“Bugging” the Dog Days of Summer

Monarch

If “birding’ is now the accepted verbiage for bird-watching, then “bugging” must also be an okay description for my recently acquired interest in the orders Lepidoptera (butterflies & moths) and Odonata (dragonflies & damselflies), of the Class Insecta and Phylum Arthropoda.  Several years ago while birding with talented guides in Cape Cod and Cape May I was impressed with their ability to identify insects that flew by and their knowledge about their life cycles, migratory habits, etc.  But it all makes sense–you are outside, enjoying our natural world, and can’t always find a bird, especially in the dog days.  Why not branch out and learn about the bugs.  After all many fly, are quite beautiful, a food source for many birds, and have compelling life stories of their own.  I’m mainly talking about butterflies, moths, dragonflies, and damselflies.

Palamedes Swallowtail

Until recently I did not fully comprehend the complete Monarch Butterfly migration story.  We’ve all heard that they migrate great distances each fall, but that is only partly, 25%, true.  As you probably know the adults lay their eggs on the milkweed plant only and undergo metamorphosis through larva, pupa, and adult stages.  What I didn’t know was that the complete cycle occurs over 3 generations each spring and summer, with the adults mating and dying soon after laying eggs.  Only the fourth generation of Monarchs, born in the late summer and fall migrates to the Carolinas, Florida, and Mexico, and returns north in the Spring.  It must be the goal of every Monarch to be in that special fourth generation and enjoy a chance to see the world.

Clouded Sulphur

Photography has also given us butterfly chasers a much improved image.  We no longer have to be the nerds following butterflies through the fields with our nets and no longer have to pin the dead bugs to our displays.  Butterfly photography gives us wonderful chances to capture these creatures, posed on colorful plants and flowers, and the ability to display and share our collections digitally.  My only issue is the need to back up to be able to focus with my 400mm birding lens.  Its another argument for that new 100-400 zoom.

Queen

Butterflies are the colorful Ferrari of the Lepidoptera order and moths are the less flashy Chevrolet.  A couple field observations help one to differentiate them.  The butterflies generally hold their wings upright over their body when at rest and have a small knob at the end of the antenna.  The moth wings are usually open and flat at rest and its antennae lack the knob.  There are other anatomic and behavioral differences.  The butterflies are attracted to mates by sight (hence their evolved beauty), while moths choose based on smell.  Moths have ears for hearing, while butterflies have none.  Butterflies depend on the sun for warmth, while moths flap their wings to generate heat.

Painted Lady

Some butterflies are toxic to birds and other predators.  The Monarch’s larval stage stores poisonous glycosides and birds learn to avoid the butterflies with the Monarch pattern.  Other edible butterflies have evolved similar colorful patterns to fool the birds.  It doesn’t always work.

Buckeye

Zebra, the state butterfly of Florida

Eastern Tailed Blue

The Order Odonata is divided into Suborders Anisoptera (Dragonflies) and Zygoptera (Damselflies).  The Dragonflies are the more stocky and generally larger bugs with eyes almost meeting at the top of the head.  Their wings are held open at rest.  The Damselflies are longer and slender with distinctly separate eyes on each side of the head.  Their wings are closed at rest.  Both eat insects and breed only in fresh water.

Common White Tail Skimmer

As a child I had a fear of dragonflies, I think shared by others.  Maybe I can blame it on my father.  I vividly remember him taking me and several other children rowing across a small pond at the summer church school picnic.  The hot humid air was filled with swarming dragonflies.  He told us to keep our mouths open wide or else the dragonflies would sew our lips together.  It must have been quite a scene with this boatload of kids, all with mouths agape, and my father smugly enjoying some quiet time in the boat.

Blue Dasher

I was at the end of a long hot trek through the wonderful Pickering Creek Audubon Center near Easton, Maryland.  Birds were smart enough to lay low and avoid the heat and this birder was looking forward to the AC in the truck.  The trail to the parking lot winds past the large freshwater pond and I was treated to the sight of dozens of Common White Tail Skimmers feeding and mating, reminding me that a day birding is never wasted.  There’s always something to see and photograph.

A-Bird-a-Day

American White Pelicans, Pelecanus erythrorhynchos

I thought it would be fun.  After reading all these competitive birding books like “The Big Year” by Mark Obmascik, “Birding On Borrowed Time” by Phoebe Snetsinger, and the blog “Birding Without Borders” by Noah Strycker, and in the spirit of the “World Series of Birding” sponsored by the New Jersey Audubon Society, I invented this game.  Here are the rules: Starting on January 1, observe and record a bird, any bird. On January 2 observe and record another bird, but it must be a different bird.  Likewise on the 3rd and so on.  The winner will be the person who can go the furthest into the new year seeing a new bird each day.  I thought it would be a hit, but I could not get any of my birding friends to sign up, so I plunged right in, competing with myself and setting a personal baseline to strive for in subsequent years.

Green Heron, Butorides virescens

This is not a mindless game–there is some strategy for success. The obvious technique is to list the most unusual bird each day, saving the more common and easier birds for “desperation” days. Mind you, this game was played by a person with a day job, and as you recall the hours of daylight in January and February are pretty meager.  During weekdays you need to find your bird along the road to and from work, or maybe even at lunch break.

Cedar Waxwing, Bombycilla cedrorum

I started the year off with a Cedar Waxwing, not a real common bird and a great start at saving the more usual birds for later.  January 2 and 3 however were “wasted” by using an American Crow and Mourning Dove.  Luckily I had a week off from work then, and flew to Florida for R&R and a whole new inventory of birds to choose from, like a Common Ground Dove on January 7 and a Glossy Ibis on the 8th.

Glossy Ibis, Plegadis falcinellus

On January 6 I was having a wonderful evening meal at a Naples Florida restaurant with another couple and suddenly remembered I hadn’t yet seen or claimed a bird that day–the contest was still new and hadn’t been ingrained into my routine. Without saying anything to my friends I got up from the table between the entre and dessert (I think they thought I was going to the restroom) and went out into the dark parking lot, looking for a Boat-tailed Grackle or any bird around the street lamps.  None were present.  I was dejected and thought the contest was over after only 5 days, but then remembered I had noticed a Great Egret landing on our pond while I laid, half asleep on the lanai that morning.  New life and I returned to the table to enjoy that dessert.

Great Egret, Ardea alba

I knew I was in trouble on January 26, back in Maryland, when I drew a job assignment at a small rural hospital 50 miles to the north.  I would have to leave home and return in the dark and there would be no time at lunch to check out the hospital grounds.  I did know that the road to the hospital was through rural countryside and the last 5 miles in early daylight held some promise.  It was in the last field before town, along a hedgerow, that I thankfully spotted a flock of Wild Turkeys, Ben Franklin’s choice for our national bird.  Saved again for another day.  January ended with a Cooper’s Hawk on the 31st and February began with an Eastern Bluebird.

Eastern Bluebird, Sialia sialis

The wintertime vacation weeks in Florida and weekends up north were still giving up easy birds in February, but those weekdays in Maryland were becoming difficult.  Luckily I knew of a small farm pond about 2 miles from home, right next to a rural road with a wide shoulder.  It usually had a nice variety of waterfowl visible in the early morning light or at dusk, without even getting out of the truck.  I milked it dry in February and early March.

Lesser Scaup, Aythya affinis

My birding friends declined to join me in the contest due to various spoken and unspoken reasons.  The spoken was “why bring new stress into your life?” What could be stressful about birding, I initially thought, but I was wrong.  By late February and early March the common birds were drying up and each day required a strategy to stay “alive”.  It probably affected my driving habits, constantly watching the fields and telephone wires for a new bird.  One advantage of being the author of the contest and rules was I could change them in mid-stream, and I did.  I counted a Muscovy Duck, (a domestic, introduced specie with native birds only seen in south Texas) on February 13, and decided to accept vocalizations if I ever heard that Great Horned Owl again at night.

Muscovy Duck, Cairina moschata

We decided to take a day trip by boat from Marco Island, Florida to Key West.  My father-in-law is a WWII veteran and after serving in the South Pacific he finished his navy duty in Key West and wanted to see the old base again.  The Navy rolled out the red carpet for its veteran and we got a personal tour of the current Naval Air Station, so much different than the 1945 installation.  The trip also offered some easy bird choices, but the strategy is to select the unusual.  My choice was the famous Key West Rooster; another minor rule change.

Key West Rooster

I finished March with an Indigo Bunting and started April with a Black-bellied Whistling Duck in Florida, but it was almost time to head north again.  I had already used up all the ducks on the pond and those pesky European Starlings nesting under the eaves of the hospital emergency room entrance.  Pickings were very slim, in fact so slim that I went down with a whimper on April 9.  I was hoping to make it to spring migration, but no such luck.  My last bird, number 98, was a Florida Osceola Turkey, one of 5 subspecies of the Wild Turkey–I know, another rule change.  It was finally over and a relief.  My driving habits improved and normality set in.  But 98 is the mark for next year.  Any takers?

Yellow Birds of Summer

American Goldfinch, Carduelis tristis

The Yellowbird

HEY! my little Yellowbird,

What you doing there?

Like a flashing sun-ray,

Flitting everywhere:

Dangling down the tall weeds

And the hollyhocks,

And the lordly sunflowers

Along the garden-walks.

Ho! my gallant Golden-bill,

Pecking ‘mongst the weeds,

You must have for breakfast

Golden flower-seeds:

Won’t you tell a little fellow

What you have for tea?–

‘Spect a peck o’ yellow, mellow

Pippin on the tree

James Whitcomb Riley

Yellow Warbler, Dendroica petechia

Even if you’re not a birder the bright yellow birds of summer cause you to stop for a moment and marvel at their striking beauty.  For me these are the American Goldfinch, Yellow Warbler, and Common Yellowthroat–not exactly rarities but nevertheless welcome summertime friends, each with a unique life story .

Common Yellowthroat, Geothlypis trichas

The American Goldfinch is distinct from the other two in that it is here year long, visiting the backyard feeder all winter and blending into the bleak winter background with its drab non-breeding plumage. It is the only finch having two molts, late winter and late summer, with the winter molt transforming the male into the golden boy of summer, ready for attracting a mate. The contrast between the yellow body, black and white barred wings, and black cap must impress the female crowd.  The black cap is pulled forward over the forehead reminding me a jaunty Frenchman and his beret.

I remember this bird from childhood, living each summer next to a lightly wooded grassy field, prime habitat for goldfinch.  It was the first bird I noticed with a distinct undulating, swooping flight pattern that made the ID possible from a distance.  This must have been the early stirrings of a budding birder.

Coneflowers, a favorite seed and attraction for the finches

The Goldfinch is almost a total seed-eater which explains his stout bill and year-long residence in these parts, only leaving for warmer climes when the temperature dips below 0 degrees F.  The diet also explains its late breeding and nesting schedule, waiting until mid-summer.  It needs plenty of fresh seeds to feed the young, and has no urgent desire or need to strengthen for a long fall migration to the south.  Relax, no hurry, enjoy the summer.

The all-seed diet also has a further selective advantage.  The Brown Cowbird is a brood parasite, laying its eggs into the nests of other unsuspecting birds, often smaller birds with weaker and less aggressive chicks.  The small finch chicks lose out initially to the cowbird, however the cowbird chicks are unable to survive for more than a few days on the total seed diet.

Yellow Warbler, Dendroica petechia

The other two yellow birds require a little more effort to see as they do not frequent the backyard feeder and are not seen here in the Chesapeake region year-round. They are members of the Parulidae family arriving here in mid-April and staying until fall.  The Yellow Warbler shuns the black contrasts and goes for the all yellow-look, except for the small black eye and red streaks on  the male’s breast.  Ken Kaufman selected this bird for the cover of his “Field Guide to Birds of North America”.  I’ve seen them around the willows and wet, low woodlands around the bay, but they breed throughout the US mainland and Canada, sparing only the deep south.  By fall they have followed the insects to Central and South America.

The Yellow Warbler has another strategy to thwart the devious cowbirds.  According to the Cornell website they have the ability to detect the larger cowbird eggs.  They’re too heavy to roll out of the nest, but the warbler just builds another nest right on top of the first and lays more eggs.  This piling on of nest-on-nest has been observed as many as 6 times at one site.  Talk about persistence.

Yellow Warbler, Dendroica petechia

The Common Yellowthroat is the bird that first peaked my interest in birding 50 some years ago.  While walking through the large field behind our summer cottage in the Finger Lakes district of New York, I saw this striking yellow bird with a black mask–something much different than the usual yard bird.  Leafing through the Goldenbook of birds, I found it.  It was a known entity and had a name. Others had already seen it, but not me.  I wanted to head right back out there and see what else was waiting to be discovered.

Common Yellowthroat (female), Geothlypis trichas

The yellowthroat is also a insect-dependent migrator, breeding throughout most of the US and Canada and leaving for Mexico and Central America in the fall.  It can be see year round in Florida and the deep south.  It recognizes the black mask as another male foe and defends his nesting territory in the marshy and grassy bottomlands with vigor.  This bird invariably pops up for a photo-op when hearing its call–just don’t overdue it.

Common Yellowthroat, Geothlypis trichas, in winter Florida plumage

My Maryland was put on the birding map when a Common Yellowthroat from here was one of the first New World birds delivered to the Old World and categorized by Linnaeus in 1766.  I suspect he was as impressed as I was when first seeing this yellow bird of summer.

Interventional Birding

Tree Swallow, Tachycineta bicolor

My day job is a radiologist.  We sit in dark rooms all day and observe, sorting out normal anatomy from pathology, and create reports of our findings.  It’s something like a birder who observes and tabulates birds, and submits findings to eBird for all to see.  But some of my professional colleagues get tired of the passive observing and want to intervene–biopsy, drain, de-clot, expand, and reroute, thus becoming interventional radiologists.  Similarly I’ve caught myself becoming a interventional birder–let me explain.

Barn Swallow, Hirundo rustica

One obvious example is the low level intervention of setting out bird feeders and houses.  I’m up to 6 or 8 houses and 4 feeders spread around the yard, positioned so one can easily observe the action from a window and a comfortable chair.  The birds don’t really need these, but it brings them closer for our viewing pleasure.  Normally I just let mother nature do its thing regarding squirrels, black snakes, and hawks which all occasionally disrupt the normal flow and utopia of yard-life, but this week I had to intervene.

Tree Swallows, Tachycineta bicolor

One of my Bluebird houses is home to a family of Tree Swallows this year.  I can live with that.  They are interesting birds, great fliers, eat a lot of bugs, and at least they are not House Sparrows.  The eggs have recently hatched and we have observed an incessant parade of responsible parents bringing food to their young–I mean a visit every couple minutes–not those feedings every 4 or 5 hours that we lived through with our children.

American Crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos

But all the commotion caught the attention of 4 hungry Fish Crows who frequent the riverside trees near the bird house.  These crows are smart–some say our smartest birds.  As we were eating our dinner and watching, one crow would make a pass at the birdhouse and be chased off by the small, brave swallow, leaving the other parent to chase off crow #2.  But that left the house and contents vulnerable to crows #3 and #4 who landed on the roof and stuck their heads and beaks through the hole as far as possible, probing for the tasty chicks.  It was hard for me to take–clearly the swallows were losing this unfair fight, so I lept up from the table leaving a hot supper, put on my Superman’s cape and chased the crows away.  I think the underdog swallows were actually grateful, the crows stayed away, and I felt good.  That’s interventional birding.

Forster’s Terns, Sterna forsteri, along with Laughing Gulls and Snowy Egrets on my dock

I have other examples where I’m not the quite the same hero.  My dock and boats are the most popular place in the neighborhood for birds to nest, eat, defecate, and just hang out. I have dismantled the starling’s nest in the boat-lift motor housing 5 times so far this year–they just don’t get the message.  At least the Barn Swallows nest under the dock.  The guano accumulation from all the gulls, terns, and Osprey had become unbearable.  I spend more time cleaning the boats then using them. My goal is to make the birds uncomfortable on my dock so they will move to the neighbors.  Let me enumerate my some of my failed interventional strategies.

Laughing Gull, Larus atricilla

Forget plastic owls–they don’t work.  Gulls mocked me by sitting on the owl’s head.  I’m going broke buying wind socks–they’re pretty and patriotic but don’t affect the birds.  A “Gull Sweep” is a wind-vane device that I’ve mounted on my motor boat console.  It rotates over a 6 foot diameter, and I must admit it keeps that small circle clean when the wind’s blowing. The rest of the boat is a mess.  A few years ago I engineered an elaborate system of hoses and sprinklers on timers, randomly coming on around the clock, successfully shooing the birds away and washing the dock, until I realized that the constant moisture was rotting the dock.  Last year I spent big bucks to have a custom cover made to protect the sailboat, stem to stern.  It works, but takes a long time to remove and apply, making me think twice before going for a sail.  I’ve bought a spike this year for the top of the mast, a favorite landing and toilet location for Osprey, but the jury is still out regarding its longevity.  Yesterday I noticed that it was bent.

Great Black-backed Gull, Larus marinus

So now I’m beginning to rethink my approach to all this.  How about making lemonade out of lemons (guano)?  It finally occurred to me that I have more terns, gulls, and Osprey to observe and photograph, up close and personal, then anyone else on my river.  I should just become the world’s expert on these birds.  I purchased the Peterson Reference Guide, “Gulls of the Americas”, by Steve Howell and Jon Dunn.  Talk about difficult.  There are 22 species of gulls that breed in North America, with only a few expected on my dock–seems easy enough.  But just try to understand their plumage.  Gulls undergo periods of molt that can last up to 6 months and are continuously in transition from one plumage to the next for much of their lives.  Add to this the breeding and non-breeding modifiers, and first, second, third, and fourth year cycles describing the maturing patterns, and you have ID work cut out for you.  Luckily the sexes appear alike.

Osprey, Pandion haliaetus

The Osprey is much easier and only present here from March to September.  There are 3 nests visible from the dock and thus I enjoy constant diving for fish and flyovers making for great observing and photography.  Besides the mating pairs there are many others just hanging out and practicing nest building and stick selection.  These must be the juvenile first and second year birds getting ready for the upcoming responsibilities of parenthood–perhaps next year.  Have you noticed that you often see these birds flying over with a headless fish in their talons?  Why do they eat the head first?  This week I got to observe the decapitation process up close.  The Osprey landed on my light at the end of the dock with a struggling perch in its grasp.  Slowly, bite by bite it picked at the fish head until it stopped flopping, then slowly completed the meal and took the headless leftovers to the nest, leaving me the cleanup chores on the dock.

Osprey, Pandion haliaetus, with headless fish

I think the birds have won.  So much for this intervention, and maybe that’s fitting.  They were here long before us and our docks, and will probably be here long after we are gone.