northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's someone that's certainly around central NJ (and most of the 48 contiguous states): the Bald-faced Hornet . Being closer to white than yellow, building above-ground nests, and being slightly larger than some other yellowjackets is probably why they have "hornet" in their name despite not being hornets . The other reason for the misnaming is that yellowjackets and hornets are fairly close relatives that look pretty similar. I actually looked for a good online article on the differences between yellowjackets and hornets, and most of the ones I found said things that were wrong. This video isn't scientific, but AFAIK it's accurate (though the chicken/squirrel stuff at the end is a little off topic). These wasps build many of the large papery nests that you'll frequently see hanging from trees once the leaves fall [1]. In many cases I'll find that I had been walking near their nests all summer without being harassed by them. If you're not perce

Yesterday I talked about American Senna . Well here's a Cloudless Sulphur caterpillar on a senna. The caterpillar blends in pretty well with the senna plant. It sounds like for these caterpillars they are what they eat; eating the yellow flowers makes them yellow, and eating the green leaves makes them green. This coloring no doubt helps them avoid the attention of predators. It's hard to say how many predators they have though, since sennas and cassias (2 commonly used food sources as caterpillars) are considered poisonous, and eating them transfers some degree of poisonousness to these caterpillars. On the other hand, they'll also use some other legumes as host plants. Maybe these butterflies are sometimes poisonous and sometimes not? August 16, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 152592112, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's another example of mudpuddling butterflies, in this case Pearl Crescents . And as I've shown before, animal scat can be more nutritionally beneficial than mud, containing a concentration of minerals unlikely to be found anywhere. Mudpuddling seems to be mostly a male activity. You might think this is because they need more nutrition to fight off other males looking to mate, but in many cases their motivation is more fatherly; males will frequently pass these nutrients as a " nuptial gift " to females during mating [1]. Another interesting thing about mudpuddling is that the activity draws other butterflies in. Apparently a spot perceived to be good for mudpuddling is sufficiently valuable to butterflies that if they see others using the spot they are likely to check it out themselves. Sometimes a good spot will attract dozens of butterflies, maybe spanning a few different species. August 15, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 152591517, (c) jpviolette, some rights reser

Here's an American Senna  (aka Wild Senna), a native plant in the legume family . This is an interesting family of plants. It's the 3rd largest family of land plants behind only the orchids and asters (who are in a close race for 1st place). And while we might be most familiar with them for the beans and peas we eat, they're all around us and in various sizes: Clovers are usually low to the ground wildflowers. Sennas are up to 6 feet in height and straddle that area between wildflowers and shrubs. Kentucky Coffeetrees are trees. This indicates that there are some trees that are more closely related to the string beans in your garden than they are to other trees like oaks, maples, etc. Trees do not form a clade ! The largish, healthy population of American Senna at Duke Farms is suspected to be the reason that a butterfly rarely seen in the rest of Somerset County - the Sleepy Orange - is commonly found there. They and other sulphur butterflies like the Cloudless Sulphu

Here's a Wood Duck from early August. Normally this is probably our showiest waterfowl; I suspect this one is in its eclipse plumage . Eclipse plumage is a molting phase where the duck looks drabber and less colorful, and it's pretty important. Because ducks molt their flight feathers all at once, they go through a period when they're grounded, and are unable to fly. Imagine if you're one of the most colorful birds on the pond and you suddenly can't fly - to predators, you'd be a sitting duck! To partially compensate for their temporary lack of aerial ability, these ducks become less conspicuous by donning their eclipse plumage. (Mallards do this too, and during eclipse plumage it's very difficult to tell the male and female Mallards apart.) And then when their flight feathers grow back, they molt off these drab colors and regain their flamboyant good looks again. August 5, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 148952468, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Though some wildflowers grow pretty low to the ground, the fight for sunlight and the ability to photosynthesize means that many grow to 3-8 feet in height. This enables someone like this American Goldfinch to hide in there pretty well. All too often when I'm out trying to get pictures, I fail to approach areas like this quietly and discreetly enough, and birds/butterflies will flee before I get a picture. Of course, many other times if you approach really slowly and carefully, you find there was nothing there to scare off. And moving really slowly all of the time makes it hard to cover a lot of ground. There's no perfect solution to trying to find these guys. I think some of those plants are probably thistles which have gone to seed, seeds that a goldfinch would happily eat. This habitat probably provided both camouflage cover and nutrition. August 5, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 148952799, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

I got this picture of a Monarch landing on a milkweed (probably Common Milkweed). Although this plant looked pretty young, most milkweeds had blossomed earlier in the summer [1], and I don't see flowers on it. My suspicion is that this is a female looking for a good spot to lay an egg, which will hatch into a milkweed-eating caterpillar. I'm told that under favorable conditions a Monarch can go from egg to adult butterfly in a little over 25 days: 3-8 days to hatch 3-5 days for each instar X 5 instars = 15-25 days as a caterpillar 8-15 days in chrysalis 26-48 days to become a butterfly Any egg laid on this day should be a functional adult by either mid-September or very early October. Both these dates most likely mean it would be in the super generation that migrates down to winter in Mexico [2]. August 15, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 152591256, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] You can see flowering milkweed any time of the summer. If a plant is cut before it

Here's a Redhead duck I've seen this winter at the Duke Farms Reservoir. The reservoir usually has a pretty good population of Ring-necked Ducks out there, though usually far enough out that you just see little black-and-white ducks. Sweeping over them with my binoculars, I kept seeing a little bit of red out there, though with all the movement (including diving underwater and other ducks getting in the way) it took a while for me to confirm that one of those ducks was not like the others. Over the next week I took a crapload of pictures, though the first set turned out the best (presumably because the ducks were a little closer to shore that particular day). We're apparently far enough south to be considered a winter migration home, though not far enough south to be genuinely popular with Redheads. Some of them breed due north of us in southern Canada, though it's more common for them to breed in the northern midwest. This fella (a female wouldn't have a red head

Here's a Horace's Duskywing from last summer. Unless it's a Juvenal's Duskywing ; together they comprise another pair of very similar and related butterflies. But let's go with the Horace theory. Like a lot of skippers , the duskywings are difficult to identify because they're fairly similar. They differ from a lot of the skippers I see by being spread-winged skippers , who are much more inclined to hold their wings down when at rest than the grass skippers . I initially thought this butterfly might have been named after Horace Waller , a lepidopterist and anti-slavery activist alive around the time of the discovery of this butterfly, but apparently many of the duskywings are named after Roman poets like Horace . As caterpillars these butterflies feed on oaks. They also survive the winter as caterpillars and are probably ready to enter their chrysalis stage as soon as spring arrives. August 5, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 148952672, (c) jpviolette, some rights res

Here's a Swarthy Skipper from last summer. Why swarthy ? From this view where you see the underside of the wings, it looks like a fairly light brown butterfly. If you see the top view of the wings though, you should see more of a dark gray or light black color. So this fella might have a swarthy side that you just can't see in this picture. These guys are, like a lot of the skippers I see, a grass skipper , meaning that they use some type of grass as host plants when they're caterpillars. Though most sources say they'll only use Little Bluestem  [1] grass as a host, at least one suggested they'll also use some other unnamed grasses. The Swarthy Skipper was first documented as a species in 1824 by the French entomologist Pierre Andre Latreille  [2]. AFAIK Latreille never journeyed to America, so I'm assuming someone sent him butterflies (he also documented our Tawny-edged Skipper ) and other insects to him in France where he determined which ones were new specie

Here's one of my favorite moths, the Snowberry Clearwing . They're large, diurnal, and can be found nectaring on flowers with other respectable insects. Lots of moths are small, nocturnal creatures that you won't find without special lighting equipment (or sometimes just luck). These moths though can be found just by hanging out where other pollinators hang out. They're somewhat less common than their Hummingbird Clearwing cousins, who are also largish, diurnal, and can be found in meadows. I don't feel there's much of an aesthetic difference between these two moths, but since the Snowberry Clearwings are a little less common I get a little more excited about seeing them. The Snowberry Clearwing looks a bit more like a big bumblebee while the Hummingbird Clearwing looks a bit more like a female Ruby-throated Hummingbird. As often happens, Snowberry Clearwings are named after their host plants, the Snowberry shrub, but they're not terribly fussy eaters. The

Though it's a bit obscured, I'm glad I got this picture. Normally I like pictures of Green Herons because they're colorful birds with a striking look. This one though looks like a frizzy-feathered young heron, and I don't see them very often. You might say that this can't be a heron; the neck is too short. Well, Green Heron's probably do have less neck length than some of its heron relatives, but it's longer than it appears in this picture. Green Herons are skilled at scrunching up their necks so the necks look shorter than they actually are. That's just the way Green Herons roll. As I recall, the Duke Farms Waterfowl Count Team actually saw a bunch of juvenile Green Herons this summer, though I only managed to get one picture of them. You need to be in the right place at the right time, and you either need to see them before they see you, or you need to be so far away that they don't perceive you as a threat. August 5, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 1489

It's frequently easy to identify Autumn Meadowhawks ; they're the bright red dragonflies I see well into autumn. Even the females turn at least orange, sometimes red (assuming they live long enough). But they don't start their adulthood that color. They start like this, mostly light brown with a little green on the underside of the head and thorax. I suspect this is a male; it sounds like we'd be able to see something called a "subgenital plate" hanging down near the end of the abdomen if this was an immature female. While it's not unusual to see these dragonflies in early August, they really come into their own a month or two later when they're more likely to be flashing their red color, and when other dragonflies are scarce. August 3, 2021 at Washington Valley Park Photo 149026626, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Most of us are familiar with the warning: Leaves of three, let it be . Some of us are also aware of the companion warning: Hairy rope, don't be a dope . But beyond these identifications for Poison Ivy , you should also be careful of their berries. I only IDed these berries because: I knew there was Poison Ivy in the area because I had been helping remove invasive plants around there in the summer. And when I followed the berry stem, I found the "hairy rope". Poison Ivy is in the cashew family aka sumac family , and the allergic reaction it causes in humans is from a substance called urushiol  (pronounced sort of like you-ROO-shee-awl). I'm told it only affects humans, though I've wondered whether other primates would be affected if there were any roaming the North American woods. [1] Here's a shot of its berries, though they look pretty old at this point. They are considered to be a nutritious food for birds in the winter, when food like insects is hard to com

Here's a Great Egret foraging at the end of Duke Island Park last summer. Though a lot of egrets are white, they're really not a different type of bird from the ones called herons. So even though the Great Egret may get confused with the Snowy Egret , Cattle Egret , or Reddish Egret , they're closest relative around here is the Great Blue Heron . (There is a white morph of the Great Blue Heron found in the Florida Keys that could also be confused with a Great Egret.) You might think that a white bird would stay up north during the winter, finding camouflage during snowy periods. But these guys like things warmer, and I've never seen them in the winter. Some maps suggest they could be found in southern NJ in winter though. This bird was almost driven to extinction for its feathers; their plumes were considered quite the fashion statement in the 19th century, and the birds were hunted mercilessly. Nowadays this hunting is illegal, and although they're less common tha

Here are a couple of Common Snapping Turtles I met back in August. I suppose you might find larger sea turtles out at the shore, but inland these guys are kings of the turtles, and considered a top predator in their ecosystems. They achieve this status despite being omnivores [1]. They do have a reputation for being aggressive, and they probably are fairly feisty if you encounter them on land where they presumably feel vulnerable and out of their element. It sounds like in the water though they'll usually just avoid humans. Duke Island Park has a building (mostly closed during the pandemic) where if you go around the back, it overlooks the Raritan Water Power Canal. This is where the snapping turtles were. (Someone claimed they show up because people feed them. Generally speaking, this isn't a good idea; us humans rarely feed animals food that meets their nutritional needs [2]. Admittedly it did help me get these pictures.) I thought the 1st snapping turtle to show up was pret

For a primarily brown butterfly, the Common Wood-Nymph is frequently identifiable at a glance. That's because in my area they typically have a yellow patch on the forewings with a pair of eyespots on them. I haven't spotted variations of this butterfly around here, but they do exist: Sometimes the yellow patch is instead a tan color that's lighter than the rest of the wing, but far less eye-catching. Sometimes instead of a yellow patch, the eyespots are in a round yellow ring instead. This field mark is a little harder to spot for a distance but is pretty distinctive. If you see it, you'll probably be able to ID it. Sometimes there is no patch, though the eyepatch itself is still there. August 3, 2021 at Washington Valley Park Photo 149027513, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's someone I hadn't seen at Duke Farms before, a pair of Snow Geese . This probably isn't outside their range, though they were new to me. They were on Heron Lake. Snow Geese are known to congregate in large flocks. I don't know how this pair got separated from a larger group of Snow Geese, but I suspect that in the absence of other Snow Geese they joined in with the next best thing: a flock of Canada Geese . There are also a pair of Mallards in the back, but they were just passing through; before and after the picture the Mallards were in different parts of the lake. Although Canada Geese have some reputation for being aggressive, I don't think I've ever seen them mistreating other waterfowl. I suppose the dynamic changes if they had vulnerable goslings around, but this time of year they seem accepting of the presence of the Snow Goose cousins. December 17, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 174171294, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)  

Here's someone I didn't expect to see (and barely did see, as you'll be able to tell from my photo): an American Woodcock . I have to admit I'm not sure how these birds operate. They eat worms and other invertebrate from the ground, using their long beaks to explore under leaves and other debris. And they are apparently in NJ during the winter. But they're supposed to be susceptible to starvation if there's snow cover or temperatures that freeze the ground, so I'm not sure how they make it through a historical NJ winter. [1] They're known for the male's elaborate courting ritual , though that's more of an early spring activity. I'm skeptical I'd see that in December even if a male and female were in this area. Woodcocks are technically shorebirds , but that indicates who their relatives are, not how they live. Their closest North American relative is the Wilson's Snipe . Here's my picture of the little fella, surprisingly well ca

Forget about Alien vs Predator , we have two aggressive invaders that battle it out throughout much of NJ: In one corner, from the wilds of China, Korea, and Japan, an especially thorny rose introduced as "the living fence", we have Multiflora Rose . In the other corner, also from Japan and eastern Asia originally introduced as an ornamental shrub and that provides a haven for ticks, we have Japanese Barberry . These are 2 of the most common and aggressive invasive shrubs [1] in this area. Some places may be dominated by one or the other, though a lot of times you'll see both plants crowding out our beneficial native plants.  At Washington Valley Park I saw the pair of shrubs both fighting for basically the same spot. At a glance you might not even recognize there are 2 separate plants here. Multiflora Rose and Japanese Barberry August 3, 2021 at Washington Valley Park Photo 149026850, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) As you get closer, you can see the vici

While September 24 is National Punctuation Day , July 31 was my personal Punctuation Day when I photographed 2 Question Mark butterflies and 2 Eastern Comma butterflies. The "punctuation butterflies" were definitely out and about on this day. [1] Eastern Comma July 31, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 149014716, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) Eastern Comma July 31, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 149014866, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) Question Mark July 31, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 149015240, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) Question Mark July 31, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 149015674, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] I'm pretty sure these were taken during the annual Duke Farms Butterfly Count.

Here's a Red Admiral butterfly that looks like it could win a tattered wing contest. I'd like to think the butterfly has some harrowing and exciting stories to tell like in the scar comparisons in Jaws : This tear here, I got that shortly after pupating. A starling got the end of my right wing in its beak. I'd have been a goner, but when the starling was focused on me, that hawk came down on the starling. I lost part of my left rear wing when that praying mantis grabbed at me. If he'd have gotten my abdomen instead of my wing, I wouldn't be talking to you here today. The rest of that wing I lost in the web of a spider. If it hadn't been torn already, I'd never have been able to escape that web before that spider got to me. That one there, a robberfly had me for a second, but let go when that starling appeared and ate the robberfly. Funny how sometimes a starling saves you and sometimes tries to eat you. And this one got ripped when a dragonfly tried to eat

Here's what I believe to be an old gray female Slaty Skimmer . That's right, similar to humans, Slaty Skimmer females can turn gray as they age. [1] Other signs suggestive of an old age are the somewhat tattered hind wings. Females in the prime of life are basically brown, though they'll usually have a gray streak going across the top of their abdomen. You can see a dark gray, almost black, on this individual too. But you don't see the slate-blue that's so distinctive on the males. You can also see a somewhat unusual trait of the Slaty Skimmers; they frequently perch using only 4 of their 6 legs and fold their front legs up behind their heads. It's a little hard to see the folded front legs, but it's easier to notice that only 4 legs are visible and in use right now. July 31, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 149014422, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) By way of comparison, here are a couple males in this post . [1] Of course, in humans it's the ha

Where's the silver spot [1] on this Silver-spotted Skipper ? It's (almost certainly) there, but it's really only visible on the underside of the wing. Many times these butterflies rest with their wings held up, and their silver spot actually is a pretty prominent field mark. I don't know if this particular skipper was trying to maximize its exposure to sunlight, but it had the wings held down, and the silver spot isn't in evidence. If you only see this angle, it can make identifying this butterfly trickier. Despite this view, the silver spot gives this butterfly a reputation as the country's most recognizable skipper. [2] Most of the skippers I meet are grass skippers , where the caterpillars feed on some sort of grass. Silver-spotted Skippers are definitely not in this group; their caterpillars eat plants in the legume family like Black Locust , Honey Locust , and wisterias . (Like good children, their caterpillars eat their vegetables.) The Silver-spotted Skip

Here are a couple of beetles that are poisonous to eat, at least to birds and us mammals. I'm not sure they're poisonous enough to kill most birds, though it'll probably be sick for a while. [1] They acquire their poisonous nature from eating milkweeds / dogbanes , 2 related and poisonous plants. But don't go tearing out any milkweeds/dogbanes from your yard; the plants are environmentally beneficial and are perfectly harmless if you don't swallow a bunch of it. [2]  If you're going to ingest potentially dangerous chemicals to acquire a poisonous nature yourself, you want to advertise yourself as poisonous. Both these beetles advertise this visually, but they do it in different ways. The Red Milkweed Beetle has the more conventional advertisement; similar to Monarch butterflies and Large/Small Milkweed Bugs, their red coloring warns off at least some of their predators. The Dogbane Leaf Beetle is a bit more creative, and possibly even more eye-catching; their