Vespa, the Wasp

All boys who grow up in the country, no matter what inhabited place on earth, know that one important purpose for rocks is to knock down a "wasper's" (wasp's)  nest because there is adventure there - there is danger and there is also the good feeling that he got away with it.  I sometimes wonder if there is a sign on such a nest that only boys can see that says, "throw a rock at me."

I was one such boy when no nest was safe, whether paper wasp, yellow jacket, or hornet.  I also paid the price for such entertainment on several occasions.  But sometimes I was innocent, like the time I was wading through mountain ivy bushes and bumped a hornet's nest.  When I stopped running the obligatory 50 yards, one of the hornets which, I suspect was riding on my shoulder, popped me in the ear.  It felt as though all the fires of Hell had concentrated itself in that one stinger.  In my 7th grade school picture my right ear was almost twice as large as the other, a painful reminder not to mess around with hornets.

This is a brown paper wasp, Polistes exclamans, which is very common and is found nesting under eaves and porch ceilings - really anywhere outside the house (or in the house if you let them).  There are twenty-two species of paper wasps in North America, but over 400 worldwide.

This nest has only four or five members and they are very interesting to watch.  They are in almost constant motion walking around and back and forth on the nest.  When a member flies off and returns, it is greeted by one of them, probably to determine whether it is recognized and to give the wasp password.

These wasps are not at all aggressive.  The built on an outside door frame and they tolerate my coming and going.  Wasps, although, hated and feared by many people are tremendously beneficial insects.  They kill or paralyze for their young, scores of insect pests - those which make our lives uncomfortable.  Like snakes, many people see them as something to be gotten rid of and bring out the Raid hornet and wasp spray.  I don't do that except on yellow jackets, which are very aggressive and will attack with little or no provocation. However, people who suffer anaphylactic shock reaction  when stung by wasps and bees would be best advised to avoid them altogether.

Some time back I posted a blog about my "taming" a nest of paper wasps on my back deck,  Each day, and several times a day I would approach closer and closer until they decided that I was no threat to them.  They became so used to me I could touch one without being stung, but here is the interesting part: sometimes one would deliver a very small amount of venom to say, "Don't get too familiar; we have a weapon you don't want to feel."

My contention is that all living things have intelligence, to a greater or lesser degree.  In my years of observing them I have come to the realization that insects are not stupid.  They actually learn and that means that they think.

I put some sugar water on my finger tip and they drank from it.  That doesn't mean that they understood I was being friendly or helping them, but it just could have been a source of food and I was the bearer.

In this picture I hadn't any sugar on my finger.  I just wanted to show that they didn't consider me a threat.

Eating sugar water from my finger.

Night Visitor

I was pumping gas at my local filling station when I saw something at my feet that looked unusual.  I bent down and picked it up and realized that it was a very-much-alive moth, rather large and unusual in its black and white coloration (or lack thereof).  My picture, under artificial light gave it a off white coloration, which is wrong. I should have kept it until the next day to get its correct color.

 I had seen this moth before but not in a long time and, look as I may, I couldn't find the species, so I turned to my son, Rob, who is a research specialist extraordinaire and he found it.  It is the Rustic Sphinx,  Manduca rustica, a moth native to Mexico, Central America, and the southern US.

I looked very long and hard at it to see if I could understand why the "sphinx" designation, but couldn't figure it out. 

The caterpillar is large, green, and intimidating with a tall menacing- looking horn on the hind end.  I'd hate to meet him one dark night under a street light.

"Georgie"

Robert Lawson wrote a children's book entitled, Rabbit Hill, which I read when I took a course in "kiddie lit" in college.  It is a story about a clan of rabbits who lived on a run-down farm that was sold to "new folks," and the rabbits were concerned that they might be stingy with their vegetables in the garden or that they were not nice in general, much as we all are when new neighbors arrive. 

The main character, Little Georgie, was a typical youngster who was full of energy and not full of caution,  one day ran in front of the new folk's car and was hit.  When they carried him inside,  the other rabbits feared that he had met with doom, but when Little Georgie showed up with a bandage and all fixed up, they knew the new owners were good people. If memory serves me, they also put up a sign that cautioned visitors to drive slowly because rabbits lived there.

This rabbit, whom I named Georgie,  because he reminded me of his namesake, lives under my back deck and he ventures out quite often in the back yard to see if there are delectables that might be a pleasant change from his diet of clover and weeds.

Here he is inspecting a piece of bread I tossed out to him.



It meets with his approval.

Like me, Georgie loves watermelon.

Georgie, we both love summer, so enjoy, as I will, the good things summer brings and we'll just have to muddle through the barrenness of winter. But I might find an apple or two  and share.

Cicada

I had a visitor to my back deck this afternoon, one whose raucous call demands immediate attention.  Entomologists say they make the noise with a set of tymbals at the base of the abdomen that can produce loudness up to 120 decibels, which can be irritating to the human ear.  If you have ever heard one, you will never forget it.

These cicadas are found all over the eastern United States and there are more than 1500 species of them.  I don't think this one is the 17-year cicada, Magicada septendecula,  since it doesn't have the red eyes of that species.  This is the time for them to emerge in this area, but I haven't had that wailing, pharoah, pharoah, pharoah sound males make to attract mates.  It would probably take an entomologist to positively identify the many which inhabit our woods. .

The size of this insect, about an inch and a half long is impressive, and the markings are really pretty.  When I was growing up in rural North Carolina, people called the cicada a "jar fly."  I suppose the sound is loud enough to jar someone awake if he were dozing in the afternoon sun.




Those transparent wings with the lines seem almost
drawn. I guess the most noticeable feature of the
cicada are the wide-set eyes.  The purpose would
seem to give it great binocular vision.  At first glance the wide-set eyes reminded me of the hammerhead shark.

I have heard them calling in mid-summer and the call would be broken off to a kind of desperate clicking making me think that a predator, perhaps a bird or a cicada killer, a large wasp, had captured it.

When Nature Meets Progress

When we look around at all the beauty nature has to offer, if we are keenly aware of such beauty, it almost overwhelms us.  But along with that wonderment there is another side, a darker side - the struggle to survive and sometimes the struggle is in vain. 

One such example when nature collided with "progress" is seen in this picture of this pileated woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus, which is a bird, to me, that epitomizes wildness in the woodlands and mountains.  It is one of my favorite birds. I had the good fortune a few years back to see two mating in a white pine in my front yard, then hammering out a hole in a nearby dead tree and raising four little ones.

The old people in the North Carolina mountains called them "wood hens," because their cry, they believed, sounded hen-like when the hen cackles to call its "biddies" to found food, but I have never thought of it that way.

If you are lucky enough to hear one hammering on a dead tree, drumlike, powerful, then giving that ta ta ta ta ta ta rapid scream which resounds over hollows and across ridges, you will know that you heard that same cry that pioneers and Indians centuries ago heard - know that you share, in a sense, a kinship with them.


Unfortunately this one met "progress" and lost. It made the mistake of landing on a power line near my niece, Carolyn's house. She posed it to be lifelike - a fitting picture for its obituary.

 I am not disparaging progress because it is an inescapable force that defines us in this age.  We are part of it and cannot escape it.  It would be impossible to live without electricity and other conveniences that we have long taken for granted.

At one time when I was young I entertained the notion of casting off all the trappings of civilization and becoming one with nature, a notion many of us have entertained, but later when some of the romanticism in me had died, I realized this was impossible.  We created this monster and now we must live with it or die.  It takes no prisoners.

Is That a Stick?

As I was walking beside my pickup this morning I saw what I thought was a stick on the hood.  I casually picked it up to throw it into the grass when it moved and I saw that it wasn't a stick at all, but an insect.




I hadn't seen one of these curious insects for a couple of years and I hoped that they weren't gone from these parts.  How something living could look so dead, so slender, so wood-like is a mystery.  So good is its mimicry that it sways as a stick would with the wind blowing it.  Any bird that catches one of these walking sticks has a sharp eye, for certain.

 According to National Geographic, there are over 3,000 species of them, varying in size from a few inches to one in Borneo that is 13 inches long.  Until I read about them, I had no idea there were that many.   In my experience with them from my childhood until now, they seemed pretty much alike.

All walking sticks are herbivores and in the US they seem to prefer blackberry leaves. As far as I know they don't destroy large amounts of plant leaves. They are of the Phasmatodea order, in Greek meaning phantom or apparition - an apt name since they seem to materialize from stick to living insect.

This photo shows the head of the walking stick.

This is the tail and what appears to be pincers.  I carefully handled it and it didn't use it as a defense.  Maybe it could be an ovipositor or used when mating.  





 This is the full view of the walking stick insect.
 (Remember, click on the photo to enlarge it.)

Tragedy at the Wren's Nest

Before, I kept you posted on the baby wrens in the hanging basket.  Yesterday morning before daylight I planned to take a picture of them in their nest, but I was surprised to see it empty, since I knew they were too young to fledge.

At about the same time I notice something on the window sill near the basket.  It was a king snake.  There were three bulges in its body, which were the baby birds.

I captured the snake and put it in a half-gallon jar to study it.  Indeed, it was a king snake, about two feet long.  These are some photos I took:

I was very angry and upset that the snake had eaten the babies that I had grown close to, but when I cooled down, I realized that the king snake was just doing what its nature dictated.

This set me to thinking. We tend to anthropomorphize - assign human characteristics to animals - because we live in a society where some things are wrong and need addressing, but to the snake it was a bonanza find - three helpless babies that would satiate it for a month or more.

We humans do things that are far worse than a snake following its nature.   We take infant calves from their mothers, put them in a dark stall with no room to move about because their muscles would develop and their meat wouldn't be tender, force them to stand or lie in their excrement and feed them nothing but cow's milk, which results in scours for their entire miserable lives.

When they are mercifully killed and sent to the supermarket, where they are cut into steaks, wrapped in innocuous plastic and labeled "veal," we are distanced from its plight. We hire others to do the business of processing.  Don't get me wrong - I eat meat, but I don't eat veal because of the inhumane manner in which it is forced to spend it's short life.

My first thought was to kill the snake, thereby avenging the baby birds, but I knew that would be wrong.  No animal is "mean" by our definition, so I carried it over to some woods a good distance from my house and I let it go.  Had it been a copperhead or a rattlesnake, I'm not what I would do.

Hey, Were You Raised in a Barn?

My niece, Carolyn, emailed me this picture of a bird's nest that is in one of her father's out buildings.  She was wondering if I knew what kind of bird made it.  Since I haven't seen the adult, I'm not sure, but from the looks of it - mud and grass and twigs, I'd say it is a barn swallow.  The nests I saw pictured on the internet were almost identical to the one here, 

Like many other birds, they build nests that are quite secure from snakes, cats, and other predators.

The barn swallow, Hirundo rustica,  is a beautiful, streamlined bird with a long forked tail.  They are built for fast, quick-turning maneuvers in order to catch flying insects.  Since they are flying insect  catchers, they are very valuable to us.

The barn swallow is the national bird of Austria.  Somehow I thought the cuckoo might be.

You Scratch My Back and I'll ...

 Symbosis is a deal struck between two animals or plants, or plants and animals which benefits both, such as the bee gathering pollen and fertilizing the flower and fish which safely live with sea anemones, eating small invertegrates that would otherwise harm the anemones.   Volumes could be written about ants and their symbiosis with aphids and others.  There are symbiotic relationsships between certain bacteria and us.  They live in our intestines to help us digest food and some vitamins and on our skins to kill viruses.  The list is endless.

The other day I got to thinking about symbiosis and the birds and animals in our backyards.  They gather around our houses in great numbers because we feed them - intentionally or not.  Sometimes we leave scraps around the house which they eat and then they hang around.  The clover in our yards,which this rabbit in my yard is enjoying, is in abundance not usually found in woods.

This rabbit and another live underneath my back deck.  I can get quite close to them and they don't seem scared unless I make a quick movement.  I wonder what they think of this lumbering, slow creature who doesn't seem like a predator.

This is very unscientific but I can see an abstract kind of symbosis between us and these animals and birds.  Certainly they gain more as far as survival goes, but they do give something to us - beauty and appreciation of where we stand in this earth journey we are all in. This is not to be taken lightly.  I personally believe that it should be one of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, along with air, food, water, sleep, shelter - appreciation of the world around us. 

I can't imagine what life would be like without this plethora of other life around us.  If we but take the time to investigate and look, really look, at what is all around us, the rewards are tremendous.  And everything we discover leads to a new and sometimes even better discovery.

Our appreciation of "other" life give us positive insights about our relationships with other people, too.  It is human nature to communicate to others what we find enjoyable and we get a special feeling when they act upon that.  It is one of the reasons we teach our children, or should, to appreciate the world outside our door.

I grew up in a working family that didn't stress this kind of thing, rather concentrating more on our basic needs and I sort of had an epiphany later in life when I was hunting and fishing and had a lot of time to think.  Sadly, many people go about their lives not noticing the wonders that are around them all of the time.  I want my eulogy to include,"He saw beauty and it gave him immense joy and pleasure."

In college freshman English we were required to memorize John Keats' first lines to "A Thing of Beauty is a Joy For Ever."  He said it better than any I have ever read or heard:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

"a sleep full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing..."  What more do we really need?

A Phoebe's Morning Ritual

Under the upstairs deck off the bedroom phoebes nest every year.  They keep their same nest but renovate it with some fresh twigs and such.  They have gotten to be such a regular couple, I would worry if they didn't show up some spring.

About five years ago in the late spring I heard a noise under the deck and I went out to see what the racket was about.  Birds always sound different when they are excited.  A black rat snake had crawled up to the nest and was eating one of the baby birds and the others in the nest had flown out and on the ground.

As I said previously I never kill snakes if it is to be avoided, but in this case I was mad!  I ran and got my Daisy Red Ryder BB gun and shot the snake.  It fell with the bird, which was dying, on the patio.  I really regretted it because the rat snake was doing what black rat snakes do - catching prey, but I had been watching the babies and had gotten to enjoy them.  Apparently the other birds were ready to leave the nest because they were flyers, of a sort.  In a half hour or so they were gone.  I am sure they made it.  No doubt, the one I photographed this morning is a relative.

The eastern phoebe,  Sayornis phoeba, is a rather nondescript little bird - not very many distinguishing marks other than a black beek, which its look-alike, the eastern wood-pewee doesn't have.  The two are hard to tell apart on sight.  However, the pewee has a song that says, pee-a-wee, while the phoebe's is a fee-bee.  So each of the birds tell you what it is.

Both are wonderfully beneficial in that they are voracious insect-eaters.  They don't go for seeds you put out and I don't remember seeing either at a suet feeder.

This phoebe that I photographed this morning gave me a wonderful show of its morning ritual getting rid of mites and  just general  grooming itself and I caught it in the act.  Remember I said I used the "shotgun approach?"  I must have shot 25 pictures of it, but most weren't good.
These here are pretty good, in my opinion, of a phoebe at its morning ritual.

First the neck scratch...

Then under the wing...

Don't forget the leading wing feathers...

 The throat...

Well, off to work.

Arachne the Weaver

In Greek mythology, there was a mortal woman named Arachne who was so arrogant about her weaving skills, which were great, that she challenged Athena, goddess of knowledge and weaving, among other things, to a contest to see who was the better weaver. 

When the contest was finished, Arachne had woven a tapestry so beautiful that Athena, tore it to pieces and turned Arachne into a spider, doomed for all time to weave webs to catch her dinner.  In Greek, "arachne" means spider.   What a lovely story, which explains why the spider weaves so beautiful a web.  The Greeks seemed to have a great answer for everything.

Basement Spider

This arachnid pictured here I found in my den near the basement steps, just lying there all spread out and looking enormous.  Spiders, like snakes, for a lot of people, effect a kind of excited fear when they first see them.  Neither my wife, Zelma, nor I have ever been particularly afraid of spiders, but my son, Robert, I am sure is an arachnophobe.  So it must be nature over nurture.

This spider at first glance, seemed to be around about eight inches across.  But in reality it is about four inches from the tip of one leg across to the opposite one.  I have formula for determining the size of spiders, snakes, and fish when someone is telling about having seen, killed, or caught one - divide by two.  This particular one is a basement spider, and I have seen quite a few in my basement.  Apparently she one was of the adventurous kind who just had to know what was upstairs. 

Spiders are beautiful things and they are astounding in their ability to survive.  They are found all the way from the tropics to warmer climes north (and south) to very cold areas.  Some have actually been found on freezing mountain tops in snow.
              
I never kill spiders because they never bother me and I think they do a lot of good: they have to eat, and what they eat probably makes my life a little better.  They usually just lie there flat against the wall looking impressive.  Of course, there are cobwebs.  (interestingly "cob" meant spider in Old English).  But I believe other spiders made them. This one can jump, I learned when I lifted it off the carpet with an envelope.  It seems the basement spiders are the lie-in-wait-and-pounce kind of arachnids. I admire their patience.

A Hoard of Formicidae

June, wonderful June, the month of my birth, the definition of summer, the  promise fulfilled that winter will end.  Persephone, the vegetation goddess, has come up from her cruel husband, Hades, from her underworld home to spread seeds of hope and revitalization in her suddenly bright world.

I think of spring and early summer as a joyous time.  Unlike some, I don't worry about the hot months to come - bring them on!  I'll take them over freezing January and February any time.

Ants on Cotton Ball

Summer brings other things which, if you are caught unawares, will wreak havoc in you kitchen, bedroom - all  over your house.  They are armies on the march searching for any sweet treasure they can filch, and their appetites are insatiable.  This little army is marching across my window sill just above my computer, and I must fight it, and I have discovered a weapon that I will share with you.

Ants belong to the family, Formicidae, but I have no idea what species these that march across my window sill are.  I grew up calling all tiny ants "pissants," a word from the 14th century which has been corrupted into, "piss ant."  The former word had no relation to urine, but someone put a space between the syllables and it stuck.

 Over the years I have tried about everything available to kill ants and haven't found anything that did the job.  Yes, it discouraged them if I sprayed around all doors and windows, but they would come back with a vengeance when the poison wore off.  So I did some research.

I had heard that boric acid mixed with sugar and water would actually kill them, so I tried it.  I mixed a teaspoon of boric acid (Twenty Mule Team Borax, the laundry additive, to be exact) with five teaspoons of sugar in a quarter of a cup of water and then soaked a cotton ball in it.  I squeezed most of it out and set it on the window sill.

As you can see in the photos, they were drawn to it like I am drawn to blackberry patches in July.  I never actually saw any dead ants, but they were gone the next day, and I assume they had carried some of this ambrosia back to the queen to get on her good side and as a result, destroyed a dynasty.  Good riddance.

They are Making a Nest Where?

I am convinced that wrens are part human, because they share some characteristics with us.  They would never, on the driest, warmest day, consider building a nest outside that would be unprotected from rain, hail, and a plethora of other meteorological discomforts when there is a perfectly good porch, eve, or garage for the taking.   Like us, I believe, they are doing it mostly for the comfort of their young when the blessed events occur.

I have found Carolina wrens, Thryothorus ludovicianus,  (such a big name for a little bird) making nests in the strangest places.  Once or twice they made nests in my fishing boots hanging in the garage.  They built in a cowboy boot I had there, and a number of niches, shelves, and pots they could commandeer.  But the most surprising of all was a cap, which I hadn't worn in a while, hanging by the door.  When I started to put it on, a wren flew almost in my face - that episode convinced me that I have a healthy heart.  


Not that they don't pay rent, of a sort; the two you see in the pictures, well, there are two, a male and a female, both doing the task of building, give me immeasurable entertainment as I watch them bring in pine needles, dried leaves, tinder, and all other kinds of building material.

When I pointed it out to my wife, she said, "They can't build there, I need to water my plant."

Not to be undone, I got an empty hanging basket and filled it with artificial vines and replaced the petunias with it.  I even took some of their nest material and placed it in the bottom.  I then anxiously waited to see what the wrens would do.


The basket is outside the living-room window.

"Hmm, looks pretty good"

This is the initial inspection.  To pass   inspection, the  site must be secure, dry, and roomy with just the right amount of privacy.

Less than an hour later one lit on the edge of the basket with a dried leaf in it beak and went down into the basket.  Haaa!  They had bought it. 


This is a couple of weeks later and the babies have hatched.  I carefully looked inside and they have three wide-mouthed, demanding, hungry chicks.



This is probably Dad taking out the trash.  Most birds remove feces daily keeping a clean nest to avoid infection of their young.





On the subject of photography, I recently bought a cheap Fujifilm s4200 camera which serves my purposes.  It cost $153 from Amazon.  I could have chosen a Nikon or Canon for $500+, but I don't need those.

Mine is a "bridge camera," which looks like the expensive ones but isn't.  It has 14 megapixel, 24 power zoom, macro and super macro, and it also has a viewfinder, as well as the LCD screen.  I must have a viewfinder because in some situations it is very much needed.  In the above pictures I was shooting through double-paned glass, which I think is pretty good, but I doubt that National Geographic will be calling me any time soon.

Turkey in the... Straw?

My wife called me from downstairs, "Bob, come see what is in the front yard!"  Images ran through my mind in that split second: Elvis? Aliens? Grizzly bears?  Honest politicians?

I ran to the living room and looked outside.  There was a turkey hen wallowing in the grass, probably to get rid of mites.  She put on quite a show for us, staying about 30 minutes.  I got some pretty decent pictures, even though it was through the window glass.

The American turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, is a uniquely American bird.  Wikipedia says that when the Europeans first saw them in the New world, they noticed that they resembled a kind of guinea fowl, also known as turkey fowl that they were familiar with.  They were known as "turkey fowl" because they were from Turkey.  Later the "fowl" was dropped and the American turkey became just "turkey."

We all know the story about  Ben Franklin wanting the American turkey to be our national bird, and I can understand why: they are native to America; they are a beautiful bird with the males having the colors, red, white, and blue on the head and neck. In addition, the males and young males, called "jakes" have a strand of feathers hanging down from their breasts called its "beard."  Finally, they are a very intelligent bird, not like the domestic ones which have been bred to be fat and stupid.

Anyone, including myself, who has ever turkey hunted knows how hard they are to kill.  Game laws require that only the toms can be hunted, by calling like a hen during mating season, convincing them that a hen is interested.  In nature it is the hen which goes to the gobbling tom.  Wild turkeys have excellent eyesight, are able to see colors, have great hearing, and are smart.  In addition, they are graceful, terrific flyers able to get off the ground without running, as many large birds must do. Like Ben, I believe the wild turkey should be our national bird.

Luna Moth

Earlier this evening I discovered a beautiful lime-green moth fluttering around the light in the garage.  It was obviously injured or just dying from having lived out its life span.

I caught it, placed it on a black pillow and took this picture.

"Luna" means "moon," and I think the name is perfect because I see them only at night.  The luna moth, Actias luna, of the order lepidoptera, as are all moths and butterflies. Lepidopthera is a Greek combining form that means scales and wings.

I think the luna is particularly stunning because of its size and color.  This one is close to four inches across its wings, and the lime-green color is most pleasing.

I have an outside light, not the ugly sulphur, orange that is seen on city streets, but a natural-looking light, near the garage, and each spring and summer I am rewarded with all kind of insects, and of course, bats catching them.  The light has created a microcosm of insects, little brown bats, toads, and who knows what else.  On warm spring and summer nights after dark I go outside to their little world and marvel at the abundance and variety of life.  There is always a surprise waiting for me.  I am never disappointed at what I find.

In some ways that little world is reminiscent of a battlefield.  After a night of activity with insects looking for mates and bats and toads looking for a meal, the next morning one can see the soldiers strewn over the ground - dead and dying moths and and a variety of other insects.  Such is nature's way.

Also under the light are three yucca plants, which bloom in the summer.  Their white blossoms grow on long shoots which grow up from the plant.  I understand the only pollinator is the yucca moth, which I have yet to see.  This summer I am going to find one on a blossom.  They may visit the plant at night. 

Can You See Me?

Io moth

It has always interested me in some animals' ability to blend in with their environment so that they can barely, or not at all, be seen.  This natural camouflage that many have is really remarkable.  Or another example is it's  disguise to look like something else, perhaps threatening to a predator.

The io moth, Automeris io, comes to mind as a good example.  Look at the picture here at what appears to be two large eyes on its wings.  And what is most astounding is that there are two large eyes complete with eyebrows and even the appearance of reflections of light on the "pupils" of the eyes.  This is truly amazing.  Look at the moth upside down and it looks like some weird animal's head.  The io moth is best example of animal mimicry that I know.   It's no wonder that a bird would think twice before attempting to eat such a scary-looking thing. To me it is a little owl-like in its appearance, which songbirds would certainly stay away from.

I found these wing under my outside security light.  At first I thought they were from the io moth, but on closer inspection, I see they aren't.  The closest one I could find in my insect field guide is the Polyphemus moth, Antheraea polyphemus.
named after Polyphemus, the one-eyed giant in Greek mythology.  I must do some more research.

There is a great little amphibian and every time I see it, I marvel at its ability to blend in with the green leaves.  It is the American green tree frog, Hyla cinerea, which is active just after a rain.  It is about 6 inches long and when it calls, it is a rather hoarse sound for such a little creature.  If you didn't know differently, you might think it is much larger.  It sounds a little like a bull frog, but not nearly as deep.  The males do the calling to announce to the females that they are ready to mate.

I took this picture the other morning when I heard it in a magnolia tree in my yard.  I went out to the tree and stood really still and waited for it to call again before I could located it.  I have noticed that animals which use camouflage will let you get a lot closer to them because, they believe they can't be seen. 

This frog is easier to see than the killdeer above because he didn't quite match himself to the correct shade of green of the leaves, but did a pretty good job. The frog in the first picture is easily seen, but not as much so in the second.  Can you see it?  It's in the middle of the picture.

Literature says that the American green tree from is found in South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana, but I have seen them here in NC many times.  I believe it is the state amphibian for both Georgia and Louisiana. 

A couple of days ago I rode my motorcycle over to the church I attend and saw one of the killdeer I wrote about before.  I was beside a pebble walkway and the killdeer ran to it and stopped.  It blended into the background so well I had to look carefully to see it.  In this picture you may not be able to see it, but it's there.  It is standing next to the cement border and slightly turned away from you, just a little below the concrete seam.  See if you can find it.

The killdeer is there but hard to find

A couple of summers ago I was picking blackberries near my house in a very dense thicket of briars and weeds when I heard something move near me.  I knew it was a snake of some sort, but we have copperheads around here, and although I had boots on, I didn't want to stand near  it.  So I stood really still and looked for it but couldn't make out a thing.  The ground had dead leaves on it,  and a snake's color and patterns can look like those.  I knew it wasn't a black snake because they really stand out.

It then made a slight movement and I saw its shape emerge from the brown-mottled field of leaves.  It was a rather large copperhead, A. contortrix, - a pit viper, and there is no mistaking them.  During most of the year, their heads are of a copper color and are triangular shaped, which indicate that they are venomous.  They are a beautiful light and darker brown browns.  It quickly moved away from me and I was a bit nervous, even though copperheads are not that dangerous and are not really quick to bite, unless you step on one.  It seems they had rather avoid a confrontation, for which I am very glad.

I wouldn't kill a copperhead or even a rattlesnake out in the woods or fields away from my house.  They are more beneficial to us than they are harmful.  North Carolina has the dubious distinction of having the most venomous snake bites annually.  The reasons for most snake bites are carelessness and handling.

When I am out and about  in thick areas like I mentioned, I will make a lot of noise and stamp the ground with my foot occasionally and any snake around will usually leave.  They have no sense of hearing, but they can feel vibration on the ground.  I think they can judge the size of something by the vibration it makes when it walks and they wouldn't want to get trampled by a cow or horse. 

Frustrated Bumblebee

This large beautiful insect has been at my window feeder all morning.  I don't usually color my nectar, but I thought I'd try it to see if any strangers showed up, maybe attracted by the color. This very large bumble bee, bombus,  seems so frustrated.  She  keeps flying around the delicious red nectar trying to find a way in.

It is kind of sad, being so close to something so wonderful and it's being only a fraction of an inch away and can't get to it. She is a bit like Tantalus, a Greek mythological figure who killed his children and fed them to the gods, and Zeus, for eternal punishment, made Tantalus stand in water under a fruit tree with wonderful fruit and when he tried to get it, it would move a little out of his grasp.  If he bent down to take a drink, the water would recede.  So we have tantalize, meaning to keep someone from getting something that is close, but never being able to get it, among some other meanings.

I have read that bumble bees are rather aggressive, but I have never found that to be true, but I have never dug out one of their nests, which are made underground.  I don't believe that would be wise.  You can't blame them; they are protecting what is theirs.  I have only seen them busily collecting pollen and unknowingly fertilizing many, many plants.  You can gently touch one and never get stung.  That has been my experience, but I am not recommending it.  What a wonderful insect, along with honey bees.  The world would be a vastly different place without them. 

Universal Communication

I was at my computer, which is at a window in my upstairs bedroom, when a female ruby-throated hummingbid began flying back and forth outside, looking in at me.  It was clear to me that she was trying to communicate with me to put a feeder there.  So I got out a feeder and filled it and hung it from the eve.  Not much longer than an hour later, she reappeared and began feeding, as you see in the picture.

The age-old question is "do animals communicate with us?"  We know that they communicate with each other - bird songs, and by animals too numerous to mention, calls, growls, hisses, etc.

But more amazing, in Austria, Karl von Frisch observed European honey bees doing a "waggle dance" to tell the other worker where it had found a food source, not only where, but how distant the source was.  This, to me, is astounding that a lowly insect could communicate information such as that to each other.  That being true, think of how the higher animals' level of communication, both verbal and non verbal, must be. 

We once had a cocker spaniel who learned that the word, "trash," meant that I was going to the landfill and she began jumping around eager to go with me .  So when I didn't want her to go, to fool her, I began spelling t-r-a-s-h to tell my wife where I was going.  Guess what?  She learned to spell!  Any dog owner will substantiate this.  I have noticed that people who don't spend a lot of time in nature observing animals, assign them pretty low status when it comes to intelligence.  But we who do, know differently.

Several summers ago paper wasps, Polistes carolina, had built a large nest in a low window off from my deck.  I decided to conduct an experiment.  Each day I would get a little closer to the nest and they would give me the warning sign consisting of quick movements but not flying off their nest.  I would then back off, trying to let them know that I wasn't a threat.  Each day I got a little closer and eventually I could hold my finger just next to them.  They would still do the jerky movements, at which time I would retract my finger a little.

This is the astounding part and something many people to whom I have told it looked at me as though I was a bit "teched" in the head.  I actually got so close with my finger I could very lightly touch them.  At first they would give me a tiny sting, not the kind that, when one is chasing you and lights on your neck, it feels like all hell is loosed, but just a little sting that is hardly felt - a message to say, "I don't really fear you, but you are too close."  This to me proves that it can regulate the amount of venom it releases.  (Biologists know that venomous snakes, like rattle snakes and copperheads do this also). It is a method of conserving the venom when the threat is not great.  Again I would move my finger back and repeat it a bit later.  I actually, after a while, could lightly stroke the back of a wasp and it didn't sting me.

Just as with people, animals read non-verbal signals, and they are very good at it.  Just yesterday out in my yard was an eastern cottontail rabbit that has been hanging around and eating the clover in my yard.  A lot of animals are much "tamer" in summer as they are in winter.  If I walk perpendicular to and very close to the rabbit and not look at it, it will continue eating, but if I stop and look at it, it is off like a shot.  Wolves use this technique.  Before forming for an attack on large prey, bison and such, they will amble along looking uninterested and the prey will sense no danger, then slowly they will form into a unit, ready for their attack.  This ploy works and the wolves know it.

To me this is not surprising because any animal, to survive, must know and be able to manipulate aspects of its environment, just as we do.  Very few of us are so stupid as to jam our hands into a hornet's nest or walk between a mother bear, or for that matter, almost any mother animal, and its young.  Do that, and you will need to have your burial insurance paid up.

No Luck Today

I got up early and went turkey hunting again this morning, but no luck, for me, that is, but luck for that big tom or jake.   If this keeps going like it is, I'm going to have to go to the local Food Lion and buy one.

But it was by no means a waste of time.  The sun was filtering through the light-green of the budding maples, poplars, and other hardwoods.  As an extra bonus wild dogwoods are in full bloom with their whites gleaming through the green like an errant snowfall.  All kinds of "critters" were out and about this morning.  The spring warblers (of which I can identify none) were singing their hearts out.  Cardinals and noisy bluejays were resounding their individual notes through the woods.  Sometimes I imagine my being an Indian and waiting for that buck or turkey.  I was in perfect harmony with nature - I killed what I ate or I didn't eat - meaning  if I were unlucky, just branch lettuce, arrow root, and what we had put away from last year's harvest: pumpkins, beans, corn (maize).  There would be some dried fish, but I would have preferred the native trout in streams rife with them.

Several years ago I was traveling from Maryland and driving through Virgina going south I saw a river far below me.  It had an old rock weir.  It stretched across the river, most of it intact, with the center a funnel-shape for herding the fish into it. It was exciting to see something like that that Indians had made and it had survived all those years.

Standoff

I have a cheap trail camera like hunters use to locate animals.  I use mine to photograph nocturnal animals that I might not see during the daytime or rarely.  Instead of the fancy infrared, mine takes only flash pictures.  I left corn out, along with a salt block to see what I could photograph. I got this picture in the winter of 2010.  This buck, as well as several raccoons had been coming on a regular basis.

I like this picture because it seems as though the buck is challenging the raccoon.  A picture is just a moment in time and usually out of context, but the result is sometimes interesting. Although raccoons are feisty little animals, and I understand their nearest relatives are bears, this one wouldn't stand a chance against that "rack."

A Terrible Thing I Had to Do

About two years ago I was burning some trash in a barrel - paper, mostly, when I noticed an old wooden birdhouse in a notch of a tree.  It hadn't been used in a long time and I decided to burn it.  I threw it into the roaring fire and a flying squirrel came out and I could see little ones inside it.  I grabbed the house and threw it out and in so ding I lightly burned my arm, but I couldn't get the adult.  I couldn't stand the horror of her burning and I grabbed a metal rod that I used to stir the burning trash and killed her with it.  The little ones were about grown and were unharmed by the fire.  I put the house back in the notch of the tree with them in it.  I hope they were big enough to fend for themselves.

I still feel very bad about it, but I had no way of knowing there were flying squirrels there.  One should always check things before doing what I did.

A few months later I was walking down my driveway to the mailbox and as I walked beside a bradford pear tree where I had a birdhouse I saw something inside.  It was a furry little head with two great big eyes.  At that moment I was hoping that it was one of the little ones that almost died in the fire.

The eastern flying squirrel, Glaucomys volans, of the order, rodenta, is a beautiful little animals.  Their fur is as soft as a vicuna's, of South America.  Thank God, they are so small that it wouldn't be cost effective to raise them for the fur trade.

I have seen many close-up in the woods.  They are primarily nocturnal, as is evidenced by their very large eyes. But sometimes they venture out of their homes in the day, which is usually a hole in a tree.  With all the timber cutting, they are losing their homes, unfortunately.  I don't believe they build nests of leaves and twigs like gray squirrels, so they are in danger of extinction.

Once when I was deer hunting in a swampy place just after daylight, I saw a gray streak of something gliding toward me from up in a tree.  I was standing by an oak and it landed on the opposite side, not knowing I was there.  As quietly and as slowly as I could, I peered around the tree and I was at eye-level with it.  It was an amazing experience, one that I will never forget.

A Beautiful Visitor

I came back from town this morning and saw a beautiful bird at my feeder.  This male indigo bunting, Passerina cyanea, was eating the "woodpecker recipe" suet, which is available at Walmart.  It never ate any of the sunflower seeds I have above the suet feeder.  He didn't seem at all scared while I got many pictures of him.  The only indigos I've seen in all my birding were near dirt roads - never at a feeder or even in my yard. 


The female is a dull brown, like so many females are:  cardinals, house finches, purple finches, etc. compared to the males.  But they are less likely to be seen when nesting.

When driving along country roads in spring and summer, if you suddenly see a bright blue flash, don't worry, you are not having a stroke, it surely will be this beautiful bird.

Butterflies

This morning I went out to check my azaleas, which are loaded with blooms this spring, to see if there were any interesting things feeding on the blooms.  There were the usual bumblebees, honeybees, and several Papilio glaucus, Eastern tiger swallowtail butterflies, flitting about on the blossoms.  They are quite hard to photograph because they spend so little time on each blossom.

In this picture, the swallow tail can easily be seen.

Butterflies, papillion, in French and mariposas in Spanish are beautiful creatures with beautiful names. They remind me of colorful fall leaves which have acquired the ability to fly about from flower to flower.  But they are as fragile as they are lovely.  One can't be touched without its losing some of the "powder" which coats its wings.

The wonderful migrating monarch resembles the swallowtail, but there are differences.  Like the humming birds, the monarch flies hundreds of miles south to a certain place in Mexico to winter.  How they do it, their being seemingly so fragile is difficult to understand.  The differences between the two are that the monarch lacks the swallowtail and the patterns are different, but the colors are similar and hard to discern unless they are close to you.

I have always planned to become more familiar with the different ones - I even bought a great field guide, but use it for identification rather than to study and learn the wide variety of these beautiful insects.

To me, butterflies, more than any other living things, herald the beginning of spring. I remember when I was a child growing up in the country, the rule of thumb to determine when it was warm enough to go barefoot, was when we could count three different butterflies in a day.  Then it was, "shoes off!" "Freedom!"... but stone bruises and briar scratches - but who cared, we were young and would easily mend.

Besides, in a few weeks, our soles would be as tough as leather.