Happy Holidays!

We are moving!

The NatureBlog is moving! The website location will stay the same, but the content is about to change. We are in the midst of moving to a new area.

I will no longer post about our backyard happenings in Athens, Georgia, but instead will have all new posts about our new backyard in Cary, North Carolina.

Here is a picture of our new backyard:

So far we have heard some different bird species, and have seen many plant species that we did not have in our Athens backyard.

I will not be posting for a few weeks as we move and get settled in, but I will be posting all about all the new nature we find starting in January. So stay tuned!

So what's in your compost?

I found this cool post about compost creatures. They took one cup of compost from a backyard compost bin and found 14 different species living in it! I am going to give this a try next spring, take a cup and see just what is living in the compost in my backyard.


To read the post see this link.

To learn more about composting see this link.

We pause for a moment to take in the Autumn colors...

Robins and more robins

This morning I found a flock of American Robins in the backyard. During the fall and winter robins get together and travel in large flocks. It is a lot of fun to see a large flock descend on the backyard, crowding in the bird bath, eating what is left of the pokeweed berries, fighting with the resident Mockingbird.

On Journey North’s website they have a great way to distinguish a winter/migrant robin from a spring robin:

Winter and migratory behaviors include:

• Feeding in flocks
• Eating fruit
• Flying in flocks
• Getting along peacefully

Spring behaviors include:

• Running on lawns
• Eating worms
• Singing
• Territorial battles
• Carrying nesting materials

To learn more about Journey North’s Spring Robin program, see this site.

First Freeze

Brrr..

Had our first freeze today, the low this morning was 32.1 degrees! There was a light frost covering the backyard, which means that the grasses and herbaceous plants will begin to die back, but have you ever wondered why some plants do not freeze?

Well, there are two main reasons why some plants stay green all winter and never freeze. Some plants such as Pine trees do not have a lot of water, so they cannot freeze. Other plants can make their own “anti-freeze” protein which protects their cell walls and plant tissue from being crushed by ice crystals.

Other perennial plants (plants that live for 2 years or more) go dormant during the winter. Herbaceous plants completely die back above ground, leaving only roots below ground. Woody plants drop their leaves. While dormant, they are not moving water and nutrients through their system, so when it freezes, they are protected.

To learn more about winter plant adaptations see this link.

Harbinger of Cooler Weather

We had a White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) in our backyard yesterday. They are a winter resident in Georgia, spending the spring and summer in Canada and fall and winter in the Eastern US. They always arrive every year right before a very cold weather and this year was no exception. It was 37 degrees out this morning!

Unlike most sparrows, the White-throated Sparrow is easy to identify. It has a white throat as its name implies, as well as a white eyebrow-stripe with a dot of yellow at the bill.

They also have one of my favorite bird songs. They sound just like a human whistling. To hear their song see this link. Some say it sounds like they are singing "Oh Sweet Canada Canada Canada".



To learn more about the White-throated Sparrow see this link.

Dendroica coronata

The Yellow-rumped Warblers (Dendroica coronata) are here! They are one of the last migratory birds to arrive in our area and since they are a winter resident, we will see a lot of them over the next few months.

They are easily identified by their conspicuous yellow rump.

A favorite food of this particular warbler are wax myrtle berries, so you will often see them foraging in the wax myrtle bushes. In fact they were once called Myrtle Warblers.

To learn more about yellow-rumped warblers see this link. To hear their song see this link.

Fall Asters

I attended the Perennial Symposium held at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia last week. Since we are in the midst of the worst drought on record, all of the talks were focused on drought tolerant plants. One perennial group in particular was discussed at length due to its hardiness and drought tolerance: the Aster family.

Right now there are many beautiful asters in full bloom despite the lack of water. This includes Goldenrod (solidago), White Aster (ericoides), and Ironweed (Vernonia). Not only are they nice to look at, they provide nectar for many insects including butterflies. Other asters such as Sunflowers (Helianthus) and Coneflowers (Echinacea ) provide seeds for birds.


To learn more about drought tolerant plants see this link. To learn more about native asters see this link.

It's raining!

So far we have received 0.7 inches today! That is huge for our area. We are currently going through the worst drought on record. There are strict outdoor water bans in our county, and they are talking about possibly putting us on rations starting at the end on November, it is that bad.

But today we are getting some rain!

Here is a map of the current drought areas in the U.S., and as you can see Athens falls into the Exceptional Drought category, well past the Extreme. We have always thought of ourselves as conservative when it comes to water use, but this drought has definitely got us thinking of even more creative ways to conserve water. To learn about some really easy ways you can conserve water in your own home see this link.

Small Green Moth

This weekend we brought one of our couches outside to clean. When we went to bring it back inside we noticed a small, beautifully colored moth had taken a liking to it. The greenish blue color of the moth almost perfectly matched the greenish blue color on the couch!

After a search on the internet, we were able to identify the moth to the family Noctuidae. This family has over 35,000 known species of moths! Most moths in this family are nocturnal, active only at night, which explains why this particular moth was taking a nap on our couch.

To learn more about Noctuid moths see this link. To see the amazing diveristy of this family see this link.

Red-Tailed Hawk

Our backyard is often frequented by a Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis). We usually see it either perching in a pine tree or crashing through the yard trying to catch prey. The prey it is usually after includes mourning doves and eastern grey squirrels.

Red-tailed hawks are large raptors; they are common in Georgia and can be seen year round. They are a “sit and wait” predator, and can often be seen perched on utility poles watching for prey.

Their call is a very distinctive raspy scream, you may have heard this call used in movies or TV shows; Hollywood often uses it when there is an eagle or other large bird in a scene. To hear the call of the red-tailed hawk see this link.

To hear what the Bald Eagle actually sounds like see this link.

Spider Lily

A few days ago I was surprised to find two Red Spider Lilies (Lycoris radiate) pop up in our backyard. This bulb is native to Japan and used to be a popular planting in the south. They bloom in early Fall for a few days then retreat back to the ground. Having an attractive red lily pop up unexpectedly in Fall is a nice treat. You can purchase spider lily bulbs at local nurseries, but you will have to wait until next year since they need to be planted in the Spring.




To learn more about planting spider lilies, see this link.

Trying to Count Swifts

This past weekend we participated in counting chimney swifts as they went to roost. If you are not sure what a chimney swift is you can catch up by reading this past post.

In downtown Athens, there are several large swift roosts, and with hundreds of birds entering one, you can imagine it is a bit hard to count them all, so we also filmed them so we could slow down the video and get an accurate count.

Here is a snippet of video from the Bottleworks roost:



Here is another video taken by the Driftwood Wildlife Association of a roost in Texas. They actually have a video of inside the roost and you can see the swifts settling in. It is really neat so check it out! They start the video off on the outside and then switch to the inside.

Last of the Sesaon Part II

The last monarch caterpillars of the season have entered the pupae stage of their life cycle. Here are a few of the chrysalises I have found on our back deck:











It takes about 12-16 days for the monarch to complete the pupae stage and emerge as an adult monarch butterfly. Depending on the weather, they may overwinter in this stage, or they could complete their lifecycle and migrate to Florida or Mexico. To learn about monarch migration in Georgia see this link.

To give you an idea of how much food a SINGLE monarch caterpillar needs, here are before and after pictures of 1 milkweed plant that had 1 caterplillar:

Previous monarch posts:
http://katalystdesigns.blogspot.com/2007/04/first-of-season.html
http://katalystdesigns.blogspot.com/2007/06/monarch-caterpillars.html
http://katalystdesigns.blogspot.com/2007/08/more-monarchs.html
http://katalystdesigns.blogspot.com/2007/09/last-of-season.html

Last of the Season

These are some photos of the last batch of monarch caterpillars for this season. These caterpillars are getting really big and are almost 2 inches long! They will soon pupate and form into a chrysalis, and will most likely overwinter in that state.


To see a neat time series photography site on the chrysalis formation click this link.

Sounds of Fall

You can tell it is finally fall in Athens, not only by the cooler temperatures, but also by the song of the mockingbird. Starting in mid September the Northern Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) begins to sing to setup up their fall territory. They sing in spring too, to attract mates and hold their breeding territory. In summer they do not sing as much and by late summer they are very quiet. Once fall comes about, the adults generally kick their offspring out of their territory, and begin to sing to set up their fall/winter territory. Their fall territory is generally smaller than their breeding territory, and often their offspring will setup up their territories nearby.

The song of the Northern Mockingbird is long and complex. It is a series of varied phrases, with each phrase usually repeated at least 3 times in a row. The phrases are imitations of many other bird songs and calls. One study found that the song repertoire between spring and fall singing only had 1% in common, so mockingbirds effectively may have two vocal repertoires. Other studies have shown that the spring repertoire size (the total number of distinct song types recorded from an individual as determined from analysis of extensive recordings) increases with age.

To learn more about mockingbirds see this link.

To hear the song of the mockingbird, go outside and listen! Or you can hear one online at this link.


References:
Derrickson, K. C. and R. Breitwisch. 1992. Northern Mockingbird. In The Birds of North America, No. 7 (A. Poole, P. Stettenheim, and F. Gill, Eds.). Philadelphia: The Academy of Natural Sciences; Washington, DC.: The American Ornithologists’ Union.

Chimney Swifts

Downtown Athens is home to several large Chimney Swift (Chaetura pelagica) roosts. These are places that have a large enough chimney that can hold large numbers of swifts roosting together. For the past few weeks the swifts have been gathering in large numbers, soon they will migrate to South America.

All of the dark specs in this picture are actually the Chimney Swifts. This picture was taken on Broad Street and Jackson.

During spring and summer the swifts are quite common here in Athens. You can see them flying above and chittering. They have been referred to as “flying cigars” due to their small, cigar shaped body. Swifts are among the most aerial of birds, flying almost continuously except when at the nest or roosting at night.

Chimney Swifts used to nest in caves and hollow trees before European settlement of North America. The swifts greatly benefited by the construction of chimneys and quickly adapted to using them as nesting and roosting sites. Recent changes in chimney design, with covered, narrow flues, have decreased the available nest sites and may be a factor in their declining population numbers.

Good news is they will readily use a Chimney Swift Tower made specifically for nesting swifts. A nature reserve in Texas has experimented with many designs and has published the most successful design plans. To see some of their designs, see this link. To purchase their book see this link.

If you are interested in constructing a chimney swift tower, you have to first make sure you have the right type of habitat. The most successful towers have been in city parks and pastures, and suburban yards. The tower has to have at least a 10 foot radius clearing, so that predators such as cats and raccoons are unable to jump to the top of the tower and gain access to the interior nesting chamber.


To check out the local Chimney Swifts roosts, head to the Bottleworks building on Prince right at dusk. Another good spot to see them is the corner of Broad Street and Jackson.

Birding Basics for Adults

Fall migration is in full swing! Warblers, thrushes, grosbeaks, and the like are making their way through Georgia. Not sure what I am talking about? Then you need to attend the Birding Basics for Adults class I am instructing next Saturday, September 15th, at the Georgia State Botanical Garden.

Blackburnian warbler is one neotropical migrant we might see.

In this class you will learn the fundamentals of bird watching. The program begins with an introduction on how to identify birds by sight and sound and will cover bird watching tools including binoculars, field guides, audio, video, computer guides and websites. We will also discuss how to attract birds to your yard through the use of plants, feeders, and nest boxes. The second part of the class will be spent outside looking for birds. September is the peak of Fall migration, so we are sure to see some outstanding neotropical migrants as well as many local birds. It is highly recommended that you bring your own pair of binoculars.

Tennessee warbler is another neotropical migrant that is passing through Georgia on its way to Central and South America.

Class starts at 9am in classroom A in the visitor center. Space is limited! To sign up call 706-542-6156 or register online at http://www.uga.edu/~botgarden/educationalevents.html

Spider Happenings

The Golden Orb Weaver spider (Argiope aurantia) that inhabits our deck has just laid her first group of eggs. I found this magnificent egg sac in a potted plant next to her web. She will create 1-2 more of these egg cases before she dies this fall.

Each egg sac contains 300 to 1400 eggs. The eggs will hatch in the late fall, but the hatchling spiders become dormant and do not leave the egg sac until the following spring. The over wintering egg case will help protect the newly hatched spiders from predation.

To read related posts see:
http://katalystdesigns.blogspot.com/2007/03/waiting-patiently.html

http://katalystdesigns.blogspot.com/2007/08/golden-orb-weaver.html


In other spider news, I saw a Green Lynx spider that has made its home in one of our basil bushes in the garden in the midst of capturing its prey, a stink bug. The green lynx is a great beneficial insect to have around in the garden. They are voracious predators and assist us in keeping the pest populations low.

To read related posts see:
http://katalystdesigns.blogspot.com/2007/05/green-lynx.html

Mushrooms

After a few days of some good rain that broke that 3 week heat wave, we are finally seeing some mushrooms emerge. One common mushroom seen this time of year is the Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus). The oyster mushroom is a commonly sought after edible wild mushroom due to its tastiness and lack of confusing look-alikes, making it easy to identify. It creates fruiting bodies (the part we call the mushroom) from spring-fall.

In the wild these mushroom are commonly found growing on dead hardwood trees. They also are cultivated commercially and can found in the produce sections of many grocery stores.

To learn more about identifying edible mushrooms see the Mushroom Club of Georgia's website, and for those of you who are interested, they are having a mushroom walk next weekend at Stone Mountain Park.

Bald Bird

It is that time of year when some Northern Cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) exhibit featherless heads. Two years ago I noticed a few of our backyard cardinals in various states of baldness in late August. After googling "bald cardinal" I came up with over 700,000 websites with that term, so I knew I was not the only one witnessing this odd molting pattern.

Most birds molt twice a year, in fall and then again in spring. In early fall most birds go through what is called a pre-basic molt. This is where the birds gradually lose their worn breeding feathers (plumage) and grow in their fall plumage, which is often not as bright and showy as their breeding plumage. Having duller feather colors in the fall and winter assist the birds in camouflaging themselves from predators. In the spring they molt into fresher brighter colors that assist them in attracting mates.

So is the case of the balding cardinals just pre-basic molting? Maybe. Or it could be feather mites. Or it could be both molting and feather mites. Scientists who study birds are now just starting to look at this condition. Either way, it does not seem to have a negaitive affect on the bird. Other than looking scary for a little while (some refer to the cardinals in this state as "mini red vultures"), they still behave the same way, and soon the feathers grow back in.

By the way, this temporary baldness has also been reported in Blue Jays and Grackles!

Insects, Bugs, and Bogs

Saturday we went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden to see David Rogers' Big Bugs & Killer Plants exhibit. It was a lot of fun! David Rogers created these huge wooden sculptures of insects and had them cleverly placed throughout the garden. They were also showcasing “killer plants” such as pitcher plants and venus flytraps. Some of the carnivorous plants they had are actually native to the southeast such as Spoonleaf Sundew (Drosera intermedia) and Whiteleaf Pitcher Plants (Sarracenia leucophylla).

To learn more about the exhibit and related programs see the Atlanta Botanical Garden website: http://www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org

Or go check out the exhibit for yourself!

Grizzly Cam

So there are no grizzly bears in Georgia, but this website based Alaska is too good to not mention. The Alaska Fish & Game and National Geographic currently have a live web cam operating at McNeil River State Game Sanctuary. This is a place where grizzlies congregate to feed on migrating salmon. The footage is just amazing!

The cam is live from 7am to 10 pm AST and other times it runs past footage.

Check it out!
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/wildcamgrizzlies/

You can also learn more about grizzlies here:
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/wildcamgrizzlies/about_bears.html

Hummingbird Moth

Yesterday afternoon while inspecting the butterfly bush (Buddleia) in our backyard for butterflies I was caught off guard by the Hummingbird Clearwing Moth (Hemaris thysbe). At first glance I thought it was an actual hummingbird, but after a second look knew it was a hummingbird moth.It is not difficult to see why many people would mistake this moth for a small hummingbird, they have similarities in size, foraging behavior, and feeding structures. This moth is most often seen during the day, hovering over flowers and sipping the nectar through a long feeding tube (proboscis). The moth hovers briefly, sipping for only a few seconds before darting off to a new flower, just like a hummingbird.

The Hummingbird Clearwing Moth is native to Georgia and can be found throughout the eastern half of the U.S. and Canada. Its host plants include honeysuckle, hawthorns, viburnum, and black cherry. Their caterpillars are often referred to as “horn worms” due to having a horn-like tail. They are in the family Sphingidae, a group also known as Sphinx Moths or Hawk Moths. This family includes the notorious the tomato hornworm as well an estimated 850 other species worldwide.

To see a bit of the amazing hummingbird/sphinx/hawk moth diversity see this site: http://www.whatsthatbug.com/sphinx_moth_2.html

To see a previous post on the tomato hornworm see:
http://katalystdesigns.blogspot.com/2007/06/hornworm.html

golden orb weaver

Yesterday I caught the golden orb weaver spider (Argiope aurantia) that lives on our deck wrapping up its latest victim. She had spun silk around it so fast I did not get to see what it was; I did notice it was about fly or small bee size.
Like all spiders, the orb weaver is carnivorous. They spin a typical spider shaped web to capture small flying insects such as aphids, flies, grasshoppers, and bees. A female can take prey up 200% of her own size!

The web can be up to two feet across and in the center of the web, the spider will hang, head down, waiting for prey. Often, she holds her legs together in pairs so that it looks like an X. They typical take down their web and rebuild it each night.

To learn about orb weaver spiders see:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Argiope_aurantia.html

To read a previous post about orb weaver reproduction see:
http://katalystdesigns.blogspot.com/2007/03/waiting-patiently.html

Heat Wave

During heat waves like this current week’s, birds can suffer from heat illness just like humans. To deal with the heat, birds have a few behaviors they can use to avoid over heating. They will seek shade, pant (also called gular fluttering), hold their wings out away from their body, and bathe.

You can help the birds around your home deal with the heat by providing a bird bath that can be a source of drinking water as well a place to bathe.


Here are some tips:

• Empty and refresh the water daily to keep it clean and free of mosquito larvae.
• If possible, try to place your birdbath where shade will be during the hottest part of the day.
• Remember that smaller birds prefer shallow water. A few stones placed in the middle of the bird bath will provide smaller birds a place to perch.

Also:

• Clean hummingbird feeders and refresh their sugar water regularly. Very warm conditions can lead to the growth of dangerous bacteria and fungi. We have been changing and cleaning our hummer feeder every 1.5 days.
• Keep any seed feeders clean of refuse where germs could breed and spread.

More Monarchs!

We have a new batch of monarch caterpillars taking over our milkweeds. They just hatched two days ago and have already more than tripled in size!

To read past posts about monarchs see: http://katalystdesigns.blogspot.com/2007/06/monarch-caterpillars.html
http://katalystdesigns.blogspot.com/2007/04/first-of-season.html

Milkweed Bugs

If you have milkweed plants, not only are you likely to attract monarch butterflies, but also milkweed bugs! The milkweed plants in our backyard currently have several milkweed bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus) congregated on them. They are a “true bug” found in the order Hemiptera.

They feed on milkweed and other related plants. Using their long proboscis, they pierce the milkweed seeds and inject a salivary enzyme which digests their food, then they suck it up.

Milkweed bugs are native to this region and can be found most places east of the Rocky Mountains. They are reddish-orange in color (much like the monarch butterfly) and have black markings. You can easily distinguish males from females by looking at their ventral (under) side: males will have two black bar markings and females will have dots.Milkweed bugs are one of a small group of insects that have the ability to tolerate the toxic compounds found in the milkweed plant. They are important in regulating populations of this plant. They have few predators due to absorbing the bad tasting compounds found in the sap of milkweed plants they eat. And just like the monarch, they use their bright colors to advertise their bad taste. Inexperienced birds that taste their first milkweed bug are unlikely to try to eat another orange and black insect.

References:
Bugs of the World
Discover Entomology

Clean Your Feeders

This past week a House Finch with what may be conjunctivitis was spotted at one of our bird feeders. Conjunctivitis is a respiratory infection caused by a unique strain of the bacterium Mycoplasma gallisepticum. It is a common pathogen in domestic turkeys and chickens, and poses no known threats to humans.
This disease was first seen in House Finches 1993-94 in Virginia and Maryland. It then spread to states along the East Coast, and has now been reported throughout most of eastern North America, as far north as Quebec, Canada, and as far south as Florida. It has also rarely appeared in other bird species such as American Goldfinches, Purple Finches, Evening Grosbeaks, and Pine Grosbeaks; all of them are members of the family Fringillidae.

While at first it was an epidemic, knocking back almost half the population of House Finches in the east, it is now in restricted to a smaller percentage of the population, about 5% to 10% of the eastern House Finch population has this disease.

Birds that are infected with conjunctivitis have red, swollen, runny, or crusty eyes and in extreme cases the eyes become swollen shut or crusted over. This causes the bird become essentially blind. If the infected bird dies, it is usually not from the conjunctivitis itself, but rather from starvation, exposure, or predation as a result of not being able to see.

So what do you do when you see an infected bird? According to the House Finch Disease Survey conducted by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology you should:
Take down your feeders and clean them with a 10% bleach solution (1 part bleach and 9 parts water). Let them dry completely and then re-hang them. Also, rake underneath the feeder to remove old seed and bird droppings.

They also suggest these following these guidelines for feeder hanging to reduce the spread of any bird disease:


1) Space your feeders widely to discourage crowding. If crowding is an issue, such that your feeder or feeders cannot accommodate all the finches (or other birds) visiting them at one time, consider adding more feeders to reduce crowding.

2) Clean your feeders on a regular basis with a 10% bleach solution solution (1 part bleach and 9 parts water) and be sure to remove any build-ups of dirt around the food openings. Allow your feeders to dry completely before re-hanging them.

3) Rake the area underneath your feeder to remove droppings and old, moldy seed.

4) If you see one or two diseased birds, take your feeder down immediately and clean it with a 10% bleach solution.


To learn more about conjunctivitis and/or to take part in their survey see:
House Finch Disease Survey conducted by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology