Roads End Naturalist

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

Three Cat Day

August 18, 2015
Nature is to be found in her entirety nowhere more than in her smallest creatures.
~Pliny the Elder (Roman scholar)

When visiting Yellowstone, it is a great thing when you have a “three dog day”. That refers to a day where you are lucky enough to see the three primary species of canids found in the park – a Red Fox, a Coyote, and a Gray Wolf. Yesterday, in my yard, I had a different type of triple sighting, but I’m not quite sure what to call it. I am definitely in late summer mode, which means caterpillars on the brain, an annual disease that afflicts people like me and anyone else working the BugFest caterpillar tent. So, starting about now, anytime I take a walk outside, my eyes seem to be constantly scanning the vegetation for Lepidoptera larvae.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, black phase female (click photos to enlarge)

There have been large numbers of Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies in the yard the past several weeks. This phenomenon occurs every few years when some unknown (to me anyway) set of environmental conditions are right – the flowers are crowded with bold yellow and black-striped butterflies. There are also a lot of black-colored swallowtails mixed in, representing a few common species – Spicebush Swallowtails, Black Swallowtails, and the occasional Pipevine Swallowtail. And there is one other – female Eastern Tiger Swallowtails can either be the familiar yellow color with black stripes, or they can be a darker morph, appearing black, or black with a hint of yellow.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail larva

So, with all this recent swallowtail activity, my first stop on the caterpillar hunt was a grouping of sapling Tulip Poplars, a primary host plant for Eastern Tiger Swallowtails. After scanning a few, I finally spotted a larvae on the surface of one of the large leaves, resting in a silk pad. This is typical behavior for this species. And, like most of its swallowtail family, the earlier instar larvae resemble bird poop. Guess it is a great strategy to avoid being eaten by foraging birds – look like something they have already eaten and processed. The larvae of this species will eventually turn all green (with small fake eye spots) as it molts and matures.

Black Swallowtail caterpillar, last instar

Continuing my stroll, I caught the unmistakable black and yellow pattern of another member of the swallowtail group (family Papilionidae) tucked under some Parsley leaves. Black Swallowtail larvae also start out as bird poop mimics, but this one was in its last instar and had outgrown that unsavory likeness.

Folded leaf on a Spicebush, Lindera benzoin

The next stop was a semi-bog garden. There are chances here for two additional species of swallowtail larvae – Spicebush Swallowtails on the Spicebush, and Zebra Swallowtails on the Pawpaw. There were several folded leaves on the Spicebush, the telltale sign of caterpillar activity.

Spicebush Swallowtail larva, late instar

I carefully unfolded one leaf and found a comical-looking Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar. These little guys are one of my favorites, with their large, detailed fake eye spots giving them a bit more personality than most larvae. All stages of the larvae of this species spin silk across a leaf causing the leaf to gradually fold over as the silk dries and contracts.

Spicebush Swallowtail larva, first instar

It makes a good hideout and probably provides some protection from the many predators out there, especially the hungry birds and paper wasps (wasps cut up caterpillars and feed them to their larvae in the nest). But it also makes them easy to find for us caterpillarophiles.

Spicebush Swallowtail larva, bird poop mimic

There were a lot of folded leaves on the plants, especially one near the house I had trimmed that had re-sprouted. I think these fresh leaves are perhaps more palatable for the larvae and therefore more sought out by egg-laying female butterflies. One sprouting plant had what appeared to be all stages of development of the Spicebush Swallowtail larvae (another bird poop mimic in its first three instars).

I tried in vain to find a Zebra Swallowtail caterpillar on the Pawpaw (its host plant), but I have always found them to be one of the more difficult larvae to locate. But, three swallowtail species in one afternoon – not bad. A three cat day? Three cat-tail day? Whatever it should be called, it is a good thing.
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Beauty in Miniature

August 14, 2015
Find beauty in the small things…

~author unknown

It is the time of year when I turn my attention to caterpillars (BugFest is approaching). So, I am always glancing at shrubs and trees that I know are host plants to see what might be happening. There is a small Black Cherry tree out back and it has been a hot spot for various critters this summer. This morning I saw several leaves that looked like this…

Red-spotted Purple egg on Black Cherry leaf (click photos to enlarge)

A tiny white blob on the tip of several leaves. This is a sure sign of activity by a female Red-spotted Purple Butterfly (Limenitis arthemis astyanax). Why they lay on the leaf tip is unknown to me, but it sure makes them easier to find than the eggs of many other species.

Red-spotted Purple egg up close (a strand of spider silk has caught on the egg as well)

I took a few images with my super macro lens (Canon MP-E 65mm) and you can see the delicate patterning on the egg surface (too bad it is such a shallow depth of field). It is sculptured with small hexagons with spikes arising from the corners. The purpose of this sculpturing may be to increase the surface area of the egg to facilitate the exchange of gases for the developing embryo. Or it may be to make people like me happy when we bother to look closely.

Even closer

An even closer look shows some additional structure in one of the hexagons that probably corresponds to the top of the egg. Look just above and to the right where the spider silk is attached and you may see one hexagon that has a small series of bumps in it. This may be the perforations known as micropyles, where sperm enters the egg. These serve as gas exchange areas as well. As quoted in a great natural history book entitled, Butterflies and Day-flying Moths of Great Britain and Europe…

The cut-glass delicacy of these eggs, described by Edwin Newman more than a century ago as “a thousand times more delicate and fine than any human hand could execute”, is truly one of nature’s marvels.
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The Mountain

August 13, 2015
Our minds, as well as our bodies, have need of the out-of-doors. Our spirits, too, need simple things, elemental things, the sun and the wind and the rain, moonlight and starlight, sunrise and mist and mossy forest trails, the perfumes of dawn and the smell of fresh-turned earth and the ancient music of wind among the trees.

~Edwin Way Teale

The summit of Mt. Mitchell (click photos to enlarge – all photos taken with iPhone)

We made a pilgrimage back to the mountain this weekend – Mount Mitchell. I first visited the mountain as a child while on vacation with my parents as we drove down the famed Blue Ridge Parkway. I still remember walking the trail up to the summit and being fascinated by the shiny flakes (mica) sparkling on the ground along the way. There was a large gap in my visits as I studied in college and then finally took a job with NC State Parks as a naturalist for the eastern parks. I was sent to the mountain on a busy holiday weekend early in my career to help provide interpretation to the throngs of visitors. I remember being chilly on the 4th of July and thinking…Can this be real – am I still in North Carolina?

The first night’s sunset at Mt. Mitchell

Over the years, I have returned many times, in many seasons. I love the campground at Mt. Mitchell – only nine sites, scattered along a short trail on a ridge. I especially like it as an escape from the heat of summer in the Piedmont. If you are in some of the first few camp sites, the western sky is your living room wall; the sunset, your window on the world.

View from our site the first morning

Our site was facing the earth’s other wall, that of the sunrise. Our first night was clear and cool. We stayed out late, hoping to catch a few shooting stars from the early stages of the Perseid meteor shower and were rewarded with several nice ones before a light cloud cover obscured the sky. The next morning was beautiful, but windy.

View from the summit

After breakfast, we drove up to the summit and walked to the top of the observation tower. Fast moving clouds obscured much of the horizon, but the morning was alive with sights and sounds. The regenerating Fraser Fir trees near the summit seemed lush, many with noticeable batches of their distinctive upright cones. Will these soon fall victim to the Balsam Woolly Adelgid and other stresses of life at these high altitudes (winter storms, acid deposition, etc.)? Perhaps only the mountain knows.

Plaque on top of Mt. Craig

Mt. Mitchell was North Carolina’s first state park, with land purchased in 1916 through the efforts of Governor Locke Craig, in response to local citizens’ concerns over the logging near the summit. A century later, it is one of the premier state parks in the nation, and a destination for thousands of visitors from all over the world.

View from Mt Craig

We spent our first full day on a leisurely hike along the ridge line trail that leads from the summit over to Mt. Craig, Big Tom, and Balsam Cone – a beautiful day to walk across the top of North Carolina.

View from camp the second morning in clouds, rain, and wind

Our trip ended with the mountain reminding all of the campers that you should be prepared for witnessing the power of nature when you visit her. The wind got up and it started raining shortly after dinner (and the initiation of a nice campfire). The rain and wind intensified throughout the night and finally slacked off at daybreak. The view out the east window was quite different on the morning of day two.

It was a brief visit, a respite from the heat back home (daytime highs on the mountain on Monday were about 65 degrees) and the hustle and bustle of life. We had hiked, splashed in the rain, watched, smelled, and listened on the mountain, felt the wind in our faces and breathed in the crisp air. I had also thought more about why it is so important to have places like this to get away from it all and get recharged. I truly appreciate the work of people like Governor Craig that had the foresight to set aside the crown jewels of our state so that we can now feel the magic of the mountain and so many other special places. And thank you to all those people that work in and for our parks to make these visits possible, to provide us with these sanctuaries in an often too-hurried world.

Here are a few more images from two days on the mountain…

Pipevine Swallowtail

View along trail

White Wood Aster carpeted much of the mountain

One of many mushroom species along the trail

Cut-leaved Coneflowers along park road at sunset

Southern Lady Ferns long the trail

Misty morning near the summit

The trail winds through a forest of varied shades of green

Leaves of Clinton Lilies growing in a large patch along the trail

Forest near the summit encased in clouds
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Busy Bluebirds

August 7, 2015
The bluebird is one of the most familiar tenants of the farm and dooryard. For rent the bird pays amply by destroying insects, and takes no toll from the farms crop.

~USDA Farmers Bulletin #513, 1913

I mentioned in an earlier post that I am trying to provide some video clips of what birds are feeding their young for an environmental education film called Hometown Habitat. The nesting season has passed for most local species, but, my friend, Alvin, informed me of a late Eastern Bluebird nest in a hollow log nest box at his house. Being one of the most recognized and beloved songbirds in the east, this is a species I really wanted to get for the project. So, in spite of the heat and humidity, I dragged my gear into Raleigh two days this week to see what I could capture.

Male Eastern Bluebird at nest opening (click photos to enlarge)

It turned out that the nest box was in a great location for me to film while not disturbing the birds, and staying out of the heat of the sun. It was under the eaves of a shed that was visible from Alvin’s garage, so I set up the tripod just inside the garage and waited. It wasn’t long before the pair began bringing food to the young. I filmed a little over an hour on each of the two days. The first day I was there around mid-day and it was very hot, with temperatures in the 90’s. The birds seemed to take a little break from feeding in the heat (I don’t blame them), so I was only able to get a few clips. I decided to go back earlier the next day and that proved more productive.

Female Eastern Bluebird with caterpillar

I recorded trips to the nest box by both adults for an hour. In that time period, the birds made 12 trips with food. The female did most of the work, making ten of the twelve feeding trips. The male made two trips with food and three without as in the first photo above (more on that later). After looking at the clips, I could make out all but three of the food items brought to the nestlings. Of those I could identify, there were 4 caterpillars, 3 grasshoppers/crickets, 1 beetle grub, and 1 spider. Three of the caterpillars resembled Corn Earworms, but I can’t see enough detail to be sure. There is a corn field on some NCSU property just down the road, so it is possible.

These baby bluebirds probably have several more days in the nest based on Alvin’s observations. If you make some assumptions about the number of feeding trips during the nest cycle, you come up with some impressive numbers of insects and other food items brought in by the busy parents. Let’s give these bluebird adults an 8-hour workday (an underestimate, I am sure) with ten feeding trips per hour. Stretch that over the typical nestling period of 14 days and you get an impressive 1,120 feeding trips made by the parent birds (again, undoubtedly an underestimate). Then consider that many bluebirds nest two or three times each summer, and it is clear they are consuming a huge number of insects just during the nestling phase.

Here’s a short video clip showing the hectic life of parent bluebirds on a hot summer day.

The first bird in the clip, the male, flies out with a fecal sac after feeding the young. The female then brings in a grasshopper, checks for fecal sacs, and flies off.

While the female did most of the feeding in the two days I watched this year’s nest, the male did stay near the nest a little more. It seems there was something that disturbed him – ants. I noticed he flew to the base of the nest a few times while I was there and seemed to be pecking at something. Here is a short video clip I shot of this behavior:

When I looked carefully, I could see a line of tiny ants coming up the side of the shed and along the outside of the nest box. The male was obviously disturbed by this, perhaps recognizing that these can be a potential hazard to nestlings. On several occasions, he would sit at the base of the nest box and pick off ants as they crawled along the outside edge. Alvin was going to try to redirect the line of ants away from the nest after I left (perhaps with some well-placed petroleum jelly.)

Last spring, I photographed a different pair of Eastern Bluebirds bringing food to a nest box along a power line where I lived.

Male Eastern Bluebird bringing large grub to nest box

The difference in habitat made for some different prey items, most noticeably a lot of earthworms and large beetle grubs (probably June Beetles). I reported on this nesting cycle in a blog post last year. I remember being amazed then at the quantity, and size of some of the items on the grocery list for their young.

Every time I observe birds bringing food to their young, I am impressed by the amount of effort it takes and the skill these feathered hunters have in finding and securing prey. It also reminds me of how important adequate habitat is for their survival. We can all help ensure these birds continue to thrive by planting more native plants, protecting existing natural areas, and reducing our use of toxic chemicals in our surroundings. It is the least we can do as responsible landlords to such hard-working tenants.
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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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