Time to Order Trees and Shrubs for Spring

It’s that time of year.  Your local county conservation district is taking orders for their annual tree sale and it’s a deal that can’t be beat.  Order now for pickup in April.

The prices are a bargain and the selection includes the varieties you need to improve wildlife habitat and water quality on your property.  For species descriptions and more details, visit each tree sale web page (click the sale name highlighted in blue).  And don’t forget to order packs of evergreens for planting in mixed clumps and groves to provide winter shelter and summertime nesting sites for our local native birds.  They’re only $12.00 for a bundle of 10.

Mature Trees in a Suburban Neighborhood
It’s the most desirable block in town, not because the houses are any different from others built during the post-war years of the mid-twentieth century, but because the first owners of these domiciles had the good taste and foresight to plant long-lived trees on their lots, the majority of them native species.  Pin Oak, Northern Red Oak, Yellow Poplar, Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida), Eastern Red Cedar, Eastern White Pine, Eastern Hemlock, Norway Spruce, and American Holly dominate the landscape and create excellent habitat for birds and other wildlife.  These 75-year-old plantings provide an abundance of shade in summer and thermal stability in winter, making it a “cool” place to live or take a stroll at any time of the year.

Cumberland County Conservation District Annual Tree Seedling Sale—

Orders due by: Friday, March 22, 2024

Pickup on: Thursday, April 18, 2024 or Friday, April 19, 2024

Common Winterberry
Cumberland County Conservation District is taking orders for Common Winterberry, the ideal small shrub for wet soil anywhere on your property.  To get berries, you’ll need both males and females, so buy a bunch and plant them in a clump or scattered group.
Pin Oak
To live for a century or more like this towering giant, a Pin Oak needs to grow in well-drained soils with adequate moisture.  These sturdy shade providers do well along streams and on low ground receiving clean runoff from hillsides, roofs, streets, and parking areas.  As they age, Pin Oaks can fail to thrive and may become vulnerable to disease in locations where rainfall is not adequately infiltrated into the soil.  Therefore, in drier areas such as raised ground or slopes, avoid the Pin Oak and select the more durable Northern Red Oak for planting.  This year, Pin Oaks are available from the Cumberland and Lancaster County Conservation Districts, while Dauphin, Lancaster, Lebanon, and York Counties are taking orders for Northern Red Oaks.
Purple Coneflower
The Cumberland County Conservation District is again offering a “Showy Northeast Native Wildflower and Grass Mix” for seeding your own pollinator meadow or garden.  It consists of more than twenty species including this perennial favorite, Purple Coneflower.

Dauphin County Conservation District Seedling Sale—

Orders due by: Monday, March 18, 2024

Pickup on: Thursday, April 18, 2024 or Friday, April 19, 2024

Eastern Redbud
The Eastern Redbud is small tree native to our forest edges, particularly in areas of the Piedmont Province with Triassic geology (Furnace Hills, Conewago Hills, Gettysburg/Hammer Creek Formations, etc.)  Also known as the Judas Tree, the redbud’s brilliant flowers are followed by heart-shaped leaves.  As seen here, it is suitable for planting near houses and other buildings.  Eastern Redbud seedlings are being offered through tree sales in Dauphin, Cumberland, and Lancaster Counties.

Lancaster County Annual Tree Seedling Sale—

Orders due by: Friday, March 8, 2024

Pickup on: Friday, April 12, 2024

Yellow Poplar
The Yellow Poplar, often called Tuliptree or Tulip Poplar for its showy flowers, is a sturdy, fast-growing deciduous tree native to forests throughout the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed.  Its pole-straight growth habit in shady woodlands becomes more spreading and picturesque when the plant is grown as a specimen or shade tree in an urban or suburban setting.  The Yellow Poplar can live for hundreds of years and is a host plant for the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly.  It is available this year from the Lancaster County Conservation District.
The American Sweetgum, also known as Sweet Gum, is a large, long-lived tree adorned with a mix of vibrant colors in autumn.
American Goldfinches and Pine Siskin on Sweet Gum
Ever wonder where all the American Goldfinches and particularly the Pine Siskins go after passing through our region in fall?  Well, many are headed to the lowland forests of the Atlantic Coastal Plain where they feed on an abundance of seeds contained in spiky American Sweetgum fruits.  In the Piedmont and Ridge and Valley Provinces of the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed, American Sweetgum transplants can provide enough sustenance to sometimes lure our friendly finches into lingering through the winter.
Sweet Gum in a Beaver Pond
The American Sweetgum is a versatile tree.  It can be planted on upland sites as well as in wet ground along streams, lakes, and rivers.  In the beaver pond seen here it is the dominate tree species.  This year, you can buy the American Sweetgum from the Lancaster County Conservation District.
"Red-twig Dogwood"
“Red-twig Dogwood” is a group of similar native shrubs that, in our region, includes Silky Dogwood and the more northerly Red-Osier Dogwood (Cornus sericea).  Both have clusters of white flowers in spring and showy red twigs in winter.  They are an excellent choice for wet soils.  Landscapers often ruin these plants by shearing them off horizontally a foot or two from the ground each year.  To produce flowers and fruit, and to preserve winter attractiveness, trim them during dormancy by removing three-year-old and older canes at ground level, letting younger growth untouched.
Silky Dogwood Stream Buffer
“Red-twig Dogwoods” make ideal mass plantings for streamside buffers and remain showy through winter, even on a gloomy day.  They not only mitigate nutrient and sediment pollution, they provide excellent food and cover for birds and other wildlife.  Both Silky and Red-osier Dogwoods are available for sale through the Lancaster County Conservation District as part of their special multi-species offers, the former is included in its “Beauty Pack” and the latter in its “Wildlife Pack”.  The similar Gray Dogwood (Cornus racemosa) is being offered for sale by the York County Conservation District.

Lebanon County Conservation District Tree and Plant Sale—

Orders due by: Friday, March 8, 2024

Pickup on: Friday, April 19, 2024

Common Pawpaw flower
The unique maroon flowers of the Common Pawpaw produce banana-like fruits in summer.  These small native trees grow best in damp, well-drained soils on slopes along waterways, where they often form clonal understory patches.  To get fruit, plant a small grove to increase the probability of pollination.  The Common Pawpaw is a host plant for the Zebra Swallowtail butterfly.  It is available through both the Lebanon and Lancaster County sales.
Eastern Red Cedar
The Eastern Red Cedar provides excellent food, cover, and nesting sites for numerous songbirds.  Planted in clumps of dozens or groves of hundreds of trees, they can provide winter shelter for larger animals including deer and owls.  The Eastern Red Cedar is being offered for purchase through both the Lebanon and Lancaster County Conservation Districts.
Hybrid American Chestnut
Care to try your hand at raising some chestnuts?  Lebanon County Conservation District has hybrid American Chestnut seedlings for sale.
Common Winterberry
Lebanon County Conservation District is offering Common Winterberry and Eastern White Pine during their 2024 Tree and Plant Sale.  Plant them both for striking color during the colder months.  Eastern White Pine is also available from the Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster, and York County sales.

Perry County Conservation District Tree Sale—

Orders due by: Sunday, March 24, 2024

Pickup on: Thursday, April 11, 2024

Pollinator Garden
In addition to a selection of trees and shrubs, the Perry County Conservation District is again selling wildflower seed mixes for starting your own pollinator meadow or garden.  For 2024, they have both a “Northeast Perennials and Annuals Mix” and a “Butterfly and Hummingbird Seed Mix” available.  Give them a try so you can give up the mower!

Again this year, Perry County is offering bluebird nest boxes for sale.  The price?—just $12.00.

Eastern Bluebird
Wait, what?,…twelve bucks,…that’s cheaper than renting!

York County Conservation District Seedling Sale—

Orders due by: Friday, March 15, 2024

Pickup on: Thursday, April 11, 2024

Buttonbush flower
The Buttonbush, a shrub of wet soils, produces a cosmic-looking flower.  It grows well in wetlands, along streams, and in rain gardens.  Buttonbush seedlings are for sale from both the York and Lancaster County Conservation Districts.

To get your deciduous trees like gums, maples, oaks, birches, and poplars off to a safe start, conservation district tree sales in Cumberland, Dauphin, Lancaster, and Perry Counties are offering protective tree shelters.  Consider purchasing these plastic tubes and supporting stakes for each of your hardwoods, especially if you have hungry deer in your neighborhood.

Deciduous Tree Planting Protected by Shelters
Tree shelters protect newly transplanted seedlings from browsing deer, klutzy hikers, visually impaired mower operators, and other hazards.

There you have it.  Be sure to check out each tree sale’s web page to find the selections you like, then get your order placed.  The deadlines will be here before you know it and you wouldn’t want to miss values like these!

Photo of the Day

Blue Wood Aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium)
Among the hardy wildflowers still in bloom in the forests of the lower Susquehanna valley is the Blue Wood Aster (Symphyotrichum cordifolium), a variable species also known as the Heart-leaved Aster.

Hymanoptera: A Look at Some Bees, Wasps, Hornets, and Ants

What’s all this buzz about bees?  And what’s a hymanopteran?  Well, let’s see.

Hymanoptera—our bees, wasps, hornets and ants—are generally considered to be our most evolved insects.  Some form complex social colonies.  Others lead solitary lives.  Many are essential pollinators of flowering plants, including cultivars that provide food for people around the world.  There are those with stingers for disabling prey and defending themselves and their nests.  And then there are those without stingers.  The predatory species are frequently regarded to be the most significant biological controls of the insects that might otherwise become destructive pests.  The vast majority of the Hymanoptera show no aggression toward humans, a demeanor that is seldom reciprocated.

Late summer and early autumn is a critical time for the Hymanoptera.  Most species are at their peak of abundance during this time of year, but many of the adult insects face certain death with the coming of freezing weather.  Those that will perish are busy, either individually or as members of a colony, creating shelter and gathering food to nourish the larvae that will repopulate the environs with a new generation of adults next year.  Without abundant sources of protein and carbohydrates, these efforts can quickly fail.  Protein is stored for use by the larval insects upon hatching from their eggs.  Because the eggs are typically deposited in a cell directly upon the cache of protein, the larvae can begin feeding and growing immediately.  To provide energy for collecting protein and nesting materials, and in some cases excavating nest chambers, Hymanoptera seek out sources of carbohydrates.  Species that remain active during cold weather must store up enough of a carbohydrate reserve to make it through the winter.  Honey Bees make honey for this purpose.  As you are about to see, members of this suborder rely predominately upon pollen or insect prey for protein, and upon nectar and/or honeydew for carbohydrates.

We’ve assembled here a collection of images and some short commentary describing nearly two dozen kinds of Hymanoptera found in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed, the majority photographed as they busily collected provisions during recent weeks.  Let’s see what some of these fascinating hymanopterans are up to…

SOLITARY WASPS

Great Black Wasp on goldenrod (Solidago species)
A Great Black Wasp on goldenrod (Solidago species).  Like other solitary wasps, a female  Great Black Wasp will sting and paralyze a host insect upon which she’ll deposit her eggs.  After hatching, the larvae will begin consuming the host’s body as a source of protein.  The parasitized insects are often katydids or grasshoppers.
A Great Black Wasp.
A Great Black Wasp feeding on nectar, a source of carbohydrates.  Unlike social bees and wasps, solitary wasps are equipped with a stinger solely used for immobilizing prey, not defending a nest.  They are therefore quite docile and pose little threat to humans.
A Great Black Wasp powdered with pollen.
A Great Black Wasp powdered with pollen.  Hymanopterans that gather nectar and/or pollen are tremendously important pollinators of hundreds of species of plants.
Thread-waisted Wasp
A female Thread-waisted wasp (Ammophilia species, probably A. nigricans) drags a paralyzed caterpillar to her excavated nest where she’ll deposit an egg on the body.  After hatching, the larval wasp will feed on the disabled caterpillar.  The protein will enable the larvae to grow, pupate, and later emerge as an adult wasp.
The female Eastern Cicada Killer (Sphecius speciosus) excavates an underground nest with branch tunnels connecting a dozen chambers or more.  As the common name suggests, the female wasp paralyzes a cicada, then makes a strenuous effort to fly and drag it back to the nest for placement in a cell.  Each male wasp egg is deposited upon just one immobilized cicada, but a female egg is provided with a cache of several cicadas to provide adequate protein for growth to a larger size.  Nest cells are sealed with soil, then the larvae hatch in just a couple of days.  Within about two weeks, they have consumed the cicada protein and are fully grown.  Wrapped in a cocoon, they spend the winter in the nest, then pupate in the spring before emerging as a new generation of adults.
The Black-and-yellow Mud Dauber
The Black-and-yellow Mud Dauber (Sceliphron caementarium) builds a mud-ball nest within which it packs paralyzed spiders to function as a source of protein for its larvae.
Black-and-yellow Mud Dauber at nest.
A Black-and-yellow Mud Dauber at nest.
Pipe Organ Mud Dauber Nest
The Pipe Organ Mud Dauber builds this elaborate nest in which their eggs and paralyzed spiders are deposited in cells sealed with mud partitions.  After consuming the spiders, the larvae pupate, overwinter, then emerge from their cells as adults during the following spring.  To escape the protection of the nest, the new generation of adults bore through the mud walls.  Adult Pipe Organ Mud Daubers resemble the Great Black Wasp, but have a white or yellow distal segment on their rear legs resembling a pair of light-colored socks.
A closeup of the previous image with the lengths of the nest tubes compressed to show four scavenger flies (Miltogramminae), possibly two species, that have invaded this Pipe Organ Mud Dauber nest.  Scavenger flies are kleptoparasites that victimize various solitary bees and wasps, depositing larvae directly into the host species’ nest cells to consume the protein cache stored therein.

CUCKOO WASPS

Cuckoo Wasp
Cuckoo Wasps (Chrysididae), also known as Emerald Wasps, parasitize the nests of other species of wasps.  Females lay their eggs inside the host’s nest, then flee the scene.  Upon hatching, larval Cuckoo Wasps feed on stockpiles of prey intended for the host species’ offspring.  Like the adult mud daubers that have already matured and departed this nest by digging a hole through the wall of the cell within which they were hatched, the metallic green Cuckoo Wasp in the upper left has just emerged in much the same way.

SWEAT BEES

A Sweat Bee (Lasioglossum species).
A Sweat Bee (Lasioglossum species) collecting nectar and pollen on White Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima).
A Sweat Bee (Lasioglossum species).
Sweat Bees (Lasioglossum species) visit human skin to lick up the electrolytes left behind by evaporating perspiration.
A Sweat Bee (Lasioglossum species).
Sweat Bees  in the genus Lasioglossum demonstrate various social behaviors ranging from species that are solitary nesters to those that create colonies with work forces ranging in size from as few as four to as many as hundreds of bees.  Some Lasioglossum practice kleptoparasitism, while others are quite accomplished foragers.
An Augochlorine Green Sweat Bee (Augochlorini).
A female Augochlorine Green Sweat Bee (Augochlorini) collecting nectar on White Snakeroot.  Notice the pollen “baskets” on the rear leg.
An Augochlorine Green Sweat Bee (Augochlorini).
An Augochlorine Green Sweat Bee (Augochlorini).  Sweat bees nest in subterranean cavities and in hollowed out sections of trees.
An Augochlorine Green Sweat Bee (Augochlorini).
A copper-colored Augochlorine Green Sweat Bee (Augochlorini) collecting nectar and dusted with pollen.

LEAFCUTTER AND MASON BEES

Leafcutter Bee
A Leafcutter Bee (Megachile species).  Like Mason Bees, female Mason Bees deposit each of their eggs on a “pollen loaf” within an individual cell inside a preexisting tunnel-like cavity in wood, stone, or in the ground.  Unlike Mason Bees, female Leafcutter Bees cut a circular piece of leaf to create each of the cells in their nest.  After hatching, the larval bee feeds on the pollen loaf, pupates, then emerges from the shelter of the nest to start a new generation, usually during the following year.
A Leafcutter Bee (Megachile species).
A Leafcutter Bee (Megachile species) visiting Wild Bergamot.  Female Leafcutter and Mason Bees lack pollen “baskets” on their rear legs but instead have pollen “brushes” on the underside of the abdomen to gather the protein they need to create a “pollen loaf” for each nest cell.
Leafcutter Bee
A Leafcutter Bee (Megachile species) collecting nectar from White Snakeroot.
A Mason Bee (Osmia species) emerging from a nest cell in spring.
A Mason Bee (Osmia species) emerging from a nest in spring.  Mason Bees create nesting cells within preexisting cavities in wood, stone, and other other supporting structures.  Within the nest cavity, each egg is deposited atop a cache of pollen and nectar, a pollen loaf, then enclosed behind a partition of mud.  The female Mason Bee will usually repeat this process until an entire cavity is filled with cells.  During the following spring, a new generation of adult Mason Bees digs its way through the cell walls to emerge and repeat the process.  These bees readily use paper straws or holes drilled in blocks of wood for nesting.
A mason bee nest box with holes drilled into blocks of wood.
A mason bee nest box with holes drilled into blocks of wood.
Parasitized Mason Bee Nest
Mason Bees seal each cell and the outer end of their nest cavity with mud.  These outer nest cells can been parasitized by a variety of wasps.  Here, the outer cell of a Mason Bee nest has been victimized by a tiny chalcid wasp (looks like another one to the lower left).  Several species of female chalcid wasps (native Monodontomerus species or non-native Pteromalus venustus) enlarge weak points in the outer partition of a mason bee nest, then sting and paralyze the larval bee inside before depositing their eggs.  Within the cell. the wasp larvae consume the larval Mason Bee and the “pollen loaf” provided for its growth.  These same parasitic wasps prey upon Leafcutter Bees as well.

BUMBLE BEES, CARPENTER BEES, HONEY BEES, AND DIGGER BEES

Common Eastern Bumble Bee
A Common Eastern Bumble Bee (Bombus impatiens) collecting nectar and pollen on goldenrod.  Bumble bees are our sole native group of social bees.  Their wax nests are built in a burrow or other shelter.  The eggs are deposited in cells along with a supply of pollen for nourishing the larvae upon hatching.  Honey is stored in “honey pots” within the nest.  New queens are produced along with male bees during the late-summer and fall.  Only the new generation of fertilized queens survive the winter to lay eggs and produce workers to construct a new nest.
Common Eastern Bumble Bees
A pair of Common Eastern Bumble Bees collecting nectar and becoming dusted with pollen.  Their fuzzy coats and semi-warm-blooded metabolism allows them to be active in cooler weather than is tolerated by other bees.
A Common Eastern Bumble Bee pollinating a Great Rhododendron flower.
Flowering plants including the Great Rhododendron find success attracting pollinators to their reproductive blossoms by offering carbohydrate-rich nectar to insects like this Eastern Bumble Bee.  The yellow spots on the flower’s upper petal help to guide visitors toward their sweet treat.
Eastern Carpenter Bee
An Eastern Carpenter Bee feeding on goldenrod nectar.  Compare the almost hairless abdomen to that of the bumble bees.  Carpenter bees are semi-social insects.  Females lay their eggs in cells within galleries bored into wood.  These nests are completed with great precision, avoiding creation of any second entrance by mistakenly breaching the outer surface of the excavated wood.  Each egg/larvae is provided with a supply of protein-rich pollen.  Males often hover outside their mate’s nest to prevent competing males from entering the area.
A Honey Bee visiting goldenrod alongside Common Eastern Bumble Bees.
A worker Honey Bee, a female member of a sisterhood of foragers from a nearby hive, visits goldenrod alongside Common Eastern Bumble Bees.  Honey Bees were brought to North America during the 1620s, the earliest years of the trans-Atlantic migration of European colonists, to pollinate cultivated plants and to provide a reliable source of honey and beeswax.  Within the Honey Bee’s social structure, the queen of each hive lays the eggs to produce the female worker bees.  Once each year, male drones are produced along with a new generation of queens.
Honey Bee Hive
In nature, Honey Bees build hives in tree cavities.  Recently, this colony constructed a hive in a screech owl nest box at susquehannawildlife.net headquarters.  To provide protein for the hatching larvae, worker bees collect pollen and deposit it within the hexagonal cells of the vertically aligned beeswax combs.  After an egg is deposited upon the pollen cache, each cell is sealed with more beeswax.  Young females tend these nest combs before maturing and becoming foraging worker bees.
Bee Hive Display
In apiculture, Honey Bees are raised in man-made hives.  This Pennsylvania Association of Beekeepers display gives visitors to the Pennsylvania Farm Show in Harrisburg a look at the inner workings of a live bee hive.  Nectar collected by worker bees is turned into honey to provide the supply of carbohydrates needed to fuel the colony through the winter.  Note the honeycombs on the glass.
A possible Small Carpenter Bee Ceratina species).
A possible Small Carpenter Bee (Ceratina species) visiting White Snakeroot.  Small Carpenter Bees nest inside hollow stems and twigs.  Some species are eusocial, with a queen’s daughters and sisters sharing responsibility for finding food and rearing the young.  Females overwinter inside a one of the excavated stems and begin a new nest there in the spring.
A Digger Bee (possibly Melissodes species).
A Digger Bee (possibly Melissodes species) with “pollen baskets” full of pollen collected from nearby flowers.  Digger Bees in the genus Melissodes are often known as the Long-horned Bees.  These social insects excavate underground nests and many species practice communal living.

SCOLIID WASPS

Two-spotted Scoliid Wasp
The Two-spotted Scoliid Wasp (Scolia dubia), also known as the Blue-winged Scoliid Wasp, is most frequently observed feeding on nectar.  Scoliid wasps are solitary nesters, though they may assemble into groups while visiting flowers.  They often ignore the presence of humans and are seldom disturbed by their presence.  Females seek out the burrowing grubs of beetles including the Green June Bug (Cotinis nitida) and possibly the Japanese Beetle.  After stinging a grub to paralyze it, the wasp will deposit her egg on its body, then bury it.  Upon hatching, the larval wasp will feed on the grub for nourishment as it grows.
June Bugs eating watermelon.
Don’t like having your watermelon overrun by Green June Bugs while you’re eating?  Then you ought to go out of your way to be nice to the Two-spotted Scoliid Wasp.
The Double-banded Scoliid
The Double-banded Scoliid (Scolia bicincta) parasitizes beetle larvae as hosts for its larvae.  For carbohydrates it relishes flower nectar.

PAPER WASPS

Northern Paper Wasp
A Northern Paper Wasp (Polistes fuscatus).  Paper wasps prey upon numerous garden pests, particularly caterpillars, to collect protein.  Though they are social insects equipped with stingers to subdue their victims and defend their nests, paper wasps are surprisingly docile.
The Northern Paper Wasp
A Northern Paper Wasp (Polistes fuscatus) feeding on nectar from a goldenrod flower.
A Northern Paper Wasp harvesting wood pulp
A Northern Paper Wasp harvesting wood pulp from the side of a mason bee nest box at susquehannawildlife.net headquarters.  The pulp is chewed in the wasp’s saliva to create the paper used to construct the colony’s open-cell nest.
Guinea Paper Wasps (Polistes exclamans) at their nest.
Common Paper Wasps (Polistes exclamans), also known as Guinea Paper Wasps, at their open-cell nest.  This and the nests of most other paper wasps are suspended on a filament or a pedicle.  Many paper wasps can excrete an ant repellent on this section of the nest in an effort to prevent invasion.  Like many other social hymenopterans, a defending wasp can secrete a pheromone venom during the stinging process to warn the colony of danger at the nest.  In winter, Common Paper Wasps seek shelter in stumps and other locations to hibernate.
European Paper Wasp
The European Paper Wasp (Polistes dominula) is a non-native species which builds nests in man-made structures including bird houses.  To collect protein, they prey on a wide selection of insects and other invertebrates.  As such, European Paper Wasps are widespread and successful here in North America.

YELLOWJACKETS AND HORNETS

An Eastern Yellowjacket
An Eastern Yellowjacket feeding on lanternfly honeydew.  Eastern Yellowjackets derive much of their success from being generalists, collecting carbohydrates from nearly any sweet source, natural or man made.  They are quite fond of ripe fruits, flower nectar, and sugary snacks and drinks, especially soda.  Protein for nourishing their larvae is derived from the wide variety invertebrates upon which they prey and from carrion.  These foods are chewed into a paste form in preparation for placement into the brood cells.
An Eastern Yellowjacket.
A subterranean colony of Eastern Yellowjackets is started anew each spring by a young queen that has survived winter hibernation in diapause, a state of interrupted development.  She constructs the new nest’s first cells using pulp made by chewing rotting wood.  The first brood of workers scales up construction while the queen continues producing eggs.  At the nest, these social insects will viciously attack anyone or anything perceived to be a threat, so give them their space and leave them alone.  Many yellowjacket infestations of homes and other buildings are the work of non-native German Yellowjacket (Vespula germanica) [not shown], an invasive species that constructs paper nests in void spaces including walls and attics.
Robber Fly consuming an Eastern Yellowjacket
Yellowjackets may be moody and aggressive, but they do fall victim to a number of predators.  A Robber Fly (Promachus species) has taken down and is devouring this Eastern Yellowjacket.
A Bald-faced Hornet (Dolichovespula maculata) feeding on Spotted Lanternfly honeydew deposits
A Bald-faced Hornet (Dolichovespula maculata) feeding on Spotted Lanternfly honeydew on a Tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima).  In the absence of nectar-producing flowers, many bees, yellowjackets, and hornets have turned to the invasive lanternfly and Ailanthus combo to turn the sun’s energy into the carbohydrates they need.  For protein, they prey upon spiders, flies, caterpillars, and a variety of other insects.
A Bald-faced Hornet collecting wood pulp from the surface of a weathered picnic table.
To create paper for nest construction, this Bald-faced Hornet is collecting wood pulp from the surface of a weathered picnic table.  Away from the nest, these hornets demonstrate a calm, carefree demeanor and can be closely observed.
Bald-faced Hornet Nest
A Bald-faced Hornet nest in a pine tree.  These hives are strictly temporary.  Within the nest, a generation of drones (males) and new queens are produced late each year.  These wasps leave the colony to mate.  With the arrival of freezing weather, all inhabitants within the nest, including the old queen, perish, as do the drones that departed to breed.  Only the new queens survive winter hibernation to propagate the next generation of wasps,  starting with the workers needed to construct a fresh nest and reestablish the colony.
Bald-faced Hornets Peering from Nest
Did you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?  Don’t go messing around with Bald-faced Hornet nests.  The occupants therein, like other social bees, wasps, and hornets, are equipped with stingers and venom for defending their colony.  This is an adaptation that has developed over time to assure the survival of populations of these insects.  Think about it this way, a solitary wasp that loses a nest loses only their individual brood of offspring.  There is minimal impact on the wider local population of such insects.  Conversely, a social wasp or hornet that loses a nest loses an entire colony, possibly negating the benefits of their cooperative behavior and threatening the survival of the species.  Insects that cooperate to build societies for survival can be more vulnerable to the catastrophic impacts of certain circumstances like disease, weather, and invasion of their colonies.  Therefore, natural selection has provided them with contingencies for these dangers, for example, the instinct to construct protective shelters and the adaptation of stingers and venom for defense against intruders and would-be predators.  Oh, and by the way, the Bald-faced Hornet can spray venom, often aiming for the eyes, so keep your distance.
European Hornets
European Hornets (Vespa crabro), an introduced species, are predatory on a variety of flying insects for protein.  For carbohydrates they are attracted to sweets like this lanternfly honeydew on Tree-of-heaven.
European Hornets constructing a nest in a tree cavity.
European Hornets constructing a paper nest in a tree cavity.

POTTER WASPS

A Potter Wasp (Eumenes species, probably E. fraturnus) hovering near a European Paper Wasp.
A potter wasp (Eumenes species), probably a Fraternal Potter Wasp (E. fraternus), hovering near a European Paper Wasp on Partridge Pea.  The female potter wasp builds a small mud nest resembling a tiny clay pot.  One of her eggs is inserted and left hanging on a thin thread.  Then a paralyzed caterpillar is deposited as a source of protein to nourish the larva upon hatching.  Lastly, the pot is sealed with a lid made of wet mud.  Upon maturing, the new generation of adult wasps perform a pottery breaking to emerge and take flight.

ANTS

Field Ants (Formica species, possibly Formica pallidefulva) clearing the entrance to their underground nest.
Field Ants (Formica species, possibly Formica pallidefulva) clear the entrance to their underground nest.  Field ants are eusocial insects, they work in concert to build, maintain, and defend the nest, rear young, and find food.  There is no social caste system.  Field Ants are predators and scavengers when collecting protein.  For carbohydrates they often rely on the honeydew produced by aphids.  As a method of improving and sustaining the production of honeydew, some ant species will tend colonies of aphids by moving the younger individuals from depleted portions of plants to more healthy tissue.  Field Ant nests contain chambers used for a variety of functions including raising young and storing food.  Some nests include multiple queens and some colonies consist of more than one nest.   Ants in the genus Formica are weaponized; they can spray formic acid to repel intruders and defend their colony.

We hope this brief but fascinating look at some of our more common bees, wasps, hornets, and ants has provided the reader with an appreciation for the complexity with which their food webs and ecology have developed over time.  It should be no great mystery why bees and other insects, particularly native species, are becoming scarce or absent in areas of the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed where the landscape is paved, hyper-cultivated, sprayed, mowed, and devoid of native vegetation, particularly nectar-producing plants.  Late-summer and autumn can be an especially difficult time for hymanopterans seeking the sources of proteins and carbohydrates needed to complete preparations for next year’s generations of these valuable insects.  An absence of these staples during this critical time of year quickly diminishes the diversity of species and begins to tear at the fabric of the food web.  This degradation of a regional ecosystem can have unforeseen impacts that become increasingly widespread and in many cases permanent.

A farmland desert.

A farmland desert.
How can anyone be surprised by the absence of bees and other pollinators in farmland? Manicured and cultivated ground offers little in the way of year-round shelter and food sources for insects and other wildlife.
A savanna-like habitat.
This savanna-like habitat on a south-facing slope provides the abundance of nectar-producing, pollen-rich wildflowers needed to nourish a diverse population of insects including bees, wasps, hornets, and ants.  Goldenrods, asters, and White Snakeroot are some of their late-season favorites.

Editor’s Note: No bees, wasp, hornets, or ants were harmed during this production.  Neither was the editor swarmed, attacked, or stung.  Remember, don’t panic, just observe.

SOURCES

Eaton, Eric R., and Kenn Kaufman.  2007.  Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America.  Houghton Mifflin Company.  New York, NY.

(If you’re interested in insects, get this book!)

A Visit to a Beaver Pond

To pass the afternoon, we sat quietly along the edge of a pond created recently by North American Beavers (Castor canadensis).  They first constructed their dam on this small stream about five years ago.  Since then, a flourishing wetland has become established.  Have a look.

A Beaver Pond
Vegetation surrounding the inundated floodplain helps sequester nutrients and sediments to purify the water while also providing excellent wildlife habitat.
A beaver lodge.
The beaver lodge was built among shrubs growing in shallow water in the middle of the pond.
Woolgrass in a beaver pond.
Woolgrass (Scirpus cyperinus) is a bulrush that thrives as an emergent and as a terrestrial plant in moist soils bordering the pond.
A male Common Whitetail dragonfly keeping watch over his territory.
A male Common Whitetail dragonfly keeping watch over his territory.
A Twelve-spotted Skimmer perched on Soft Rush.
A Twelve-spotted Skimmer perched on Soft Rush.
A Blue Dasher dragonfly seizing a Fall Field Cricket (Gryllus pennsylvanicus).
A Blue Dasher dragonfly seizing a Fall Field Cricket (Gryllus pennsylvanicus).
A Spicebush Swallowtail visiting Cardinal Flower.
A Spicebush Swallowtail visiting a Cardinal Flower.
Green Heron
A Green Heron looking for small fish, crayfish, frogs, and tadpoles.
A Green Heron stalks potential prey.
The Green Heron stalking potential prey.
A Wood Duck feeding on Lesser Duckweed.
A Wood Duck feeding on the tiny floating plant known as Lesser Duckweed (Lemna minor).
A Least Sandpiper feeding along the muddy edge of a beaver pond.
A Least Sandpiper poking at small invertebrates along the muddy edge of the beaver pond.
Solitary Sandpiper
A Solitary Sandpiper.
A Solitary Sandpiper testing the waters for proper feeding depth.
A Solitary Sandpiper testing the waters for proper feeding depth.
Pectoral Sandpiper
A Pectoral Sandpiper searches for its next morsel of sustenance.
A Sora rail in a beaver pond.
The Sora (Porzana carolina) is a seldom seen rail of marshlands including those created by North American Beavers.  Common Cattails, sedges, and rushes provide these chicken-shaped wetland birds with nesting and loafing cover.

Isn’t that amazing?  North American Beavers build and maintain what human engineers struggle to master—dams and ponds that reduce pollution, allow fish passage, and support self-sustaining ecosystems.  Want to clean up the streams and floodplains of your local watershed?  Let the beavers do the job!

One of Nature’s Finest: The Cardinal Flower

It may be one of the most treasured plants among native landscape gardeners.  The Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) blooms in August each year with a startling blaze of red color that, believe it or not, will sometimes be overlooked in the wild.

Cardinal Flower on a Stream
Cardinal Flower is most often found in wet soil along forested bodies of water.  The blooms of this shade-loving species may go unnoticed until rays of sunshine penetrate the canopy to strike their brilliant red petals.

The Cardinal Flower grows in wetlands as well as in a variety of moist soils along streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds.  Shady locations with short periods of bright sun each day seem to be favored for an abundance of color.

Cardinal Flower and Great Blue Lobelia
Cardinal Flower in bloom in a riparian forest along the Susquehanna.  To its right is its close relative, Great Lobelia, a plant sometimes known as Great Blue Lobelia or Blue Cardinal Flower.
Cardinal Flower in a wet bottomland woods.
Cardinal Flower in a wet bottomland woods.
The Cardinal Flower can find favorable growing conditions along stream, river and lake shores.
The Cardinal Flower can find favorable growing conditions along stream, river, and lake shores.  Even though they are perennial plants, their presence along such waters often seems temporary.  Changing conditions cause them to suddenly disappear from known locations, then sometimes reappear at the same place or elsewhere nearby.  Some of this phenomenon may be due to the fact that stressed plants can fail to bloom, so they easily escape notice.  When producing flowers during favorable years, the plants seem to mysteriously return.
Cardinal Flowers along a wave-swept shoreline light up the greenery of erosion-controlling riparian vegetation with glowing red color.
Cardinal Flowers along a wave-swept shoreline light up the greenery of erosion-controlling riparian vegetation with glowing red color.

The Cardinal Flower can be an ideal plant for attracting hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, and other late-summer pollinators.  It grows well in damp ground, especially in rain gardens and along the edges streams, garden ponds, and stormwater retention pools.  If you’re looking to add Cardinal Flower to your landscape, you need first to…

REMEMBER the CARDINAL RULE…

Cardinal Flower plants are available at many nurseries that carry native species of garden and/or pond plants.  Numerous online suppliers offer seed for growing your own Cardinal Flowers.  Some sell potted plants as well.  A new option is to grow Cardinal Flowers from tissue cultures.  Tissue-cultured plants are raised in laboratory media, so the pitfalls of disease and hitchhikers like invasive insects and snails are eliminated.  These plants are available through the aquarium trade from most chain pet stores.  Though meant to be planted as submerged aquatics in fish tank substrate, we’ve reared the tissue-cultured stock indoors as emergent plants in sandy soil and shallow water through the winter and early spring.  When it warms up, we transplant them into the edges of the outdoor ponds to naturalize.  As a habit, we always grow some Cardinal Flower plants in the fish tanks to take up the nitrates in the water and to provide a continuous supply of cuttings for starting more emergent stock for outdoor use.

Tissue culture Cardinal Flower being grown as a submerged aquatic in a fish aquarium.
A tissue-cultured Cardinal Flower rooted in sandy substrate and being grown as a submerged aquatic plant in a fish tank.  Cuttings from this plant will be used to grow emergent specimens in shallow water for transplanting outdoors around the garden pond.
Cardinal Flower from Tissue Culture
A Cardinal Flower grown from an aquarium store tissue culture blooms in the pond at susquehannawildlife.net headquarters.
Cardinal Flower blooming in November.
Grown as an emergent, Cardinal Flower may bloom very late in the season.  This tissue-cultured specimen in the headquarters pond was photographed in early November, 2022.

Purple Haze Across the Fields

Have you noticed a purple haze across the fields right now?  If so, you may have wondered, “What kind of flowers are they?”

A purple haze of color stretches across fields not already green with cold-season crops like winter wheat.

Say hello to Purple Dead Nettle (Lamium purpureum), a non-native invasive species that has increased its prevalence in recent years by finding an improved niche in no-till cropland.  Purple Dead Nettle, also known as Red Dead Nettle, is native to Asia and Europe.  It has been a familiar early spring “weed” in gardens, along roadsides, and in other disturbed ground for decades.

Purple Dead Nettle owes its new-found success to the timing of its compressed growing season.  Its tiny seeds germinate during the fall and winter, after crops have been harvested and herbicide application has ended for the season.  The plants flower early in the spring and are thus particularly attractive to Honey Bees and other pollinators looking for a source of energy-rich nectar as they ramp up activity after winter lock down.  In many cases, Purple Dead Nettle has already completed its flowering cycle and produced seeds before there is any activity in the field to prepare for planting the summer crop.  The seeds spend the warmer months in dormancy, avoiding the hazards of modern cultivation that expel most other species of native and non-native plants from the agricultural landscape.

Purple Dead Nettle in Bloom
Flowering Purple Dead Nettle as a volunteer cover crop among last year’s corn stubble in a no-till field.
Purple Dead Nettle
Like the flowers of orchids, Purple Hedge Nettle blossoms are described as yoke shaped or bilateral (zygomorphic).  Psychedelic experiences are produced only through observation, not by ingestion.  A member of the mint family, its edible young leaves and tops have nutritional value, making a unique addition to salads and soups.
Purple Dead Nettle, Common Dandelion, and Shepherd's Purse
We call them “weeds”, but what do we know?  Purple Dead Nettle, Common Dandelion, and Shepherd’s Purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris), three edible non-native invasive species with similar life cycles seen here flowering along a rural road among fields where intensive farming is practiced.  Shepard’s Purse, like many members of the mustard family, is already producing seeds at the bottom of the flower cluster by the time the uppermost buds open for business.
Spraying Herbicide
In preparation for seeding of a warm-season crop,  herbicide is applied on a no-till field to kill Shepherd’s Purse and other cool-season plants.  To help prevent sediment and nutrient discharge from lands where high-intensity agriculture is practiced, no-till methods are used to reduce runoff from the areas of bare soil that would otherwise be created by traditional plowing.

While modern farming has eliminated a majority of native plant and animal species from agricultural lands of the lower Susquehanna valley, its crop management practices have simultaneously invited vigorous invasion by a select few non-native species.   High-intensity farming devotes its acreage to providing food for a growing population of people—not to providing wildlife habitat.  That’s why it’s so important to minimize our impact on non-farm lands throughout the remainder of the watershed.  If we continue subdividing, paving, and mowing more and more space, we’ll eventually be living in a polluted semi-arid landscape populated by little else but non-native invasive plants and animals.  We can certainly do better than that.

Photo of the Day

Monarch
After somehow finding refuge from freezing temperatures during recent nights, Monarch butterflies were on the move in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed this afternoon. This one was photographed taking a break to recharge on nectar from flowering Frost Aster, also known as Heath Aster.

Photo(s) of the Day

A tallgrass prairie wildflower and warm-season grass planting: Big Bluestem
This tallgrass prairie wildflower planting on a health campus in Hershey, Pennsylvania, enhances stormwater management and benefits butterflies and other wildlife.  Reducing the acreage maintained as manicured lawn has helped disperse the large flocks of resident Canada Geese (a population of invasive native transplants) that frequented the property and posed a serious hazard to medevac helicopters flying in and out of the facility.
A tallgrass prairie wildflower and warm-season grass planting
Big Bluestem, a warm-season grass, dominates the site and is complemented by Indiangrass and tall wildflowers including Common Milkweed, Wild Bergamot, Oxeye, Black-eyed Susan, Prairie Coneflower, and Purple Coneflower.

Monarch an Endangered Species: What You Can Do Right Now

This month, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (I.U.C.N.) added the Migratory Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus plexippus) to its “Red List of Threatened Species”, classifying it as endangered.  Perhaps there is no better time than the present to have a look at the virtues of replacing areas of mowed and manicured grass with a wildflower garden or meadow that provides essential breeding and feeding habitat for Monarchs and hundreds of other species of animals.

Monarch on Common Milkweed Flower Cluster
A recently arrived Monarch visits a cluster of fragrant Common Milkweed flowers in the garden at the susquehannawildlife.net headquarters.  Milkweeds included among a wide variety of plants in a garden or meadow habitat can help local populations of Monarchs increase their numbers before the autumn flights to wintering grounds commence in the fall.  Female Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed leaves, then, after hatching, the larvae (caterpillars) feed on them before pupating.

If you’re not quite sure about finally breaking the ties that bind you to the cult of lawn manicuring, then compare the attributes of a parcel maintained as mowed grass with those of a space planted as a wildflower garden or meadow.  In our example we’ve mixed native warm season grasses with the wildflowers and thrown in a couple of Eastern Red Cedars to create a more authentic early successional habitat.

Comparison of Mowed Grass to Wildflower Meadow
* Particularly when native warm-season grasses are included (root depth 6′-8′)

Still not ready to take the leap.  Think about this: once established, the wildflower planting can be maintained without the use of herbicides or insecticides.  There’ll be no pesticide residues leaching into the soil or running off during downpours.  Yes friends, it doesn’t matter whether you’re using a private well or a community system, a wildflower meadow is an asset to your water supply.  Not only is it free of man-made chemicals, but it also provides stormwater retention to recharge the aquifer by holding precipitation on site and guiding it into the ground.  Mowed grass on the other hand, particularly when situated on steep slopes or when the ground is frozen or dry, does little to stop or slow the sheet runoff that floods and pollutes streams during heavy rains.

What if I told you that for less than fifty bucks, you could start a wildflower garden covering 1,000 square feet of space?  That’s a nice plot 25′ x 40′ or a strip 10′ wide and 100′ long along a driveway, field margin, roadside, property line, swale, or stream.  All you need to do is cast seed evenly across bare soil in a sunny location and you’ll soon have a spectacular wildflower garden.  Here at the susquehannawildllife.net headquarters we don’t have that much space, so we just cast the seed along the margins of the driveway and around established trees and shrubs.  Look what we get for pennies a plant…

Wildflower Garden
Some of the wildflowers and warm-season grasses grown from scattered seed in the susquehannawildlife.net headquarters garden.

Here’s a closer look…

Lance-leaved Coreopsis
Lance-leaved Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata), a perennial.
Black-eyed Susan
Black-eyed Susan, a biennial or short-lived perennial.
Black-eyed Susan "Gloriosa Daisy"
“Gloriosa Daisy”, a variety of Black-eyed Susan, a biennial or short-lived perennial.
Purple Coneflower
Purple Coneflower, an excellent perennial for pollinators.  The ripe seeds provide food for American Goldfinches.
Common Sunflower
A short variety of Common Sunflower, an annual and a source of free bird seed.
Common Sunflower
Another short variety of Common Sunflower, an annual.

All this and best of all, we never need to mow.

Around the garden, we’ve used a northeast wildflower mix from American Meadows.  It’s a blend of annuals and perennials that’s easy to grow.  On their website, you’ll find seeds for individual species as well as mixes and instructions for planting and maintaining your wildflower garden.  They even have a mix specifically formulated for hummingbirds and butterflies.

Annuals in bloom
When planted in spring and early summer, annuals included in a wildflower mix will provide vibrant color during the first year.  Many varieties will self-seed to supplement the display provided by biennials and perennials in subsequent years.
Wildflower Seed Mix
A northeast wildflower mix from American Meadows.  There are no fillers.  One pound of pure live seed easily plants 1,000 square feet.

Nothing does more to promote the spread and abundance of non-native plants, including invasive species, than repetitive mowing.  One of the big advantages of planting a wildflower garden or meadow is the opportunity to promote the growth of a community of diverse native plants on your property.  A single mowing is done only during the dormant season to reseed annuals and to maintain the meadow in an early successional stage—preventing reversion to forest.

For wildflower mixes containing native species, including ecotypes from locations in and near the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed, nobody beats Ernst Conservation Seeds of Meadville, Pennsylvania.  Their selection of grass and wildflower seed mixes could keep you planting new projects for a lifetime.  They craft blends for specific regions, states, physiographic provinces, habitats, soils, and uses.  Check out these examples of some of the scores of mixes offered at Ernst Conservation Seeds

      • Pipeline Mixes
      • Pasture, Grazing, and Hay Mixes
      • Cover Crops
      • Pondside Mixes
      • Warm-season Grass Mixes
      • Retention Basin Mixes
      • Wildlife Mixes
      • Pollinator Mixes
      • Wetland Mixes
      • Floodplain and Riparian Buffer Mixes
      • Rain Garden Mixes
      • Steep Slope Mixes
      • Solar Farm Mixes
      • Strip Mine Reclamation Mixes

We’ve used their “Showy Northeast Native Wildflower and Grass Mix” on streambank renewal projects with great success.  For Monarchs, we really recommend the “Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden Mix”.  It includes many of the species pictured above plus “Fort Indiantown Gap” Little Bluestem, a warm-season grass native to Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, and milkweeds (Asclepias), which are not included in their northeast native wildflower blends.  More than a dozen of the flowers and grasses currently included in this mix are derived from Pennsylvania ecotypes, so you can expect them to thrive in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed.

Swamp Milkweed
Swamp Milkweed, a perennial species, is included in the Ernst Seed “Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden Mix”.  It is a favorite of female Monarchs seeking a location to deposit eggs.
Monarch Caterpillar feeding on Swamp Milkweed
A Monarch larva (caterpillar) feeding on Swamp Milkweed.
Butterfly Weed
Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is included in the Ernst Seed “Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden Mix”.  This perennial is also known as Butterfly Milkweed.
Tiger Swallowtails visiting Butterfly Weed
Eastern Tiger Swallowtails are among the dozens of species of pollinators that will visit Butterfly Weed.

In addition to the milkweeds, you’ll find these attractive plants included in Ernst Conservation Seed’s “Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden Mix”, as well as in some of their other blends.

Wild Bergamot
The perennial Wild Bergamot, also known as Bee Balm, is an excellent pollinator plant, and the tubular flowers are a favorite of hummingbirds.
Oxeye
Oxeye is adorned with showy clusters of sunflower-like blooms in mid-summer.  It is a perennial plant.
Plains Coreopsis
Plains Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria), also known as Plains Tickseed, is a versatile annual that can survive occasional flooding as well as drought.
Gray-headed Coneflower
Gray-headed Coneflower (Ratibida pinnata), a tall perennial, is spectacular during its long flowering season.
Monarch on goldenrod.
Goldenrods are a favorite nectar plant for migrating Monarchs in autumn.  They seldom need to be sown into a wildflower garden; the seeds of local species usually arrive on the wind.  They are included in the “Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden Mix” from Ernst Conservation Seeds in low dose, just in case the wind doesn’t bring anything your way.
Partridge Pea
Is something missing from your seed mix?  You can purchase individual species from the selections available at American Meadows and Ernst Conservation Seeds.  Partridge Pea is a good native annual to add.  It is a host plant for the Cloudless Sulphur butterfly and hummingbirds will often visit the flowers.  It does really well in sandy soils.
Indiangrass in flower.
Indiangrass is a warm-season species that makes a great addition to any wildflower meadow mix.  Its deep roots make it resistant to drought and ideal for preventing erosion.

Why not give the Monarchs and other wildlife living around you a little help?  Plant a wildflower garden or meadow.  It’s so easy, a child can do it.

Planting a riparian buffer with wildflowers and warm-season grasses
Volunteers sow a riparian buffer on a recontoured stream bank using wildflower and warm-season grass seed blended uniformly with sand.  By casting the sand/seed mixture evenly over the planting site, participants can visually assure that seed has been distributed according to the space calculations.
Riparian Buffer of wildflowers
The same seeded site less than four months later.
Monarch Pupa
A Monarch pupa from which the adult butterfly will emerge.

Times Are Tough

Rising prices, an exhausted workforce, political polarization, and pandemic fatigue—times are tough.  Product shortages have the consumer culture in a near panic.  Some say the future just isn’t what it used to be.

Well, Uncle Tyler Dyer reminds us that things could be worse.  He shares with us this observation, “Man, as long as people are spending money poisoning the weeds on their lawns instead of eating them, things aren’t that bad.”

Uncle Ty is particularly fond of the Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), “Check it out.  Roasted dandelion roots can make a coffee substitute, the blossoms a wine, and the leaves used to create my favorites, nutrient-dense salads or green vegetable dishes.”

The Common Dandelion is despised by many as a “weed”.  To others it is a beautiful flowering plant that happens to be quite edible.  Native to Europe and Asia, North American varieties of Common Dandelion are an escape from cultivation, originally imported as a food crop.  Uncle Ty’s great-grandparents never would have dreamed of killing them with herbicides instead of harvesting them.
Uncle Ty Dyer’s lunch, fresh dandelion greens and hot bacon dressing.

So have a homegrown salad and remember, maybe things aren’t that bad after all.

Five Best Values for Feeding Birds

Despite being located in an urbanized downtown setting, blustery weather in recent days has inspired a wonderful variety of small birds to visit the garden here at the susquehannawildlife.net headquarters to feed and refresh.  For those among you who may enjoy an opportunity to see an interesting variety of native birds living around your place, we’ve assembled a list of our five favorite foods for wild birds.

American Goldfinches in drab winter (basic) plumage visit the trickle of water entering the headquarters pond to bathe and drink.  In addition to offering the foods animals need to survive, a source of clean water is an excellent way to attract wildlife to your property.

The selections on our list are foods that provide supplemental nutrition and/or energy for indigenous species, mostly songbirds, without sustaining your neighborhood’s non-native European Starlings and House Sparrows, mooching Eastern Gray Squirrels, or flock of ecologically destructive hand-fed waterfowl.  We’ve included foods that aren’t necessarily the cheapest but are instead those that are the best value when offered properly.

Bread, “bargain” seed mixes, and cracked corn can attract and sustain large numbers of House Sparrows and European Starlings.  Both are non-native species that compete mercilessly with indigenous birds including bluebirds for food and nesting sites.  Though found favorable for feeding Northern Cardinals without attracting squirrels, the expensive safflower seed seen here is another favorite of these aggressive House Sparrows.  Ever wasteful, they “shovel” seed out of feeders while searching for the prime morsels from which they can easily remove the hulls.  Trying not to feed them is an ongoing challenge, so we don’t offer these aforementioned foods to our avian guests.

Number 5

Raw Beef Suet

In addition to rendered beef suet, manufactured suet cakes usually contain seeds, cracked corn, peanuts, and other ingredients that attract European Starlings, House Sparrows, and squirrels to the feeder, often excluding woodpeckers and other native species from the fare.  Instead, we provide raw beef suet.

Because it is unrendered and can turn rancid, raw beef suet is strictly a food to be offered in cold weather.   It is a favorite of woodpeckers, nuthatches, and many other species.  Ask for it at your local meat counter, where it is generally inexpensive.

Raw beef suet is fat removed from areas surrounding the kidneys on a beef steer.  To avoid spoiling, offer it only in the winter months, particularly if birds are slow to consume the amount placed for them.  If temperatures are above freezing, it’s important to replace uneaten food frequently.  The piece seen here on the left was stored in the freezer for almost a year while the rancid piece to the right was stored in a refrigerator at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit for just two months.  You can render raw beef suet and make your own cakes by melting it down and pouring it into a form such as cupcake tin.  But do it outdoors or you’ll be living alone for a while.
A female Downy Woodpecker feeds on raw beef suet stuffed into holes drilled into a vertically hanging log.  Because they can’t be cleaned, log feeders should be discarded after one season.  Wire cage feeders though, can usually be scrubbed, disinfected, dried, and reused.
Pesky European Starlings might visit a raw beef suet feeder but won’t usually linger unless other foods to their liking are available nearby.
This male Downy Woodpecker has no trouble feeding on raw beef suet packed into holes drilled into the underside of this horizontally hanging log.  Starlings don’t particularly care to feed this way.
Unusual visitors like a Brown Creeper are more likely to stop by at a suet feeder when it isn’t crowded by raucous starlings, House Sparrows, and squirrels.   This one surprised us just this morning.
Below the feeders, scraps of suet that fall to the ground are readily picked up, usually by ground-feeding birds.  In this instance, a male Eastern Bluebird saw a chunk break loose and pounced on it with haste.

Number 4

Niger (“Thistle”) Seed

Niger seed, also known as nyjer or nyger, is derived from the sunflower-like plant Guizotia abyssinica, a native of Ethiopia.  By the pound, niger seed is usually the most expensive of the bird seeds regularly sold in retail outlets.  Nevertheless, it is a good value when offered in a tube or wire mesh feeder that prevents House Sparrows and other species from quickly “shoveling” it to the ground.  European starlings and squirrels don’t bother with niger seed at all.

Niger seed must be kept dry.  Mold will quickly make niger seed inedible if it gets wet, so avoid using “thistle socks” as feeders.  A dome or other protective covering above a tube or wire mesh feeder reduces the frequency with which feeders must be cleaned and moist seed discarded.  Remember, keep it fresh and keep it dry!

Niger (“thistle”) seed is very small, so it is offered in specialized feeders to prevent seed from spilling out of oversize holes as waste.
An American Goldfinch in winter plumage feeding on niger seed from a wire mesh feeder.  By April, goldfinches are molting into spectacular breeding feathers.  Niger seed can be offered year-round to keep them visiting your garden while they are at maximum magnificence.
American Goldfinches in August.  This tube feeder is designed specifically for goldfinches, birds that have no difficulty hanging upside down to grab niger seed from small feeding ports.
During invasion years, visiting Pine Siskins favor niger seed at feeding stations.
Like goldfinches, Pine Siskins are quite comfortable feeding upside down on specialized tubes with perches positioned above the seed ports.  Seeds dropped to the ground are readily picked up by ground-feeding birds including Mourning Doves and Dark-eyed Juncos.  Periodically, uneaten niger seed should be swept up and discarded.

Number 3

Striped Sunflower Seed

Striped sunflower seed, also known as grey-striped sunflower seed, is harvested from a cultivar of the Common Sunflower (Helianthus annuus), the same tall garden plant with a massive bloom that you grew as a kid.  The Common Sunflower is indigenous to areas west of the Mississippi River and its seeds are readily eaten by many native species of birds including jays, finches, and grosbeaks.  The husks are harder to crack than those of black oil sunflower seed, so House Sparrows consume less, particularly when it is offered in a feeder that prevents “shoveling”.   For obvious reasons, a squirrel-proof or squirrel-resistant feeder should be used for striped sunflower seed.

Striped sunflower seed.
A male House Finch and a Carolina Chickadee pluck striped sunflower seeds from a squirrel-resistant powder-coated metal-mesh tube feeder.
An American Goldfinch in winter plumage finds striped sunflower seeds irresistible, even with niger seed being offered in an adjacent feeder.
A Tufted Titmouse visits a feeder stocked with striped sunflower seeds.
Northern Cardinals readily feed on striped sunflower seeds, especially those that fall from our metal-mesh tube feeders.
An Eastern Gray Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis) has no choice but to be satisfied with striped sunflower seeds that spill from our wire-mesh tube feeders.

Number 2

Mealworms

Mealworms are the commercially produced larvae of the beetle Tenebrio molitor.  Dried or live mealworms are a marvelous supplement to the diets of numerous birds that might not otherwise visit your garden.  Woodpeckers, titmice, wrens, mockingbirds, warblers, and bluebirds are among the species savoring protein-rich mealworms.  The trick is to offer them without European Starlings noticing or having access to them because European Starlings you see, go crazy over a meal of mealworms.

Dried mealworms can be offered in a cup or on a tray feeder.  Live mealworms need to be contained in a steep-sided dish, so they don’t crawl away.  Unless you’re really lucky, you’ll probably have to place your serving vessel of mealworms inside some type of enclosure to exclude European Starlings.
A male Eastern Bluebird tossing and grabbing a dried mealworm.
A female Eastern Bluebird with a dried mealworm.
A pair of Eastern Bluebirds.  The value of mealworms is self-evident: you get to have bluebirds around.

 

To foil European Starlings, we assembled this homemade mealworm feeder from miscellaneous parts. The bluebirds took right to it.
It frustrates the starlings enough to discourage them from sticking around for long.
If you’re offering dried mealworms, a source of clean water must be available nearby so that the bluebirds and other guests at your feeder don’t become dehydrated.

Number 1

Food-producing Native Shrubs and Trees

The best value for feeding birds and other wildlife in your garden is to plant food-producing native plants, particularly shrubs and trees.  After an initial investment, they can provide food, cover, and roosting sites year after year.  In addition, you’ll have a more complete food chain on a property populated by native plants and all the associated life forms they support (insects, spiders, etc.).

In your garden, a Northern Mockingbird may defend a food supply like these Common Winterberry fruits as its sole means of sustenance for an entire winter season.  Having an abundance of plantings assures that in your cache there’s plenty to eat for this and other species.
The American Goldfinches currently spending the winter at our headquarters are visiting the feeders for niger and striped sunflower seeds, but the bulk of their diet consists of tiny seeds from the cones on our Eastern Hemlock trees.  At night, birds obtain shelter from the weather by roosting in this clump of evergreens.
While the Eastern Bluebirds visiting the susquehannawildlife.net headquarters are fond of mealworms, the bulk of their diet here consists of these Common Winterberry fruits and the berries on our American Holly trees.
Cedar Waxwings are readily attracted to red berries including Common Winterberry fruit.
Migrating American Robins visit the headquarters garden in late winter each year to devour berries before continuing their journey to the north.

Your local County Conservation District is having its annual spring tree sale soon.  They have a wide selection to choose from each year and the plants are inexpensive.  They offer everything from evergreens and oaks to grasses and flowers.  You can afford to scrap the lawn and revegetate your whole property at these prices—no kidding, we did it.  You need to preorder for pickup in the spring.  To order, check their websites now or give them a call.  These food-producing native shrubs and trees are by far the best bird feeding value that you’re likely to find, so don’t let this year’s sales pass you by!

Photo of the Day

A migrating Monarch butterfly takes a break to feed on nectar from the blooms of a Frost Aster (Symphyotrichum pilosum), a common autumn wildflower also known as Heath Aster.

Some Autumn Insects

With autumn coming to a close, let’s have a look at some of the fascinating insects (and a spider) that put on a show during some mild afternoons in the late months of 2019.

Bush Katydids (Scudderia species) are found in brushy habitats and along rural roadsides.  Their green summer color fades to brown, maroon, and gold to match the autumn foliage where they hide.  Bush katydids often remain active until a hard freeze finally does them in.
The Eastern Buck Moth (Hemileuca maia) is fuzzy, appearing to wear a warm coat for its autumn expeditions.  Adults emerge in October and may fly as late as December.  Females deposit their eggs on the twigs of Bear Oak (Quercus ilicifolia), Blackjack Oak (Q. marilandica), or Chestnut Oak (Q. montana), trees that, in our region, seem most favorable for the moth’s use when growing on burned barrens and mountain slopes.  The spiny caterpillars are known to feed only on the foliage of these few trees.  In the lower Susquehanna valley, the Eastern Buck Moth is rare because its specialized habitat is in short supply, and it’s all Smokey The Bear’s fault.
The Sachem (Atalopedes campestris) wanders north from the Atlantic Coastal Plain into the Susquehanna valley each summer.  In some years they become the most numerous small orange butterfly of all, particularly around home gardens.  The larvae will feed on Crabgrass (Digitaria species), but have not found success overwintering this far north.  By November, adults begin to look pretty drab.
From 1978 through 1982, the Asian Multicolored Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis) was introduced into the eastern states by the United States Department of Agriculture.  It has become a nuisance in many areas where it swarms, sometimes bites, and often overwinters in large smelly masses within homes and other warm buildings.  As you may have guessed, it’s possibly displacing some of the less aggressive native lady beetle species.
On a chilly afternoon, a sun-warmed Bold Jumping Spider (Phidippus audax) pounced and dispatched this sluggish worker Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) that was trying to gather pollen from a late-season Purple Coneflower bloom.  This spider is bold indeed.
Under bridges, inside bird nest boxes, and sometimes beneath porches, the female Pipe Organ Mud Dauber (Trypoxylon politum), a predatory wasp, builds these elaborate nests composed of long rows (pipes) of nursery cells.  Into each cell one or more paralyzed spiders is deposited along with one of the female’s eggs.  When hatched, each larva will feed upon the paralyzed spider(s) inside its cell, then pupate.  The pupae overwinter, then emerge from their cells as adults during the following spring.  In the autumn, males often stand guard at an entrance to the nest to prevent parasitic species, including some flies (look at the fifth pipe from the right), from laying eggs on the pupae.  These wasps are not aggressive toward humans.
A Black-and-yellow Mud Dauber (Sceliphron caementarium) observes a neighboring nest of Common Paper Wasps (Polistes exclamans).  The Common Paper Wasp, a species also known as the Guinea Paper Wasp, is a native of the southern United States.  It is currently expanding its range into the lower Susquehanna valley from the Atlantic Coastal Plain.  These two wasp species and the Pipe Organ Mud Dauber are known to regularly coexist.  All three will take advantage of man-made structures for their nest sites.  People using the picnic tables beneath this pavilion roof never noticed the hundreds of docile wasps above.
Those moody Eastern Yellowjackets (Vespula maculifrons) can get very temperamental during warm autumn days.  These wasps may appear to have no enemies, but away from areas impacted by man’s everyday activities, they do.  The Robber Fly (Promachus species) hunts like a flycatcher or other woodland bird, waiting on a perch along the forest’s edge for prey to pass by, then ambushing it, yellowjackets included.
The invasive Spotted Lanternfly, a native of eastern Asia, continues to spread destruction.  It established itself throughout much of the east side of the lower Susquehanna River during the summer and fall of 2019.  Their route of travel across the farmlands of the region intersects with plenty of vineyards to obliterate and few, if any, natural enemies.  Expect them to begin colonizing the west shore en masse during 2020.
In 2020, plan to roll a few Spotted Lanternflies over, enjoy the view, and wait for the crimson tide to pass.  With any luck, they’ll peak in a year or two.

SOURCES

Eaton, Eric R., and Kenn Kaufman.  2007.  Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America.  Houghton Mifflin Company.  New York, NY.

Noxious Benefactor

It’s sprayed with herbicides.  It’s mowed and mangled.  It’s ground to shreds with noisy weed-trimmers.  It’s scorned and maligned.  It’s been targeted for elimination by some governments because it’s undesirable and “noxious”.  And it has that four letter word in its name which dooms the fate of any plant that possesses it.   It’s the Common Milkweed, and it’s the center of activity in my garden at this time of year.  Yep, I said milk-WEED.

Now, you need to understand that my garden is small—less than 2,500 square feet.  There is no lawn, and there will be no lawn.  I’ll have nothing to do with the lawn nonsense.  Those of you who know me, know that the lawn, or anything that looks like lawn, and I are through.

Anyway, most of the plants in the garden are native species.  There are trees, numerous shrubs, some water features with aquatic plants, and filling the sunny margins is a mix of native grassland plants including Common Milkweed.  The unusually wet growing season in 2018 has been very kind to these plants.  They are still very green and lush.  And the animals that rely on them are having a banner year.  Have a look…

The flowers of the Common Milkweed were exceptionally fragrant this year.  At their peak in early June, their hyacinth-or lilac-like aroma was so prevalent, it drifted into the house and overwhelmed the stink of the neighbor’s filthy dumpster that he had placed 12 feet away from my walls (100 feet from his).
Common Milkweed attracts a pollinating Greenbottle Fly (Lucilia species).  The dumpster attracts the invasive House Fly (Musca domestica), carrier of dysentery, typhoid, and other wonderful diseases.  Are you following this?  Remember as we proceed, milkweed is noxious.
Busy Eastern Carpenter Bees (Xylocopa virginica) load up with pollen from the flowers of the Common Milkweed.
A Red Milkweed Beetle (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus) munches on a tender fresh Common Milkweed leaf in mid-June.
Following the pollination of the flowers, seed pods will begin to grow.  I trim these off the plants.  The removal of the extra weight allows most of the stems to remain erect through stormy weather.  You’ll still get new plants from underground runners.  As you may have guessed, I’m trying to keep these plants upright and strong to host Monarch butterfly larvae.

I’ve planted a variety of native grassland species to help support the milkweed structurally and to provide a more complete habitat for Monarch butterflies and other native insects.  This year, these plants are exceptionally colorful for late-August due to the abundance of rain.  The warm season grasses shown below are the four primary species found in the American tall-grass prairies and elsewhere.

Big Bluestem, a native warm-season grass in flower.
Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium “Fort Indiantown Gap”) in flower.  This variety grows on the tank range at the military base where the armored vehicles and prescribed burns substitute for the  herd animals and fires of the prairie to prevent succession and allow it to thrive.
Partridge Pea can tolerate sandy soil and is a host plant for vagrant Cloudless Sulphur butterflies.
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) is a popular native grassland wildflower.
Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans) in flower.  This and the other native plants shown here are available as seed from Ernst Seed Company in Meadville (PA).  They have an unbelievably large selection of indigenous species.  You can plant a small plot or acres and acres using really good mixes blended for purposes ranging from reclaiming pipeline right-of-ways and strip mines to naturalizing backyard gardens.
A Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) butterfly, a migratory species like the Monarch, on Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea).  Yes, it is that Echinacea.

There was Monarch activity in the garden today like I’ve never seen before—and it revolved around milkweed and the companion plants.

A female Monarch laying eggs on a Common Milkweed leaf.
A third instar Monarch caterpillar with Oleander Aphids (Aphis nerii) on a Common Milkweed leaf.  Both of these insect species absorb toxins from the milkweed which makes them distasteful to predators.
Fifth instar (left and center) and fourth instar (right) monarch caterpillars devour a Common Milkweed leaf.  There were over thirty of these caterpillars in just a ten by ten feet area this morning.  I hope if you’re keeping a habitat for Monarchs, you’re enjoying the same fortune right now!
A slow-moving Monarch stopped for a break after making the circuit to deposit eggs on milkweed throughout the garden.
Third instar (top), fourth instar (right), and fifth instar (left) Monarch caterpillars quickly consume the leaf of a Common Milkweed plant.  Caterpillars emerging from eggs deposited today may not have sufficient late-season food to complete the larval segment of their life cycle.  Need more milkweed!
After benefitting from the nourishment of the Common Milkweed plant, a fifth instar Monarch caterpillar begins pupation on Big Bluestem grass.
Two hours later, the chrysalis is complete.
Another chrysalis, this one on flowering Switchgrass just two feet away from the previous one.  An adult Monarch will emerge from this pupa to become part of what we hope will be the most populated southbound exodus for the species in over five years.
There it is, soon ready to fly away.  And all courtesy of the noxious milkweed.
A chrysalis can often be found on man-made objects too.  This one is on the rim of a flower pot.
Ornamental flowers can attract adult Monarch butterflies seeking nectar.  I am now more careful to select seeds and plants that have not been treated with neonicotinoid insecticides.  There’s growing concern over the impact these compounds may be having on pollinating species of animals.  Oh…and I don’t mow, whack, cut, mutilate, or spray herbicides on my milkweed  But you probably figured that out already.

 SOURCES

Eaton, Eric R., and Kenn Kaufman.  2007.  Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America.  Houghton Mifflin Company.  New York.

Living in the Shadows

They get a touch of it here, and a sparkle or two there.  Maybe, for a couple of hours each day, the glorious life-giving glow of the sun finds an opening in the canopy to warm and nourish their leaves, then the rays of light creep away across the forest floor, and it’s shade for the remainder of the day.

The flowering plants which thrive in the understory of the Riparian Woodlands often escape much notice.  They gather only a fraction of the daylight collected by species growing in full exposure to the sun.  Yet, by season’s end, many produce showy flowers or nourishing fruits of great import to wildlife.  While light may be sparingly rationed through the leaves of the tall trees overhead, moisture is nearly always assured in the damp soils of the riverside forest.  For these plants, growth is slow, but continuous.  And now, it’s show time.

So let’s take a late-summer stroll through the Riparian Woodlands of Conewago Falls, minus the face full of cobwebs, and have a look at some of the strikingly beautiful plants found living in the shadows.

Oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides) is common on the interior and along the edges of Riparian Woodland.  Specimens in deep shade flower less profusely and average less than half the height of the five feet tall inhabitants of edge environs.
Pale Touch-Me-Not (Impatiens pallida) is one of two species of native Impatiens found in the river floodplain.  Both are known as Jewelweed.  The stems and leaves of the indigenous Impatiens retain a great quantity of water, so life in filtered sunlight is essential to prevent desiccation.  Contrary to popular folklore, extracts of Jewelweed plants are not effective treatments of Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) contact dermatitis.
Spotted Touch-Me-Not (Impatiens capensis) is typically found in wetter soil than I. pallida.  Both Jewelweeds develop popping capsules which help to distribute the seeds of these annual wildflowers.  “Touch Me Not”, or you’ll be wearing tiny seeds.
Green-headed Coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata) grows to heights of eight feet in full sun, hence its alternate common name, Tall Coneflower.  In deep shade, it may not exceed two feet in height.  Floodplains are the prime domain of this perennial.
Wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia) normally flowers no earlier than late August.  The bases of the leaves are continued onto the stem of the plant to form wings which extend downward along its length.  This wildflower tolerates shade, but flowers more profusely along the woodland edge.
Great Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica), or Great Blue Lobelia, is a magnificent wetland and moist woodland wildflower, usually attaining three feet in height and adorned with a plant-topping spike of blossoms.  Invasive Japanese Stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum) can be seen here competing with this plant, resulting in a shorter, less productive Lobelia.  Stiltgrass was not found in the Susquehanna River floodplain at Conewago Falls until sometime after 1997.  It has spread to all areas of woodland shade, its tiny seeds being blown and translocated along roads, mowed lots, trails, and streams to quickly colonize and overtake new ground.
American Bladdernut (Staphylea trifolia), a shrub of shaded woods, develops inflated capsules which easily float away during high water to distribute the seeds contained inside.
Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) is a shrub of wet soils which produces a strange spherical flower, followed by this globular seed cluster.
Common Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is a colony-forming small tree which produces a fleshy fruit.  It is the host plant for the caterpillars of the Zebra Swallowtail.  The plant and the butterfly approach the northern limit of their geographic range at Conewago Falls.
Common Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) is a widespread understory shrub in wet floodplain soils.  It is the host plant for the caterpillars of the Spicebush Swallowtail (Papilio troilus).
Sweet Autumn Virgin’s Bower (Clematis terniflora) is an escape from cultivation which has recently naturalized in the edge areas of the Conewago Falls Riparian Woodlands.  This vine is very showy when flowering and producing seed, but can be detrimental to some of the understory shrubs upon which it tends to climb.

SOURCES

Long, David; Ballentine, Noel H.; and Marks, James G., Jr.  1997.  Treatment of Poison Ivy/Oak Allergic Contact Dermatitis With an Extract of Jewelweed.  American Journal of Contact Dermatitis.  8(3): pp. 150-153.

Newcomb, Lawrence.  1977.  Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide.  Little, Brown and Company.  Boston, Massachusetts.

Beauties

It’s tough being good-looking and liked by so many.  You’ve got to watch out, because popularity makes you a target.  Others get jealous and begin a crusade to have you neutralized and removed from the spotlight.  They’ll start digging to find your little weaknesses and flaws, then they’ll exploit them to destroy your reputation.  Next thing you know, people look at you as some kind of hideous scoundrel.

Today, bright afternoon sunshine and a profusion of blooming wildflowers coaxed butterflies into action.  It was one of those days when you don’t know where to look first.

A Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos) sipping nectar from Rough Boneset (Eupatorium pilosum) flowers.  Asters (Aster) are the host plants for the larvae of this butterfly.
A Buckeye (Junonia coenia) on Rough Boneset.  Its caterpillars are known to feed on members of the Acanthus family, possibly including the Water Willow (Justicia americana) which is so abundant in Conewago Falls.
Visitors from south of the Mason-Dixon Line arrived on the recent warm winds.  Two Cloudless Sulphurs (Phoebis sennae) patrolled the Riverine Grasslands, especially near the stands of Partridge Pea, a possible host plant.  One is seen here visiting a Halbred-leaved Rose Mallow blossom.  These large yellow butterflies are always a standout.

Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) has a bad reputation.  Not native to the Americas, this prolific seed producer began spreading aggressively into many wetlands following its introduction.  It crowds out native plant species and can have a detrimental impact on other aquatic life.  Stands of loosestrife in slow-moving waters can alter flows, trap sediment, and adversely modify the morphology of waterways.  Expensive removal and biological control are often needed to protect critical habitat.

The dastardly Purple Loosestrife may have only two positive attributes.  First, it’s a beautiful plant.  And second, it’s popular; butterflies and other pollinators find it to be irresistible and go wild over the nectar.

A Silver-spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus) feeding on Purple Loosestrife nectar.  The host plants for this common butterfly’s caterpillars are a wide variety of Legumes.
A Cabbage White (Pieris rapae), a butterfly introduced from Europe in the 1800s, feeds on introduced Purple Loosestrife.
A Wild Indigo Duskywing (Erynnis baptisiae) feeding on Purple Loosestrife. This butterfly has expanded its population and range by using the introduced Crown Vetch as a host plant.

Don’t you just adore the wonderful butterflies.  Everybody does.  Just don’t tell anyone that they’re pollinating those dirty filthy no-good Purple Loosestrife plants.

SOURCES

Brock, Jim P., and Kenn Kaufman.  2003.  Butterflies of North America.  Houghton Mifflin Company.  New York.

Newcomb, Lawrence.  1977.  Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide.  Little, Brown and Company.  Boston, Massachusetts.

Fussy Eaters

She ate only toaster pastries…that’s it…nothing else.  Every now and then, on special occasions, when a big dinner was served, she’d have a small helping of mashed potatoes, no gravy, just plain, thank you.  She received all her nutrition from several meals a week of macaroni and cheese assembled from processed ingredients found in a cardboard box.  It contains eight essential vitamins and minerals, don’t you know?  You remember her, don’t you?

Adult female butterflies must lay their eggs where the hatched larvae will promptly find the precise food needed to fuel their growth.  These caterpillars are fussy eaters, with some able to feed upon only one particular species or genus of plant to grow through the five stages, the instars, of larval life.  The energy for their fifth molt into a pupa, known as a chrysalis, and metamorphosis into an adult butterfly requires mass consumption of the required plant matter.  Their life cycle causes most butterflies to be very habitat specific.  These splendid insects may visit the urban or suburban garden as adults to feed on nectar plants, however, successful reproduction relies upon environs which include suitable, thriving, pesticide-free host plants for the caterpillars.  Their survival depends upon more than the vegetation surrounding the typical lawn will provide.

The Monarch (Danaus plexippus), a butterfly familiar in North America for its conspicuous autumn migrations to forests in Mexico, uses the milkweeds (Asclepias) almost exclusively as a host plant.  Here at  Conewago Falls, wetlands with Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) and unsprayed clearings with Common Milkweed (A. syriaca) are essential to the successful reproduction of the species.  Human disturbance, including liberal use of herbicides, and invasive plant species can diminish the biomass of the Monarch’s favored nourishment, thus reducing significantly the abundance of the migratory late-season generation.

Monarch caterpillar after a fourth molt.  The fifth instar feeding on Swamp Milkweed.
A fifth molt begets the Monarch pupa, the chrysalis, from which the showy adult butterfly will emerge.
Adult Monarch feeding on Goldenrod (Solidago) nectar.

Butterflies are good indicators of the ecological health of a given environment.  A diversity of butterfly species in a given area requires a wide array of mostly indigenous plants to provide food for reproduction.  Let’s have a look at some of the species seen around Conewago Falls this week…

An adult Silvery Checkerspot (Chlosyne nycteis) visiting a nectar plant, Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata).  Wingstem (Verbesina alternifolia), a plant of the Riparian Woodlands, is among the probable hosts for the caterpillars.
A Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) visits Crown Vetch, a possible host plant.  Other potential larval food in the area includes Partridge Pea, Halberd-leaved Rose Mallow (Hibiscus laevis) of the river shoreline, and Swamp Rose Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos), a plant of wetlands.
The Eastern Tailed Blue (Cupido comyntas) may use Partridge Pea , a native wildflower species, and the introduced Crown Vetch (Securigera/Coronilla varia) as host and nectar plants at Conewago Falls.
The Least Skipper (Ancyloxypha numitor) is at home among tall grasses in woodland openings, at riverside, and in the scoured grassland habitat of the Pothole Rocks in the falls.  Host plants available include Switchgrass (Panicum vigatum), Freshwater Cordgrass (Spartina pectinata), and Foxtails (Setaria).
The Zabulon Skipper (Poanes zabulon) is an inhabitant of moist clearings where the caterpillars may feed upon Lovegrasses (Eragrostis) and Purpletop (Tridens flavus).
The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus), a female seen here gathering nectar from Joe-Pye Weed (Eutrochium), relies upon several forest trees as hosts. Black Cherry (Prunus serotina), Willow (Salix), Yellow Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), also known as Tuliptree, and Green Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) are among the local species known to be used.  The future of the latter food species at Conewago Falls is doubtful.  Fortunately for the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, the “generalist” feeding requirements of this butterfly’s larvae enable the species to survive the loss of a host plant.
A female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, black morph, gathering nectar from Joe-Pye Weed.
The Zebra Swallowtail (Protographium marcellus), an adult seen here on Joe-Pye Weed, feeds exclusively upon Pawpaw (Asimina) trees as a caterpillar.  This butterfly species may wander, but its breeding range is limited to the moist Riparian Woodlands where colonial groves of Pawpaw may be found.  The Common Pawpaw (Asimina triloba), our native species in Pennsylvania, and the Zebra Swallowtail occur at the northern edge of their geographic ranges in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed.  Planting Pawpaw trees as an element of streamside reforestation projects certainly benefits this marvelous butterfly.

The spectacularly colorful butterflies are a real treat on a hot summer day.  Their affinity for showy plants doubles the pleasure.

By the way, I’m certain by now you’ve recalled that fussy eater…and how beautiful she grew up to be.

SOURCES

Brock, Jim P., and Kaufman, Kenn.  2003.  Butterflies of North America.  Houghton Mifflin Company.  New York, NY.