Who Knew What Goes on at Night on our Garage Doors?

During the daytime, our garage door looks innocent enough, with maybe a few fuzzy spider nests hinting of the transformation at night.

The photos I sent recently to www.spiders.us for identification tell part of the story of the strange nightly doings.   What I thought was a spider either dying, dead or struggling with prey, was actually a spider pumping itself up with blood so it could blow up and break out of the external skeleton it had outgrown.  The photograph I sent was of the shed skin attached to the garage wall by a thread.

And one of the bugs I photographed was a parasitic wasp looking to take advantage of one of the spiders by making it host its young--I think that means paralyzing the spider and injecting wasp eggs inside so the wasp offspring can eat their way out of the spider.

The site also identified my first spider of the season, which I saw on April 14 hanging from a porch light, as most likely a furrow spider in the orb weaver family of spiders.  And it identified a blurry photo as likely showing a house spider in my basement.  And another of the bugs I photographed on the garage wall turned out to be a midge. 

Parasitic wasp on garage door.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Midge on garage door.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Shed exoskeleton of spider.  (Photo by Don Comis)

My first spider of the season, a furrow orb weaver.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Counting Bugs to Measure Stream Water Quality

This northern leopard frog enjoys the excellent water quality of the Kokosing River in Millwood, where one of the volunteer monitoring stations is located.  (Photo by Don Comis)

When I attended a biological stream monitoring workshop conducted by "Save Our Streams" in Maryland, I was pleased to learn it was fun and easy to assess water quality by identifying and counting water creatures, mostly larvae, with the help of a one-page chart.

It's just fun for all to stand in a stream holding a seine net to catch the creatures and then count and release them.  I did it with children at our church in Maryland for about a year.

The idea is to see how diverse the organisms are, indicating good water quality, and to see if the good water quality indicating organisms like mayfly nymphs outweigh poor water quality indicators like snails and other scavengers.

This came to mind when I saw that there will be a similar workshop conducted near where I am currently, in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, on May 28.  

We're blessed here to have the very clean Kokosing River and volunteers that monitor it regularly at several locations.

To learn more about the upcoming workshop, go to:  http://watercraft.ohiodnr.gov/sqm .  Also, check out a longer version of this blog at my website:  www.doncomis.simplesite.com.

 

 

 

 

Going Native

Today I confirmed bluebirds were using a house I set out for them last year.  I also saw my first red-headed woodpecker in a long time eating peanut splits from a feeder.   And a flock of bees of various sizes discovered my new crabapple tree blossoms today.

I was thrilled to see the bees and even more thrilled when I realized that these are the bees that will eventually cross pollinate my two new apple trees to produce apples!

And e-mails from my Ohio Birds and morel mushroom groups tell me that Baltimore orioles are in Ohio now and soil moisture levels predict a banner year for morels, with maybe the first black morels showing up by May 1.

I'm hoping to plant a large wildflower garden soon as part of my plan to make my yard more wildlife friendly, as I go native!

One of the larger bees of a flock that discovered my new "Snowdrift" crabapple tree flowers today.   They worked these flowers all day.  (Photo by Don Comis)

A bee's  view of  a crabapple tree's blossoms.  The visit of a flock of bees today convinced me they will cross pollinate my two apple trees when those trees blossom.  I read that the "Snowdrift" crabapple is one of only a handful that will pollinate the "Liberty" apple trees I bought.  It also helps to have a crabapple tree with the same color flowers as the apple trees, luring the bees to all three trees.  (Photo by Don Comis)

A Glimpse of Native Americans in 2,500 B.C.

Imagine a Native American burial in 2,500 B.C. in Ohio.  The body is dressed in a fine deerskin outfit, completely covered with sewn-in small marine shells obtained from traders from the Gulf Coast.  The shell beads are also on the warrior's necklace, spaced artistically between the hollow leg bones of a Great Blue Heron and the teeth of bear and elk, along with a few human teeth.  Part of a wolf jaw bone is the centerpiece of the necklace.

Another honor for the warrior:  A stone weight of the type attached to a spear throwing device made from an elk antler.

It wasn't hard for amateur archaeologist Greg Shipley to imagine this scene since he saw much of it in  a cemetery below a farm field in Champaign County, Ohio.

He found nine of the stone weights (bannerstones) , a few thousand shell beads, and the necklaces.  He only had to guess the deerskin part because the clothing the beads were once attached to had long disintegrated.

Shipley is one of many citizen science archaeologists making contributions in the field.  Now armed with ground penetrating radar he is calling attention to what lies under our feet.

Oh, and he dated the cemetery finds to 2,500 B.C. give or take 80 years when a scientist carbon-dated charred material Shipley found in the cemetery.

I saw Shipley's presentation, both slides and actual artifacts, at April's meeting of the Kokosing Chapter of the Archaeological Society of Ohio at Mt. Vernon, Ohio.

While glimpses of Native Americans in 2500 BC excite Greg Shipley, he has a special passion for the waning days of the American and Ohio frontier, in the days of General Anthony Wayne, shown here dictating the treaty terms that ended Native American control of much of Ohio.  (Painting on display in Ohio Statehouse.)

Moths Coming Out for Spring

The first moth of the season for me.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Moths are mushrooming in numbers with the warm weather.  I saw my first moth this year on April 20.  The next day I photographed five moths and missed more, then found one inside my bedroom and bathroom.

Then the temperature dropped from the 60s Fahrenheit to the 40s tonight and at midnight I only saw one tiny probable moth and one spider either in a struggle with himself or with prey, I couldn't tell.

I like photographing moths because they're important pollinators that need protection, they're under studied, they're easy to find--and there's a website that has regional experts identify your digital photographs for you, quickly and free. Your photographs provide data for a "Butterflies and Moths of North America" survey (www.butterfliesandmoths.org) and help research and conservation efforts.

I'm waiting for word on photographs of 6 species I have sent in to the site since April 20, to see if they are among the 19 moth species I've previously added to my county's list on their site (Knox County, Ohio) or if they're new ones for me. 

One example of how much volunteers are needed is the fact that in my first year of living in Ohio, last year, I brought the total of moth species listed for Knox on the site from 13 to 32.  And an expert told me that we can assume that the average county has about 500 species!

(Not to mention that I didn't know a single moth before I began this project.)

Easter Sunday Brings Chipping Sparrow and Spring!

White-throated sparrow (left) has yellow markings on its face that make this bird stand out. I think bird on right is a female house sparrow.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Photographing this moth at my porch light tonight starts my moth-hunting season, to see how many more moths I can add to the listing for Knox County, Ohio, on www.butterfliesandmoths.org.  (Photo by Don Comis)

Today, Easter Sunday, was spring to me.  I brought out the outdoor furniture and had my lunch outside with a glass of wine and was treated to many sights and sounds.  Most exciting for me was finally seeing the chipping sparrow return from the south.

I also saw my first cabbage white butterfly and my first big flock of bees and wasps of the season.  The bees and wasps were eating nectar from the flowers of an ornamental tree in my neighbor's yard.

I also saw a small bird, maybe a bluebird, check out a pileated woodpecker birdhouse, and a blackbird, probably a grackle or starling, seeming to have settled in a red-headed woodpecker birdhouse.

By nightfall, I was treated to the sight of the first moth of the season near our porch light.  Not as exciting, I saw my first house fly buzzing nearby.

Morel Mushrooms Appear When Multiflora Rose Leaves Reach Size of Mouse Ear

At this month's meeting of our local archaeological club, I got at tip on morel mushroom hunting from Eric Taylor, a lifelong mushroom hunter in a family for whom mushroom hunting has been a tradition for generations.


His tip:  Looks for morels when the leaves of multiflora rose bushes reach about a half-inch in length.


This reminds me of a North American folklore saying:


"Morel mushrooms will suddenly appear
 When oak leaves are the size of a mouse's ear"


That saying comes from a book I just bought, "Morel Mushrooms in Michigan And Other Great Lakes States".


I watched a DVD by "The Taylor Boys" (Eric and Keith), "Mushrooms Grown Wild", and got ideas about where to look for morels, such as pine plantation edges, streambanks, old apple orchards, burn areas, and around certain trees like sycamores, in addition to the obvious wooded areas.


Eric told me that because of cold weather, like a fairly recent 1-inch snowfall, morels likely won't show up in my areas north of Columbus, Ohio, until later--which I guess means May.

Eric Taylor, wearing new "Morel Mushroom Hunter" t-shirt, selling DVDs at April 17, 2014 meeting of the Kokosing Chapter of the Archaeological Society of Ohio.  (Photo by Don Comis)

I bought this 40-page book recently.