Dave and I found this Bay-breasted Warbler on May 20th this year at Creve Coeur Lake in St. Louis County. Always a pleasure to find a singing Bay-breasted.
Bay-breasted Warbler
Category: wildlife photography
False Map Turtle (Graptemys pseudogeographica)
Blackpoll Warbler
Swamp Metalmark (Calephelis muticum) – Larvae
I previously shared photos of adult of swamp metalmark (Calephelis muticum). This spring, after a couple or three years of looking for them on their host plant, Cirsium muticum (swamp thistle), I finally found the caterpillar of this vulnerable species of conservation concern.
Nesting Birds of Missouri – Acadian Flycatcher
Bizarre Creatures in My Garden
Here is a perfect example of ‘why native plants?’ in the home garden. This is the first year of our new native flower garden in front of our new house. This spring we spent a good deal of money and time getting the old exotic evergreen bushes out of the beds and planting a new garden consisting of mostly native forbs and a couple patches of grasses. After a long and cool spring, we are finally getting some heat units on these mostly gladey and xeric species and a few are starting to respond nicely.
During my daily deadheading of some flowering Coreopsis and other asters, I notice new things from time to time. The arthropods are beginning to come. Since the original razing of the land that this subdivision sets on some 45+ years ago, these plant and insect communities have undoubtedly been rare. While my 100 square feet of natives won’t likely make a big difference, hopefully more and more of us will ‘go native’
About a week ago, I noticed these golden drops on the leaf of a Liatris spicata (marsh blazing star). After taking a few photos in situ, I decided to collect the leaf and see what the hatch might be. I figured it was a hemipteran of some sort and after a little research, I narrowed it down to the Coreidae family, or ‘leaf-footed bugs.’ If you can identify these to any degree of higher specificity, please let me know.
After three or four days in a jar, all of a sudden the leaf was alive with the movement of spikey mechanisms. I took a few photos on their cradle leaf, then moved a few to a Coreopsis sp. bloom. Afterwards, I let them go to feed as they like on our plants, maybe to see them another day.
-OZB
Nesting Birds of Missouri – Black-and-White Warbler
The Black-and-white Warbler (Mniotilta varia) is another weirdo in the Parulidae family. It is the only extant member of the genus, Mniotilta, and it definitely stands out against the other wood warblers that we find in Missouri. Whereas other warblers flit about the leaves at ends of branches, through bush or along forest floors, gleaning for arthropods, the Black-and-white Warbler finds another niche. It forages by hugging tree trunks and inner branches, much like a nuthatch or creeper. The interesting genus name apparently comes from another of this bird’s behaviors. This name comes from the Ancient Greek mnion, meaning “seaweed”, and tillo, “to pluck”. Apparently, Black-and-white Warblers strip mosses and reindeer lichens to line their nests, which they make in mature forests across much of eastern and central North America.
-OZB
Tachinus fimbriatus (crab-like rove beetle)
This Tachinus fimbriatus, a member of the rove beetle family, Staphylinidae, was found and photographed in September, 2020 at Babler State Park in St. Louis Co, MO. Some consider the Staphylinidae the largest family of animals in North America with close to 5,000 species described in more than 500 genera. Most rove beetles are carnivorous and feed primarily upon invertebrates. However, many feed on decaying vegetation, especially as larvae. This adorable beetle is believed to feed primarily on rotting mushrooms.
Nesting Birds of Missouri – The Ovenbird
With the relatively recent removal of the Yellow-breasted Chat from the Parulidae, the title of the largest new world “wood warbler” may very well go to the Ovenbird, Seiurus aurocapilla. The Ovenbird is somewhat of a misfit itself. Seiurus is a monotypic genus, believed to have derived early in the evolution of the family. This pot-bellied, thrush-like bird nests and forages on the forest floor, getting its common name from its nest that supposedly resembles a Dutch oven.
Although the Ovenbird can be easily heard through much of the summer in any large-track deciduous forest, getting good looks and photographs is easiest by waiting to spot them in a migration trap like Tower Grove Park in St. Louis City where these photos were taken.
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
“The Ovenbird”
Robert Frost
-OZB
Swainson’s Warbler – In St. Charles County!
The Swainson’s Warbler (Limnothlypis swainsonii) is a very secretive bird whose summer nesting range occurs in the southeastern United States. It requires a habitat of dense undergrowth and heavy leaf litter for foraging and nesting and, in Missouri, this species is rarely found north of the Current River watershed. It’s safe to say that in the St. Louis birding community, the most popular bird of the past week is a Swainson’s Warbler that has apparently set up a territory along the Lost Valley Trail in Weldon Spring Conservation Area in St. Charles County.
Named for William John Swainson, a naturalist, illustrator and contemporary of John James Audubon, the Swainson’s Warbler could fit in well in the lush habitat of this section of Weldon Spring C.A. Here it will compete with the bounty of other low-feeding passerines found here like the Ovenbird, Kentucky Warbler, White-eyed Vireo, Worm-eating Warbler and the occasional Hooded Warbler. Like we needed another reason to love birding at this location!
The Swainson’s Warbler is definitely not your typical species of wood warbler. The Parulidae family is well known for the gem-like coloration and spectacular patterns of many of it’s species. The Swainson’s Warbler, however, has a color and pattern more adapted to a lifestyle of foraging in the leaf litter and spending time in the dark understory of swamps and bottomland forests. This bird has a brownish back and lighter, white to cream-coloration on its breast. This typical countershading coloration allows it to blend in and virtually disappear within its environment. There is no sexual dimorphism in the coloration of this species – males and females are virtually identical, unlike other species of warblers also found along the Lost Valley Trail like the American Redstart and the Cerulean Warbler.
The bird is rather flat-headed with a much longer and stronger bill than most other warbler species. It is also known for its pink-colored and strong legs. These adaptations are probably helpful while lifting dead leaves and other detritus of the forest floor while it forages for its arthropod prey.
It is this author’s opinion that the song of the Swainson’s Warbler is one of the most satisfying of bird songs. It sounds like it took the stuttering song of the Louisiana Waterthrush (a closely related species) and perfected it. I can still completely enjoy myself just being in the woods with these guys singing. Be prepared for frustration if you are waiting for one of these birds to pop out of the dense understory to get a nice clear look.
Here you can find video of singing Cerulean and Swainson’s Warblers I took years ago at the Greer Spring Access location.
Colombia, MO has had one or more Swainson’s Warblers for the past five years or so. Will this species become a regular at Lost Valley Trail? Is this one of the “good consequences” of climate change? It should be mentioned there have been a few reports that there are currently more than one bird along the trail. Some have claimed two males in separate territories and/or two birds spotted at the same location, indicating the potential presence of a female. I have spent four mornings over the past week looking for this bird and have seen no evidence of more than a single male yet, but there is always that potential.
Best of luck to those going to try for this bird. You would be hard pressed to think of a better place to spend some hours on a spring morning.
Thanks for visiting and let me know if you have had success hearing or laying eyes on this bird or if you have had any luck finding evidence of more than the one bird.
-OZB
A Thousand Acres of Silphiums 