These juvenile Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are among the last big southbound push of Neotropical migrants we’ll see moving through the lower Susquehanna valley in coming days. Be certain to get outside and have a look.
Having emerged from the soil overnight, this pale-colored teneral (soft-bodied) Eastern Scissor Grinder has shed its exuvia (left) and is currently pumping blood throughout its extremities to expand its size and unfurl its wings. During the remainder of the morning, the wings and exoskeleton will darken in color and harden in preparation for flight. As an adult, this cicada then has just weeks to complete its courtship and breeding cycle before facing inevitable doom. To see images and listen to sound clips of this and other annual species, visit our cicada page by clicking the “Cicadas” tab at the top of this page.
The gasoline and gunpowder gang’s biggest holiday of the year is once again upon us. This Independence Day weekend, don’t let the celebration turn to tragedy. Keep a garden hose or fire extinguisher at the ready to dowse any hot embers or other potential troublemakers. Fill a bucket with water for use as a trash receptacle for your hot sparkler rods and other pyrotechnic waste. Have non-combustible lids or covers handy to smother any flare ups while you’re grilling. Don’t forget, they’ll be plenty of testosterone and adrenaline circulating to keep the festivities exciting, so skip the alcohol and energy drinks if you’re driving or lighting off fireworks. Things don’t need to be any more explosive. And remember, the anthem’s lyrics say, “…the rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air…”, not burning your neighbor’s garage down, so maintain a safe distance with your grills, camp fires, and July 4th displays, won’t you please? Have an exciting weekend!
We came across this photo from a dive we did back in 1999 and thought it timely. Here a large non-native Common Carp churns up a cloud of nutrient-charged sediment as it roots its way through a bed of American Eelgrass and Water Stargrass in the Susquehanna below Conewago Falls. (Vintage 35 mm image)
One of dozens of Cedar Waxwings seen descending upon ripe juneberries in a mini grove consisting of either Smooth Shadbush (Amelanchier laevis) or the allied and very similar-looking hybrid juneberry Amelanchier x lamarkii. Smooth Shadbush can be grown as a shrub or small tree and is also known as Smooth Serviceberry, Allegheny Serviceberry, or Smooth Juneberry. The hybrid Amelanchier x lamarkii is believed to be a naturally occurring cross between Smooth Shadbush (A. laevis) and either Canadian Serviceberry (A. canadensis) or Downy Serviceberry (A. arborea). Juneberries/serviceberries/shadbushes, including a number of man-made cultivars, produce white flowers in early spring and can be obtained through numerous suppliers for inclusion in conservation projects, home gardens, or for use as street trees. Believe it or not, the very productive planting seen here was located in a parking lot island at a busy Walmart store.
When it comes to sitting down and watching an episode of Hollywood Squares or indulging in a game of Tic-Tac-Toe, those of us here at susquehannawildlife.net are quick to play right along. But when it comes to mixing it up with a Tick-Backed Doe or a Tick-Backed Buck like this one, you can count us out. Upon finding this button buck infested with engorged Deer Ticks and heading our way on a grassy trail, we decided to turn around and limit our walk to the gravel roadway where there was less of a chance of picking up any hitchhikers from the vegetation where this guy has been spending his time.
Brilliantly colored migrants continue to arrive from their tropical wintering grounds. Look for the Indigo Bunting in thickets and other successional habitat. They are particularly fond of seldom-manicured utility right-of-ways and railroads where males like this one can be seen singing from an exposed perch to defend a nesting territory and attract a mate.
This petite Eastern Cottontail somehow found a path through weekend traffic to discover an abundant supply of lush green Indian Strawberry (Potentilla indica) leaves in the garden at susquehannawildlife.net headquarters. The widely naturalized Indian Strawberry, also known as Mock Strawberry, is native to Asia. It is most easily recognized by its bright yellow flowers which soon yield edible, but not very tasty, little red fruits. I wonder, might the berries be more palatable if dipped in a melted-down chocolate bunny? Food for thought, unless of course you have an aversion to hare in your romantic confections.
Colorful songbirds like this Palm Warbler are beginning to migrate through the lower Susquehanna valley on their way north. Even when the weather is damp and gloomy, be certain to spend some time outdoors if you’d like the chance to see them. Palm Warblers are most frequently found in damp thickets and streamside, but they’ll sometimes show up in densely vegetated parks and gardens during a springtime fallout.
A Ring-necked Pheasant forages among the fresh green growth two weeks to the day after prescribed fire was administered to this parcel at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area to turn back plant succession and maintain grassland habitat.
Late winter is hardly the time of year one would expect to find a grasshopper bouncing around a rocky woodland clearing. But earlier this week during our visit to Rothrock State Forest in Huntingdon County, we photographed this Northern Green-striped Grasshopper (Chortophaga viridifasciata viridifasciata) nymph among the talus atop Tussey Mountain. Unlike the majority of other grasshopper species in the Susquehanna basin which overwinter as eggs, the Northern Green-striped hatches in late summer and progresses through all but the final one or two of its five developmental instars before passing the colder months in a sheltered location among fallen leaves, dried grasses, and decaying plant matter. Often the earliest of our grasshoppers to emerge, the Northern Green-striped nymph soon completes its final molts and reaches adulthood just in time for the warm days of late spring and early summer. Two color forms are common, brown and green, both possessing reddish-brown abdominal segments. Fuchsia-colored erythristic individuals are rare.
2025 begins as the fourth consecutive New Year’s Day with the Green Frogs out and about in the water garden at susquehannawildlife.net headquarters. As colder weather arrives during the next 48 hours, these native amphibians will retreat to the bottom of the ponds and become motionless. The breathing of atmospheric air through their lungs will cease and they will instead exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide by diffusion through their skin. During this time, the pond must not freeze all the way to the bottom and dissolved oxygen levels in the water beneath the ice must remain sufficient to support the hibernating frogs and other life.
Introduced species often exhibit greater vigor than the plants and animals that are indigenous to an ecosystem. Today, we found this Red-eared Slider, a native of the lower Mississippi River basin, basking in the intermittent sunshine on the edge of a Susquehanna valley pond still partially covered with ice from the deep freeze earlier this month. These turtles do not hibernate but instead brumate, remaining motionless on the bottom of the pond or under adjacent embankments. During brumation, they eat nothing, but will come to the surface to bask on warm winter days. This ability to be a “light sleeper” gives the invasive Red-eared Slider an advantage over the native turtles in our ponds, lakes, and rivers. When spring finally does arrive, they’ll be the first to emerge and begin feeding, gaining the vitality they’ll need to start mating and depositing eggs before the local species. Red-eared Sliders were released into the waters of the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed as unwanted pets and are now freely reproducing. Their growing numbers are displacing some of our native species including several of our uncommon and rare turtles.
You may be on the verge of satisfying your appetite with chestnuts from an open fire, but this Red-bellied Woodpecker is just as pleased to retrieve a Shagbark Hickory nut from a hiding place among the tree’s cracks and crevices where it was stashed away earlier in the fall.
Freezing water to the north of the lower Susquehanna valley is currently pressuring migratory waterfowl including these Hooded Mergansers to come south. As local ponds and lakes also become coated with ice, open water on the river offers many benthic feeders their only opportunity to forage.
Sandhill Cranes sometimes stray east from their primary autumn migration routes that take them from marshland breeding grounds in the western Great Lakes and central Canada to wintering areas in and near Florida. These birds, 4 of 19 seen at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area over the weekend, may have been blown into the lower Susquehanna valley last week by the strong northwest winds that brought sub-freezing temperatures to the eastern states and lake-effect snows to counties bordering Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. Migrating Sandhill Cranes can fly at altitudes that make them imperceptible to us on the ground, and can easily get redirected by atmospheric jets with speeds of 60 miles per hour or more. Then again, limited numbers of Sandhill Cranes have, in recent years, been expanding their nesting range east into bogs and other wetlands at scattered locations in northern Pennsylvania, New York, New England, and eastern Canada. Ice and snow cover could have prompted some of these birds to finally move south to pay us a visit. Incidentally, a separate flock of 38 Sandhill Cranes were seen over the weekend just south of the Susquehanna watershed on backwaters of upper Chesapeake Bay at Gunpowder Falls State Park in Harford County, Maryland. These cranes have been present since at least November 25th and may, like birds in previous years, spend the winter.
The arrival of arctic air and sub-freezing temperatures reminds us that winter is soon here. But for this Bald Eagle, preparations for spring are already underway. Pairs nesting in the lower Susquehanna valley have begun courtship and many females will be incubating eggs in January. By March, parents will be bringing food to hungry nestlings. The timing of the Bald Eagle’s breeding cycle provides the best chances for an adequate supply of provisions for their young. Their peak demand for food coincides with the arrival of thousands of migrating waterfowl and other birds and with the migration of suckers and other fish on local streams. From these massive legions of migrants, adult eagles cull the weak and vulnerable, or scavenge the carcasses of those that have already perished. Bald Eagles in Florida and elsewhere in the south have a nesting schedule with similar benefits; their young are hatching now to fed by parents taking advantage of the immense numbers of waterfowl and other birds presently arriving to spend the winter there.
Late this afternoon, this rainbow accompanied passage of a brief rain shower over the Stony Creek Valley and Saint Anthony’s Wilderness near Rausch’s Gap in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.
There’s now a sense of urgency because for the Eastern Chipmunk, the opportunities to gather and store nuts, seeds, and acorns are slipping away. The time has arrived for retreat to its burrow where, because it stores no body fat for winter, this member of the squirrel family (Sciuridae) relies upon its cache of provisions for snacking between periods of extended slumber during the coldest months of the year.
During the summer, the Lesser Angle-winged Katydid has little difficulty hiding among the lush green foliage of hardwood trees. Oft times, the only sign of its presence is its call, a series of short rapid rattles, “ttt—-tttt—-ttt”, issued with a second or two of silence between each rattle. The call is often part of the nocturnal chorus it shares with other species of katydids on warm evenings. Frost and freeze usually bring these annual breeding rituals to end. But during our current resurgence of warm autumn weather, we found this hardy survivor in a forest clearing where it has little hope of escaping notice among bare trees and earth-tone fallen leaves. As the afternoon temperature soared into the upper seventies, it further revealed its presence by striking up its tell-tale mating call, “ttt—-tttt—-ttt.”
Here today, gone tomorrow. This Ruby-throated Hummingbird lingered around the numerous tubular flowers in the headquarters garden until near darkness last evening. It was last seen entering the cover provided by our Eastern Hemlocks where it presumably spent the night. Bright and early this morning, it made repeated visits to Mexican Cigar and this Bat-faced Cuphea to re-energize before resuming its long voyage to the tropics for winter. This marks the third consecutive year we’ve been visited by late-season hummingbirds during the first week of October. All were attracted to our nectar-rich plantings.
We have at last reached the autumnal equinox, a day when everything is even stephen, equal time both with and without sunlight. Southbound birds like this juvenile Scarlet Tanager can now freely be called “fall migrants”, even though the majority of tanagers and other Neotropical species departed for warmer climes earlier this month, technically during the summer season.
It’s a sign that things are about to change. As the Neotropical warbler migration reaches its climax, other small songbirds like this Ruby-crowned Kinglet are beginning to make their southbound movements through the lower Susquehanna valley. For a kinglet, the autumn journey is greatly abbreviated compared to that of the Neotropical species. While the warblers and their traveling companions including vireos and flycatchers are primarily headed to the tropical climate zone for winter, kinglets spend the cold season in the temperate zone, an area encompassing most of the the continental United States and southern Canada. These tiny birds feed mostly on small invertebrates which, particularly during the winter months, they find in spaces among the bark of mature trees.
In the forests and woodlots of the lower Susquehanna watershed, the Black Gum, also known as the Black Tupelo, is always the first of our native trees to pop with autumn color. Its crimson leaves glow in an otherwise green landscape to help lure hungry birds including waxwings, American Robins, and Pileated Woodpeckers to its soon-to-be-ripe berries. The seeds contained in the fruit are thus well-distributed as a by-product of this avian feast. While not among the most massive of our trees, the Black Gum can live for over five hundred years, an age not exceeded by any other non-clonal indigenous flowering plant.
Do you recall our “Photo of the Day” from seven months ago…
Here’s something to look forward to in the new year. The good citizens of East Donegal Township in Lancaster County have partnered with Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay to establish an extensive wildflower meadow on what had been a mowed field of turf grass at Riverside Park in the Susquehanna floodplain near Marietta. As the photo shows, the lawn plants have been eliminated in preparation for seeding with a diverse assortment of native grasses and wildflowers to provide habitat for birds and pollinators including butterflies, bees, and other insects. Once established, the meadow’s extensive vegetative growth will help reduce stormwater runoff by better infiltrating rainfall to recharge the aquifer. During flood events, the plantings will provide soil stabilization and increase the ability of the acreage to uptake nutrients, thus reducing the negative impact of major storms on the quality of water in the river and in Chesapeake Bay. Check the project’s progress by stopping by from time to time in 2024!
Well, here’s what that site looks like today…
The wildflowers, thousands of them, are now in bloom!Black-eyed Susan and Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata) dominate the assortment currently in flower.
And there are pollinating insects galore, most notably butterflies…
A Cabbage White collecting nectar on Blue Vervain.A Clouded or Orange Sulphur among the grasses in the meadow.A Silver-spotted Skipper.The Least Skipper is our tiniest butterfly.The Little Glassywing (Vernia verna), this one feeding on vervain nectar, deposits its eggs on Purpletop grass, which then functions as the host plant for this butterfly’s larvae.A Summer Azure (Celastrina neglecta) feeding on the nectar of a Black-eyed Susan.A Common Buckeye on a “Gloriosa Daisy”, a showy, large-flowered cultivar of Black-eyed Susan.A Red-winged Blackbird with a caterpillar found among the meadow’s lush growth.An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Blue Vervain. Nearby Yellow (Tulip) Poplars and other trees serve as host plants for this butterfly’s larvae.The black morph of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail shows subdued shading in the wings that closely resembles the brilliant color patterns of the more familiar yellow form.The Sachem, this one visiting a Black-eyed Susan, is a variable species with a range that normally lies south of the 40th parallel, the line of latitude that intersects the Susquehanna in the area of the Conejohela Flats at Washington Boro.A Sachem visiting the blooms of Oxeye sunflower. During recent weeks, scorching winds from the south and southwest have transported an abundance of these vagrant skippers into the lower Susquehanna valley and beyond.A male Sachem approaching the bloom of a “Gloriosa Daisy”. Miles north of the 40th parallel, wandering Sachems are currently the most numerous of the butterflies at the Riverfront Park wildflower meadow.Here and there among the meadow’s plantings we noticed one of our favorites starting to flower, the Partridge Pea.Partridge Pea happens to be a host plant for another vagrant from the south, the big, lime-yellow Cloudless Sulphur. We saw at least half a dozen patrolling the meadow.The stars of the show are the Zebra Swallowtails, gorgeous butterflies that rely on stands of native Common Paw-paw trees in the river floodplain to host their eggs and larvae.The red-white-and-blue underside of a Zebra Swallowtail.WOW!
Why on earth would anyone waste their time, energy, and money mowing grass when they could have this? Won’t you please consider committing graminicide this fall? That’s right, kill that lawn—at least the majority of it. Then visit the Ernst Seed website, buy some “Native Northeast Wildlflower Mix” and/or other blends, and get your meadow planted in time for the 2025 growing season. Just think of all the new kinds of native plants and animals you’ll be seeing. It could change your life as well as theirs.
A Snowberry Clearwing (Hemaris diffinis), more commonly known as a hummingbird moth, visits the flowers of Blue Vervain in the Riverfront Park wildflower meadow.
Similar in appearance to the invasive Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, the Western Conifer Seed Bug (Leptoglossus occidentalis) is a seldom-noticed denizen of pines. During the 1950s, their range started expanding from the American west into the eastern states. Like the stink bug, the Western Conifer Seed Bug emits a buzzing sound in flight and is capable of releasing a nasty-smelling compound from scent glands when harassed. They feed on sap from developing pine cones, often causing deformities to the seeds, but posing no real harm to the trees. The Western Conifer Seed Bug causes greatest consternation during the fall when, like the invasive stink bugs, it gathers in numbers and attempts to enter homes to spend the winter. Those that get inside are mostly just an annoyance, but there have been reports of plumbing leaks caused by individual insects piercing PEX plastic water tubing with their mouths.
Love is in the Air- The conspicuously large Clubbed Mydas Fly (Mydas clavatus) is a harmless mimic of the spider wasps (Pompilidae). They carry their masquerade to the extreme with bold behavior that includes pumping of their abdomen to simulate an ability to sting. Adults visit flowers to feed on pollen and nectar while the larvae are predatory, relying on a diet of scarab beetles (Scarabaeidae) which they find crawling within the dead and rotting wood where they reside. When mating, adults fly around in copula, reminding one of “love bugs” and other members of the fly family Bibionidae, the march flies. This mating pair was photographed along the Susquehanna at Conewago Falls.
