Winter is the time when I get to see a lot of titmice.  (And you gotta love that plural!)  With leaves gone from the trees, and the insects and spiders these birds like to eat unavailable, titmice keep our two feeders hopping.

     As I watch the action at the window feeder from our living room couch, I feel a great fondness for these hardy little birds.  They are unassuming in appearance, except for their jaunty crest, and they strike me as hard workers.  Over and over again, they drop from a branch of the saucer magnolia tree, onto the feeder’s rim, pluck out a sunflower seed with their beak, and flutter back to the tree.  Holding the seed in place with their feet, they pound away at it with their beak until it breaks open, and they can eat it.  Then they go through the same process again.  And again and again.

     Not only does winter bring titmice to the feeders, but it also evokes different sounds from these little birds.  Their sweet, whistling calls of  spring are replaced by squawking, scolding sounds.  In fact, several times lately, when I stopped near the feeder to watch them, all the action was, instead, up in the trees.  Several titmice squawked angrily and fluttered about.  It took me a little while to realize they were carrying on about me!  I imagine my nearness to the feeder made them feel unsafe to jump down for a seed, and they wanted me to go away!  Never mind that I’m the one who keeps the feeder filled with food!

     I decided I would like to know more about these feathered neighbors of ours, so I did a little research.  And I love this description I found on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s website:  ”The large, black eyes, small, round bill, and brushy crest give these birds a quiet but eager expression that matches the way they flit through canopies, hang from twig ends, and drop in to bird feeders.”  The ‘quiet but eager expression’ part is apt.  Perhaps this attitude of theirs is part of what I find so appealing about the little fellows. 

     I learned that the titmouse has a very wide range.  It can be found year-round throughout the eastern states and the midwest.  And its range is expanding northward, perhaps due to climate change and maybe also to increased winter feeding.  The titmouse lives in deciduous and mixed-deciduous forests and in residential areas where there are tall trees and dense canopy.

     The tall trees and canopy provide food for titmice during the summer, when they also store nuts and seeds in crevices along the bark of trees for eating later.   Titmice also forage on the ground, and in winter they can be seen on tree trunks and at feeders.  

     Late February through April is breeding season for the titmouse.  Males and females are monogamous for a single breeding season.  The female chooses for her nest a very deep cavity (about 8-11 inches), typically in a rotted tree.   Over the course of about four days, she builds the nest.  First comes the foundation of dried leaves, moss, and strips of bark.  Then she adds the insulation–down, fur, and hair.  Female titmice have actually been observed yanking hair from live mammals for their nest, including from the arms and heads of humans! 

     Once her nest is complete, the female lays an egg each day for 5-6 days.  Incubation begins after the second to the last egg has been laid, and before beginning to incubate her eggs, the female spends the night perched on the rim of her nest.  The young fledge in about 18 days, and some might remain with their parents during the first winter, even staying on to help raise the next year’s brood!

     I had to find out about the name ‘titmouse.’  It is believed to be a combination of the old English term for ‘bird’–’mase,’ and ‘tit,’ meaning something small.  There you have it!–April Moore

 

a titmouse at our window feeder

 

    

 

     Biological evolution fascinates me.  I find it truly wondrous that life began where there was no life and evolved over millions and millions of years into the astonishingly complex web of life that exists today.

     Because I love learning about evolution, I am reading THE SONG OF THE DODO:  ISLAND BIOGEOGRAPHY IN AN AGE OF EXTINCTION by David Quammen.  In an effort to understand the implications of the ‘islands’ that human activity is creating on our continents, Quammen explores the ways in which life evolves differently on islands than it does on large mainlands.  We humans are turning once vast stretches of wilderness into small, isolated chunks, with our roads, pipelines, shopping centers, and subdivisions.  By better understanding the ways of evolution on islands, Quammen believes we can better understand why diversity declines on isolated ’islands’ of wilderness.  

     Despite the book’s sobering premise, it reads like a novel.  Quammen, an award-winning science writer, tells us so interestingly why some kinds of creatures abound on islands, while others are rare or non-existent there.  He writes with humor and a great sense of ‘Wow!’  And you don’t have to be a scientist–or even particularly science-oriented–to love this book.

     I would like to share here a short passage from THE SONG OF THE DODO that explains why mammals are found only in small numbers, if at all, on islands.–April Moore

     “If I haven’t said much about mammals in this discussion of island colonization, it’s because there is not much to say.  Mammals don’t travel as well as most other vertebrates.  Their dispersal ability across salt water is generally low.  They are burdened with urgent physiological needs and blessed with only modest endurance.  Starvation and drought can kill them quickly.  So can drowning.  If they do manage to make a crossing, their prospects of establishment are still poor.  Since they reproduce sexually, give birth to live young, and suckle those young, they don’t enjoy the same adaptive advantages as many plants, insects, and reptiles.  An adult mammal needs a mate;  an infant mammal needs a mother.  All these factors reduce their chances of colonization.  Rarely a species of mammal does reach an island and establish itself, but more commonly an island remains empty of mammalian fauna despite the passage of eons.  As reptiles and ferns and pigeons tend to be disproportionately present on islands, mammals tend to be disproportionately absent.”–David Quammen, THE SONG OF THE DODO

 

     I just learned a little bit about an amazing fish called the gobiid.  What I read about the little ‘goby’ in David Brooks’ s book THE SOCIAL ANIMAL was so incredible, I went online to learn more.  To my disappointment, however, I found very little basic information about this little fish.  But I will share below what David Brooks had to say about the gobiid:

     “This is a little fish that lives in shallow water.  At low tide, its habitat is reduced to little pools and puddles.  Yet the gobiid fish jump with great accuracy over rocks and dry ridges from pool to pool.  How do they do it?  They can’t scope out the dry patches before they jump, or see where the next pool is.  If you put a little gobiid fish in an unfamiliar habitat, it won’t jump at all.

     “What happens is that during high tide the gobiid fish wander around absorbing the landscape and storing maps in their heads.  Then when the tide is low, they have a mental map of the landscape, and they unconsciously know what ridges will be dry at low tide and what hollows will be full of water.”–David Brooks, THE SOCIAL ANIMAL

     I find it amazing that such a tiny fish (some gobiids are no longer than 4 centimeters) can do such complex mental processing.  We humans assume that our large brains are so much more capable than the smaller brains of so many other animals.  We so often underestimate the complex abilities possessed by many small animals, abilities we humans can barely imagine.–April Moore

a gobiid fish

     Fall is here, and I’ve been enjoying one of my annual autumn pleasures–squeezing puffballs.  I’m not too old to delight in watching the brownish ’smoke’ waft up out of the little hole in the top of a puffball whenever I give it a light squeeze.  

     Lately I have been curious.  Just what are these dry, brown balls emerging from a patch of leaves or clustered on a tree stump, each with a hole in the top?  And what is the ’smoke’ that so readily emerges from that little ‘blow hole?’  

     So I did a little research.  I learned that puffballs, like mushrooms, are the fruiting body of an extensive underground network of threads called mycelia.  For most of the year, this unseen fungal colony thrives on nourishment from decaying matter.    The puffball develops in the fall for reproduction, as berries and fruit develop in the fall to spread a tree’s seeds. 

     When it first emerges from the ground, a puffball looks very different from the dry, diminished self it will soon become.  The new puffball’s ‘cap’ is a large, cream-colored  dome.  Smooth and damp to the touch, it has as yet no hole in the top.  The puffball’s cap and the stalk that supports it are hardly differentiated.  The cap seems to be a bulging extension of the stalk. 

     A puffball reproduces differently from a typical mushroom.  The gills on the underside of a mushroom cap produce spores (the fungus equivalent to a plant’s seeds) exposed to the air.  But a puffball has no gills.  Its spores develop internally, within the puffball’s dome.   As the spores mature, they combine with tiny threads inside the dome to produce a brownish powder.  Meanwhile, the surface of the puffball’s dome becomes dry and thin.  A hole, known as the ostiole, breaks open in the top.  

     All is ready.  All that’s needed is for some raindrops to hit the puffball, or an animal to scamper past and bump the puffball, or a child to squeeze the puffball to watch the smoke come out.  Some of the millions of spores in the puffball will arise from out of the ostiole to be carried by the wind and dropped somewhere where they might take root.    

     And a puffball spore can take root pretty much anywhere.  Unlike many mushrooms that require specific substrates, the puffball can grow in a variety of habitats–meadow, forest, or lawn.  Just the other day, my son discovered a big, new puffball that had popped right out of a gravel road near our house.  I am keeping a daily watch on this puffball.  I hope I will be able to see it ripen into the dark little sphere ready to waft its smoke upward.–April Moore

 

a puffball that just 'mushroomed' in a gravel road near our house

 

          

 

squeezing a 'ripe' puffball in the woods

     I have been curious about the creamy-colored, innocuous-looking butterflies I often see around here.  I sometimes spot one fluttering among the plants by the road.  Or I may notice a couple of them flying in small circles around each other until one heads off in another direction.

     These bland-looking little butterflies are called cabbage whites.  And they are one of the commonest, if not the commonest, butterfly in America.  I was surprised to learn that they are not native to North America but were accidentally introduced here from Europe in about 1860.  They spread quickly and now are common throughout America.  As far as I know, the cabbage white does not cause problems in ecosystems in which it has been introduced, and it is not considered an invasive speces.   It is, however, considered a pest by growers of cabbage and other mustard family crops.  Evidently, the cabbage white really does like cabbage; at least the caterpillar form does.

     The cabbage white’s creamy upperside is accented by black-tipped forewings.  And it is easy to distinguish a male from a female;  the male has a single black spot in the center of each forewing, and the female has two.  The underwings of both sexes are yellowish with black speckles. 

     Adult cabbage whites are diurnal, with mid-day the time they are most frequently seen flying.  Some researchers add that cabbage whites may also fly during the night’s latest hours and then cease at dawn.  And these non-showy creatures can be seen in just about any open spaces–fields, gardens, roadsides, waste places, parks, and cities.  Adult cabbage whites get their food from flower nectar.  Among their favorites are dandelions, purple loosestrife, red clover, asters, and mint.

     Cabbage whites are among the hardiest of butterflies.  They are one of the first species to emerge from their chrysalis in the early spring, as early as late February, and they fly until mid-November or until the first hard freeze. 

     The cabbage white starts life as an egg laid on the underside of a leaf of a host plant.  Then, when the egg hatches (which can be pretty much anytime from late spring to late summer), and the caterpillar emerges, it begins eating immediately from the underside of the plant where it hatched.  As it matures, the caterpillar begins to eat the leaf’s  upperside.  Looking rather leaf-like itself, the caterpillar rests along the leaf’s veins!  The caterpillar grows rapidly and molts (sheds its skin) five times before it becomes a chrysalis.  The chrysalis hibernates over the winter and, in the early spring, hatches into an adult butterfly.  

     The cabbage white’s predators include birds and such insects as ants, mantids, and beetles.–April Moore  

adult cabbage white butterfly--photo by Will Cook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a cabbage white in caterpillar form

     On a recent summer day, I enjoyed a sunny stroll along our overgrown hill once known as the orchard.  

     Here and there, dotting the ground and glistening in the sunshine, were ragged, gauzy-looking little ‘blankets.’  Many were stretched out flat, little trapezoids close to the ground.   Others were more free-form, appearing to be stuffed between the base of a tree and a clump of weeds, or between a wide rock and a tall plant.  Some of these gauzy coverings sported renegade threads that stretched upward in different directions.  

     A prominent feature in many of these little ‘blankets’ was a dark hole.  Not formed by a tear in the ‘blanket’ but constructed by the weaving of threads around a space that descended in darkness, the hole was actually a funnel.  The presence of this funnel was not obvious in many of the gauzy patches, but a little attentive looking usually revealed a funnel’s presence. 

     I knew that these translucent, white patches were spider webs.  But I didn’t know anything about the spiders that made them or what the funnel was for.  So I decided to do a little research.

     It turns out that the funnel webs in our  yard were made by grass spiders, members of a large family of arachnids called Agelenidae, or funnel web weavers.  A brownish or greyish spider, the grass spider may reach a size of about 3/4 inch.  It is one of about 400 species of funnel web weaving spiders found in North America.  These spiders typically live in fields and around homes.  The webs we sweep off our outdoor decks and porches are likely the webs of funnel web weavers.

     Unlike orb spiders who create a circular, ’spoked’ web that traps prey in its sticky threads, funnel web weaving spiders are hunters.  The orb spider senses the vibrations of a struggling insect caught in its web.  But the funnel web weaver’s web is not sticky.  This spider depends on its great speed and its relatively good eyesight to catch its food.  

     An insect flying over the funnel web weaver’s web may hit one of those ’stray’ threads and get knocked down onto the web.  Before the insect can fly off again, the spider darts out of its funnel,  spots the insect with its eight eyes, and dashes across the web to bite the insect, thus paralyzing it.  The spider then drags the insect down into the web’s funnel to devour it.

     The funnel, I read, is a retreat, or hiding place, for the grass spider and its funnel web weaving cousins.  These spiders rarely leave their web.  In the fall, however, these spiders sometimes make their way into houses to seek refuge from falling temperatures.  They will bite humans only when provoked.  But their bite is not dangerous.–April Moore

 

a funnel web near our house

 

 

 

     Well, you never know what you’re going to find when exploring outside. 

     Last week when I went out after a rainy night, in search of box turtles, I found instead a ribbonsnake.   There it was on the grassy hillside by our home, a still length of green between two yellow ‘racing’ stripes.  Its head was erect, and no part of its sleek, narrow body moved. 

     I stood watching, just a few feet away.  How long would the snake remain so still, I wondered.  Every minute or so I stepped a little closer, just as quietly as I could.  The snake remained motionless.  But when I knelt to get a picture, it reacted instantly.  Whipping its head away from me, and bringing its bnody along, it glided swiftly through the dried leaves and grass.  Now at a safe distance, it gathered itself into something of a coil and stared at me, its tongue darting in and out.  A sign of distress, I assumed.

     I stepped back, and before long, the tongue darting stopped.  I assumed the snake felt safe once again.  But it kept watching me.  And just to ensure its safety, or so it seemed to me, the snake’s head disappeared between two rocks that formed part of a small wall of a little herb garden.  The snake’s entire length followed the head into the tiny space between the rocks and vanished, leaving me amazed.  How could the snake’s entire length of two feet or so fit inside that bed of soil behind the wall?

     Well, since that day, I have walked down the hill twice more, including this morning, in hopes of seeing the ribbonsnake again.  And both times I have.  The second time, though, I startled it, and it slipped into the same wall into which it had disappeared before.

     In vain, I waited silently, hoping the snake would emerge from the wall.  No such luck.  But I did hear a rustling sound from inside the wall.   It had to be the snake moving in there!–April Moore

More about the ribbonsnake:
     Seeing the ribbonsnake so ‘up close and personal’ made me curious to learn more about the animal.  And here’s what I found out: 

     The ribbonsnake is a very common species, with four sub-species, found pretty much all over the U.S.  Non-poisonous, it is a member of the garter snake family.  The name ‘ribbonsnake’ comes from its slender body;  its circumference is much less than that of many other snakes. 

     I was surprised to read that the tail of this snake is about a third of the snake’s length.  But since when does a snake have a tail, I wondered.  Where does a snake’s body end and its tail begin?

     Also to my surprise, everything I read about the ribbonsnake indicated that this snake lives near water, where it swims to capture aquatic prey.  So what is it doing on our dry, rocky hillside, I wondered.  Then I read that it may also be found near a seeping spring.  Indeed, water has flowed out of our hillside in the vicinity of the ribbonsnake’s “home,” during and after some raging storms we’ve had in the last few months.  Or maybe our watering of the few plants in the terrace garden where this fellow seems to live has provided enough moisture to attract a water-loving snake.

     The ribbonsnake’s diet is varied, apparently, and includes fish (not here), newts, salamanders, frogs, worms, spiders, caterpillars, and a variety of insects.  In turn, the ribbonsnake may be eaten by weasels, large fish (not here), other carnivorous animals, and some other snakes, including rattlesnakes.

      Ribbonsnakes mate in May, and females give birth to 3-26 live young in August.  In the colder parts of its range, the ribbonsnake hibernates, choosing a rocky crevice or an ant mound or the burrow of some small mammal.

     Below are a couple of photos I caught of the ribbonsnake that seems to live on our hillside.–April Moore

 

a ribbonsnake on the hillside near our house

 

 

 

the ribbonsnake coiling away in distress

 

 

 

 

 

   

     It’s early June and peak season for enjoying mountain laurel in the Shenandoah Valley.  This is the time of year when ornate blossoms adorn these hardy evergreen bushes that thrive on the Valley’s rocky slopes and forested hillsides.

     For about a week now, I have been enjoying the mountain laurel flowers blooming in the forest near our home.  And over the weekend I had the chance to spend many hours among mountain laurel, as my husband, our son, his friend, and I hiked in the Shenandoah National Park.  The mountain laurel’s white blossoms dotted single shrubs here and there, and formed a profusion of white in other spots where large numbers of the shrub grew close together.  And now and then, at the higher altitudes, it seemed, some of the even prettier pink mountain laurel flowers bloomed.

     The blossom of the mountain laurel is truly something to see.  Its complex structure and dainty appearance are a delight to behold.  The flowers ”are shaped like upside-down ballerina tutus, with the petals fused together,” writes Jennifer Frick-Ruppert in Mountain Nature:  A Seasonal Natural History of the Southern Appalachians.  I also like the rest of her description:

“Each of the 10 pollen-bearing stamens arches outward and anchors its tip inside the rim of the flower in a tiny pocket until the pollen has matured.  Then, when an insect lands on the flower and touches the stamen filament, its tip pops loose from the flower, snaps over, and smacks the insect on the back, dusting it with pollen.  Once tripped, the stamens remain curled. 

“When the insect visits another flower and brushes against the female stigma, it transfers its load of pollen.  You can imitate the insect by sticking your finger into the flower of a mountain laurel.  Poke the spring-loaded filament and it should snap forward to leave a yellow dusting of pollen on your fingernail.  If you play this game, however, finish it by transferring pollen to another flower’s stigma.  If the flower is on another plant, the likelihood of successful seed set is greater.”

     I just went outside and tried Frick-Ruppert’s experiment.  The results were not quite as dramatic as she described, but the thread-like stamens did break loose from their hold on the inside edge of the flower and then curl a bit.  The amount of pollen I found on my finger, however, appeared negligible.

     Despite the beauty of its flowers, the mountain laurel is quite poisonous.  Everything about it, including the flowers, is toxic to deer and other animals.  But the mountain laurel’s wood has proved valuable for generations in the making of furniture.   One of the plant’s names, Spoonwood, comes from the Native Americans’ use of the wood to make spoons. 

     Although mountain laurel’s usual name suggests it is a mountain plant, it also thrives in non-mountainous areas, as long as the soil is acidic.  Mountain laurel ranges from southern Maine to northern Florida and grows as far west as Indiana and Louisiana.  Connecticut and Pennsylvania have chosen it as their state flower.–April Moore

    

     I thank my friend De for showing me this video.  It is astonishing!  I already knew there are amazing creatures under the sea, but the ones depicted in this short video boggle my mind.  

     You’re in for a treat when you click on this link.–April Moore 
http://biggeekdad.com/2011/02/amazing-sea-creatures/

     Since last week I have been enjoying tuning in on three little bald eaglets and their parents in a nest 80 feet above the ground near Decorah, Iowa.  Thanks to a webcam set up by the Raptor Resource Project, people are tuning in by the tens of thousands to watch the progress of the little ones, born the first week of April.  You can view them too by clicking here:  http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles 

     It has been fascinating to watch the mother sit on the nest, and to see parts of the fuzzy little babies poking out from under her breast.  And to see a parent (both mother and father share in the feeding of bald eagle babies) gently inserting scraps of fish or other flesh into the little mouths.  In fact, watching the bald eagle family has been so interesting, I wanted to learn more.  So I did a little online research.

     First, I wanted to know how the bald eagle became the United States emblem.  The bald eagle was chosen in 1782 for several of its characteristics:  its long life; its great strength; its majestic looks; and because the bird was then believed to exist only in North America.  I remember much distress back in the 1960s, when the number of bald eagle nesting pairs had fallen to well under 500.  It was feared that our national symbol was on its way to extinction.  

     But the bald eagle is an American success story.  Protective efforts, including the bird’s placement on the Endangered Species List, were so successful that bald eagle numbers rebounded.  In 2007, the U.S. Interior Department removed the bird from the Endangered Species List.  Today, there are an estimated 9,800 breeding pairs in the U.S!  The bird’s range is broad, with its greatest concentration in Alaska.  

     Both the male and female bald eagle have a white head and tail, yellow beak and talons, and brownish feathers on back and breast.  The female is generally larger than the male.  Renowned for its keen eyesight, the bald eagle can fly at heights of 10,000 feet and at speeds of 30-35 mph.  The bird weighs 10-14 pounds, and its wingspan extends about 6-7  1/2 feet.  The bald eagle may live as long as 30 years, and a single bird has about 7,000 feathers!  The mainstay of the bald eagle’s diet is fish (salmon accounts for the bird’s great success in the Pacific Northwest), although it will also eat carrion.  The bald eagle is a strong swimmer.

     Bald eagles reach maturity at about 4 or 5 years.  At that time they choose a partner, with whom they mate for life.  If a partner  dies, the other will likely accept another mate.  Each breeding pair of bald eagles builds a nest, usually high in a tree near a river or coast.  A typical bald eagle nest is about 5 feet across.  A nesting pair uses the same nest year after year, adding to it annually.  Nests as large as 9 feet across have been spotted, and they can weigh up to 2 tons!

     The female lays 1-3 eggs in the spring.  She incubates the eggs with her body for about 35 days.  During that time, the male frequently brings conifer sprigs to the nest.  Why he does this is not known.  One theory is that he is trying to deodorize the nest!

     Eggs hatch in the order they were laid.  Each eaglet ‘pecks’ its way out of its egg with its egg tooth, a pointed bump on the top of its beak.  The hatching process takes 12-48 hours.  After the eggs begin hatching, the female spends almost all her time in the nest caring for the babies.  The male brings in food, which both parents shred and feed directly into the babies’ mouths.  To view a lovely little video of feeding time in the Decorah, Iowa, nest, click here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N50wZxRk-ds  The video was made a couple of weeks ago, when the babies were much smaller than they are now.  And are they cute!  All covered in white down, heads wagging goofily.

     Bald eagle parents, careful not to harm their babies, ball their talons into ‘fists’ when moving about the nest, so they won’t inadvertently skewer a chick! 

     The eaglets grow rapidly, adding about a pound of weight every 4-5 days.  After 3 weeks, the eaglets are about a foot tall, and their feet and beaks are nearly adult size.  Between 4-5 weeks, the young are able to stand and can begin tearing their own food.  At eight weeks, the young birds’ appetites are at their greatest.  At this point, the parents spend most of their time hunting for food, and the eaglets begin ’stretching their wings.’  Gradually, the eaglets’ down is replaced by juvenile feathers, and at 10-13 weeks, they take their first flight.

       Even after their first flight, the young eagles stay around the nest for 4-5 additional weeks.  During this time, they take short, ‘practice’ flights and develop their flying, landing, and hunting skills.  Parents still provide the food. 

     Living independently away from ‘home’ is not easy for the youngest bald eagles.  After building their strength and skills during their first summer and fall, they face the rigors of winter.  The first winter is generally the most difficult one in the life of a bald eagle.--April Moore