northeast-flora-and-fauna

At Duke Farms they decorated their outdoor Christmas tree with House Finches ! House Finches can make for interesting and festive decorations for an outdoor tree, though the Migratory Bird Treaty Act prohibits their use on indoor trees. On outdoor trees, the main drawbacks are: The ornaments don't necessarily face in the direction you want. The ornaments sometimes fly off for food, or if a hawk flies overhead, or even for no apparent reason. On the other hand, they'll automatically rearrange themselves periodically, and if you're lucky they may even sing to you. I would encourage you to encourage bird decorations in your outdoor trees. December 22, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 174171758, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here are a couple true bugs I've shown you before, though in this picture they're mating. This seems to be the most common position for insects to mate, facing away from each other with the tips of their abdomens touching. At least this is what I've observed with true bugs, flies, and butterflies. (In contrast, beetles and mantises do more of a mounting, while dragonflies/damselflies do more of a mounting that includes contorting their long abdomens.) These bugs may not be flagship species or keystone species , but they do fill a role in our ecosystem, and so it's important that they're out there reproducing. The first is a pair of Small Milkweed Bugs . July 31, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 149014375, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) And next are their cousins, a pair of False Milkweed Bugs . July 31, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 149014241, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's another dampness-loving native wildflower: Common Jewelweed . Or at least I think it is; the Pale Jewelweed is pretty similar: Common Jewelweed is supposed to have orange, clearly spotted flowers while the Pale Jewelweed is supposed to be a pale yellow with more subtle spots. My interpretation of my wildflower is that it's vibrant yellow with a hint of orange, so I think this is supportive of it being a Common Jewelweed. The leaves of the Pale Jewelweed are supposed to be nearly as wide as they are long (though some pictures seem to suggest otherwise), so I think the leaves are more supportive of the Common Jewelweed too. It sounds like the Pale Jewelweed is a somewhat larger plant with somewhat smaller flowers. It's hard to judge size by this picture, so I'd consider this to be inconclusive. I read afterwards that they both have a little "spur" underneath the flowerhead, and that in the Common Jewelweed the spur is bent more so that the end of it is p

Every year I have the intention to learn more about the plants growing in my area, but then get distracted by the birds, herps, and insects moving around out there. But here's a wildflower that's distinctive enough and named appropriately enough that I can usually pick them out even from a distance: the Cardinal Flower . Though they're supposed to be fairly common, I can't say that I see them a lot. That might be because they do best in damp areas with moist, rich soil, while I'm more likely to be found in drier fields and woods. I traditionally see a few of them at Duke Farms' Great Meadow, which can be damp after rain. They (similar to the Northern Cardinal bird) are believed to have gotten their name from their red color that resembles the wardrobe of church cardinals . They are in the bellflower (aka bluebell) family of flowers. It's considered toxic, though like many potentially dangerous plants it has been used medicinally by Native Americans (presum

Sometimes I almost get an identifiable picture. This frequently happens when the subject doesn't disappear entirely (like frogs/turtles diving into water), but when wings of a fleeing animal obscure details. In this first instance, I can tell this is one of our commas just from shape/color and visible patterns. But I can't distinguish between our 2 most common commas: The small pattern of the top view of the wing seems closer to the spots I'd see on an Eastern Comma . There seem to be 2 blurred pale lines on the moving underwing, which suggest the 2 marks (dot and curved line) that I'd see on a Question Mark . In this case I'm stuck with being able to tell the genus (Polygonia) but not the species. July 30, 2021 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve Photo 149012466, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) The next one shows a bird trying to avoid getting its picture taken, though not in time. Though there's not much detail of the face, the yellow bo

Here's an American Goldfinch I saw last summer. Though the picture is obstructed, the rich yellow-and-black coloring means this is the more flamboyantly colored male of the species. He appears to be in a spot with a number of thistles (we've got both invasive and native species around here), which would make a certain amount of sense since thistle seeds are one of the American Goldfinch's (and other seed-eating birds') favorite foods. One popular thistle seed substitute commonly used in bird feeders is Nyjer  seed; I think it's sometimes referred to as "thistle seed" although Nyjer isn't considered a thistle. AFAIK Nyjer seed is a healthy substitute for our seed-eating birds. July 30, 2021 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve Photo 149013242, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

This summer I spotted some Guinea Paper Wasps . Based on the name, I thought the might be an invasive species from Guinea , or a namesake lik e  Equitorial Guinea ,  Guinea-Bissau ,  Papua New Guinea , or  Western New Guinea . But it turns out they are a native species, and it's surmised that the name came from this locality in Virginia or this other locality in Virginia . (They're more American than any Europeans, or any other humans.) These wasps are considered paper wasps  since they make nests by chewing up wood and other tough plant fibers to make their papery nests. (Paper wasp isn't a great taxonomic term though, since some of their close relatives make mud nests while some distantly related wasps make paper nests.) They are eusocial insects, meaning they collectively share in the raising of young, a nest supports multiple generations, and the nest has a hierarchy of roles. Unlike some eusocial insects though, there's no apparent anatomic difference between th

I hope these Black Vultures , who were perched above a local restaurant parking lot, don't know something about the cuisine that I need to know. I suspect they just wanted a sunny spot where they had a view of the surrounding area, rather than looking to capitalize on food-poisoned restaurant patrons, but who knows. I recall years ago seeing them outside a blood drive, which sparked similar why-are-they-here ideas in my head. As a friend remarked about how ugly they are, I suggested that the vultures were probably thinking the same thing about us. December 21, 2021 in Bridgewater Photo 173295489, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's a Blue Dasher  (don't call me White Dasher!) despite not looking especially blue. While it's possible that the dragonfly's abdomen would look a little bluer in different lighting, it's not uncommon to see Blue Dashers that are such a light blue that you might consider them to be white instead. Like many male dragonflies, they start out the adult, winged version of their lives looks a lot like females of their species, in this case having an abdomen that's yellow with black stripes. As the males mature, their abdomen starts to develop a dark blue pruinose (a waxy covering). And then as they age, the pruinose gets lighter and lighter. I'm thinking this guy is a Blue Dasher senior citizen given the lightness of this abdomen. One tricky thing about identifying species is that sometimes the names don't make a lot of sense given the individual you're looking at. This is especially true for female odonates, and frequently true for female birds, but s

Meet a Least Skipper , no doubt named for its small size, though the Southern Skipperling is a little smaller. (My guess is that the person naming the Least Skipper were unaware of the Southern Skipperling, a species common from South Carolina to Texas but unlikely to be seen elsewhere.) These guys are considered grass skippers  due to them eating grass during their caterpillar youth. Of course, grass skipper caterpillars aren't like having a cow or a goat; I doubt you'd ever notice the grass they eat. In keeping with their smaller size, they have a rep for nectaring on smaller flowers than other skippers. July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148655212, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

This is a pretty good picture of a  Monarch butterfly using its proboscis to drink nectar from deep in a Wild Teasel  flower. I was wondering if a long proboscis was necessary for a pollinator to use this flower, but my understanding is that bees, wasps, and flower flies are all common pollinators of these wildflowers. I guess this means that even though the flowers are long and narrow, you don't need to get to the bottom of them to get to pollen/nectar. Teasels aren't native to North America, making it a little surprising that they're fairly popular with the pollinator community. Sometimes native pollinators simply don't know how to handle invasive plants. As invasive plants go, teasels don't have an awful reputation. They obviously are successful enough to be taking resources that could be used by native plants, but they aren't ecologically useless. Besides being a useful food source for our pollinators, the seeds are eaten by small birds like finches and chi

As I mentioned in a previous post, milkweed plants (like many native plants) have their own little communities , and it's not unusual to see insects sharing these plants. Here are a couple examples. Here is a Red Milkweed Beetle sharing its milkweed with what are probably (it's difficult to ID these little guys) Oleander Aphids (above and to the left of the beetle), the former a beloved native insect and the latter a somewhat destructive invasive one. (Or perhaps I've got the wrong aphid - apparently there are other possibilities .) July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654785, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) And here's another picture, this one of a Monarch caterpillar sharing a milkweed with (presumably) more of those Oleander Aphids. July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654667, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) Notes: I don't think these insects feel neighborly towards one another, though there may b

Here are 2 related and similar-looking bugs I met on the same day, the Small Milkweed Bug and the False Milkweed Bug. Along with the Large Milkweed Bug, their relationship to a milkweed diet covers the full spectrum: The False Milkweed Bug (probably) never eats milkweeds/dogbanes. The Small Milkweed Bug sometimes eats milkweed but also eats other things outside the dogbane family of plants. The Large Milkweed Bug pretty much eats milkweeds and a few milkweed relatives in the dogbane family. I've talked before about the 2 theories on how the False Milkweed Bug developed its look and diet . First here's the Small Milkweed Bug, which has a red X with a black heart-like shape on the top (or the bottom, if the bug is upside down like in my picture). Note it's also on a milkweed seed pod, a not uncommon place to see these bugs. July 28, 2021 at the Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654497, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) The next picture is of a False Milkwee

Here's another Halloween Pennant . You can see the orangish wings that give this pennant its Halloween name. Not all dragonflies like to perch on the top of narrow vegetation, but it's a favored location for pennants. It's probably a little uncomfortable getting 6 legs on/around such a small perch, but probably offers the pennants the most different directions for flying off the perch, either to escape a predator or to attack as a predator. Some entomologists think the orangish coloring and a more erratic flight pattern than most dragonflies make the Halloween Pennant a mimic of the Monarch butterfly. This would be another example of Batesian mimicry , where some predators might pass the dragonfly by because they mistake it for a foul-tasting Monarch. I'm not sure the resemblance is close enough to fool most predators, though I suppose if a predator got only a quick look they could mistake the 2 insects. July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148655861, (c)

Here on the edge of a field there is (SURPRISE!) a Field Sparrow . (I've talked about these birds before .) This picture was taken in the middle of summer when most Field Sparrows (and other birds) are starting/raising families. These sparrows normally build nests on or within 10 feet of the ground. Although males may help furnish building materials, the females do all the nest design/carpentry.  As their name suggests, these birds are all about the fields, and generally avoid areas with substantial human activity. This means that they're not too crazy about places like New Jersey where much of the land is suburban or urban. My understanding is that they're doing better on the plains in the middle of the country. Though they may not be crazy about humans, they're not entirely antisocial. This time of the year they will join flocks of other sparrows; apparently Song Sparrows and White-throated Sparrows (both probably more numerous around here) are among their favorite

Here's a duskywing butterfly I met this summer. I wasn''t confident of what it was, and the iNaturalist community hasn't weighed in on it either. (I suspect if I had more pictures from different angles, somebody would have figured it out by now.) The main candidates that iNaturalist's photo recognition software suggested were: Horace's Duskywing  (iNaturalist's first suggestion, which is usually the best suggestion) Wild Indigo Duskywing  (a butterfly that's become widespread because of its ability to use the invasive legume Crownvetch as a host plant) Juvenal's Duskywing Common Sootywing (despite the name, an increasingly uncommon relative of the duskywings) All four of these are mostly dark spread-winged skippers . Some of the spread-winged skippers (including the Wild Indigo) are so similar to some of its relatives that they form the persius complex , where habitat and host plants are the easiest way to distinguish them. I'll try and update

Here's one of our thread-waisted wasps that lacks a common name, a  Podium luctuosum . As an insect without a common name, it's not a wasp we encounter so often that anyone's come up with such a name. (Should we come up with a name? Maybe the Dark Cockroach Killer Wasp?) Like a surprising number of wasps, they are parasitoids . The moms will paralyze certain cockroaches, lay eggs on them, and squirrel them away under tree bark or in tree cavities that she'll also cover with mud. The larva feed off the cockroach, ultimately killing it. (I don't think they use cockroaches you might find hiding under the refrigerator as hosts, in case you were thinking of befriending these wasps.) Given where the wasp was found, I'm suspicious of a female looking for soil to "mud over" the nest she made for her egg and its host. My 2nd guess is that maybe this is the right habitat for finding the cockroaches she'll need for her eggs. July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountai

Yesterday's post was about insects that are not flies but have "fly" in their names, potentially confusing their place in taxonomy. Today I'm going to show some of the true flies ( order Diptera ) out there. Note that I encounter lots of members of the true flies of which I don't have pictures. Gnats are awfully small and frequently in flight. And when I'm meeting mosquitoes and deer flies, I'm usually trying to swat them before getting bitten rather than trying to photograph them. Finally, I've just had trouble confirming IDs for many crane flies. Having said that, hopefully this will give you some sense of the diversity of this group of insects. Let's start with bristle flies  (aka Tachinid flies), though the first doesn't look as bristly as the second. As larva, these flies generally grow by slowly eating another insect species; as adults many are pollinators. Sometimes they're considered beneficial because they help control destructive

The "fly" terminology can be misleading. Lots of critters with "fly" in their names aren't true flies at all. Flies are insects with only a single pair of wings, differentiating them from the wasps/bees, the moths/butterflies, and the dragonflies/damselflies (among others). And unlike beetles where the 2nd pair of wings have evolved into wing-protecting elytra , the 2nd pair of fly wings have evolved into rotational sensing  halteres , enabling especially acrobatic flight. Here are a few of the non-flies with "fly" in their names. dragonfly != fly, dragonfly == odonate July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654312, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) lanternfly != fly, lanternfly == bug July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654536, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) butterfly != fly, butterfly == lepidopteran July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654418, (c) jpviolette, some rights r

With their furry-looking bodies and big eyes, I'd argue that the Western Honey Bee is one of the best insect models for a plush toy. (Admittedly some moths and butterflies also have these traits.) The honeybees are a little controversial in the environmental community, at least when they're living wild. While acknowledging that they're important for agriculture, most wild honeybees aren't pollinating our orchards and groves but are instead considered an invasive species that's competing against our native pollinators like bumblebees, wasps, butterflies, moths, and flower flies. And they may be one of the main pollinators of invasive plants that many of our native pollinators don't recognize as a pollen/nectar source, and thus wouldn't propagate well without them. Still, there aren't major efforts being made to remove them, except perhaps by beekeepers looking to give them a home. And they're generally well-behaved insects too; I routinely get close

Okay, maybe it's a stretch to consider Eastern Amberwing dragonflies of waving at you, though their wings do beat at a rapid rate.  These are considered to be the 2nd smallest dragonfly in the country behind a dragonfly I've never seen despite NJ being part of its range, the Elfin Skimmer . (There are other odonates like some bluet and sprite damselflies that are of similar length and probably less mass though.) Only the males have that distinctive amber coloring. (Like with many odonates (and some birds) I might not recognize the less distinctive females unless I also saw the males around. Here are a couple of these guys I met last summer.) July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654062, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654237, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Sometimes members of the same species can look quite different, usually due to sexual dimorphism. For the female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail though, butterflies of the same sex can also look very different. Here is the dark morph of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. All dark morphs are females, and this morph is usually seen later in the season, August and onward. It actually has the underlying pattern that the yellow morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtails (see below) has, but instead of a black-on-yellow pattern the dark morph is more like a dark-black-on-light-black pattern. The dark morph is considered to be participating in Batesian mimicry , since they resemble the poisonous Pipevine Swallowtail . July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654982, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) I didn't see a yellow morph female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on this trip, but the yellow morph female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail looks fairly similar to the males. They're yellow-an

I remember when I first started taking pictures of wildlife, I encountered my first Widow Skimmer dragonfly and thought I was seeing another dragonfly I had learned about, the Common Whitetail . These dragonflies are about the same size, though the Widow Skimmer's wings can be a little longer. They both (in males) have a pruinose-white abdomen and have mostly translucent wings with prominent black spots. Nowadays I know that the location of the black spots on the wings are a significant difference, and that the white on the edges of the Widow Skimmer's black spots don't exist at all on the Common Whitetail. These dragonflies are fairly closely related, and both used to be in the Libellula genus before the Common Whitetail was reclassified into the Plathemis genus. (This sort of reclassification happens way more often than you might think, as we're constantly learning more about the flora and fauna around us.) Here's a Widow Skimmer, similar to who I saw those years

Here's a good picture that makes it easy to determine the sex of your Monarch butterfly. You can see what looks a little like a pair of dots superimposed on the veins on the back wings. These usually stand out pretty prominently when you're looking at the top of the wings; they're harder to see when the wings are up and you're seeing the underside of the wings. These spots are scales that, in other butterflies, release pheromones that help females find males. (Apparently we're not sure that they're doing this for Monarchs.) A more subjective way of telling the difference between males and females is to look at the thickness of the veins. The veins on the males are usually noticeably thinner than you'd see on females. You could also argue that the thinner veins of the males make their pheromone dots stand out more than they would if they existed on the thicker female veins. July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148655927, (c) jpviolette, some ri

They're so cute at that age - here are a couple Monarch caterpillars I saw during a late July trip to the Sourland Mountain Preserve. I believe that both of these guys are facing down; the front tentacles are usually longer than the back tentacles. They're probably eating Common Milkweed; I think that's the most commonly seen milkweed at Sourland. We might consider Monarch caterpillars to be picky eaters, only eating milkweed plants. But look at it from their perspective: They'll eat Common Milkweed, Butterfly Milkweed, Swamp Milkweed, etc. New Jersey has 12 species of milkweed (though I think I've only seen 5 species myself). Both caterpillars seemed pretty mature, and I suspect they'll be going the chrysalis route pretty soon. The first caterpillar mostly had the milkweed to itself, while the second caterpillar was forced to share with a group of aphids. July 28, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve Photo 148654450, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY

Who is Peck, and why does he have a skipper? These are just two questions surrounding this pair of Peck's Skippers . Peck's Skippers are grass skippers , named because the females lay eggs on various types of grass, and as caterpillars they eat those grasses. The females are darker, so I wouldn't be surprised if the one in the front is a female being courted by the male in the back. They were named after William Dandridge Peck , an American naturalist considered to be the first native-born American entomologist. This butterfly wasn't (as fair as we know) his favorite butterfly; it was named after him as an honor rather than because of a personal connection to it. July 27, 2021 at Washington Valley Park Photo 148653335, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here are a couple of ducks out of water, Wood Ducks specifically. The duck on the right looks slightly larger and has a prominent white eye ring that I'd expect to see in a female Wood Duck. The one on the left is smaller, has generally similar coloring, but lacks the white eye ring, all suggesting that this is a juvenile. As juveniles, the males and females look similar, though if it's a male it'll eventually look like this guy . July 27, 2021 at Washington Valley Reservoir Photo 148653864, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) You might wonder if they were standing on the log to avoid the icky green water. Though it's difficult to know what the ducks were thinking, if the green was duckweed , it's actually on their menu; they're omnivores that eat vegetarian about 80% of the time. And these other Wood Ducks had no issues with the water. July 27, 2021 at Washington Valley Reservoir Photo 148653891, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

I'm assuming that at or just off of Washington Valley Park there is a tower for wireless transmissions, but whatever it is, it's popular with the local vultures. On this particular day I got pictures of Turkey Vultures , but Black Vultures will perch up there too. This is actually one of the most reliable places for me to just show up and see vultures, though admittedly sometimes I'll see more than other times, and sometimes I'll see them in a nearby tree instead of on the tower. There are times when I've seen over a dozen of them in the area, but for that number I have to include ones that are airborne too. I'm assuming this is popular with the vultures because: This is near the top of a hill, giving it a better view of the surrounding area, and possibly helping them spot a carcass. The tower and nearby trees give a little additional elevation. This is edge habitat, so while there are lots of trees in one direction, it's more of a field in the other direct