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