"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
It’s funny when I think of some of the interactions I’ve had with friends who are specialists. I remember multiple times when bringing up insects in the field with birders, that I would hear some form of the reply “they’re just food for the birds.” Alternatively, when on an insect outing, you’re lucky to have an entomologist lift their head from the ground to see or listen to an interesting or rare bird. And the botanists? Well, let’s just say they typically have a very specialized set of interests.
One of the things I love about spending lots of time watching and photographing bird’s nests is that, at least with good enough optics, you can often be fortunate to identify the food that the parents bring to feed their young. This sure beats killing a bird or causing them to regurgitate in order to identify their prey.
Being a tyrant flycatcher after all, these kingbirds do not typically bring in the caterpillars that are so often the main prey that passerines feed upon. Instead, the kingbirds prefer taking their prey on the wing, which means any arthropods that can fly. Here are a few images where I can get a good idea of the identification on the insect prey.
I’m no expert in identifying the Odonata, but dragonflies seemed to be a staple food source brought back to the nest. If you have a good idea on the identification of this one, please let me know.
A large dark bee. Potentially a Bombus?
A widow skimmer (Libellula luctuosa) goes down the hatch.
One of these lucky nestlings will soon be ingesting a very pretty snowberry clearwing moth (Hemaris diffinis).
While dragonflies seem to make up the bulk of the prey brought to the nest during the heat of the day, early morning and later evening prey seem to mostly consist of beetles. Here a parent holds a cerambycid beetle (Typocerus sp. prob. velutinus).
Here a parent brings in a rose chafer beetle (Macrodactylus sp., either M. subspinosus or M. angustatus).
I hope you enjoy seeing some of these nest photos. In the next couple of posts I will share more of these showcasing other behaviors.
A few weeks ago the WGNSS Entomology Group planned on an overnight camping trip to Logger’s Lake in Shannon County, MO. This was a first visit to this location for me and I was very impressed with the floral diversity and the potential for insect diversity as well. Our visit coincided with the June new moon, and with hopes of a typical warm and humid summer’s night, we had high hopes for some great blacklighting for nocturnal insects.
An Eastern Kingbird feeding its young
We knew the forecast called for about a 50% chance of rain, but we were hoping for a typical short summer shower, if we saw any precipitation at all. Unfortunately, shortly after my arrival around noon, it began raining and continued for the next five hours. Thankfully, it wasn’t a hard enough rain to keep us out of the field and we took a short and slow insect and botany hike along one of the two trails around the campground area. With the long soaking rain and the drop in temperature accompanying it, we were all in agreement that setting up the blacklight setups would not be worth the effort.
Typical with bird species that are not sexually dimorphic, both sexes of Eastern Kingbird help to provision their brood.
Around dawn the next morning, the skies really opened up and dumped on us for another hour or so. The area received so much rain that the small drainage creek that feeds into the lake, and that we had to cross to get into the campground, looked to be 3-4 feet above the road. So, we weren’t going to be leaving right away. After the rain stopped, everyone had a perfect camping breakfast, courtesy of Karen Bilgere, and then broke down our wet tents and other camping paraphernalia.
I tried to tell my disappointed bug enthusiast friends about “bird nest entomology.” I will share more about this in a future post. Here a parent waits with a dragonfly before heading to the nest to feed the brood.
Afterwards, while taking a stroll around the lake margin, fortune finally smiled upon us, or at least, especially me. We found a perfectly placed Eastern Kingbird nest! Located a few feet above the lake’s surface, the nest afforded wonderful views of the chicks. Additionally, the parents were well used to people at this well-visited campground and did not have a care in the world at the eight or so humans who watched near the lakeshore. Thankfully I brought a bird lens and spent the better part of the next hour watching the busy parents come and go while feeding the hungry brood of four chicks who seemed to never get enough. Then, of course, the skies grew dark and opened up once again. In what seemed less than two minutes, everyone was in their cars and heading back to town.
A dragonfly of this size is quite the meal for this young chick.
The last shot I took of the nest on this day. Within seconds of the literal sheet of rain that was coming at us from across the lake, mom showed up at the nest to be a rain guard.
These were the photos I took on the first day I spent at the nest. This was such a great opportunity and location that the following weekend I drove the nearly three-hours back to do it again. I’ll share more of these in future posts.
One of my goals this spring has been to get a better photograph of the Golden-winged Warbler (GWWA), a species that passes through Missouri during migration to nest in the upper Midwest, Ohio valley and northern Appalachia. Although I have been lucky in finding at least ten of these birds so far this spring, they are primarily treetop dwellers and I have struck out in getting one near enough and in good light.
While birding at Babler State Park in St. Louis County last weekend, I heard the familiar “bzzzzzzz buzz buzz buzz” vocalization of the GWWA. My birding companions and I began our search and I grabbed a few mediocre images before the bird quickly departed. Because I knew the lighting was poor and the distance was long, I didn’t spend much time reviewing the photos in the field. Arriving home later that evening, I reviewed the photos I collected that day and realized I captured something I was not expecting.
Brewster’s Warbler showing the lack of a dark throat patch and a mostly white breast.
It is well known in the birding community that the Golden-winged Warbler is closely related to it’s more southerly cousin, the Blue-winged Warbler (BWWA). Despite completely different physical appearances and different vocalizations, it has now been shown that the two species are 99.97% genetically alike. Where the nesting range of these two species overlap, hybridization occurs. There are two primary forms of this interspecies union. The first is what is known as the Brewster’s Warbler pictured here. The Brewster’s Warbler looks pretty much like a GWWA but lacks the dark throat patch and has an eye stripe more similar to the BWWA. This is the more common of the two hybrid forms between the BWWA and GWWA. The other hybrid form is known as the Lawrence’s Warbler. The Lawrence’s Warbler keeps the yellow belly coloration of the BWWA and has the black throat of the GWWA that is the recessive version of this trait.
Another angle on the Brewster’s Warbler
Little did I know I’d be getting a “lifer” so close to home this weekend!
As much as I love the change of seasons generally, nothing can beat the excitement and enjoyment of the arrival of spring. I simply can’t get out of doors enough during April and May. This past weekend Miguel and I had a great time in hunting newly arrived birds and newly emerged plants at a few of our favorite spots not too far from home. Here are a few photos from our day out.
First, a beautiful male Prairie Warbler from Weldon Springs Conservation Area.
Orange-crowned Warbler photographed at Bush Wildlife Conservation Area
A Worm-eating Warbler also found at Bush Wildlife C.A.
After a brick-fired pizza for lunch, we crossed the river to another favorite nearby location – Engelmann Woods Conservation Area. Here we were hoping to find the Wister’s coralroot orchid for Miguel to scratch off his list. During a good year, hundreds of flowering stems of this species can be found here. This year we found 15-20 stems just by looking along a mile or so along the trail.
Corallorhiza wisteriana (Wister’s coralroot)
Finally, we were able to find three stems of the parasitic Orobanche uniflora (one-flowered broomrape) mere inches off of the trail.
Orobanche uniflora (one-flowered broomrape)
Hoping you find the time to get out and enjoy this wonderful spring!
This beautiful Vermilion Flycatcher (Pyrocephalus rubinus) was recently found in the central Missouri’s Miller County. Many thanks to Chris Barrigar, who first found this bird and shared it with the birding community.
The Vermilion Flycatcher’s typical range includes much of South and Central America. It is also found in the southwestern U.S. states like Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. Chances are likely that this bird was pushed along with a series of storms that moved through Missouri in the last week. Appropriately, this bird’s genus name, Pyrocephalus, means “fire-headed.”
While hunting caterpillars in mid-September. I found this sawfly larvae in the middle of the Kaintuck Hollow Fen in Phelps County. This might be in the Nematus genus as this group feeds a lot on willows. It wasn’t until I looked closely at the photo much later that I noticed it was being parasitized by a small wasp. I would have loved to have gotten a closer photo of the wasp.
I believe this is the last I have to share from this year’s caterpillar season. Overall, I think this was a successful season and I had a lot of fun finding some cool species. I still have tons to learn and species to find. I’m hoping to continue this next year and hopefully get going on early season hunting. This is quite difficult because the spring and early summer are great for things like birds and plants as well. I need more Saturdays!
I’ll finish up with this fantastic late season walnut sphinx caterpillar (Amorpha juglandis) that I found at Onondaga Cave State Park in late September. I finally noticed that this genus name, Amorpha, is shared with one of my favorite groups of plants, the false indigos, like Amorpha fruticosa. I looked this up and Amorpha comes from Greek for “shapeless” or “deformed.” This genus of plants received this name due to their having only one petal on their flowers, unlike the rest of the Fabaceae.
Amorpha juglandis has been in a few other genera and now is placed in it’s own monotypic genus. I have not been able to find out which particular characteristic provides the “deformed” nature for the Amorpha epithet. If you know this, I’d be grateful to learn this.
A Thousand Acres of Silphiums 