of the frogs too. But only for the next week or so.

Dragonflies and Damselflies

2011-06-25T21:21:00.000-05:00

I had the pleasure today of joining in as John Arthur took 25 of us on a hike to survey dragonflies and damselflies at Springbrook. While they are very pretty, identifying these little critters takes some skill and patience. But good species diversity in an area is an excellant indicator of environmental health. And we saw many species today.

Damselflies fold their wings over their back when they are resting, as you can see the male Eastern Forktail Damselfly doing above. Dragonflies cannot fold their wings, and leave them open when they are at rest, as this female Eastern Pond Hawk Dragonfly is doing in this picture.

In these groups of insects, the males and females often look very different, and even the young adults may look very different than adults a few weeks older.

Damselflies and Dragonflies are all carniverous, eating mosquitoes and anything else they can catch. This Hagen's Bluet Damselfly is eating what looks like a young grasshopper.

This Horned Clubtail is a fairly large dragonfly, but still blends in with its surroundings so well that it is easy when walking on the trails to not see them even when only a few feet away.

Along with being predators, dragonflies and damselflies are in turn prey for many songbirds and are in constant danger of being eaten.

The wet spring and summer have created a great year for dragonflies and damselflies. There are many more than usual. Walk Springbrook's trails to see this female Blue Dasher dragonfly and the many more that can be found throughout the park.

I took these pictures and lots of others in the last few days while hiking the trails. Take your camera with you. Most point and shoot cameras can take great close up pictures.

Flies as Decomposers-Disgusting but Necessary

2011-06-19T23:40:00.001-05:00

Some of you may not want to look at all of these pictures. Seriously!

A squirrel was killed by a car in front of my house this weekend, and I set it in the grass until I finished a short errand. One half hour later there were flies all around it.

So I set it on a table, like any normal person, so I could photograph the flies doing whatever they do.

I've seen this hundreds of times, but never really watched it up close.

In this picture an alien-like fly peers over the edge and seems to say, "Are you dead yet? Hurry up, I've got work to do!"

Squirrel fur is a thick forest to flies trying to find a place to lay their eggs. So they focus on natural entry areas, in this case, the mouth and nose.

All of the flies present were the same species, as you can see in the pictures below, and the only thing they did was lay eggs. For 6 hours. In the nose and the mouth.

They pushed each other around and had no fear of the camera or me moving around. It was like an affirmation of the CSI TV show. One species of fly laid eggs for a few hours right after the squirrel died, then they left, and nothing else landed on the squirrel for the rest of the day. How they knew the squirrel had just died is a mystery to me.

The female flies have a long tube at the end of their abdomen called an ovipositor. The eggs travel down this "tube" and are placed where the female's instincts tell her to place them-in this case, inside the dead squirrel's mouth and nose. That will give her babies access to the soft tissue as soon as they hatch.

You can see the flies in these two pictures pushing their abdomens into the openings of the mouth and nose, and the following picture shows how these openings were completely filled with eggs.

In less than 18 hours all the eggs had hatched. In this picture you can see the left over egg skins in the mouth. The babies (maggots) have moved farther back into the mouth. The larvae in the nose were actively moving around at 10 this morning.

While not a pretty sight, just think what it would be like if nothing ate these dead animals! Flies are very busy cleaning things up for us and get very little credit for their unsavory jobs.

While the maggots were getting aquainted with their new living quarters, the flies returned, but not to lay eggs. All day today, all the flies did was eat on the squirrel. I didn't observe any egg laying.

Eating for these flies is not chewing out a chunk of flesh and chewing it up. These flies have a fleshy appendage for a mouth with a sponge like blob on the end. They push this around on liquidy surfaces and soak up their food.

You can see this fly doing just that on the squirrel's eye in this picture from 11 AM this morning. These flies were wary and would not come close if I moved.

I took this picture at about 4 PM. The baby maggots are packed into one side of the nose here like Penguins in the movie "Planet Earth." What you see here is the tail ends of several hundred maggots all packed tight together. I'm guessing they breathe through their tail ends, while the head end is chewing on breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You can see two have been squeezed out and are trying to get back in.

I may not continue this investigation, as the smell will not be welcomed by others nearby, not to mention my own enjoyment of my yard.

Keep doing your stuff, decomposers, down wind if possible.

Toads and Butterflies

2011-06-16T21:05:00.002-05:00

I found this American Toad hopping near the pond in the south part of the nature center a couple of days ago. He did not look happy. He was completely covered with cottonwood "cotton" seed "fluff." I took most of it off before I took the pictures.

You can see how dejected he looked here. The cottony seeds clung like sticky paper. I'm sure with every bug he ate a ball of this stuff ended up in his mouth.

I have friends that have this same expression when cottonwood seeds are blowing around.

In the picture below a Prairie Ringlet butterfly has landed near a Prairie Smoke flower that has gone to seed. These medium sized butterflies are only out for about two weeks in early summer then they dissappear until next year. I didn't notice the aphids near its feet until after I took the picture

Sunrise Dew on Spider Webs, Flowers , and Damselflies

2011-06-12T21:41:00.000-05:00

Sunrise comes very early this time of year at Springbrook--before 5:30 AM, but the rewards were worth it this morning, with heavy dew on everything. The spiderwebs look like jewels as the sun comes up and shows them off. I was trying out a new macro camera lens this morning, so lots of close up pictures.

The horizon line is inverted in each dew drop as it functions as a lens until the warmth of the sun evaporates it away.

The mosquitos were pretty intense after the sun came up with no wind, so it was with a great deal of pleasure that I found several in the spider webs. This little web had three of them stuck fast. Go spiders!

The Large Flowered Penstamon are blooming now in the south prairie. There are more than I have ever seen, and each large flower head was completely covered with large dew drops. I took a lot of pictures. This plant is smooth and waxy, so large droplets form, unlike the Prairie Smoke below.

Prairie Smoke is almost finished blooming at Springbrook, but the seed head stage is the most noticable and is the reason for the name of the plant. Looking across the prairie the bunches of seed heads look like smoke, especially on a misty morning. This morning the dewy seed heads were visible all across the prairie. Tiny hairs on each seed plume only allow very tiny droplets of dew to form, making the seed head look frosty.

Here I have enlarged the center of the picture above so the tiny droplets can be seen. They make the seed plumes look like delicate glassware.

It was only after I took this picture this morning and then enlarged it that I was able to see this fine detail with the dew. I won't see Prairie Smoke the same again, though it has always been one of my favorites.

The damselflies were covered with dew this morning, and hard to find on the grass stems. This is one of the few pictures I was able to get of one from the side.

They are too wet and heavy to fly until the sun removes the dew, but they rotate around the grass stem trying to hide. It works pretty good, except their eyes really stick out, as you can see below.

The little black dots in the globe like eyes follow you whereever you move. I'm sure it has something to do with the way light is reflected in the eyes, but it feels like two tiny pupils keeping watch on your every move. These little predators eat mosquitos too, yes!!

Red Winged Black Birds and Mother Leaches

2011-06-05T20:53:00.000-05:00

While many pairs of Red Winged Blackbirds have young ready to leave the nest, this pair was just beginning to build their nest this past wednesday in Springbrook's south prairie.

The male perched in the top of the nearest tree and scolded any one who came close, while the female selected the best pieces of nest material for her interior decorating.

The male and female look very different. The males want to attract attention to themselves so all will know the boundaries of his territory. Thus, his bright colors.

The female has to sit on the nest and not be seen by predators, so she has colors that blend with the surroundings.

I will try to get pictures of the nest as the eggs and then babies hatch and grow.

This large female leach was caught by one of the students doing pond study at Springbrook this past week. Female leaches have babies at this time of year, and they carry the babies with them for several weeks until they are big enough to be on their own.

The babies stay on the mother leach's underside. So I poured some pond water into a casserole dish and took these pictures from underneath looking up through the glass bottom.

Don't tell the cook.

These leaches are large, about 3 or 4 inches long.

Red Bellied Woodpeckers and Spittle Bugs

2011-06-04T22:40:00.000-05:00

I don't know that Red Bellied Woodpeckers and spittle bugs have anything in common except that spittle bugs are present when Red Bellies have young in their nests.

This is a male Red Bellied Woodpecker bringing food to it's nest in Springbrook Nature Center's woodlands this past Wednesday.

As can be seen in the second photo below, the bugs he is finding in the trees look real yummy!

These look like some kind of fly larvae but could also be beetle or wasp larvae. In any case they are full of protein and fat, and will help the baby woodpeckers grow.

This male was returning to the nest about every 20 minutes, and I didn't see the female, so I wondered if she is still inside the nest with very little babies, and he is feeding her?

This female came to the suet feeder a few days ago and was taking away big strings and gobs of suet, so she must have a different nest and is feeding her babies suet. One more reason to keep your suet feeders full all summer. Mine goes down faster in the summer than in the winter.

You can tell that this is a female because the red on her head only goes half way to her beak. On the male the red goes all the way across the head to the beak, as you can see in the picture above and below.

This is a photo I took in February of a male Red Bellied Woodpecker where you can actually see the red in its belly.

You don't see this very often, and many people wonder why they are called Red Bellied...now you can see the reason.

Spittle Bugs hide in the blobs of white spit like material that can be seen on little plants in fields and prairies right now. I took these pictures on Wednesday morning in Springbrook's south prairie. Spittle bugs are actually immature leaf hoppers. They protect themselves by producing lots of moist bubbles around themselves. While hiding inside they suck the juices from the plant they are on, which gives them enough extra liquid to produce even more bubbles. These little bugs live their entire childhoods and adolescence in a bubble bath!

You can see the little immature bug in this picture which I took after pushing away the bubbles. The back end of a second bug can be seen in the top left of the picture, and there was a third in the top center, but it cannot be seen, as it was under the bubbles.

Leaf Hoppers, spittle bugs at this age, are in the group of insects known as Hemiptera, or, "true bugs." All "true bugs" have sucking mouth parts, as these little guys demonstrate very well.

In the two pictures below you can see how the little 1/4 inch "bug" started creating more bubbles as soon as he was exposed. He was completely encased in new bubbles in seconds.

These bugs must have predators, although I have never seen anything hunting in the "spit" for anything to eat. Would you?

Deer Antlers, Blue Eyed Grass, Jack in the Pulpit, and Eastern Tailed Blue Butterflies

2011-05-20T22:15:00.000-05:00

The White Tailed Deer at Springbrook look pretty bad right now. The males are starting to grow new antlers after dropping the old ones a few months ago. Their winter fur is falling out with the reddish summer fur comming in. And they haven't had a chance to fatten up after geting so skinny during the long winter. But the first fawns have been born. Look for them in the next two weeks.

The Blue Eyed Grass is blooming in Springbrook's prairies along with the Pussy Toes and the Prairie Smoke. The Blue Eyed Grass is small, but a very pretty native lily (not a grass as name implies). This one was near the south prairie trail.

In the wet woodlands the Marsh Marigold is just finishing blooming and the Nodding Trilliums are blooming, but it is a very good year for Jack in the Pulpits as you can see below. I don't remember ever seeing as many as there are this year, all over the forest floor.

There are big and little "Jacks," big bunches, and single ones out in the open. Look for them in the wet woods anywhere at Springbrook and other wooded areas.

And, finally, one of my favorites, the Eastern Tailed Blue Butterfly. They will be around for a couple of months, usually flying high in the trees. This one was low yesterday getting some nectar from a wild Strawberry blossom in Springbrook's south prairie. He looks like he has just emerged from his winter pupae state. His wings are in perfect condition. Another was flying nearby.

House Wrens Singing and Nest Building

2011-05-08T21:26:00.000-05:00

House wrens returned yesterday, arriving from their winter quarters in the south. They didn't even stop to take a breather from flying a thousand miles, but instantly began gathering twigs to construct their nest, and singing their pleasant song constantly.

Photographing wrens is difficult as they are constantly moving. I took these pictures this morning at sunrise, before the shadows hid their quick movements.

This photo shows the typical wren pose. Short wings, barred tail sticking up, and a blur of action as it moves through the wood pile under the white cedar.

Both the male and female build the nest. After the nest is finished and the female is sitting on eggs, the male will fill every other cavity nearby with twigs. He does this to keep other wrens from settling down nearby, and competing for the food supply he and his mate will need to feed their brood of up to ten babies in ten days.

Here he is singing. The whole body sort of quivers as he sings, making the feathers look blurry. You can see the throat is a bit distended, as he puffs air into it.

Spring is always in full swing by the time wrens arrive, and I always look forward to seeing and hearing them.

Warblers Sparrows and Flickers

2011-05-01T20:25:00.000-05:00

At Springbrook Nature Center's birdbanding project this morning we captured, banded, and released 110 birds representing 18 species! A lot of new migrants just arrived, and were looking for food on this cold and windy day with occaisional snowflakes.

We caught several Orange Crowned Warblers including this "after second year" male. The males have more orange on their heads than the females. The orange feathers in the crown are usually hidden and can only be seen when the wind blows the covering feathers apart.

We also caught this Black and White warbler. Black and Whites are early migrants and are often seen catching insects on the trunks of trees

We caught four Lincoln Sparrows, a special treat as we seldom see them. This one will join the others migrating farther north in Minnesota to nest.

The wing of a Northern Flicker woodpecker demonstrates that this is the "Yellow Shafted" form. The Red Shafted form is found in the western US and rarely seen this far east. This one was a brightly colored male.

In this picture you can see the Northern Flicker while we were banding it. The aluminum band is on its leg. The black mustache is what identifies this as a male.

After measuring, weighing, and collecting additional data, the birds are released as quickly as possible.

Next banding date is Saturday, May 12, beginning at 6:30 AM to 11:30.

White Throated and White Crowned Sparrows

2011-04-30T21:33:00.000-05:00

The White Throated Sparrows must have migrated in last night during the storm, as there were many of them for the first time at the feeders.

The yellow and white markings on the head are bolder on some than on others, as you can see in the pictures.

We should be catching lots of these at the bird banding activity at Springbrook tomorrow morning, along with many other migrants. It starts at 6:30 AM for any who want to join us, and goes until about 12:30, if you don't want to rise so early. All are welcome.

White Crowned Sparrows are one of the most attractive sparrows we have. They are often mixed in with the White Throats, but the difference is easy to spot. The black and white head, no yellow, and the gray breast and throat. Also notice the more pinkish (so the book calls it) colored bill instead of the more blackish bill of the White throats.

I only had a few minutes today, but took these pictures just after the rain stopped

Easter Sunrise-Signs of Spring

2011-04-24T17:47:00.001-05:00

On the trails at Springbrook this morning spring was intensely present.

The Yellow Rumped Warblers were feeding in the wetlands on the midges that hatched yesterday.

These little warblers are often the first to return, and this year have been here for two weeks with very few other warblers showing up.

The cold weather has kept them close to the ground looking for food, so they are easy to see.

You can see in the picture below why they are called "Yellow Rumped" warblers.

Looking for bugs in wetlands and even eating from suet feeders, as I have seen one at my feeders doing, shows how well adapted these early warblers are to the chances of early spring weather in Minnesota.

They will travel to northern Minnesota to find a place to nest.

The Cedar Waxwings were eating the berries of the invasive European Buckthorn this morning. The berries are a powerful emitic, so the seeds will be pooped out right away, planting more buckthorn trees!

This male Red Winged Blackbird is showing the females how agressive he can be defending his territory. What interested me was the band on his right leg (on the left here). I photographed three male Redwings with bands this morning-but didn't notice the bands until I was looking at the pictures.

Below is one of the midge flys that hatched yesterday, caught in one of the first spider webs of the year. The sun had just hit this web, turning the frost to dew almost instantly.

The emerging leaves on this Gray Dogwood twig were covered with frost as the sun rose this morning. You can see which side faced east, as the frost changed to dew drops as the sun's warmth touched the twig.

The tiny lichen called British Soldiers is growing its red fruiting caps now. Look for it on dead logs in open areas. I found these in Springbrook's oak savannah.

Turkey's Gobbling

2011-04-15T11:34:00.000-05:00

Wild Turkeys are actively in their mating season at Springbrook now. I took these pictures yesterday looking into the bird feeding area.
This is the first year males have been present in the park, and they are really putting on a show, gobbling and strutting in front of the windows while the hens are feeding.
I believe they see their reflection and think it is another male, so they try to out-perform the reflection, getting right up close to the window so the hens will have an easy time comparing.

I have only seen two males, and only one gobbling and strutting. But they can't be putting on displays all the time, and this is what they look like when a bit more relaxed. Notice how much shorter and smaller the "snood" is here. The "snood" is the fleshy red projection on top of and behind the beak.

Also notice the short "beard" projecting from the turkey's chest. the short length suggests this turkey is young, probably a "Jake," just one or two year's old. Maybe that is why he is at Springbrook, where he does not have to compete with older, more established males in other areas. Older Tom turkeys have beards over one foot long.

In this picture the "snood" is a little bigger, and the beard can be seen better.

The bright colors on the head of the males are what tells the difference from the females. Other wise they look pretty similar, except that most female turkey's also lack the beard. About one in ten females do have short "beards," which is why hunting regulations for turkeys allow shooting of "bearded" turkeys. That way very few females are taken, and reproduction is high the next year.

Here is a female or hen turkey for comparrison. This one is sitting on a fence rail by the bird feeders. Turkeys can fly very well, and roost in the top of tall trees at night.

The hens seem to ignore the performance of the males, but I am pretty sure they are watching, and that Springbrook will have baby turkeys by the end of May.

Wood Frogs Fighting and Calling

2011-04-12T12:11:00.000-05:00

Wood Frogs are usually the first to start calling every spring, often before the snow and ice are gone. They often call for only one or two days, since they call and lay their eggs in vernal pools--bodies of water that dry up usually by late spring.
They were calling at Springbrook yesterday, and I was only able to get these poor quality photos. The pool is big this year--because of the big snow melt.

The males set up small territories in the middle of the pool. They call while floating on top of the open water, and they fight for the few open spaces. In the top photo you can see one approaching the closer one. The next picture I call a "muddle." Three or more males converge and "wrestle" underwater to determine who gets the spot. This lasts for five or ten seconds. And then five or ten minutes later it happens again.

Wood Frogs inflate air sacs on the sides of their upper chest area and expel the air to make their short croaking--barking calls. The easiest way to find them is to look for the ripples in the water that the frog makes when making the call.
You can see the air sacs on the lower photo--sorry for the quality.

These frogs were about 75 feet away so even with a 500 mm lens they were tiny in the view finder, and these pictures are cropped out of the original much bigger picture.
Still, it is always a great pleasure to hear the wood frogs the once every three or four years I am able to catch their calls on the one day they are there.

Turtle on Ice

2011-04-06T09:43:00.000-05:00

While hiking Springbrook's main trail yesterday to see signs of spring, this was the strangest and most surprising one. A painted turtle slowly walking across the ice of the large pond area. Never seen this before. The temperature was around 50 at 5 PM, but there was no way this turtle was going to find shelter before the temp dropped below freezing.

How do supposedly "cold blooded" animals do this? Animals that are not able to raise their body temperature except by sitting in the sun.

Somehow this turtle was creating warm enough muscle tissue to keep moving across the ice.

Here is the turtle and the pond with six inches of ice left, and the only open water a few inches at the edge of the cat tails.

This turtle looked like fox or mink food to me. A mink crossed the trail in front of me and entered this wetland just a few minutes after I saw this turtle.

Hope the turtle knew what it was doing and we see it this summer swimming in the wetland.

Robin-Early Bird Gets Worm

2011-03-24T22:03:00.000-05:00

In the middle of yesterday's snowstorm this Robin was wondering what happened to the nice spring weather. At least that is what I imagined he was thinking.

The Robins seem to have arrived en mass a little early this year, but last week almost all the early migrators arrived within a few days. Red Winged Blackbirds, Sand Hill Cranes, Great Blue Herons, Grackles, Fox Sparrows, Wood Cocks, are just a few of the ones I saw.

But this snow and cold weather will test some survival skills.

I don't normally consider birds able to make expressions with their fixed beaks, but this Robin seemed to be telling me what he thought of this weather in this picture.

The first and strongest migrants that arrive get first pick of the best territories, so this Robin is willing to put up with some cold weather for a choice space.

Even though the Robins are here, I was very surprised to see this earth worm lying in the snow, slowly moving, in the middle of the trail at Springbrook on Tuesday. While it doesn't look injured, I can only imagine that some bird, probably a Robin, dropped it while flying to a perch. Who knows?

But this is a case where I think the early bird-in this case the early migrating Robins, really did get the worm! Or at least tried and dropped it later.

Pileated Woodpeckers Create Tree Mulch

2011-03-20T14:43:00.000-05:00

Pileated Woodpeckers are the largest woodpeckers in Minnesota--really in North America, unless the Ivory Bill still actually exists. Pileateds are the size of a crow and are impressive and beautiful birds. They are not uncommon, but they are shy and keep from sight as much as possible. This male is one of the pair that live at Springbrook. I was able to take these pictures a couple of days ago at the bird feeder area at the nature center. The female kept out of sight behind the tree. The male is identified by the red extending back from the beak. In the female this line is black.

In this picture you can see how woodpeckers use their stiff tail feathers as a prop to hold their body away from the tree while looking for food.

The red crest is very bold on these birds, and is raised or lowered depending on the birds level of excitement.

As you can see in the pictures below this pair of woodpeckers have ravaged a number of trees during the winter while looking for the insect larvae inside that provide them with enough nourishment to survive snowy and cold winters.

This tree was shredded inside and out looking for the grubs that were living inside. This is a common sign that Pileated woodpeckers live in an area. I took both of these pictures in the last few days at Springbrook on the trails. From the trails you can see the evidence left by the Pileateds all along the wooded areas. Piles of fresh wood mulch on the ground at the base of a tree is proof that these woodpeckers are visitors to the area.

This cavity was over four feet long with the obvious huge pile of wood chips on the ground in front of it. Another cavity just as long was immediately above this one, but had been done at least a year ago.

If I could just get these woodpeckers to make mulch for my gardens like this! But I hope the trees in my yard don't have this many insects living inside.

Hawk and Owl Eye Protection-Nictitating Membranes

2011-03-06T20:52:00.000-06:00

All birds have a second eyelid that cleans and protects their eyes. It is called the nictitating membrane. Hawks and owls have large eyes that protrude and need constant cleaning.

In these pictures you can see how the clear cornea is right out there in front. Any debris or dust blowing by will stick to this moist surface.

This is the Red Tailed Hawk that has been hunting in Springbrook's bird feeding area most of the winter. It sits in the tree right outside the windows, and I took these pictures through the windows in the last few days.

This picture shows the nictitating membrane that sweeps the eye from the side in just a milisecond. You can see how this membrane is not quite clear, and is a bit more opaque in the Barred owl below.

I took this picture also in the birdfeeding area at Springbrook. These birds watch constantly for prey and need the best vision possible. The nictitating membrane helps make that possible.

The Barred owl's eyes are large and almost a deep black when the membrane is pulled back.

Deer Survival Strategies

2011-02-23T21:04:00.000-06:00

White tailed deer really show off their ability to survive Minnesota's cold winters at this time of year. If you compare these pictures to the opossum pictures of a few weeks ago you can see why opossums have not been here long.

Deer fur is thick, and each hair is hollow to add insulating value to keep the deer warm. The deer has fur right down to the tip of its nose, and its ears are thickly furred. Not like the Opossum's thin furless ears.

Deer also constantly turn their ears to catch all the sounds around them. Not all of us can turn one ear forward and the other one backward at the same time so no danger can sneak up.

This is my favorite. Look at the long eyelashes on this doe deer. Especially the really long ones along the bottom of the eye. Kind of makes Disney exagerations seem too small. Actually, in the dark when walking through heavy brush these "guard hair" lashes warn of sticks that might injure an eye.

I took these pictures yesterday at Springbrook's wildlife feeders. You can see these and other deer adaptations everyday at Springbrook.

Sure Sign of Spring

2011-02-13T13:43:00.001-06:00

It may seem early, but the above freezing temps today feel like a sign of spring. The Goldfinches are way ahead of us, as witnessed by their incoming spring/summer feathers.

These are not the best pictures, but demonstrate how much difference 3 weeks can make in the way a bird looks.

Longer day length is sending a message to the Goldfinch brain, causing it to release hormones that stimulate new feather growth. By the time spring actually gets here these birds will look completely different, and have new colors ready for the summer nesting season.

I took this picture on January 22, and the top picture today. I'll take another in 3 more weeks to see how much change has occurred.

Red Eye Champions-Nocturnal Animals

2011-02-12T22:37:00.000-06:00

Animals that are active primarily at night have eyes that are highly adapted with many more visual receptors than our human eyes. Each receptor requires lots of fresh oxygenated blood to keep it healthy and functioning.

All that fresh oxygenated blood is what makes eyes look red in a camera flash, and nocturnal animals win the prize for the reddest "Red Eye."

This Barred owl was at Springbrook's feeders looking for prey, using its very healthy eyes to search. I wonder if this is where the term "with blood in his eye" comes from?

This rabbit was eating at the same feeders a few days ago, but not at the same time. It's eyes are even bigger than the owl's eyes, and one of the blood veins within the eye can even be seen in this photo.

In the end, for nocturnal animals, the one with the best red eye wins all the marbles, and the loser is not in the gene pool any longer.

Red Tail Hawk Becomes Efficient Hunter

2011-02-06T17:15:00.001-06:00

At Springbrook's birdbanding activity this morning the immature Red Tailed Hawk was back looking for food. He had feasted on another squirrel on Thursday. This morning he was oblivious of all the people setting up bird traps and sat watching the ground around us as we watched him.

He suddenly focused on the ground near the windows, and as we watched, he dove down on a short tailed shrew within a few feet of the watchers, and flew off with it to a tree nearby.

Just enough to generate more interest in a larger breakfast.

He stayed in the feeder area all morning as volunteers took birds out of the traps. Late in the morning he shocked us by flying down and catching a Downy Woodpecker at one of the suet feeders! What a surprise! Coopers and Sharp Shins regularly catch songbirds, but large hawks like Red Tails are generally not considered adept enough to catch small woodpeckers in heavily wooded areas of thick brush. This hawk is breaking all the rules...which is exactly what you have to do to survive sometimes. I'm sure it was one of our banded Downy Woodpeckers, but we will never know which one as he ate it all except a few wing feathers.

Opossums and Global Warming

2011-01-31T16:52:00.000-06:00

This Opossum was at the Springbrook bird feeders yesterday morning. First one seen this winter during the day. I saw one at my home feeders this morning. It must be the time of year for Opossums to venture out.

30 years ago there were no opossums at Springbrook or anywhere north of Minneapolis. The winters were too cold for them to survive. Their northward movement is one of the best examples of the impact of Global warming on wildlife that we can immediately see in this area.

Notice the pink nose, pink toes, and thin ears with no fur. The tail also has no fur.

Ears, toes, tails, and noses with no protection freeze in really cold winters, and the attached opossum generally dies without them. So, how cold it gets determines how far north opossums can live.

I took this picture of an opossum near Hartford, Connecticut nearly 37 years ago. Time hasn't changed their looks, but climate change has expanded their range. Hartford is about 41.5 degrees north latitude and Minneapolis is about 44.5. The three degrees difference is about 200 miles.

If this expansion keeps up opossums will be in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness raiding my campsite in my lifetime! Displacing wildlife that I enjoy, so long as they don't get into my food sack!

And, climate change is not something that responds quickly (in human measures) to turning around. So get ready you folks up north, along with warmer winters, you also get opossums!!

I think it will be a tough go for eco-tourism to successfully replace polar bears with opossums. Hope they don't have to.

Nuthatches--Red and White Breasted

2011-01-22T22:01:00.000-06:00

During this very cold weather keeping the bird feeders and suet feeders full makes a big difference for the birds.

We have both Red Breasted and White Breasted Nuthatches coming to our feeders several times every day. These are the only birds we see that go down tree trunks head first. Brown Creepers do as well but are seen less often.

The Red Breasted Nuthatch is smaller, seems in more of a hurry, and has a slightly upcurved beak, as you can see in this picture I took today. I turned the picture upside down because it is hard to compare the two birds when one is facing down

This is a female White Breasted Nuthatch, determined by the crown color. The male would have a jet black crown instead of the grayish crown this bird has.

The White Breasted Nuthatch often also eats seeds from the feeder, but I have never seen the Red Breasted eating seeds.

Jackalopes???

2011-01-09T21:09:00.002-06:00

With temps well below zerro this morning, the cottontail rabbits decided to risk eating in the daytime as well as at night at the feeders.

This bunny looked pretty normal until it turned its head sideways. Those sure look like antler tips sticking out behind its ear until you look closer.

Rabbits sometimes have growths on their ears/heads caused by the Shope papilloma virus. They can grow quite large, I've seen them twice as long as their ears. They eventually fall off and don't seem to effect the rabbits.

Still, they look pretty weird.

The growths on this rabbit are still quite small, but in a few months they may get 8 or 10 inches long. Maybe this rabbit will pose again. The long growths seem to be where the world wide myths of "Jackalopes" comes from. Google jackalopes and you will find rabbits with antlers and other attachments are quite popular in art, taxidermy, and story.

Same Red Tailed Hawk--Different Squirrel/Day

2010-12-28T14:42:00.001-06:00

Yesterday the immature Red Tailed hawk returned to Springbrook's feeders to work on the squirrel gene pool once again.

It had no difficulty, but was more wary of this photographer and flew to a fence post after the kill.

The sun was out, so better photo opportunities.

When on the ground mantling works perfectly as in previous entry photo, but when on a post, it only works for those above. From this angle, the squirrel/food is pretty obvious.

This time the hawk started at the head and carefully ate every shred of bone, muscle, and any other tissue except skin and fur.

Red Tailed Hawk Eats Squirrel

2010-12-26T16:11:00.000-06:00

On December 23 the juvinile Red Tail Hawk that has been frequenting Springbrook's bird feeders (squirrel feeders?) for several weeks returned and sat in a tree right outside the main windows. Notice that the "crop" area, the high chest area where birds store food right after eating, is a concave hollow. This hawk was hungry!

Within a few minutes the less cautious of the overpopulated squirrels ventured forth to get some sunflower seeds before the other squirrels returned. One moved too far from shelter and the hawk watched intently.

Within two seconds the hawk was down and the squirrel was removed from its gene pool. Natural selection in action! and in front of awed nature center visitors.

The hawk immediately was mantling over the squirrel/prey. Mantling is the behavoir birds of prey display immediately after catching prey--spreading their wings and tail to hide it from other competing predators.

It works pretty good--can you see the squirrel?

While it mantled, the hawk wasted no time starting to eat. You can just see the eye watching as the beak easily found meat.

The hawk did not eat the fur or skin. It opened the carcass and delicately, but with strength and speed, removed meat and bones and swallowed them whole. This is an entire hind leg, minus skin.

You can see that the tail is not red in this juvinile Red Tail. That will take another year, as Amber Burnette mentions in her pictures of this bird on her blog site Avian Images. She thinks it is probably a male because of its small size.

The hawk moved around a lot as if on a pivot while getting at the meat, bones, and viscera, but stayed in the same spot. It carefully ate every bit of the intestines.

Notice how ragged its feathers look. Maybe that is why it has been looking for food at our feeders.

The hawk was very agile and quick, holding the body down with its talons while it pulled away all the edible parts.

I thought this was an interesting expression--if birds can do that. Sort of a cocky "I am a top predator so don't mess with me" look. All with a little bit of fresh flesh hanging off the top of its beak

Within ten minutes all that was left was the white inside of the skin, picked completely clean of any muscle tissue, and the back bone, laying off to the left.

These last two pictures were taken at the beginning and the end of the meal. Notice the difference in the crop area of the hawk's chest. See how it bulges out from all the food the hawk has just eaten! This hawk did not go to sleep hungry on this night. And it will have the energy to come back hunting again.

Death in the Blizzard

2010-12-11T19:01:00.002-06:00

In the midst of the near white-out blizzard of 17+ inches of snow today this Dark-eyed Junco was trying to eat to stay alive at my feeders at 1:30 PM.

Not the best conditions for photography, but try it anyway.

Suddenly the Junco disappeared from my camera viewfinder in a blur. I looked up to see where it had flown to and it was gone. All the other birds, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Chickadees, Goldfinches, were all acting normal.

But then I saw the Sharp Shinned Hawk, about 30 feet away, under the lilac bush, with the Junco. It happenned so fast and quietly none of the other birds noticed. The Blue Jay was sitting calmly 5 feet over the small hawk as it quickly and meticulously ate every nutritious morsel of the Junco.

That is the two wing bones connected to the back of the Junco. Every shred of muscle was picked off. These bones and some feathers were all that was left after 5 minutes. Then the little hawk flew over to the base of the Lilac bush, shook the snow off of itself, then up to a branch, and then it was gone.

Death is fast and unexpected for Juncos, but keeps hawks alive. And keeps me constantly at the camera.

This was very cool to watch and photograph, even if visibility was so poor because of the blowing snow and bushes. Not the best pictures, but an experience I feel privileged to have been able to observe.

Snapping Turtle Eggs

2010-12-06T13:43:00.000-06:00

On June 19, 2010, I found an open hole in the ground where a Snapping Turtle had laid eggs the night before at Springbrook Nature Center. Rain had washed away the soil covering the hole, and predators would have found the eggs as easily as I had. A living exhibit waiting to happen.

The 38 eggs were about 8 inches below the top of the sandy soil on a nature center maintenance road. I dug a hole next to the eggs to expose them.

Once the embryo has attached itself inside the egg, if the egg is turned over the embryo will die. So I marked the top of each egg with a pencil dot to assure it would be left in the proper position, and placed the eggs in a plastic container in vermiculite. I placed water in the bottom of the container, and left a lid partially covering it on a table where no sun could be directly on the eggs.

On September 5, 80 days after the eggs were deposited in the road bed, they started to hatch. Within three days all the eggs hatched, and the babies were released into the pond near where they were found.

If you look closely you can see the sharply pointed white egg tooth just below the nose of the baby turtle. It uses this to cut the egg open from the inside. After a couple of days the egg tooth dissappears.

The eggs are slightly smaller than a ping pong ball. The baby's body is about an inch across, not counting the head and tail.

The baby turtles have a yolk sac on their underside that gives them nourishment for a few days after they hatch. It is absorbed within a week.

Red Tailed Hawk

2010-12-06T12:22:00.004-06:00

Red Tailed Hawk.

This young Red Tailed Hawk has been hanging around Springbrook's Interpretive center for several weeks. On both Friday and Saturday it killed and ate a Gray Squirrel at our bird feeders. On Sunday he/she was there while our bird banding activity was happenning. It is young and unafaid of people, being more interested in the animals attracted to the wildlife feeders. I have never seen a Red Tail allow people this close.

Notice how it stands on one foot, keeping the other pulled up into its feathers for warmth.

Monarch Chrysalis

2010-11-27T14:16:00.005-06:00

Watching a butterfly break open and emerge from its chrysalis is very cool. Within seconds this Monarch Butterfly's abdomen drops. One of the butterfly's first actions is to zip the double proboscis into one tube. It takes about an hour for the fluid from its abdomen to get pumped into the wings, and another 12 to 24 hours for the wings to dry hard so the butterfly can fly. Can you see the scent pouch bulge on the third wing vein from the body that identifies this as a male?

Tiger Swallowtail

2010-11-26T20:40:00.004-06:00

Hooray! It's my first post! Thanks to my son Siah who helped (basically did it all) set up this site.

This is a Tiger Swallowtail butterfly. The female of one of Minnesota's two species has a black morph. I see them fairly often in late summer at Springbrook Nature Center. The more common yellow color phase is below.

I intend to use this blog site to display pictures of the many aspects of nature I am constantly given opportunities to see. Many people bring things to Springbrook to be identified and I photograph as much as time allows.