Siskins!

I didn't know how little I knew this plain little bird. Every year I watch for the Pine Siskins, and almost every year, late in the migration or early in the winter I see one or two, or even a few. But that's not enough to learn a bird. I didn't know their flight call, I didn't know their song, I didn't even know how much they vary.

The finch forecast was dismal on the subject:

Pine Siskin

A conifer seed specialist in winter, most Pine Siskins should leave the province this fall because the spruce cone crop is poor in the boreal forest. It is uncertain whether the huge white pine seed crop will keep some Pine Siskins in central and northern Ontario this winter.

Well something has kept them in southern Ontario! Since the beginning of January there have been large flocks of Pine Siskins all over the place! Here's a story from Northumberland Today (Northumberland is basically next door to Hastings, home to thomasburg): Finches arriving in huge numbers

Here are some that dropped by in November of 2005. The ones around now have been too flighty for me to get an identifiable shot.

We've had a flock of thirty or more in the yard, at the feeders, every day for a couple of weeks now. So now I know: While many are drab, some have a surprising amount of yellow hidden under their wings and in their tails. I know their call, and I've even heard some singing. Now I finally know the Pine Siskin!

Renovations

Just making a few changes--posting may resume soon.

Porch Spiders: End of an Era

It's been a while, but so much is happening now that spring is well underway (or nearly over) I thought I better start doing some updating.

The ceiling of the front porch has been deteriorating rather badly over the last few years, so a couple of days ago I pulled it down to get ready for the new one my brother will be putting up in a few weeks. There was no way to do this without displacing the porch spiders, who reappeared from wherever they spend the winter not long ago. I knew this day was coming, so I'd intended to move the eggs from last fall before they hatched, but I was too late, so there were also masses of young of the year to move as well.

Hatchlings
There was a rather gruesome drama going on the day I did this, so before I got started I snapped a couple of pics.

I've not yet been able to identify these spiders to my satisfaction, but after a few years of close observation, here's what I suspect is their life history. Eggs are laid in the fall to hatch the next spring. Moms are in their second year, and disappear after they lay their eggs, so I think they only live for two years. Newly hatched young, those that survive, spend their first season growing, overwinter, and then in their second season reproduce. They grow quickly through the summer, mate, and lay their eggs. Last year, one spider was too late laying her eggs. The weather changed just as she was spinning the case for them, and she never finished.

Last year I got to see a lot of courting (at right, courting couple from last July), fighting among males, and mating (not terribly unlike fighting--a little scary). Over the years I have also spent lots of time observing their feeding. These are web spiders, active mainly at night, they wait for prey to hit their webs, then swoop in and wrap them up, sometimes feeding immediately, sometimes saving them for later. They are relatively large spiders, but will take on prey much larger than themselves when the opportunity arises. One got a very large dragonfly last year, for example.

But, I learned, they do not always sit and wait.

Scoping out the scene.
As soon as the newly hatched spiders started to spread out, two adults swooped in to hunt them. This is so out of character for these spiders, I suspect that this is a special tradition for them--cull the young, get a big meal, let this generation invest in the next.

Baby spider, there's nothing better!
So I was very glad to see it. I would have missed it if the timing had been a little different, and I was also able to move quite a few of the young ones, and most of the adults to trees and shrubs, after watching for a while, in the hope that they will like these almost as much as they like a porch.

Did I say "end of an era"? Well, maybe not. I didn't manage to move them all (a couple were well hidden), so maybe after everything settles down, I will once again be sharing the front porch with a couple of these beautiful spiders.

Circus of the Spineless Rides Again

If it's the end of another month, then it's time for the circus, Circus of the Spineless, a monthly collection of the best of invertebrate blogging from around the world. The latest edition (the 24th!) is graciously hosted by Demented Pixie of Naturalist Notebook. Check it out!



Next month the circus will appear at The Annotated Budak.

Who Flipped Rocks?

International Rock-flipping Day (IRFD) really was international. The following is a list of blog posts and links to a couple of image sites (courtesy of via negativa), reporting/revealing what went on, what was found, etc. Note, especially, that Fragments From Floyd took the prize for a photo of a non-human rock flipper. Check out also the small but deadly (?) discovery Pablo made at Roundrock.

The Flickr photo pool continues to grow, along with Bev’s Pbase gallery. Blogger-participants so far include:

Windywillow (Ireland)

Heraclitean Fire (London, England)

Sheep Days (Illinois, USA)

Earth, Wind & Water (somewhere in the Caribbean)

Pocahontas County Fare (West Virginia, USA)

chatoyance (Austin, Texas)

Fragments from Floyd (Virginia, USA) - GRAND PRIZE WINNER

Watermark (Montana, USA)

pohanginapete (Aotearoa/New Zealand)

Fate, Felicity, or Fluke (Oregon, USA)

Thomasburg Walks (Ontario, Canada)

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Woman (Queensland, Australia)

The Transplantable Rose (Austin, Texas)

Nature Woman (New York State, USA)

Marja-Leena Rathje (British Columbia, Canada)

A Blog Around the Clock (North Carolina, USA)

Busy Dingbat’s Sphere (West Virginia, USA)

Hoarded Ordinaries (New Hampshire, USA)

Congo Days (Kinshasa, Congo)

this too (London, England)

Roundrock Journal (Missouri, USA)

Wanderin’ Weeta (British Columbia, Canada)

Blaugustine (London, England)

A Honey of an Anklet (Virginia, USA)

Looking Up (Ohio, USA)

Ontario Wanderer (Ontario, Canada)

Bug Safari (California, USA)

Riverside Rambles (Missouri, USA)

Pure Florida (Florida, USA)

Burning Silo (Ontario, Canada)

More links, added Tuesday, September 4:

Musings from Myopia (Texas, USA)

Cicero Sings (British Columbia, Canada)

Joan (Missouri, USA)

Nature Remains (Kentucky, USA)

prairie point (north Texas)

Still more, September, 5:

Cephalopodcast.com (Florida, USA) - VIDEO

Walking Prescott (Prescott, Arizona)

Dave at via negativa will be continuing to update the list on this post as new reports come in--so check in there. Also see his first IRFD post here.

International Rock-flipping Day

The day started well. I was out in the yard looking for the noisy Blue Jay family I could hear in the elms when I saw some other birds flitting to and fro--turned out to be a couple of Scarlet Tanagers in winter plumage, or young of the year or both. Not entirely unknown in the yard during the migration, but always a pleasure to see them. I moved down the lawn watching them and listening to a Pileated Woodpecker who had started to call. Then the Woodpecker flew by me heading east, followed almost immediately by a rabbit running in the other direction. Meantime a couple of warblers (of the confusing fall variety) turned up in the Maple by the house, and then I remembered: Today is International Rock-flipping Day!

So after breakfast I headed out across the scrape, intending to go into the cedar bush and the sometime swamp in its midst. I haven't been there for a while because of mosquitoes, but the morning was cool and its getting late in the season. Once I got to the scrape, considering rocks all along the way, I saw a small raptor in the top a dead tree and was distracted. It flew off as I moved towards it, so I didn't get a good look, but I suspect it was a Sharp-shinned Hawk, given the few features I could make out, and the time of year and location. But back to the rocks. Near the edge of the cedar bush I saw a rather attractive rock--might be a good first candidate. I took this picture of it, as they do on CSI, document the scene before disturbing it. Then, as I bent down to move it, I noticed that it was not alone. On a very small milkweed plant leaning over the right-hand side of the rock there was quite a substantial Monarch caterpillar munching away. So, another photo, and then I moved on: on to the cedar bush.

We had a very dry June here, a nice rainy July and then an exceedingly dry August. The wetland in the midst of the cedar bush was not merely dry, but incredibly overgrown. Elderberries, Clematis, Joe Pye Weed, Jewelweed, Goldenrod, and lots I couldn't identify were tall and densely massed. The landmarks of winter and spring were gone, and I was lost in a few metres. I had pictured finding some rocks that I know are there, that have water running over them in the spring, and would still have dampness underneath them now, but I couldn't even being to look for them. The margins of the spring stream were completely covered up. So I moved into the cedar bush to look for a prospect there. And found this can--in front of a rock, which as you can probably tell was a little too big for flipping without a backhoe. I looked under the can, but found nothing.

Meantime I myself had been found: A couple of chickadees had turned up to give me hell for being back there. I watched them for a while, even pished back, then just as they were getting bored with me a small flock of warblers came on the scene. Some of the "confusing" variety, a pair of American Redstarts, and what I am pretty sure was a Blue-winged Warbler. This last one is always of interest to me, even as a migrant, because of the role it plays as parent to the hybrid Brewster's Warbler, of which I've written often (here, for example, or here). So I spent some very pleasant moments peering up into the cedars, trying to see the warblers before they too moved off. Then I decided to take my quest to the Far Field (that is, the young forest on the western side of my regular walk).

Now this was an interesting rock. It was in the sun and the area around it was relatively dry, but this rock was wet. I could tell that it had been in this spot for sometime when I looked underneath it, but I couldn't help thinking that someone or something had just turned this rock over and left it in place upside down....Who? Why? Underneath it there was a very large cricket that fled immediately and a colony of very shiny, small black ants, including one winged one. Ants are the invertebrates found most often under the rocks around here. I know a little something now about moths and butterflies, I know some of the spider families and a few species, I even know a few true bugs, and other insects, but of ants all I know is that there are many, many species represented around here and I don't know the names of any of them. Under any rock I might see a species I've never seen before, as was the case here, I believe. Still, it was good to finally find a happening rock.


I continued down the Far Field, noticing the beautiful purple asters of fall, and yes, peering into them for flower crab spiders. Of course I found one, not Misumena vatia, but a crab spider nonetheless. You can see it just going over the edge, being camera shy.

At the north end of the Far Field, in a small area that has been bulldozed some, there is a rockpile around the base of a small tree. This is where another year a very vocal groundhog screamed at me without ever showing itself. Nobody took any notice of me today as I peered into the pile and moved a rock or two. I knew that there could be something interesting in there anyway, snake perhaps. But I didn't want to take the pile apart, and then be stuck with trying to figure out how to put it back together again, so I photographed it and left it, capturing one of the more interesting of the yellow butterflies that were so numerous this morning; there were maybe three quite similar species flitting around, too quickly to get a fix on.

Okay, I looked at birds, I looked at butterflies, I looked at flower spiders, but I flipped a couple of things, and better I found that thinking about rocks broadened my attention to include more of the features of the land. In short, it was a good time. Thanks to Dave for proposing it. And watch here for a list of links to the other participants in the event we call International Rock-flipping day!

IRFD Logo: Jason Robertshaw of Cephalopodcast

Flip Some Rocks on September 2

Dave of Via Negativa has called for September 2 to be designated International Rock-flipping Day:

a day for everybody to go outside — go as far as you have to — and flip over a rock (or two, or three). We could bring our cameras and take photos, film, sketch, paint, or write descriptions of whatever we find. It could be fun for the whole family!

I've spent so much time this year looking into flowers for spiders, looking at butterflies, looking into foliage for caterpillars and yet I haven't looked under a rock even once. So I'll be there, September 2, looking under some rocks. And apparently there is even a prize being offered:

The grand prize goes to anyone who can get a picture of a non-human critter, such as a bear or a raccoon, flipping a rock on September 2. (I don’t know what the grand prize will be yet, but trust me, it’ll be good.)

Bear-flipped rock

I found this flipped rock last year, so it won't qualify. Oh yeah, and the bear had already gone when I snapped the picture. But I'll be on the lookout.

To find out more about International Rock-flipping day click here. Or read Bev's post at Burning Silo, here.

Giant Swallowtail in Thomasburg

I first saw this butterfly on a couple of occasions a couple of weeks ago--"what a big swallowtail that is," I thought to myself, "Not a tiger swallowtail either, and look at that strange yellow body..." Surely such a big swallowtail must be a Giant Swallowtail. But the Giant is a southern species, not known, I thought, in Canada, beyond the Carolinian region. I didn't get a photo then, but I checked the guides, and wrote to the Eastern Ontario Nature List. The Giant in the guides looked like my butterfly I thought, but I wanted to see it again to be sure. And the response I got from the List was that there were records for Prince Edward County (well, sure, that's pretty Carolinian in its way), and for Belleville (Belleville is a mere 25 km south of Thomasburg, and aside from being on the shores of Lake Ontario, not terribly different zone wise). Another post to the list this morning reported many sightings of Giant Swallowtails this past weekend on the south shore of Prince Edward County.
Finally, today, another giant swallowtail, again at mid-day, again on my mother's beautiful buddleia (beloved of butterflies). And this big butterfly was indeed the Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes)

Papilio cresphontes on Buddleia
Food plants for the larvae of this butterfly include Common Hoptree (Ptelea trifoliata) and Prickly Ash (Xanthoxylum americanum). We have a couple of specimen plantings of Common Hoptree (aka Wafer Ash), a species at risk in the small range of Ontario where it occurs naturally (here's a range map). We are growing it outside of its range here--but so far, so good. In more southern regions the Giant Swallowtail larva feeds on citrus, and is known as the Orange Dog, not well-loved by citrus growers. The leaves of the hoptree are said to have a citrusy smell when crushed. (I'll have to go check when I'm done here.) The Prickly Ash is very "citrusy" in a number of ways. They both come by it honestly, being members of the Rue family (Rutaceae) along with oranges and lemons etc.

Fruit of the Prickly Ash

Friday Hornworm

I found this on a baseball cap that was lying on the floor on the porch. On disturbance it started motoring along the concrete floor towards the wall of the house. That didn't seem good, so I encouraged it to climb onto a maple leaf also lying there and moved it into the garden. Then I went into the house to try to find out what it was--it was gone when I returned.

Pretty caterpillar, on a leaf not of its own choosing

I knew on sight that it was a hornworm, but what kind? I consulted BugGuide.net, of course, and scanned through the hornworms there. Turns out, it is most likely a Snowberry Clearwing (Hemaris diffinis) larva, not entirely of the brown form, nor of the regular green (see this page showing different colour phases of this caterpillar). It has the yellow at the base of the horn, and around the "neck," and the black dots that seem to define this species. Interesting because I've never been sure whether I've seen diffinis, or whether all the clearwings I've seen have been the very similar Hemaris thysbe. And now I have good reason to believe that the Snowberry does come around here.

Join us on the Friday Ark!

A Birder's Blog Meme

This week John (of New Jersey) of A DC Birding Blog tagged me with a birder's meme (originated by Cogresha of Earth House Hold, a new blog to me, and worth checking out). The form is simple, just seven easy birder questions:

1. What is the coolest bird you have seen from your home?

This is the question that grabbed me. Not so easy when I started to think about it. The coolest bird. When I'd been in Thomasburg for just a short while, before I'd gotten involved in the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas Project, and got serious about the birds, I was sitting on the front porch when an Indigo Bunting flew in to perch briefly on a house plant on the porch with me, not much more than a metre away. I'd never seen such a stunning bird at such close range. The sun was hitting it just right--the blue of it was amazing. The coolest?

During the Great Gray Owl irruption of 2005 I got to see crows roust one of these magnificent birds out of a dead tree at the back of the yard. Not a great look at the bird (I did get a good look that winter, described here) but what a sight to see that impossibly tall owl lift off and fly away. Pretty darn cool.

But what about the Northern Shrike that came and landed in the snowball bush at the front of the house one winter afternoon--to the great consternation of the feeder birds? The Northern Harrier that perched in a dead tree at the back and let me walk up to within about 20 feet? The annual late-summer flyover of the Nighthawks?

Then there was the visit by a flock of Pine Grosbeaks, never before seen here by me, never before seen so far south by me. Very cool.

But no, the very coolest bird is none of these. It's the Red-eyed Vireo (Vireo olivaceus). Vireos of all kinds pass through here regularly in the spring, and the fall often brings one or two to the yard, but this year was different. I noticed in the spring that I was hearing a Red-eyed sing rather more than I was used to, day after day, on and on. And call too, that strange scree. (There were days that I thought I'd go mad.) Gradually I realized that there was a nesting pair here. And then I noticed that there was another pair--two nesting pairs where I'd never seen even one before. The Red-eyed vireo is a very common denizen of mixed and deciduous forests (in this range), but what was it doing here, in this yard?

I've been here ten years now, and in that time the trees in the yard, some mature when I came, some just babies, and the shrubs, have all grown, until finally this year I realized, with the help of the vireos, it is quite a different place. It's a forest now. Sure, there are a couple of fields around that are mowed, but the yard, and the hamlet itself is much more forest than not compared to what it was when I first saw it. And the far field? I'll have to start capitalizing that: Far Field, a place name, no longer a description of that place that used to be a field with a partial cover of a planting of young conifers. Now its a young forest, as willows and poplars (for the most part) have filled in between the conifers, and grown into real trees. This year I finally noticed that when I stand in the spot now where I stood six years ago at the north end of the far field and watched a bear bound into the cedar bush at the south end, all I see is green, a screen of trees, no distant vista at all.

So, gradually this place has been turning into a very different kind of place, and the Red-eyed Vireo made me see it. What could be cooler than that?

2. If you compose lists of bird species seen, what is your favorite list and why?

The only real listing I've done is data collection for the Breeding Atlas and Christmas Bird Counts. Of those the Breeding Atlas is my favourite, because it was an accumulation of breeding evidence over five years, a growing picture of the area. I do wish I kept a yard list though--I just can't seem to make myself really do it.

3. What sparked your interest in birds?

My first interest in the natural world, one of my earliest interests, was fostered by my mother and my paternal grandfather, laying the groundwork for a life-long study. The attention it's received has waxed and waned depending on where I was living, and what I else I was doing. Why birds? Birds are the vertebrates that are most accessible, which is why I enjoy them so much. Unlike mammals, most of them they live much of their lives in daylight, right out where you can watch. The Breeding Atlas experience gave me the structure I needed to take my knowledge of the birds to a whole new level.

4. If you could only bird in one place for the rest of your life where would it be and why?

It would be right here. There is so much more to learn. And now that I have a heightened sense of habitat change, thanks to the vireo, even more than I used to appreciate. I like birding places I know well. I like birding the breeding season, the season when one can return to a good spot and be reasonably assured that one will learn something more about birds already noted. I like birding successive seasons in the same spot, so I can ask myself questions such as, "Why no Kingbirds nesting here this year?" And come up with an answer: "Because it's not a field anymore."

5. Do you have a jinx bird? What is it and why is it jinxed?

The Snowy Owl jumps to mind, but really if I were willing to go to it (i.e., travel roughly 75 km to the known good spot some winter day), I'd probably have seen one by now. I want one to come to me. (See answer to question 4) If I'd been asked before this summer I might have said the Ovenbird, so often heard, and yet never seen, by me. But this season one popped up very kindly and let me have a good look. I guess I'll have to get a new one.

6. Who is your favorite birder? and why?

Not sure how to answer this. Like John I usually go out alone, but I have enjoyed the people I went out with on all the Christmas Bird Counts I've done. And I was helped a great deal by some very experienced birders I met through the Breeding Atlas, particularly John Blaney, with whom I spent a very productive morning in Vanderwater Conservation Area a few years ago. Then there's Terry Sprague; I haven't been out with him, but have gotten lots of help from him over the years in narrowing down identifications, etc.

7. Do you tell non-birders you are a birder? What do they say to you when they find out?

I don't know that I've said to anyone that I am a birder. But lots of people know, one way and another, at least that I watch the birds. When it comes up, they either say little or nothing, "Oh, yes?" Or they ask me about a bird they've seen.


Thanks, John (and Cogresha). Good questions--got me to try to articulate some of the things I've been thinking about lately. So now to tag: Crafty Gardener, Duncan, and Granny J. I really want to know what the coolest bird you've ever seen from home is, and why.

Earth House Hold is keeping a list of links to everyone who catches this meme.

But also, be sure to check out the 56th Edition of I and the Bird, over at Big Spring Birds for more birder talk, bird stories, and to get ready for summer's end.

Friday Spider

Now that the goldenrod is blooming I've been looking for a yellow goldenrod crab spider doing what its name suggests it should. This morning I found one, mature, yellow and working the goldenrod--just in time to board the Friday Ark.

If it hadn't been for the fly in her jaws I probably wouldn't have seen her.

Sphinx Moth!

I was out in the backyard the other night with a flashlight in my hand when a really big moth flew by in front of me and landed on the edge of a garden bed. Early in the season I saw a big sphinx moth of some kind (judging by the shape of the wings) feeding on petunias in hanging baskets on the front porch on several occasions, but I never had a flashlight handy (kept forgetting about it until I saw it again), so never got a good look. This time, by sheer accident, I was all set.

Resting
The moth buzzed its wings as it lay on the ground for a bit, then quieted, letting me get a very good look, and take this not so good picture. The moth wasn't in either of my mickey-mouse guides, and a search of the web didn't turn it up, or at least produced lists of images of possibilities so long that I didn't have the patience to wait for each to load so that I could compare them. So once again I turned to the BugGuide. And I wasn't disappointed. Within the hour I had my answer: Pandorus Sphinx (Eumorpha pandorus).

This is a very beautiful moth, with a quite stunning caterpillar. There are better images at the Moth Photographers Group here. The caterpillar feeds on Wild Grape and Virginia Creeper, which we have in abundance around here--grape for ever, and Virginia Creeper starting to catch up (because of the warmer winters perhaps). Another caterpillar to keep my eyes open for.

The moth was motionless on the ground when I left it, and gone by morning.

Friday Walkingstick

This pretty creature visited the porch the other day, and happily walked all over my hands. If only macro shots of my hands were more flattering I'd post one here. Instead, here it is walking on the edge of the arm of a Muskoka chair (called south of the 49th parallel an Adirondack chair).


Much more delicate than the brown Northern Walkingsticks (Diapheromera femorata) I posted about last year (Walking Stick Love), when I coaxed this one into some foliage in the front garden it disappeared into it, its colour and shape being such excellent camouflage. Not so much a walkingstick as a walking blade of new grass, or walking stem.

Based on this page at BugGuide, I think this is probably an immature Diapheromera femorata. Based on that and on the fact that there aren't very many species of walkingstick this far north, and this is the most common. Interesting the difference in colour between this and the adult form--suggests to me the possibility that diet changes as life progresses, taking the insect into different habitats.

I hope its cryptic colouration will keep it safe on the Friday Ark.

My First Butterfly

Everyone seemed to be doing it this year, so I gave it a try. I collected a couple of Monarch caterpillars (Danaus plexippus), and a few eggs and brought them in to watch them develop, and take them out of the predator-rich world. The largest of the ones collected turned out to be in its final stage as a caterpillar, and after a few days of rather voracious eating formed a chrysalis.

By sheer luck I got to see it turn from caterpillar to chrysalis. After a quiet period of about a day in the "J" formation, where the caterpillar hangs from its chosen spot (attached to the screening over the container where it spent its final days as a caterpillar) looking like a J, there was some vigorous wiggling, then the skin burst, and rolled up to reveal the chrysalis beneath. The skin soon dropped off--movement ceased, and within a few hours the gold necklace and spots appeared on the chyrsalis. That was the morning of July 25. On the morning of August 5 the chrysalis was transparent and the butterfly within was clearly visible. Then, when my back was turned, the butterfly emerged.

As soon as I noticed I took the container outside and watched the butterfly pump up its wings for a while. Then took the screen off and hung it up on the patio so it could rest relatively safely, and leave at will.

Getting ready
The whole process, from eclosing to flying free took about two hours. It spent the entire time preparing for flight on the screen, first clinging on right by (or on) the shell of the chrysalis, then later walking about a bit. I missed the takeoff, saw a Monarch flitting about the garden by the patio, then noticed that my new butterfly was gone. It was a great relief to me that it all worked out--I'm pretty ambivalent about taking critters out of the wild, being a let-nature-take-its-course kind of nature watcher, but this has been very interesting. I just have two more. One formed a chrysalis on Aug 2, and the other is sitting in a "J" as I write.

Traffic and the American Dagger Moth

A few weeks ago there was big news (something about a client list) in the DC Madam case--a legal case involving a woman of a different name who ran an escort agency with the rather familiar name of Pamela Martin & Associates. Everytime something happens in the case I get a lot of visitors--oddly enough to the post Happy Birthday, PZ Myers!!

Well, I haven't posted for a while, and nothing new has broken in the case, and usually when that happens my traffic drops off. But not this time. Why? The page ranking tells the tale. Hits on American Dagger Moth have exceeded hits on the homepage for days and days. Once again, I learn something from the searchers--look for American Dagger Moth caterpillars. I've actually only seen one so far this year, but elsewhere in North America these caterpillars must be legion--or at least touching peoples' lives in a whole new way. I've had a couple of recent requests for info on the post--and have responded by email as best I could. No, not poisonous. And, I don't know what can be done for an injured caterpillar but let nature take its course. Meantime, enjoy a jigsaw puzzle: Dagger Moth Caterpillar Jigsaw Puzzle.

Since I know that there are caterpillar fans dropping by, let me suggest that when you move on, move on to Words and Pictures for the most recent staging of the Circus of the Spineless, the blog carnival dedicated to invertebrates. Caterpillars, yes, but so much more!

Flower Crab Spider on Geranium Blossom

I and the Bird--Second Anniversary Edition

I'm with Clare on this--where does the time go? Another great year of I and the Bird has passed--another year of great collections every two weeks of the best of bird and birder blogging, hosted by different members of the bird blogging community, a community that is still growing by leaps and bounds. The Anniversary Edition, #53, is up at the home of I and the Bird: 10,000 Birds, hosted by the founder, Mike. And it does not disappoint--check it out.

I started Thomasburg Walks in order to familiarize myself with Blogger because I'd been hired to help someone customize her Blogger blog format. The theme for my blog came naturally--it filled a need I had to memorialize some of what I was learning about this little bit of the world. In my first few months of blogging I wandered through the blogosphere reading political blogs, and the occasional teenaged-angst blog, wondering why there seemed to be no nature blogs. Then gradually I began to find them (I think the first was Living the Scientific Life), and soon I came across 10,000 birds, learned of Mike's then newborn blog carnival, I and the Bird, and contributed (Little Brown Birds--Part 2) to a blog carnival for the first time: I and the Bird #2. Since then I've found a wealth of bird and nature blogs (many of which are listed in my blogroll), been a contributor to other carnivals, and learned an enormous amount through sharing observations across the nature blogging community.

Thanks, Mike, for I and the Bird.
Happy Anniversary, and may there be many more!

Three Crab Spiders

After a quiet period there's been quite a bit of singing lately as the birds who nest again started getting ready. So I was determined to get out for a bit of birdwatching. I did, and saw lots, but everyone looked so big! A common yellowthroat, really? It looks the size of a finch. And gradually I realized that it's the spider eyes. I am learning to pick out spider types by GISS, pulling me into tiny world.

In the far field I saw these three. Two on milkweed, one on brown-eyed susan. One was Misumena vatia (Goldenrod Crab Spider), but the other two?

Goldenrod Crab Spider on Milkweed
One was clearly something quite different, the other just a little different.

A spider of another colour

Not M. vatia, I think, but something related
I did some research, in part by checking out Bev's (Burning Silo) Crab Spider Gallery, but couldn't find a match I had any confidence in. Looking at a recent post of Bev's, possibly the last one is Misumenops asperatus.

Lovely spiders whoever they are.

Tuesday Butterfly: Red Admiral

The Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta rubria) common butterfly around here, I believe, but this year there have been more than usual.


This one looked and acted like today was its first as a butterfly.

More from Rugosa World

A July bioblitz of the Rosa rugosa alba in the yard would take hours and hours, and could be done every day and produce new results each day. And this rose bush, about 2 metres high and almost as wide, is mere steps from the front door.

I've been watching a number of Misumena vatia over the past few weeks (inspired by Spider WebWatch). These spiders, ambush predators, stay in one spot for extended periods, making them excellent subjects for long observation. I can see what they're eating, how fast they're growing, and even guess as to when they're pregnant, and then eventually see their egg cases. There's one on the Rugosa now I've been watching for some time that has a prodigious appetite. She moves occasionally as blooms come and go and I can usually find her again by looking for the sucked-dry rose chaffers she's dropped onto the leaves below her chosen spot. This morning she has a moth, and twice now she's had a small bumblebee, which surprised me: small, but not compared to her.

Misumena vatia at Lunch
So there I am, staring at the rose bush, looking for spiders, and now that I'm developing an eye for them I'm seeing that there are many other spiders (and many other critters all together) living there. I was startled by the one below because of its white abdomen. Most of the M. vatia I find on the bush are white, so that's what I look for in a scan, but this little one was no crab spider.

What long, spindly legs you have
The spider is sitting just below a developing rose hip (not an apple), and in the upper left of the picture you can see the leg of the rose chaffer it was wrapping up when I first spotted it, which gives an idea of how small this spider is.

I couldn't see a web, just a few random strands of webbing, and the obvious silk production and webbish behaviour of wrapping prey. I hunted around for an ID, gave up and sent an image to BugGuide. In very short order I had a response (click on the link to see just how short). Take a look at Enoplognatha ovata, a member of the cobweb spider family. I did, and I think they got it!

I really think it is Enoplognatha ovata