Mountain Naturalist

Foraging Birds

2009-10-06T08:37:00.000-07:00

The past few days, in little snippets of time, I have been watching some migrating songbirds find and eat their foods. Watching birds forage for their sustenance is my favorite bird watching activity. I take more notes on the behaviors of "food-finding" than probably for anything else in bird watching. And I keep a list of the foods various kinds of birds choose.

For instance, this past Saturday (3 Oct. 2009) at Bisset Park in Radford, I heard a Rose-breasted Grosbeak calling from a Water Oak. It took me over five minutes to finally see this bird, an adult male. It was cracking open acorns and eating the kernels. I haven't seen this species eating acorns before. There were Gray Squirrels and Blue Jays going for acorns in this tree also. One squirrel eased towards the grosbeak, and the the grosbeak flew to another limb. It grabbed another acorn in its bill and cracked it open, part of the hull falling down near me.

Sunday the 4th I observed an immature male Rose-breasted Grosbeak perched in a weed patch about two feet above ground, near some shrubby willows and alders...this location about a mile "parkway south" of Smart View. I observed it while it munched on the seeds of Giant Ragweed, and some other plant that I have not keyed out yet.

Later on the 4th, I sat down near three Palm Warblers foraging in the yard at my parents' house. The three warblers pecked, gleaned, chased, jumped, fluttered and other actions to catch tiny insects, most of which I would just simply call gnats, but I'm not sure what the species were. One caught a moth that was about the same size as the warbler's head. It flew up to a limb of a forsythia to pound, flog and "tenderize" the moth. All this activity attracted the other warblers and also a nearby Eastern Phoebe. The warbler flew to a better hideaway to finish its meal. Another Palm Warbler spent two or three minutes foraging on tiny insects on some marigold flowers, and under the leaves of tomato plants. It was strange to see a Palm Warbler perched on top of a green tomato, but while it rested there, flicking its tail, it pecked some small critter from the tomato and ate it.

March Migrants

2009-03-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

Double-crested Cormorant. Photo by Bob Abraham

Recent sightings of migrating birds in the New River Valley include Double-crested Cormorants and Bonaparte's Gulls, both common spring migrants in this part of Virginia. Early to mid April is the best time to see Bonaparte's Gulls, while mid March through mid May is great for seeing sometimes large numbers of cormorants. My favorite place to observe them is at Riverview Park in Radford.

Most of the "Bonies" seen right now are dressed in basic or winter plumage, but in a couple of weeks many of them should be decked out in their breeding season plumage.

Winter plumaged Bonaparte's Gull feasting on an earthworm. Photo by Bob Abraham

Spring Walk

2009-03-17T13:16:00.000-07:00

After work today, I headed into the woods next to my shop in search of early wildflowers, of which I found none. Below the north side of our ridge is a meadow that typically hosts a rather extensive vernal marsh, and from that emanated the certain spring sound of peepers. So, off I went, with the dogs, to investigate. Along the way I stopped for a minute to sit on a log, where I shot the picture of the moss/lichen garden.
Upon reaching the marsh everyone shut up, of course, especially with the dogs taking time to wallow and drink. I secured a decent spot on a high clump of grass and settled in for a wait. Eventually the spring peepers started up, and I was able to locate these two lovers.
Afterwards, I headed back along Bridle Creek and took the picture of what I think is a crayfish home.

Four-lined silverfish

2009-02-27T14:18:00.000-08:00

I am a woodworker who has been mostly using old planks for my projects these days. The planks are stored in a nearby barn which is not closed to the elements. When I bring these planks into my shop, I have been noticing a plethora of silverfish, sluggish at first, but when the shop begins to warm up so do the silverfish (and I).
The other day, I slipped a few of these guys into a baggie and left them outside overnight, where it dipped to 16 degrees Fahrenheit.
The next morning, they were just frozen little bits, but within a half hour after being inside, they started skittering about full of energy. That's when I got the big idea of taking a closer look at them under my microscope. Here are some poor pictures made with the cheap microscope camera.

A Towhee in the Snow

2009-02-26T06:32:00.000-08:00

Along the Riverway Trail in Radford a few mornings ago, I observed a towhee kicking a thin slush off some berries on the ground. I watched it eat a few of them, each one wrinkly and reddish and pecked up from some ratty leaves mixed in the snow. The berries had fallen from a Morrow's Bush-Honeysuckle.

The towhee would look at the ground and keep on kicking in the leaves. I saw it peck at a snail shell. The shell crunched into several pieces, and the towhee ate these like a starved, caged sparrow.

A couple of minutes later, a grayish cat slouched in from nowhere. The towhee fluttered to the top of a nearby hawthorn, chewinking, and making other slurred chip notes. After a moment or so, the towhee flew away past a short and wobbly stretch of rusty fence wire. I could hear it chewinking near the riverbank. The cat then began to ease away in the opposite direction towards some weeds and a ditch.

I then walked down the trail a while to my car and went home. I hope in a few days to write more about towhees.

Notes:

1. Photo of this male Eastern Towhee is by Stan Bentley. He gave me permission to use it in this blog entry. The red berries in the picture are the fruits of Flowering Dogwood, one of the highest energy berries available for birds in the fall.
2. I wrote this entry in my journal several days ago when there was actually a little snow on the ground (a rather rare event the past couple of winters here in Radford). I had to get outside and play in the snow of course, traipsing to see what I could see. The towhee was silent and busy, and hungry, and easy to observe, until the cat showed up...then the towhee was quite vociferous for a few moments, and then invisible, but still complaining about the cat.
3. As I mentioned in a blog entry last year, I grew up calling the towhee by the name of "joreen". Stan tells me that he grew up using the very similar name, "jorink" or "jarink". I have heard a couple of other people in the NRV use this name for towhees.
4. I enjoy listening to towhees singing, and counter-singing during their declarations of territory in the spring. I have also learned that towhees will occasionally include the notes of other bird songs in their vocalizations, particularly the first note or two of a song. I have heard them imitating and including a song note or two from cardinals, the chip notes of both downy and hairy woodpeckers, and alarm chuck notes from robins, to mention a few.

New River State Park, Alleghany Access, Mouth of Wilson, Va.

2009-02-22T08:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, February 21, Mica Paluzzi and I spent four morning hours hiking and birding along the New River. Mica and I have shared several years of outdoor adventures, starting when he was ten. As we entered the park I suggested to him that on this visit we would make some quiet time, moments just sitting and paying attention to whatever shows up.
As we neared the river our first surprise came in the form of two pair of common mergansers, not that common in spite of the name. Taking a nice walk along the river for a couple of hours, we found much evidence of beaver activity, not something either of us had before noticed. We made an attempt to locate a viable site for a beaver dam, but the only possibility, though unlikely, was a feeder stream at the big bend in the river. As this was across the river from us, we had no way to further investigate.
Around 11:00 we returned to the spot where we had seen the now vanished mergansers. Directly above that spot, thanks to their raucous grumblings, we found the ravens' relocated nest. As I have mentioned in a previous post, this rock face has been a dedicated raven home for who knows how long. Last February, Mica and I observed three ravens attending one nest. And so it was yesterday, with one sitting on the nest and the two others gathering and sharing food, as well as holding guard. I continue to think this quite interesting.
So, Mica and I were being very quiet, sitting on a bench, when a new noise interrupted our reverie. First we heard a crashing of brush, coming from the opposite side of the river, and just below the ravens. Then a piping/barking noise and a splash directed our attention to a pair of northern river otters in great spirit of play. At first it almost appeared as if they were in battle, then I considered they might be mating, but the fluidity of their motion and humorous antics made clear they were playing. And play they did, for us for over a half an hour.

More Otters

2009-02-18T10:13:00.000-08:00

I have seen two otters a couple more times in the past week. They have mainly been traveling in a hurry. Bob Abraham has managed to find them a few times also & has sent me a few pictures. I will include one with this short blurb.

I believe the otters are becoming more secretive; maybe they are starting to care for young in a den somewhere.

2009-02-08T14:33:00.000-08:00

This will be a simple post based upon the influx of pine siskins this winter in many southerly regions. It is my observation that the abundance of these siskins is large, and my speculation is that they had a good breeding season in 2008, possibly over populating their winter food resources.

This is the first winter I have had to compare the various plumage of siskins, and the variety, though subtle, is quite beautiful. It has recently been brought to my attention that at least two waves have hit us, the first being lower latitudinal breeders, whose behavior indicates a familiarity with and fear of humans, and the second made up of innocents whose 'tameness' is indicated by no fear at all. What's up with that word tame anyway? I experimented with both flocks, and can verify that the second group were not at all shy of me.

Hence, this photo.

River Otters This Winter

2009-02-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

Since late November, it has been the winter of River Otters here in the Radford stretch of the New River. I have found them a lot of mornings just before daybreak. They'd be foraging for crayfish, or small carp and other fish.

Most times I encounter a group of four, swimming near shore or lounging on a nearly submerged willow. Only once this winter have I seen one alone, and that one was shoving pieces of ice towards the boat landing two weeks ago. I don't know what that behavior was about. But once it saw me, it started making a strange raspy call that I heard for the first time about five months ago. I think it is a very agitated distress call of some sort.

I have learned to imitate that call, and it sometimes makes the otters swim towards me and utter this vocalization even more frequently and louder. It sounds like someone saying the word "otter" while gargling. And it sounds a bit like Golem mouthing his name "golem" several times in the Lord of the Rings movie, though not nearly as harsh a sound.

The loner two weeks ago made this sound, and I would say this sound back (or at least my rudimentary approximation of the vocal). I'm sure the otter considered it a poor voicing of something important. Anyway this one conversation lasted about five minutes before the otter swam away.

Early this morning (7 February) there were two groups of otters. One group of three swam down stream, swerving and gliding in and out of the water, much like dolphins. The other group was a pair of otters that swam near the far shore and headed upstream. The pair took a brief detour and swam quickly at a Horned Grebe which dived and disappeared. The pair then continued upstream.

I wonder if one of the group of four had left and found a mate.

Caterpillars, mostly

2008-10-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

When spring's avian migration comes to a screeching halt, and our resident birds settle down to their serious genetic prerogative, I turn to other critters. For two summers I have spent some happy hours discovering and documenting hundreds of insects, amphibians, reptiles, wildflowers, mushrooms, and so on, that inhabit our 15 acres; both as an educational exercise and something to share with my kids and theirs (one day). Here are just a few examples. To the left is a crowned slug, or 'isa textula'. And on the right, we have the familiar green-striped mapleworm ('dryocampa rubicunda'), of rosy maple moth fame.

This moth I have only seen once, and would appreciate confirmation that it is either a large or small tolype. A close look will show that this moth is comfortably perched on a chop-stick.

The banded tussock moth, ('halysidota tessellaris') below, is commonly seen in our area. Birds tend to avoid this moth, hence it is often found in conspicuous positions, out in the open.

One of the most beautiful moths, the IO, is not surprisingly preceded by a spectacular caterpillar of the same name, ('automeris IO'), seen below.

And now, another slug caterpillar, the spiny oak slug, ('euclea delphinii'), found not on an oak but sunflower leaf in our garden, below.

One of my favorite finds was this silver spotted skipper caterpillar, ('epargyreus clarus'), staring at the camera with its fake eyes, below.

This highly patterned one to the right
is known as the turbulent phosphila,
or 'phosphila turbulenta'.

This one is the gold moth, or 'basilodes pepita', found in late September.

Another oak loving caterpillar, to the right, was found in full sun on the edge of a field also in late
September. It is known as the variable oakleaf caterpillar, ('lochmaeus manteo').

Directly below, the most acrobatic of the caterpillars, 'datana ministra', more commonly known as the yellow-necked caterpillar, is feasting on a birch leaf.

My photo of this caterpillar does not do justice to its vibrant green. The spotted apatelodes, ('apatelodes torrefacta'), seen below the acrobat was another late September find.

And last, but not least, our Eastern swallowtail,

('papilo glaucus'), may be familiar to many, with
its scary 'false' face.

Most if not all of these pix were taken last summer and fall. This year, I found far fewer caterpillars, but many more spiders. Anyone have any theories?

My apologies for the choppy layout. For your information, this was my very first attempt at anything remotely this challenging.

Two local critter names

2008-09-03T10:11:00.000-07:00

Over the past few mornings, I have met fishermen and waterfowl hunters at the boat landing in Riverview Park in Radford. We talk about most anything, weather, crowds, work situations, and eventually about the kinds of birds, fish, and other animals we have recently seen along the New River.

One waterfowl hunter was checking the area for Canada Geese. We watched one long skein of geese fly by us. The geese honked a little and circled towards a farm field. We talked about geese, and he mentioned that he had seen speckled bellies a couple of times between Radford and Parrott on the river. I asked him to describe the geese, and I realized that he was talking about Greater White-fronted Geese, a species quite rare in this part of Virginia.

Another morning a fishermen asked me what I was looking at...I was just watching a few tree swallows perched on the electric line that crosses the river near the boat landing. I told him that earlier in the day I had seen an otter. He mentioned that he saw otters frequently and sometimes river weasels. The latter was his name for mink.

For me it is a blessing to learn local names of plants and animals. In the past week, I have learned two:

Speckled Belly
River Weasel

Rocky Knob Migration, 24 August 2008

2008-08-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

I watched for migrating hawks yesterday at Rocky Knob. One female American Kestrel flew south just above the trees at 11:55 EST. Other than that I saw no migrating raptors. There were a few local Black & Turkey Vultures, and three local Red-tailed Hawks.

Some other birds were heading south, too. These included several Barn Swallows and Chimney Swifts, three Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, one Black-throated Green Warbler and two Scarlet Tanagers.

Other migrants were two Cloudless Sulphurs, one Red Admiral, one Common Buckeye, one Monarch plus three species of dragonfly (28 Common Green Darners, mostly adult males, plus at least three tenerals; one Wandering Glider; five Black Saddlebags).

The most unusual sighting for the day was a plane piloted wildly over Panther Knob. The plane flew a few loopity-loops, a few complete rolls, and a couple of times sallied upside down, then headed east and northeast right-side-up, eventually beyond my view.

The whole area looks way too dry. I don't know how the ongoing drought will affect migration of dragonflies since many of the species heading southward past Rocky Knob are pond dwellers as nymphs.

The thistles in the field mostly look rather stunted except those nearest a shady area on the west side of the field. I saw zero honeybees, but at least two species of bumblebees were nectaring on the blossoms. Tiger Swallowtails, and Great Spangled Fritillaries were also nectaring on the thistle flowers. I found no species of grass skippers there; usually there are Sachems and Peck's Skippers.

One of the more common insects of the day was a species of "June Bug" scarab beetle ambling over the area. There were also a few Dog Day Cicadas.

Rocky Knob Migration Watch

2008-08-20T04:13:00.000-07:00

The term "migration" is often applied to the periodical or irregular movements of all animals; but it may be questioned whether there are any regular migrants but birds and fishes.

---A.R. Wallace, 1876.

By mid to late August at Rocky Knob some of us gather to witness whatever seems to be migrating. This menagerie of creatures includes hawks, waterfowl, cormorants, nighthawks, swifts, hummingbirds, swallows, Red-headed Woodpeckers and a host of passerines, most heading to the southwest of our location. Some of these birds travel unbelievable distances. Some are considered mere short distance migrants.

We also gather to see dragonflies and butterflies "migrating" to the south. Except for perhaps some monarch butterflies, the migration of these insects is inter-generational, i.e. the individuals we see in late summer and fall journeying southward are not the same ones we might find the following spring.

I hope some folks reading this short blurb will stop by and visit and see for yourself how marvelous the migration can be. Anyway, you're invited. We'll watch sometimes, and we'll hear dog day cicadas (what I grew up calling "Jar Flies") and katydids chorusing in the woods by the cow pasture.

BTW, our watch is at milepost 168 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, on the border of Patrick & Floyd Counties.

Dawn chorus

2008-05-30T14:32:00.000-07:00

From the noted by absence Mountain Naturalist blog entries, I assume everyone is busy chasing wildflowers and birds of spring. Arizona pulled me away for two weeks in April, with my first experience of the sky-islands southeast of Tucson. I will never be the same.

Though I intend to get back to Watts, etc., I have another thing in mind at the moment. Since returning from the hugely irresponsible trip to Arizona, I have not had time to scurry about as I would like. For my consolation, I have worked an early morning pattern into my schedule, awakening at 5:00, and keeping my ear near the open window as the birds begin to sing. After about an hour, I sleep for another 45 minutes or so. Birding by ear is not something I could do even five years ago...but especially with the familiar birds, I have grown quite proficient. Here is what I have learned.

We start out with a two piece band, usually the towhee breaking the silence with odd chirps and squeaks, tuning up, soon followed by one robin. Once the robin has cleared his throat, it becomes increasingly difficult to hear the details of the towhee, but they seem to be paying attention to one another. In the background, a wood thrush gargles off in the woods, laying down a nice bass line, and encouraging the need for a score. These three can go on for five minutes before the local cardinals add punctuation, and the rhythm section begins. Later, the cardinals also add to the melodic phrasing, but at first, they beat the drums.
During this early part, I can hear at least two towhees, robins, and cardinals, in noisy competition. I try to learn the difference between the singers, and have confidence that the earlier soloists are consistent. They hold the first seats in this orchestra, and will prevail by their earned posts.
From here on things get confusing, but Carolina wrens seem to be the next loud crowd, and sound like they are a bit mad at the avian alarm clock. When they start to rattle, they go at it with a vengeance. House wrens are not far behind, then blue jays start scratching at their most treble best, with harsh complaints. The robin ups his volume, but is beginning to be drowned out, and eventually looses enthusiasm. Cardinals are now becoming more prominent in their oratorios, with their metallic refrains setting the stage for the indigo bunting, who can put a hurting on that heavy metal.
Down the south facing slope from my propped head, the field sparrow practices his descending scale, and right outside in the tree the titmouse drones. Overhead, crows take over the percussion section and pileated woodpeckers laugh above the other ridge, and the crows.
By the time goldfinches, red-eyed vireos, red-winged blackbirds, downies, and chickadees decide to add to the cacophony, I return to sleep with phoebes announcing the fullness of the sun.

At the spring VSO meeting a couple of years ago, I made the acquaintance of Donald Kroodsma, the celebrity guest speaker, and widely known for his studies on bird song. His Book, 'The Singing Life of Birds', should be on every birder worth-her-salt's bookshelf, and dogeared. On Sunday morning a few hardy individuals awoke well before first light and met Donald in a cold drizzle for the awakening of woodland birds. With Donald's guidance we all realized a deeper appreciation for details of bird song, personalities, regional dialects, and just paying attention more closely to what most of us love, and some of us regard as 'just noise'. I had a friend write me recently asking 'how do you turn off the birds?' He must have had a long night.

May Theilgaard Watts, and the thread that runs through it

2008-04-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

It has long been a comfort to me that things easily relate to other things in ways we would not immediately expect. But then it happens, and the light goes off in the head. I want to develope this idea within the context of three books, and through the fullness of time. It would be great if readers of this blog would contribute their reactions and ideas to not only these specific books and authors, but share similar reading experiences. Seth's offering of Godfrey's "Field Guide to the Piedmont" was on the mark.
My story starts with the term 'Wolf Trees', which are trees formerly allowed to grow in pastures for various reasons, and then rediscovered within a wooded area, in full spreading of branches among the neighboring straight trunked. Though I had always noticed this and wondered, I did not grasp the reason until I lucked upon the book "Reading the Forested Landscape" by Tom Wessels. I recommend this book.
Then, as I was preparing to share a walk in the woods with some kids, I decided to Google 'wolf tree', and came upon Anne Whiston Spirn's book, "The Language of Landscape", which is one of the most amazing books I have ever held in my trembling hands. She is a landscape architect with a keen interest in deep history.
As it turns out, an early and abiding inspiration for her is an earlier writer, May Watts, who also is mentioned in Wessels book.
I have only begun to look into Watts' classic "Reading the Landscape", but have already fallen in love. Allow me digress a moment. Last week, while delivering some books to a WONDERFUL used book store, "Books 'N Friends", in Sparta, N.C., I took a glance at their nature section, and found Watts' book, for 50 cents, signed by the author no less.

What we have here is not simply a coincidence. It is about paying attention, becoming involved with the thread of learning. For any naturalist, I can whole heartedly endorse all three of these books. When I finish Watts' book, and go back over Spirn's, I intend to offer a more in depth comparison of these three books. Meanwhile, my hope is that some of the rest of us can compare our notes after looking at one or more of my suggestions.

Yes, winter is over, and it is time to be outside, learning from our own observations, and books can wait. And that is what I will be doing for the near future.

Scott Jackson-Ricketts
Grayson County, Va.

Boy Scout Resource Ramble

2008-03-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

For the second year, the Boy Scouts will hold what they call a "resource ramble" on the scout reservation at Camp Powhatan in Pulaski County. The event, scheduled for Saturday, June 14, resembles a bio-blitz, except that elements of geology and cultural resources are included in the survey.

The 17,000-acre reservation covers parts of the watersheds of Little Laurel and Big Mack Creeks, as well as two ponds. Elevation ranges from 1900 to 3348 feet. Base rock is sandstone, quartzite, shale and dolomite. Forest cover includes mainly dry hardwoods interspersed with pine, hemlock and other conifers.

You can participate in a team or as an individual. The scouts are looking for experts to guide teams in various aspects of natural history, geology and archaeology. Veteran naturalist Clyde Kessler (a contributor to this blog) is already on board to help the scouts with bird identification.

The main event takes place Saturday, but what is described as "rustic accommodations" are available for those arriving Friday evening or staying over Saturday night. Breakfast is available both Saturday and Sunday mornings. Participants are also invited to dinner Saturday evening prior to the Ramble reports and wrap-up session. (Participants are asked to bring lunch for Saturday in the field). You can register as late as the morning of the event, but organizers ask that you register as early as possible so an accurate estimate of the food needed can be made.

After you register, you'll get a topo map of the Reservation along with directions to Camp Powhatan, a schedule and a list of what to bring.

To find out more, direct questions to either Dr. Bill Shiner or Greg Harmon, Program Director of the Blue Ridge Scout Reservation.

Summer course in the natural history of the Smokies

2008-03-10T13:24:00.000-07:00

This summer from July 28 through August 2, Dr. Donald Linzey will again teach his popular course on the natural history of the Great Smoky Mountains.

Dr. Linzey, who is professor of biology at Wytheville Community College, has published five books on verterbrates of the eastern United States, and he's been associated with the Great Smokies National Park since the early 60s. The course is titled "Bio 270 General Ecology: Natural History of the Great Smoky Mountains," and it's a three-to-four credit course, depending on particpation.

Students will study the interrelationships between organisms and their natural and cultural environments with emphasis on the wildlife, plant life, geology, and environmental problems unique to the Great Smoky Mountains. It's a six-day residential experience based at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute near Townsend, Tennessee. There will be one pre-trip and one post-trip meeting at WCC. Needless to say, there will be field experience.

Registration for the course begins in April. For more information, call toll-free: 800-468-1195. Reach Dr. Linzey at wclinzd@wcc.vccs.edu.

You need this book [addendum at bottom]

2008-02-13T17:59:00.000-08:00

I'd like to recommend one of the two or three best books of natural history I've ever read. Despite the word "piedmont" in its title, I can assure you that nearly everything in it applies to the plant and animal communities of the southern Appalachians.

It's not new, but its excellence and usefulness is such that I've been evangelizing for it since the day it was published. The book is the "Field Guide to the Piedmont" by Michael Godfrey, who (I think but I'm not positive) is the son of the old radio and TV entertainer Arthur Godfrey. I first got this book when it was part of the Sierra Club field guide series. Later it was reissued in a handsome trade paperback format by the University of North Carolina Press, with revisions and over a hundred new illustrations.

I don't often encounter a book whose quality is such that I am stumped for superlatives. But this book taught me more about the land -- and the plant and animal communties on it -- than any other book I've read. I am tempted to apply to it the overused and now weakened word "classic," because if any such book deserves it, this one does.

In describing the plant and animal associations of the Piedmont (and to repeat, nearly everything he says of the Piedmont applies to the Appalachians), Godfrey uses two ruling schema. First is the moisture content of a community and the drainage regime that produced it.

There are three of these: xeric, hydric, and mesic; basically dry, wet and somewhere in between.

The other ruling idea is the concept of plant succession: the collection of transitional communities that occupy a given plot of ground, each with a different set of dominant species, from bare or nearly bare earth to mature climax forest. The progression of communities from first to last is known as a sere. Each drainage regime has a different sere, with a predictable series of plants, insects and larger animals associated with its various stages.

Within these seres are microhabitats at various stages. One of the most interesting, and most typical of our region, is the community associated with woody, fence-line hedgerows, a familiar sight to anyone driving through the Blue Ridge and Alleghenies.

Different drainage regimes produce different kinds of forest. There's a similar division in hydric, or wet, areas: one community is associated with lotic, or flowing water; another with lentic, or still water. We learn, for example, why ponds are, geologically speaking, short-lived phenomena, due to the rapid deposit of organic and mineral sediments in the impounded area. Thus, a pond becomes a marshy field and eventually a grassland and forest as plant sediment piles up and increases the local elevation.

In xeric environments, western Virginia hawkwatchers will be familiar with early colonizers of old fields: bull thistle, hawthorn and cedar, all familiar companions at Rocky Knob and other high pasture environments.

There are few books I feel safe in recommending to all amateur naturalists in the southern Appalachians. One is "The Field Guide to the Piedmont" by Michael Godfrey. I've persuaded many people to buy copies, but none regretted adding it to their library.

ADDENDUM: I should have made clear when I first wrote this piece that "field guide" is not quite the phrase I'd use for this book. Godfrey identifies quite a few species of all types. But it would not be my first choice when going out in the field after birds or trees or flowers or mammals or herps.

Rather, its excellence lies in the clarity of Godfrey's exposition about how animal and plant communities are related to each other and to different landforms. Stick with this volume from start to finish and I guarantee you'll come away with a new awareness of the multifarious connectedness of plants and animals in the mountains and piedmont.

Tech biologist on the mystery bat disease

2008-02-08T16:55:00.000-08:00

This note below was just forwarded to me. My thanks to Mike Purdy for the heads-up. It's a letter from Dr. James Parkhurst, wildlife biologist at Virginia Tech. We've already noted the issue on this blog.

________________________________________________________

I wanted to call to your attention an emerging and potentially serious situation involving bat populations throughout the Northeast that experts here in Virginia currently are monitoring. I have provided a link to an article that recently appeared in the Boston Globe, near where the epicenter of this problem currently exists (predominantly in New York and Vermont so far) that provides some useful background information on the situation as it now exists.

To the best of our knowledge at this time, the disease has not yet been documented or confirmed in Virginia, but efforts to validate that are underway. Therefore, for now, this is only a cautionary note to get this situation on your "radar screen." As you will note in the article, this outbreak is having serious consequences on bat populations in the affected states, where tens of thousands of bats have succumbed to the disease. In an effort to avoid the potential spread of the disease, should it come to this area or already be present in our area, experts are recommending that people refrain from entering any caves or abandoned mines over the next several months, primarily as a means to avoid further taxing the energy stores of hibernating bats. Bats very often are disturbed by intruders, which forces them to expend important energy reserves needed to get them through the full winter hibernation cycle.

If you know of any individuals or groups in your area who frequent caves, please pass along this notice. If anyone has visited a cave recently and witnessed what appeared to be an unusually large number of
dead or sick bats, or bats that may have displayed the characteristic "white frosting" about the nasal area, please have them contact one of two individuals within the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries: Rick Reynolds, Non-Game Biologist and bat specialist (rick.reynolds@dgif.virginia.gov), or Jonathan Sleeman, wildlife veterinarian for the agency (jonathan.sleeman@dgif.virginia.gov). Specific details of the cave(s) involved, dates of contact, and description of symptoms witnessed would be most helpful.

I will keep you posted on any new twists as they become available. To reiterate, there is no immediate threat or danger to most residents, but special caution would be advised for those who are active spelunkers.

James A. Parkhurst, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Extension Wildlife Specialist
144 Cheatham Hall
Virginia Tech

The impact of rural gentrification

2008-02-05T05:45:00.000-08:00

Another friend of mine on this blog shares my concern about rich outlanders moving into these mountains, driving up taxes, and making it impossible for natives to afford the very land they were born on.

It's hard to write about such a topic without sounding hostile to people who have done me no harm. But here is a story at Yahoo Finance on how the process is affecting communities out west. It specifically mentions "social tensions," which is certainly a factor.

The other factor is the accompanying development, which inevitably destroys habitat for neotropical migrants and other species. I think of what's happening to Belcher Mountain in Patrick County and it almost makes me ill.

What to do? I have no idea. Maybe nothing. Personally I'm a libertarian, who believes that if you want liberty yourself, you have to allow it to the other guy.

But I confess there are days when I wake up and wonder: Will we not be satisfied until we have paved over everything and there is a Starbucks and McDonald's everywhere you look?

Raven redux

2008-02-04T14:54:00.000-08:00

According to William Roberts, our local wildlife rehabber (along with his wife Joyce), Bernd Heinrich (known for his studies of ravens and a book titled, Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds) was surprised when on one or two occasions, cooperative family groups did participate in the rearing of next generation young. This behavior is apparently rare and unexpected in the wild.

Occasionally groups of breeding pairs nest in close proximity, but breeding success is less than that of the more common solitary pair. Heinrich speculates that the group breeding event may have to do with added protection from perceived dangers in the neighborhood.

According to William, there are nesting ravens in a warehouse in Winston-Salem, which is very strange. Historically and today as well, ravens are more common farther north, and are full-time residents within the Arctic circle. Typically, the farthest south they have been seen until recent years has been around here, in our mountains. But more reports of ravens are coming from places like Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina, for instance, with widespread anticipation of imminent breeding documentation. I read last night that ravens, once considered to be intolerant of human activity, are learning to adjust. Opportunism does indicate intelligence, for good or ill.

New River State Park, Alleghany Access, Mouth of Wilson, Va.

2008-02-03T16:28:00.000-08:00

There is a North Carolina state park nearby, an old farm given to the park by the old farmer, down on the New River. I go there often, formerly with Aaron Floyd, and now with Mica Paluzzi, a 13-year-old friend who has taken to birding.

Surrounding the park are huge vacation home developments, gated, growing like fungi. So this part of the park is an oasis, lots of trails, primitive canoe camping areas provided. Aaron and I discovered the endangered golden-winged warbler breeding here three years ago, fully documenting the process from building the nest, to bringing caterpillars to the young. But deer have pretty much destroyed their preferred fragile habitat, so no warblers of that kind have been seen breeding here since.

In the summer, the undergrowth makes off-path walking a challenge -- but, ah, in the winter, everything opens up. Today Mica and I spent half of our time just rambling about, and though it was warm, there was ice, making trudging through the marshy areas a solidified breeze. We discovered an old farm road, found an old foundation, saw remnants of fence rows, etc. I pointed out the various signs of how successional field-to-forest events were happening before our eyes.

Across from the park, below a new house, there is an enormous rock face that has played host to generations of nesting ravens. Three years ago was the last time anyone had seen activity there, but today we not only saw a raven on her nest, but two others nearby playing on the rock face and soaring, depending on their mood. This is great news, and I intend to monitor the site throughout our late winter. This is the typical time for ravens to nest, for they must tend to their offspring for nearly a year, and they need a jump start on things.

Aaron's father knew the old farmer, who had one of the most amazing arrowhead collections known in these parts, picked up from the fields after spring plowing. When Aaron was a lad, he visited the farmer and was shown the wonderful array of chiseled beauties. Aaron and his brother have a pretty good collection they drew on for comparison.

The raven show suggested some questions regarding their behavior. We watched off and on through the four hours there, and never saw four. Just the one on the nest, and those other two, often picking at the hardy plants clinging to the sheer face of the rock, and otherwise flying around and joking in raven.

It is possible that there are two couples, and possibly another nest not detected. This afternoon after returning to my library, I could not find any documentation of second-generation ravens aiding in the rearing of the next, helping their parents as some corvids do. So, anybody out there that might have some closer knowledge would be of great help to us.

Mica is working on his bird-watching merit badge, and after only a year of our sharing these jaunts, he has become, shall we say, daunting. My abiding advocacy is: get those kids outside, mentor, share, and have fun.

More on the bat disease

2008-02-03T16:22:00.000-08:00

Scientific American has taken note of the mysterious bat illness.

There's a sad photo of four bats whose faces show the signs of the fungus from which the syndrome gets its name.

First bees, now bats?

2008-02-02T07:53:00.000-08:00

There was a troubling AP story earlier this week about a mysterious disease that's killing bats as they hibernate. It's been spotted to the north of us, in Vermont and New York state.

Dubbed, for lack of a better name, "white nose syndrome," it has killed as many as 90 percent of the bats in some caves. The species hardest hit is what I think of as the "default bat" in our area, the little brown bat. It causes migrating bats to burn up their fat reserves long before they would ordinarily emerge from hibernation.

The bat infection has been compared to "colony collapse disorder," a viral infection that decimated honeybees in North America. If it's really that bad, it may well migrate south down the spine of the Appalachians in our direction.

This story jumped out at me because it was in the past year that a friend of mine told me about a mass bat die-off from a roost in a horse barn. At the time I suspected rabies, but could it have been white nose syndrome?

The beautiful vanishing bobwhite

2008-02-01T10:15:00.000-08:00

Mark Taylor has a piece today in the Roanoke Times about a new state initiative to save habitat for Colinus virginianus, the bobwhite quail.

This little bird has always been dear to my heart, from my childhood in Texas when I'd sit on my granddad's front porch in the evening and watch a bobwhite mama lead her young ones across the yard, til right now, when I have a hard time finding any at all.

When I moved to Floyd County back in the '70s, I saw and heard bobwhite all the time without any effort. A stretch of Woods Gap Road between the town of Floyd and the Blue Ridge Parkway had prime bobwhite habitat on both sides of the road. It was hard to drive down that road in the spring and NOT hear a bobwhite calling. Clyde Kessler tells me that the bird was once, if not dirt-common, at least plentiful in Floyd and Patrick and Franklin Counties.

But for every four birds that existed in Virginia four decades ago, today there's only one.

Why have bobwhite numbers collapsed? It's the old story: vanishing habitat. The quail require early successional growth, brushy areas that are interspersed with fallow fields and small stands of pine and hardwoods. To someone intent on maximizing income from land, such habitat looks like a mess. Nowadays, less and less land is allowed to remain in such an "unproductive" state. Instead, it's likely to be either pasture, farmland or developed for housing.

There are groups devoted to saving the bobwhite quail, such as Quail Forever and Quail Unlimited, which has a central Virginia chapter here. Both are organized mainly by and for hunters.

At any rate, a focus group has recommended to the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries that a "Bobwhite Quail Action Plan" be developed, and DGIF agrees. Let's hope it bears fruit.

OK, forget the lion

2008-02-01T07:33:00.000-08:00

Kevin Myatt at the Roanoke Times reports that the photos below have actually been circulating for a while "in several northeastern states."

Looks like a real mountain lion in any event, but just not in Giles County. I will leave the photos up in case anybody wants to compare them with others they find on the 'Net. But the bottom line is that this is probably another for Snopes dot com -- it's safe to go back in the woods.

Mountain lions in Giles County?

2008-02-01T06:50:00.000-08:00

The buzz today is of possible mountain lions in Giles County. Supposedly they're in the Big Stoney Creek area of the county. The photos here are of a lion who came to somebody's back porch supposedly, "looking for food" and reportedly "very agitated." The real thing? I don't know. But be careful out there...

Local Names for Birds, Part Two

2008-01-28T02:57:00.000-08:00

I begin Part Two with a list of a few more local names for birds:

Bull Bat, Common Nighthawk
August Bat, Common Nighthawk
Bee Martin, Eastern Kingbird
Till & Teal & Teal-Mouse, Tufted Titmouse
Jenny Wren, Carolina Wren, or maybe some other wren, (Bewick's Wren?)
Thresh, Brown Thrasher
Leaf Bird, Cape May Warbler (maybe other warblers, and vireos?)
Pewee Bird, Common Yellowthroat
Joreen, Eastern Towhee

I believe Bull Bat is used over the entire region by many speakers. Variants I have heard include August Bat, because as the speaker told me: "that's when they fly." I heard one speaker born in Giles County refer to the Common Nighthawk as Fall Bat, for the same reason.

When I was a kid I knew of several folks who would find a prominent place of nighthawk migration flight, and these men would aim their shot guns, sometimes rifles, and see how many they could kill. I don't know if any of these folks really believed these birds were bats, but that was the justification they used--sort of ridding the world of vermin I guess. Or maybe it was just an amusement for them. Right now I don't know of anyone who goes out hunting Bull Bats, so I guess that is a wee bit of progress. Of course, sad to say, the migration flights are nothing in number like they were fifty years ago, or even 25 years ago, when I could still see several thousand in an evening before sundown.

As for Bee Martin for Eastern Kingbird, I knew a couple of people who said that name, pointing out one perched on a bean pole. Sure enough it had a wasp in its bill.

I assume Till or Teal or Teal-Mouse is a dialect variant of Titmouse. The pronunciation is with a really long "eee" and some speakers say it with a glide that slides it into two syllables: "tee--eel". I know I have come home to my young time and place when I hear that name. Either that or a time warp is happening again.

I don't really know which wren people referred to when they said Jenny Wren but the only wren around was Carolina Wren. I believe the name came over from England, and there of course it must have referred to "THE wren" (aka, the Winter Wren, here). I'm just guessing, mind you.

Thresh is just a local variant on thrash, or thrasher.

I know a couple of people in Montgomery County, VA right along the New River who called the warbler we were watching a "leaf bird". It was pecking aphids very systematically from under the leaves of maples. The leaves were loaded with aphids, and the Cape May Warblers were chowing. They would just perch on twigs and peck and peck---this made for easy eating. One of the men said "this is what we've always called 'em" when I asked him about the name "leaf bird."
Actually this foraging strategy is quite typical of Cape May Warblers. It's a great way to glean food and store up energy for the long haul to the tropics, and the Cape Mays have already been traveling a long while before they get to our area in September.

The Pewee Bird is the one that started me bird watching at age five. My father showed me its nest. It took me several years to figure out what this yellow-breasted bird was. It also had a black mask. I eventually learned the book name---Common Yellowthroat. I sometimes tell kids this story, and I sometimes tell these kids that because it has a mask it is a bandit bird. I hope they know I'm joking.

The Joreen is a local name for the Towhee in Franklin County. I figure like "towhee" or "chewink" it is an echoic name for the towhee's call notes. I saw three Joreens in the catbriers in Radford this past Saturday, and they all said Joreen not Chewink. I guess the Eastern Towhee is my favorite bird, but ask me another day and I'll mutter something else is.

In a couple of weeks, I'll write a little about local names for insects.

Local Names for Birds, Part One

2008-01-24T03:16:00.000-08:00

One day back in June 1984, my Uncle Dallas guided me through some of the farm lands where he was born near Woolwine in Patrick County, Virginia. I was participating in the Virginia Breeding Bird Atlas.

We both heard a Pileated Woodpecker cackling among some tulip poplars up ridge from us. He said, "that's an Indian Hen." My father had always used the name Wood Hen.

My Uncle and I searched some bottom land soggy places for a little while. He said he had seen baby snipe here many years earlier. I knew which species he was referring to....American Woodcock. It is also the species of much local lore and speculation in Franklin County and Patrick County, the most famous I guess...the snipe hunt.

A snipe hunt is a prank to fool a person who knows nothing about snipe or woodcock. As folks have described it to me:

you take the person out into the woods
you give 'em a sack to catch the snipe
you tell the person that you will drive the snipe to 'em
you go home and enjoy a coffee lace or other beverage
the person never gets a snipe in the bag
the person is left "holding the bag"

I know somebody that played that trick on his fiancee. She married the guy anyway. They're still married, now almost 60 years.

Below is a short list of a few species with field guide common name and the local vernacular. There are a couple of sad notions in my head as I write this blog: (1) the saddest: most of the folks who have shared these names are now quite elderly, or have died in recent years, taking these local names and much more with them so to speak, and (2) people who still use the local names, often apologize for using them, saying something like "I don't know what the book name is" or "I only know this name, not the book name."

My Uncle Dallas told me also that he could tell where folks were from just by their accent. Yeah, we can still do that. But what he meant was simply this: He knew a certain person was from Meadows of Dan by their Meadows of Dan accent, since he was from Woolwine...and the number of miles ain't very far between the two places. Transport, radio, TV etc has definitely reduced the number of our accents...but I digress, here's a first short list:

These are all local names I have heard people use in the New River Valley or in Franklin, or Patrick Counties.

Local name, Common name in field guides:

Keel, Bufflehead
Mud Duck, Pied-billed Grebe
Blue Crane, Great Blue Heron
Shytepoke, Green Heron
Snipe, American Woodcock
Yellow Hammer, Northern Flicker
Indian Hen, Pileated Woodpecker
Wood Hen, Pileated Woodpecker
Baldpate, American Wigeon

The name Baldpate of course is in some of the older bird field guides, so one hunter may have been repeating a book name.

I'll post a few more local bird names with another entry soon, and then one about local names for insects.

Clyde Kessler

The Great Appalachian Storm of 1950

2008-01-23T15:39:00.000-08:00

Scott Jackson-Ricketts' question in the comments section about amphibian survival after premature emergence brought to mind something I'd been told about once. It's called "The Great Appalachian Storm" of 1950. Because it happened in late November, it probably had little effect on amphibians. But weather.com has it listed as number eight in their "Storms of the Century" list. Read about it here.

It began on November 25 and lasted nearly three days. It started in North Carolina and moved north, and then twisted west. Appalachian states got up to five feet of snow. The record snowfall coincided with what some meteoroligists say was the most geographically widespread windstorm ever to hit the northeast. Because the winds occurred at high tide along the coast, there was destructive flooding as well. It was 26 degrees below zero at Mount Mitchell in North Carolina. (Although I remember when the Rocky Knob ranger station on the Blue Ridge Parkway reported more than 30 below during a horrible winter in the early '80s. Grape vines at Chateau Morrissette were killed by this ferocious cold.) There were 160 deaths as a result of this one storm system.

The Great Appalachian Storm was the Hurricane Katrina of its day. It was the costliest storm ever up til that point, surpassing insurance damage claims for all hurricanes and tornadoes til then. See a pressure map of the storm here.

Cluck surprise

2008-01-23T11:42:00.000-08:00

With this post we welcome Mr. Michael Hayslett of Sweet Briar College to the Mountain Naturalist blog. He started the "Vernal Pool Society of Virginia", whose website you can find here. This piece was originally written three years ago for his "Notes from the Field" column online.

The Society is dedicated to promoting conservation and research on vernal pool wetlands, a vital habitat for many threatened species. You can see Mr. Hayslett's work on the mole salamander (Ambystoma talpoideum) at this site.

--Seth Williamson

________________________________________________________

Funny how favorite things seem to find me, no matter where I roam. This bemusement was illustrated recently on a personal outing in which vernal pools were not expected to play a part. I spent several days at the beginning of the New Year camped in solitude atop House Mountain in Rockbridge County. I went up there alone to explore the summits, contemplate my ancestry, and to obtain some much needed renewal of mind, body, and spirit.

On my first full day, I took note of a remnant feature from bygone days when a pasture and orchard thrived in the saddle between the mountain's twin peaks. A round, concrete watering trough of 6X2 feet in size, bore the scrawled message on its rim, "JUNE 3, 1958 A.L.C." Setting at an elevation of 2,700 feet in a montane landscape, and being full of water I thought, "wonder if wood frogs could use this as an artificial breeding pool?"

I never gave it a second thought, until the following morning at 8:30, as I sat fuzzyheaded after a blustery night with little sleep. I thought I heard a hen turkey clucking out in the nearby gap, so I peered out the opening of the shelter and listened closely. Then I heard the distinctive double-note of a lone male Wood Frog, calling from that watering trough below me, that only yesterday was partly covered in ice!

This was certainly earlier in the season than anticipated to hear this sound. In fact, at that elevation, I wouldn't expect to hear this obligate amphibian for nearly another two months. But we had been experiencing an unseasonably warm spell of weather, and the temperature at 8:30 a.m. on the 4th of January, at 2,720 feet elevation in the western mountains of Virginia was only 52ºF! Of course, this was only one early, eager male and not a whole chorus.

I can only wonder if there is, in fact, a breeding population up there and where (if at all) there might be or had been a natural vernal pool in the area. Wood frogs are more mobile than mole salamanders, and they were more capable of monopolizing high-elevation springs and human-made features as alternative breeding sites, especially during the good ole' days of mountaineer homesteads.

Written from the field on 4 January 2005 by Mike Hayslett

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Postscript: It rained lightly on that same night (with air temperature about 50ºF) and I heard a (different?) wood frog male calling again at 10:00 p.m., this time up slope and not near the water source.

Author's Note: I have seen numerous instances of vernal pool amphibians migrating or breeding outside their expected seasons over the last five years (e.g., spotted salamanders immigrating in early autumn, marbled salamanders emigrating in late spring, etc.), as other researchers have, no doubt.

Many believe that these phenological anecdotes are evidence of global warming effects on local populations of amphibians. Consider also, that on the morning of 5 January, as I prepared to depart my mountain campsite, I found a soil-covered American Toad. She had just emerged from the leaf litter as a result of the warm rains and fog of the previous night!

Full moon snow

2008-01-22T10:44:00.000-08:00

Terry Gleason called me last night with a simple request and a hidden agenda.

"Would you go outside and look at the snow and tell me what color it is? Oh, and same with the moon. Then call me back and I will tell you what this is about."

So I bundled up and went crunch-crunching up to our orchard field, following my breath. I expected 'blue' to be the answer, but that's not what I saw. Standing beneath a slightly overcast sky, the moon and I eyed one another for several minutes. The snow around me was slightly pink, the moon a yellowish pink, with lavender undertones. I kept looking for blue, but it just wasn't there.

Back inside, I called in my report to Terry, whose reaction was a tempered approval. He had seen the same thing, though his dominant color was yellow. This was also what he saw on the previously very clear night before.

"So what's the deal, Terry?"

"As you know, I have been looking at full moons all my life, and especially in the winter. It has been a few years since we had snow cover and a full moon, and with the recent arctic air, I expected to see the familiar blue tint. You know, arctic air is the cleanest air we get. But the colors I saw are not about clean. There is something else in the air."

This is speculative, yes, but as with much of the color in our skies, we all know some of it is due to pollution. In the most recent (Jan/Feb) edition of Mother Jones Magazine, there appeared an article on China's rapid industrial growth: "The Last Empire. " Within this lengthy and disturbing description of China's poor environmental record, there stood out one report on a massive sand storm in 2001, a direct result of desertification, rising up over Inner Mongolia, and parts of this sand reaching as far east as Maine, Georgia, and even the Canary Islands.

I guess the point of my bringing this up is that we need to be vigilantly mindful of our shared interest in the health of our small planet. For Terry, his observation was innocent enough, with no expectations. But as we compared notes, the tone of our conversation turned to a sense of loss.

Every time we anticipate our migrant spring warblers, thrushes, vireos, tanagers, are we simultaneously anticipating less? Was our cold winter moon yellow with foreign particulates floating between us? I encourage anyone reading this little article to seek out the Mother Jones issue, and decide for yourself.

Scott Jackson-Ricketts

Winter bats

2008-01-21T10:11:00.000-08:00

The article below is reprinted from the Ferrum Nature Society Bulletin. You can visit the Society web site at www.ferrum.edu/fns and subscribe to an e-mail list by sending me a message at tfredericksen@ferrum.edu. Articles for contribution are welcome!

--Todd Fredericksen

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The vast majority of bat species occur in the tropics. Some species, however, have adapted to temperate areas where they face a prolonged winter period with a shortage of food (mostly insects) and cold temperatures that require higher metabolic rates to maintain thermal homeostasis.

The most common solution to this problem is hibernation. Of the 18 species of bats in Virginia, nearly all hibernate to some extent. Some bat species, such as the Eastern Big-eared Bat (Plecotus rafinesquii), only hibernate in the northern part of their range. Many species will hibernate colonially in caves or mines, but some, such as the Big Brown Bat (Eptesicus fuscus), prefer to hibernate in buildings.

Most hibernating bats do not feed during the winter and live only off slow-burning brown fat stored during the summer. They often huddle in dense clusters for warmth. In some species, hibernation is interrupted by periods of activity when the bats will awaken to defecate or drink. Hibernating bats are easily aroused by cavers and the higher metabolic rates of awakened bats will deplete their fat reserves. It is best to avoid disturbing hibernating bats for this reason.

The time of entry or departure from hibernacula varies by species. The endangered Indiana Bat (Myotis sodalis) enters its hibernaculum in October and stays until April, while the Small-Footed Myotis (Myotis leibii) will hibernate only during the coldest part of the winter.

Many hibernating bat species breed in the fall, but the females store sperm in their reproductive tract, only becoming pregnant late in the hibernation period. This delayed fertilization leads to the birth of bat pups in April and May, a time coinciding with a high abundance of insect prey.

Another solution to the stress of winter is migration, which is a common strategy in vesper bats (Lasiurus). Many bats will also migrate to the southern part of their range to hibernate, a compromise solution between long-flights and colder temperatures. The Indiana bat migrates 300 miles to limestone caves in the southern Appalachians, but most bat species do not migrate as far. Since Virginia has a fairly mild winter, some bat species, such as the Silver-haired Bat (Lasionycteris noctivagans), will spend the summer in the northern U.S. and Canada and return to Virginia and the Carolinas to spend the winter. The extent of migration and the migratory routes of many bat species is unknown.

During the winter, one may be surprised to find bats flying about at dusk. These are most commonly Red Bats (Lasiurus borealis) or perhaps Big Brown Bats, light-sleeping species that awake when temperatures rise above 55°F to take advantage of winter moths and flies. In the past two years, I have observed bats flying during the first week of January when temperatures have hovered between 60-70° for several days.

Some southern Appalachian webcams

2008-01-21T08:22:00.001-08:00

Here are a few good ones:

This one gives a view of Cold Mountain in the Shining Rock Wilderness of the Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina.

This is the view from Look Rock in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

This is looking south from Brasstown Bald, the highest peak in Georgia.

And this is looking north from the same spot.

iew of C
Pisgah National Forest, North Carolina

Southern Appalachian Naturalist Certification Program

2008-01-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

The Great Smoky Mountains Institute in Tremont, Tennessee is offering a certification course in the natural history of the southern Appalachians. Details are here.

Courses will cover the ecology of the southern Appalachians, bird life, plants, aquatic natural history, reptiles and amphibians, mammals and more.

The classes are focused on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but nearly everything one could learn here is applicable elsewhere in the southern Appalachians. Sounds like a great idea for those who have the time.

Clyde's frosty morning on the New River

2008-01-20T12:33:00.000-08:00

With this post I am happy to welcome Clyde Kessler as a contributor to the Mountain Naturalist blog. There are few in western Virginia with an interest in the natural world who are unaware of Clyde's amazing reputation as a birder and naturalist. For boring technical reasons this first post appears under my name, but the words are Clyde's. In a day or two we'll get the technical issues ironed out and he'll thenceforth post under his own name.

--SW

This morning just before 0700, the temperature is 12°F. I am lucky the mean northwest wind hasn’t kicked up yet.

At Riverview Park in Radford, the usual dawn flight of Ring-billed Gulls is following the New River downstream in a long sequence of ragged V’s . Over 700 have eased past the boat landing already. Near the steep bluff across the river, some turkeys are chattering and hitching along under some cedars and through broom-sedge. A few jakes are scratching into some leaves and snow and say some thin puttering quips to each other.

There is a mink scurrying along the opposite shore. I watch it for about a minute until it disappears into a jumble of driftwood beside some scraggly sycamore roots.

Well upstream at a bend of the river are several Canada Geese, Mallards, and a couple of Gadwall, about 50 Bufflehead, one female Green - winged Teal and a dozen or so Hooded Mergansers. Most mornings since Christmas they will usually sit tight on the water or forage there just at the edge of identification by my binoculars.

It is unusual for these waterfowl to be panicked into the air. But something has them on edge, and small groups of about 10 to 15 mallards begin flying up frantically and circling till all the ducks and the geese are overhead and after a few minutes begin exiting the area heading towards Claytor Lake. A killdeer bolts up from the shore, and squeals a few times as it flies away, and heads upstream away from where I am.

I wonder if maybe a stray dog or some hiker is rambling along the shore. Then I think maybe a hawk or an eagle has spooked the waterfowl.

A few minutes later I finally see what had frightened the birds. Two kayaks are floating along the far shore, each with a man wearing a thick dark brown hooded coat. They paddle a while, and then stop near the same driftwood pile where I last saw the mink. One man deftly steps from his kayak, and walks behind the driftwood. He is carrying a large black trash bag.

I cannot really see what he is doing. The two men are talking to each other a lot. The one in the kayak is nodding and lifting his paddle occasionally from the water. The man on shore hands the trash bag to the other man. The trash bag has something bulging at the bottom. I wonder if it is the mink or some other animal.

I figure these two kayakers are checking traps, perhaps set for muskrat or beaver, both species very common along this stretch of the New. Occasionally somebody sets a series of traps along the river, but I didn’t know anyone was still trying. The last person I knew about had quit trapping about five years ago.

Other than those two men, I have the river all too myself because of the cold. Even the traffic noise on I-81 is subdued this morning. It is cold enough in fact that hardly a wren or cardinal had bothered a dawn song today, though I did hear a brief melody from one wren, one cardinal. I had also heard a couple of crazy mockingbirds with a brief splutter of alarms at first light

Just before I decide to drive home I hear a jay-like “queedle” from way up high in the air. It is answered by a high-pitched bunch of notes sort of like somebody playing a quick burst of song on a xylophone. Two ravens are flying across the Riverview soccer field. They fly toward the property that used to host the outdoor drama about Mary Ingles. They fly to a tree and perch above a few cattle.

I look back at the river and see that the men are continuing downstream in their kayaks. I decide to head home for breakfast because I then abruptly realize I feel quite frozen.

So how about a Southern Appalachian Big Year?

2008-01-19T11:26:00.000-08:00

We previously reported on Robert Michael Pyle's Big Year for butterflies out west. Pyle is attempting to see as many butterfly species as he can during the calendar year of 2008.

Well, this post is about yet another kind of big year, and it's not Appalachian-related either, but when I read about it, I couldn't help thinking that it would be a good project for somebody here in the southern highlands.

During 2007, Jim Brighton dedicated himself to what he called his Delmarva Photo Big Year. It was an effort to support the American Bird Conservancy's Junin Grebe project. His goal was to photograph as many birds, reptiles, butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies and mammals living in the Delmarva Peninsula as possible. Over the course of 2007 he got 397 photographs, many of which you can see here. The painted lady thumbnailed above is available for sale at his site as a printed glossy in several sizes, along with photos of many other species. Prices are cheap and they're gorgeous -- check it out.

As a bonus, he got state records in Maryland for the furtive forktail and duckweed firetail damselflies, as well as a photo of the King's hairstreak. The latter had been found previously only in a tiny part of Maryland.

He raised $1200, and blogged about his adventures here.

As I paged through his photos and read his blog, what I was thinking was, "Wow. What a cool project!" And also, "I wish I had a job that would let me do this kind of thing."

This would be a wonderful undertaking for somebody in our part of the world. Heck, why not throw wildflowers into the mix and post photos of those as well? Forgive my chauvinism, but I think a Southern Appalachian Big Year could produce even more beautiful photographs and a higher species total. It would be fun to watch as somebody tried this in the Blue Ridge, the Alleghenies, the Smokies, etc.

All we need is an intrepid volunteer.

Anybody? Anybody?

Was eastern North America a big marsh?

2008-01-18T08:58:00.000-08:00

Whoa -- here's something different.

A couple of scientists at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania say that our image of the eastern North American landscape before the arrival of European settlers is all wrong.

You need to read the story at New Scientist and then the original paper to learn all about it. But, briefly, Robert Walter and Dorothy Merritts are saying that "the the 'original' North American landscape of forested hills and meandering streams that carved their way down the valleys and out to sea" is not what actually existed.

Instead of a land of rivers that were confined to single, winding channels, what the first European settlers found were "collections of many small channels spreading across broad wetlands." One botanist in 1750 reported a landscape of "swampy meadows," which these researchers say was more the rule than the exception. Here in the Appalachians, the terrain may have been more favorable to species like the one in the photograph above, the smaller purple-fringed orchid, Platanthera psycodes.

This state of affairs changed, and it changed fast, say Walter and Merritts. The settlers almost immediately constructed "tens of thousands" of dams to mill grain. The resulting series of "staircases" drained the water out of valleys. The remains of old mills and dams are, needless to say, a familiar sight in streambeds here in the southern Appalachians.

The two researchers started out trying to trace the source of sediment in storm runoff. "After every rainstorm, our creeks and streams run like chocolate milk," says Walters. Their original assumption was that it came from modern working farms.

They discovered that this sediment did not come from today's farms, but instead from ancient farmsteads high atop mountains in the Appalachian chain.

By 1840, the settlers had built more 65,000 dams between South Carolina and Maine, a number and a date that I find astounding.

I'm not competent to criticize the authors' research, but it reminds me of another bit of geographical revisionism here, in which geologist Robert Thorson presents good evidence that the stereotype of New England's soil as thin and rocky is an artifact of logging done by early settlers. I highly recommend Thorson's book.

In either case, it gives one pause to think that the landscape we consider "natural" may be an artifact of human modification.

Silver-haired bats in Patrick County

2008-01-13T07:07:00.000-08:00

Dr. Eric Johnson, a retired ornithologist who lives near Stuart, found a silver-haired bat in his home. This is the second time he's caught one of these critters and released it outside.

Bat Conservation International says that Lasionycteris noctivagans is one of the most common bats in forested areas in North America. I'm no bat expert, but it's not a species I'm aware of having seen myself. The most common bats I encounter in our area are the little brown bat and the red bat.

The silver-hair is associated with coniferous and mixed coniferous/deciduous forests. BCI says they are dependent on old-growth forests, and for that reason the maintenence of forest corridors is important to this species.

Read about the relationship between forest-dwelling bats and old-growth forest at this link.

A friend of mine who knows this species tells me that one way to tell a silver-haired from other species in the half-light of dusk is the marked slowness of its flight compared to other bats, such as the little brown bat. The silver-hair, he says, "dawdles around" in the air.

The range maps for the silver-haired may be misleading, because over big parts of its nominal range it is present only during the spring and fall migrations. Dr. Johnson says that, as far as he's concerned, finding two in his house, on both occasions during winter, settles the question for him of whether or not they're in our part of the southern Appalachians this time of year.

Like many birds, the silver-haired bat is good at getting home again. One individual traveled 107 miles back to its home roost after migration.

Red-tailed hawks are known to predate bats in some areas, especially out west, especially at dusk, as the bats pour out of caves to feed for the night. And why not? They're basically flying mice. I found myself wondering if redtails in the southern Appalachians feed on bats to any significant degree. The overlap between a redtail's normal hunting hours and those of crepuscular species like bats is brief. Does anybody have good data on this?

A "Big Year" for butterflies

2008-01-11T06:40:00.000-08:00

Why didn't I think of that? That was my reaction when my friend Clyde Kessler directed my attention to Robert Michael Pyle's project to identify as many butterflies as he could in the space of a year.

Birders have been doing variations of this challenge for decades. So far as I'm aware, Pyle is the first to try it for butterflies.

All I can say is, I wish I were him. There's a heck of a lot more butterfly species in America than birds. But it sounds like a great way to spend a year.

Read his first dispatch here

This guy is a great writer on lepidoptera, by the way. He's been studying monarchs for over half a century. Here's something he wrote about the Bt corn debate.

Is anybody inspired to try something like this here in the southern Appalachians? There are species and subspecies that occur here that are hard to find elsewhere.

Groping back to bed...

2008-01-11T05:17:00.001-08:00

...well, the Philip Larkin poem continues from there with a rude word or two, so I won't print the rest of it. Google it -- it's a great poem. But every now and then I'm up in the middle of the night, and sometimes before I hop back in the sack, I go out on our porch in Slings Gap to listen to the night.

Last night we were socked in with fog and chilly rain. Before midnight the wind roared in the treetops high above our house. Our part of the gap is oriented roughly west-to-east, so the prevailing winds frequently whistle through the notch.

Between 1 and 2 am when I was up briefly, the wind had died back a bit, so it wasn't as noisy. It was back to how it usually is in our little holler in the middle of the night, which is dead quiet. No lights, no neighbors, no cars.

With the fog and heavy overcast, it was pitch black. Rain dripped from the branches overhead, the wind pushed the wet fog across the front porch. The moisture-laden air was thick and heavy and cold. At 43 degrees, it wasn't freezing, but it was chilly on bare skin. Down below the yard, the creek tinkled.

I just listened, as I usually do. Nothing.

Then, after a couple of minutes, maybe a quarter mile down the holler, the shivery sound of an eastern screech-owl. We've heard them before in the holler, but not often. The common owl here is the barred owl. We probably don't have enough open terrain for screech-owls here. But my neighbor Jenny Chapman saw one on a fence a mile or two down the road earlier this week. Maybe this was the same guy.

This owl was far enough away that I could barely pick him out above the wet wind sighing in the black trees. Just two or three high, quavery wails in the night. Then silence.

Sometimes I wonder: do the little mice and other rodents who are the prey of owls hear such noises and quake in fear? Or is that anthropomorphizing them? Probably it is. But I wonder anyway.

Just night thoughts. In a pitch-black holler in the mountains as the wind soughs in the trees. Night thoughts. . .and then back to bed.

Native bees

2008-01-10T12:01:00.001-08:00

On the NRV Natural History list last year, there was some discussion of native bee species that have become more evident after the disastrous decline of the honeybee (which is an exotic in North America).

It struck me at the time that it would be cool if we could take a stab at identifying the native bee species in our area. Not a lot of good reference material for that easily available. Now comes this notice from Sam Droege of the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland:

There will be a "week-long, hands-on workshop on native bee identification at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia from March 24 through March 28. It will be taught by Rob Jean of Indiana State, Mark Arduser of the Missouri Department of Conservation, Cory Sheffield of York University, and Droege himself.

The point will be to train people to ID bees down to the species level. "A synoptic collection of eastern and central bees will be available throughout the week along with large numbers of surplus specimens that participants may keep as reference material. There will also be collecting trips, plus discussions on monitoring, survey and processing techniques. If you've found something locally you can't ID, bring it along and an expert with give it a try.

Details from Sam Droege: sam_droege@usgs.gov

His agency's website is here

To his announcement, Sam appended a neat poem by Carl Sandburg:

Bee Song

Bees in the late summer sun
Drone their song
Of yellow moons
Trimming black velvet
Droning, droning a sleepysong.

It's not what they don't know that's dangerous...

2008-01-10T11:35:00.000-08:00

...it's what they know for sure that just ain't so.

That sentiment has been attributed to Ronald Reagan, Herbert Hoover, Mark Twain and a bunch of others. For the record, I don't know who said it first.

But I was reminded of it while reading a thread on the DELMARVA HERPS list. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources came up with a proposal to experimentally reintroduce northern pine snakes to the Pocomoke State Forest in Worcester County in Maryland. After soliciting comments from the public, a panel of three experts recommended against the idea, saying there was too little evidence that the snake was a recent part of the ecosystem in that area.

There have been disgusted, dissident voices on the herps list. The claim is that fauna occur in some areas where their presence is kept "hush-hush" (possibly for landowners to avoid dealing with the endangered species act?). The same writer claimed that New Jersey chorus frogs occur in Delaware but are ignored in frog counts.

Another writer claimed to have found mating northern red-spotted newts in vernal pools in early fall in south-central Pennsylvania. He reported this to a local professor, who claimed they were actually congregating due to "a change in barometric pressure," and weren't really mating. The writer sourly observed, "I still marvel at his ability to judge this from the comfort of his office while on the telephone with me."

Another and more troubling accusation was this:

"Most remarkable is the credentialed recognition of naturalists by the government regulators (many of whom are nothing but office bureaucrats). Many field workers are government-approved consultants who pay for a professional permit in addition to a regular license in order to qualify for site surveys. Others are involved with research projects associated with the institutions where they are professors and hence subject to academic as well as political pressures. The product of all this is a "good-old boy" (or sisterhood) system of conformity and subordination. If you don't abide with the policies and philosophies of the authorities, you don't land lucrative contracts to survey for endangered or threatened species on sites scheduled for development. If your research isn't consistent with the dogmatic doctrines of the state, you don't publish." [Spelling and punctuation corrected in this quoted passage]

Is this true? I know a couple of local naturalists who do contract work, and the ones I know are scrupulously honest. Furthermore, given the figures I've heard quoted, the contracts are anything but "lucrative."

But I would like to know if others regard the situation adduced above as a serious problem. Whatever one may think of legislation like endangered species laws, it is important to have a true picture of the presence or absence of threatened species in a given area.

January odes and leps

2008-01-09T07:51:00.000-08:00

This warm spell puts me in mind of a few winters back in the late '70s and early '80s, when I was seeing wildflowers in January.

Earlier this week I saw a mourning cloak butterfly flying at the edge of the woods bordering the Blue Ridge Parkway near mile 122. A friend reported an orange sulfur elsewhere in Roanoke. And further east toward the coast, somebody else spotted a green darner dragonfly. It's hard to avoid a touch of spring fever.

The mourning cloaks are interesting because they over-winter as adults in forest leaf litter. They'll come out on warm winter days and fly a bit; then, when it gets cold again, they'll snuggle back down under the leaves and kick back til the next warm spell.

Added to all this, a friend reported seeing a couple of female redwinged blackbirds in his Roanoke yard a day or two ago. They're normally harbingers of spring. And we've had reports of blueheaded vireos and and pine warblers taking their chances on over-wintering in the Roanoke area. What a "winter" so far!