Yellow-throated Warbler

"Fuzzy Beak" the Bull Mills Yellow-throated warbler

Hanging out with birders gives us a whole new perspective on nature.  On a wildflower walk we can recognize birders as they are looking up when everyone else is scanning the ground.  They can frequently recognize a bird by its movement or behaviors - think of watching a robin's distinctive hopping around the yard.

A beak full of fuzz

We were sitting on our deck with Charley and Lisa when a small bird flew onto a tree trunk.  I figured it was one of the chickadees from the feeder but they immediately identified it as a Yellow-throated Warbler, Setophaga dominica.  I needed binoculars to confirm that the small black and white bird indeed had a yellow throat.

Looks like Home Depot to this warbler- Charley Burwick

It spent several minutes each trip working on one section of the trunk.
With magnification we could see a piece of string wrapped around the trunk. The bird was tenacious in attempts to get the string free but each time had to be satisfied with a few strands of nylon.  You can watch the tug-o-war in this video.

Birds are very resourceful in selecting nesting materials.  Man made materials are found increasingly in some bird nests as they move into the suburbs and find less nesting material in our mowed yards and manicured shrubs.  Even cigarette filters are incorporated in some urban nests and conceivably they could deter mites as discuss in a previous blog.  We will be discussing bird nests in a future blog.

This Bud's for You

This time of year could be hard on a squirrel. The last of the stored nuts are gone as are their favorite fruits and berries. To find food they usually have to go out on a limb.

In the early spring their main diet is tree buds which have a lot of stored energy for the year's growth.  To a squirrel this means good nutrition.  Once the buds are gone they switch to the tree blossoms.  We are seeing young squirrels out on the very tip of a branch, swaying in the wind.

Young squirrel reaching for  twig tips - REK

Like most animals they aren't too picky when they are hungry and even some herbivores like a little meat once in a while.  When food sources are scarce they will eat insects, mushrooms, grain and even bird eggs.  Birds? On rare occasions they will eat a bird or even a snake.

Squirrels will chew tree bark and twigs and no one knows why for sure as they can't digest cellulose.  They will use strips of tree bark in their nests but at other times they seem to chew just for the heck of it.  As rodents with constantly growing teeth they may be doing it to keep wearing their teeth down like a beaver.  We have a constant battle with ours chewing the painted shingle siding which covers an underlying concrete wall.  When I covered it with thin aluminum sheeting they chewed it!

Any skull or antler left in the woods for too long will have signs of squirrel chews.  The theory is that they are getting calcium which is otherwise missing in their diet, although it could be for tooth wear as well.  I leave an old deer skull on our deck which is chewed on daily but one squirrel still is chewing on our house.

Eastern gray squirrels are very territorial and will mark their area with urine and tree chews. They will chew bark and rub it with oral scent glands to mark their territory. A certified wildlife tracker friend spotted one of these marks on a large oak wolf tree in the middle of a field.

A final thought about what squirrels chew.  They are rodents.  Chewing is what rodents do.   They have rootless teeth that are constantly growing and need to be worn down.  It is not their problem, it is ours.

Bloodroot Bleeding

Sap oozing from cut leaf surface - Christine Chiu

On the Master Naturalist/Missouri Native Plant Society Wildflower Walk at Bull Creek we identified 54 species plus a few blossoming trees.  One of the most interesting if somewhat less showy now is the Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis).   While they had already bloomed and were forming seed pods, they are always entertaining for their novel characteristics.

Bloodroot leaf - Click to enlarge

To my untrained eye it is its distinctive leaf with palmate veins and 5-9 lobes plus minor lobes that catches my eye.  They are both glabrous and glaucous, great words with a personal meaning.  Glaucous refers to a covering of a whitish powder or waxy coating like the stems of the common raspberry stems. Glabrous refers means "without hairs of any kind," an easy definition for me to remember.

Bloodroot Flowers - REK

The early spring flowers are short lived, 1-2 sunny days while using its energy to produce a fragrant scent.  They are notable for their marked variation in size, number of petals and even their appearance.  Generally white, they occasionally produce pink petals.



Bloodroot get its name form the color of the sap that extrudes from its cut surface.   This colorful liquid was used by Native Americans as a dye as well as an antiseptic, a property that has been confirmed as antibacterial by modern medicine.

Sap oozing from cut leaf surface - Christine Chiu

We have been known to dig up a root on occasion to demonstrate its colorful sap but Christine Chiu took this to another level.  She pointed out a leaf which had tiny orange-red dots along a cut edge that resembled tiny mites.  It had been  apparently chewed by a critter - maybe a squirrel needing antibacterial properties for an inflamed gum?  On close examination, the orange dots were sap extruding from the cut surface!

Bloodroot seed capsule

The story only gets more interesting.  Their blossoms are replaced by a green seed capsule that will fade to yellow within days.  Then it will do what all plants (and also all animals) spend their lives trying to accomplish, release its seeds for a new generation before fading until next year.  The seeds are round and their colors are variable.

While our human ancestors first developed agriculture around 11,500 years ago, ants have been at it for much longer.  Each Bloodroot seed has a tiny white elaiosome, a packet of energy with protein and lipids like a miniature energy bar from a quick shop.  Ants pick up the seeds and transport them to their underground nest, providing food for the colony while planting the seed for next year's crop.

Since discovering Christine's demonstration of the "bleeding leaf," I find myself pinching off a corner of a Bloodroot leaf occasionally, just to watch nature work its wonders.

You can read more on Bloodroot in this previous blog.

Pawpaw Egg

I began searching for the first butterfly eggs last week, focusing on the Zebra Swallowtail.  Unlike many other species, the Zebra lay their eggs only on one plant species.  We have only a few places where they grow usually as small trees, so most of their early leaves are accessible.



I started with a grove of 25 small pawpaw which has produced results in the past.  I searched all the accessible leaves without any luck.  One leaf held a small nondescript insect larva, possibly an early instar of a moth species.  While I was trying to photograph it, a spider appeared on the leaf edge.

Soon the spider crossed the leaf and inspected the caterpillar at length.  Apparently it didn't pass the taste test as it left it alone.  I was about to give up when I saw a Zebra Swallowtail fly through the grove.  I decided to sit and wait a while.

After 20 minutes a Zebra returned, landing on three different leaves for only a second.  After it flew on I checked the leaves - no luck.  After another 20 minutes it returned, landed on the same leaf it had checked out before and curled its abdomen under the leaf.  When it flew away I checked the leaf and was rewarded with my first egg of the year.

There are two lessons from this.  Sitting quietly in the woods is relaxing and you may well be rewarded with something special.  Also, I have way too much time on my hands.

High Hopes

Behind our house on the gravel I came across an ant determined to transport a dead fly back home.  I followed it 15 feet, trying to get ahead of it while keeping it in macro focus.  It is amazing how fast an ant can move when you are trying to keep up with it on your knees.

Lifting it over the rocks and a "log"

The strength of an ant is incredible and after watching this one I think the ant in "High Hopes" might just be able to move the rubber tree plant.*  What caught my eye initially was its lifting the fly over huge boulders and the large "log" above which was twice its height.

Pushing it down the "highway"

Traffic jam

The ant would push it ahead when possible, turning to pull it up over obstacles.  Once it got to the hose it pulled the fly up and pushed it ahead like it was on I-44.   Aside from having to slow down because of a traffic jam from its nest mates headed the other direction it was smooth sailing.  Suddenly it hit the forest exit and entered the leaf litter where I couldn't go.

James Trager** tells me "The ant is taking home the fly as a protein meal for the younger members of her colony, the larvae.  Your ant appears to be Formica biophilica, or a close relative. There are four species in Missouri that look rather like this."

I hope the nest mates appreciate the ant's focus and stamina and give it the rest of the day off.  It probably will tell them all about the old man that was stalking it obsessively with his camera.

* For our younger readers born after 1959, here is a refresher.
** We will be hearing more wisdom from James Trager at next month's MN meeting.  A little overview of our Missouri ant ecology is here. 

Snake Strike

Waiting to come inside - REK

This spring snake season open with the mid-March appearance of our resident Western Rat Snake stretched out by our front door.  It usually is quite calm, moving slowly away if we get within a few feet, otherwise quite content to rest, presumable awaiting the arrival of the next small mammal.  Unfortunately, it makes a good living at our rural house.

This rat snake, Pantherophis obsoletus, moves cautiously at what appears to be its top speed even when disturbed.  This is deceptive as demonstrated by recent research.  Contrary to popular belief, a rat snake can strike its prey with the same speed as a rattlesnake.

Research reported in Nytimes.com shows a video comparison of P. obsoletus against a cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus), and the western diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox).  This dramatic strike speed in the video is equivalent to a car going 0-60 mph in less than a 10th of a second.  You can then compare the strike speed with the human's reaction in this video.

Snake-bite Jon - REK

My only experiences with holding a rat snake began with control of its head while stuck on a glue trap.  A handy hint for country living - you can free a snake (and in our case also a bat) by applying vegetable oil to dissolve the glue.  While a rat snake is not venomous, its bite can hurt.  The message here is don't think you can grab one before it grabs you.

Thanks to Dave Shanholtzer for sending the link. 

Semi-smooth Green Snake

While working on a trash cleanup at Valley Water Mill I saw a long piece of pale green cable draped across some shrubs and green briar.  It turned out to be a beautiful 27" long green snake.  It patiently held still for pictures but tried to slither out of my grasp.  It was smooth to touch, unlike the Rough Green Snake (RGS), Opheodrys aestivus, that we find commonly in SW Missouri.  I confidently identified it as a Smooth Green Snake (SGS) Opheodrys vernalis, until corrected by Jay Barber, our honored conservation educator.

Hanging out in the shrubs - REK

Jay pointed out that although it felt smooth, on close inspection it had the keels that usually would make the body feel rough on stroking.  I could see them with magnification but still wasn't convinced.  I even mentioned this to a botanist professor friend who said it wouldn't be a SGS in Missouri.  Time to research it.



It turns out that the last SGS seen in Missouri was over 35 years ago and it is considered extirpated in the state.  Also my specimen would be one inch longer than the record length, while the RGS grows up to 45 inches.  Jay wins.




The RGS is a beautiful snake with an intense gaze.  It seemed at times to be listening intently to our debate, or more probably sensing our vibrations, squirming excitedly, but it may have been just wanting to get away.  It was docile, never threatening and even seemed to relax with time.  When we released it, it left slowly - reluctant to leave?  No, probably just worn out by its new friends.

Big gaping jaws - Youtube

RGS reportedly are found in moist lands close to water although this one was up on the prairie.  Sometimes called grass snakes, they frequently are found up on shrubs as in this video where they hunt for insects such as grasshoppers.  On first glance, its mouth looks too small to hold a larger insect, let alone swallow one whole.

Dead blue snake - Bull Mills 2015   REK

This research also solves another Bull Creek mystery.  We found this dead and desiccated snake last April and couldn't account for its color. 

"After death, green snakes turn blue in dorsal coloration. Yellow and blue pigments in the skin fuse to produce the bright green color in the living snakes. After death, the yellow pigment breaks down very quickly, whereas the blue pigment is more stable and remains much longer." Herpnet.net

3-14-2018 Addendum
It turns out that the blue is in the refraction of the scales, mixed with the yellow pigment that has broken down.  See npr.org 

Snake in the grass