"What a thousand acres of Silphiums looked like when they tickled the bellies of the buffalo is a question never again to be answered, and perhaps not even asked." -Aldo Leopold
The habitat this featured orchid was found was quite interesting – a wet, fen-like area with many pea-gravel rivulets to walk down. All this was set under a thick overstory that allowed little light on the cloudy day Casey and I visited. Often forced to hunch as we searched for other plants, lighting for photography was challenging, but we got what we came for.
As you can see below, this is a dainty and sweet orchid that has a large primary leaf and a secondary, bract-like leaf.
-OZB
After looking for a few years, I finally found a patch of black trumpets this year in Jefferson County, MO. They are reported to be one of the finest wild mushrooms and I agree – they (I picked and ate the ones pictured here) are definitely in my top three!
Today I’m sharing a couple of plants that Casey introduced me to that have a preference for growing in dry, sandy places. The first is a monarda that I did not know existed and has since become my favorite of the beebalms for certain.
Next up is Callirhoe triangulata, the clustered poppymallow. This supremely saturated flower strongly prefers, dry sandy soils. A stunner of a plant! We looked for compositions that allowed us to feature not only the flower, but the triangular-shaped leaf as well, which is indicative of this species. This species is very rare to possibly extirpated in Missouri.
We found this equally striking Rufous-banded Crambid moth (Mimoschinia rufofascialis) on an open flower. This moth uses these mallows as a host plant, feeding on the immature seeds. I’m not sure, but I doubt the adults feed; this one was likely just using the flower for shelter.
-OZB
Going to the archives to try and wrap up 2019, I want to share a few more birds taken in eastern North Carolina.
For me, the highlight of visiting Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge was visiting the Least Tern nesting colony. They put up a barricade to make sure you do not get to close to the nests and chicks, but it soon became obvious that the birds do a pretty good job at dissuading anyone from getting too close.
It was terrifying watching these birds react defensively, strafing and defecating until I moved back to a point they felt comfortable with. I remember I still had some of their ammunition on my camera body for at least six months before finally cleaning it off.
You have to look really close towards the center of their nesting arena to spot the chicks – the reason for their territorial behaviors.
During a walk along the interior, marsh portion of the refuge, this beautiful Common Tern flew by.
A real treat were my first looks and photographs of Red Knot.
During the same trip, I was fortunate to visit a nice longleaf pine forest habitat at TNC’s Calloway Forest Preserve in Hoke County, NC. Here, along with the Red-cockaded Woodpecker, I got to find one of my southern favorites, the Bachman’s Sparrow.
From the few short trips I’ve been, North Carolina seems to be quite a place for birds and nature.
-OZB
A few weeks ago Ev, Yvonne, Dave and I traveled south to try and find the first state record of the Brown Booby that was on the Current River just outside of Doniphan. Unfortunately, we were a day late and missed the bird. However, through the patient and educated eyes of Yvonne, we found several insects that made the trip worthwhile.
One of these that I was able to get some photos of was this striking great blue skimmer (Libellula vibrans). This is one of the largest of the skimmers and while not necessarily rare, it isn’t one you’ll come across very often in the St. Louis area.
We made a stop in Carter County before heading home to look for orchids. The orchids were a no-show, but Yvonne found her target species of the day – this gemmed satyr (Cyllopsis gemma) that we all had nice looks and photo opportunities with.
Although we missed out on our prized Booby, I’d say the Booby Prizes were well worth our time.
-OZB
Maybe I owe those of generation Y and the Millennials a bit of a silent apology. I too have been on a mission to ‘collecting them all.’ In my case, however, I think the objects of my search are far more brilliant, fascinating and mysterious than anything in the Pokemon universe could ever dream of being. For about the past four years, I have been occupied in late August to late September with finding all the slug moth caterpillars that can be found, or at least expected, in the state of Missouri.
Many thanks to Kyran Leeker for pointing me to a couple of hot spots she had found that contained some of the last species of slug moth caterpillar I needed to find and photograph – the spun glass slug moth, or Beutenmueller’s slug moth (Isochaetes beutenmuelleri). After hearing this, Sarah and I hit these locations soon after. My radar for these creatures was definitely in need of a re-calibration. I did not find a single slug moth caterpillar but Sarah found three, including this I. beutenmuelleri and two smaller parasa (Parasa chloris) – a species I had found before, but only had photographed with my cell phone. This was an exciting day indeed!
Although not as colorful or spiny as some of its more flamboyant relatives, the smaller parasa (Parasa chloris) is quite an interesting slug moth in its own right. Individuals can vary a lot in their patterns and are warmly toned with tans, oranges and pinks. I can’t get enough of looking at these guys.
Sarah found the following poor creature. Although you can’t help but feel sorry for it, I was glad to capture this natural history story. This little one was gregariously parasitized by approximately 15 braconid wasps, likely from the Microgastrinae subfamily.
These wasps were definitely in the process of preparing for their next stage of life. I have come across lots of caterpillars in the past that were parasitized by wasps like this, but always after the larvae had emerged and spun their cocoons and often after the wasps had cut the tops off and exited. This was very special indeed, finding them in this process. This was taking place much quicker than I had anticipated. It was plain to see the movement of the wasps and observe their progress. I had to take some video to capture this. I have sped the footage up by 1.5X to better showcase this activity.
Before I finish, I couldn’t help but think of one of my favorite Darwin quotes. Watching this footage a few times, I couldn’t help but agree with his reasoning.
In a letter to his friend and botanist, Asa Gray, Darwin wrote…
“With respect to the theological view of the question: This is always painful to me. I am bewildered. I had no intention to write atheistically, but I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars …”
-Charles Darwin
June 2023 Update
In June of 2023, Casey, Pete, Miguel and I headed back to the same location in hopes of finding and photographing the adults of this species. Unfortunately, we were likely too late and could not find a single adult in flight. However, we looked over the site, looking closely at the Pedicularis canadensis to see if we might find females laying eggs. We had no luck with this and found no eggs nor larvae. Pete’s botanical eye did find a single Aureolaria grandiflora, where he found an egg mass. On closer inspection, I concluded that these were definitely butterfly eggs. A quick Google search confirmed that these were indeed checkerspot eggs! Now I need to photograph the beautiful adults and the absolutely stunning chrysalis of this species in order to capture every life stage of this fantastic creature.
Thinking on this further, on what has been described of this species (read more below), this makes perfect sense. We were not likely to find larvae on P. canadensis, nor find the females depositing eggs. Eggs are typically deposited on A. grandiflora, whereupon the larvae feed until the end of the season, moving on to finish this stage in the spring where the feed on P. canadensis.
End of June 2023 update.
Early April, 2020, Casey and I head to the southwest corner of the state looking for multiple subjects. Our primary target of this trip was to check for caterpillars of a rare subspecies of the Baltimore Checkerspot (Euphydryas phaeton ozarkae). This subspecies occurs primarily in the Arkansas Ozarks, but can be found in extreme southern Missouri.
The main distinction that separates this purported subspecies is habitat and host plant preference. The primary habitat for E. phaeton phaeton is marshy wetlands, while E. phaeton ozarkea prefers oak woodlands. The primary host plant for E. phaeton phaeton are the turtleheads (Chelone sp.) while E. phaeton ozarkea primarily uses false foxglove (Aureolaria grandiflora). These animals will overwinter as caterpillars and then will often find new host plant species the following year – as shown in these photographs, they are using lousewort (Pedicularis canadensis). They will then pupate in May to June of their second year.
Browsing the literature, there seems to be some who question the legitimacy of the subspecific status of of E. phaeton ozarkae. Is this simply a case of an opportunistic generalist finding new ways to make a living in varying habitats, or is there a concrete genetic distinction between these two? From what I’ve been able to tell, there does not seem to be a consensus. If you are aware of any newer literature that might shed light here, please let me know.
-OZB
March 2020 seems so long ago. Back at the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic, when we were all getting used to social distancing, I remember watching this nest with a few other photographers. I only made it to the park on a few days and unfortunately did not cover much of the course of the two chicks’ development. But what little time I did have with them I managed to capture a lot of interesting behavior. I’m sorry if this one is a little long, but I had a hard time cutting things out. Scenes where mom and the chicks are looking horizontally or up and mom is giving her best defensive display was in response to a pair of Canada Geese that would sometimes buzz the nest, apparently interested in potentially taking over that prized knot hole for their own nest. Then there is another sinister enemy that I won’t spoil for you… 😉
I hope you will find this as entertaining as I do.
-OZB
Tonight I am sharing a few from Turner’s Mill Spring taken back in early June.
Just a few that I’ve processed that I wanted to share from this past spring.
Did you know…? Trilliums are a favored spring food by white-tailed deer. An overabundance of deer, as is found across most of the eastern United States forests, can have detrimental impacts to trillium populations. In some regions these plants and many other plant species are extirpated from certain forests except within deer exclusion fences.
One of the first wildflowers that really caught my attention. Miami mist can often be found in large colonies. Unless you stop to take a close look, it may not be obvious what you are missing.
I thought that celandine poppies were pretty common after visiting the large beds at Shaw Nature Reserve’s wildflower garden. I have now come to understand that they are generally pretty hard to find in Missouri forests. The name celandine comes from the Greek word for ‘swallow’, referring to the plant’s early blooming with the first arrival of the birds in spring.
-OZB
A Thousand Acres of Silphiums 