Great Blue Heron

Some years back, my photographer friend Joe Motto took my favorite wildlife picture above.  It is a great egret, Ardea alba, related to our herons.  It is so dramatic that it screams "photoshop" but it isn't.  Their style of dining is similar to our great blue heron, (GBH), Ardea herodias.

The GBHs are back from their winter vacation and now are patrolling the creek for dinner.  For years I have tried to get a good photograph of one, but have never been able to sneak up without flushing it.  I was surprised at the series of pictures I was able to capture last week.  Lacking Joe's patience, talent, time, equipment, and photo blind, I substituted dumb luck.  I was driving across the creek and saw this heron standing on a gravel bar downstream.  I rolled down the window and shot a series out of my "truck blind."

The GBH is a study in contrasts.  Its croaking call is an mixture of raucous guttural squawks, a sound like clearing your throat while speaking with a German accent.  Its long legs and awkward appearance contrasts with its stately gait, resembling an Elizabethan dance.



Its patience as it stalks its prey is impressive.  Slow measured steps barely seem to disturb the water.  It will hold its pose, neck in a beautiful S-shape like a ballerina, patiently frozen until like a  lightning strike it nails its prey.

Once it strikes it usually has its fish prey sideways in its pointed beak.  Patiently holding the flapping victim, occasionally shaking it or plunging it into the water, it flips it slightly, releasing it to turn it around until positioned head first and then it's rapidly down the gullet.

Gotcha!

Moving it toward the mouth

Down the hatch!

When I got home and downloaded the pictures, I was startled by the results.  The only thing I was missing was Joe's open mouth shot as it tosses the fish up to catch it like a kid eating a piece of popcorn.

Heron with a rodent appetizer- Joy Motto

Great blue herons will eat nearly anything within striking distance, including fish, reptiles, amphibians, rats and gophers, insects, and other birds.  They have been known to choke to death by taking on a fish too long for their S-shaped necks.  What they can swallow is incredible as seen in this video where it rejects a smaller fish for a larger meal.  As incredible as that is you can also watch it gulping down a gopher.

They look awkward in flight, especially as during takeoff.  Don't let that fool you, they have a heavy carrying capacity.

Joe and Joy Motto travel extensively, photographing wildlife with a special emphasis on birds.  You can see more at his naturescapes.net portfolios.

End of the Morels

It is with great sadness that I announce the end of morel season along Bull Creek.  You who have hunted the deep recesses with us where they are most likely found know that we have a limited number that we are willing to share with you (maybe 2, depending on the year).  None of our other friends should feel bad.  We would gladly share our food, drinks, company, even our third born child, (unlikely in that we have 2 children in their 40's and are holding), but morels are a little more special.

Our first morel - really!

Our gradual descent into Morel Madness began in 1998, shortly after we moved to Bull Creek.  We were on ATVs when Barb spotted one under a red oak, a technique we call drive-by mycology.  We had seen just enough pictures of morels to recognize it.  Cutting it in half and confirming it was hollow, we celebrated that find, then found no more for a year.

Our knowledgeable friend told us to look for them around oak, hackberry and hickory, and dogwood trees and under every may apple, "while I will waste my time looking under those ash trees over there."  This was  our first hard lesson in morel friendships.

Find the morel

Morels can be hard to find, especially in a year like this one where snow hasn't been deep enough to compact the leaf litter.  The tips may barely protrude and a squirrel-chewed walnut or acorn cap looks like a small morel at first glance.  Starting out, it pays to hold a morel in your hand to focus the image in your mind.  Of course, you have to find the first one for that to work.

If only it were this easy.

This fungal fruit is one that separates the men from the boys, the women from the men, and your best-friend-ever from your blood-brothers.  More friendships have been destroyed by keeping the "honey-holes" secret than ever were threatened on any reality show.

Morel hunting creates a wide range of emotions.

If you think about it, it makes sense.  Bragging rights and competition in finding the most or the biggest can destroy friendships.  Morels are best consumed fresh, are more addictive than anything on the FDA's website, and are shared at greater risk than a DEA helicopter's coordinates for a marijuana patch.  And did I mention that they are beautiful?

Morel beauty from "Mushroom Annie"

That said, because you are a regular follower of this blog, we have a special relationship beyond blood brothers and sisters.  I am going to share with you directions to the special place we call our "honey hole".

Head down US 65 beyond Hollister.  Just after you cross the Arkansas state line, turn left (you know the road).  They are two miles down on the right.  Don't tell anyone I told you.  It will be our secret. Wink.

Eight Pointed Trout Lily

Linda Ellis sent me this picture of a trout lily with eight petals on one flower and six on the other.  She did it just to send me "down the rabbit hole" of botanical oddities in search of a cause.  I finally  emerged with the help of more knowledgeable friends.

When searching flowers with extra petals, most references are to "double-flowered" plants such as roses and carnations.  These are flowers inside of flowers, giving the appearance of a complete reproduction of the  blossom.  Most of these are sterile and are propagated by cuttings as their normal stamens have been re-purposed by the plant into a new set of petals.  There is a good video on flower development at USCD.edu that explains the genetics and this link demonstrates how flowers develop.

On the other hand, Linda's trout lily was a single specimen with two extra petals.  This can be common in some species where a flower can have 5-10 petals, such as rue anemone, Thalictrum thalictroides, as discussed in a past blog .

Dr. Michelle Bowe* explained that it is likely a meristem mutation in the flower bud itself.  The meristem is undifferentiated tissue in areas of the plant where growth can take place. If the mutation was in the whole plant, both flowers would have 8 tepals.

What I called six petals are actually tepals, three petals and three petal-like sepals.   Wikipedia explains "A tepal is the term used to identify one of the outer parts of a flower (collectively the perianth) when these parts cannot easily be divided into two kinds, sepals and petals.

If the two stems both had eight tepals, the mutation would be in the stem itself.  Mutations are just a normal part of life, and sometimes it may just be one gene (like the gene that controls the flower bud). This is important to remember the next time you think you have identified a flower but it has the "wrong" number of petals, tepals, or whatever.

* Professor of Biology, Missouri State University
A more detailed technical explanation from Dr. John Heywood is here.

Trout Lily

Trout lilies (Erythronium albidum) - Photo by Linda  Ellis

There is always a sadness in the passing of the spring ephemeral wildflowers.  Trout lilies are losing their blossoms this time of year, leaving just their mottled leaves and tubers to gather energy for the next blooming season.  We have both yellow and white species but that is just the beginning of the family.

Trout-like speckling of the leaves

There are 20-30 species of trout lilies in the Erythronium genus.  Their name "trout lily" comes from the mottled appearance of their trout-shaped leaves, a defining feature which persists into the summer.  They are also called dog toothed violets because of the shape of the tubers - long, pointed, off-white and shiny, although they in no way resemble a violet.



The yellow petals belong to E. rostratum, a species found in the south-central US.  This is the only Erythronium species with erect rather than nodding flowers as are seen below.  Their habitat, "Mesic woods, often in flood plains and along waterways, also on shaded lower ledges of bluffs," perfectly describes the areas where we find them carpeting the forest floor.

The common white flowered species in Missouri are Erythronium albidum.  These are perennial with a small corm (tuber) several centimeters underground that can send out stolons to produce more plants until they cover the ground, looking like the pool of trout at the hatchery.  They, like many other plants that grow in shaded moist areas, are threatened by invasive garlic mustard.

The leaves are said to be edible and the corms supposedly have a cucumber taste.  Why you would destroy a beautiful little plant for a tiny corm is beyond me, especially when they go on to say that "Trout lilies are an emetic (makes you throw up), therefore it is recommended not to eat mass quantities of these in one day."  To me emetic and edible don't belong in the same sentence.

The trout lily flower has six petals - except when it has eight as explained in a future blog.

Little Pollinators

Fuzzy Butt strikes again

A wide variety of tiny flying insects were swarming the newly opened blossoms on our wild plum trees (Prunus americana) along the lane.  I set up to photograph them, focusing on one branch or another and firing wildly as they settled for a second or less before sampling another blossom.  I shot 150 pictures just to capture a few good pictures.  I could relate to the infinite number of monkeys at their infinite number of typewriters (word processors?) trying to reproduce the works of Shakespeare.

Proboscis deep in a blossom

One particular insect species was all over the trees, plunging head first into the blossoms.  All I could see was its brown rear sticking up and I named it "Fuzzy Butt" for lack of a better identification.  A few pictures showed a slender proboscis drilling deep into the nectar pool.  After two days of photographing it, one of the FB's decided to land on the gravel driveway and I was able to capture it.

Bee Fly- Bombylius major

FB turns out to be a BF, a bee fly, Bombylius major.  These are bee mimics, looking and flying like them.  The proboscis is impressive, looking lethal but actually harmless.  Notice in the flower pictures that the wings don't show up.  The fly feeds with its wings flapping continuously as it clings to the flower with its legs.

The bee fly has another bee connection.  The female will fly close to a digging bee burrow and flick her eggs into the hole.  When her young emerge they will feed on both the stored food and the bee larvae.  She may also lay eggs on flowers which draw host insects.  Her larvae then can attach to a visiting bee or wasp and get a free ride to their home.

There were at least 5 other species visiting the flowers although they were rapid and impossible to identify.  Plum blossoms are small, but much larger than most of the flowers this time of year.  Their nectar is deep inside the blossom so bee flies are especially well equipped to reach it.

Unknown fly

Several other insects much smaller that the individual petals plunged deeply into the heart of the blossom, tiny unidentifiable black dots which remain anonymous.  A few flies of different species fought their way into the nectar pool.  There are only a few butterflies that come to nectar at this time of year and so the plum remains dependent on its diverse insect friends.

When we think of pollinators at all, we tend to focus on bees and butterflies, but there is a lot more fertilization action going on in those blossoms.  There is a huge list of plum pollinators listed at Illinoiswildflowers.info.  As Paul McCartney would have said if asked, "they get by with a little help of their (little) friends."

Orangetips of Spring

Falcate orangetip on spring beauty

This picture summarizes early spring, a falcate orangetip butterfly clinging to a spring beauty*, each of which is a harbinger of the season.

If you go into the woods now, you will notice a tiny white butterfly flitting frenetically around, and occasionally you may even notice a flash of orange on its tiny wing.  It may stop occasionally for a nectar load but usually it just appears confused.  The orange tells us that it is a male falcate orangetip, Anthocharis midea, and he is on patrol, looking for what tickles his fancy, a lady falcate.



Although they both carry the orangetip name, only the males have the orange on the upper wing.  Both sexes have an intricate green marbling on the underwings, almost like lichen on a rock.  This is effective camouflage as long as they keep their wings folded shut at rest.

Note wing spot- Photo by Miles M. Buddy **

Once they have mated, the female will deposit a single egg on a mustard leaf, fortunately a common plant in nature.  This behavior is a necessary precaution as her caterpillars not only feed on mustard, usually the flower petals or seeds, but they will on occasion feed on their siblings, a charming little cannibalistic trait.  The female reduces this risk by leaving a pheromone on the leaf to discourage other butterflies from depositing more eggs.

Chrysalis - Kim Fleming

They fly for only a few weeks and then are through for the year.  Their young caterpillars will go through several instar stages, then pupate in May.  The chrysalis has a spike at the head, and attached to a branch it perfectly mimics a thorn.  They overwinter in the chrysalis, sometimes for two or more years.  It is no wonder that they are frantic when they take flight in the spring.

Female falcate orangetip lay an egg on a mustard

Two days later I had the opportunity to see a female falcate orangetip landing on some tiny mustard family plants in the field at Bull Creek.   She seemed to be very determined in her efforts, bending down the tip of her abdomen to touch the plant.



After getting a few suboptimal pictures, I pulled one of the mustards and found her tiny golden egg on the stalk.  It is a beautiful shiny golden-orange to the naked eye.  With magnification you can see it is fluted along its length.

After she had laid several more eggs, a male came by and tried to hit on her.  She must have given him a signal that she was already full as he immediately took off in pursuit of a more receptive female.

The falcates only have one generation a year, but that seems to be enough, considering how many are flying right now.  The message here is to look carefully when you see a butterfly on a leaf or stem and you may get to see the beginning of a new life.

* Spring Beauty, Claytonia virginica is interesting as well.  It is one of many plants whose seeds are spread by ants, a process called myrmecochory. The seeds have a fleshy organ called an elaiosome that attracts ants. The ants take the seeds to their nest, eat the elaiosomes, and put the seeds in their nest debris, where they are protected until they germinate. They also get the added bonus of growing in a medium made richer by the ant nest debris."

** Miles M. Buddy is a 14 y.o. naturalist from North Carolina whose bio is at this Bugguide link. 

For in interesting Orangetip view from Great Britain, see bobscotney.blogspot.co.uk

More Woodpeckers

Northern Flicker- Bob Moul

 We have always been interested in identifying a new bird but after a trip to Honduras with "real birders" and cataract surgery, it is a whole new game.  Spotting a bird flying into a tangle of branches and then finding it in the binoculars had previously been an exercise in frustration.

First, Brad Jacobs and Rick Thom taught me to stare at the bird's landing spot while bringing the binoculars up, never moving your eyes.  That was the most important lesson.  Next fix the cataract so you can actually see the bird's identifying markings.  (Learning bird calls is a whole other thing.)

This all came together last week up on the ridge when I heard three birds calling, announcing their territory.  The call was reminiscent of a red-bellied woodpecker that was in a hurry, the call higher pitched and compressed like a 33rpm record played at 45rpm.  That is a phonograph record for you kids.

I saw a bird fly to a distant snag tree and hang on the shady side like a woodpecker.  It was flying back and forth to another distant tree and I could hear it pecking at the wood.  I worked my way closer and could get brief glimpses of a white belly and a head that seemed more intensely red.  I got a couple of pictures at 45x before it flew away, confirming it was a red-headed woodpecker, a first for me.


Two days later I went on a mission to get a better photograph.  Starting out in the early afternoon when the light would be better, I sat at the base of a nearby tree with a good view of the snag.  After a brief nap in the afternoon sun, I heard the distant call repeated, just as I had heard on Allaboutbirds.com that morning.

This time the woodpecker flew in repeatedly, hanging on the shady side of the tree before flying off with its treasures.  The distant call of another red-head perked it up and it flew to the other side for a moment to look around and I got my shot.

Red-headed Woodpecker - finally!

On the way back home, I flushed a couple of birds in the field, tan colored but with the distinctive bobbing flight of a woodpecker.  One landed on a distant tree and Brad's lessons paid off again with a good view of a Northern flicker, seen above.

Flickers are woodpeckers with a little less wood.  They eat more beetles and ants, digging them out with their specialized bill, re-purposed with a slight curve for the dig.  I had seen woodpeckers frequently in the fields but had never had a good look before to see that these were woodpeckers of another color. 

Allaboutbirds.com mentions that you can find them by walking around the wooded edges of fields just like where we now see them.  They use their barbed tongue to pull out ants, a relatively messy meal compared to reaching into a pecked hole in wood. 

You can see more of the late Bob Moul's beautiful nature photography in these Pbase albums.