South Carolina, Pt. 1

As you might know, I am currently taking Ornithology (the study of birds) at Ohio University. This is one of the required classes for my Wildlife and Conservation Biology major, and also one of my most-anticipated classes of my college career. We go on weekly field labs (You can read about each one at this link), but we also get to go on two big trips. One of these trips is to Lake Erie, which is coming up in November, but the other trip was last week. As you might guess by the title, it was a trip down to South Carolina. The point of this trip was to expose us to birds we would normally never see in Ohio, and so we were doing some relatively intense birding to find all those special species. If you've ever went birding to that degree, you probably know that taking photos is pretty difficult, as you simply don't have the time for it. So sadly I don't have a bunch of photos, but I'll try to make do with the ones I did take.

We left Athens, Ohio, at 8 AM on Thursday, September 24th. Eleven hours and a slight detour later, we arrived at our destination, Hunting Island State Park. Hunting Island State Park is located in extreme southern South Carolina. The entire park is located on an island in the Atlantic Ocean. This island is one of the few remaining undeveloped barrier islands located within the so-named Sea Islands, which is a chain of tidal and barrier islands ranging from mid-South Carolina to extreme northern Florida. Hunting Island has a subtropical climate and consists of several different ecosystems. On the Eastern side of the island is the Atlantic Ocean, shown above. The Western side consists of extensive salt marsh habitat. The island itself consists mainly of maritime forest. In this part of the world, maritime forests are dominated by evergreen trees, with the majority of those trees being pine trees. In this case Loblolly Pine was the dominant tree, with Slash Pine, Southern Live Oak, and other trees mixed in. The iconic Cabbage Palm occupied the mid-story, which you can see in the photo above. Those tall pines pictured are the Loblolly Pine. The understory was occupied primarily by Saw Palmetto, Serenoa repens. An interesting and well-recognized species of fern-like palm, Saw Palmetto is restricted to the Southern Atlantic Coast and Eastern Gulf Coast. It can be found in only one county in South Carolina (Beaufort), which is where Hunting Island is located. There are other similar-looking palm species found in the understory here though as well, such as Needle Palm.

We arrived near sunset, ate in the city of Beaufort, and then headed toward the park in the dark. It had began to rain by the time we arrived, which added a whole new dimension of fun as we frantically tried setting up our tents before they got too wet inside. That rain turned into a storm with incredible lightning, Earth-shaking thunder, and torrential rain. It turns out that storm system also spawned an EF-2 tornado in Johns Island, which was only a mere 35 miles away from us. Thankfully we just received heavy downpours; a tornado might have put a slight damper on the trip, to say the least.

When morning came, the rain had stopped but the skies were still pretty overcast. We ventured out to the beach to look for shorebirds and other related birds. Laughing Gulls, Brown Pelicans, and various terns quickly greeted us. A few shorebirds were out and about, including a Ruddy Turnstone, multiple Willets, and some peeps we couldn't identify. A lagoon on the other side of the dunes held a Bald Eagle, Osprey, Little Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons, and Snowy Egrets. Many warbler species flitted about the trees, and Brown-Headed Nuthatches squeaked like a dog toy from the canopy.

After a few hours, we moved to the Western side of the island. This side of the island has an extensive salt marsh. A salt marsh is essentially the area between open salt water and dry land. This area gets routinely flooded with salt water every day due to the tides, which in turn creates a soggy and salty salt marsh. I took this photo during low tide, and you can see how the salt water is restricted to a shallow river (named Johnson Creek). Once the high tide comes in, the water level will rise (in the case of the day this was taken, it rose 7 feet), and most of the Smooth Cordgrass, Spartina alterniflora, that you see will be nearly covered.

The saltmarsh produced more herons, including our first Tricolored Heron of the day. Four Wood Storks, a federally-listed Endangered Species, flew over us, drawing ooh's from the class. Several Willets, a species of sandpiper, foraged along the exposed mud bank of Johnson Creek. For several minutes, a Clapper Rail ventured out into the open along the bank to forage next to a sleeping Laughing Gull. To our surprise, a dolphin also made an appearance. Due to the location, I'm nearly certain that it was a Common Bottlenose Dolphin, Tursiops truncatus. There are other species of dolphin near South Carolina, but most of these are more open-ocean species. The Common Bottlenose Dolphin is the only species which commonly swims to the shore, into lagoons and marshes, and up estuaries. It was amazing to see one so close!

We then went to Paradise Pier, a 1,120 foot pier that juts out into Fripp Inlet. Here we had 30+ Brown Pelicans, dozens of Laughing Gulls, 2 Herring Gulls, another Bald Eagle, more heron species, and the birds on the sandbar in the photo above. This sandbar, which was just off the pier, was a very productive piece of land. About 20 Sanderlings (a species of sandpiper) and 3 Willets foraged by the water's edge. A group of terns flew in a few minutes later. There were Caspian, Royal, and Sandwich Terns in the group. Then the most exciting species of the pier flew in: 3 Black Skimmers (the black birds on the center-left). We also got to see two cool fish species. One fisherman pulled up a large Red Drum, Sciaenops ocellatus, which was probably around 2 and a half feet long. Another caught one of the Dasyatis stingray species, which was incredible to see in the wild! I'm not sure of the exact species, but it was either the Atlantic, Bluntnose, or Roughtail Stingray.

One of the best parts of this trip was seeing so many new things that I've wanted to see for years. I haven't been near the ocean since I was 4, and so I was looking at everything around me with new eyes. Every other bird I looked at was essentially a lifer. Every plant I looked at was a species I had never seen before. Plants I had learned about in class, like the Loblolly Pine, finally came to life in front of my eyes. I'm a bird guy first and foremost, so the birds were obviously the stars of the trip, but this spider was definitely one of the stand-out highlights. This is the Golden Silk Orbweaver (more commonly known as the Banana Spider), Nephila clavipes, a species of spider I have wanted to see for years and years. When you're into biology, you'll often find yourself doing things that the average person would not do. For example, I was walking to the bathrooms the first morning when I ran face first into a huge, very strong orbweaver web. The web was larger and stronger than any I had seen before. Now, the average person would have freaked out and tried to get away as fast as possible. The first thing that jumped to my mind though was "OH MY GOSH, CAN IT BE A BANANA SPIDER?!?" I looked up to my left to see the massive palm-sized spider frantically running away from me. It was! My lifer Banana Spider! I was ecstatic and quickly went to get an even closer look. This is an absolutely beautiful species. Although big and "frightening" looking to some, these are really harmless spiders that won't do anything unless you handle them roughly.

Fiddler crabs, Uca sp.

We ended the day a little before sundown. Our awesome TA Brandan Gray made everyone jambalaya, and we had a wonderful (and much-needed) dinner as the sun set through the pines at our campsite. A little bit later, the class decided to head off to the beach. Due to Loggerhead Turtles nesting on the beach, lights of any sort are banned for the Summer until the end of October, but there was a nearly full moon out which lit up the beach. It was nearing low tide, so a large portion of the beach was exposed. As we walked along the beach, Brandan yelled out "Dolphin!" and pointed to a blob swimming about 30 feet from shore. We looked out and I noticed the creature had a heterocercal tail. That meant one thing. I yelled out "THAT'S A SHARK!" and sure enough it was. It was the first time I ever saw a shark out in the wild, and I was beyond ecstatic. I have no idea what species it was, but it was about a 5 foot long individual who was slowly swimming parallel to the shore about 30 feet out. We followed it down the shore until it disappeared back into the ocean, marking the end of an amazing day.

Since it would be too long to list out all the species here, you can see my bird checklists for the day at the following links:

1. Hunting Island SP Forest, Lagoon, and Beach
2. Hunting Island Salt Marsh
3. Paradise Pier (Hunting Island SP)

I should have Part 2 up by tomorrow, so stay tuned! Part 2 can be found right here!

Ornithology Lab, September 30

This is the fourth installment in a series of weekly posts for my ornithology class at Ohio University. We go out in the field every Wednesday (weather permitting) to do some birding and/or bird banding. One of our assignments is to write a blog post about each of these field trips, which is what this series will be about.

First Post: September 2
Second Post: September 9
Third Post: September 16

~ ~ ~

Fall has arrived, both in date and finally weather. Cool temperatures in the upper 50's met us as we traveled once again to The Ridges on the outskirt of Athens, Ohio. It truly felt, and looked, like Fall; leaves were changing, leaves were falling all around us, it was cool with a breeze, and the sky was overcast. The birds were also pretty active, as I'll get into in a second.

Photo courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

The entire Midwest had some pretty impressive migration flights this week. The photo above is a snapshot of a weather radar at midnight on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Weather radars, when calibrated with certain parameters, actually show bird migration movements. This phenomenon has been used for years to help gauge and study migration patterns. When looking at the photo above, notice the multiple blue circles (some of which have green centers). These circles are masses of migrating birds. The darker the circles, the more numerous the birds. Let's look at Ohio specifically. Notice there's a cold front that's moving out of the state early in the night. There's not much movement before the front, but there's many large movements behind the front. As the front moved through Ohio, it brought northerly winds originating in Canada. On these northerly winds were thousands of migrating songbirds, and you can see the multiple dark blue/light green circles that represent them. As the front moved out of Ohio before sunrise, these songbirds settled out into the southeastern portions of Ohio, right where we were.

A Magnolia Warbler among the branches from Magee Marsh in May.

This time around, we did some bird banding on top of the normal birding. We set up nets in three areas (instead of the normal 6). We had one set of nets in a powerline cut with scruffy bushes and tall grasses that had deciduous forest on either side. We had another set of nets along a path that bordered deciduous forest on one side and thick grape-vine covered shrubbery on the other. The final net was set up in some young forest next to an open area. 

Photo courtesy of Dr. Kelly Williams.

Bird banding the past two times weren't that productive; however, this day was very productive. The most commonly caught species was the Carolina Chickadee, with 5 individuals banded for the day. The second most commonly banded species of the day was a relative of the Carolina Chickadee, the Tufted Titmouse, of which we banded 4. Going along with the more common, permanent residents theme, we also banded a Northern Cardinal and the Swamp Sparrow pictured above.

Now we'll get into the migratory species!

Photo courtesy of Dr. Kelly Williams.

We caught several warbler species over the course of the morning. The first was this Northern Parula pictured above. I've previously covered this species, and you can read all about it at this link! We then went on to net 3 Magnolia Warblers, all of which were hatch-year birds. The last warbler species we caught and banded was a beautiful hatch-year Black-Throated Green Warbler, my all time favorite warbler species. I was lucky enough to be able to release him!

Photo courtesy of Dr. Kelly Williams.

The star of the day, in my opinion, was this Blue-Headed Vireo, a bird I had never seen before. The Blue-Headed Vireo is a bird of mixed coniferous-and-deciduous forests which are found throughout Eastern Canada down through the Appalachian Mountains. The Blue-Headed Vireo is a common migrant species in Ohio, but is a very rare breeder. They require cooler locales with plenty of Eastern Hemlock trees. A few individuals can be found nesting here in Ohio in places such as Conkles Hollow State Nature Preserve, Clear Creek Metropark, and Mohican State Forest. And finally, the last species that we banded was a hatch-year Indigo Bunting.

Here's the complete list of birds for the day:

1. Black Vulture
2. Turkey Vulture
3. Rock Pigeon
4. Chimney Swift
5. Downy Woodpecker
6. Pileated Woodpecker
7. Eastern Wood-Pewee
8. Blue-Headed Vireo
9. American Crow
10. Carolina Chickadee
11. Tufted Titmouse
12. White-Breasted Nuthatch
13. Carolina Wren
14. American Robin
15. Gray Catbird
16. Cedar Waxwing
17. Common Yellowthroat
18. American Redstart
19. Northern Parula
20. Magnolia Warbler
21. Black-Throated Green Warbler
22. Swamp Sparrow
23. Eastern Towhee
24. Northern Cardinal
25. Rose-Breasted Grosbeak
26. Indigo Bunting
27. American Goldfinch

Last weekend my class went down to South Carolina to do some birding. I'll be having a post on that coming up extremely soon, so stay tuned!

Ornithology Lab, September 16

This is the third installment in a series of weekly posts for my ornithology class at Ohio University. We go out in the field every Wednesday (weather permitting) to do some birding and/or bird banding. One of our assignments is to write a blog post about each of these field trips, which is what this series will be about.

First Post: September 2
Second Post: September 9

~ ~ ~

Lake Hope State Park

Beginning late last week, Southern Ohio has been experiencing more Fall-like weather (finally!), with cool mornings in the high 40's to low 50's before climbing up into the 60's and 70's. The morning of Wednesday, Sept. 16, was no different. We left Athens at 7:00 AM, just as the sun was climbing above the horizon and the thermometer was climbing out of the high 40's. Our two vans went off down State Route 56 toward one of my favorite areas in Vinton County. About twenty minutes later we arrived at our first stop of the day, a section of Zaleski State Forest. We were on top of Irish Ridge, a long ridge that's 1000 feet above sea level. The class set off along a trail that led us along a finger of the ridge. 

Now, state forests in Ohio are subject to selective logging. The specific part of Irish Ridge we were walking along was one such area. It had been selectively logged only a few years ago; a few trees of "normal" height dotted the area, but the majority of the vegetation was dense shrubs and young sapling trees. With great cover and ample food, this place turned out to be a bird paradise. The winds had also helped, and I'll show why.

Map courtesy of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

This weekend had brought one of the first big Fall migration movements to Ohio. Southerly winds, as I discussed in last week's post, had been keeping many migrants out of Ohio. Those dominant southerly winds changed to northerly winds over the weekend as a cold front moved through. As most birders know, cold fronts equal really good birding (generally). This is due to a multitude of reasons depending on what type of cold front and where it came from, but in this case the cold front brought northerly winds. Trailing behind the cold front on these northerly winds were thousands of migratory songbirds. These birds then began pouring into Ohio.

Map courtesy of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Then something really interesting happened. By late Tuesday night, the winds in Ohio changed from favorable northerly winds to unfavorable southerly winds, as the map above shows. As I mentioned last week, most songbirds migrate during the night. Most of the thousands of individuals that had been migrating into Ohio over the weekend into Monday night were suddenly confronted with winds heading in the opposite direction they were trying to go. Instead of wasting tons of energy trying to fly against a headwind, the majority of these birds just stayed put over Tuesday evening. When we arrived on Irish Ridge Wednesday morning, all these migrants were still there, and they were very actively foraging to take advantage of the unfavorable weather. The goal this morning for your average migrant was to find as much food as possible, replenish the fat reserves they had just spent coming to Vinton County the previous night, and wait until the winds changed. 

This made for one of the most spectacular displays of migration I had ever seen in Southeast Ohio. Often during a good migration day, warblers are pretty easy to find. Today, they were everywhere one looked. These migratory birds easily outnumbered the permanent birds of Ohio, and it was wonderful.

A female American Redstart. This was one of the warbler species we saw on the trip. This photo was taken at Magee Marsh during May, 2015.

Let me give you a quick snapshot of a moment from Irish Ridge this morning. A nomadic flock of Cedar Waxwings cried in their high pitch calls overhead in one of the remaining older trees. Several White-Eyed Vireos sung "Peanut butter and jelly, CHECK!" on either side of our group. Eastern Towhees "towHEE'd" from the dense vegetation. A Prairie Warbler sung his buzzy song from the side of the hill. Eastern Wood-Pewees lived up to their flycatching name. A female Scarlet Tanager foraged quietly in one tree while a male sang loudly in another. Two juvenile Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks chased each other from tree to tree. A Tennessee Warbler lazily sung as it moved throughout the canopy of a tree. A group of Magnolia Warblers flew from bush to bush looking for insects. A young American Redstart flitted about a clump of leaves. Songs were sung while call notes rang from every bush and tree. I could go on and on and on. It was a sensory overload.

And then something else happened. Someone yelled "Hawk!" It only flew through the area for a split second, not even enough time for anyone else to see it. An Accipiter the person said, probably a Cooper's Hawk, a bird-eating hawk. And with that, silence. 

The entire area went from a sensory overload to being depraved of any noise or movement. There was literally not a single bird that anyone could see or hear. We had entered what Jon Young calls the Zone of Silence. Some of you might recognize the name; Jon Young is the author of the absolutely amazing book What the Robin Knows, a very well-known book that teaches the observant naturalist how to interpret bird vocalizations and behavior in order to gain an understanding of what is currently happening in that immediate area. This is a wonderful book that I highly recommend to anyone interested in birds; it will take your nature-knowledge and skills to a whole new level. 

Back to the hawk. As I said before, we were standing in the Zone of Silence. What exactly is that? Well, it's a type of response to a hawk. Accipiters are a genus of hawks (such as the Cooper's and Sharp-Shinned) that feed primarily on birds, and as a result are very dangerous to a small songbird. Songbirds are constantly watching for these hawks, and when one is sighted a fast chain of reactions are set in motion. Let's say a Carolina Chickadee on watch duty sees a Cooper's Hawk flying into the area, but it's still a somewhat decent way off. That chickadee will sound an alarm call that specifically designates an Accipiter hawk (yes, chickadees have specific alarms for specific threats). All the birds in the immediate area will hear that alarm call, and then those birds themselves will sound their own alarm call. Imagine this Zone of Alarm is like a giant bubble around the hawk. These birds can afford to sound the alarm because even though they are within danger, they are still away from immediate danger. Now imagine there's a smaller bubble that nestled within the large Zone of Alarm. This smaller bubble is the Zone of Silence. When a songbird is within this bubble, it is in immediate danger of being killed by the hawk; as a result, any bird in the Zone of Silence will attempt to hide, be as still as possible, and make no noise. It basically wants to disappear so the hawk won't notice it. 

If you've been in nature a lot, you know that the forest isn't really "silent" like people say. It's a noisy place. When it is silent, you know that something is up. It's disruptions, like true silence, from the baseline activity (as Jon Young calls it) that should always grab your attention. And trust me, if you're paying attention when birding, you will notice if everything that was just around you goes dead silent and disappears. It is important to note that this won't happen every time; sometimes the hawk will enter too quickly or too silently giving the birds no chance to react.

Of course, not all hawks elicit this response. The hawks of Ohio can essentially be broken into two main groups. I've already mentioned one, the genus Accipiter. The other group is a genus named Buteo. The Accipiters are "birds hawks," while the Buteos are "mammal hawks." As you might guess, a bird-eating Accipiter poses a huge threat to a bird, but a Buteo will generally avoid eating birds. As a result, a Buteo will still elicit an alarm, but a different type of alarm. Jumping ahead in the trip a bit, I want to talk about an encounter we had with a Red-Tailed Hawk. The Red-Tailed Hawk is the most common Buteo in Ohio. They, like other Buteos, eat mainly mice, voles, shrews, etc., and avoid birds. Songbirds still don't like Red-Tails, but they know that one doesn't mean an immediate threat. We saw one juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk at Lake Hope. We weren't the only ones to notice him though; several chickadees, a Magnolia Warbler, and a few other birds had found him and were actively mobbing him. They wanted to let the Red-Tail know that he wasn't welcomed there, and the songbirds didn't stop attacking him until he flew away. In this case, the Red-Tailed Hawk didn't cause a Zone of Silence, but simply caused different species to come together to get rid of him.

An Osprey from Old Woman Creek earlier in the Spring. I captured this photo while the Osprey flew over the beach at OWC.

After Irish Ridge, we moved down to Lake Hope State Park, which was right next door. We moved through a scruffy marsh region that transitioned into deciduous forest which bordered the lake proper. This was where we found the juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk I just mentioned, but we also had two other birds of prey. We accidentally flushed an Osprey, a raptor that specializes in eating fish. Later on we heard a Red-Shouldered Hawk calling from the forest. It was a good raptor morning!

Here's the total list (with both locations combined) of species for the morning:

1. Wood Duck
2. Turkey Vulture
3. Osprey
4. Red-Shouldered Hawk*
5. Red-Tailed Hawk
6. Mourning Dove
7. Eastern Screech-Owl*
8. Chimney Swift
9. Belted Kingfisher
10. Red-Bellied Woodpecker
11. Downy Woodpecker*
12. Pileated Woodpecker
13. Eastern Wood-Pewee
14. Eastern Phoebe
15. White-Eyed Vireo
16. Yellow-Throated Vireo*
17. Blue Jay
18. American Crow
19. Carolina Chickadee
20. Tufted Titmouse
21. White-Breasted Nuthatch*
22. Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher*
23. Gray Catbird
24. Cedar Waxwing
25. Tennessee Warbler*
26. Hooded Warbler
27. American Redstart
28. Magnolia Warbler
29. Bay-Breasted Warbler
30. Chestnut-Sided Warbler
31. Pine Warbler
32. Prairie Warbler*
33. Eastern Towhee
34. Scarlet Tanager
35. Northern Cardinal
36. Rose-Breasted Grosbeak
37. Indigo Bunting
38. American Goldfinch*

(Note, * denotes "Heard Only")

Overall it was a great morning, with 38 species I personally observed, including 8 species of warblers! This Thursday I head to South Carolina with the class for an extended 4-day field trip, so stay tuned for a post about that!

Caterpillars, Caterpillars, and More Caterpillars

This time of the year belongs to the caterpillars. Right now, hundreds and hundreds of species are eating, building up stores of energy, and preparing to overwinter either in diapause (a type of hibernation), or as a chrysalis (for butterflies), or in a cocoon (for moths). Michelle Ward, a fellow undergraduate Wildlife and Conservation Biology student at Ohio University, set up a caterpillar hunting night at her house and invited several other wildlife-based undergraduates and graduate students. Her house just happens to be in the middle of a forest in northern Athens County, which made for a really awesome night. I'm going to go over a few of the more showy "cats" in this post, but there will be other caterpillar-themed posts coming!

We found several sphinx moth caterpillars throughout the course of the evening. This individual is a Blinded Sphinx caterpillar, Paonias excaecatus. Notice the "horn" at the end of the abdomen, a characteristic found in many, but not all, sphinx moth caterpillars. Many sphinx moth caterpillars, such as this one, also have cryptic coloration, with most being primarily green or brown. Also notice the diagonal streaks going across the body, another common feature. In the case of the Blinded Sphinx, these streaks are brown, but we'll see another color of streaks on the next individual.

This is another sphinx, specifically the Elm Sphinx, Ceratomia amyntor. Generally speaking, moths and butterflies typically feed on specific plant species versus any random plant. Sometimes this is taken to the extreme, where a certain Lepidopteran (moths and butterflies) species will only feed on one specific species of plant and nothing else. Most other Lepidopterans have a small group of plant species they will feed on, and the Elm Sphinx falls into this category. As the name implies, it does indeed feed on elm trees, but they will also feed on cherries, basswoods, and birches. Take note of the four horn-like projections near the head, a diagnostic characteristic for this species. The Elm Sphinx cat also has a horn at the end of its abdomen, along with the diagonal streaking across the body (with a whitish-cream coloration).

One of the most abundant caterpillars of the night was the Spotted Apatelodes, Apatelodes torrefacta. This picture doesn't do it justice, but these are pretty large caterpillars, with many we saw reaching lengths of 3-3.5 inches. A fuzzy little caterpillar, these can come in two different colors. All the ones we saw were the yellow individuals, but this species can also come in white.

The caterpillars we found ranged in sizes from monstrously large (as you'll see) to very tiny. These smaller ones are hard to find by flashlight alone while bumbling around a forest at night; this is when a UV flashlight comes in handy. A UV flashlight simply emits light in the ultraviolet wavelength. This is incredibly useful for people looking for caterpillars because many (but not all) caterpillars will actually fluoresce. Essentially, ultraviolet light will be absorbed by the exoskeleton of certain species, and the exoskeleton will re-emit that light as visible light, resulting in glowing caterpillars among the dark forest (you can only do this in the dark of night). This makes finding many caterpillars much easier, especially for the small ones such as this Snowberry Clearwing, Hemaris diffinis. This is one of the hummingbird moth species, and I've previously covered his cousin, the Hummingbird Clearwing, here.  

So far, all of the species I've covered have been moths. This, on the other hand, is a butterfly. It also happens to be one of the most common butterfly species in Ohio. This is the Silver-Spotted Skipper, Epargyreus clarus. Although the adults are small, the caterpillars are not. This one was around 2 inches long, and quite chubby. One of the stand-out features of this caterpillar are the two orange dots on the head. These are presumably mimicking eyes in an attempt to dissuade predators. The real eyes are too small to see in this photo. 

The find of the night was this monstrous creature, the Hickory Horned Devil, Citheronia regalis. This species is also called the Regal Moth and Royal Walnut Moth, especially when referring to an adult. The common name Hickory Horned Devil is mostly used when talking about the caterpillar stage. This incredible caterpillar was humongous; it was easily 5-6 inches long. This magnificent creature is going to get a post all his own, so stay tuned! Update: Here is my post on the Hickory Horned Devil!

From left to right: Yours truly, Olivia Brooks, Brandan Gray, Michelle Ward, Cassie Thompson, Alayna Tokash, and Jake Schoen. Not pictured is Vincent Farallo.

The night was a smashing success, and not only in regard to caterpillars. We also had a Ring-Necked Snake, a few Red-Backed Salamanders who were out and about walking around, and a surprise Marbled Salamander (who are migrating right now). Our group is pictured above (I'm on the far left).

As I previously mentioned, I'm planning a few other caterpillar posts in the upcoming days. I'm definitely going to have one on the Hickory Horned Devil (Update: Post on the Hickory Horned Devil), and I am trying to find enough species for a post on some of the slug caterpillars of Ohio, which are the coolest caterpillars in my opinion. If you like caterpillars, stay tuned! Thanks for reading!

Ornithology Lab, September 9

This is the second installment in a series of weekly posts for my ornithology class at Ohio University. We go out in the field every Wednesday (weather permitting) to do some birding and bird banding. One of our assignments is to write a blog post about each of these field trips, which is what this series will be about.

First Post: September 2

~ ~ ~

An Eastern Wood-Pewee, one of the migrant species that was still singing at The Ridges. This photo was taken at Old Woman Creek in Erie County this past May.

It was another early morning at 6:45 AM. This week we were at The Ridges, Athens County, once more. It was yet another warm morning, with temperatures in the high 60's (which quickly climbed into the 70's) and near 100% humidity (dew points between 68 and 70 degrees). Haze filled the otherwise cloudless sky, and some patchy fog hung about in open areas. Put shortly, it was a muggy and still morning. I've been eagerly awaiting for it to feel like Fall, but it appears I'll have to wait a bit.

Sadly, it was yet another bad day for Fall migration; southerly winds for the past couple days have held down what migrants we've had in the region and prevented more waves from coming through. For you birders out there who want to know if a day has the potential to be good or not, a great tool to utilize is Cornell University's BirdCast. During Spring and Fall migrations, they give weekly outlooks, including regional outlooks, on what days seem to be good for birding, and what species will most likely be on the move. For an example, you can check out this week's outlook here.

I mentioned southerly winds holding migrants back, and I'll explain that concept a bit more, using BirdCast to help. The majority of songbirds (Warblers, Sparrows, Vireos, etc.) migrate during the night, which might surprise many of you (I know it surprised me when I learned!). Essentially, the birds take off at dusk, fly all night, and drop into a patch of good habitat in the morning. During the day they try to stuff themselves with food and rest, preparing for another full night of flying. During Fall migration, many songbirds are coming from their breeding grounds in Canada and the northern US and are trying to get to Central and South America to spend their winter. As a result, it is a huge energy-saving advantage if the wind is helping push you along. For this, the birds need northerly winds (winds coming from the north and blowing toward the south). If faced with southerly winds, many songbirds will simply stay put because it isn't worth the energy expenditure to try and fly against the wind. So to have a "good" migration day, you want to look for a morning where there were northerly winds overnight in your area/state. Northerly winds overnight should mean there are hundreds of hungry, tired migrants in the forests around you. 

Map courtesy of The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Now is where BirdCast comes in to help. Pictured above is a map of the wind directions predicted for Wednesday morning at 2:00 AM (last night). This is in the middle of the night, which is exactly when songbirds are migrating. If we look at Ohio, we can see that the entire state is covered by southerly winds. That means that the migrants north of us will mostly be staying in the north. These conditions make for a "bad" day for birders and bird banding.

Regardless that it was a bad migration day overall, we ended up observing and mist netting more species than last week, which was a hotter and overall more miserable day. This time we set up nets in 7 areas. I made a quick breakdown of the area, which you can see above. The short white lines represent the nets. As you can see, we set up the nets in a variety of habitats. This ensures that we get a wider range of possible species, as different species exploit different habitats. We had 2 nets set up in dense shrub habitat, 4 nets set up in young scrubby forest, and 1 net set up by a pond. Due to area and time constraints, we can't set up any nets in the deciduous forests with more open undergrowth. It's also important to note that most bird species, while having a preferred habitat, will cross through different habitats to find better food sources, especially in migration. For example, we had a foraging flock of Carolina Chickadees that came from the open deciduous forest in the top right corner of the photo, which moved down across the scrub forest directly below, and then moved over into the edges of the lawn area. By covering more ground, the chickadees have a better chance of finding a good food source. Also, since breeding season is over, the chickadees don't have to worry about territories for the time being. The chickadees formed this foraging flock in order to maximize their chance of finding food (more eyes means more ground covered in less time) and to maximize their chance of seeing any potential threats before it's too late (such as seeing a Cooper's Hawk fly in).

The first bird we netted was a young male Northern Cardinal. It was in the same area as the adult female that we netted last week. Later we caught another female in the same area (who didn't have a band, so it was different from the female last week). I've also seen a male individual in the area. Northern Cardinals will form foraging flocks in the winter, and it seems like we have the start of one forming. It will be interesting to see if we eventually get recaptures every time we go out.

The second bird we netted was a female Common Yellowthroat, a species of warbler. This was our second warbler species we've banded so far in the Fall, and hopefully there are many more to come.

The third bird that flew into the mist nets was another Northern Cardinal. This individual was a juvenile, as the black beak told. Cardinals will have orange beaks when they reach adulthood.

An adult male (left) and adult female (right) Northern Cardinal. Notice the orange beak on the female; although immature males have plumage like a female, their beaks are black/brown. Both photos were taken in Pickaway County this past Winter.

In keeping with the cardinal theme, the fourth bird was an adult female Northern Cardinal. This was the individual I mentioned along with the first cardinal from today.

The last 3 birds we had were all caught in one net, and all during the same period. We had set up a net on a pathway between two areas of vine-covered shrubs with a a few trees scattered about. This is perfect White-Eyed Vireo habitat, and we were lucky enough to catch not only one, but three individuals in one go.

An adult White-Eyed Vireo. This was taken along the Nature Walk trail at The Ridges during Spring Migration.

One of the White-Eyed Vireos was noteworthy - he had already been banded, and not by us. All 3 individuals were "Hatch Year" individuals. This simply means they were all born this past Summer. So the one that was banded had not only been born within 4 months or so ago, but had also been netted and banded during that time. We then recaptured it while it was migrating south. One of the cool things about bird banding is learning about recaptures; if you can read the code on its ankle band (by either photo or having the bird in hand), then you can look that code up in the bird banding database to learn where that individual had been previously caught, who banded it, and other assorted information. Sadly we haven't been able to look up the code for that one yet, so I can't say where it had been previously banded.

Here is my personal list for the day, which includes all the birds I saw/heard from 7:00 AM to 11:30 AM:

1. Turkey Vulture
2. Rock Pigeon
3. Mourning Dove
4. Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
5. Red-Bellied Woodpecker
6. Hairy Woodpecker
7. Pileated Woodpecker*
8. Eastern Wood-Pewee*
9. White-Eyed Vireo
10. Yellow-Throated Vireo*
11. Red-Eyed Vireo
12. Blue Jay
13. American Crow
14. Carolina Chickadee
15. Tufted Titmouse*
16. White-Breasted Nuthatch
17. Carolina Wren*
18. American Robin
19. Cedar Waxwing
20. Common Yellowthroat
21. Magnolia Warbler
22. Wilson's Warbler (New for my Athens County list)
23. Eastern Towhee
24. Northern Cardinal
25. American Goldfinch

Note: * means "Heard Only"

A Tufted Titmouse, one of the species we heard today. This adorable individual is from Pickaway County.

Overall, this was a pretty good day. We had a decent number of birds banded, and I got to see my first Athens County Wilson's Warbler. There have been a few peculiarities so far though. We haven't heard or seen a Gray Catbird yet, and there's plenty of perfect habitat for them where we band. eBird doesn't have sightings dropping off in Ohio until late October, so I'm surprised we haven't seen any in such a good habitat. We have also been missing Eastern Bluebirds, a relatively easy-to-find bird at The Ridges. Song Sparrows have also been missing so far. Of course, it is only our second week out at the same location, so we might have just missed any in the area, but I'm still surprised we've went 9 hours of birding total without seeing any of those species in an area where I've seen them previously. I'll just have to keep my eye out even more.

Thanks for reading!