Puddling

When our son was about four years old my parents were taking care of the kids for the day while H and I were canoeing on the river. Our son had a plank laid across some water in front of the house; he was walking on the plank when he fell off and got soaked with somewhat muddy water. My mother brought him in the house, cleaned him up, changed his clothes and sent him back out to play. He proceeded to walk the plank again – and fell off AGAIN.

That’s a famous family story, but not the kind of puddling this post is really about.

Butterflies feed primarily on the nectar produced by flowering plants – but nectar is almost pure sugar water lacking in many vital nutrients. What’s a poor butterfly to do?

To acquire those nutrients butterflies “puddle”. They visit moist areas: mud puddles, rotting mammal or bird carcasses, decaying plants, feces, blood and urine to suck up fluids containing the needed nutrients. It’s mostly, but not exclusively, males that puddle to help them successfully reproduce.

Examples of puddling –

Puddling may seem gross, but if butterflies didn’t get their nutrients some species of plants might not be pollinated and we probably wouldn't have these beautiful creatures to enjoy.

Bees and More

They’ve been growing in the front flower bed for as long as I can remember. Where we got them I have no idea. They resemble the black-eyed susans that grow along roadsides and in abandoned fields, but they’re not that species: Rudbeckia hirta

Beyond a doubt they’re a Rudbeckia, but which one? Perhaps they’re a cultivar (a variety originating and persisting under cultivation) or a hybrid between several species.

Whatever it may be, bees find it very desirable as a source of pollen. The most common bees feeding on the Rudbeckia are honeybees. Where do the honeybees come from, where’s their hive? It’s generally acknowledged that honeybees prefer to forage not more than two miles from their hive, but may travel up to five miles. I don’t know anyone within two miles who keeps bees, so these may be wild bees whose hive is in a hollow tree somewhere or in the walls of a building. Honeybees aren’t native to North America, they originated in Eurasia and Africa, but they're perfectly at home here.

Honeybees do a “dance” in the hive to communicate the direction and distance of flowers yielding pollen or nectar to the other bees in the hive. 

But it isn’t just honeybees that gather pollen from the Rudbeckia, there are other species of bees: leaf cutter bees -

Metallic (sweat) bees –

And bumblebees of various species –

A red-spotted purple butterfly sips nectar from the flowers –

Several species of flies visit to feed on pollen –

Predaceous insects also frequent the patch of Rudbeckia seeking a meal –

This patch of Rudbeckia has expanded each year, adding more resources for pollinators. As we age and are less capable of gardening intensively it’s almost certain that the expansion will continue – to the delight of the bees and other insects. 

Back to the Beaver Pond

It was a truly lovely evening for the last week of summer: clear, cool, with a gentle breeze. So back to the nearest beaver pond I went hoping for a few photos of the resident beavers. The pond is about a quarter acre in size, but with connections to much larger wetlands.

These beavers are “bank beavers” that haven’t built a lodge of sticks and mud as do most beavers that inhabit ponds or lakes. Instead they dwell in a large, possibly intricate, burrow in the bank of the pond. Why these beavers, who have been here for a number of years, have never constructed a lodge is a mystery to me.

After I’d sat by the edge of the pond for about 45 minutes, a male wood duck in “eclipse plumage”, approached –

He saw me, realized something was amiss and swam away.

It wasn’t long before the first beaver appeared –

And then there were two –

They patrolled the pond before going through the oversized culvert that gives them access to a much larger pond/wetland complex –

They left, the sun was setting, and it was time for me to leave as well.

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Twenty-two hours later, on a very similar evening, I was back at the beaver pond. Once again the first thing I saw were wood ducks, including a male standing on the branches of a fallen tree –

But I was after beavers and from the place I chose to sit the wood ducks were no longer within view. As I waited, a female common spreadwing damselfly was nearby laying eggs on a blade of grass –

The first beaver, an adult, appeared shortly after I arrived; 40 minutes earlier than the night before –

It went through the culvert and I sat waiting; wood ducks soon made an appearance. First a lone male and soon two females –

Then came another beaver, a yearling, followed by another adult –

A few minutes later the prize of the evening popped to the pond’s surface, this year’s beaver kit with frizzy hair similar to that often seen on human teenagers –

All the beavers apparently swam through the culvert to the larger wetland.

Beaver lodges or bank burrows are usually occupied by a pair of breeding adults that mate for life, the one-year old yearlings that will leave the colony in late winter, and the current year’s kits.

As a solid bank of clouds began obscuring the sun, the final beaver of the evening appeared, another yearling which also swam through the culvert to the larger wetland. The light had really dimmed, so it was time to pack up and head for home.

Small and Large

The day dawned cloudy and hazy and extremely humid but it wasn’t too hot and there was a pleasant breeze. And so I decided to take a longer walk than I’ve taken in over a year and headed to a state game land. Since the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) is responsible for all birds and mammals in the state, I believe the name should be “Pennsylvania Wildlife Commission” – but it’s not and the land the PGC manages are called Game Lands. Those names make it appear that the PGC’s allegiance is only to hunters.

In any case, game lands harbor all sorts of wildlife from tiny insects to bear and elk. This day in mid-summer, when bird song has essentially ended, the only wildlife that’s really active are the hordes of insects of various sizes and lifestyles.

So it’s no wonder that butterflies were some of the first things I photographed that day, especially because many butterflies are quite photogenic, even the very small least skipper.

Some of those butterflies were feeding on nectar in the abundant teasel flowers. Teasels were introduced to North America for use in the textile industry to raise the nap on woolen cloth and make the cloth softer and warmer. While that use has been displaced by machinery, the species remains as an invasive plant in old fields and pastures where its flowers feed butterflies –

Even more abundant were the bright yellow flowers of thin-leaved sunflower –

I was walking a long loop that took me past several wetlands. One of those wetlands had a large assemblage of greater bladderwort in bloom. Greater bladderwort is a small carnivorous plant that lives in shallow water and captures tiny aquatic creatures in inflatable bladders on its roots and stems and has interesting yellow flowers –

Among the other small things to be seen that day were two species of damselflies; first the fragile forktail and later the eastern forktail –

And suddenly the largest critter of the day flushed from a tall white pine – an adult bald eagle –

With that it was but a short walk back to the car.