Merry Christmas!

North Woods Visitor, by Kelly Riccetti

Trumpeter Swans at Maumee Bay State Park

There is nothing more noble on a lake than a Trumpeter Swan gliding through the water, and it's a sight uncommon down in Cincinnati (meaning I've never seen a pair of Trumpeters on any lakes, ponds or wetlands near us...with the exception of Swan Lake at the Cincinnati Zoo), but up in northern Ohio, Trumpeter Swans are almost a common sight. At least they were for us when we were at Maumee Bay earlier in November...

A Trumpeter Swan on the inland lake at Maumee Bay State Park near Toledo, Ohio.
(Photo courtesy of my cousin, Curg. I didn't have my camera with me, so Curg stepped in and captured this fellow!)

In Cincinnati we have Mute Swans on some of our ponds and lakes, which are also beautiful, but not native, so I was really excited to see these huge native swans in the wild! Trumpeter Swans are the largest waterfowl in North America and create quite an impressive sight. In the early 1900s Trumpeters were almost hunted to extinction. Their feathers, skins, meat and eggs were in demand, and hunting coupled with habitat destruction nearly wiped them out. Through habitat restoration, protection and reintroduction, Trumpeter Swans have survived and are now making a comeback!

Two Trumpeter Swans were inseparable on the inland lake at Maumee Bay State Park. I assume they are a mated pair because Trumpeter Swans are monogamous and mate for life. (Photo credit to my cousin, Curg.)

How to tell the difference between a Trumpeter Swan, a Tundra Swan, and a Mute Swan...
Three species of swans live in North America: the Trumpeter Swan (the largest swan), the Tundra Swan (the smallest of the three), and the Mute Swan. The Trumpeter Swan and the Tundra Swan are native. The Mute Swan is an exotic, invasive Eurasian species introduced in the late 1800s as a decorative pond species. Originally, owners kept their wings clipped to keep them on their ponds, but over time, several escaped and now breed in feral populations. Mute Swans are easy to identify. They have large orange bills with a black knob. It's a little harder to tell Trumpeter and Tundra Swans apart since they both have black bills, but there are specific field marks that help you ID the birds. Here are a few sites to help you learn the differences:

Click here for a guide from the Kellogg Bird Sanctuary that explains how to tell the swans apart. It even has a little interactive test to help you learn the differences.
Click here for swan identification tips from the Trumpeter Swan Society.
Click here for a 6-page printable pdf that explains how to spot the field marks that differentiate swans and geese.

If you read any of the ID tips on the links above, you learned Trumpeter Swans are often described as wearing "lipstick." If you look closely, you can see that field mark in this photo. (Again...photo credit to my cousin, Curg.)

The field ID marks of a Mute Swan are easy to recognize...an orange bill with a black knob.
(I photographed this fellow back in 2009 on a pond near my house.)

Trumpeter Swans are making a comeback in Ohio, but they are not safe yet...
The exotic Eurasian Mute Swans populating many of the lakes and ponds in Ohio are very aggressive and can outcompete Trumpeter Swans trying to establish a territory. They also are voracious eaters and can deplete aquatic vegetation for native waterfowl and even destroy entire wetland ecosystems, further squeezing out Trumpeter Swans.

Click here for a post titled "Swan Song," by John Windau on the Wild Ohio Education blog that explains in more detail the Trumpeter's plight and the steps taken to reintroduce them to Ohio.
Click here for details from the ODNR Division of Wildlife.
Click here for two previous posts with photos of Mute Swans and their cygnets on a pond near my house.

Migrating Tundra Swans at Maumee Bay...
We also saw a small flock of migrating Tundra Swans on the inland lake as well. They were off in the distance and didn't stay long. It was an impressive sight to watch them take off together to move on to another lake.

_______________________
This post is part of our recent Big Water trip to Maumee Bay, click here for more posts in the series.

Happy Thanksgiving!

grate·ful 
/'grātfəl/
adjective
feeling or showing an appreciation of kindness; thankful. "I'm grateful to my family and friends for all of the love you've given me." synonyms: thankful, appreciative
_______
I was talking to my mom this morning about how special Thanksgiving is. She summed it up with one word, grateful. It truly is wonderful to have a day set aside every year to simply be grateful for everyone in our lives and all that we have. I'm deeply grateful I have a loving and kind family, close friends and neighbors, and sweet pets and animals...

...and I'm also grateful for Mother Nature and all the love she has to offer!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gobble, gobble...

...makes you think of the birds that will soon grace many tables on Thanksgiving Day, right? Sounds logical, but I'm not talking about those birds at all. I'm referring to the "greedy" Blue Jays in my backyard gobbling up sunflower seeds and peanuts like they are going out of style...

One of our backyard Blue Jays on the coconut feeder outside our kitchen window. He's not greedy. He's filling the gular pouch in his throat with sunflower seeds to hide in one of his many winter food caches. 

How can one bird eat that many seeds?
It can't! When you see Blue Jays downing one seed after another, watch closely, and you'll see they aren't eating the seeds at all, they are storing them in a pouch in their throats called a gular pouch. Blue Jays have a built-in carrying case called a gular pouch under their tongues. This expandable pouch extends down into their throats as far as the upper esophagus. In late summer and all through the fall Blue Jays and other birds, such as chickadees, nuthatches, and Tufted Titmice, start hoarding acorns and other seeds and nuts in winter caches. By storing their food, they can survive long, cold winters when their normal food sources freeze over or run out.

Click here for an older post with photos of a Blue Jay filling his gular pouch with peanuts, and learn how Blue Jays with their acorn caching ways repopulated areas with oak trees after the last glaciers retreated.

Click here for an earlier post on scatter-hoarding and winter food-caching birds in our area.

Gobble, gobble...it's fun to watch Blue Jays gobbling up sunflower seeds. They waste no time filling their gular pouches, then fly off to a winter cache, deposit them, and come back for more.

Blue Jays behaving badly (or is it just fall migration?)...
While most of the red, yellow and gold leaves of autumn have fallen from the trees and faded away, it's still fall, and Blue Jays are still out there doing their autumn antics. My mom called a few weeks ago reporting 17 Blue Jays were in her backyard behaving badly. They were impersonating hawks, stealing seed, frightening the titmice, and taking over every feeder in their yard...but, she loved it! It's very exciting to have a marauding band of migrating Blue Jays in your yard, especially when you live in the city! She wanted to know what was going on, so I let her know in autumn, some northern Blue Jays take to the wing and migrate south, while others stay put. When they migrate, they form large groups of what really do look like marauding bands, and when a flock lands in your backyard, watch out. They will raid all of your feeders and plunder till nothing remains. Then they will be gone in a flash, not to return.

Click here for a pdf of a paper by Paul A. Stewart in North American Bird Bander, July-Sep. 1982, titled, "Migration of Blue Jays in Eastern North America," pgs 107 - 112. Stewart analyzes banding and recovery records to identify the birds' migratory movements, showing Blue Jays are partly migratory because some groups stay throughout the year, and of those that do migrate, not all return to their same nesting grounds. Stewart includes maps that show the locations of direct recoveries of banded migratory birds.

This fellow is not part of a marauding band. He's just a regular at the Coconut Cafe outside our kitchen window. 

...put the blue in the coconut and shake it all up. 

Gobble up those sunflower seeds Ol' Blue and secret them off to your winter food cache. Your scatter-hoarding will get you through the winter, plus it's great for seed dispersal!

Big Water, Big Grass (or...when ignorance really is bliss)

During the first weekend of November, my parents, my aunt, my cousin, and I headed up to Maumee Bay State Park and Lodge near Toledo, Ohio to kick off the winter. It's been a tradition of ours to head north for the last hurrah of fall so we can experience Big Water, go hiking, and do a lot of laughing. Each year we tend to focus on a piece of natural history in the area, and this year it was the tall grasses or reeds that line the boardwalk in the marsh...

Behemoth grasses (Phragmites australis) line the boardwalk in the wetlands at Maumee Bay State Park. The reeds are outrageously beautiful, but the beauty comes at a price...a non-native monoculture that is choking out native plants.

Non-native Phragmites (Phragmites australis), the common reed
We had no idea what this sea of grass was as we walked through it. Down in Cincinnati we're not exposed to grasses that live near Big Water, so when we were walking through the towering reeds with their feathery plumes backlit in the late-afternoon sun, we didn't know it was a bad thing. We just knew it was breathtakingly beautiful, especially when the autumn breezes swept through the fronds, tossing them, and swirling them in one fluid motion...but unfortunately, the 15-ft tall plants are a non-native, invasive species that is slowly choking the life out of biodiverse coastal marshes and wetlands. As phragmites rushes through a wetland, it creates a monoculture in its wake, creating dense thickets that squeeze out native plants such as cattails.

A sea of common reeds is beautiful from the observation deck on the boardwalk in the coastal wetlands of Lake Erie.
If only it were supposed to be there... 

Phragmites australis, the common reed, along the Lake Erie coast.

We loved walking the boardwalk at Maumee Bay State Lodge. It winds through a wet woods that was filled with migrating White-crowned Sparrows and then pushes through an expansive marsh where Red-winged Blackbirds were gathering.

Even though the reeds have squeezed out many of the native plants, a small flock of Black-capped Chickadees didn't mind, and it melted my heart watching them flit back and forth in the reeds, chittering and calling out to each other. I wish I had had my "real" camera with me and not just my cell phone so I could have captured some of their antics.  

Native phragmites
Not all phragmites is bad. Native phragmites hugs the coastal and interior wetlands in the Great Lakes region as well. It supports our native wildlife and lays the foundation for a biodiverse habitat, but it can easily be squeezed out by the non-native form. The invasive form creates dense thickets that kill wild rice, cattails, and wetland orchids, which all grow well around native phragmites.

Click here for a post by the Great Lakes Phragmites Collaborative to help you tell native and non-native phragmites apart.

Click here for a wonderful video created by the Tip of the Mitt Watershed Council that shows how to differentiate between the two types.

Click here for another site with information on phragmites and other Great Lakes Restoration projects.

Goats to the rescue?
In an article titled "The Goats Fighting America's Plant Invasion," by Joanna Jolly in BBC News Magazine (January 13, 2015), Jolly writes that marine biologist Brian Silliman of Duke University in North Carolina has been working over 20 years to figure out how to eradicate invasive phragmites. He tried insects and other forms of bio-control, but had no luck. Then after a trip to the Netherlands, he saw the plant wasn't a problem there because it was constantly being grazed by animals. Cue the goats! Silliman got to work and found goats can get the job done. In one study, 90% of the phragmites in the test area was eliminated. Click here to read the entire article.

Normally, we look for deer hiding along the boardwalk, but I would love to look for goats...


Click here for more of our Big Water (November at Maumee) posts.

Bristly Greenbrier along the Little Miami River...

Rick and I walked the Little Miami River yesterday afternoon and were surprised when we came across this Jack-and-the-Bean-Stalky type vine. The leaves were huge, and the vine was growing straight up the tree alongside a poison ivy vine...

Large, tropical-looking leaves grow on Bristly Greenbriar (Smilax hispida), a native vine that produces berries eaten by birds and other animals. All the leaves are simple, and there is only one leaf per node along the vine.

With the exception of invasive honeysuckle, all the leaves on the trees in the area were down, which made this large green vine stand out. I'll have to keep an eye on it and see how long the leaves stay green (the vine always stays green).

My cell phone offers a good size comparison for this large leaf. (Looks like a hungry caterpillar visited this summer!)

The sharp prickles start to thin out as you look further up the vine. What looks like a large thorn is the remnants of a leaf stem. Tendrils extend from it and seem to have grown wherever a node was. Higher up the vine (newer growth), the stalk is smooth and green with no prickles.

At the base of the Bristly Greenbrier's green stalk, dark needle-sharp looking bristles of all sizes protrude. Very intimidating...enough to keep any Jack from climbing this beanstalk! 

Thanks to Rick for taking these photos with his cell phone! They look great. I didn't have my camera with me, so Rick stepped in to capture these images for me. I didn't have my binocs either, so I couldn't see if there were any berries at the top of the vine. I photographed a Red-bellied Woodpecker eating greenbrier berries along the Little Miami River a few years ago. It was a different species of greenbrier and the leaves were much smaller. Click here for a link to see the woodpecker eating the berries.

Yellow-rumped Warblers and poison ivy berries...

Butter Butts and poison ivy berries go hand-in-hand in autumn. If you find a large patch of poison ivy berries high in a tree, keep your eyes open, because sooner or later a Yellow-rumped Warbler will happen by and gobble up the tasty treats...

A fall Yellow-rumped Warbler perches in a tangle of poison ivy in a Sycamore tree. Good eats for the wee bird, a winter food supply of waxy berries entices a few of these warblers to overwinter in our area! 

In autumn and early winter, Yellow-rumped Warblers switch their diet from the abundant insects of spring and summer, to the abundant waxy berries of fall and winter. Because this warbler can survive without insects being its primary diet, it is the only spring warbler to overwinter in Ohio. All the other neotropical migrants head south for the winter where the insects still roam free. Not all of the Yellow-rumps migrating through our area stay all winter, however. Most head south as well, but you can usually see a few in the woods on bird outings all winter long. Rick and I have seen them many times along the Little Miami River in the winter.

The tell-tale camera click gives me away every time!
"Really?" our little warbler seems to say. "Can't you see I'm dining on poison ivy, the most delectable of all the berries? No photos, please." 

Oh, what a tangled web...of poison ivy vines! This very old sycamore was covered in hairy poison ivy vines, and the tree hosted several of the migrating (or overwintering) Yellow-rumped Warblers. 

Of course, Yellow-rumped Warblers are not the only birds to feast on poison ivy berries. Woodpeckers love them too. On winter hikes along the Little Miami River, I've watched Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, and a Northern Flicker pluck and eat them one berry at a time.

Being able to absorb and metabolize the fat in the waxy coating on the berry is unique among warblers and allows Yellow-rumped Warblers to be the most northerly wintering wood warblers. 

...you can barely see the little "pat of butter" above its tail that gives this sweet warbler its nickname, Butter Butt!

Click here for a previous post that shows a better view of that little pat of butter!

Click here for a look of a Butter-butt in all his springtime glory.

Why can Yellow-rumped Warblers survive on waxy berries in fall and winter?
Almost all the literature on Yellow-rumped Warblers mentions they are hardy warblers that can survive cold winters by eating waxy fruits such as poison ivy berries, bayberries, and wax myrtle, but the literature never explains why, so I did a little searching and found an article that details the warbler's unique digestive abilities in The Auk, 109(2):334-345, 1992 by Allen R. Place and Edmund W. Stiles titled, "Living Off the Wax of the Land: Bayberries and Yellow-rumped Warblers." Click here for the pdf of the article. It explains how Yellow-rumped Warblers are able to efficiently absorb and metabolize the wax that coats many of the fall and winter berries such as bayberry, wax myrtle and poison ivy.

Lincoln's Sparrow in Hocking Hills...

Rick, Matty and I, my brother, sis-in-law and my niece, and my parents all went to Hocking Hills in southeast Ohio last weekend. It was another of our fall trips. We started the tradition back when the kids were tiny little things, and we've kept it up through the years. Now the kids are juniors in college, and the tradition continues. This year we settled on Hocking Hills (an easy 2.5 hr drive) and rented an 8-bedroom "cabin" about 30 minutes away from the action of Old Man's Cave, Rock House, horseback riding, etc. I'm glad we did, because the cabin came with 30 or 40 acres to explore. It had a pond edged in cattails, scrubby fields, wet thickets, brush piles, a small stream in a small gorge, and even a few boggy areas, all of which add up to perfect territory for migrating Lincoln's Sparrows...

A beautiful fall Lincoln's Sparrow perches in a Sycamore sapling along the cattail edges of the pond.

We didn't know what the cabin would look like or what type of land would be around it, so I was really excited when we drove up the long, crunchy gravel drive and saw what was there. Basically, nothing. We were isolated from other people and cabins, which was wonderful! It was so nice to look out and see only trees and fields (my brother booked the cabin and did a great job!). In the back of my mind, I knew Lincoln's Sparrows were at the height of their fall migration through our state, and I was hoping to photograph one. Lincoln's Sparrows are shy birds, so they don't hang out where there is a lot of human activity, which made our lonely little cabin in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains a perfect location. The dashing little bird had always eluded my camera lens, so if ever I was going to be able to photograph one, this would be it.

Mr. Lincoln, you are a grand bird. The fine streaking and buff coloring sets this bird apart from other sparrows...especially song sparrows, which were all around me in the field.

I can't remember who asked...it might have been my mom, but someone wanted to know if the bird was named after President Lincoln. I didn't know, so I looked it up. It wasn't. It was named after Thomas Lincoln (1812 - 1883).  At the time, Thomas Lincoln was 21. He and 4 other young men, including Audubon's son, accompanied Audubon on the 1833 Labrador Expedition. Lincoln shot the bird for Audubon to paint for his The Birds of America book. Audubon named the bird after him, at first calling it "Tom's Finch."

Look at that jaunty little cap on his head trimmed with two chestnut stripes (lateral crown stripes), each streaked with black. That's one of the first things I look at when identifying a Lincoln's Sparrow. The black streaking on the head, and the fine dark brown and black streaks on the buff-colored chest and flanks.

A Lincoln's Sparrow in the morning light. 

Audubon's 1833 Labrador Expedition
On June 6, 1833, Audubon, his youngest son, John Woodhouse Audubon, Thomas Lincoln, William Ingalls, George Shattuck, and Joseph Coolidge (sometimes spelled Collide) set out from Eastport, Maine on the schooner "Ripley" commanded by Captain Emery. The trip was a collecting expedition with an emphasis on northern waterbirds for The Birds of America. They returned to Eastport on August 31, 1833. Click here for a map and timeline that shows the routes they took to and from Labrador. This map appears in the article, "Parts Unknown: Audubon's 1833 Labrador Expedition on the Ripley," and is on the Audubon website in "Audubon's Aviary, The Final Flight." The article contains a lot of other interesting historical information, e.g., in a letter Audubon wrote to his son Victor Gifford, we learn:

"I have chartered a schooner called the ‘Ripley,’ commanded by Captain Emery. . . . only a year old, of 106 tons, for which we pay three hundred and fifty dollars per month for the entire use of the vessel with the men. . . .”

While preparing for this expedition, Audubon suffered a stroke in March of 1833. He recovered quickly and continued with the preparations for the trip. For a personal account of the 1833 Labrador Expedition, click here for the pdf of an article from The Auk, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan., 1910), pp. 42-52, titled, "Audubon's Labrador Trip of 1833," by Ruthven Deane. In 1903 Deane interviewed Dr. William Ingalls, who was in his 90s and the last surviving member of the party. The article contains a letter written by Ingalls to Deane describing their trip.

Audubon's description of the Lincoln's Sparrow in Labrador
If you go to the Audubon website, you have access to all of the birds and the text from Audubon's great work of art, The Birds of America. Click here for the link. Lincoln's Sparrow is Plate 193, and the text that accompanies it is from the 1833 Labrador Expedition. I always love reading the original text. Here are a few of my favorite experts (click here for the entire text):

"We had been in Labrador nearly three weeks before this Finch was discovered. One morning while the sun was doing his best to enliven the gloomy aspect of the country, I chanced to enter one of those singular small valleys here and there to be seen. The beautiful verdure of the vegetation, the numerous flowers that grew sprinkled over the ground, the half-smothered pipings of some frogs, and the multitudes of mosquitoes and flies of various sorts, seemed to belong to a region very different from any that I had previously explored. But if the view of this favoured spot was pleasing to my eye, how much more to my ear were the sweet notes of this bird as they came thrilling on the sense, surpassing in vigour those of any American Finch with which I am acquainted, and forming a song which seemed a compound of those of the Canary and Wood-lark of Europe. I immediately shouted to my companions, who were not far distant. They came, and we all followed the songster as it flitted from one bush to another to evade our pursuit. No sooner would it alight than it renewed its song; but we found more wildness in this species than in any other inhabiting the same country, and it was with difficulty that we at last procured it. Chance placed my young companion, THOMAS LINCOLN, in a situation where he saw it alight within shot, and with his usual unerring aim, he cut short its career. On seizing it, I found it to be a species which I had not previously seen; and, supposing it to be new, I named it Tom's Finch, in honour of our friend LINCOLN, who was a great favourite among us. Three cheers were given him, when, proud of the prize, I returned to the vessel to draw it, while my son and his companions continued to search for other specimens." 

"The habits of this sweet songster resemble those of the Song Sparrow. Like it, mounted on the topmost twig of the tallest shrub or tree it can find, it chants for hours; or, diving into the thickets, it hops from branch to branch, until it reaches the ground, in search of those insects and berries from which it derives its support. It moves swiftly off when it discovers an enemy; and, if forced to take wing, flies low and rapidly to some considerable distance, jerking its tail as it proceeds, and throwing itself at the foot of the thickest bush it meets. I found it mostly near streams, and always in the small valleys, guarded from the cold winds so prevalent in the country, and which now and then nip the vegetation, and destroy many of the more delicate birds."

Our fall trips
This was a wonderful fall trip. The weather was perfect, the leaves were starting to change, and the birds were fantastic. From horseback riding, to hiking, to looking up at the Milky Way while listening to coyotes, I loved every minute with my family and want to go back...soon! There is a lot to see in Hocking Hills, and a day and a half is not enough time. Click here for highlights from a few of our earlier trips.

The Gray Catbird on the boardwalk...

...this is probably one of the most recognized (and ignored) Gray Catbirds on the planet. I saw him in May when I was at Magee Marsh (near Toledo, Ohio) at the Biggest Week in American Birding warbler festival. Every time I was there, so was he...literally on the boardwalk, walking around trying to get everyone's attention. When you're a Gray Catbird surrounded by thousands of brightly colored rare warblers, you have to work a little harder to get any respect...

A beautiful Gray Catbird at Magee Marsh

Hey! Look at me...I'm a neotropical migrant too (just a little larger and grayer). 

This Catbird was not afraid of anyone. He would walk the planks while people looked on and walked past him. Apparently Gray Catbirds are forced to take drastic measures to compete with the glittery, colorful, tiny, fleeting warblers...

When he wasn't on the boardwalk, he dropped down beside it to forage on the ground and in shrubs for insects. He really is quite beautiful, and when he's not mewing, he has a lovely and varied song (mimicking other birds as well). 

Catbirds are great subjects to study to learn wing feathers. Since the birds are large, the feathers are easy to see. On the top of the "stack" are the three tertials, followed by the secondaries, then the primaries (the longest flight feathers) on bottom. 

The spring songbird in the winter gray flannel suit... 

Is it neophilia, or is it gray flannel?

If I heard, "Oh, it's just a catbird," once, I heard it a million times. These poor birds with their sweet mews and songs got no respect along the boardwalk. It's easy to understand, though. In the grips of WARBLERMANIA, the more common songbirds often fall by the wayside. Neophilia is the love of or enthusiasm for what is new or novel, and humans often fall prey to its lure. Many of the spring warblers are fleeting and rare and are definitely novel in our parts. Some of the visitors stay, but others are just stopping off on their long flight north adding to their mystique, but our sweet berry-loving catbirds are brave enough to live among us, becoming commonplace in the process. In the wild, catbirds like swampy, boggy, and soggy areas. You can always find them streamside along the Little Miami River, but they are neotropical migrants that can adapt, and they have taken to suburban and urban backyards packed with berries. We have resident catbirds in our backyard all spring and summer. They come readily to the mulberries and then stick around for the pokeweed berries, so maybe that's why throngs of people move quickly past them to look for the cute and colorful rare warblers...

...or maybe it's just the gray flannel! 

The Birding in Cincinnati website has moved...

The Birding in Cincinnati website created by Ned Keller has been absorbed into the Cincinnati Chapter of the National Audubon Society's website. Here is a quick breakdown with links:

Sightings Log
Click here for a link to the Sightings Log. It is still active. You can add sightings and see what's been seen recently in our area.

Birds of Cincinnati Frequency List
Click here for a list of birds regularly seen in our area rated for the frequency of finding them in every month of the year. The list uses finding codes from A-E and is very helpful:

      A. Easy to find; should find on over 90% of your trips.
      B. Usually find; should find on over 50% of your trips.
      C. Usually miss; should find on under 50% of your trips.
      D. Hard to find; should find on under 10% of your trips.
      E. Very hard to find; may not be present at all at this time in some years, but has occurred
           often enough to form a pattern.

Finding Codes
Click here for a detailed explanation of the finding codes (A-E).

Daily Checklist
Click here for a daily checklist. You can select a date from the drop-down list and print out a checklist specific for that date to take with you in the field (finding codes are included for that day).

Places to Bird
Click here for a list of places to bird in the Cincinnati area.


I used the bird list yesterday. A Ruby-throated Hummingbird was at our feeder throughout the day. I wanted to check on how often hummers were still in our area on Oct 3. According to the list, once October hits, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are rated E, so I'm lucky to have one visiting our yard so late in the season. This morning, the same (or another) juvenile hummer was at the feeder, quite chubby and ready to migrate (he was similar but not as big as as "Ping Pong," from this earlier post). I'm sure he will be gone either today or tomorrow. I wonder if this will be our last hummer for the year?

Here is a glimpse at what you will find in the bird list. It's very helpful information, and I'm glad we have such a resource:

          Species               Jan   Feb   Mar  Apr     May    Jun     Jul        Aug     Sep       Oct    Nov   Dec
Ruby-throated Humm                             ED   CCBB  BBBB  BBBB  BBBB  BBCD  EE

Red Admiral along the Little Miami River...

...what a beauty, and what a fast and elusive flyer too! A few weeks ago, Rick and I watched this fellow zipping all around us showing off his agility and quick moves. He'd fly in close enough to get our hopes up, and then he'd fly out again, until finally, he flew in and lit on a stem within camera range. What a twisty little thing he was. You would think he was a professional flyer or something...

A Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) at rest (finally). Even with his wings closed, he is a beauty when viewed up close.

Seasonal migration
Red Admirals are fleet of wing, and like Monarchs, they undergo seasonal migrations. They can't survive cold winters, so they don't overwinter in our area. Some of the butterflies from the fall generation migrate south to winter in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and other southern states. North America is then recolonized each spring by butterflies coming up from the south. Click here for a 2012 post about a Red Admiral at a sap flow on our dying Ash Tree. It explains more about their migration patterns and also irruption years.

With wings open, the orange and black make Red Admirals a perfect Halloween butterfly. 
Too bad they usually take off for southern climes before October 31.

Brush-footed Butterflies
If you study the first photo, it looks like the butterfly has only four legs (two on each side), but insects have six legs, so what's up? Brush-footed Butterflies (family Nymphalidae) have six legs, but the first two are so small, you don't notice them. The butterflies don't walk on these very short forelegs, and some species don't even have feet on them, they just have little brushes or hairs, which accounts for the common name, "Brush-footed Butterflies." Because you only see four legs, this family has another nickname, called "Four-footed Butterflies." To learn more about them, click here or here. You can also click here, for an earlier post on a Mourning Cloak butterfly, which is another Brush-footed Butterfly.

A black-, orange- and white-checkered moth walked in...

...and decided to stay! Thus begins the story of the Ailanthus Webworm Moth and its excellent adventure. (This is a companion piece to an earlier post on the Common Buttonbush.) While Matty and I were sketching the Buttonbush flowers along the Little Miami River, we noticed a small black-, orange- and white-checkered insect was on a lot of the blossoms...

Ailanthus Webworm Moths on a Buttonbush Inflorescence
These two dapper moths look like they are tiptoeing through the styles of each tiny flower. 

Ailanthus Webworm Moth
I'd seen the bug before, but had never studied it, so when we got home, I got out my "Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America," by Kenn Kaufman, and sure enough, there it was, an Ailanthus Webworm Moth (Atteva aurea), a day-flying moth that pollinates a lot of flowers as it visits them to sip nectar.

An Ailanthus Webworm Moth clings to the underside of a Swamp Milkweed flower along the Little Miami River near Spring Valley Wildlife Area. 

Tree of Heaven
This moth, which looks like a long skinny beetle when seen from a distance, is "sort of" a native to the United States (and here is where its excellent adventure kicks in). The lovely little moth got brave one day and jumped host plants. Originally, the moth was native to southern Florida and Central and South American, where its host plant, the Paradise Tree grew, but one day, it found a Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), which is closely related to the Paradise Tree, and decided to live on it. The Tree of Heaven is not native to the United States. It's from China, but it was introduced to the U.S. in the 1700s.  Since then, it has spread across the country, and the Ailanthus Webworm Moth moved along with it. (Click here for a detailed history of the Tree of Heaven in the United States and control strategies to prevent its spread.)

The Ailanthus Webworm Moth originally was native to southern Florida, but it followed the Tree of Heaven, an invasive introduced from China in the 1700s, as it spread across the nation.

The Tree of Heaven looks a lot like our native Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina), which produces seeds beneficial to the birds. There are several ways to tell the two trees apart. The easiest is the Tree of Heaven has smooth leaflets that turn yellow in autumn, while Staghorn Sumac has serrated leaves and turns bright red. Click here for an earlier post on Staghorn Sumac to see what it looks like in the fall, and learn about how it helps birds get through deep winter.  Click here for a pdf titled, "Invasives Strike Force Plant Guide, 2012," from the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference. This guide teaches you how to spot many invasive trees and tell them apart from native look-alikes.

An Ailanthus Webworm Moth, an early instar Monarch caterpillar, and a Monarch butterfly all share a Swamp Milkweed flower. The larvae of the Ailanthus Webworm Moth only eats Tree of Paradise leaves, but the adult moths are not picky and pollinate many types of flowers. 

One more thing...
The Tree of Heaven is famous for its starring role in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," by Betty Smith. Click here for a link to a critical essay on the symbols in the book, including the Tree of Paradise described in the first chapter, where the tree was a metaphor for all the immigrants coming into New York City during the 1700s and 1800s.


Additional references
For more information on the Ailanthus Webworm Moth, click here for "Moths of Ohio Field Guide," by David J. Horn, Ph.D; Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife, or here for an interesting post on the blog "MOBugs; Missouri's Majority."

(I really enjoyed spending the day sketching with Matty (8-7-2015) at the Spring Valley Wildlife Area. Getting out in the wild with pencil and paper is relaxing and helps cement memories. The next day, I drove out with my camera to get photos. Beauty was everywhere...)

A ping pong ball with wings...

...describes our chubby little migration-ready Ruby-throated Hummingbird! Rick and I were sitting on the deck yesterday evening eating our dinner when I looked up into a tree about 30 feet away and noticed what looked like a ping pong ball with wings resting among the leaves. I looked again and pointed him out to Rick. It was a fat little hummer ready for his big flight south...

This little hummingbird had been working hard to "enrich" his fat cells for his mighty trip south!
Hummingbirds need to double their weight to make the arduous trip safely. 

Our "house-hummers" flew the coop on Thursday, September 17 (it was a sad day). Hummingbirds migrate during the day, and ours must have taken off late in the morning, because we didn't see any the rest of the day, Friday or Saturday, but by Sunday afternoon, a new visitor had moved in (jubilation). He was a small and skittish juvenile Ruby-throated Hummingbird from the north, dropping in to fuel up for the next leg of his journey. We were used to our house-hummers who didn't mind our comings and goings and would hover inches from my face and hands as I changed the nectar in the feeders, but with our new visitor, if I even blinked, he would fly away. I texted my friend, Cheri, who lives a few houses up, and told her to watch her feeder. Maybe he was on his way to her. Within minutes, Cheri texted back that he was there! Then she would "blink," and he would take off in a huff for our house. Cheri and I texted back and forth that day while he ping-ponged between our feeders (and the huge trumpet honeysuckle vine that grows near our feeders). It was fun being able to predict his arrival. The next day, two more hummers dropped in, then another, then another. We appear to be a refueling and weight-gaining station for hummingbirds from the north as they wing their way south. I will keep my feeders stocked for a while, hoping to wring out the season as along as I can. The chatter of hummingbird-speak makes me happy, and getting to watch (and help out) hummingbirds migrating south is fun.

...yes, you're such a sweet little ping pong ball with wings!

If it were cold and he was fluffing up to stay warm, this fellow would look normal, but it was warm, and he was not fluffing up at all. He had gained the weight he needed to help him on his way south. I will watch for him today, but I bet he took off with the sun this morning. 

Hummingbird migration...
I've had three or four friends in the past couple of weeks as me how long they should keep their hummingbird feeders up. They don't want to impede their hummers' departure during fall migration. I always tell them, don't worry, a stocked feeder will not entice a hummingbird to stay longer than it should, but it might help a northern hummer on its flight south. Hummingbirds get itchy and jumpy when its time for them to migrate. They have an inner urge that drives them to leave triggered by the "intensity of daylight." As the days get shorter, hormones are released to increase their appetites so they can gain enough weight for their incredible journey south (from Mexico to Central America, as far south as Panama).

Hummers do not migrate in a flock, but they do fly out on favorable winds, so if there are many on the move, you might see several in a day. They usually fly during the day and sleep at night, except when they cross over the Gulf of Mexico. Hummingbirds fly low over the water, and it can take them 18-22 hours to cross. They can't sleep during this dangerous part of their journey and must have adequate fat reserves to fuel them across. Every time I think of these tiny little power houses winging low over the water my heart melts. Hummers are mighty birds! When hummers stop to rest along their journey, they may stay as short as one day, or as long as two weeks. I didn't know this, but I recently read when hummingbirds migrate, they fly low to the ground, just over treetops, so they can easily find nectar sources.

References
Click here for hummingbird migration details on the "World of Hummingbirds" website.
Click here for hummingbird FAQs on the "Hummingbird Journey North" website.
Click here for hummingbird migration basics on the "Hummingbirds.net" website.
A nice reference book is "Hummingbirds and Butterflies," by Bill Thompson III and Connie Toops.