Ant Swarm

Everybody likes a good swarm and ants are master swarmers.  I believe this species is Acanthomyops interjectus, AKA Larger Yellow Ant, one of several that produces a lemony fragrance.  They nest behind the brick wall of our cellar and release thousands of winged queens around this time every year.  Usually the swarm takes wing in the basement, but this year’s warm weather may have altered their pattern to an outside departure. 

Workers are a yellow or copper color.  Other similar species share this appearance and identification comes down to things such as eye size, hair placement and body size.  I hope I was looking at the right things as I worked my way through the ant key.

Winged females stage beneath rocks and other cover or in shallow subterranean chambers.  When it comes time to leave the nest, the workers rapidly open passageways and shoo the fliers out of the nest.

The workers provide some protection during the exodus, but I think their primary function if to persuade the unfertilized Queens to get out and fly.  Workers are quite apt to give a laggard Queen a little bite of encouragement.

Once the Queens get moving, the action proceeds at a frantic pace.  The goal is to become airborne, mate and settle down somewhere to start a new colony.

The way they climb over one another, it’s a wonder any of them ever take off.  The literature identifies late summer as the breeding time for these ants.  Early spring swarms are described, but no winged males are reported.  I know that in all the years I’ve been watching this colony, I’ve never seen a spring time male.  So I’m puzzled as to what happens to all of these departing Queens if there are no males out there waiting.

After successfully mating, the Queen will shed her wings.  With no males in the vicinity, there could be no mating, but when the swarming activity began to reach its end, I noticed several wingless queens.  Most were wandering the ground in an apparent search for a secluded spot.  A few stuck with their winged colony members.  These may have disappeared back into the protective chambers with the Queens that didn’t make it into the air.  This swarm is in its fourth day with activity beginning about a half hour before sundown and ending about 20 minutes later.  The swarm suddenly erupts from the ground and at some silent signal, all the ants that haven’t flown are suddenly sucked back into their tunnels.

Not all of the hopeful Queens survive the flight.  Water is a death trap.  I frequently find winged Queen ants floating in the Water Garden.  When the flight originates only a few feet away, the number of floating ants really adds up.

The bounty isn’t wasted.  Just about everything likes to eat Queen ants.  Frogs cleaned up most of the swimming ants.  Water Striders also took advantage of the glut of food.  Apparently mating doesn’t interfere with eating, at least for the female.

Native Bee Swarm

The bee swarm on the barrens has come early this year.  I was out trying to determine just what the bees were trying to accomplish.  There were bees both on the ground and in the air that all seemed to be interacting in some way.

The area of activity was this steep, south facing slope of short grass and bare soil.  Hundreds of bees participated in the frenzy that covered a circular area roughly 60 feet across.  This annual event always occurs in this same location and has never been found anywhere else on the property.

Mating was a definite priority activity.  The ground was littered with small clusters of male bees competing for a female.

What I was trying to figure out was the relationship between the bees and the various holes in the ground.  Some holes were shallow excavations of less than a quarter inch deep.

Other holes were surrounded by a pile of debris that suggested a substantial underground excavation.

Still others showed no signs of any sort of digging.

The thing they all had in common was bee activity.  This bee stayed at the entrance to the hole as if it were a guard.  It would retreat inward when approached and come back to the entrance once the danger had passed.

Bees on the wing were constantly coming in low to investigate the hole, but the guard would not leave.  Mounded holes without guards were frequently entered.  What I assumed was the same visiting bee would leave the hole a couple of seconds later.

Bees behaved similarly in the unmounded holes.  I speculated that the mounded holes were for newly constructed brood chambers and the others were empty chambers from which this year’s brood emerged.  It just seemed that the entering and exiting of holes was too random for bees preparing brood chambers.  I also thought it possible that the visiting bees were all males searching for newly emerged females.  It probably requires more than an hour of casual observation to piece together the whole story.

Toad Song

There’s usually more than a couple of days span between the first call of the Spring Peeper and the first song of the Eastern Toad.  My calendar records show Peepers normally active in late February and Toads showing up around April 1.  This year, Peepers preceded the Toads by only two days.  Peeper numbers have also been much lower than normal.  Daytime highs have been pushing 90 degrees, which I think is just too much for cool weather frogs.  The toads are breeding full force and the predicted continuation of warm weather should give them plenty of time to get their eggs laid before cool conditions return.

Toads usually stop calling when illuminated by a flashlight, but you can easily coax them back into action by producing a gurgly whistle.  In preparation of inflating the throat, a toad will inflate its body through a series of little breaths.  Then it will contract its body muscles to force the air into its throat pouch.  This guy has just finished the body inflation.

The call travels a long way.  It doesn’t take long for the pool to fill with toads.

Bullfrogs and Green Frogs are also wide awake and active.  They haven’t begun calling, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened soon.  There were no large frogs at all living in the Water Garden at the end of last season.  These found their way here during one of our warm late winter rains.

This large Bullfrog had some particularly handsome markings.  I’ll have to move him out of here before he begins making meals of the smaller frogs.  A pool with Bullfrogs usually turns into a pool with JUST Bullfrogs.

Creek Salamanders

A light shower on a warm evening prompted me to take a stroll along the creek to see if any salamanders might come out of hiding.  Within seconds of reaching the creek, I noticed a Dusky Salamander moving across the gravel.  This species usually keeps beneath the flat rocks, but I thought the recent flood disturbance to the creek channel might have left a few displaced salamanders in its wake.  A light rain provides ideal conditions for traveling about in search of a new home.

Salamanders that have moved into the open on their own, as opposed to those that are suddenly exposed by the lifting of their sheltering rock, are normally approachable and easy to observe.  I stopped the wholesale flipping of rocks as a youngster when I noticed that each subsequent flip revealed fewer organisms.  Now I try to take advantage of those occasions that salamanders naturally withdraw from cover.

Dusky Salamanders are not large, but mature specimens will develop a stout body and thick tail that gives them a chunky appearance.  I believe the swellings on the side of the neck identify this as a male in breeding condition.

Not far down the channel, I found a Two-lined Salamander.  These little guys are shorter and much thinner than the Dusky.  Both species are very common, so if you look for salamanders in the creek you really expect to find these two.

This individual appeared to be hunting.  It moved methodically through the rocks by pulling itself slowing forward and then stopping for several seconds.

I thought that the salamander had found some prey, but it lifted its head and proceeded forward.  It’s a treat to watch animals behave as they would without human interference.  Despite the brightness of these shots, the sun had already set and because of the cloud cover, it was quickly getting dark.  I finally had to leave the salamanders to go about their business while I headed back to the house.

Last Look at Winter

I make seasonal treks up The Hill for the specific purpose of taking a last look at conditions that I know are about to make a rapid and drastic change.  The equinox trips preface the most dramatic transformations.  The color has changed some, but this Indian Grass field has remained essentially unchanged for almost five months.  Prairie flowers will soon crowd into the grass stalks. By late summer, these stalks will be lost from view and a new stand of Indian Grass will take over the field.

The grasses are shorter on the crest of The Hill, but the dead stalks will also disappear with the rapid influx of summer green.  Decomposition begins at ground level, causing the dead material to lose its anchorage.  As the new growth rises, the old falls.  The transition is accomplished so smoothly that you’re sometimes left wondering how it happened.  As soil temperatures rise in the late spring, soil micro-organisms associated with the prairie ecosystem begin to feed heavily on soil surface organic matter.  This not only causes a rapid reduction in the amount of dead material, it releases nutrients necessary to the development of the growing prairie plants.  Dead matter goes while the prairie plants grow.  It always reminds me of how people in the old movies could slip quietly out of sight in a pool of quicksand.

The Eastern Red Cedars will soon shed their winter browns and yellows.  The varying colors make each tree stand out as an individual.  Warm spring days will make them merge back into a solid green screen.

The view down the valley will be lost as the deciduous trees regain their leaves.  Each year, the trees grow slightly taller and block a bit more of the view.  The summer view has nearly disappeared.

The leafing of the woods is like pulling a curtain.  The illusion of having a functional deciduous forest returns.  The woods is roughly 30 acres positioned in a long strip along the back of the property.  At its widest point it’s just over 600 feet.  It acts as a forest ecosystem only on the smallest of scales.  Even so, it’s nice to see it green up each year.

Leaves will apply that same illusion inside the woods.  During the winter, you have to look longways through the woods to gain a sense of depth.  The summer view is more restricted, so if you’re lucky enough to be out when there’s no traffic on the road and no trucks on the nearby highway and no one shooting on the next ridge and no one running their chain saw down the hollow and no one riding around on their four-wheeler, you might imagine yourself in the deep woods far from civilization.

We can’t forget the changing of the deer from their winter gray to summer red.  I’m sure they’ll do all they can to boost the Blue Jay Barrens Whitetail Deer population.  This is also the time of year that I concede to a change in management seasons.  Those winter jobs that were not completed will just have to wait until next year.

Black Racer

Most people use the phrase “A snake in the grass” in reference to an undesirable situation.  I’ve always considered a snake in the grass to be a positive condition calling for investigation and celebration.  This Black Racer is giving what I like to call the Jurassic Park pose.

A dark face and pale nose usually indicate a racer.  Racers may act aggressively if captured, but will normally retreat from danger.  A slow approach can get you quite close to these snakes.  Vibration of the tail indicates the snakes discomfort with your proximity and is usually a prelude to rapid retreat.  Some people are startled when a racer retreats directly towards them.  This has happened to me several times, but it makes sense when I’m only a couple of feet away, that it would be safer and faster to rush past me than to turn around and go the opposite direction.

This was my first view of the snake.  It’s easy to spot a black snake in the pale grass of late winter.

I’ve momentarily mistaken hoses and branches for snakes on many occasions.  The misidentification lasts less than a second.  There’s really nothing else that looks like a snake.

I’ve viewed many serpentine items with diamond patterns, but there’s nothing that comes close to the scales of a snake.

I eventually crowded in too much and caused the snake to take off into an opening beneath a cedar root.  I hope this is just the first of a multitude of snake encounters to be experienced this year.

Squirrels

The size of the squirrel population at Blue Jay Barrens is constantly changing.  Squirrel numbers may plunge to the point of non-existence and within a couple of years be back to the point where we’re seemingly over run.  Eastern Gray Squirrels are by far the most numerous in any given year.  We have both a woodland population and a yard troupe.

The yard contains many natural food items, but the squirrels typically supplement their diet by visiting the bird feeders.  The basic route to the food begins at the fork in the dead tree …

… and ends in the feeder.  Some individuals have mastered the jump to the point that they land face first in the sunflower seed.

Except for the more assertive species, most birds wait nearby as the squirrels feed.

Eastern Fox Squirrels are rather plentiful this year.  They normally avoid the feeder and take their food from the ground.  This one looked as though it was preparing to jump, but it never made a try. 

Eventually, it worked its way so far down the tree trunk that a try at the feeder was no longer an option. 

I was surprised to find a Fox Squirrel in the middle of the woods with a mouth full of nesting material.  The blurry photo is a result of my habit of taking a quick shot the instant I spot a subject.  I’ll then take the time to focus properly and try for a good shot.  In this case, the squirrel dropped the nest material immediately after I took the photo.  I figure an out-of-focus shot is better than no shot at all.

The Fox Squirrel is normally found in more open country.  Of course, the habitat is so fragmented around here that open ground is not too far away.  I suppose the squirrel should know better than I what its habitat requirements are.