Eat Berries Under a Firefly Galaxy

Firefly stunned into modeling by my flashlight and camera flash.  (Photo by Don Comis)

I saw my first Japanese beetles a day or two ago, on my red oak tree saplings.  I read that the adults emerge in summer after blackberries ripen.

Well, I don't know about blackberries, but our wild black raspberries were ready today and we got a fair harvest from them and our cultivated blueberry bushes.

My wife says that blackberries ripen after raspberries, so these three Japanese beetles weren't too far ahead of schedule.

I also read that Japanese beetles came to this country in 1916, accidentally, in the roots of iris shipped from Japan.  That was a harbinger of things to come as increased travel of people and goods, especially horticultural plants, has caused more exotic insects to be coming here than ever before.


I ended tonight with my now usual firefly watch, along with some Moscato wine and fruit.   In his  book, "Twelve Moons of the Year," Hal Borland gets it right when he says--in his entry for June 30:  "Linger as the first stars appear and you will be in the midst of a firefly galazy."

I find the firefly show to be better than fireworks and better than shooting stars.  They're a quiet show and they're more reliable than shooting star predictions.  When I see them light up the sky I realize why they're often called lightning bugs.  These little creatures seem to give off as much light as airplanes in the distance.



[Photo shows a firefly stunned by my flashlight and camera flash.  After seeing it flash, I know this was a lightning bug.  But I was soon the only one flashing.  It let me take a lot of photos until it slinked into the bushes by the deck.  I'm going to compare this photo with the many I've taken at night of a similar looking creature that hung out with the moths on the walls of my house and garage--but no flashing back in April and May.]  (Photo by Don Comis)

The Dragon Hunter and the Bee Hunter: Both Birdwatchers

Richard Orr has an interesting website at http://www.marylandinsects.com.   He has checklists and photographs of dragonflies and damselflies found in the Maryland-Washington, DC area, as well as photographs.  He also has photographs of bees, moths, butterflies, and other arthropods.

Richard is considered by many entomologists and conservation biologists as the leading authority on dragonflies and damselflies in the Mid-Atlantic Region.  He maintains the historical and current species records for the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia. 

Richard includes Sam Droege’s records and checklists of regularly occurring bee species found in the Washington D.C. area.  Sam is a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, which adjoins the Beltsville (Maryland) Agricultural Research Center from which I retired in 2011 as a science writer.  I’ve met Richard and Sam on bird counts on the Center’s research farm.

Sam’s artistic photograph of dead birds collected by volunteers in Washington, D.C., victims of collisions with brightly lit buildings, appears in the July-August 2014 issue of Audubon Magazine.   Sam posted the photograph as a “public art statement” on Flickr.  The article is about the Lights Out campaign.  The article sites a link for learning how to start a Lights Out campaign in the towns we live in:  www.bird-friendly.audubon.org/lightsout.

 His site also has links to other arthropod websites, including those dealing with dragonflies and damselflies and other dealing with everything from ants to moths.

 One of the most interesting links to me is to the Maryland Biodiversity Project (MBP) (http://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/index.php) that is cataloging all the living things of Maryland.  The project was started in June 2012 by Bill Hubick and Jim Brighton, right about the time I left Maryland for Ohio.   They have already cataloged more than 13,000 species, including over 4,400 species with photographs, and feature the work of more than 200 naturalists and photographers.

 Richard also has a link to his Flickr photographs at https://www.flickr.com/photos/dragonflyhunter.

 

Common White Tail Dragonfly at pond near Apple Valley.  Photographed on June 20, 2014.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Check out my website at:  www.doncomis.simplesite.com

 

Wildflower Oasis

A great spangled fritillary butterfly on clover.  (Photo by Don Comis)

My toy poodle, Friendly, led me to a wildflower oasis in a park across the road from our house. 

So, this morning I returned alone, with binoculars and a camera and got a photo of a great spangled fritillary butterfly on the tall clover plants that dominated this natural oasis in a park, caught between woods and a mowed lawn.  With Friendly, I was treated to the sight of three great spangled fritillaries all at once, perched on clover plants.

And this morning, I got to see a host of other pollinators on the clover, including at least three kinds of bees, an ant, beetles, cabbage butterflies, meadow fritillary butterflies, and an unknown black bug.  I even got to see the cabbage butterflies mating, which continued as they flew together in the air at times before landing again!

I also got to see  a mother red-tailed hawk guiding her youngster, warning me away.   I thought I could hear the two chatting as I lay on rock right next to Apple Valley Lake.  I saw a great blue heron fly along the opposite shore, while a dragonfly patrolled the shore near me. 

On my way to the lake I scared up three deer--one gave a warning shriek before jumping into the road and I could hear his hoofs clattering on the paved road. 

All in all, a good outing that got me out of bed, although it lasted 2 hours instead of 45 minutes because of my naps on my favorite lakeside rock!

I'll be returning to that wildlflower oasis soon.

Meadow fritillary, smaller than the great spangled.  (Photo by Don Comis)

For a slightly longer version of this blog, go to my website and click on "Daily Nature Blog" in the menu.

 

Free Bird ID App, Now in Android Version

There is a free bird identification app that is now available in an Android version as well as an Apple version, for smartphones and tablets.

Called "Merlin Bird ID", probably as a play on "Merlin the wizard" as well as "Merlin the bird", this app can identify 400 bird species in the United States, including all the most common birds, as well as play their songs.  It can also identify some of these species in parts of Canada.

An article in The Cornell Lab of Ornitology's "All About Birds" magazine (Summer 2014, www.allaboutbirds.org) says that Merlin is "different from other bird ID apps in that it customizes your selection set of possible birds using data submitted to eBird [www.ebird.org] over the past three years from within 30 miles of your location."

First launched in January 2014, it might not work as well in areas without sufficient e-bird observations, but that will change as e-bird continues to grow.  There are now at least 170 million observations, so most places in the United States and southern Canada are covered.

Just as each e-bird observation submitted makes Merlin more accurate and reliable, so too does each time a user of Merlin clicks the app's "This is My Bird" button to signal a match.  That is because Merlin uses machine learning, learning from each correct matchup. 

So the article warns, be sure to click that button to teach Merlin a lesson in return for all Merlin teaches you!

To download this app, just go to www.allaboutbirds.org/merlin and click for the Apple or Android version. 

For a little bit longer and different version of this blog, go to my website and click on "Daily Nature Blog" in the menu on the front page.

Enjoy Counting Fireflies!

On June 21, I was drinking a glass of wine on the back deck at 2 a.m. and watching a fireworks display put on by fireflies, while fulfilling my obligations as a volunteer firefly watcher (www.mos.org/fireflywatch).

I found this online wildlife monitoring program the least time consuming of any I've done to date.  On my first watch, June 21, I was able to do the watch before and after photographing moths.

The display that first night was outstanding, with more fireflies than I could count, flashing at all levels, from the ground to the deck I was dining at to more than 40 feet high, above the highest trees in my yard.

It was hard for me to pick out an individual flashing firefly in the sky because I couldn't see an individual flight path.  But the flash patterns I have to report on are easy, as their website explains.   There are only five patterns:  some fireflies flash once between pauses, others twice, others three times, others four times, others more than four times.

I learned that the females are stationary, perched on the deck or the wall of our house or on the grass or at other low heights.  The males are the ones flying all over the place flashing their signals, of course.  Females watch for the signal that matches their species signal and then flash the same signal back, luring males in.

The count is difficult.  You have to count them for 10 seconds at a time, maybe three different times.  The program only asks for 10 minutes once a week.  But most of the rest is easy and it's like anything, you do the best you can, learn as you get more experienced, and enjoy, while helping researchers.

For a slightly longer version of this blog, go to my website at:  www.doncomis.simplesite.com.

Predicting Butterflies: From Mid-Atlantic to Midwest

Red admiral butterfly seen collecting nectar from clover, on June 20, 2014.  The Red admiral, like many butterflies, arrives in Ohio in April.   Clover seems a favorite for butterflies.  Today, I saw three fritillaries on the same clover patch, with two cabbage white butterflies nearby, along with other pollinators.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Clouded sulphur butterfly also seen on June 20, 2014.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Reading messages from my "VA-MD-DE-Bugs" (Virginia-Maryland-Delaware) yahoo group (https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/VA-MD-DE-Bugs/), I came across one of Rick Borchelt's weekend butterfly forecasts for the Mid-Atlantic region.   I had joined that group while at my home in Maryland, before returning to Ohio.

Many of its predictions should apply here, although I’d presume we’d be a week or so later than the Mid-Atlantic area because we’re colder.  He compiles the forecasts for each weekend at this site: http://leplog.wordpress.com/    You can also access his and a colleague’s log of butterfly sightings this year at this site.

So I thought I’d extract those predictions that may apply here.  First, his opening paragraph:

“We’ve been struggling to catch up to normal emergence dates for most of our butterflies this summer, and the recent rains and heat wave have helped tremendously.  Last weekend and this week saw an impressive number of FOYs [“First of the Year”s] and emergence of second broods of many of our stalwarts.”

He reports the Coral Hairstreak butterfly as flying in Maryland, so that means we should be on schedule in Knox County, Ohio, to see them as expected in July.    The hackberry emperor is flying now in the Mid-Atlantic area, so I assume it’s flying in Knox County now, or will be before the month is out.    Rick also mentions the tawny emperor flying and that has been an occasional visitor to Knox, since it is listed as being seen on the www.butterfliesandmoths.org database.  It is one of 67 butterflies reported to the site as having been  in Knox County, so it’s always possible to see it here again.  The dun skipper, a butterfly relative, is also an occasional visitor here, and it is flying now in the Mid-Atlantic, Rick reports.

Rick also says that swallowtail butterflies are into their second broods of the season now, so that should be true for our area  as well, again with that week or so margin.

Rick’s first paragraph seems to be saying that cooler temperatures and drier weather until recently may have slowed down the timetable of butterflies this year.

He also reminds us that if we see an azure butterfly now, it’s more likely to be the summer azure rather than the spring azure.

Finally, he can’t resist mentioning the yucca moth even though it's not a butterfly.  Rick’s e-mail inspired me to do some research, from which I learned that the females stuff some pollen from one yucca flower into their mouths, go to another flower, insert the egg into the flower’s pistil and then cover the egg with pollen from the other flower.  In the process, it, like many other moths, cross pollinates plants.  The yucca moth can also rest assured that the flowers will produce seeds for her young to eat!

I guess we better hurry, because the yucca moth stops flying in early July.

Another message on that same yahoo group mentioned a first-of-the-year sighting of common wood nymphs on June 22, so we should be seeing them in Knox soon as well.

Note:  One of my sources of information on the yucca moth is at http://bobklips.com/earlyjuly2008.html.  This site also has photos of the yucca moth,  a moth I don’t think I’ve seen yet.

 

For a slightly longer version of this blog, check out my website at:  www.doncomis.simplesite.com.

 

An App for Protecting Native Bees in Your Yard

There is a native bee app now available at the "App Store".

 

Called, "Wild Bee Gardens", the app can help with plant selection for backyard gardens that are "native bee friendly", general information about native bees, and identification of native bees.  Written by Celeste Ets-Hokin, this app was designed to inspire an appreciation for the importance and diversity of North America’s native bees. Featuring first-ever electronic links between native bees and many of their favorite flowers, Wild Bee Gardens also provides gardeners with a unique tool for actively participating in their conservation.

 

All of the guides are illustrated with spectacular images of native bees and their habitat, making the Wild Bee Gardens app an excellent educational tool for students of all ages.

 

I got this information from an e-mail from Sam Droege, a bee expert who works for the U.S. Geological Service Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, which is adjacent to the Beltsville (Maryland) Agricultural Research Center where I worked.   He sent the e-mail to the VA-MD-DE-Bugs@yahoogroups.com .

 

Also check out my website.

 

 

 

 

A Baby Hawk's First Flight From The Nest

This baby red-tailed hawk seems to be looking to his soaring mother for help out of this predicament.  (Photo by Don Comis)

I got rewarded for taking another walk this morning by an encounter with a red-tailed hawk newly emerged from its nest.

I first heard its mother's tell-tale descending cry and found her in a tree, being harassed by jays.  She soared in the air a lot as I snapped photos.

Later I wondered what this large animal was on the ground farther away, closer to where I know there is a red-tailed hawk's nest.  I put my binoculars on it and saw it was a baby hawk.

As I approached, the baby went up into a tree.  Good move.   I advanced two steps, took a photo, two more steps, etc.  But soon I realized this baby wasn't going to leave the tree, so I got my closest shots yet of a hawk.  Finally I was getting too close to get the whole bird in the frame--and I worried about harassing the baby and mother any more.  The mother was calling and passing over the tree where her baby was.

It's just a reminder that this is the season of birth and new life--and that it pays to go out for a walk!

Another highlight on my walk today was seeing a red-headed woodpecker.  This one comes to my feeders and is a better view than what I got in the woods today.  They're not that common, although I see them more in Howard, Ohio, than I did in Greenbelt, Maryland.  But I saw my first one in Greenbelt, on a telephone pole in the city, which gave me an unobstructed view!

Eat or be Eaten

I finally took a long solo walk today, from my house in Apple Valley to a pond by a strip mall near the entrance to our development.

I watched birds and photographed butterflies and flowers along the way.   I found my way through woods to the pond and worked my way to my favorite spot, sitting on rocks near a channel of the pond.

There are rocks there that are easy to sit on, by the water's edge.  Dragonflies like to rest on these rocks too, especially the "common whitetail" male dragonflies.  I watched at least one patrol the shoreline for other males in its 30 feet of territory and for prey.

Prey seemed the name of the game on that pond, as bullfrogs and likely green frogs croaked as they waited for a meal of dragonflies or other bugs.  A red-tailed hawk sailed overhead looking for food, while two little birds harassed it, maybe to save their young from becoming a meal.  Two vultures soared too, one looking as those something had taken a bite out of one wing.  Two large fish cruised looking for food.   A muskrat or beaver swam by once.

A male "common whitetail" dragonfly characteristically resting on rocks near me today.   (Photo by Don Comis) 

On my way to the pond, I had seen a robin feed a young bird.

I soon became hungry myself and stopped at a general store at the mall and got something to eat!

Clouded Sulphur butterfly seen on my walk, in the grass by the Apple Valley Lake dam I believe.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Red Admiral butterfly--I think; I didn't get a good view unfortunately.  This was right near me as I rested on the rocks by the pone.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Red-tailed hawk like the one I saw at the pond today, but this photo was taken about 2 years ago, elsewhere in Apple Valley.  (Photo by Don Comis)

I believe these are frog eggs; they are in the channel of the pond, near where I sat and heard frogs.  (Photo by Don Comis)

One of two mystery fishes I see a lot n the pond, near the channel.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Two of the three shy turtles sunning themselves on the Apple Valley Lake spillway, until they spot me!  (Photo by Don Comis)

Last of the three turtles to dive back into the water after seeing me at a great distance.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Helping the World Count Moths for Conservation

With National Moth Week getting closer ((July 19 to 27), I decided it's time to start making one of my dreams come true--creating an online and hard copy photo album as a guide to the moths of Knox County, Ohio.

Since I moved here 2 years ago, I have had 50 of my photographs of moths identified and added to the county's listings on a database maintained by the Butterflies and Moths of North America project.  That brings the county's total on that listing to 63, bringing it to 7th place in number of moth species of Ohio's 88 counties.

But that's only because there may be only three or four volunteers sending in photos of moths at their porch lights.   No knowledge of moths is needed.  I have none--only a camera and a flashlight.

The actual figure for each Ohio county is probably about 500 moths each, since that's the expectation for the average size county area, at least in North America.

All you have to do is submit photos to www.butterfliesandmoths.org.  Or you can send them to other organizations listed at the National Moth Week website,  (http://nationalmothweek.org/).  National Moth Week would be a good time to give this a try, even if only for 15 minutes on one of the 9 days the "Week" comprises.  And the "National" Moth Week accepts photos from around the world, using the "National" word generically to mean whatever nation you're in!  If you choose the "butterflies and moths" site, you can indicate that you are doing it as part of National Moth Week and the data will be shared with that organization as well.

Back to the album I'm starting, here are the 11 moth photos I have as of tonight, that have been identified.  I lost many of my photographs of the other 39 moths I had stored on a failed external hard drive, but I still have over a thousand photos in my new portable hard drive, and possibly other photos I can retrieve from a stack of full memory sticks and other hidden storage places on my computer.  And I'm finding more new moths all the time, plus getting return visits from some of the 39 moths whose photographs I've lost.

For a longer version of this blog, go to my website at www.doncomis.simplesite.com and look at today's "Daily Nature Blog".

Spotted Grass Moth



Common Metarranthis

Crocus geometer

Yellowish Zanclognatha marcidilenea

Lettered Zanclognatha lituralis

White-lined Bomolocha

Unadorned carpet

Dark-banded Owlet

Ambiguous

Phragmitis Wainscot

Common Angle

Weeding to Spot Bobwhites

I saw the first bobwhite I've ever seen in my life this morning, while weeding the Apple Valley Memorial Garden.

I figured weeding would not only fulfill a volunteer obligation as a member of the Apple Valley Garden Club, but also help me learn more about gardening and get me down and dirty so I could see more life for my Nature log.

While the bobwhite gets top billing this morning, I was also thrilled to watch an inchworm inch along and then stop, seeming to be thinking about tasting a leaf.  I found it when I was aiming my camera at a moth.   Even the lowly earthworm I found thrilled me, testifying to the good environment in the garden and reminding me of the worm's value in aerating soil and making paths and fertilizer for plant roots.

It's harder to justify my thrill at seeing flies on leaves because we tend to think of only houseflies, not being aware maybe that--as the authors of the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Insects & Spiders point out--there are more than "86,000 known species [of flies], with about 16,300 in North America, and many more awaiting discovery."

I also saw robins and a bird species I couldn't see well enough to identify--and many bird calls or songs I couldn't identify.  And I saw a cabbage white butterfly and a silver-spotted skipper.   Skippers are close relatives of butterflies.

The sight of the bobwhite living in the garden hedges made me think that when I heard what I thought was a turkey-like gobbling from groundhogs was probably the quail chasing a groundhog away from the quail nest.

Save the Fireflies!

Fireflies are disappearing.

We can help by volunteering each summer for "Firefly Watch" where citizen scientists team up with researchers from the Museum of Science (Boston, Massachusetts, USA).  Museum researchers team up with researchers from Tufts University and Fitchburg State College to monitor fireflies. 

All volunteers have to do is sign up at https://legacy.mos.org/fireflywatch/  and try to watch fireflies in their yards once a week.

Their website has a great "Virtual Habitat" section where you can see the simulated flash colors and patterns in action at night--the colors and patterns that distinguish the three main groups of fireflies.

The site advises covering a flashlight with a blue lens cover to see the fireflies whether they are flashing or not.

I haven't participated yet but long ago I bought red and blue "plastic film" at an art supply store and cut circles to fit a cheap flashlight lantern with a screw on cover to get ready for the firefly watch.  This way I get a strong, broad light and I can put in the blue circle and remove it easily.  I use the red film to watch other wildlife without scaring them at night.

I'm writing this tonight because the season has started for me in central Ohio, having seen my first male firefly flash tonight while I was throwing out garbage.  (The males patrol and flash, while females perch, waiting for the right signal.)

I might do my first firefly watch tomorrow.

Beatles, Make Way for "The Spiders"!

While My Guitar Gently Warns

Looks to me like this spider needs to tune his web!  (Photo by Don Comis)

I've been seeing this spider and some of his colleagues every night I check for moths.  (Photo by Don Comis)

I just heard an interesting report on BBC radio about a research study showing that spiders tune their webs to transmit a wide range of tones or notes.  It sounds like if they made a silk string guitar, it would also have a wider range of tones.  Spiders tune the web for different pitches depending on conditions, such as wet days versus dry days!

Searching on the Internet, I found more information about the discovery at http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-06-03-spiders-know-meaning-web-music.  In that report, Beth Mortimer of the Oxford Silk Group at Oxford University, who led the research, says that “The sound of silk can tell them what type of meal is entangled in their net and about the intentions and quality of a prospective mate. By plucking the silk like a guitar string and listening to the ‘echoes’ the spider can also assess the condition of its web.”  This site has a video.


I also found a nice video at http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Spider.  I watched one called “Stupendous Silk” that reminded me that spiders evolved 350 million years ago, making them around long before roaches.  There are more videos at this site.


The full scientific paper on the study is available free online at:   http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201401027/full.

National Moth Week July 19-27, 2014

National Moth Week is July19 to 27, 2014.   The "Week" is actually nine days and the "National" is really global, referring to whatever nation you're in.

It's a week in which you can contribute as a citizen scientist to knowledge about moths, by simply doing as I do year-round: Leave your porch lights/garage lights on for about an hour and then go out and photograph all the different moths and send them to one of the organizations listed at the website for National Moth Week (http://nationalmothweek.org/).  

I send my photos to BAMONA Butterflies and Moths of North America) for identification and recording in their database.  You don't have to identify moths yourself--I, for one, can't do that.  The experts do that for you!

I'm excited to notice the "moth week" site lists "iNaturalist" as one of the sites to submit photos to, because that site was mentioned today in an article in today's Sunday Columbus Dispatch (www.dispatch.com) about a study showing that "Species of plants and animals are becoming extinct at least 1,000 times faster than they did before humans arrived on the scene..."

The study's lead author is biologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University.  Pimm cites the "iNaturalist" as one of the smartphone applications that will help locate species in trouble, with data submitted by citizen scientists.

National Moth Week would be a good chance to try your hand at being a citizen scientist, even if for 15 to 60 minutes on one day that week, and do your part globally to find out if any moth species are in trouble.

The "Moth Week" website, as one answer to the question of "Why Moths?", says that, "Their colors and patterns are either dazzling or so cryptic that they define camouflage."

Here are some photos of moths I saw on May 31, that illustrate the point that moths are not all dull and bland, as some that we see in the daytime are.  The problem with the nocturnal moths is that we can't see their true colors and patterns unless we photograph them.

Heliomata cycladata, Common Spring Moth.   This is a good example of one with dazzling colors.

Cerma cerintha, Tufted Bird-Dropping Moth.  Although I would have cited this for its dazzling colors, once I found out its name, I realize that it's a better example of cryptic camouflage colors--unfortunately what looks lovely to us looks like bird shit to its predators!