A Nice Little Chat

My Chat

The first rain in a month came across Bull Creek this morning, welcome wetness even though it postponed a planned nature hike with Steve and Amy.  Once it stopped I took the dogs down the lane and ended up having a trilling little chat...with a yellow-breasted chat.

There were a series of 4 different bird songs coming from high on a bare tree limb.  I couldn't make it out against the gray sky and returned with binoculars.  By then it had flown to the tip of a 30 foot dead tree trunk.  I spent the next 10 minutes watching as it repeatedly went through its repertoire, its throat bulging in song.

From allaboutbirds.org

I had never seen a chat before but guessed its identity by its bright yellow breast, its chattering song and a report on the GOAS* email of its presence along Red Bridge Road.  A series of 12x pictures from a pocket camera and some enhancement on I-Photo (ain't technology wonderful?)  confirmed the find.


A search of allaboutbirds.org produced better pictures and the sound file played a series of identical calls that  reproduced the serenade. 

Yellow-breasted chats hang out in "dense second-growth, riparian thickets, and brush," a perfect description of our overgrown, unburned glade.  They nest in dense shrubs where they also glean much of their food, holding it with their foot.

For a "non-birder," hearing and identifying this chat was a thrill.  I have to say that I even like my picture better than the professional's, as it creates a much more vivid memory.

* GOAS is Greater Ozarks Audubon Society
 

Tussock Moths

White Marked Tussock Moth

We have been hunting the last few days, using the guiding services of friends.  Hunting this time of year requires the stealth and cunning developed over thousands of years of evolution.  This is not about turkey hunting.  We are talking lepidoptera caterpillars, a.k.a. "cats."  Our goal was to find cats and avoid ticks but we managed to collect both.

I travel light with a point and shoot camera equipped with a good macro.  Our guide, Chris, carries a SLR with high power macro lens and specialized flash.  The army uses smaller weapons to destroy tanks.  He gets much better pictures but this is my blog, so this is what you get.

Adult moth

The White Marked Tussock Moth (Orgyia leukostigma)above is one of the most common tussock moth species.   Their bright color may serve to advertise their presence but their urticating hairs (called setae) can cause irritation for an unwary predator and may produce an allergic reaction in humans.

They are a striking caterpillar which grows into rather undistinguished moths with feathery antennae.  Like many other moths, the Orgyia species do not eat as adults.  Further, the female has only rudimentary stubs of wings and is flightless.  She remains near the cocoon and lays up to 300 eggs.

Unknown Tussock Moth-Click to enlarge

I haven't been able to identify the other moth pictured to the right.  I would welcome your detective work while I get ready to return to the hunt tomorrow.  (5-1-2012.  Kevin Firth has identified my mystery tussock moth on the right as a Yellow-Banded Tussock, Dasychira basiflava,)*

Hunting caterpillars has advantages over turkey hunting.

• They aren't heavy to carry back home.  
• They don't require cleaning or cooking.  
• We didn't have to go out at the crack of dawn.

And no caterpillars were hurt in producing this blog.

* Try your hand at Caterpillar ID at discoverlife.org.

Raisin' Robins

I just came across two new web sites of interest to Naturalists of all stripes.

Robin Nest
If you have had the experience of raising children, you realize how busy they keep you until they leave to go on their own.  A wonderful video shows the whole cycle in a little more than three minutes as lived by robin parents.

The scene is a hanging basket in an urban yard, complete with the sounds of life in the neighborhood.  I was captivated by the intensity of their parenting.  Especially poignant is the last few seconds where we relive the "empty nest syndrome."

Blowin' in the Wind

Bob Dylan wrote the line "The answer is blowin' in the wind," which implies that we don't know where the wind is blowing.  Now with Google, we can even see the wind, more or less.  A site using National Weather Service data creates a live map of the wind across the United States.

The wind map has no state boundaries and only a few cities, although more appear as you zoom in.  Moving lines indicate the direction and relative velocity.  Hover the pointer over an area and it gives the coordinates and actual wind velocity.  I haven't figured out a use for it, but its pretty cool.

It Isn't Easy Staying Green

Blue Snake of Bull Creek- Click to enlarge

I found this snake laying on the edge of the glade, quite dead and stiff. You will notice that the ten inch specimen is missing its tail end and some ribs are showing through the skin. I was hoping I had found the elusive Bull Creek blue snake, a species that hasn't been discovered or even talked about by anyone.

Its size, color and rough scales suggested it was the remains of a rough green snake that had been through hard times. I sent the pictures to Dr. Brian Greene of the Biology Department at MSU. His research is focused on the ecology and conservation of reptiles, particularly snakes.

He techniques include "utilizing mark-recapture techniques and radiotelemetry to address population-level questions involving foraging ecology, reproductive life history, demography, activity patterns, spatial ecology, and habitat selection." In other words, this otherwise intelligent scientist walks around the woods following and capturing snakes, including those venomous types that normal people would want to see only on the pages of the Missouri Conservationist.

Dr. Greene was kind enough to respond to my questions about the Bull Creek blue snake and confirm my guess.

"It’s definitely a rough green snake. For whatever reason the green pigment seems to break down quickly after they die, resulting in a bluish-gray looking animal. There must be some environmental influences on the chemistry of the pigments because fluid preserved specimens turn really dark instead."

The rough green snake, Opheodrys aestivus, is said to favor wetlands although we see them up along our glade as well.  It hunts during the day and night unlike many snakes.  Its main prey are insects and other arthropods which it swallows whole.  Although the females lay 2-14 eggs, they frequently have a communal nest with other females with up to 75 eggs total.  They need to have lots of babies as they are a nice swallowing size for birds and other snakes.

Dr. Greene's new squelched my hopes.  I already had my new species named- Cerulli kipferii var. Bullcreek.

Galls Again

Inky Cap Mushroom

Wednesday we hiked the woods with Maxine Stone in search of all things natural, and hopefully a few things fungal.  We checked the usual vulture eggs, baby bluebirds and lots of wildflowers and found one lonely inky cap mushroom.  Then we came across a small green ash tree with bizarre clusters of green growing on the stem.  Another gall!

Although the gall is on an ash flower rather than a leaf, it is created by an eriophyid mite, the same family that creates the leaf galls discussed a few days ago.  Eriophyes fraxinivorus helps us sex these dioecious trees as it feeds only on the tiny male ash flowers. Ash flower gall mites are too small to be seen without the aid of magnification.

New Ash Flower Gall- click to enlarge

Old gall above new gall

The ash flower gall mite (Eriophyes fraxinivorus) spends the winter hanging out beneath the ash flower buds.  In the spring they mate, begin feeding and eventually lay their eggs on the buds before they bloom.  Less than 1/50 inch, they enter the flower which at this stage appears closed to the unaided eye.

Once inside, their eggs cause the plant to form a totally different structure, the gall that will serve as both a secure home and a kitchen for the larvae as they eat the inner gall contents, develop and grow to adulthood.  After that, they mate, crawl out under the flower buds, and wait for next spring to resume the cycle.

The galls are initially green and hard to see up in a tall tree.  They turn brown late in the season and become more prominent after leaf fall.  Frequently there will be several years of old galls clustered on the branches.

Since ash trees are common in urban neighborhoods, the galls can cause a lot of homeowner concerns but they rarely cause real tree damage.  You can consider them either a pest or another fascinating life cycle in nature.

Crop Circles

One week later- Click to e

This spring we have noticed several crop circles in the lower field as the grass started to green up.  One was a perfect circle 36 feet in diameter while the other one was about 20 feet and an incomplete "C" shape.  We have never noticed them in the past, but probably just missed them.  They can be subtle at first unless you ride on the higher ground above them.

I am calling these phenomena natural "crop circles" for lack of a better word.  Look up the term in Wikipedia and you will find complex geometric designs and a host of theories on how they occur.  A skeptic would think of creative people with equipment while others are sure that they are from pranksters from outer space.

I suspect ours are caused by a fairy ring fungus.  A network of mycelia in the soil can expand each year into a bigger circle and affect the fertility of the plants.  It can be manifested in increased growth or dead zones which are symmetrical. This phenomenon is well described below in this colostate.edu resource.

"Fairy rings are reported to be caused by many (60) different soil-inhabiting fungi of the class Basidiomycetes. These fungi can cause the development of rings or arcs of deep green grass as well as unthrifty or dead grass. Rings may vary in size from a few inches to 200 feet (60 meters) or more in diameter with an annual radial growth of 3 inches (7.6 cm) to 19 inches (48 cm) depending on grass, soil and weather conditions."

I have only seen one other fairy ring, one that was discovered by our mycologically inclined friend Mark Bower.  It was in his woods and with all the understory growth it defied the camera.  Fairy ring fungi are covered in this Wikipedia article.

Fairy Ring- Wikimedia

The fruiting bodies of the fungi can crop up in a naturally occurring ring or arc of mushrooms. The diameter of the circles can grow or eventually stabilize in diameter.  Fairy rings can occur in forested areas such as Mark's or in grassy fields.  They may be seen as mushrooms sprouting in a circular pattern or just by a ring of dead or dark green grass like ours.

Leaf Fingers

Click to enlarge

Our friend and neighbor Willie brought a puzzle from his archery club.  Tiny fingers of purple curled up from the tip of an American elm leaf, one of many that they had found.  By the time I photographed it the next morning, both the leaf and the galls were drying up.

Elm finger galls, Eriophyes paraulmi, stand up a half inch from the upper leaf surface.  They are frequently curled and deformed, unlike many other leaf galls.

Most plant galls are produced by insects, but these are made by Eriophyid mites, eight legged relatives of ticks, spiders and other arachnids.  These mites produce finger-like galls on the leaves of maples, elms, black gum, black cherry, button bush, maple, viburnum, birch, linden, and even poison ivy.  More from Wikipedia:

Eriophyidae is a family of more than 200 genera of mites, which live as plant parasites, commonly causing galls or other damage to the plant tissues and hence known as gall mites. About 3,600 species have been described, but this is probably less than 10% of the actual number existing in this poorly-researched family. They are tiny, microscopic mites and are yellow to pinkish white to purplish in color. The mites are worm like, and have only two pairs of legs. Their primary method of population spread is by wind. They affect a wide range of plants, and several are major pest species causing substantial economic damage to crops.

These mites have their place in nature.  Most leaf galls do not cause substantial plant damage although a severe infestation may weaken the plant.  Some of the Eriophyid mites have been used as a biological control of selected invasive or unwanted species.  The bindweed gall mite, Aceria malherbae is used as a biological control against field bindweed.

Cherry Leaf Gall- click to enlarge

Finally they can produce some additional beauty as seen in this cherry leaf gall collection.