northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's someone I don't think I've seen before, or if I did I was unable to get a picture of it. The latter is probably more likely, since my field guide says the  Carolina Saddlebags  is "common", and also mentions that saddlebags don't perch much but instead spend a lot of time zipping around in the air. Despite zipping around, these largish bright red dragonflies are likely to get your attention. They get the "saddlebags" part of their name from the large (in this case red) basal spot on the hind wings, which made it look like (to someone familiar with horses) the dragonfly had saddlebags . (In actuality dragonflies have few possessions, and thus no need for a saddlebag with which to carry them.) There is a very similar saddlebags dragonfly, the Red Saddlebags, that's occasionally seen in the southern tip of New Jersey. Even though this dragonfly would be out of range in Hillsborough, there are reasons to believe this is the Carolina Saddlebag

A couple weeks ago at the Dukes Brook bird blind at Duke Farms, I didn't see birds but saw "something weird" going on in the water. I'd see something large repeatedly emerge from and submerge into the water. It took a while for me to convince myself this was due to one/more Common Snapping Turtles as opposed to some odd largish fish ( European Carp ?) activity. Once I convinced myself this was snapping turtle activity, I still wasn't sure what was going on. Was a snapping turtle attacking something, either another turtle, or bird, or even something like a beaver or otter? Well, there was no sign of blood in the water, and given a snapping turtle's ability to inflict damage it seemed unlikely that one would be involved in a fight for any length of time without one combatant or another getting wounded. I'm now of the belief that I was seeing Common Snapping Turtles mating in the water, surfacing for breath and positioning. And I've heard that snapping t

Though most of the time my problem with taking animal pictures is getting an animal that doesn't want its picture taken to cooperate and stay still long enough for me to aim and focus. But once in a while the opposite problem occurs, where I'm trying to take one picture and something seemingly photobombs the picture. This happened twice a couple weeks ago. Sometimes the photobomb is a momentary inconvenience, but all too often the activity leads to the original subject and the photobomber fleeing from camera range. In this 1st one, I intended to get a picture of a Cabbage White butterfly on what I believe to be Birdsfoot Trefoil . Although I didn't think the trefoil was particularly popular with the pollinators, at least one butterfly was checking it out when another flew in. In this case the photobomb was probably about romance; the one with 2 dark smudges on the forewings is a female while the intruder with 1 smudge spot on its forewings is a male. (I have no idea if the

A few weeks ago I got a picture of an American Bullfrog that looks kind of chubby. This was taken in the rain garden just west of the Duke Farms parking lot, probably aided by the water level being a little low. This meant the dense vegetation that's usually there wasn't interfering with my line of sight. (FWIW the water level is even lower now.) I don't know if the frog looked chubby because the location was providing an excellent supply of food, or if something more reproductive was going on. Female bullfrogs that are ready to lay eggs tend to look plumper. If this is a female preparing to lay eggs, she'll be selecting a handsome male bullfrog soon as her mate. They'll find a romantic spot in the water, he'll climb on top of her, and she'll release her eggs (up to 20,000 of them) directly into the water, and he'll release his sperm onto those eggs in the water ( external fertilization ).  So next year I should see 20,000 bullfrogs in this spot, right?

Here's a butterfly I had only photographed once before, the Juniper Hairstreak . (I do see their (appropriately named) Red-banded Hairstreak cousins fairly regularly.) I was pretty sure I had a Juniper Hairstreak when I saw the green on it; there's only one other green hairstreak in NJ, and that one is usually seen in the southern part of the state. I wondered if I processed this picture incorrectly when I saw pictures of much greener Juniper Hairstreaks elsewhere on the web, but it does sound like there are color variations , and tend to get browner with age . (If this one had been a little older, I might not have recognized it as a JH.) I take pictures in "raw mode", then use software to try and get the best image before producing the pictures you see. In theory this gives me more ability to correct lighting, centering, and zoom limitations in the original photo, but I could also change an image to look much different than what I actually saw. It sounds like the Ea

Here's one of the 1st Eastern Pondhawks I've seen this season. Like quite a few insects, they're light enough to safely land on pond scum. This was probably the 2nd and 3rd dragonfly I learned to identify, shortly after the Common Whitetail . Why do I say 2nd and 3rd? Well, originally I thought the blue males and the green females were separate species. But once I got identifications for them, I realized that those dragonflies I thought to be rivals might have been spouses. I haven't seen females out yet. My impression is that with some dragonflies the males emerge 1st, squabble over territory, and once their fighting has simmered down the females arrive on the scene. If you're wondering what the females (and immature males) look like, here's an old post  from a prior year. This spot also had Blue Dashers zipping around. I've heard different things about the way dragonflies of different species interact. Sometimes (especially if there's a substantial s

Here's a belligerent wasp that you wouldn't want to meet, right? Wrong! This isn't a wasp at all but a non-stinging hoverfly , more precisely the Yellow-spotted Falsehorn. Note that I won't be able to tell you a lot about this fly since it's one of those species (and genii) that doesn't have a lot written about it (at least online). What I can tell you is that, like some other hoverflies like the Eastern Calligrapher and the Transverse-banded Flower Fly , these flies are bee/wasp mimics. In the insect world if you're not going to be dangerous yourself, it pays to at least look dangerous, and these guys do it by looking like someone who could sting you. And like the other hoverflies, as adults they do like their nectar. As kids (larvae) these flies bore into and eat wood, though it sounds like they mostly go after rotting wood/logs; it's unclear that they're much of a threat to healthy trees. The falsehorn flies shouldn't be confused with the ho

Here's the 1st Little Wood Satyr I photographed this season. Though there is a perception that "butterflies are colorful" and "moths are drab looking", the truth is more complicated. Though satyrs/nymphs like this Little Wood Satyr may have neat looking eyespots (those spots on the wings that might fool predators into thinking they're eyes), you can't really call them colorful. And there are certainly some moths more colorful than this. Skippers are another group of butterflies that are generally earth-toned. (I've talked a little about the butterfly/moth distinction here , and Little Wood Satyrs here .) These butterflies are pretty widespread; though this one was found at the Plainsboro Preserve, I've also seen them at Murray Hill , Washington Valley Park , Duke Farms , Fairview Farm , and other wooded places. June 1, 2022 at the Plainsboro Preserve Photo 205019765, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's another familiar face that's pretty common in New Jersey, an Ebony Jewelwing . No other damselfly  [1] around here has all-black wings [2], so they're among the easiest odonates to identify around here. While I think the Common Whitetail was the first dragonfly I learned to identify, I'm almost certain that the Ebony Jewelwing was the first damselfly I learned to identify. Although they are predominantly black (providing the "ebony" part of their name), the males will frequently also show a blue/green metallic sheen (which is probably where the "jewel" part of their name came from). Like all odonates, the Ebony Jewelwing is a predatory flying insect. I'm not sure they're big enough to prey on deer flies or horse flies, they probably do take down some insects we regard as pests. I frequently find odonates in areas where flies/gnats are plentiful; it makes sense that they like to be around their food source. Here's the 1st picture I

A couple weeks ago at Fairview Farm I met a unicorn! Okay, it's really a Unicorn Clubtail dragonfly. The pond there has sort of a mini-pier that extends out into their pond, and as I went there I saw this largish dark dragonfly perched out there. Though this is the most widespread clubtail in New Jersey, they tend to shy away from us humans. After getting this picture I tried to move in for a closer shot and (hopefully) a view of the face, but the dragonfly up and left. I wasn't able to get any more pictures of it. June 1, 2022 at Fairview Farm Photo 205020424, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) I had never seen one of these before and didn't know what it was before  posting it in iNaturalist . They got the "unicorn" part of their name from a prominent  occiput , the region of their head that's sort of above/between their compound eyes. If you expand the picture above, I think the "horn" is the slight tip of the lime green area between

For at least 3 weeks now I've been seeing Red Admirals around. These are butterflies that don't have the long, regular migration cycle of the Monarch butterfly ; instead they basically migrate south when their caterpillar host food - nettles - is no longer available as winter sets in. And then in the spring as we get our nettles back, the Red Admirals migrate north to take advantage of the food source. Don't confuse the Red Admirals with the Red-spotted Admirals ; despite the similar name these are 2 different species that don't even look alike. I talked about Red-spotted Admirals here , and talked about Red Admirals here . These butterflies are fairly common, and if you're in woods and meadows a lot you're likely to run across them. They're considered more human-tolerant than most butterflies. They'll sometimes even land on you, though this is probably about them trying to drink up some sweat than it is raw friendliness. June 2, 2022 at Duke Farms Pho

I was actually looking at a Great Egret (quite possibly this guy ) further out at the marshy part of Duke's Brook when a couple pointed out this much closer Green Heron at the top of the waterfall. This is probably a good spot since the water's shallow as it goes over the falls and the heron doesn't even need to get its feet wet. I've talked and talked and talked about Green Herons, so I'll just quickly recap that: It's in "scrunched neck mode", giving a somewhat un-heron-like look, but they can also stretch those necks out and get you thinking about herons. They'll probably eat any animal matter that they can swallow whole.  They're not typically a forest green color, usually looking more aquamarine or turquoise. Though other people had been reporting seeing Green Herons here for over a month, this was my first sighting of the season. June 2, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 205021364, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Meadows are beginning to bloom out, and milkweed , one of the workhorses of the meadow, are an example of that. This almost certainly changes the ecosystem: There's a sudden increase in the nectar/pollen available out there, attracting a bunch of different pollinators (bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, flower flies, etc). This in turn attracts predators of the pollinators like spiders, mantises, and birds. It's also a host plant for lots of insects, many of which I talked about here . I wanted to talk about milkweeds partly because I'm supposed to talk about them as Duke Farms Outdoor Educator today so I watched some videos to refresh my memory about them: Nature at Your Door Frank Taylor Six Species of Milkweed ... Here are 2 of our most commonly seen milkweeds, the Common Milkweed and the Butterfly Milkweed . June 10, 2022 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve Common Milkweed June 10, 2022 at Negri Nepote Native Grassland Preserve Butterfly Milkweed

Here's an American Robin I saw a couple week's back. I'm not sure if this will be a meal for the robin or if it'll feed some nestlings back at home. Many times it's difficult to figure out exactly what a bird is eating, but "earthworm" looks like the obvious answer here. Contradicting the old adage that "the early bird gets the worm" this picture was taken mid-afternoon. But assuming this robin is raising kids, this is a reminder that feeding them is pretty close to a fulltime job. Though we think of robins as cute little birds that sing a lot, to some parts of the animal world they are feared predators. (I'm reminded of an old Far Side cartoon where a bunch of worms were watching a horror film called (something like) "Night of the Robin".) May 31, 2022 at Washington Valley Reservoir Photo 205019508, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Most of our dark, largish butterflies in this area turn out to be swallowtails (black morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtail , Black Swallowtail , Spicebush Swallowtail ), but here's the most commonly seen exception, the Red-Spotted Purple . You could quibble about the name. When I look at them I initially notice the black, then with a better look I'll detect some blue, and after that I'll notice some orange spots. (I suppose calling it the Orange-spotted Black-and-blue might suggest an insect with bruises in the aftermath of an injury.) This is another example of the name being for a subspecies, not a species. The species name is Red-Spotted Admiral , which comprises both the Red-spotted Purple and the White Admiral . (Looking at the 2 subspecies, you'd probably think you were looking at 2 different species since they look fairly different.) It's possible that the Red-spotted Purple has evolved to look similar to a poisonous swallowtail that I haven't seen but which i

Here's an Eastern Bluebird I saw late in May, and have talked about them before. Duke Farms has quite a few bluebird nesting boxes scattered around the property and they may be paying off. Despite Tree Swallows taking a nontrivial number of the nesting boxes, I've been seeing bluebirds behind the Farm Barn pretty regularly this spring. What's this bluebird looking at? An airplane banner ad? A UFO? Probably neither of these. I suspect that the bluebird was birdwatching, either of another bird flying overhead or maybe on the nearby telephone lines that are popular perching spots. And there seemed to be a little competition for this perching spot, so he may be keeping an eye on a rival bird looking to perch in this spot. My second best guess is that he's got a meal on his mind and a potentially tasty insect flew by. May 29, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 205019151, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Early this season my dragonfly-watching activities have been dominated by Blue Dashers . Though this hasn't necessarily been true every year, the Blue Dasher is considered one of the most common/abundant dragonflies in North America. (And based on the name, they're among the most dashing.) I've talked before about how to identify male Blue Dashers , with a small caveat here and a discussion on juveniles here . Though other odonates are starting to show up, our Blue Dasher friends have been zipping around since at least May. May 25, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 205018313, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

After a midweek Duke Farms program, this American Lady butterfly was spotted near the Orchid Range. I've discussed before how to distinguish this butterfly from its more common Painted Lady cousin. Although smaller and with a different wing pattern than yesterday's Monarch , they might be confused with the Monarch if you see it fluttering across a meadow at a distance. Also similar to Painted Ladies and Monarchs, these butterflies migrate here as the weather warms, so you'll probably never see them really early in the season. And since they lay eggs mostly on flowers in the aster family, you probably need these to be fairly mature (though not necessarily in bloom) before you see American Ladies. May 25, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 205018075, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Monarch butterflies are back, though they may not be easy to spot/identify. Though this is my 1st decent (non-blurry) picture of them this season, I've almost certainly been seeing solitary ones fluttering around since mid-May. The main problem right now is that there aren't a lot of flowers in bloom, and many butterflies don't sit still unless there's some nectar for them to slurp up. There is quite a bit of Foxglove Beardtongue in bloom, though this plant seems more popular with bumblebees. Monarchs and many other butterflies (I'm pretty sure I've seen glimpses of Eastern Tiger Swallowtails too) seem to be flying maniacally over the meadows looking for the few nectar sources available to them. But things are changing. Monarchs somewhat surprisingly will visit the non-native Red Clover , and that's in bloom already. Our milkweeds and dogbanes have just started to bloom, and Monarchs (among many other pollinators) love that stuff. Pretty soon there ought t

Last year I went to Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in mid-April and saw a bunch of Northern Watersnakes ( some apparently mating ). This year I didn't get up there until almost a month later and only saw 3 individuals. That's still more than I'm likely to see in most places, but I suspect this was past their peak time when they're driven both to seek sunlight and to breed, both of which probably bring them out into the open. Although I doubt they're as common as our garter snakes , I think I've seen more of our watersnakes . These 2 types of snakes are in the same subfamily  so perhaps it's unsurprising that they're both considered semiaquatic and both give birth to live snakelets . I suspect that if a Northern Watersnake invited a Common Garter Snake over for lunch, the garter snake would be happy with the menu (mostly amphibians). Though most of the individuals I've seen were at Great Swamp, I've seen them at a Sourland Mountain Preser

Here's an Eastern Garter Snake I encountered in May. Though it's possible to see quite a few Northern Watersnakes if you live near water, the Eastern Garter Snake is probably the most encountered snake in New Jersey, Connecticut, and probably most of the northeast. They get their name from garters , bands used primarily to hold up socks/stockings, presumably by someone who thought these striped snakes resembled some striped garters they saw/owned. Though I thought the term Garter Snake referred to a single species, it appears that both the Common Garter Snake (of which the Eastern Garter Snake is a subspecies) and the very similar looking Ribbon Snake are both snakes in my area that are in the genus that comprises the Garter Snakes. This video says that I've got a Common Garter Snake rather than a Ribbon Snake because of stripes under the mouth in my snake. Another good video for Garter Snake fans is here . Although you should consider Garter Snakes to be harmless, th

Many animals eat other animals so it's a little uncommon to put this trait into their name unless the name also tells us what they eat, like with the Cicada Killer Wasp , but we have put the moniker of "assassin" on some predatory bugs. The Scarlet-bordered Assassin Bug below is one example. I was surprised to find that there wasn't much information on these bugs to be found, at least when doing conventional web searches. (I wouldn't be surprised if some biology journals have information on them that's not available to regular people.) What I was able to learn is that they're active during the day, considered to be strong fliers, and they're in a family that specializes in eating millipedes. They have a very similar looking relative that seems to be a less vibrant red in color but don't live in this area. Though I'm probably not what this assassin bug would consider food, assassin bugs have been known to give painful bites to people (just in c

Butterfly season is ramping up. A couple weeks ago I met this Spicebush Swallowtail , a butterfly I've talked about here and here . This was easily my earliest sighting of this butterfly in a season, with May 18 being over a month earlier than my June 22 sighting in a previous year. Looking at iNaturalist sightings by other people, this isn't a shocking sighting even though the Spicebush Swallowtail observations usually peak in July/August. In the 1st picture we get a pretty good look at the tops of the wings, though I'd argue this isn't the best view for identifying a Spicebush Swallowtail. Looking at this I'd be inclined to think the spots would be more yellow on a Black Swallowtail , and that a black morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtail usually shows the typical stripy pattern you'd find on a regular yellow morph except that the pattern would be dark black on light black; the uniform black with the white spots would have me leaning towards a Spicebush. May 18, 2

I met this Eastern Kingbird a couple weeks ago. This is a bird I usually see in a season, though rarely often. I talked a bit about them before. They're almost famous for their aggression towards other birds they consider to be a threat, including birds that are quite a bit larger than they are like hawks, crows, or herons. This tyrannical behavior is behind their scientific name of Tyrannus tyrannus. If you see a white and nearly black bird singlehandedly dive bombing larger birds, you might be seeing an Eastern Kingbird. Though they'll readily eat fruit (especially outside of breeding season), these birds are flycatchers like the Eastern Phoebe and the Great Crested Flycatcher . All 3 have closer relatives than each other, though those relatives tend to live outside New Jersey. May 18, 2022 at Duke Farms Photo 203066566, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's another bird that's supposed to be fairly abundant but that I rarely see, a Great Crested Flycatcher . Though this bird could have been using NJ as a resting spot on its way to nesting further north, it's probably more likely that this flycatcher will stick around here. NJ is well within their breeding range. These birds appear to like being high in tree canopies and under dense foliage. This makes them harder to spot (which most birds probably like) but also means they're foraging in a slightly different area than the other flycatchers. The Great Crested Flycatcher actually looks pretty similar to 3-4 of its relatives , though none of those relatives are likely to be found in NJ. The yellow patch on their belly/breast also extends further up than on those other birds, which more or less eliminates the possibility of a bird that's just way out of its usual range. Like all flycatchers insects are a favorite meal, but they're a bit more omnivorous than most

A couple weeks ago I ran across a bird I don't usually see, a Northern Waterthrush . At least I'm pretty sure that's what it was; the Louisianna Waterthrush is an awfully similar bird. With a name like "waterthrush", you're probably thinking that this bird is related to thrushes like the American Robin ... but you'd be wrong. The waterthrushes (both Northern and Louisianna) are a type of warbler . Though the "thrush" part of their name is a little misleading, the "water" part is a more helpful description of the bird; they are usually found around still waters. There's a pretty good chance that this waterthrush was just passing through during migration. It looks like northwestern NJ is just barely in their breeding range. Still, we're probably close enough to their breeding range that if a male/female pair met here, they might consider staying. (We are more firmly in the breeding range for the Louisianna Waterthrush, though

With the return to warm weather, one of our larger herons, the Great Egret , can now be found around here. Though nowhere near as common as their Great Blue Heron cousins, their size and almost completely white coloring makes them striking birds as they wade through shallow water. The yellow bill, lack of a plume, and black legs/feet differentiate it pretty well from most other heron/egret candidates, and it looks too lithe to be a Cattle Egret without breeding plumage. Another reason it's not a Cattle Egret is that it shouldn't have its non-breeding plumage right now. And finally, of the white herons in my area, by far the one I've seen this most is the Great Egret. I've mentioned before that though there seems to be a correlation between non-white herons having "heron" in their name and white herons having "egret" in their name, there's no real taxonomic distinction between the 2. In fact, the Great Egret is more closely related to the Great

Here's a cool bird to encounter: the Pileated Woodpecker . Though I don't see them a lot, they're so large and distinctive that I always know exactly who they are. They're easily the largest woodpecker in my area, and they have the drumming strength beyond most of our woodpeckers. If you hear woodpecker drumming and think "wow that's loud", there's a non-trivial chance that a Pileated Woodpecker was behind that sound. This particular Pileated Woodpecker is a female. You can tell by the head: The red on the top of the head doesn't extend all the way from the front to the back, instead just being red past the eyes. There is no red "mustache" below the eyes. May 17, 2022 at the Plainsboro Preserve Photo 199522249, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

At Duke Farms Pop-up Education stands, we've been talking quite a bit about Spotted Lanternflies , and have started to see them in their 1st instar form. Tonight I did a few web searches to try and answer a question that's come up a few times: Does the Spotted Lanternfly need to feed on a Tree of Heaven to complete its life cycle? Here's what I found: Both this Penn State article and this National Park Service article  state that Tree of Heaven is not required for Spotted Lanternflies to complete their life cycle (and thus reproduce). But while this Nature article confirms that Tree of Heaven isn't necessary for them to reproduce, it says that Spotted Lanternflies produce only 1/7th of the egg masses when they don't feed on Tree of Heaven. That's an 86% reduction! They note that the smaller egg masses don't seem to be any less healthy. They speculate that without TOH to eat, SFLs take longer to develop into adults. If true, the effectiveness of removing TO

A couple weeks ago at the Plainsboro Preserve I was told that orioles were out and about. I didn't see many of them but did get a picture of one male Baltimore Oriole vocalizing (as they are wont to do) near the top of a tree. At a glance you might see an orange breast/belly with a dark head/back/wings and think you're seeing the far more common American Robin . But with a clear look you'll see that their orange is a bit brighter/lighter, that they have no white eye ring, and they have a bit of white on their wings. (Robins also outweigh Baltimore Orioles 2-1, though as I've mentioned before it's not always easy to judge the size of a bird at distance.) Similar to the Northern Flicker and the Eastern Towhee , there is some debate on where to draw the line between species. The Baltimore Oriole is clearly related to the Bullock's Oriole , and there was a time they were considered the same species, called a Northern Oriole . Genetic analysis convinced ornithologi