From the Garden – Spotted Cucumber Beetle
When is a Caterpillar not a Caterpillar? (400th Post)
When it’s a Sawfly.
Did you know that there is a primitive group of the hymenoptera with free-living larvae that look very much like the caterpillars of the lepidoptera? Known as the Sawfly, there are morphological distinctions between them and the caterpillars and they can also be distinguished by this defensive posture adapted by the Sawfly larvae (Arge sp.) pictured here.
Birds of Quivira – Long-billed Curlew
A bird of the west, the Long-billed Curlew was quite a treat for Steve and I and a rare bird to be found at Quivira NWR. Imagine our surprise and pleasure at finding two!
As usual, habitat destruction via modern agriculture and livestock has severely diminished the numbers of this species. Will we ever again see the numbers that Audubon once observed? In describing the flocks of thousands he was able to observe, Audubon in The Birds of America wrote the following:
“They flew directly towards their place of rest, called the Bird Banks, and were seen to alight without performing any of the evolutions which they exhibit when at their feeding places, for they had not been disturbed that season. But when we followed them to the Bird Banks, which were sandy islands of small extent, the moment they saw us the congregating flocks, probably amounting to several thousand individuals all standing close together, rose at once, performed a few evolutions in perfect silence, and realighted as if one accord on the extreme margins of the sandbank close to tremendous breakers. It was now dark, and we left the place, although some flocks were still arriving.”
-OZB
Gaia is Watching…
So treat Gaia well…
A Couple Stinkbugs
Missouri’s Stream Fish
And now for something completely different… I have been working on the following video off and on for most of the summer. I’ll post it up here, and will speak a little about it and share some stills and other photos below. I would love to hear any thoughts you might like to share.
Working on this video has been educational in more ways than one. All the footage used was taken with the GoPro Hero 3 (gifted to me by my lovely and generous wife, Sarah. Thank you!). Although capable of tremendous quality, there are challenges and many things to learn when making this type of video. Although I improved with a little practice, a few problems are still apparent in the final cuts. There is a back available for the GoPro that allows you to see what is being filmed in real time. However, this piece cuts the already limited battery life by a lot, and I do not own one. This resulted in the fish being partially or fully cut out of the frame more often than desirable. I partially corrected this problem by finding some prescription swim goggles (quite cheap!), snorkel and swim shoes. This combination allowed me to get in the water and behind the camera. After a little practice, filming the different species in such a way as to not intimidate them became easier.
Another issue that I had is obvious at different parts of the film – early stage hypothermia. Although these clips were made on some of the hottest days of the summer, these spring-fed streams cooled me down so much that I could not control my limbs from shaking. I am considering investing in a wet suit to avoid this in the future.
This activity helped start me on knowing Missouri’s fishes a bit better. I had never given much thought, but so many species have to be in-hand in order to get a proper identification (at least by me).
The Long-eared Sunfish were incredibly brilliant. When filmed in less than three feet of water under direct sunlight, the colors dazzled.
The Smallmouth Bass were quite common, slowly patrolling the pools that were their private hunting grounds.
The bottom feeding Hogsucker were one of my favorites. Quite colorful and contrastingly patterned, they could still disappear easily on the sun-dappled stream bottoms.
The Green Sunfish were one of the most common and surely the least shy stars of the film. Quite often they would inspect the camera and our skin with their mouths.
Even with field guides I find it impossible to name some of the minnows. These guys were surprisingly large. I think they may be a shiner species, but am unsure.
There were many large Red Horse species found in deeper stretches of the streams.
This was the only Spotted Bass individual we were to come across.
Greenside or Johnny Darter? I just can’t say.
The star of the film? I think so…
The out-of-water footage was taken via canoe along the upper stretches of the Jack’s Fork River. A terrific trip we had, back in May, where the weather was fine and the birds were plentiful. Getting to know the underwater vertebrates really helps to appreciate the roles many of the birds play along an Ozark stream and how all the members of this intertwined ecosystem make their respective livings. This Wood Duck drake posed for a short time towards the end of the day.
Finding an Osprey is a telltale sign that there is a quality fish community below our seats.
The high-pitch sound of the Broad-winged Hawk almost always precedes a look. This was no exception.
Green Heron know where the fish are to be found as well.
Typically, if you spot a shorebird along an Ozark stream bank, it will be the Spotted Sandpiper. Look for the indicative bobbing of the tail as it makes its way along the rocky shores.
Common Map Turtles were found anywhere they could get a surface on which to bask. They were so keen on heating themselves up that we were allowed to float by at pretty close distances before they took the plunge back into the water. These guys will feed on the invertebrates such as mollusks and arthropods as well as any fish they are able to catch.
Finally, it just isn’t a trip out to any significant Missouri waterway without finding a Bald Eagle or two.
With Fond Memory – Gary Bohn
I heard about the death of a friend this week. I had only known Gary since March, when I met him and his wife, Patricia, while we were all looking for American Woodcock at Young C.A. one evening. I did not know Gary long or even very well, but to give an idea of what kind of person he was, I will share this story.
I lent my binoculars to the Bohns in order to share the Woodcock I was watching and photographing. We watched the bird while we introduced ourselves and after a few minutes said goodnight. When I arrived home later I discovered I was without my binoculars. I have a horrible habit of leaving equipment on top of my car and driving away. Forgetting that I had lent the binoculars to Gary and Patricia, I assumed I had made yet another expensive and embarrassing mistake. The next day at the office, still smarting from my assumed mistake, I noticed I had a voice message. It was Gary informing me they had my binoculars. Gary had remembered what he learned about me the night before and taken the steps to track me down to make sure I got my binoculars back.
Gary and I met for dinner later that week and discovered we had several things in common. He shared that he had worked as a photographer for the St. Louis Post Dispatch for a number of years. In recent years he had gotten more interested in birds, butterflies, habitat restoration and nature photography. We had agreed to get together in the near future for some spring birding/photography. We were only able to do so together on a couple of occasions, and the photo above was from one of these outings. Gary took me to a popular birding destination at Weldon Springs C.A. – a place I knew about but had never visited before. We had pretty good luck with getting a number of nesting songbird species, including hearing no fewer than three singing Cerulean Warblers. We were both able to get shots of this cooperative Blue-winged Warbler. Looking at the images on the back of his camera, I liked his better.
In May, I had shared with Gary the details of a trip that Steve and I took to Quivira NWR and Cheyenne Bottoms in central Kansas. He was hooked and couldn’t wait to get there himself. I shared the details we had gathered and I know he made the trip sometime in the weeks prior to his passing. Unfortunately I was not able to hear from him about his experience there. I do hope he enjoyed it.
-OZB
Five of a Kind – Planthoppers & Leafhoppers
Just a few planthoppers/leafhoppers to share.
-OZB
Birds of Quivira – The Swallows
This warm season, including this spring at Quivira, I finally took some time to get to know the Swallows a little better, not only in visual description, but in song, behavior and flight. Other than their beauty, I find the Barn Swallows to be the most gracefully designed and beautiful fliers of their kind. With their long, forked tail and sleek and slender wings, I am sure they could beat any other swallow in a dogfight. It’s a simple pleasure to watch them swoop down, mere inches above a field to catch an insect on the wing, to then see them rise a few hundred feet while banking and rolling. Their varied and constant chatter ranks among my favorites as well.
Pete Dunne most appropriately describes the Cliff Swallow as a “…husky crop-tailed Barn Swallow wearing a miner’s lamp.” Another gorgeous swallow, this species is very communal and will often nest in the hundreds or thousands together, making gourd-shaped nests out of mud. The image below shows a few birds collecting mud on the banks of a stream that runs through Quivira.
-OZB
When a Dropping isn’t a Dropping
The mimicry that insects exhibit can be astounding. Walking around Shaw Nature Reserve this summer, I noticed quite a fresh and disgusting looking bird dropping on a small bush near the trail. Something made me take a closer glance and I discovered it wasn’t a poop at all, but a caterpillar. The caterpillar was an early instar of the Giant Swallowtail Butterfly (Family Papilionidae). These caterpillars feed on member of the citrus family, the Rutacea, and this individual was found on a small hop bush. Youngsters like this one will most often be found directly on the surface of a leaf (as poops are most likely to be found), while older stages are likely to be found on leaf petioles or slender branches. In citrus production areas of the south, these guys have the nickname “Orange Dogs” due to their dietary needs. They can be considered a pest in such situations. Unfortunately, I forgot that, if harassed these guys will evert a pair of bright red structures called osmeterium. The function of these organs appears to be defensive in multiple ways. Often brightly colored, they can look quite like the forked tongue of a snake, and go along with other morphological adaptations in some members of the swallowtails in making them appear like a snake. In addition, numerous chemical compounds can be released with the osmeterium that have been shown to repel ants and other potential insect predators.
Moving from bird droppings to the droppings of a caterpillar we come to this fascinating creature that is most often found on raspberry bushes. A member of the diverse family of beetles – the Chrysomelidae, this Warty Leaf Beetle (Pacybrachis nigricornis), will tuck in its appendages and drop, looking exactly like a caterpillar’s droppings, or “frass” (anyone remember the action figures from the 80s, the Rock Lords?).
-OZB
References
- Marshall, S.A. 2006. Insects Their Natural History and Diversity. Firefly Books Ltd.
- Evans, A.V. 2014. Beetles of Eastern North America. Princetone University Press.
- Damman, H. 1986. The osmeterial glands of the swallowtail butterfly Eurytides Marcellus as a defense against natural enemies. Ecol.Entomol. 11: 261-265.
A Thousand Acres of Silphiums 