A Quick Walk Up The Hill

It’s bad enough in the winter when you go to work in the dark and get home in the dark, but it’s ridiculous when that happens to you in the summer. I’ve had a rough time this past week getting home before it was too dark to take photos. Last night the sun had set on the house, but I figured I could catch the last of the illumination if I headed up The Hill. The Hill is one of the places I go to have a quick look around when I have a few free minutes. I’ve been watching the progress of the growth in the field that was mowed last winter. Things are really looking nice and I think I ought to walk through there this weekend and get a closer look.

The fence row on the east side of the field is showing quite a few dead trees. Many of the dead are Sassafras, a species that tends to grow rapidly and die early. New shoots are constantly growing to replace what is lost. This is a wonderful area for watching foraging woodpeckers.

The sun has disappeared, leaving 88 degrees and a lot of humidity. Dew is already thick on the grass and a hazy fog is developing. I feel a sweaty weekend coming on.

As I headed back toward the house, I spotted a group of agitated birds moving along the edge of the field. In the center of the group was a bright blue bird with brownish shoulder patches. I’ve seen Blue Grosbeaks here before, but never at this time of year. When I took these shots, I knew it was too dark to get any clarity. I just hoped I could manage to get a shot that documented what I saw.

These photos are clear enough to validate the sighting of Blue Grosbeaks and would support a notation in my field notes stating that on July 23, 2010 approximately ten minutes after sunset I saw a pair of Blue Grosbeaks with what appeared to be four fledglings slightly smaller in size than the adult birds.

This is where the sighting occurred. The birds were around that clump of walnut sprouts to the right of the photo and moved out toward the center of the field at my approach. Over the weekend I’ll search further for the birds and take in a look in those walnuts for a recently used nest. I’ll have to put out of my mind the 72 billion chiggers that are in that field waiting for me.

Tall Bellflower

Tall Bellflower, Campanula americana, is a plant whose name I must relearn each year. It’s a member of the Bluebell family, but it doesn’t look like a bell. When the first Bellflower blooms appear, I invariably think “Ah, the Star Flower is blooming.” Well, it does look more like a star than a bell.

The flower attracts a variety of different insect species, most of which seem to be small flies, bees and beetles. This guy, looking like some type of seed beetle, moved slowly about the interior of the flower. These small insects seem to concentrate their activities at the center of the flower where they feed on nectar and pollen. I wonder what sort of activity occurs that results in the pollen getting out to the end of that long pistil where it can attach to the stigma. I’ve sometimes watched bees and beetles walk to the end of the pistil and use it as a sort of launch platform. This could very well result in pollen transfer, but that activity doesn’t seem to occur often enough to indicate an evolved pollination strategy.

The plant produces a succession of blooms over a long season. It’s one of the few blooming plants along the shady creek bank in July. I imagine that this would tend to increase the numbers of insect visitors to the flowers.

Tall Bellflower is a winter annual or biennial. This means that it must produce a good crop of viable seeds in order to maintain its position in the landscape and it does a remarkable job of performing that function. Each plant produces masses of easy to germinate seeds that have no problem producing plants for the next generation.

The bottom portion of the stalk has several leaves busily capturing and storing energy to be used for flowering and seed production. The plant won’t be surviving into the next year, so there’s no need to hold back stored energy for future growth. The thin stalk is strong and resilient enough to survive a lot of abuse. In the past two weeks, these plants have survived pounding rain, strong straight line winds and two bouts of ¼ inch hail. They remain in perfect shape.

The plant needs adequate moisture in order to thrive and dry conditions will radically deplete the population. In extremely dry years the only plants that seem to survive are those that grow along the edge of the creek where moisture would have been retained for the longest period. Despite the name confusion, I think it’s an attractive plant that really brightens up the shaded fields near the creek.

A July Pond

Some of you see a pond looking much like it did a couple of months ago and wonder why I consider it such a spectacular sight. The simple reason is, because I normally don’t have a pond in July. In a typical year the best I can manage in the third week of July is a mud flat. By August I should be able to walk across the bottom without getting mud on my shoes.

I love to dabble in water and this pond rates quite high in dabblability. I’ll spend many hours around the pond in the next few months watching various aquatic organisms colonize what now appears to be a permanent body of water. The reeds are taking advantage of the extra water to expand their colony.

The willows and dogwoods lining the bank also flourish in the wet soil. They’ll pay for their exuberance in the next dry year. Their life is one of expansion and die-back dictated by yearly fluctuations in weather patterns, but their patterns match stride for stride so neither has advantage at any time. Although there’s constant change, there’s also stability in the community as a whole.

Part of the pond bank is kept cleared. This is partly because the electric right-of way crosses the pond dam and partly because it’s really hard to dabble in the water when you have to fight the vegetation to get to it. This also gives a place for the Solitary Sandpiper to run when it visits each year.

For a pond that’s only 70 feet across at the widest point, there’s a great diversity of vegetation growing along the bank. Shrubs, grasses and forbs all have a place around the pond. There are moisture loving plants that appear here only in exceptionally wet years. This will be their year to replenish the supply of seed that tries each year to produce another generation of plants, but more often than not is doomed to die.

The crayfish love this kind of weather. There’s enough water coming in to allow a constant flow to travel through the crayfish burrow. The flow of water is not very fast, but it is constant. Around the edge of this burrow you can just see a slight downward bend to the algae and other detritus as it is gently pulled by the moving water. The scat lovers among us may notice the short segments of crayfish droppings down and left of the burrow. These were left by the owner of the burrow after a night trip around the pond bottom in search of food.

Eastern Cricket Frogs are everywhere. You can hear their clicking call day and night. This is a late breeding species that seldom has a chance to successfully breed in the pond. This may be their year.

The fun in having the pond hold water all year is the opportunity to see species like this Twelve-Spotter Skimmer, that don’t normally visit. I also enjoy seeing the speed at which organisms take advantage of what is essentially a newly developed habitat. New amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, insects and a host of other invertebrates seem to appear every day to claim a part of this virgin territory. They may remain for a year or two, or they may die without producing a new generation, but the ability to exploit this new resource is a fascinating study.

I don’t think anything as beautiful as the Common Green Darner should have “common” as part of its name. Common should be replaced with Brilliant or Spectacular. A late season pond is the only thing that gets these big dragonflies to sit still long enough for a good look. Most years I must be content with watching the Green Darner flocks looping and buzzing over the fields. If I find one at rest, it’s because it was injured. As long as the pond has water, I’ll get a lot of good views of this species. Rain on the way means pond’s gonna stay. I just made up that saying. I can hear thunder in the distance.

Some Insect Fliers

Last year I saw an extra abundance of Robber Flies. These large, hairy predators lined the walking paths, waiting to dart out and seize some small flying prey. So far this year, they’ve been rather scarce. This mating pair is working hard to see that the population increases.

Crane flies are beginning to become more abundant. This one was acting even more ungraceful than your average Crane Fly and landed on this leaf after falling off the one above. Judging by the light color, I’m going to attribute its bumbling flight to the possibility that it just recently emerged as an adult.

Giant Swallowtail butterflies are having a super year. I’ve been seeing three or four at a time around the Monarda patch. Unfortunately, I have yet to get a shot of one of these gorgeous creatures that’s in focus. They keep their wings in constant motion and tend to hover rather than settle on the flower. As abundant as they are now, I should have several opportunities to get that elusive focused shot.

Bee Flies are great. They look threatening, but don’t bite or even bother to investigate humans. Many have coloration along the wing veins that makes them more attractive than a lot of the small, brown skippers. In fact, they often resemble butterflies when seen perched on a flower, their primary food source. The larvae are parasitic, but fortunately for us, they parasitize insects.

Well, it’s not flying yet, but it will be before long. This Monarch caterpillar is at rest beneath a milkweed leaf. Signs of feeding were quite evident at the top of the plant. It wasn’t until I got my face almost to the ground that I could see what had been doing the feeding. Despite the abundance of milkweeds at Blue Jay Barrens, I rarely see Monarch caterpillars. It’s always a joy when I do.

Three-Parted Leaves

I walked into a tiny open area dominated by mosses and noticed a small Poison Ivy plant. Beside the Poison Ivy was another three leaved plant and the old saying “Leaves of three, leave it be” jumped to mind. I thought about how sad it would be for people to miss knowing so many plants just because they couldn’t tell Poison Ivy from all the rest of the triple leafers. Within that little twelve foot diameter clearing, I photographed all the various three parted leaves I could find.

Here’s that Poison Ivy, on the left in the picture, with a young Hop Tree, Ptelea trifoliata. Anyone in this clearing who feared leaves of three should be getting nervous by now.

Certainly no one is going to fear the tiny clovers such as this Black Medic, Medicago lupulina. I’m not afraid of it, but since it’s a non-native, I’m not really happy to see it producing so much seed.

The Black Medic flower is fairly easy to recognize. The small blooms appear as tiny spots of yellow hovering near the ground.

The Trailing Bush Clover, Lespedeza procumbens, poses no threat. This plant looks like it tried to stand, but collapsed in exhaustion.

Another sprawling type plant is the Prostrate Tick Trefoil, Desmodium rotundifolium. The leaflets can measure a couple of inches across and always look too large to me. I find it most often I partly shaded areas where you would expect leaves to be larger in order to capture adequate sunlight.

The Large-Bracted Tick Trefoil, Desmodium cuspidatum, is a handsome specimen. Being a plant of the woodlands, it thrives in this partial shade and will be blooming later this summer.

Hog Peanut, Amphicarpaea bracteata, is a viney plant that is much more common at Blue Jay Barrens than is Poison Ivy. A hiker fearing three leaflets would not get very far hiking around here.

So many three parted leaves in such a small area. It would be a shame to miss a treat of Wild Strawberries just because they waved triple leaflets in your direction. It’s not hard to learn to recognize the plants you should avoid. Then you’re free to get to know all the other plants you’ll find in your travels.

Numbers 525 & 526

I continue to slowly add new species to my Blue Jay Barrens plant list. Number 525 is the Starry Campion, Silene stellata, a plant that grows in the open woods. The petals look as though they were shredded in a storm, but that is their normal appearance.

The leaves grow in whorls of four around the stem. Characteristics like this really narrow your choice of possibilities when you find a new plant. I probably would have walked right by this plant without giving it any notice if a shaft of sunlight hadn’t been illuminating the bloom.

I’ve seen Number 526 before, but never when it was flowering. This is St. Andrew’s Cross, Hypericum stragulum. The four petaled flower has four sepals; two are long and broad, while the other two are short and narrow.

St. Andrew’s Cross is actually a low growing shrub with sprawling branches. The plant is heavily browsed by deer which may explain why I’ve never before seen it in bloom.

The leaves look very much like those of the St. Johnsworts with which St. Andrew’s Cross is included. I think I’ve always recognized the relationship even though I couldn’t identify the species.

I found this patch growing in one of the barrens openings. I remember seeing it in past years, but can’t say for sure how old this clump might be. Now that I know what it is, I’ll certainly be paying more attention in the future.

Clouded Sulphur Butterflies

Clouded Sulphurs, Colias philodice, are one of the most common butterflies in Ohio and can be seen in practically any open area. They are also kind of jumpy when approached and I’ve had a lot of trouble getting a descent picture of this species. My luck changed yesterday when I got this shot of a Clouded Sulphur nectaring on Butterfly Weed.

While I was viewing the first photo to see if it was at all in focus, a second individual landed on the same milkweed plant. This is a white color morph of the same species. It’s not uncommon for female Clouded Sulphurs to be very light yellow or completely white. How very fortunate to get identifiable shots of both colors.

Then my luck got even better. Sulphurs rarely open their wings while sitting, so it’s really difficult to get shots of the upper wing. The yellow individual suddenly began a courtship display in front of the female. He hovered and she responded by opening her wings and raising her abdomen. Males of this species have a solid black border along the outside of the wings, while females have a series of spots within the black border of the front wing.

Next came a bouncing display by the male. While hovering, he would rise several inches and then drop suddenly almost on top of the female’s head. The female produced several quivers and wing flaps during this part of the display.

Suddenly, the male shot into the air. The female was quick to follow and they began performing a tight circling maneuver that made them appear as a load of laundry tumbling in the drier. As quickly as it began, it was over and the two broke apart and headed in separate directions.

The male came back to the Butterfly Weed and resumed drinking nectar. I guess something just wasn’t right for the two to mate. Maybe the whole thing was performed just so I could get a few pictures.