Roads End Naturalist

Exploring the natural world as we wander at the end of the road

Welcome to our new website! We hope you like it. Please let us know if you notice something missing or that needs a correction. ~Mike & Melissa

Moth Royalty

August 4, 2015
In the jungle, during one night in each month, the moths did not come to the lanterns; through the black reaches of the outer night, so it was said, they flew toward the full moon.

~ Peter Matthiessen

Lucky for me, that wasn’t the case this past weekend, even though an almost full moon shone brightly through the treetops. I set out the moth light again to see if I might capture a few different species now that about a week had passed since my inaugural moth night. On my first check of the sheet, there were some of the usual suspects, including a plethora of tiny moths, several Rosy Maple Moths, and another huge (non-moth) Eastern Dobsonfly. But, there were also a few newbies, which created another excuse to while away the heat of the next afternoon flipping through some field guides (paper and online). Those that really caught my eye had quite distinctive shapes, making it a little easier to refine my search. Once again, identifications are my best guess, corrections are welcome.

Curve-toothed Geometer – Eutrapela clemataria – surrounded by small caddisflies of some sort (click photos to enlarge)

One resembled a stealth bomber.

Datana sp.

One looked a bit like a banded cigarette butt, somewhat tubular in shape, with a fuzzy head.

Virginia Creeper Sphinx – Darapsa myron

Another resembled a different military aircraft, some sort of supersonic fighter jet.

Deep Yellow Euchlaena – Euchlaena amoenaria

And one just looked like an elegant person wearing a fancy shawl with their arms outstretched (and remember, these were my thoughts on the early shift…imagine what comes at the 2 a.m. shift). Two more checks that night, with the final one being at 2 a.m. That one turned out to be the winner…moth royalty made an appearance.

Imperial Moth, Eacles imperialis

While driving up the long gravel road the night before, a huge moth had performed a kamikaze spiral in front of my headlights. We came to a stop and I got out and managed to cup my hands around it and found a beautiful Imperial Moth. That was excuse enough for me to set up the moth light that resulted in this report. Imperial Moths are one of our largest so-called Giant Silkworm Moths in the family Saturniidae. They have wing spans varying from 3 to 6 inches, with females being larger than the males.

Imperial Moth, darker male

There were two of these huge yellow and mauve night-flying insects on the front side of the sheet and one on the back. At first, I thought the two lighter-colored ones might be female (males in the south tend to have darker markings).

These moths readily cling to your finger when gently touched

When I let one of the more yellow ones crawl up on my fingertip, I could see feathery antennae, an indicator that this, too, was a male (a female Imperial Moth’s antennae are simple their entire length, whereas a male’s are feathery on the basal two-thirds of each antenna). Males usually emerge from their pupa a few days ahead of the females, and tend to show up more at lights. One theory is that females are quickly mated after they emerge and therefore do not travel very far from the plants where they fed as caterpillars. Males, on the other hand, may travel great distances searching for available females, guided by pheromones the female releases.

Imperial Moth caterpillars can reach 4 inches in length and be about the diameter of your pointer finger. Their color can vary from green to brown.

Well, it sure would be great to have some Imperial Moth larvae (they are huge) for the caterpillar tent at next month’s BugFest event at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, so I guess I will be putting out the light a few more nights and hope I get lucky. I suppose losing a little sleep would be worth it if I were rewarded by a visit from the queen of moth royalty.
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Night Watch

July 31, 2015
The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one…

~Francis William Bourdillon

Night time, a special time to be outside. I remember giving night programs as a District Naturalist for NC State Parks and how it seemed my audience was always a bit more attentive at night than during similar day hikes. I think it has something to do with most people’s lack of comfort in the outdoors after darkness has fallen over the landscape. We are not creatures of the night, like so many others, those thousand eyes out there. But I like to go out with flashlight in hand (a crutch for us diurnal critters) and explore the world of darkness in these woods. It is often a new cast of characters, or at least some that take center stage more than when the sun is high. National Moth Week gave me an even better excuse to wander after dark, but on any nocturnal saunter, there is something to see (and hear). Here are a few of the night shift found on a recent stroll through the yard.

Red-spotted Purple caterpillar (click photos to enlarge)

I had been watching a Red-spotted Purple caterpillar (Limenitis arthemis) for a few days on a small Black Cherry tree out back. All phases of the larval (and even pupal) life of this caterpillar are considered bird poop mimics, with a white saddle on a darker background. As they grow (this one is the last instar I think) they even look moist, like fresh bird droppings! I went out to check on it one night and found it had made a silk pad on the surface of a cherry leaf (you can see some shiny strands of silk around the head). Caterpillars often do this as an attachment site for molting or resting prior to pupation.

Blue-faced Meadowhawk

I was surprised to find a sleeping dragonfly on a twig near the caterpillar, and I quickly realized I did not know which species I had stumbled upon. Looking in my guides and online convinced me it was a male Blue-faced Meadowhawk, Sympetrum ambiguum.

Dorsal side of resting dragonfly

Many images show a much brighter red abdomen in the males, so perhaps this is an immature or an old male, not sure. It was the first time I have seen one of these beauties and it seemed even more striking while frozen in the beam of a flashlight.

Crab Spider

The night, at least around these woods, seems to really belong to the spiders. I spied this delicate Crab Spider moving on a bent iris leaf near the frog pool out front. It looked like a juvenile, so it was difficult to identify, as there are a couple of genera that look pretty similar.

Waiting to hug potential prey

Crab spiders are well-named. Their front pair of legs are longer than the others and their habit of holding them out and up really make them resemble their crustacean cousins. They do not rely on silk to capture prey but are generally sit-and-wait predators, especially on flowers. This little guy was out for a stroll when I saw it. Perhaps they generally move from one plant to another under the safety of darkness.

Spotted Orbweaver molting

Another thing that often occurs under the cover of night is arthropod molting, or ecdysis. It makes sense, again, from a safety standpoint, as invertebrates are quite vulnerable during this process. On the other side of the cherry sapling from the caterpillar there was a spider that had already emerged from its old skin. It was dangling on a silk thread under the shed exoskeleton, the whole thing suspended beneath a twig.

Spider after shedding its skin

After securing itself by a silk strand, the growing spider generally forces enough fluid from its abdomen to create sufficient pressure in the front body part to cause it to “crack open along the seams”. The carapace lifts off from the front like a lid, remaining attached at the back. The spider then works its limbs free and is suspended beneath its old skin on another strand of silk. Over the next several minutes to hours (depending on the species), the new exoskeleton hardens. You can see why this might be a good thing to do after dark. This spider is probably a Spotted Orbweaver, Neoscona crucifer. It is a common “hairy” spider found in large circular webs around my porch lights or across my walkway each morning. The colors should darken as the spider’s new clothes dry and harden. It is certainly a fascinating process to witness. A night walk can open up a whole new world in your familiar daytime surroundings, so grab a flashlight and take a stroll in the darkness. You never know what you might see.
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Mountain Mothing

July 29, 2015
It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning.

~ Vincent van Gogh

If Van Gogh is correct, then I am ripe and have found deeper meaning, at least as far as mothing is concerned. On the final night of National Moth Week, 2015, I set up the moth light on a farm gate at my parents’ home in the mountains of southwest Virginia. The habitat is very different from where I live. Besides being near the mountains and a river running out back, there is a lot more open ground than I have in my Chatham County woods. In fact, it is mostly open pasture that Dad mows for hay twice each summer. I set the UV light and sheet up along a line of trees that separates their lawn from the pasture. I really wasn’t expecting the kind of diversity I saw in my wooded yard, but wasn’t really sure what might attend the moth party.

Mayfly (click photos to enlarge)

As I had anticipated, the nearby river provided plenty of insects that spend part (or most) of their lives in the river. Several Caddisflies and numerous white Mayflies were early arrivals at the party. I was hoping for some Dobsonflies, but they were no-shows. The first couple of visits to the light showed that I was probably correct – the moth diversity, at least of those large enough for me to even attempt to identify, was much less than in the woods at home. But, there were some beetles and lots of tiny flies, and what looked like very small wasps.

Double-banded Grass-veneer – Crambus agitatellus

There were also plenty of small moths, some of which turned out to be quite beautiful (or strange, depending on your perspective I suppose) when you take a closer look. Not surprisingly, almost all the ones I could identify are found primarily in grassy habitats, and their larvae feed on grasses. The name of one group reflects that – the Grass-veneer moths. I suppose the veneer part of the name comes from their habit of tightly clinging to grasses (usually the underside) during the day, making them tough to find unless you flush them out as you walk.

Elegant Grass-veneer – Microcrambus elegans

One Elegant Grass-veneer perched on my tripod next to one of the small bolts. That bolt is probably less than a half inch across so that gives you some idea of the small size of this individual. They are also distinctive in that this group tends to have long labial pals, giving them a snout-like appearance. The palps presumably function as sensory receptors of some sort.

Below are a few other species I was able to tentatively identify by flipping through my field guide and online resources. As always, any confirmations or corrections are welcome as this beginning moth-er finds it challenging.

Snowy Urola – Urola nivalis

Clover Looper – Caenurgina crassiuscula

Common Gray – Anavitrinella pampinaria?

Delicate Cycnia – Cycnia tenera – with a hitchhiker (a small midge perhaps?)

On my last check of the sheet that night, there was a new grou of moths represented – the Tiger Moths. There were at least 6 of these boldly pattered, medium-sized moths on the sheet. I recognized the group but when I started to try to identify to species i was amazed at how similar some of them are. So much so that Bug Guide let me off the hook in trying to nail down a species identification with this statement about the difficulty of identifying some related species in this group…The only full-proof method is dissection and examination of genitalia.

Nais Tiger Moth – Apantesis nais ?

Nais Tiger Moth – Apantesis nais – showing underwings that help in identification

Well, then, Vincent, time to call it a night I suppose. I am not sure I am that ripe or looking for that deep of a meaning quite yet.
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Summer Peep

July 27, 2015
What we see is mainly what we look for.

~Anonymous

One morning when I walked out the front door I noticed a surprise visitor clinging to the edge of the tadpole-rearing container I have on the porch.

Spring Peeper (click photos to enlarge)

It was an adult Spring Peeper, Pseudacris crucifer. As I reported on earlier this year, Spring Peepers were common out front and were calling almost every night. But once we get into late spring, they stop calling and seem to vanish. So, seeing one in the heat of summer is a treat.

Characteristic dark cross on the back of a Spring Peeper

The species name, crucifer, is Latin for cross bearing, and refers to the dark X-like marking typically found on the dorsal surface of most peepers. This one was probably a female as it was about 1.5 inches in total length (males are smaller, usually less than an inch).

Spring Peepers have prominent toe pads

The frog quickly moved from the edge of the plastic container (containing a few Cope’s Gray Treefrog tadpoles I am observing) and jumped into a nearby shrub. I looked closely at those feet and legs, capable of propelling this little frog such a considerable distance, and allowing it to grab any leaf, twig, or even vertical surface it lands on. At the tip of each digit are the round toe pads characteristic of treefrogs. The peepers’ legs don’t look much different to me than most other frogs, but it seems able to jump quite a distance given its small size. So, I started searching online and in my references and found an interesting tidbit reported by a famous Smithsonian herpetologist, A. Stanley Rand, in 1952. He observed the relative jumping abilities of six species of adult frogs and toads and found that Spring Peepers jumped an average of 17.5 inches per jump under his study conditions. This represented an impressive relative jumping distance (distance jumped/body length) of 17.9. This was good enough for second place in the competition. Species falling behind the Spring Peeper in the study were Fowler’s Toads, Bullfrogs, Green Frogs, and Northern Leopard Frogs. The clear winner was the Northern Cricket Frog, another small frog with an average jumping distance of 33.75 inches and a relative jumping distance of 36.2.

Determination can be seen in the eye of the peeper

Looking into the peeper’s eyes, I can’t help but wonder if it is pondering this second place finish, and thinking of ways to even the score.
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Mothing

July 24, 2015
I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.

~Vincent Van Gogh

This week is National Moth Week, an annual celebration of the incredibly diverse and beautiful world of moths. Wednesday was a busy day out in the yard, testing some different diffusion materials for my twin lites and spending a crazy amount of time photographing the Eastern Dobsonfly I discovered resting on a tree branch. In researching the dobsonfly, I read that they are often attracted to lights at night, so it reminded me of the need to go ahead and inaugurate my new moth light. Yep, you know you are a nature nerd when you have a special light for attracting moths and other night-flying insects. The light is an ultraviolet light, since it seems, for reasons no one is quite sure about, that moths are very attracted to UV light.

Moth light set up (click photos to enlarge)

The set up is simple: I stretched a cotton sheet between two step ladders (most people hang a line between two trees), clamped the sheet to the ladders, hung the light on a tripod handle, and placed the tripod in front of the sheet. I then went inside and checked on the sheet periodically over the next couple of hours.

The moth light and sheet in action

As I expected, when I went out to check, there were an incredible number of insects on the sheet. There were two male Eastern Dobsonflies, maybe one being the same guy I photographed earlier in daylight. Then there were twenty or more decent-sized moths, the largest having about a two inch wing span. But for every moth over a half inch in size, there were probably twenty or more smaller ones. It is no wonder. There are over 2600 recognized species of moths in North Carolina, well over 15 times the number of butterflies in our state. And many of that number are very small in size, making them more difficult (for me at least) to identify. I learned a few things from those few hours of moth-watching: there are a lot of moths and a lot of different species in these woods; photographs on a moth sheet are not the most natural-looking photos; I can spend hours trying to identify moths and still not figure them all out. Luckily, there are now many excellent resources for moth-ers. The ones I found most useful for this region are:

Peterson Field Guide to Northeastern North America, David Beadle and Seabrooke Leckie; North Carolina and Virginia Moth Photos (part of Will Cook’s excellent Carolina Nature web site); Moths of North Carolina (part of the excellent series of web sites hosted by NC State Parks and the NC Natural Heritage Program); Bug Guide; and the North American Moth Photographer’s Group.

The field guide has a series of moth silhouettes that can help beginners get to major groups of moths to begin the search. Once you find something similar, you can use the various web sites to help narrow it down. I am amazed at how variable some of the species can be. But, it is a whole new world out there, and these critters are all playing various important roles in the ecosystem, from devouring the leaves and flowers of many plants, to pollinating many of our flowers, to providing food for many other species from insects and spiders to birds and bats. And many are visually stunning, so it is a pleasure to discover them just outside your door. You don’t need specialized equipment to enjoy the world of the night, just the motivation to move away from whatever screen occupies your thoughts and open the door. Look around the porch light, your windows, or simply shine a flashlight amongst your plants and you can enjoy the magical world of moths.

Here are a just a few of the species that showed up at the moth light (confirmations and/or assistance with identifications are welcome):

Brown Panopoda – Panopoda carneicosta

Esther Moth – Hypagyrtis esther

The Hebrew – Polygrammate hebraeicum (left; Bent Line Gray – Iridopsis larvaria (right)

Red-fringed Emerald – Nemoria bistriari

Tulip-tree Beauty – Epimecis hortaria

Tentatively identified as Splendid Palpita Moth – Palpita magniferalis

Tentatively identified as Straight-lined Plagodis Moth – Plagodis phlogosaria

Yellow-shouldered Slug Moth, Lithacodes fasciola. Several of the lug moths have the strange habit of pointing their abdomen skyward when at rest.

One of my favorite woodland moths, a Rosy Maple Moth – Dryocampa rubicunda

Pink-striped Oakworm Moth – Anisota virginiensis. This female is a little over an inch long and is surrounded by some of the tiny moths I have yet to try to identify.

One of the slug moths, the Smaller Parasa, Parasa chloris, on a nearby window screen.

Unidentified – perhaps Genus Acronicta – a Dagger Moth

In addition to the many moths, a few other critters were attracted to the light:

Never seen one of these before, a species of Cixiid Planthopper (I think)

One of the two Eastern Dobsonflies that showed up (both males)

A striking grasshopper, the Pine Tree Spurthroat Grasshopper – Melanoplus punctulatus – male
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Jaws with Wings

July 23, 2015
What on earth is this thing? It’s huge! It has gigantic wings! It has massive… ANTLERS coming off its face! Has someone had a nightmare that’s come to life or what?

~Joseph Jameson-Gould on dobsonflies from his blog, Real Monstrosities

Adult male Eastern Dobsonfly (click photos to enlarge)

On my daily wander in the yard yesterday, I happened to look up at the right moment and was surprised to find something that would end up occupying me for the next hour – an Eastern Dobsonfly, Corydalus cornutus. It blended in surprisingly well, given its huge size (this guy was a little over 4 inches in total length). It was in the shade, along one of the branches of a Redbud tree about ten feet off the ground. I ran and grabbed my camera and a tall stepladder to try to get a few images.

Eastern Dobsonfly male head with my finger tip for scale

The large, sickle-shaped mandibles of the male are over an inch long and look like they could put a real hurt on you, but they are totally harmless. The females and larvae (known as Hellgrammites) can give a painful bite, but the males’ tusks cannot be closed hard enough to inflict pain. Males use them during the mating ritual (they lay them across the wings of the female. perpendicular to the axis of her wings) and they are presumably also used in jousting matches with other males. Seabrooke Leckie, a naturalist/writer (and one of my inspirations for why I finally started blogging) describes the mating ritual in one of her posts.

Eastern Dobsonfly close up of head

These really are impressive-looking creatures, especially the males, so I strained at getting close enough for photos while hanging off the stepladder, sweat pouring down over my glasses in the tropical climate we have been having this week. This is the only species of dobsonfly in the eastern United States, with three other species in the west. There has been a recent discovery in China of what is thought to be the largest known aquatic insect alive today, a giant dobsonfly, with a wingspan of eight inches!

The wings have a dense network of intersecting veins

Speaking of the wings, they are huge as well, and are folded over the back when at rest. When viewed up close, they have a prominent network of ridged veins and are speckled with light and dark spots. After standing on the ladder for almost an hour, I realized I needed to finish some of the errands on my list, so I left the beast in the tree, hoping it would be there on my return.

Dobsonflies are not cooperative photography models

About an hour later when I returned, the giant insect had not moved. I decided to try to get it down off the branch for some easier, and, hopefully, better photos. Turns out that dobsonfly-wrangling is not an easy task. It did not want to let go of its branch. As I gently tried to coax it onto a broken branch I had in hand, it spread its impressive wings and fluttered to the ground. I got off the ladder and let it grab onto the twig. It is such a large insect that I had to hold it at arm’s length to try to fit it all into the frame for my 100mm macro (and I usually still didn’t manage it). It showed some fearsome behavior as I tried to get it onto a white background for a photo, rearing back its head, opening those jaws widely, thrashing back and forth, and flapping its impressive wings. My brain kept repeating…it can’t hurt you, it can’t hurt you.

One last image before it took off

I finally just placed the stick down on the white background and fired a couple of shots. The subject was irritated with me now and even sprayed out some foul-smelling yellow droplets onto the white background as I tried to position the branch for the photos. He had had enough for one day, and finally spread his wings and flew off, circling around me, and landing on my back! Now my brain was having trouble repeating…he can’t hurt you, he can’t hurt you, and was sneaking in…it’s going to bite you, it’s going to bite you, get it off your back!! I reached around and brushed him off, and off he went, into the trees. Funny how some things can just override what you know to be true.

This guy probably spent his larval stage (which can be up to three years) in the rocky substrates of the nearby Haw River. In contrast, the adult stage lasts only a few days, long enough to find a mate and reproduce. They are attracted to lights at night, so perhaps I will see him again when I put out my moth light this week.
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Pollinator Peril

July 21, 2015
In summer the empire of insects spreads.

~Adam Zagajewski

Last week I noticed a medium-sized robber fly noisily flitting about the garden. It landed on a cedar twig on the garden fence and I leaned in for a closer look.

Robber Fly with distinctive terminal tufts (click photos to enlarge)

It was distinctive in the bright white patch near the tail tip, something I noticed from a few feet away. As I leaned in I could see the white was actually a pair of tufts of “hairs”. I figured this might be an easy one to identify so off I went for a look in Bug Guide. Sure enough, the white tufts are diagnostic of a couple of species. After reading more about the ranges and other characteristics, I decided this was a male Promachus bastardii.

Promachus bastardii abdomen

Males of this species are characterized by white tufts of hairs along the edges of the abdominal segments, black on the dorsal surface of the abdomen, and the distinctive white tufts at the tip of the abdomen.

Promachus bastardii head and thorax

Robber flies have several features that set them apart from other flies…large size; eyes set wide apart for better depth perception; the hairy face or the mustache of bristles called the mystax (theorized to protect the eyes during struggles with large prey); the arching thorax containing superior flight muscles (an advantage for rapid lift and flight to snag fast-flying prey out of the air); a sharp beak, partially hidden by the mystax, which is used to stab their victims, injecting toxins and digestive fluids, which allow the predator to kill the prey and suck the juices out; and long, spiky legs with what look like talons at the tips for catching and holding their prey. This is one of the so-called Giant Robber Flies, due to the group’s large size. This species is actually one of the medium-large ones in the group, and this male (which is smaller than a female) was a little over an inch in total length. I found only one reference to a common name for this species, Bee Killer, for their habit of preying on various species of Hymenoptera. The scientific name immediately catches your attention, and translates to “the bastard’s champion”. Since the species was named in 1838, it is probably lost as to the reason, but I am curious. Perhaps it was named by a fan of bees.

Bee Killer with prey, a bumblebee

A few days later while strolling in the yard, camera in hand, I heard a loud buzzing noise behind me and turned to find the same species of Robber Fly (perhaps the same individual male) subduing a prey item, a small species of bumblebee. These bees are common at my wildflowers, especially the Rosinweed (Silphium sp.) that is blooming now along the driveway. The fly had already stuck its beak into the bee, which soon quit struggling.

Bee Killer is aptly named

Watching this drama unfold, I admired the strength and apparent agility that is needed to catch and subdue this type of prey. And I was thankful this guy is not two feet long…few creatures in these woods would be safe from such a aerial predator.

ANOTHER POLLINATOR PREDATOR…

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail in spider web

After writing this post, I found another peril for pollinators in this jungle of a yard. An orb weaver spider had strung a giant web across a main pathway through the yard and snagged one of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies that have been feeding on the Joe-Pye Weed that is now blooming. A jungle indeed.
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Here’s Looking at You

July 19, 2015
An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.

~Martin Buber

I went out the other day to grab one of the hummingbird feeders for a refill and a slight movement caught my eye. It was a bizarre-looking jumping spider on the metal bracket that held the feeder.

A large furry jumping spider caught my eye (click photos to enlarge)

What struck me about this one was how hairy it was and the way it moved. As I watched, it did what many jumpers do when you get close – it turned and faced me, apparently looking back at me.

The dorsal pattern makes me think it is Phidippus putnami

Although I wanted to photograph it from the front to try to catch those eyes, I figured I needed a picture of the dorsal surface in order to identify it. Later, as I searched Bug Guide, I realized this one was a tough one as there are many jumpers with similar markings. I finally settled on it being a male Phidippus putnami (referred to as Putnum’s Jumper by one reference). Now that we have that detail taken care of, let’s look at those eyes.

Looking at one side of the spider’s head showing half of its eight eyes

Jumping spiders are in the family, Salticidae. All members of this family have four pairs of eyes, with one pair (the central ones when viewed from the front), being particularly large. These are known as the Anterior Median eyes. Studies have shown that the different eyes have different functions. The smaller, posterior eyes, have relatively poor vision and probably serve to provide light and dark reception as well as to detect movement. They also provide the spider with a 360 degree view of its world. The Anterior Lateral eyes seem to provide some visual details but may serve primarily to alert the spider to looming threats (the “looming” response is when the spider retreats rapidly as something approaches it, a safety response). The Anterior Median eyes have the best vision, but a very narrow field of view. The eye lenses are attached to the carapace and therefore cannot be moved like our eyes. So, in order to look around and focus on something, the spider either must move its body, or, if it is something just off to the side a little, small muscles can move the retina while the lens stays fixed.

The large middle eyes (anterior median eyes} have the sharpest vison

You can sometimes look into those large eyes of a jumping spider and see them change color as it moves the retina around. You will know when it is looking directly at you, those eyes will appear their darkest.

Putnum’s Jumper checking out my camera and flash…”should I jump on that or not?”

This little guy was fascinating to watch. He was very alert and moved fairly quickly through the vegetation. He seemed to like to climb anything vertical in his path so I put a rock in his way at one point to try to get a clearer picture. He went up on the tip and looked around, giving me a chance at the two images above. I also noticed he would turn, raise his pedipalps (those things that look like short legs with swollen tips under his eyes) and then jump toward some other noticeable point in his environment. I really wanted to try to get a photo of him jumping, so I moved the rock in front of him a few times as he moved across the yard, waiting until I saw him raise his pedipalps, and then firing the camera.

All my camera caught was the safety line as the spider jumped

Turns out he is much quicker on the jump than I am on the shutter, so this is the closest I came in three tries at capturing his leap. That is part of one of his hind legs in the upper right corner. But it does show how these spiders always leave a safety line of silk as they move or jump. Not a bad life plan really…look before you leap, and always leave a safety line, just in case. I think I can learn something by looking into those eyes.
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Blue Grosbeak Nest

July 17, 2015
It is composed of fine dried grasses, which are more carefully arranged towards the interior, and is lined with a few delicate fibrous roots, dried moss, or horse-hair. There are seldom more than four eggs, but two broods are raised in the season.

~John Jame Audubon describing the nest of a Blue Grosbeak, 1844

The nesting season for most of our birds is winding down, so I was pleasantly surprised to get a call last week from my friends, Jan and Alvin, saying she had discovered an active Blue Grosbeak nest on their property. The nest was low in a Sweetgum sapling in a grassy area near a large patch of woods. I went over one morning and set up my pop-up blind backing up to a stand of Sweetgums about 25 feet from the nest. I decided to abandon the effort when the sun came up over the nearby woods and created unfavorable lighting conditions. Plus, the adult birds seemed nervous with the addition of what must have looked like the sudden growth of a dome-shaped tree in their territory. A few days later I returned and set up a camouflage netting wall inside the stand of Sweetgum trees, reasoning that this blended in better than the huge pop-up blind. I then departed, returning the next day for another try at the quickly growing young grosbeaks.

Blue Grosbeak nest (click photos to enlarge)

Sure enough, the adult birds seemed to accept me sitting behind the camouflage netting and came and went continuously for the next couple of hours while I tried to get some footage of what they were bringing to feed their nestlings. The nest was about 4 feet off the ground in the fork of the sapling. I could see a piece of snake skin (look closely at the upper right portion of the nest) that had been incorporated into the nest. This is a strategy many types of birds use (for example, Great Crested Flycatchers and Carolina Wrens) as a possible deterrent to predators. Researchers in Arkansas found the use of sloughed Black Rat Snake skins did serve to deter predation of artificial nest boxes, especially from mammalian nest predators like flying squirrels. Blue Grosbeaks are another species known to frequently use snake skins in their nest construction.

As I watched, I could finally make out the heads of four nestlings, but two of them clearly dominated the space in the nest, and seemingly the food items brought in by the parent birds. Unfortunately for me, the adult birds always brought the food in after landing in the same location on the far side of the nest, which was partially obscured by the two upright branches. They were also very fast in their food transfer, which made it tough to see what they were bringing to their young. During the two hours I was hidden in the camouflage netting, I observed 20 feedings. Of those where I could see a prey item, all were caterpillars of some sort. Here is an example of one of the quick feeding bouts:

In every feeding I witnessed, the adult bird brought in only one food item per visit. And in almost every trip, the adult would remove a fecal sac from one of the young before flying off. The young birds (especially two of them) became more active as the afternoon went on, scrambling over their nest mates, getting out on the edge of the nest, stretching, and preening. The most active nestling started looking up the branches above the nest and actively flapping. Suddenly, it jumped up and disappeared into the branches above. Amazing, I had witnessed a fledgling event! Gusts of wind were swaying the sapling back and forth and the adventurer soon lost its grip and fell down to the ground, but quickly fluttered up to another low branch. The second most active nestling soon started moving about the nest, looking up at another overhead branch. I started the video and was soon rewarded with another nest escape…

The gusty winds had calmed a bit by now, and this escapee moved nimbly on the twigs above the nest while the remaining two chicks chirped incessantly. The parent birds now have their work cut out for them….keeping up with their kiddies as they explore the area near the nest. Unfortunately, my camera battery ran out soon after the second fledging, so I decided to pack up my gear and let these birds get on with the business of raising a family.

The second Blue Grosbeak to leave the nest

While I did not get the quality footage I had hoped for in terms of documenting what the parent birds fed their young, I did witness an incredible moment in the life of a young bird, their first venture into the world outside the security of their nest. Having shared a few hours with these beautiful birds, I wish them well in their grand new adventures.
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Mike Dunn
Predators Lurking Everywhere

July 15, 2015
Every kid has a bug period… I never grew out of mine.

~E.O. Wilson

After the climbing Copperhead incident over the weekend, I have been looking around more than usual every time I am outside. What I have discovered is that it is a jungle out there! Everywhere I look I see small critters feeding on the profusion of plants that seem to want to take over the few sunny spots in the yard. And where there are plant-eaters, there are plant-eater eaters, tiny predators lurking in almost every nook and cranny.

Spider shed (click photos to enlarge)

Even when I don’t see the predator itself, I find evidence of their success in their shed skins, a sure sign that hunting has gone well.

Orange Jumper – Paraphidippus aurantius

One of my favorite groups of yard wolves are the jumping spiders. They always provide a challenge in photography because of their tendency to jump onto the camera lens as you close in for the shot.

Male Orange Jumper

This male Orange Jumper let me follow him around for several minutes with my macro lens. He was methodically searching the leaves and stems in a patch of wildflowers, no doubt searching for any unwary prey items. Jumping spiders are much like tigers of the spider world. They do not build webs to catch their prey but rather use their impressive eyesight and jumping ability to stalk prey and then leap on it. But occasionally those big eyes can get fooled. I watched this little guy stalk a stamen that had fallen from one of the flowers, approach it, and then leap on it from about two inches away before realizing it wasn’t really an item on the spider menu.

Spined Assassin Bug nymph – Sinea diadema

I found a tiny creature waiting near the disk of one of the Brown-eyed Susan flowers. When I looked closely, I could see it was covered in short spines. I believe this is a nymph of the aptly-named Spined Assassin Bug. These tiny predators are in the family Reduviidae, members of the order Hemiptera, which also includes stink bugs, leaf-footed bugs, and other insects. These spiky little beasts have raptorial front legs that are used much like those of a praying mantis, to grab and hold their prey. Then they insert their three-segmented beak into it, inject a venom, and suck out the partially digested body fluids.

Another Spined Assassin Bug nymph

Another assassin bug nymph had what looked like the white waxy filaments of a Flatid Planthopper nymph on its front leg spines, perhaps some leftovers of a recent meal.

Flatid Planthopper adults

These planthoppers have been very abundant on numerous plants in my yard this summer. Many are now transforming to the winged adult phase and are providing food for a variety of predators.

Orb weaver spider with planthopper prey

I have found several trapped by web-building spiders, both large and small.

Variable Dancer Damselfly (female) eating Planthopper

One of the most delicate predators is one on the wing, a dainty beauty, a damselfly. Damselflies slowly patrol vegetation looking for prey. They then dart in and grab it and begin to feed. This Variable Dancer nabbed a planthopper and flew to a nearby iris leaf to dine.

Closeup of a damselfly meal

Though dainty in appearance, the damselfly is an efficient predator. She made short work of the planthopper before flying off to hunt again. And so it goes, miniature hunters and the hunted, in a constant dance in the jungle outside the door. There is always something to see and learn. We should never outgrow our bug period.
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