Little Things

Our son and his family live quite a way from here in an idyllic setting on the side of a mountain. Thanks to COVID-19 we hadn’t seen them for well over a year, but once we were all fully vaccinated we’ve been visiting once again.

Just behind their house is a small pond with native vegetation around the edges. The pond isn’t very large, covering about a quarter acre. Like many ponds that don’t have manicured edges it attracts a wide variety of wildlife – deer and otter and mink, ducks, geese, herons and many species of songbirds; it has at least five species of fish, frogs of several kinds, salamanders and a horde of insects.

Because it’s right behind their house we’ve often sat inside and watched the wildlife in and around the pond. This summer our son and I made two circuits on a path around the little pond; we looked for some of the smaller creatures attracted to the pond-side vegetation. This wasn't a careful census or a bioblitz, we were just casually looking to see what we could see.

Some say “It’s just the little things that make life interesting.” There are a lot of large things that also make life interesting, but small things greatly add to life’s enjoyment. Here are just a few of the small things we saw in about 20 minutes –

The real prize of this little excursion came as a surprise; it was the clematis clearwing moth we found in a tangle of vegetation that included wild clematis –

This species appears to be quite uncommon, there may only be one specimen in the Smithsonian's collection and fewer than 75 locations listed in any reference I consulted. To help reduce predation, these attractive day-flying moths mimic some spider-hunting wasps and are therefore probably frequently overlooked by naturalists.

Yes indeed, little things ARE interesting.

Frog Fight

Walking along a recently abandoned beaver pond we were, our son and I. Although the beavers have apparently moved on to create a new pond, this one still held a lot of water – in fact it was almost full. At intervals along the pond’s edge green frogs waited to catch a meal. The male frogs were calling to attract girl frogs and intimidate rival males.

Green frogs are common in freshwater wetlands throughout the eastern United States. They will travel fairly long distances overland between wetlands and quickly colonize new areas. Green frogs can be distinguished from the larger bullfrog by their distinct raised dorsolateral ridges where their backs transition to their sides.

Female green frogs are larger than the males; the males have bright yellow throats and larger tympanum (an ear-like organ), double the size of the eye –

A female green frog at the beaver pond shows that females’ tympanum are smaller, about the size of their eye –

As we walked along we saw a disturbance in the water. At first it seemed it might be caused by a pair of mating frogs, but no – it was two male green frogs in a tussle.

The males would occasionally call and repeatedly bump chests which included much pushing and shoving –

Eventually the larger of the two males seized the smaller around the chest in a dominant position –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After watching the goings-on for a while we moved on. As for the outcome, we don’t know. In the past I’ve seen female wood frogs that have been drowned by amorous males. Being cold-blooded, frogs don’t need as much oxygen as mammals or birds so the the smaller frog may have escaped before it drowned – we’ll never know.

On Turning 80

         I've been lately thinking about my life's time

All the things I've done, how it's been
And I can't help believing in my own mind
I know I'm gonna hate to see it end

                                                    John Denver

                                                     "Poems, Prayers and Promises" 

Yesterday, August 3^rd, I celebrated my 80^th birthday and began another year on this green earth – another year to wander forest and field – to see flowers and trees, streams and insects, rain and snow, wind and sun.

Who’d a thunk all those years ago – when I headed for college, or a couple of years later when H and I met, or when our kids were born – that the years would pass so quickly and now we have more yesterdays than tomorrows. 

As I’ve aged I’ve discovered a geologic phenomena in the northeast, an area usually considered to be geologically stable. Over the last ten years the hills have gotten steeper than they were. Not only are they steeper, but they seem much higher. In fact, they are so much higher that the air must be thinner, making me breathe harder and more rapidly as I gain elevation. 

But the air still smells as sweet, scented with the aroma of damp soil and dry leaves. The streams still gurgle over rocks and waterfalls, both large and small. 

The trees still reach to the sky and turn color in the fall. The wildflowers still bloom. The birds still sing and the deer still feed in the clearings. The quiet and the whisper of the breeze have not changed over the years. And my appreciation for all these things has not diminished – indeed it has increased.

And so, at the beginning of my 81^st year, another round of taking a photo of the natural world on each day of the year begins. Those photos will be posted in November, February, May and August – stand by.

And to end this post I'll quote those who have said: Live each day as if it were to be your last,  for someday you will be right.

Three Months at the Beaver Pond

The beaver pond is over the ridge behind the house and over another ridge behind that. It sits in a wide valley, a valley with farmland and woodland, and is fed by a small stream that flows through a larger pond that also is the home to a colony of beavers.

One of my camera traps has been at the beaver pond for several years, furnishing photographs and videos for a number of posts on In Forest and Field. Only once this year, in mid-April, have I seen a beaver at the pond and their lodge is deteriorating from a lack of maintenance.

Every once in a while it seems as if all the possibilities from a camera trap location have been exhausted – and then …

Although it seems that the beavers have now deserted this pond I’m leaving the camera trap there throughout the summer – we'll see what turns up.

National Moth Week - 2021

This week (July 17-25) is National Moth Week, a celebration of those fascinating and often colorful insects that are primarily nocturnal. Moths and their larvae are an important component of forest and field ecosystems, they’re a major – often the primary – food source for songbird nestlings and adults. Some moths are important pollinators; others, especially the litter moths, recycle fallen leaves while still others can have major impacts on tree survival and growth.

A sampling of the moths to be found in northcentral Pennsylvania –

Speaking of moths, the Entomological Society of America just announced that it was dropping/changing the name "Gypsy Moth" because it was perceived as inappropriate and offensive to the Roma people. Will it also change the names of any moths that might be perceived as offensive including: "The Hebrew",  "Finnish Dart", "Spanish Moth", "Setaceous Hebrew Character", "The German Cousin", "The Old Maid", "The Slowpoke", "Old Man Dart" and the entire group called "Quakers"?  Just asking!

A Great Commotion

Early summer, the forecast was for temperatures in the low 90°s, not my kind of weather. But at dawn it was in the 60°s, rising to just over 70° by the time we’d finished breakfast. So H drove me to the top of the ridge where I could walk an old, old road down into the Big Woods – downhill all the way to where we’d left my car.

The ridgetop is occupied by an oak forest, perfect food for caterpillars of the accidentally introduced gypsy moth. Pieces of oak leaves were scattered on the ground; gypsy moth caterpillars are sloppy eaters –

A short way further down the old road several rattlesnake-weed plants were in bloom –

On down the hill I went until suddenly a great commotion arose from the bracken fern and black huckleberry growing alongside the old road. The loud sound and thrashing set me back for a moment until I realized that it was a female wild turkey protecting her young. She burst from the plants sounding her alarm call loudly, spreading her wings and running across the grassy road as her poults scattered and hid. 

She continued to run around me in ever-widening circles, calling loudly all the time. I missed getting the beginning of her display, but here’s a bit of the performance she put on –

When she first exploded from the vegetation I saw several of the poults, one poult ran to a large fallen branch a side of which was off the ground. As the hen got further away I decided to look for the poult beneath the branch. It took a while, but there it was –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turkey poults often hide beneath fallen leaves and there’s always the danger of stepping on a hidden poult. Poults that survive their first two weeks of life can fly short distances, greatly increasing their odds of survival.

With that it was time to move on and allow the turkeys to reunite. Although later there were photos of flowers and a stream, the turkeys were the highlight of the morning. The rest of my walk through the Big Woods was uneventful, and then it was time to head home and stay cool.

The End

It’s not the end of In Forest and Field. Instead it’s the end of keeping a camera trap where it had been for five months because the reason to have one there is now gone. Except for some hair, all the remains of the dead white-tail doe have now been eaten or disbursed into the forest ecosystem in which she spent her life.

After the doe’s death she fed a myriad of creatures – eastern coyotes being the largest, the smallest being microscopic life forms, some of which are probably still unknown to science.

Three other posts on this blog highlighted the mammals and birds that gained sustenance from the doe’s body. First came One Dead Deer – Many Diners followed by The Deer Dinner Continues  and then Slim Pickings.

The last videos from the dead deer are here –

 

Some of the songbirds came to gather hair for their nests, some came, no doubt, to feast on the insects that had fed on the doe’s remains. Most of those insects would have been flies and beetles, but there may have been others.

On this video is the only camera trap image I’ve ever captured of a woodland jumping mouse, a rodent that few have ever seen and that spends much of the year hibernating underground. Years ago I was fortunate to be able to photograph a woodland jumping mouse –

You can never tell what may show up on a camera trap.