This Week at Regional Hawk Watches

With nearly all of the Neotropical migrants including Broad-winged Hawks gone for the year, observers and counters at eastern hawk watches are busy tallying numbers of the more hardy species of diurnal raptors and other birds.  The majority of species now coming through will spend the winter months in temperate and sub-tropical areas of the southern United States and Mexico.

Here is a quick look at the raptors seen this week at two regional counting stations: Kiptopeke Hawk Watch near Cape Charles, Virginia, and Second Mountain Hawk Watch at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania.

Kiptopeke Hawk Watch
The hawk-watching platform at Kiptopeke State Park is located along Chesapeake Bay near the southern tip of Delmarva Peninsula.  In autumn, thousands of raptors and other birds migrate through the Atlantic Coastal Plain Province.  Those that follow the shorelines south frequently concentrate in spectacular numbers before crossing the mouths of the bays they encounter.  This phenomenon makes both Cape May, New Jersey, on Delaware Bay and Kiptopeke, Virginia, on Chesapeake Bay exceptional places to experience fall flights of migrating birds.
Second Mounatin Hawk Watch
A Sharp-shinned Hawk is counted as it swoops by the owl decoy at Second Mountain Hawk Watch at Fort Indiantown Gap Military Reservation.  Migrating raptors save energy by riding updrafts of air created by winds blowing against the slopes of the mountainsides in the Ridge and Valley Province.
Sharp-shinned Hawk
A Sharp-shinned Hawk passes the lookout at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.  “Sharp-shins” are currently the most numerous migrants both on the coast and at inland counting stations.
Sharp-shinned Hawk
A Sharp-shinned Hawk nearly passes observers unnoticed as it skims the treetops.
Sharp-shinned Hawk at owl decoy.
A Sharp-shinned Hawk eyes up an owl decoy.  Under cover of darkness, nocturnal owls could rather easily prey upon young and small adult hawks and falcons, both on the nest or at roost.  Accordingly, many diurnal raptors instinctively harass owls to drive them from their presence.  An owl decoy at the lookout helps attract migrating birds for a closer look.
Cooper's Hawk
An adult Cooper’s Hawk flaps its way past a counting station.  Like the similar Sharp-shinned Hawk, the larger Cooper’s Hawk is a member of the genus Accipiter.  As a proportion of the annual fall Accipiter flight, the Cooper’s Hawk is more numerous at coastal hawk watches than at inland sites.
Osprey
The majority of Osprey migrate along the coast, but a few are still being seen at inland hawk watches.
Bald Eagle
Bald Eagles are commonly seen at both coastal and inland lookouts.  Their movements continue well into late fall.
Northern Harrier
A Northern Harrier illuminated by a setting sun.  Northern Harriers are often still flying when many other species have gone to roost for the day.
An adult male Northern Harrier flying in misty weather.
An adult male Northern Harrier, the “gray ghost”, flying in misty weather, at a time when few other birds were in the air. 
American Kestrel
The American Kestrel, like our other falcons, is seen in greatest concentrations at coastal counting stations.  It is our most numerous falcon.
Merlin
The Merlin provides only a brief observation opportunity as it passes the lookout.  These falcons are dark, speedy, and easily missed as they fly by.
Tree Swallow
While moving south, Merlins often accompany flights of migrating Tree Swallows, a potential food source.
Merlin with Dragonfly
A Merlin consumes a dragonfly.  Eating is no reason to stop moving.
Juvenile "Tundra Peregrine"
The “Tundra Peregrine” is an arctic-breeding Peregrine Falcon that travels a distance of over 6,000 miles to southern South America for winter.  It is strictly a migratory species in our region with numbers peaking during the first two weeks of October each year.  These strong fliers have little need for the updrafts from mountain ridges, inland birds often observed flying in a north to south direction.  The majority of “Tundra Peregrines” are observed following coastlines, with some migrating offshore to make landfall at points as far south as Florida and the Caribbean islands before continuing across water again to reach the northern shores of Central and South America.  This “Tundra Peregrine” is a juvenile bird on its first southbound trip.

During coming days, fewer and fewer of these birds will be counted at our local hawk watches.  Soon, the larger raptors—Red-tailed Hawks, Red-shouldered Hawks, and Golden Eagles—will be thrilling observers.  Cooler weather will bring several flights of these spectacular species.  Why not plan a visit to a lookout near you?  Click on the “Hawkwatcher’s Helper: Identifying Bald Eagles and other Diurnal Raptors” tab at the top of this page for site information and a photo guide to identification.  See you at the hawk watch!

Common Raven
It’s not all hawks at the hawk watch.  Even the coastal sites are now seeing fun birds like the playful Common Raven on a regular basis.
Eastern Meadowlarks in a Loblolly Pine.
Coastal locations are renowned places to see migrating songbirds in places outside of their typical habitat.  Here a flock of Eastern Meadowlarks has set down in the top of a Loblolly Pine (Pinus taeda) in downtown Cape Charles, Virginia, not far from Kiptopeke Hawk Watch.

Photo of the Day

Ruby-crowned Kinglet
With warbler migration winding down, it’s time to keep an eye open for the tiny kinglets, particularly in coniferous trees.  This Ruby-crowned Kinglet was spotted yesterday in the boughs of an Eastern Hemlock.  While common during autumn migration in October, only a few will remain in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed for winter.

American Goldfinches Molting into Winter Plumage

Say it isn’t so.  Does summer really have to go?

Our brightly colored goldfinches are gone for the year.  No more Pennsylvania distelfinks glowing like bright-yellow Easter peeps on our feeders.  Oh, the birds are still here mind you, but their sunshine-gold feathers are falling away.  Because winter time is no time to show off.  One must blend in and maintain a low profile to conserve energy and avoid trouble as rough weather arrives.  So our American Goldfinches have commenced to molting—shedding their breeding plumes and replacing them with drab earth-tone shades for winter.

An adult male American Goldfinch losing its spectacular summer color and molting into less-than-thrilling winter feathers.
American Goldfinch in molt.
This ratty-looking adult male American Goldfinch is rapidly replacing its showy breeding (alternate) plumage with winter (basic) plumage.  A new set of wing feathers is readily visible.
Juvenile American Goldfinch
Juvenile American Goldfinches leave the nest with this first complete set of feathers.  Soon, adult birds will be wearing a similar color scheme.  Then, as spring approaches, they’ll all begin a gradual molt into the brilliant hues we all know and love.

Late Season Ruby-throated Hummingbirds…Again

Last October 3rd, a late-season Ruby-throated Hummingbird stopped by the garden at susquehannawildlife.net headquarters to take shelter from a rainy autumn storm.  It was so raw and chilly that we felt compelled to do something we don’t normally do—put out the sugar water feeder to supplement the nectar produced by our fall-flowering plants.  After several days of constant visits to the feeder and the flowers, our lingering hummer resumed its southbound journey on October 7th.

Fast forward to this afternoon and what do you know, at least two migrating hummingbirds have stopped by to visit the flowers in our garden.  This year, we have an exceptional abundance of blooms on some of their favorite plants.  In the ponds, aquatic Pickerelweed is topped with purple spikes and we still have bright orange tubular flowers on one of our Trumpet Vines—a full two to three months later than usual.

Late-season Ruby-throated Hummingbird
We checked each of our late-season visitors carefully to be reasonably certain that none was a stray western species of hummingbird.  All appear to be female or juvenile “Ruby-throats”.  If you have an abundance of flowering plants and/or you’re going to maintain your hummingbird feeders through the coming weeks, be on the lookout for western species.  Most are more hardy than our Ruby-throats and some have remained in the lower Susquehanna valley through the winter.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird at Mexican Cigar
As is typically the case, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds quickly gravitate toward the tubular flowers of our Cuphea ignea, the Mexican Cigar.  They find these showy plants to be absolutely irresistible.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird at Mexican Cigar
Mexican Cigar grows wild in parts of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird’s winter range.  To them, it’s comfort food.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird at Bat-faced Cuphea
We’re trying some new cultivars of Cuphea to see how they do.  As this composite image shows, the hummingbirds won’t let our Bat-faced Cuphea (Cuphea llavea) alone.  It’s another plant native to Mexico and Central America, right where some of our hummingbirds spend the winter.

Remember, keep those feeders clean and the provisions fresh!  You’ll be glad you did.

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!)

Photo of the Day

Eastern Palm Warbler
A warbler found moving through trees and shrubs or foraging on the ground while bobbing its tail is likely to be a Palm Warbler.  During migration, these animated passerines favor the vegetated shorelines of lakes, rivers, streams, and ponds.  This affinity for water is reflected in the Palm Warbler’s choice of breeding habitat.  Nesting territories are primarily located within spruce bogs east of the Rockies in Canada, Minnesota, Maine, and on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The bird seen here with extensive yellow underparts is known as a Yellow or Eastern Palm Warbler (Setophaga palmarum hypochrysea), a subspecies that nests in eastern portions of the breeding range.  The duller, grayer Brown or Western Palm Warbler (S. p. palmarum) nests in western sections of the summer range.  In the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed, both subspecies can be seen during fall migration, which peaks in late September and October as movements of the less hardy Neotropical warblers are winding down.  Both subspecies spend the winter on Caribbean islands or in coastal plain areas of eastern North America.  Some of the western birds pass the colder months along the Pacific coast.

A “Grasshopper Hawk” in the Susquehanna Valley

Tropical Storm Ophelia has put the brakes on a bustling southbound exodus of the season’s final waves of Neotropical migrants.  Winds from easterly directions have now beset the Mid-Atlantic States with gloomy skies, chilly temperatures, and periods of rain for an entire week.  These conditions, which are less than favorable for undertaking flights of any significant distance, have compelled many birds to remain in place—grounded to conserve energy.

Migrating Broad-winged Hawks on a Thermal Updraft
In the days prior to the arrival of Tropical Storm Ophelia, thousands of high-flying Broad-winged Hawks were being tallied as they passed hawk-counting stations throughout the region. As the last of this year’s migrants continue through, lack of clear skies, sunshine, and thermal updrafts has slowed the pace of their movements significantly.

Of the birds on layover, perhaps the most interesting find has been a western raptor that occurs only on rare occasions among the groups of Broad-winged Hawks seen at hawk watches each fall—a Swainson’s Hawk.  Discovered as Tropical Storm Ophelia approached on September 21st, this juvenile bird has found refuge in coal country on a small farm in a picturesque valley between converging ridges in southern Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.  Swainson’s Hawks are a gregarious species, often spending time outside of the nesting season in the company of others of their kind.  Like Broad-winged Hawks, they frequently assemble into large groups while migrating.

A juvenile Swainson's Hawk in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.
A juvenile Swainson’s Hawk in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.

Swainson's Hawk in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.

Swainson’s Hawks nest in the grasslands, prairies, and deserts of western North America.  Their autumn migration to wintering grounds in Argentina covers a distance of up to 6,000 miles.  Among raptors, such mileage is outdone only by the Tundra Peregrine Falcon.

Juvenile Swainson's Hawk
The Swainson’s Hawk spends up to four months each year covering a 12,000-mile round-trip migration route.  The long primaries are an adaptation that give the wings additional lift, allowing them to use air currents including thermal updrafts to conserve energy while flying.

Juvenile Swainson's Hawk

Juvenile Swainson's Hawk
Swainson’s Hawks are renowned for spending time on the ground, intermittently running and hopping in pursuit of prey.

During the nesting cycle, Swainson’s Hawks consume primarily small vertebrates, mostly mice and other small rodents.  But during the remainder of the year, they feed almost exclusively on grasshoppers.  To provide enough energy to fuel their migrations, they must find and devour these insects by the hundreds.  Not surprisingly, the Swainson’s Hawk is sometimes known as the Grasshopper Hawk or Locust Hawk, particularly in the areas of South America where they are common.

Juvenile Swainson's Hawk eating a cricket.
The juvenile Swainson’s Hawk visiting Northumberland County has been feeding on grasshoppers, katydids, and is seen here eating a cricket.

So just how far will our wayward Swainson’s Hawk have to travel to get back on track?  Small numbers of Swainson’s Hawks pass the winter in southern Florida each year and still others are found in and near the scrublands of the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas and Mexico.  But the vast majority of these birds make the trip all the way to the southern half of South America and the farmlands and savannas of Argentina—where our winter is their summer.  The best bet for this bird would be to get hooked up with some of the season’s last Broad-winged Hawks when they start flying in coming days, then join them as they head toward Houston, Texas, to make the southward turn down the coast of the Gulf of Mexico into Central America and Amazonia.  Then again, it may need to find its own way to warmer climes.  Upon reaching at least the Gulf Coastal Plain, our visitor stands a much better chance of surviving the winter.

Juvenile Swainson's Hawk in Flight
As long as it can still find grasshoppers to eat, our wayward bird in Northumberland County still has time before it needs to make its way south.   As they pass through Texas, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Panama, Swainson’s Hawks are numerous among flocks of southbound Broad-winged Hawks.  But while hawk watches in these areas are presently recording maximum annual counts of the latter, peak numbers of the former won’t occur until the final two or three weeks of October.

Photo of the Day

Northern Ring-necked Snake shedding old skin.
For this Northern Ring-necked Snake (Diadophis punctatus edwardsii), they’ll be no hunting crickets, grasshoppers, and creepy crawlies under rocks and leaves for a little while.  It’s blind as a bat and finding its way by tongue and touch while beginning the process of shedding its skin so it can grow just a little bit bigger before heading underground for winter.

The Common True Katydid

They look amazingly similar to the green leaves on a deciduous tree.  During the late summer and autumn, they spend their time as adults in the cover of the forest canopy.  They prefer to run and hop rather than fly.  But despite their discretion, you’re not likely to miss the Common True Katydid (Pterophylla camellifolia).

A Common True Katydid.
The Common True Katydid, also known as the Northern True Katydid, has no trouble at all hiding among the leaves.

Take a listen and you may hear the male’s nocturnal calls filling the treetops of woodlands and shady neighborhoods throughout the lower Susquehanna valley right now.  The loud, raspy “ka-ty-did, she-did, she-didn’t”  is reliably answered by other nearby males as competition for willing females reaches a frenzy.  In mature forests where populations are dense, this rowdy chorus can reach a remarkable volume.

A mated female Common True Katydid inserts her ovipositor into a timber crevice to place her eggs in a protected location for winter.
A mated female Common True Katydid inserts her ovipositor into a timber crevice to place her eggs in a protected location for winter.

The Common True Katydid’s song is like a soundtrack for the oft times melancholy mood of autumn.  As the days shorten and a chill fills the air, the rate of the Common True Katydid’s call becomes slower and its tone deeper in response to the falling temperatures.  Males continue forcing a sluggish call until freezing conditions finally bring about their demise.  Another generation and another season gone.

Four Common Grasshoppers

Grasshoppers are perhaps best known for the occasions throughout history when an enormous congregation of these insects—a “plague of locusts”—would assemble and rove a region to feed.  These swarms, which sometimes covered tens of thousands of square miles or more, often decimated crops, darkened the sky, and, on occasion, resulted in catastrophic famine among human settlements in various parts of the world.

The largest “plague of locusts” in the United States occurred during the mid-1870s in the Great Plains.  The Rocky Mountain Locust (Melanoplus spretus), a grasshopper of prairies in the American west, had a range that extended east into New England, possibly settling there on lands cleared for farming.  Rocky Mountain Locusts, aside from their native habitat on grasslands, apparently thrived on fields planted with warm-season crops.  Like most grasshoppers, they fed and developed most vigorously during periods of dry, hot weather.  With plenty of vegetative matter to consume during periods of scorching temperatures, the stage was set for populations of these insects to explode in agricultural areas, then take wing in search of more forage.  Plagues struck parts of northern New England as early as the mid-1700s and were numerous in various states in the Great Plains through the middle of the 1800s.  The big ones hit between 1873 and 1877 when swarms numbering as many as trillions of grasshoppers did $200 million in crop damage and caused a famine so severe that many farmers abandoned the westward migration.  To prevent recurrent outbreaks of locust plagues and famine, experts suggested planting more cool-season grains like winter wheat, a crop which could mature and be harvested before the grasshoppers had a chance to cause any significant damage.  In the years that followed, and as prairies gave way to the expansive agricultural lands that presently cover most of the Rocky Mountain Locust’s former range, the grasshopper began to disappear.  By the early years of the twentieth century, the species was extinct.  No one was quite certain why, and the precise cause is still a topic of debate to this day.  Conversion of nearly all of its native habitat to cropland and grazing acreage seems to be the most likely culprit.

The critically endangered Eskimo Curlew (Numenius borealis), a species not photographed since 1962 and not confirmed since 1963, fed on Rocky Mountain Locusts during its spring migration through the Great Plains.  Excessive hunting and conversion of grasslands to agriculture are believed responsible for the bird’s demise.  (United States Fish and Wildlife Service image by Christina Nelson)

In the Mid-Atlantic States, the mosaic of the landscape—farmland interspersed with a mix of forest and disturbed urban/suburban lots—prevents grasshoppers from reaching the densities from which swarms arise.  In the years since the implementation of “Green Revolution” farming practices, numbers of grasshoppers in our region have declined.  Systemic insecticides including neonicotinoids keep grasshoppers and other insects from munching on warm-season crops like corn and soybeans.  And herbicides including 2,4-D (2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid) have, in effect, become the equivalent of insecticides, eliminating broadleaf food plants from the pasturelands and hayfields where grasshoppers once fed and reproduced in abundance.  As a result, few of the approximately three dozen species of grasshoppers with ranges that include the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed are common here.  Those that still thrive are largely adapted to roadsides, waste ground, and small clearings where native and some non-native plants make up their diet.

Here’s a look at four species of grasshoppers you’re likely to find in disturbed habitats throughout our region.  Each remains common in relatively pesticide-free spaces with stands of dense grasses and broadleaf plants nearby.

CAROLINA GRASSHOPPER

Dissosteira carolina

Carolina Grasshopper
The Carolina Grasshopper, also known as the Carolina Locust or Quaker, is one of the band-winged grasshoppers.  It is commonly found along roadsides and on other bare ground near stands of tall grass and broadleaf plants.
Carolina Grasshopper
The Carolina Grasshopper is variable in color, ranging from very dark brown…
Carolina Grasshopper
…to a rich tan or khaki shade.  These earth-tone colors provide the insect with effective camouflage while spending time on the ground.
Carolina Grasshopper wing
The Carolina Grasshopper is most readily detected and identified when it flies.  The colors of the wings resemble those of the Mourning Cloak butterfly.
Great Black Wasp on goldenrod.
Carolina Grasshoppers are among the preferred victims of Great Black Wasps (Sphex pensylvanicus).  A female wasp stings the grasshopper to paralyze it, then drags it away to one of numerous cells in an underground burrow where she lays an egg on it.  The body of the disabled grasshopper then provides nourishment for the larval wasp.

DIFFERENTIAL GRASSHOPPER

Melanoplus differentialis

Differential Grasshopper nymph.
Differential Grasshopper nymph with small “fairy wings”.
Differential Grasshopper
An adult female Differential Grasshopper with fully developed wings.
An adult female Differential Grasshopper
An adult female Differential Grasshopper

TWO-STRIPED GRASSHOPPER

Melanoplus bivittatus

Two-striped Grasshopper nymph.
An early-stage Two-striped Grasshopper nymph.
Two-striped Grasshopper nymph.
A Two-striped Grasshopper nymph in a later stage.
Two-striped Grasshopper
An adult female Two-striped Grasshopper.
Two-striped Grasshopper
An adult female Two-striped Grasshopper.  Note the pale stripe originating at each eye and joining near the posterior end of the wings to form a V-shaped pattern.
Two-striped Grasshopper
An adult female Two-striped Grasshopper.

RED-LEGGED GRASSHOPPER

Melanoplus femurrubrum

A Red-legged Grasshopper hiding in dense urban vegetation.
An adult male Red-legged Grasshopper hiding in dense urban vegetation.
Red-legged Grasshopper
The Red-legged Grasshopper may currently be our most abundant and widespread species.
Red-legged Grasshopper
An adult male Red-legged Grasshopper.
Red-legged Grasshopper
An adult female Red-legged Grasshopper.

Protein-rich grasshoppers are an important late-summer, early-fall food source for birds.  The absence of these insects has forced many species of breeding birds to abandon farmland or, in some cases, disappear altogether.

During the mid-twentieth century, the Cattle Egret (Bubulcus ibis), a notoriously nomadic species, transited the Atlantic from Africa to colonize the Americas…and they did it without any direct assistance from humans.  During the 1970s and early 1980s, a nesting population of Cattle Egrets on river islands adjacent to the Susquehanna’s Conejohela Flats off Washington Boro was the largest inland rookery in the northeastern United States.  The Lancaster County Bird Club censused the birds each August and found peak numbers in 1981 (7,580).  During their years of abundance, V-shaped flocks of Cattle Egrets from the rookery islands ventured into grazing lands throughout portions of Lancaster, York, Dauphin, and Lebanon Counties to hunt grasshoppers.  These daily flights were a familiar summertime sight for nearly two decades.  Then, in the early 1980s, reductions in pastureland acreage and plummeting grasshopper numbers quickly took their toll.  By 1988, the rookery was abandoned.  The Cattle Egrets had moved on.  (Vintage 33 mm image)
During the summer and early fall, juvenile and adult Ring-necked Pheasants feed heavily on grasshoppers.  Earlier and more frequent mowing along with declining numbers of grasshoppers on farmlands due to an increase in pesticide use were factors contributing to the crash of the pheasant population in the early 1980s.
Wild Turkey
To the delight of Wild Turkeys, each of the four species of grasshoppers shown above frequents clearings and roadsides adjacent to forest areas.  While changes in grasshopper distribution have been detrimental to populations of birds like pheasants, they’ve created a feeding bonanza for turkeys.
Wild Turkeys feeding on grasshoppers along a forest road.
Wild Turkeys feeding on an abundance of grasshoppers along a forest road.
An American Kestrel feeds on a grasshopper while ignoring the abundance of Spotted Lanternflies swarming the adjacent utility pole.  In Susquehanna valley farmlands, grasshopper and kestrel numbers are down.  Lanternflies, on the other hand, have got it made.
Early Successional Growth
Maintaining areas bordering roads, forests, wetlands, farmlands, and human development in a state of early succession can provide and ideal mix of mature grasses and broadleaf plants for grasshoppers, pollinators, birds, and other wildlife.

Photo of the Day

Fall Field Cricket
The calls of Fall Field Crickets, a series of chirps one might attempt to replicate by quickly strumming three to five teeth on a hair comb, are a familiar chorus during the late summer and autumn in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed.  The song’s speed changes with temperature, becoming noticeably slower as cold weather sets in.  These crickets sing throughout the majority of the day and night, becoming quietest during the chilly hours of dawn.  Adults hide in burrows and beneath logs, leaf litter, and other organic debris.  Around human habitation, they seek shelter under hundreds of different objects, frequently finding their way into buildings where they do no real harm.  Crickets are eaten by almost every predator that exceeds them in size and are especially important as a protein-rich food source for birds feeding their young and preparing for autumn migration.  The Fall Field Cricket (Gryllus pennsylvanicus) is nearly identical in appearance to the less common Spring Field Cricket (Gryllus veletis), which calls during the spring and early summer in the Susquehanna valley.  The primary difference between the two species?  The former overwinter as eggs while the latter pass the colder months as nymphs.

The Gray Comma: Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

Gray Comma
The Gray Comma is a strikingly colorful late-summer butterfly of rich forests in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed.  It’s sure to catch your attention,…
Gray Comma
…or is it?

Check out this and other local species by clicking the “Butterflies” tab at the top of this page.

Flamingos and a Hurricane

During the past two weeks, over 150 American Flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber) have been reported in the eastern half of the United States, well north of their usual range—northern South America; Cuba, the Bahamas, and other Caribbean Islands; and the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.  They are also found on the Galapagos Islands.  Prior to being extirpated by hunting during the early years of the twentieth century, American Flamingos nested in the Everglades of Florida as well.

The recent influx of these tropical vagrants into the eastern states is attributed to Hurricane Idalia, a storm that formed in the midst of flamingo territory during the final week of August.  Idalia got its start over tropical waters off Yucatan before progressing north through the Gulf of Mexico off Cuba to make landfall in the “Big Bend” area of Florida.

Track of Hurricane Idalia.  (NOAA/National Weather Service/National Hurricane Center image)

Birds of warm water seas regularly become entangled within tropical storms and hurricanes.  In most cases, it’s oceanic seabirds including petrels, shearwaters, terns, and gulls that seek refuge from turbulent conditions by remaining inside the storm’s eye or within the margins of the rotating bands.  The duration of the experience and the fitness of each individual bird may determine just how many survive such an ordeal.  As a storm makes landfall, the survivors put down on inland bodies of water, often in unexpected places hundreds of miles from the nearest coastline.  Some may linger in these far-flung areas to feed and gain strength before finding their way down rivers back to sea.

For birds like American Flamingos, which don’t spend a large portion of their lives on the wing over vast oceanic waters, becoming entangled in a tropical weather system can easily be a life-ending event.  American Flamingos, despite their size and lanky appearance, are quite agile fliers.  When necessary, some populations travel significant distances in search of new food sources.  Some closely related migratory species of flamingos have been recorded at altitudes exceeding 10,000 feet.  But becoming trapped in a hurricane for an extended period of time could easily erode the endurance of even the strongest of fliers.  And once out over open water, there’s nowhere for a flamingo to come down for a rest.

It appears probable that, during the final week of August, hundreds of American Flamingos did find themselves drawn away from their familiar tidal flats and salty lagoons to be swept into the spinning clouds and gusty downpours of Hurricane Idalia as it churned off the Yucatan coast.  Despite the dangers, more than 150 of them completed a journey within its clutches to cross the Gulf of Mexico and land in the Eastern United States.

Amy Davis in a report for the American Birding Association compiled a list of American Flamingo sightings from the days following the landfall of Hurricane Idalia.  We’ve plotted those sightings on a satellite image of the storm.

Locations of American Flamingo sightings in the days following landfall of Hurricane Idalia, August 30 through September 7, 2023.  Numbers of birds in the plotted flock are indicated.  Those flocks marked with an asterisk contained a bird ringed with a leg band marking it as a member of the Ria Largartos population in Yucatan.  Click the image to enlarge.  (NOAA/GOES-16 base image of Hurricane Idalia landfall)

The majority of the flamingos that survived this harrowing trip found a place to put down along the coast.  But as the reader will notice, a significant number of the sightings were outside the path of the storm in areas not reached by even the outermost bands of clouds.  Flamingos in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky/Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania were found at inland bodies of water, most on the days immediately following the storm’s landfall.  The lone exception, the Pennsylvania birds, were discovered a week after landfall (but may have been there days longer).  How and why did these birds find their way so far inland at places so distant from the storm…and home?  And how did they get there so quickly?  The counterclockwise rotation of the hurricane wouldn’t slingshot them in that direction, would it?

Let’s have a look at the surface map showing us the weather in the states outside the direct influence of Hurricane Idalia during the storm’s landfall on August 30, 2023…

Note the pair of cold fronts along the Appalachians by 7 A.M. E.S.T. (8 A.M. E.D.T.).  In the  hours following Idalia’s landfall, these fronts had begun slowly creeping through the areas where the inland flamingos were subsequently found.  (NOAA/National Centers for Environmental Prediction-Weather Prediction Center image)

Now check out this satellite view of the storm during the hours following landfall…

"Flamingo Highway"
The blue lines mark the approximate locations of the two cold fronts, the “spoilers” that helped steer Idalia out to sea. The pink arrows mark the “flamingo highway”, strong southwest to northeast winds blowing between the cold fronts along the inland edge of Idalia.  (GOES-16 imagery from Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Click the image above to play a GIF animation of GOES-16 satellite photos showing Idalia after landfall and the strong “flamingo highway” winds between the fronts.  (It’s a big file, so give it a little time to load.)  You’ll also note the ferocious lightning associated with both Huricane Idalia and Hurricane Franklin.

Did the inland flamingos catch a ride on these stiff “flamingo highway” winds?  If not, they may have had a little help from a high pressure ridge that became established over the southern Appalachians as Idalia crept out to sea.  The clockwise rotation of this ridge kept a similar flow over the “flamingo highway” for much of the four days that followed.

An American Flamingo circling to land in a farm pond near St. Thomas, Franklin County, Pennsylvania.
An American Flamingo circling to land in a farm pond near St. Thomas, Franklin County, Pennsylvania.
American Flamingo in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, following Hurricane Idalia.
Its a long way from Yucatan to central Pennsylvania.  The survivors of the storm were largely at the mercy of the winds that carried them.  The good news for this bird…not a single flight is feather missing.
An American Flamingo at the foot of the Appalachians.
An American Flamingo at the foot of the Appalachians in Franklin County, Pennsylvania.
An American Flamingo on a farm pond near St. Thomas, Franklin County, Pennsylvania.  This bird is just one of at least 150 that arrived in the Eastern United States courtesy of Hurricane Idalia.
American Flamingo in Franklin County, Pennsylvania.
In deep water, American Flamingos feed by shuffling their feet to stir up benthic invertebrates, plankton, algae, and plant matter.  The flamingo that was accompanying this bird apparently shuffled its feet into a Snapping Turtle, which promptly latched onto its leg and injured tendons and other tissue.  Following surgery earlier today, the bird remains in hospital.
American Flamingo feeding.
To retrieve their fare from the bottom, flamingos roll their bill upside down, then swish it back-and-forth.
Finally, they raise their heads and upright their bills to expel water and debris while simultaneously filtering out the morsels of edibles for consumption.
American Flamingo in Franklin County, Pennsylvania.
To conserve body heat while under the shade of clouds, this American Flamingo in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, would stop feeding,…
American Flamingo in Pennsylvania conserving heat under cloud cover.
…then it would tuck its head between its wings.  Flamingos will also retain heat by standing on one leg while raising the other into the insulating cover of their belly feathers.

For vagrant birds including those carried away to distant lands by hurricanes and other storms, the challenges of finding food and avoiding hazards including disease, unfamiliar predators, and extreme weather can be a matter of life and death.  For American Flamingos now loafing and feeding in the Eastern United States outside Florida, the hardest part of their journey is yet to come. They need to find their way back south to suitable tropical habitat before cold weather sets in.  The perils are many.  Theirs is not an enviable predicament.

Sorry Pinky, but you can’t stay on the farm forever.

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!

Photo of the Day

Magnolia Leaf-footed Bug
At first glance, this insect might be mistaken for a Brown Marmorated Stink Bug.  It is, however, a native species, a Magnolia Leaf-footed Bug (Leptoglossus fulvicornis).  Because it feeds almost exclusively on trees in the genus Magnolia, and because the three members of the genus native to the lower Susquehanna valley, Umbrella Magnolia (M. tripetala), Cucumber Tree (M. acuminata), and Sweetbay (M. virginiana), each have a very limited distribution here, this insect’s presence in the watershed is largely dependent on widespread introductions of ornamental magnolias and native transplants including Southern Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora).  Adult Magnolia Leaf-footed Bugs overwinter in leaf litter beneath the host trees.  In spring, females lay their eggs in rows along the midrib of the leaves where they are often victims of parasitoid wasps including Gyron pennsylvanicum.  The surviving nymphs and the adults feed on the tree’s leaves and fruits, causing little harm to its overall health.

Photo of the Day

Broad-necked Root Borer
The Broad-necked Root Borer (Prionus laticollis) is one of the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed’s largest insects.  Its larvae feed on woody roots for more than two years before pupating and thereafter emerging as adult beetles.  The distribution of root borers is not totally random.  They are often attracted to distressed trees and shrubs.  This particular specimen was found along a forest road where herbicide application, soil dehydration, and a recent wildfire has weakened and killed numerous oaks, poplars, and maples.  As they feed, root borer larvae will help begin the process of reducing the remains of these trees into soil nutrients that will benefit regeneration of forest plants at this site.

Surf’s Up: The Waves Keep Rolling In

“Waves” of warblers and other Neotropical songbirds continue to roll along the ridgetops of southern Pennsylvania.  The majority of these migrants are headed to wintering habitat in the tropics after departing breeding grounds in the forests of southern Canada.  At Second Mountain Hawk Watch, today’s early morning flight kicked off at sunrise, then slowed considerably by 8:30 A.M. E.D.T.  Once again, in excess of 400 warblers were found moving through the trees and working their way southwest along the spine of the ridge.  Each of the 12 species seen yesterday were observed today as well.  In addition, there was a Northern Parula and a Canada Warbler.  Today’s flight was dominated by Bay-breasted, Blackburnian, Black-throated Green, and Tennessee Warblers.

A Blackburnian Warbler at sunrise on Second Mountain.
A Blackburnian Warbler at sunrise on Second Mountain.
A hungry Blackburnian Warbler feeding on insects.
A hungry Blackburnian Warbler feeding on insects.
Black-throated Green Warbler on Second Mountain.
Black-throated Green Warblers were a plentiful species among both yesterday’s and today’s waves of Neotropical migrants.
A juvenile Black-throated Green Warbler on Second Mountain
A juvenile Black-throated Green Warbler.
Tennessee Warbler on Second Mountain.
One of the scores of Tennessee Warblers seen on Second Mountain early this morning.
Cape May Warbler
Cape May Warblers were still common today, but not moving through in the numbers seen yesterday.
A male Black-throated Blue Warbler on Second Mountain.
A male Black-throated Blue Warbler.
Magnolia Warbler on Second Mountain.
Compared to yesterday’s flight, lesser numbers of Magnolia Warblers were seen today.
An adult male Wilson's Warbler on Second Mounatin.
An adult male Wilson’s Warbler was a good find among the hundreds of birds swarming the ridgetop.
Nashville Warbler
This Nashville Warbler spent much of the day in the tangles of Mile-a-minute Weed surrounding the lookout.

Other interesting Neotropical migrants joined the “waves” of warblers…

Red-eyed Vireo
Red-eyed Vireo numbers were higher than yesterday.
Warbling Vireo
This Warbling Vireo was found peering from the cover of the shady forest.
Rose-breasted Grosbeaks
A minimum of six Rose-breasted Grosbeaks were identified including the juvenile male seen here in first-fall plumage.  Other good sightings were Scarlet Tanagers, an adult male Baltimore Oriole, and a dozen or more Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.
Least Flycatcher on second Mountain.
Three Least Flycatchers were heard calling and seen chasing one another through a stand of dead timber on the south slope below the lookout.
Broad-winged Hawk
After the warbler flight settled, the task of counting migrating raptors commenced.  Five Broad-winged Hawks including this one were tallied as they glided away to the southwest for a winter vacation in the tropics of Central and South America.

Catch a Wave While You’re Sittin’ on Top of the World

During the recent couple of mornings, a tide of Neotropical migrants has been rolling along the crests of the Appalachian ridges and Piedmont highlands of southern Pennsylvania.  In the first hours of daylight, “waves” of warblers, vireos, flycatchers, tanagers, and other birds are being observed flitting among the sun-drenched foliage as they feed in trees along the edges of ridgetop clearings.  Big fallouts have been reported along Kittattiny Ridge/Blue Mountain at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and at Waggoner’s Gap Hawk Watch.  Birds are also being seen in the Furnace Hills of the Piedmont.

Here are some of the 300 to 400 warblers (a very conservative estimate) seen in a “wave” found working its way southwest through the forest clearing at the Second Mountain Hawk Watch in Lebanon County this morning.  The feeding frenzy endured for two hours between 7 and 9 A.M. E.D.T.

Tennessee Warblers at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
Tennessee Warblers (Leiothlypis peregrina) were very common among the migrants seen this morning on Second Mountain.
Tennessee Warbler at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
An adult male Tennessee Warbler.
Nashville Warbler at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
A Nashville Warbler.
Chestnut-sided Warbler at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
A Chestnut-sided Warbler.
Cape May Warbler at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
Cape May Warblers were another common species during the morning flight.
Magnolia Warbler at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
Magnolia Warblers were frequently observed as well.
Black-and-white Warbler at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
A Black-and-white Warbler exhibiting its nuthatch-like feeding behavior.
Blackburnian Warbler at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
A Blackburnian Warbler.
Black-throated Green Warbler at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
Black-throated Green Warblers were numerous.
Bay-breasted Warbler at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
A Bay-breasted Warbler.
Wilson's Warbler at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
This was the only Wilson’s Warbler discerned among the hundreds of warblers seen in a “wave” on Second Mountain this morning.

Not photographed but observed in the mix of species were several Black-throated Blue Warblers and American Redstarts.

In addition to the warblers, other Neotropical migrants were on the move including two Common Nighthawks, a Broad-winged Hawk, a Least Flycatcher (Empidonax minimus), and…

Scarlet Tanager at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
At least half a dozen Scarlet Tanagers were in the treetops.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
And no less than 23 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were counted cruising southbound past the lookout at Second Mountain Hawk Watch today.

Then, there was a taste of things to come…

Red-breasted Nuthatch at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
One of 3 Red-breasted Nuthatches filling the air on the mountaintop with calls reminiscent of a toy tin horn.  Will this summer’s forest fires in Canada prompt a significant invasion of this and other birds including winter finches in coming months?  Time will tell.

Seeing a “wave” flight is a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  Visiting known locations for observing warbler fallouts such as hawk watches, ridgetop clearings, and peninsular shorelines can improve your chances of witnessing one of these memorable spectacles by overcoming the first variable.  To overcome the second, be sure to visit early and often.  See you on the lookout!

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds on the Go

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds will be moving south through the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed during the next few weeks.
Ruby-throated Hummingbirds will be migrating south through the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed during the next few weeks.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird at Mexican Cigar.
While on their journey, they refuel by frequently visiting nectar-producing native wildflowers as well as garden specimens like this Mexican Cigar.
Ruby-throated Hummingbird at feeder.
Hummingbirds supplement their diet by visiting feeders filled with a mixture of sugar and water.  If you’re feeding hummingbirds, or thinking about feeding hummingbirds, be sure to review the helpful tips contained in our post from August 5, 2022, “Two Feeders Are Better Than One”.  Their health and your peace of mind may depend on it.

It’s Raptor and Warbler Migration Time

As we enter September, autumn bird migration is well underway.  Neotropical species including warblers, vireos, flycatchers, and nighthawks are already headed south.  Meanwhile, the raptor migration is ramping up and hawk watch sites throughout the Mid-Atlantic States are now staffed and counting birds.  In addition to the expected migrants, there have already been sightings of some unusual post-breeding wanderers.  Yesterday, a Wood Stork (Mycteria americana) was seen passing Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and a Swallow-tailed Kite (Elanoides forficatus) that spent much of August in Juniata County was seen from Waggoner’s Gap Hawk Watch while it was hunting in a Perry County field six miles to the north of the lookout!  Both of these rarities are vagrants from down Florida way.

A Peregrine Falcon speeds past the lookout at Second Mountain Hawk Watch.
A Peregrine Falcon speeds past the lookout at Second Mountain Hawk Watch yesterday.
Broad-winged Hawk
Later this month, numbers of high-flying Broad-winged Hawks moving past counting stations will reach their peak.  Most sites will experience one or more days with hundreds or perhaps thousands of these Neotropical migrants streaming by.
Black-and-white Warbler
This Black-and-white Warbler was found among a “wave” of migrating songbirds moving through some ridgetop trees.
Cape May Warbler
A juvenile Cape May Warbler peers from the cover of an Eastern Hemlock.

To plan a visit to a hawk watch near you, click on the “Hawkwatcher’s Helper: Identifying Bald Eagles and other Diurnal Raptors” tab at the top of this page to find a list and brief description of suggested sites throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.  “Hawkwatcher’s Helper” also includes an extensive photo guide for identifying the raptors you’re likely to see.

And to identify those confusing fall warblers and other migrants, click the “Birds” tab at the top of this page and check out the photo guide contained therein.  It includes nearly all of the species you’re likely to see in the lower Susquehanna valley.

Shorebirds on the Mud in York County, Pennsylvania

At Lake Redman just to the south of York, Pennsylvania, a draw down to provide drinking water to the city while maintenance is being performed on the dam at neighboring Lake Williams, York’s primary water source, has fortuitously coincided with autumn shorebird migration.  Here’s a sample of the numerous sandpipers and plovers seen today on the mudflats that have been exposed at the southeast end of the lake…

Least Sandpiper at Lake Redman, York County, Pennsylvania.
One of a hundred or more Least Sandpipers seen on mudflats at Lake Redman today.
 A Semipalmated Plover and a Least Sandpiper at Lake Redman, York County, Pennsylvania.
A Semipalmated Plover and a Least Sandpiper
Pectoral Sandpipers at Lake Redman, York County, Pennsylvania.
Pectoral Sandpipers.
A Pectoral Sandpiper and Least Sandpipers at Lake Redman, York County, Pennsylvania.
A Pectoral Sandpiper and two Least Sandpipers.
A Semipalmated Sandpiper at Lake Redman, York County, Pennsylvania.
A Semipalmated Sandpiper.
A Stilt Sandpiper at Lake Redman, York County, Pennsylvania.
A Stilt Sandpiper feeding.
Stilt Sandpiper consuming an edible at Lake Redman, York County, Pennsylvania.
Stilt Sandpiper consuming an edible.
Stilt Sandpiper at rest at Lake Redman, York County, Pennsylvania.
Stilt Sandpiper at rest.
A Solitary Sandpiper at Lake Redman, York County, Pennsylvania.
A Solitary Sandpiper
A Lesser Yellowlegs at Lake Redman, York County, Pennsylvania.
A Lesser Yellowlegs.
A Greater Yellowlegs at Lake Redman, York County, Pennsylvania.
A Greater Yellowlegs.
Osprey at Lake Redman, York County, Pennsylvania.
Stirring up the shorebird crowd every now and then were several Ospreys, but all would soon be back to the business of feeding in the mud.
An Osprey hovers above shallow water near the mudflats as it searches for fish.
An Osprey hovers above shallow water near the mudflats as it searches for fish.

Not photographed but present at Lake Redman were at least two additional species of shorebirds, Killdeer and Spotted Sandpiper—bringing the day’s tally to ten.  Not bad for an inland location!  It’s clearly evident that these waders overfly the lower Susquehanna valley in great numbers during migration and are in urgent need of undisturbed habitat for making stopovers to feed and rest so that they might improve their chances of surviving the long journey ahead of them.  Mud is indeed a much needed refuge.

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.

Wild Senna, a Showy Background Plant for Your Wildflower Garden

Looking for a native wildflower that’s tall, showy, and a great choice for attracting wildlife, especially butterflies and bees?  Then check out Wild Senna (Senna hebecarpa).

Wild Senna in a roadside wildflower garden on Pennsylvania State Gamelands.
Wild Senna currently blooming in a roadside wildflower garden on Pennsylvania State Game Lands.

Wild Senna, also known as American Senna, is a host plant for the larvae of Cloudless Sulphur and Sleepy Orange (Eurema nicippe) butterflies.  It thrives in almost any moist, well-drained soil in habitats including open woodlands, forest edges, meadows, and gardens like yours.  Its height at flowering ranges from three to six feet.  If you prefer, this perennial wildflower can even be cultivated as a shrub-like form.  It is easily grown from seed, which is available from Ernst Conservation Seeds of Meadville, Pennsylvania, as well as numerous other vendors.  And don’t forget to give Wild Senna’s two close relatives, Partridge Pea and Maryland Senna, a try as well.  They attract the same species of butterflies and are just as easy to grow.  You’ll like ’em.

Cloudless Sulphur
Cloudless Sulphur butterflies from populations in the south colonize the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed each summer in varying numbers.
Close-up view of a Wild Senna flower cluster.
Close-up view of a Wild Senna flower cluster.  Typical of members of the pea family, the  seeds of all native Senna species develop within pods after blooming and are sought after by wildfowl (Galliformes), particularly Northern Bobwhite.
Partridge Pea in flower with seed pods.
Partridge Pea with flowers and seed pods in the susquehannawildlife.net garden.  Smaller than the other Senna species, Partridge Pea reaches a height of just two to three feet.

Shorebirds and Stormwater Retention Ponds

Your best bet for finding migrating shorebirds in the lower Susquehanna region is certainly a visit to a sandbar or mudflat in the river.  The Conejohela Flats off Washington Boro just south of Columbia is a renowned location.  Some man-made lakes including the one at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area are purposely drawn down during the weeks of fall migration to provide exposed mud and silt for feeding and resting sandpipers and plovers.  But with the Susquehanna running high due to recent rains and the cost of fuel trending high as well, maybe you want to stay closer to home to do your observing.

Fortunately for us, migratory shorebirds will drop in on almost any biologically active pool of shallow water and mud that they happen to find.  This includes flooded portions of fields, construction sites, and especially stormwater retention basins.  We stopped by a new basin just west of Hershey, Pennsylvania, and found more than two dozen shorebirds feeding and loafing there.  We took each of these photographs from the sidewalk paralleling the south shore of the pool, thus never flushing or disturbing a single bird.

Stormwater retentrion basin.
Designed to prevent stream flooding and pollution, this recently installed stormwater retention basin along US 322 west of Hershey, Pennsylvania, has already attracted a variety of migrating plovers and sandpipers.
Killdeer
Killdeer stick close to exposed mud as they feed.
Least Sandpipers
Two of more than a dozen Least Sandpipers found busily feeding in the inch-deep water.
Lesser Yellowlegs
A Lesser Yellowlegs searching for small invertebrates.
Lesser Yellowlegs
Two Lesser Yellowlegs work out a disagreement.
Male Twelve-spotted Skimmers patrol the airspace above a pair of Least Sandpipers.
Male Twelve-spotted Skimmers patrol the airspace above a pair of Least Sandpipers. Dragonflies and other aquatic insects are quick to colonize the waters held in well-engineered retention basins.  Proper construction and establishment of a functioning food chain/web in these man-made wetlands prevents them from becoming merely temporary cesspools for breeding mosquitos.

So don’t just drive by those big puddles, stop and have a look.  You never know what you might find.

A Semipalmated Sandpiper (middle right) joins a flock of Least Sandpipers.
A Semipalmated Sandpiper (middle right) joins a flock of Least Sandpipers.
Pectoral Sandpipers (two birds in the center) are regular fall migrants on the Susquehanna at this time of year.
Pectoral Sandpipers (two birds in the center) are regular fall migrants on the Susquehanna at this time of year.  They are most frequently seen on gravel and sand bars adjacent to the river’s grassy islands, but unusually high water for this time of year prevents them from using this favored habitat.  As a result, you might be lucky enough to discover Pectoral Sandpipers on almost any mudflat in the area.
Two Pectoral Sandpipers and five smaller but very similar Least Sandpipers.
Two Pectoral Sandpipers and five smaller, but otherwise very similar, Least Sandpipers.
A Killdeer (right), a Semipalmated Plover (upper right), and a Least and Pectoral Sandpiper (left).
A Killdeer (right), a Semipalmated Plover (upper right), and Least and Pectoral Sandpipers (left).

Photo of the Day

Male Blue Dasher at Memorial Lake State Park
An ever-vigilant male Blue Dasher (Pachydiplax longipennis) perches on a small twig overlooking the vegetated shallows along the shoreline of Memorial Lake in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.

Blue Tuesday

We’ve got the summertime blues for you, right here at susquehannawildlife.net…

Big Bluestem
In warm-season grass meadows, Big Bluestem is now in flower.  This and other species of native prairie grasses provide excellent habitat for birds, mammals, and insects including butterflies.  To survive drought and fire, their roots run much deeper than cool season grasses, creeping down four to six feet or more.  This adaptation allowed warm season grasses to recover from heavy grazing by large Pre-Anthropocene mammals.  Today, it makes them ideal plants for soil stabilization.
A male Indigo Bunting has already found some ripe seeds among the heads of flowering Big Bluestem.
A male Indigo Bunting has already found ripe seeds among the heads of flowering Big Bluestem.
Molting Indigo Bunting
Look closely and you’ll see our Indigo Bunting is beginning a pre-migration molt out of its bright-blue breeding (alternate) plumage and into a gray-brown winter (basic) plumage.  The berries of the American Pokeweed upon which it is perched will soon ripen into a dark blue, almost black, color.  Though toxic to humans, these fruits find favor with many species of birds and mammals.
Silky Dogwood
Another great wildlife food is Silky Dogwood (Cornus amomum), a deciduous shrub that sports blue-colored berries in summer and showy, bright-red twigs in winter.  It grows well in wet ground along streams and ponds, as well as in rain gardens.
Great Blue Heron
A Great Blue Heron searches the shallows for small fish.  This species is also a good mouser, at times seen hunting in grassy meadows.  Right now is prime time to see it and a variety of other herons and egrets throughout the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed.

…so don’t let the summertime blues get you down.  Grab a pair of binoculars and/or a camera and go for a stroll!

Photo of the Day

White-tailed Deity and her fawns.
For this White-tailed Deity and her fawns, a dry shoreline provides an opportunity to access the moist, tender greens of emergent plants on a hot summer afternoon.

Photo of the Day

An "Annual Cicada" (Neotibicen) dries its wings after emerging from its exuvia.
The Eastern Scissor Grinder (Neotibicen winnemanna), a species of “Annual Cicada” or “Dog-day Cicada”, dries its wings after emerging from its exoskeleton (exuvia).  After two to five years of subterranean life as a nymph, this adult will soon be ready to fly into the treetops in search of a mate.  There is a sense of urgency.  Summer’s end will bring its life to an end as well.

Butterflies and More at Boyd Big Tree Preserve Conservation Area

If you’re feeling the need to see summertime butterflies and their numbers just don’t seem to be what they used to be in your garden, then plan an afternoon visit to the Boyd Big Tree Preserve along Fishing Creek Valley Road (PA 443) just east of U.S. 22/322 and the Susquehanna River north of Harrisburg.  The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources manages the park’s 1,025 acres mostly as forested land with more than ten miles of trails.  While located predominately on the north slope of Blue Mountain, a portion of the preserve straddles the crest of the ridge to include the upper reaches of the southern exposure.

American Chestnut at Boyd Big Tree Preserve
A grove of American Chestnuts (Castanea dentata) planted at Boyd Big Tree Preserve is part of a propagation program working to restore blight-resistant trees to Pennsylvania and other areas of their former range which included the Appalachians and the upper Ohio River watershed.

Fortunately, one need not take a strenuous hike up Blue Mountain to observe butterflies.  Open space along the park’s quarter-mile-long entrance road is maintained as a rolling meadow of wildflowers and cool-season grasses that provide nectar for adult butterflies and host plants for their larvae.

Butterfly Meadow at Boyd Big Tree Preserve
A view looking north at the butterfly meadow and entrance road at Boyd Big Tree Preserve Conservation Area.  Second Mountain is in the background.
Walking a Meadow Path
Mowed paths follow the entrance road and a portion of the perimeter of the meadow allowing visitors a chance to wander among the waist-high growth to see butterflies, birds, and blooming plants at close range without trampling the vegetation or risking exposure to ticks.
A Silver-spotted Skipper feeding on nectar from Dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum) flowers.
A Silver-spotted Skipper feeding on nectar from the flowers of Indian Hemp (Apocynum cannabinum).  Like the milkweeds, Indian Hemp is a member of the dogbane family (Apocynaceae).
An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail feeding on Common Milkweed.
An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail feeding on Common Milkweed.
Great Spangled Fritillary on Common Milkweed.
A Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele) on Common Milkweed.
A Black Swallowtail feeding on Common Milkweed nectar.
A Black Swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) feeding on Common Milkweed nectar.
A Pipevine Swallowtail on Common Milkweed.
A Pipevine Swallowtail (Battus philenor) on Common Milkweed.
A Pipevine Swallowtail on Common Milkweed.
Another Pipevine Swallowtail on Common Milkweed.  Note the hook-shaped row of red-orange spots on the underside of the hindwing.
A Pipevine Swallowtail on visiting Butterfly Weed.
A Pipevine Swallowtail visiting the brilliant blooms of Butterfly Weed, a favorite of a wide variety of pollinators.
A Black Swallowtail on Butterfly Weed
A Black Swallowtail with damaged wings alights atop a Butterfly Weed flower cluster.  Note the pair of parallel rows of red-orange spot on the underside of the hindwing.
A Monarch on Butterfly Weed
A Monarch feeding on nectar from the flowers of Butterfly Weed.
A mating pair of Eastern Tailed Blues.
A mating pair of Eastern Tailed Blues on a Timothy (Phleum pratense) spike.
A female (left) and male Great Spangled Fritillary.
A male Great Spangled Fritillary (right) pursuing a female.
Common Green Darner
Butterflies aren’t the only colorful insects patrolling the meadows at Boyd Big Tree Preserve.  Dragonflies including Common Green Darners are busily pursuing prey, particularly small flying insects like mosquitos, gnats, and flies.
Juvenile Broad-winged Hawk
Dragonflies themselves can become prey and are much sought after by Broad-winged Hawks. This very vocal juvenile gave us several good looks as it ventured from the forest into the skies above the upper meadow during midday.  It wasn’t yet a good enough flier to snag a dragonfly, but it will have plenty of opportunities for practice during its upcoming fall migration which, for these Neotropical raptors, will get underway later this month.

Do yourself a favor and take a trip to the Boyd Big Tree Preserve Conservation Area.  Who knows?  It might actually inspire you to convert that lawn or other mowed space into much-needed butterfly/pollinator habitat.

While you’re out, you can identify your sightings using our photographic guide—Butterflies of the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed—by clicking the “Butterflies” tab at the top this page.  And while you’re at it, you can brush up on your hawk identification skills ahead of the upcoming migration by clicking the “Hawkwatcher’s Helper: Identifying Bald Eagles and other Diurnal Raptors” tab.  Therein you’ll find a listing and descriptions of hawk watch locations in and around the lower Susquehanna region.  Plan to visit one or more this autumn!

Photo of the Day

Shorebird identification can be notoriously difficult, but it’s a skill best learned with practice.  Now is a good time to become familiar with the two most common species of plovers found in the lower Susquehanna valley.  Numbers of both are increasing on local mudflats as waves of southbound migrants begin to arrive.  The Killdeer in the lower left is a familiar nesting species of barren fields, stone parking lots, and gravel roofs.  Its numbers swell during spring and fall migration, with some lingering into winter until either snow cover or a hard freeze prompts them to finally depart for milder climes.  The Semipalmated Plovers in the upper right are strictly a migratory species in our area, nesting in northern Canada and Alaska and wintering along the American coastlines from Oregon and Delmarva south to Chile and Argentina.  You’ll notice that the Semipalmated Plover has just a single neck ring while the Killdeer has two.  That’s how you can tell them apart in a jiffy.  It’s that easy.