Coronavirus Blues? Go Outside!

Nature Activities to Fight Coronavirus Blues

The outdoors can help us cope with coronavirus fatigue and confinement.  It may be soon that everyone in the entire country or world will have no good out-of-the-home entertainment other than going outdoors to enjoy and learn from Nature.

Here are some suggestions for people of all ages and good activities for immediate family or a solo outing:

Garlic mustard in its early tasty stage to add flavor to salads.  (Photo taken 03/26/2020 in Howard, Ohio by Don Comis)

April is native plant month, so why not learn to identify the highly invasive garlic mustard plant which dominates yards and parks, at the expense of native wildflowers, at least in my area in central Ohio, USA?   They are easy to identify once you learn what their leaves and flowers look like and the leaves give off a garlic odor when crushed.  An extra benefit:  While the plants are short as they are now in our area in early Spring, they can be added to salads in small amounts!

The garlic mustard should be tied up in a black plastic garbage bag and left to wither in the sun, then thrown in the garbage so it can't re-seed.  This can be done on walks and other walks can double for picking up litter in your neighborhood.

Great Spangled Fritillary is one of many butterflies you can attract by planting native plants such as purple coneflower.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Also, it's a good time to plant native trees, shrubs, prairie plants and wildflowers. Normally I buy my prairie plant seedlings at Natives in Harmony in Marengo, Ohio, but because of coranavirus, this year I ordered online from Prairie Nursery.

The cheapest way is to order a packet of native perennial wildflower seed mix such one sold at Gurney's:  packet of 300 seeds for $2.99 or 1/2 oz. packet for $9.99 plus shipping.

Also, April 24 is Ohio Arbor Day.  If you pay $10 to join the Arbor Day Foundation, they'll send you 10 trees suited for Ohio, free.  The same thing happens when you renew, and you get free trees everytime you order trees, plus you get a membership discount.

Smart Science

Have adults and children learn to use their smartphones for outdoor activities.  For example, the "Seek by iNaturalist" app is free and uses your phone's camera to identify plants and wildlife, as well as some nests and other structures built by wildlife, including a praying mantis' egg mass.  It lets you earn badges for identifying different species.

Conservation Organizations Step Up to Help Us Cope

National Wildlife Federation(NWF)  offers free resources for families to inspire their children with the wonders of wildlife and nature, including:

Free access online to:

Ranger Rick magazine through June);

Ranger Rick Educator's Guides and Ranger Rick Jr. Parent Reading Guides;

Full array of curricula, activities, and projects for the NWF Eco-Schools Program;

NWF 4th annual EcoCareers Conference April 1-2, 2020.

Array of information, tips, and services to help gardeners attract more butterflies, birds, and other wildlife to their backyards).

Online NWF Nature Gluides for $9.99 Each

Download Nature Guide apps to identify butterflies, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects and spiders, and mushrooms.  There are also two garden guide apps, one on herbs and one on vegetables.  

Cornell Lab of Ornithology offers free weekly "Science & Nature Activities for Cooped Up Kids".

Free "Birdy Care Package"

The National Audubon Society offers a free online "birdy care package" called "The Joy of Birds", showing how birds can help us cope in these trying times.

Visit Local Parks

There are ways to engage with the natural world while keeping social distancing in mind.  All 75 Ohio State Parks remain open.  Find a park to hike, picnic, or watch birds and wildlife.  (From Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) post, March 17, 2020.)

Also the Nature Conservancy has seven Nature Preserves, open, only restrooms closed:

Ohio Nature Conservancy Preserves

 Kitty Todd Preserve:  More than 1,000 acres, a centerpiece of Oak Openings Region;

Great Egret Marsh Preserve:  More than 150 acres of marsh and surrounding upland;

Morgan Swamp Preserve:   Nearly 2,000 acres, home to an abundance of wetlands, including swamps, bogs, beaver ponds and vernal pools; 

Herrick Fen Preserve: 140 acres, unique geologic, hydrologic, biologic and physical features that resulted from the retreat of glaciers during the last ice age, some 12,000–14,000 years ago.

Brown’s Lake Bog: 100 acres, features glacial relict bog habitat, more than 20 rare plants and many resident and migratory birds.

Big Darby Headwaters Preserve: 1,000 acres, wetlands, streamside forests and old fields.

Edge of AppalachiaPreserve:  More than 20,000 acres, a crown jewel of southern Ohio’s forests.

State Parks

The state parks near Howard, Ohio are:  Mohican, Buckeye Lake, and Knox Woods State Nature Preserve.  The 30-acre Knox Woods Nature Preserve is within the boundary of the 260-acre Wolf Run Regional Park and Bark Park at 17621 Yauger Road, Mount Vernon.

Knox County Parks

Knox Parks' 955 acres includes eight parks, ten river access points on the Kokosing and Mohican State Scenic Rivers and 14 bike trail parking areas.  The parks, water trails and area bike trails provide the public with an abundance of nature activities such as hiking, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, biking, picnicking, geocaching, and meaningful educational experiences.  April and May offer the chance to see early wildflowers that bloom at woodland edges for a short time, until they are shaded out when the trees leaf out.

Long-spurred violet is one of the earliest spring violets.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Explore BFEC's 9 Miles of Trails

The trails cross prairies and deciduous and evergreen forests and are open daily from dawn to dusk.  All trails are well marked and trail maps can be found in serveral locations:  one to the left of the front doors at the Brown Family Environmental Center's (BFEC) headquarters building on Laymon Road, three kiosks between the headquarters and the gardens, and one at the Observatory on the other side of State Route 229.

BFEC Manager Noelle Jordan reminds that the headquarters is closed to the public because of coronavirus precautions, "so use your home restroom before you head out, and please practice social distancing when you see others on the trail."

Explore Ramser Arboretum

The 680-acre Ramer Arboretum, just 10 miles from Howard, was established as an educational and outdoor recreation resource for individuals and groups interested in native Ohio hardwood trees.

The Arboretum also operates the 66-acre MVNU Woods at the northeast corner of Proper Road and North Liberty Road in Mount Vernon.

Citizen Science Projects

There are countless different citizen science projects.  These are the ones I've tried:

Firefly Watch 

For this project you count the number of flashing fireflies seen in three 10-second intervals over 10 minutes as well as the number of flashing patterns, which indicate different species.  As I remember, there are only two common species in my area, with one flashing normally and one forming a "J" shape as they fly and flash.

I learned that the females stay on the ground or on bushes while males fly high in the sky, signaling species-specific codes to attract females in their matching species.  I also learned that you can see fireflies at rest by shining a flashlight through a yellow lens.  The yellow light doesn't bother them, just as a red light doesn't bother most wildlife.

You can easily buy headlamps that have white and red light, but the red light is often weak.  The ideal thing is to buy a powerful flashlight with a removable lamp head.  If the flashlight doesn't include red and yellow discs to insert under the clear lens, you can cut a piece of red or yellow acetate film and insert it under the flashlight lens.  Or you can just strap red cellophane wrap around the flashlight lens with a rubber band.  

Sometimes you'll see fireflies land near your porch lights and you can photograph them.  I even had a green frog near one light last summer--I guess he came to eat the moths and other bugs congregating around the light!

Butterflies and Moths of North America

Crocus Geometer Moth under my porch light.  (Photo by Don Comis)

For butterflies and moths, click here for a website where you can submit photos of butterflies and moths for identification.  You don't have to know how to identify the bugs, just take a clear photo of them.  For moths, go outside afer your porch lights have been on for about an hour or more and take photos of all the moths landing near the lights.

Many parts of the U.S. and North America don't have people submitting photos of moths so it isn't hard to end up with photos of moths not recorded by this site in your area and your finding is added to your area's database!  When I moved to Knox eight years ago, there were only 13 moths in the county's database on this site.  I brought the number to above 100 and got my county at least temporarily in fifth place among the state's 88 counties for numbers of moth species.

I slowed my pace in the past few years, but a young man read one of my articles about the project and he raised the county total even farther.  I write a "Nature in the Valley" monthly colum for our association newsletter, "Cider Press".

For more information and photos, look at the "Moth Guide".


FeederWatch

Blue Jay at my feeder one winter.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Because of the coronavirus, this watch has been extended to the end of April and paying ($18) to join late allows you to participate in next year's FeederWatch Project at no extra charge.

Lost Lady Bug

eBird

Apple Valley's "Eagle Man" Jon Minard counts waterfowl on Apple Valley Lake for the Audubon Christmas Bird Count. Currently large flocks of migrating waterfowl can be seen at Sutton and Davis beaches. 

2020 Nature Calendar:

April:  Ohio Native Plant Month

April 1-2, 4th Annual EcoCareer Conference online

April 22, Earth Day, 50th Anniversary  Earth Day Celebration at Kenyon College has been cancelled due to the coronavirus, but Kenyon's Brown Family Environmental Center says we should stay tuned to their website for an announcement of an outdoor challenge for us to do on our own on April 22.

April 24, Ohio Arbor Day

May 9, Global Big Day:  Anyone, regardless of skill level, can count birds in their yards or elsewhere from 10 minutes to 24 hours (if you want to count owls

Red morph eastern screech owl in an oak tree in my yard when both of us were looking for moths.  (Photo by Don Comis)

in the pre-dawn and late evening) and record the count on the "ebird.org" app or website.  There are instructions on "support.ebird.org".

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From Christmas Bird Count to Road-Kill Bugs

An interesting set of articles in the current issue of Audubon Magazine.

The November/December 2014 issue of Audubon Magazine has an interesting set of articles on “three innovators who have led the charge in studying birds”—Chan Robbins (“The Pioneer”); Sam Droege (“The Incubator”); and, Jessica Zelt (“The Futurist”).

The articles, under the umbrella of “Citizen Science: Passing the Torch”, show how the torch was passed from 96-year-old Robbins to 56-year-old Droege to 31-year-old Zelt.

At least as far as birds go, the Audubon Christmas Bird Count —which both Robbins and Droege have participated in—at 115 years old, is the oldest citizen science project.  Robbins in fact, through his father who participated in the very first of these counts, has a lineage back to the entire 115 years of bird citizen science.

The Audubon bird count is the oldest citizen science project period, at least since the end of the era in which all science was done by citizen scientists rather than professionals.  It is definitely, as the magazine states, “the world’s oldest continuous wildlife census”.

I am fortunate enough to be preparing for about my 12th consecutive Christmas bird count.  From 2003 through 2011, I participated in the counts on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland.   Droege also participated in those counts, since his office is on the grounds of the Center, from which I retired after the 2011 Christmas bird count.  Droege is a biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, which is headquartered on 12,840 acres adjacent to the Agricultural Center’s 7,000 acres.   Robbins has studied these grounds for more than 70 years.

Robbins created the 50-year-old annual Breeding Bird Survey, a citizen science project that Droege was hired to take over in 1985.  I had the honor of interviewing Robbins twice about his life’s work.

The Johnny Appleseed of Citizen Science

Droege has formed local teams to participate in many citizen science projects, including Bioblitz , Frogwatch USA, and Cricket Crawl .  His professional research activities include work on developing native bee survey techniques and monitoring programs, surveys of saltmarsh birds and surveys of Rusty Blackbirds.  The bee survey work could spawn a national citizen science project.

Droege hired Zelt in 2008 to digitize about six million records of bird arrivals and departures, dating back to 1880.  Over the next six years, she managed to turn the task into a citizen science empire .

I've blogged about both Robbins (9/19/14 , 8/24/14, and 7/17/14)  and Droege (9-16-14, 6/29/14, 6/22/14, and 11/19/13) before.

Bug Road-Kill?

The magazine’s cover has the intriguing title of “115 Years of Citizen Science:  From the Christmas Bird Count to…Road-Killed Bugs?”

Although I knew of a regional U.S. project in which volunteers count road-kill as a measure of animal populations, this was the first I had heard of a road-killed bugs project.  In this project 250 volunteers drove around with adhesive on their front bumpers and license plates to capture bugs that splatter against cars.  Scientists analyzed the results and determined that each car kills two bugs for every 6.2 miles traveled.   The project is limited to the Netherlands currently, but with one in the United Kingdom, the U.S. can’t be far behind.  The magazine says that in the U.S., more than 300 million cars each travel 13,500 miles a year, on average, “so bug mortalities add up”.

Science Wants You!

In addition to the bug road-kill project, the magazine lists six other citizen science projects at the bottom of four of the pages of the three articles, under the title of “Scientists Want You”:

• Frogwatch USA 
• Kestrel nest watch 
• Project Budburst watch  
• Celebrate Urban Birds
• Yard Map  
• Christmas Bird Count    (The Christmas Bird Count occurs each year between  December 14 to January 5, with the one day count date varying by location.  For example,  now that I am in Howard, Ohio, I will participate in the Dec. 21 count sponsored by the Brown Family Environmental Center at Kenyon College in Gambier.  To register for this event, e-mail  dohertyh@kenyon.edu or call 740-427-5052.)

Don't Give Worms a Bad Rap!

Earthworms are so valuable to soil that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly Soil Conservation Service) longed to have a worm mascot.  I remember one candidate called "Ernie the Worm".  So it's  no surprise to see this mascot on a table of the Knox County Association of Garden Clubs table on Earth Day 2014.  Bags of worm casting fertilizer were on sale at this table.   So let's be careful about painting their faults with too wide a brush!  (Photo by Don Comis)

Did you know that wherever glaciers covered parts of North America, there are no native worms?  So the worms present today are all exotic, introduced worms—mostly arriving when fishermen dumped their bait worms.

This fact, which I had learned when writing articles about worms for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Research magazine, attracted the attention of A fellow member of my local garden club when she read it in an article in the sports section of the Sunday Columbus Dispatch (July 27, 2014).

 Dave Golowenski wrote the article ominously titled “Worms undermining the future of forests.”    He cites the fact that much of the land of the Great Lakes states were glaciated, so the hardwood, deciduous forests developed around lakes in soil that held no worms.   And, he says the worms are compacting forest soils and eliminates a spongy layer that prevents erosion and helps understory plants and new tree seedlings take root.
I had forgotten to look for outdoor writers in the Dispatch’s Sunday paper which I subscribe to.  I always look in the sports section for these writers in the Mt. Vernon (Ohio) daily newspaper.

Much of Golowenski’s information comes from the Great Lakes Worm Watch 

But his article can lead to misunderstandings.   My garden club friend thought that I should write about this to discourage fishermen at our Apple Valley Lake near Mount Vernon from dumping their worms.  I think the article is directed to not dumping bait worms when fishing in waters in forested wilderness areas and is not relevant to places like our lake in a rural suburban setting.

My experience writing about worms has taught me to be careful before damning worms which Golowenski admits that earthworms have been a boon to gardeners and compost makers.  I’d have to add that they have also been great for farmers, helping to drain soil, loosen it, condition it, and providing pathways for crop roots.

Those very pathways led to some bad press for worms, some from articles I wrote , when researchers began asking whether the wormholes also  provided  conduits for pesticides in water runoff to bypass the slow filtering of pesticides that allowed time to break the pesticides down.  (For example, see this.) At least one researcher came to regret what he called a bad rap on earthworms.

That has made me very careful about saying anything that harms the reputation of a creature so valuable to soil that the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (called the Soil Conservation Service when I worked there as a writer-editor for its now defunct magazine) yearned to have a worm as its mascot.
Golowenski says that  Worm Watch suggests that fishermen should be spreading “the dirt” about the worm threat.

But that “dirt” should be limited to fishermen in forests, not spread to farms, gardens, and homes in urban and rural non-forested or lightly forested areas.

That said, I support that limited call and “Worm Watch” offers some great ideas for citizen science projects.

Watch Puffins On Gulf of Maine's Seal Island on Web Cam

It isn’t often you see “citizen science” in an Associated Press (AP) wire service story, but today I was treated to one in the Mount Vernon News in Ohio, “Bird oglers help study puffins”.  It was a story about the National Audubon Society asking people to monitor puffins on their three web cameras (http://explore.org/live-cams/player/puffin-loafing-ledge-cam) on Seal Island in Maine.

The AP story says the birds are on Maine’s threatened species list.   It adds that “Audubon says the number of puffin fledgling chicks has declined in the last two years, possibly because their key food source, herring and hake, are leaving for cooler waters.”

It quotes Steve Kress, director of the National Audubon Society’s seabird restoration program as saying that “Volunteers are being asked to watch the puffins feed and answer questions about their feeding behavior…”

When I finally go to their cam site, all I saw for instructions was a request take a snapshot of the cam scene from 10 to 10:30 a.m. and 6 to 6:30 p.m. and submit observations.  The AP article said volunteers would watch and answer questions about their feeding behavior.  On a quick glance I didn’t see a form with questions.

I don’t see how to even submit observations.  The only thing I like about the site so far is the great sight of the colorful puffins sitting by a Gulf of Maine shoreline.   If I can remember I’ll try to start keeping the cam site read to view.  If I could type and see a small version of the cam, I’d keep it on all the time.

I have a lot of problems with this site though, including the fact that I’m not sure I’m seeing a live cam because I’m watching at about 10 p.m. EDT and the sun seems to be shining on the birds.  Somewhere on the site it did say that the best viewing time is between 5  a.m. and 9 p.m. EDT, so they probably are taped scenes after 9 p.m.

It’s too bad the site is so difficult to use because I like the idea of being a naturalist while sitting at a computer at home and not having to sit in the wilds of Africa, say, watching gorillas.   Not that I wouldn’t love doing that, but how many of us amateur naturalists have the time or opportunity to do things like that?

The Maine “Project Puffin” program does offer a chance to be a volunteer naturalist (http://projectpuffin.audubon.org/volunteer-opportunities-10 ) at Seal Island or at their six other sanctuaries  from 2 to 12 weeks each summer.  Applications have to be submitted between January 1 and March 15 each year.

If the cam citizen science option works, it would be a fun opportunity for people of all ages to try their hands at animal behavior observations.   And it would be a nice science project for students.  I suppose people could make their own observations without submitting to Audubon or contact Audubon to figure out how to work with them.

The site does offer some materials for teachers but they are pretty pricey, except for a CD for $8 (http://projectpuffin.3dcartstores.com/Puffin-Island-CD-ROM_p_575.html ) and a DVD for $19.00 (http://projectpuffin.3dcartstores.com/Project-Puffin-DVD_p_576.html ).  The DVD describes how Kress  brought back puffins to Maine islands, beginning as a young biologist in 1973.

Bumblebee Watch

I like citizen science programs so much that I just signed up for "Bumblee Watch" (http://www.bumblebeewatch.org) after reading about it in the April/May 2014 issue of "National Wildlife" magazine.

I like projects like this in which I can send in photos of bugs "in the wild", without capturing or harming them, and get them identified by experts.  It gives me the kind of positive feedback I need to go on with a task like that and not give up.  Plus I help researchers conserve species.

I've been doing that with Butterflies and Moths of North America (BAMONA) at (http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org) for about a year.  In that time, with no knowledge or interest in moths, I was able to bring the total number of moths identified on that site for Knox County, Ohio, from 13 to more than 30.  And I have only been in this county for just under 2 years!

When you send photos, you can say, "I think this is a moth." or "I think this is a butterfly." or "I don't even know if it's a moth or a butterfly."  And you can go farther, if you can, and suggest which moth or butterfly it is.  With the help of a simple guide such as the Ohio Department of Natural Resources booklet on common butterflies of Ohio, you can quickly learn to identify a good 20 or more common butterflies.   Moths are harder, but you can suggest id's when you photograph a moth that looks like one you sent in and got identified by an expert.


"Bumblebee Watch" is intended to help save bumblebees.  The "National Widlife" article refers to a new analysis finding that "almost a third of North American bumblee species are declining, and some are threatened with extinction".   The article states that "four once-common...species have vanished from large portions of their former ranges.  A fifth may already be extinct.  Scientists are seeing similar losses in Europe, South America and Asia".

This can be a real loss to pollination, already threatened by the decline in European honeybee colonies.  Pollination by native bees is an important backup to honeybees.  They are more efficient pollinators than honeybees as well.

For information on other citizen science projects, please go to the "Citizen Science" button on the menu of my website at http://www.doncomis.simplesite.com.

DIY Bird Feeder Science Project Ideas

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s current issue of “Living Bird News” encourages me to share ideas I’ve had about science projects involving bird feeders.  The magazine reported on a study of the times of day four species of birds feed in winter (black-capped chickadee, tufted titmouse, white-breasted nuthatch, and house finch).  The results showed that the belief that birds feed heaviest first thing in the morning to recover from the long winter night might be wrong.   Birds did begin eating about a half hour before sunrise, but they ate more and more as the day progressed.  Another surprise was that most birds of three of the species stopped eating two hours before sunset.  This adds to the researchers’ thoughts that the birds are weighing the risks of exposing themselves to hawks at midday or screech owls in the evening against the risk of dying of hunger.   The chickadees, tufted titmice, and house finches might be choosing to avoid only the screech owls.  

That seems to be wise, since David Bonter, one of the researchers, did other fieldwork which showed large piles of dead songbird stashed in Eastern screech-owl birdhouses.

I was struck by his statement that we spend millions of dollars on bird seed without paying any attention to the results.

Here are two science projects that I can think of that could provide some of those results:

Bird Feeder Project 1:

Set up two identical bird feeders at a spot where you can see them while sitting down at your house.  Put in different feed in each feeder, for example, all sunflower seeds in one and a seed blend in the other.  For the seed blend, you could either buy one already mixed, or, do what I do, and design your own mix.  I designed my mix by going to a chart showing which birds ate which seeds and then assigning percentages of the mix based on the number of species eating each seed.  Then I translated the percentages into pounds based on a 20 or 40 pound bag.

But tonight I discovered a neat site at The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s FeederWatch site:  http://feederwatch.org/learn/common-feeder-birds/.  You can click on your region of the country and then photos of birds common to your region are shown.  When you click on a picture of a bird you have or expect to have at your feeders, you get a list of foods they prefer.

As an example, using this web page, I took 12 species common to my feeders in central Ohio and counted up how many species at each food listed.  I got these results:

Hulled sunflower seeds: 12 species, 20% of 20 pound mix=4 lbs.

Black oil sunflower seeds: 11 species, 20% of 20 pound mix=4 lbs.

Peanut Hearts:  10 species, 15% of 20 pound mix=3 lbs.

Safflower seeds:  9 species, 15% of 20 pound mix=3 lbs.

Cracked Corn: 5 species, 5% of 20 pound mix=1 lb.

Suet: 6 species, not applicable to seed mixes

Nyger Seed: 6 species, 10% of 20 lb. mix=2 lb.

Mealworms: 6 species, not applicable to seed mixes

Whole Peanuts: 5 species, not applicable to seed mixes

Millet: 4 species, 5% of 20 lb. mix=1 lb.

Milo (Sorghum): 4 species, 5% of 20 lb. mix=1 lb.

Oats: 1, 1% of 20 lb. mix=1 lb.

Sugar water: 1 species, not applicable to seed mixes

Fruit: 1 species, not applicable to seed mixes (unless use tree fruit and nut mix as I do)

This gave me some surprises that make me want to re-think my current mix, which I designed by including all species in the list I think, rather than tailoring it to those in my region, or those visiting my feeders.  Here are the surprises for me:

·         Hulled sunflower seeds were a bit more popular than black oil sunflower seeds.

·         Peanut hearts were just below black oil sunflower seeds.

·         Six species ate nyjer seeds, while I thought only goldfinches did.  This makes me glad I include one pound of it in my mix, but makes me consider upping it.

·         I was also surprised that red bellied woodpeckers would eat fruit and drink sugar water!

Bird Feeder Project 2:

Compare different types of feeders.  The site I mentioned above allows you to see which birds in your region you’re likely to attract by the different types of feeders.  Of course, if you already have feeders, you can make a list of species that come to your feeder, even participating in Cornell’s FeederWatch project while you’re at it.   My first three weeks of participating in Feederwatch this season makes me think that platform feeders attract the most birds.  If you have a feeder that has Plexiglas or glass that slides out, you can turn that into a covered platform feeder by removing the glass.   You could also compare covered and uncovered platform feeders.

Links:

Living Bird News (By joining FeederWatch you get this newsletter which excerpts some articles from Living Bird magazine, which is available to Cornell Lab of Ornithology members.)

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Another Bird Feeder Project 

More Blog Pages:

Local Events  (includes Snowy Owl Alerts)

   

My New Website

Turn Your Smartphone into a $10 "Microscope"

I just got this e-mail about a way to use a smart phone for macro photography, from Sam Droege, a  bee and dragonfly expert with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which shares land with the Beltsville (Maryland) Agricultural Research Center (BARC).  I worked at BARC as a science writer until I retired in 2011.   Sam was also on the Christmas Bird Counts I participated in there.

It excites me because I’ve been wondering lately if there are inexpensive ways that middle school students could take macro shots of spiders, moths, and other bugs with their smart phones.  

For a while now,  I've had a digital microscope on my Amazon wish list  for my own possible use (SVP DM540(with 16GB) 2.7" LCD Digital Mobile Microscope/Magnifier with Build-in Camera
by SVP

This sells for anywhere from $68.24 to $99 from Amazon.    Now that I looked at this SVP site tonight, I see they have a lot of tempting gadgets like this.  I had gotten interested in digital magnifiers after reading about them somewhere, probably a National Wildlife Federation or Ohio Wildlife magazine.

I was also looking at a $7.99 tripod for cell and smart phones at Staples the other day, with an eye towards bug photography.

But, back to Sam's e-mail to the yahoo group I belong to:

  VA-MD-DE-Bugs] smart phone/field microscope/camera - $10.00 U.S. 

Droege, Sam 

To Bee United,VA-MD-DE-Bugs@yahoogroups.com

  Nov 18 at 8:27 AM 

All:

Someone recently showed me this very inexpensive platform for taking at least reasonable macro pictures with your smart phone

http://petapixel.com/2013/10/19/turn-smartphone-microscope-macro-photography-rig-10/

 

I have seen a number of similar ones, but this strikes me as particularly useful as it is:

1.  Inexpensive.

2.  Creates a stable platform for cell phone and specimen

3.  Allows focusing

4.  Would allow even the potential for primitive focus stacking (see free stacking software called combine-z)

5.  Would work well in combination with CO2 or chilled specimens

6.  Requires very low power to operate

7.  Pieces are readily available

8.  In addition to taking pictures it, in reality, would act as a microscope for identification or work on tagging/marking individuals

9.  Creates entry level possibilities for students and amateurs with no microscope

sam

Sam Droege  sdroege@usgs.gov                    

w  301-497-5840  h  301-390-7759  fax 301-497-5624

USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center

BARC-EAST, BLDG 308, RM 124 10300 Balt. Ave., Beltsville, MD  20705

Http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov

Links:

 DIY Smart Phone-Microscope-Macro Photography Rig

Article on photo rig for taking snowflake images

Snowflake Guy's Blog

Sony Palmsized camcorder with 60X Optical Zoom  (When I worked for USDA, we used to mail these to scientists to record videos for our website.  An entomologist used one to send us a video of insects and he liked it, but now says it takes bad stills and says there are probably better models now.  One Amazon reviewer says he'll go with Panasonic or Canon handycams next time.)

My New Website

The Death of a Spider or My Girl Neoscona



Neoscona

I had been hanging around with a spider all fall, well she was literally hanging by a thread, upside down a lot, I think, but I was never quite sure where her eyes were.  As my own little citizen science project, I was photographing her to identify her, but also monitoring her and other life around my porch lights to see when they actually died as cold weather came on.

The books say that spiders live just one season.

I watched her busily wrapping up victims like mummies or wrestling bugs to death.  Sometimes windstorms blew her web away, but she would have it rebuilt in a couple of days.  After a couple of frosts, the web was down to a strand and then nothing at all. 

Eventually she huddled underneath the porch light.   Once, she was gone and I thought that was it.  Then she re-appeared in the same spot.  After that I could no longer tell if she was dead or alive.  I didn’t want to touch her to see, because I’m too much of a softie to distrurb any creature.

As it got even colder, she seemed dead, hers legs held tightly to hers body, like a clenched fist.  Then we had our surprise early snowfall of 1.6 inches.  I checked the next day and she was not there.  Then I had the wild idea of searching for her body.  If she literally dropped dead, her body might be right under the light.  I looked down and sure enough there it was.  It was easy to see on the white snow.  Then I touched her at last.

Then on November 15, I sent one of her photos to spiders.us.  The next day, I learned her name and gender, a female Neoscona crucifera.   Looking her up in my “Spiders and Their Kin” Golden Guide, All I could learn there was that she is ½ long and found in the eastern United States.

I need to find if a guide to Ohio’s spiders exists—I find it easier to identify creatures with local guides, and I’d expect more information than I get in the Golden Guide.  In the meantime, I’ll make my small contribution and gradually create a photo album of the 13 spiders I’ve identified in my yard and neighborhood since I started spending a lot of time in Ohio about 1 ½ years ago.  Nearly all the identifications were made by participants at spiders.us.

At times I thought most of the people seeking spider id’s were afraid of the spiders found in their homes.  But most of those doubts disappeared when I sent in my request for Neoscona’s id and mourned her passing.

Instead of laughing at me, this inspired others on the website to share similar feelings along with their id information, like these:

“And I grew attached to one this season as well.. Called her "orbi"... [I guess for orb weaver spiders.]

“Yep, she's quite the looker too. It's a shame she had to die like that, but alas, such is nature. To live, is to one day die. But to one day die, is to one day bring forth new life.”

I also got this informative response to my question about how long spiders live, since I was seeing spiders like Neoscona alive after a couple of frosts and I’m seeing ladybugs and other spiders still alive on a warm day after the first real snow of the season here in central Ohio:

“Bugs are cold blooded (that's a generalization - "blood" is a relative term as the body fluid in bugs varies). A lot of them just slow down or stop moving all together when it gets cold - many can survive this for short periods. A warm day, they all come out and stock up on nourishment. Most of them are hiding out in warm places like piles of leaf litter or under ground (or in heated, man-made structures, those clever beasts) (sighted a hungry looking wolf spider yesterday that's probably been camping out in our garage or in the wall). It's freezing they can't survive (some of them can actually!) - especially a long freeze like several days or weeks of snow or freezing temps. Other bugs have such quick life cycles that a warm day causes eggs to hatch and they go about their business while the getting is good.”

Which brings me back to citizen science or Nature science, wondering if students or adults could do a science experiment to see how long the bugs they’re observing live?  One of the things I’m hoping to do in this blog is to list ideas for science projects or science experiments anyone can do that will help professional scientists and further conservation of plants and wildlife.  I welcome any help in this.

Links:

Spiders "Citizen Science" Link

My New Website

 

A Beginner’s Guide to Buying Binoculars for Birds, Butterflies, and Dragonflies

Three of my teammates on last year's Christmas Bird Count at Apple Valley Lake in Howard, Ohio.

On a recent bird walk, when one of the participants mentioned she would like to buy her first binoculars, it made me think of an article I had inspired and edited for the Greenbelt (Maryland) News Review I contributed fairly regular Nature columns to when I was in Maryland full-time.  I was e-mailing a really good bird watcher, Peter Blank, for an article on how to choose binoculars.

At the time, I had only an old pair of binoculars I shamefully outbid a young boy for at a church auction years ago.  Peter suggested since he had practically written the story for me that he should write the article himself.  He did and it was published.  I was going to link the article but I couldn’t find it online at the News Review (http://greenbeltnewsreview.com/)

So all I can do for now is give the specs of the binoculars I bought and still have as my only binoculars, suggested by Peter for its wide view, which offers beginners a better chance of locating the bird in a tree:  Nikon Monarch, 8X42, 6.3^o

I don’t know what all the numbers mean, certainly not the degrees, but I know at least that 8X42 is excellent, and a beginner’s binoculars should be close to that.  I think you sacrifice magnification as the field gets wider, so a narrower field is suitable for a very experienced birder who can spot birds easily through binoculars and needs more details.

As an eyeglass wearer, I was relieved to find out that my new binoculars would fit my eyes better than my old, because I chose those suited to eyeglass wearers.  Dunkle says:  "Eyeglass wearers should look for a long eye relief of 18-20 mm or more, and retractable or fold-down rubber eyecups...Useful literature on buying binoculars is published by Canon, Eagle Optics, Nikon, and by Christophers of Norman, Oklahoma."   I had found out this information when I bought mine by reading the manufacturer's literature.
 

While I’m on the subject of binoculars, after I began using them to identify butterflies, I learned that there were books called “Butterflies through Binoculars: The East” by Jeffrey Glassberg and “Dragonflies through Binoculars” by Sidney W. Dunkle.

These authors recommend close-focus binoculars that focus between 4 and 8 feet.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have the books when I bought mine, or I might have bought one of these, if it would also be good for birds.  It might be because the wider field of view of an 8X is one of the recommendations of both authors.

Glassberg suggests looking for binocular buying tips on the North American Butterfly Association's website: http://www.naba.org/binocs.html  The information there is only two years newer than his 1999 book, but it's a start.

Apparently the advent of close-focus binoculars has sparked new interest in identifying butterflies and dragonflies.  I like the fact that we can identify them without capturing them, recognizing that someone has to capture and even kill them for detailed examination, but not me, as long as I can resist.

So, now the old stereotype of old weirdos in shorts chasing butterflies with nets, will be replaced by the stereotype of old weirdos in shorts watching butterflies with binoculars, just like the old weirdos watching birds!



Golden Eagle Sighting near Apple Valley:



My birding friends and neighbors at Apple Valley have a recent documented sighting of a golden eagle feeding on deer carcasses on a nearby farm, along with 12 bald eagles, on Weber Road, near one of many bald eagle nests in the area.



I hope to use this blog and/or my future website for posting alerts like this for local birders, although I will do it faster than I did this one!  I'd appreciate hearing about bird sightings from local readers so I can let the whole neighborhood know and give local birders a chance to share in the sightings.



Snowy Owls in Ohio:



Jim McCormac's blog reports 141 owls in 48 counties in Ohio.  They've been seen in Knox County and all its adjoining counties, except for Morrow.  A recent owl sighting in Richland took care of that "holdout" county, now it's Morrow's turn!


News Flash:


Jim McCormac will discuss the eight species of owls resident in Ohio at a free webinar on January 15, from noon to 1 p.m.  Register at:  http://obcinet.org/webinar-on-ohios-owls-announced/  The seminar is presented by the Ohio Bird Conservation Initiative ( http://obcinet.org/ ).  At the OBCI website you can also lisen to a recording of a previous webinar on Ohio's seven resident woodpecker species.




Links:

Jim McCormac  (Naturalist Jim McCormac also writes a column for The [Columbus, Ohio] Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month, one of my two must reads in the Sunday paper. )

Columbus Dispatch  [John Switzer writes a Nature column every week in the Sunday Columbus Dispatch, my other must read.  He is a model for the Nature columns I write and, like me, he veers off in a lot of different directions, including the Indians of Ohio, etc., while often writing about birds and referencing McCormac.)

 Brown Family Environmental Center, Kenyon College  (This is a great place that serves the campus and surrounding communities, is a model for natural land preservation, and coordinates the Knox County, Ohio, Audubon Christmas Bird Counts.)

Cornell Lab Magazine Reviews Binoculars :  Another reason to join the Cornell Lab--the current issue of their "Living Bird" magazine reviews binoculars.   

My New Website

Wooly Bears Only Predict Their Ages

An all black woolly bear just means a young one, or an underfed one.....

 

...and one with more brown means an older, well fed one!

I named this blog for the idea of Do-It-Yourself Science advocated by Miami University's Casey Tucker at a recent conference on avian research at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.   I participate in many citizen science projects and like the idea of expanding the role beyond monitoring and data collecting for researchers to doing the research ourselves.  I'd like to do my own experiments and inspire middle school students and high school students to do Nature science projects that would be better and more useful than the science fair projects I did in elementary school and high school.

Another speaker at the conference announced that in six months, the Winter Breeding Bird Survey of Ohio would be published, the first such winter survey in the country.   The speaker said the survey would be repeated periodically, always in January.  He said this is the best time to get an accurate census of winter birds, better than the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count which is done between December and February each year, with the exact date up to local counting organizations. 

 I'm splitting time between Maryland and Ohio currently and wherever I live I like to write regular Nature columns to inspire interest in Nature and to force me to learn.

This blog will give me room to write about the things that I can't squeeze into those columns, like the interesting fact I read recently explaining that the width of the brown bands on woolly bear caterpillars aren't predictive of weather.   They only reflect the age of the caterpillars--they're born mostly black and then turn more and more brown with age.

But it was actually an entomologist who started the myth based on limited experiments trying to correlate the brown band width with weather.  Others say if it reflects anything about weather, it's reflecting the summer’s weather when the caterpillar was growing, and how much the caterpillar got to eat.  The bigger they get the more brown they are.

After reading that, I later walked my dog and saw several woolly bears in the same vicinity, some all black and some with different widths of brown bands and I realized that alone should put to rest the myth, unless the woolly bears have different predictions!



And if that doesn’t show you how little it takes to excite me, how about this:  I’ve become very interested in moths lately because I realized that, at least in many parts of Ohio very few people are observing and identifying them.  I started sending photos of moths, mostly circling my porch lights, to butterfliesandmoths.org and soon found that almost every moth photo I sent added a moth to their database for Knox County, Ohio.  That fired me up and I’ve brought the total of moths listed for Knox County from 13 to 29 in a short time. 

That pleases me because I haven’t been in Ohio that long and I can hardly identify a moth.  The experts identify them for me from the photos and I absorb a bit about moths from osmosis.

It’s not hard to bring the total from 13 to 29 because the average county has about 500 moth species. 

I’m wondering if there are youngsters out there that would be excited by adding to this database, if not by moths themselves, and whether their smart phones could take good enough photos for the site—giving them a worthwhile Nature science project, if not a Do-It-Yourself Scientist project.

Sources/Reading:

"Field Guide to Moths of Eastern North America" by Charles V. Covell, Jr., available from Virginia Museum of Natural History.  (It costs $30 on sale, but I don't regret buying it.  But maybe it, or the first edition, published about 20 years ago--which is the same book, except for a new introduction section--can be found on Amazon cheaper.)

Links:

Field Guide to Moths of Eastern North America

Here are links to Casey Tucker's new website (still under construction) and the blog it will eventually replace:

American Avian Conservation & Research Institute Website

American Avian Conservation & Research Institute Blog

Here's a link to a 2011 NPR radio Science Friday program on citizen science:

Who Gets to Call Themselves a Scientist? 

Popular Series of Insect Articles by USDA entomologist   (I like these articles by Jon Lundgren, a research entomologist for USDA's Agricultural Research Service.  Go to  my new website, with temporary domain name of  "doncomis.simplesite.com" for the latest story I know of, his October 14 Halloween column on larder beetles, which he calls "nature's skeleton cleanup crews." )


My new website