northeast-flora-and-fauna

Here's a Turkey Vulture and its friends, or at least friendly coworkers. You might look up at 1 (obviously good-looking) Turkey Vulture and think: "You're not so tough!". May 27, 2023 at Fairview Farm Photo 300288198, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)   But then you realize the Turkey Vulture has brought backup! May 27, 2023 at Fairview Farm Though this wasn't an especially large wake of vultures , it was of respectable size. I doubt they've got many predators, so I suspect vultures like each other's company. The Raptor Trust reports that wild vulture's often fly down to commune with their resident vultures. Though it's not uncommon for mixed Turkey Vulture and Black Vulture wakes, I'm pretty sure all of these were Turkey Vultures.

There were apparently a fair number of Red Admiral butterflies out and about last spring. And take heart, the days are getting longer, we're only days away from getting a springtime ruling from a rodent [1], and soon butterflies and their warm weather friends [2] will start showing up. May 26, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 300288105, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) May 26, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 300288188, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] I can only assume Groundhogs are in their burrows, pouring over meteorological data, and running their weather forecasting programs preparing their forecast. Those little guys are under a lot of pressure this time of year. [2] Admittedly butterfly enemies will also start emerging.

Here's one of our male Common Whitetail dragonflies taking a breather on some vegetation protruding from Dukes Brook. He'll probably be busy later defending his area of the brook. This wasn't the 1st Common Whitetail I photographed last year - this 1 from the day before was - but my understanding is that you can spot them around here as early as April, making them one of the earlier dragonflies to make the scene. (Certainly you shouldn't be seeing Autumn Meadowhawks this early.) Like many species of dragonfly, the males are not only aggressive towards males of their own species that could compete against them for a chance to mate, but will frequently also attack males of other species, especially if there's a vague resemblance between them. While this seems like a waste of energy, I guess when your only job is territorial defense, you don't want to take a chance that someone you thought was harmless turns out to be a breeding rival. May 26, 2023 at Duke Farms

Green Herons and Great Blue Herons weren't the only herons I spotted on this day; this Great Egret struck a pose as it waded over to its fishing spot. Since there's no taxonomic difference between herons and egrets, I'm going to claim that I hit the Heron Trifecta this day. Great Egrets are, anatomically speaking, slightly short and thin Great Blue Herons, and since the Great Blue Heron has virtually no avian predators [1], the same is probably also true of the Great Egret. If a coyote or bobcat caught 1 on land, my guess it wouldn't go well for the Great Egret. In the water, there are probably somewhat rare attacks by Common Snapping Turtles , though between scavenging and eating vegetation, snapping turtles usually find easier prey. May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292819218, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] It sounds like Golden Eagles will sometimes prey on Great Blue Herons but Bald Eagles rarely will. Since my area is largely devoid of Golde

This Blue Jay had something in its mouth. I'm not sure what it was, but as you can see in the 2nd picture, the Blue Jay wasn't willing to share it with me. I can't tell what it's got in its bill. It appears that the item is blurrier than the Blue Jay; I think this can happen what the item is fluffy/furry. My primary theories are: Something soft for lining the interior of a nest. Or perhaps it's a pupa of an insect that the Blue Jay intends to eat. So I guess my theories are that this is either food or shelter. Note this isn't the 1st time I've seen Blue Jays with food or building material . May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292819158, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292819185, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's a Red-tailed Hawk scanning the area. You might be able to see a little orangish coloring on the tail. If the tail was a light as the wing feathers, I'd probably be suspicious of a Turkey Vulture . This is also an example of a Red-tailed Hawk where the speckled belly band doesn't show up very well. The lesson: sometimes lighting can fool you into a misidentification. May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292819087, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

This Black Vulture was scanning the area, probably hoping to find a delicious rotting carcass [1]. They can be distinguished from their Turkey Vulture relatives because Turkey Vultures have red heads and normal-sized tails (unlike the puny tails of Black Vultures). And although scavenging death animals is the Black Vulture's main job, they do sometimes kill things as a side gig. Exactly what they'll kill isn't completely clear; there are reports of them killing newborn calves , though some argue they're killing sick calves that probably would have died anyway. They'll also kill wild animals as large as a Woodchuck (AKA Groundhog), though these attacks are probably rare.  In contrast, Turkey Vultures are pretty close to being pure scavengers. May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292818955, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] Within the vulture community it's understood that all rotting carcasses are delicious.

There were a small number of Cedar Waxwings up in a tree, and I got pictures of 2 of them. Surprisingly I haven't shown these guys before. They don't have close relatives that are usually around here, but Bohemian Waxwings can be found north and west of us [1]. Though they'll eat some insects when they're available, Cedar Waxwings love eating fruit, especially berries. They actually get the "cedar" part of their name because of their love of the "berries" (technically blue/purple seed cones that resemble berries) of the Eastern Redcedar . Their love of fruit can get them in trouble; they sometimes feast on fermenting berries and get drunk , making it far more difficult for them to survive threats they normally handle pretty well. But it also has some advantages; like other vegetarian birds , Brown-headed Cowbirds usually can't successfully brood parasitize them. These birds are also famously social, and where you see 1, you'll probably se

I met 1 mother Wood Duck with (at least) 6 ducklings and another that seemed to be alone 1 day last spring. I think it's actually a little easier to photograph the mothers with young than it is to photograph them as adults. As adults they can either fly away or swim into dense vegetation when they see me, but when ducklings are involved the mother is forced to herd/lead them slowly away, since young ducklings don't move all that fast. (FWIW I was almost certainly fairly far away when this picture was taken.) One thing you have to question when you see ducklings is whether they're all the mom's ducklings. Intraspecific brood parasitism happens quite a bit . May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292818544, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) On that same day, I think I met the proverbial duck out of water . May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292818929, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

If you were wondering if the male Red-winged Blackbirds had any females around to impress, here's 1 of those female Red-winged Blackbirds . Sexual dimorphism is strong in these birds, sometimes fooling people into thinking the males and females are of different species. This particular bird seemed to be pretty busy under a stone bridge [1]. My 1st thought - this picture being from the spring - was that maybe she was building a nest under there. It would have the advantage of keeping her and her eggs out of the rain, and might be a location that aerial predators (hawks and owls) wouldn't find. And although they're not aquatic, Red-winged Blackbirds do like their lakefront properties. Thinking about it more though, I think this is unlikely. Red-winged Blackbirds don't generally gravitate towards man-made structures, and it seems unlikely there's enough vegetation under there for her to build a water-adjacent nest . Finally, I didn't see her bringing any material

Not far from the Green Herons , I met this Great Blue Heron intently scanning the water from its throne [1], a tree branch protruding from the water. I'm not sure if these 2 species consider themselves competitors though they're after similar food [2]. Nor have I witnessed fights or squabbles between herons even when they're both within line of sight of 1 another. While their much larger size would seem to guarantee the Great Blue Heron a victory in an altercation, fights do have consequences: Even a smaller foe could wound a bigger rival, leading to infection or impaired hunting ability. The effort/energy of fighting is effort/energy that won't be used to find food or find a mate. Especially if fish are abundant, bird calculus might indicate that peaceful coexistence is superior to conflict. May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292818451, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] Maybe the throne should be for a Belted Kingfisher , because of that whole "ki

I saw this pair of Green Herons at the same body of water last spring. If I recall correctly, they were both photographed at Duke Farms' Turtle Lake (not the nearby Heron Lake), though they weren't especially close to 1 another. Given it being spring, I always wonder if this could have been a breeding pair based on nothing more than proximity, similar to the pair I discussed here . I have seen Green Herons near 1 another in the past that I suspected were juvenile siblings but these birds look like adults to me. These photos also highlight the way Green Herons can scrunch their necks (looking a little non-heron-like) as seen in the 1st picture -or- they can really stretch that neck out as seen in the 2nd picture. These 2 different looks will sometimes cause the naive to think these aren't the same species of bird. While bird shapes are important to note in identifications, there are times when the same bird could look radically different at different times. May 25, 2023 at

If you're an ectotherm like these Red Admirals (or an Northern Red-bellied Cooter ), nothing warms your heart like sunlight. Be careful about lumping all lepidopterans into the ectothermic camp though; some winter moths are actually considered endothermic . Back when I was a kid we were taught that all birds and mammals were endotherms and every other animal was some sort of ectotherm, which is a mostly-but-not-entirely true simplification. Red Admirals though do fall squarely into the ectotherm camp; they're not someone you'll meet in the winter. Note that these butterflies look fairly different, with the 2nd picture having faded coloring and somewhat ragged hind wings. It sounds like Red Admirals can brumate as adults, so it's possible that the 1 in the 2nd picture survived the winter while the 1 in the 1st picture may have emerged from its chrysalis within the last month. Remember, they got the "admiral" part of their name because they were admired , not

If you're an ectotherm  (AKA cold blooded [1]) like this Northern Red-bellied Cooter , nothing warms your heart like the sun. By late May (I'd imagine) all turtles are out of brumation , but temperatures may still be cool, inspiring turtles to warm themselves in the sun quite often [2]. I'm thinking this individual is a female since the plastron looks way more orange than pink . (Yes, in this case pink is for boys.) May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292818095, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] It sounds like actual scientists don't use warm blooded and cold blooded since there are also mesotherms that regulate body temperature a little bit between ectotherms and endotherms . [2] Unfortunately, as eager as they might be to sun themselves, they're still more than willing to dive in the water if you attempt to take their picture.

Last May the eligible Red-winged Blackbird bachelors were making their presence known. They display their flashy red wings and sing for 2 related reasons: To let other males know that this is their territory, and that the other males should stay away if they know what's good for them. My guess is that actual fighting is rare, but threats and intimidation are common in the leadup to breeding season. To let females know that there's a handsome male holding/defending a territory that would be great for raising a clutch of nestlings. Males with good territories will usually breed with more than 1 female that's decided to nest within his territory. Unfortunately for the males, a non-trivial number of a female's eggs were fertilized by a different male. Not unlike a soap opera, there's a lot of cheating going on in the Red-winged Blackbird world.  More about these birds can be found in this video . May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292818050, (c) jpviolette, some rights r

They do more than just sing; I'm thinking this Song Sparrow was in the process of building a nest and went out to get additional materials. This particular Song Sparrow is probably not a singer since females build the nests while males do the singing, and those certainly look like materials that would make a cozy nest [1]. (Finding some stiff grasses and flexible twigs are probably similar to a trip to Home Depot or Lowes for humans.) This nest will probably be on the ground or within 4 feet of the ground, hopefully getting some protection by being inside a shrub of some sort. They'll frequently have 2+ clutches of eggs in a single season; this is almost certainly the 1st clutch that she's preparing for. May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292817981, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] Since the female builds the nest, it's the female that's the handyman of the marriage. 

Here's 1 of our largest skipper butterflies, a Silver-spotted Skipper  [1]. For impressive-name purposes, you should pretend that the large white spot is actually silver. At least this 1 has its wings up; with the wings down  the best you could name it is a Silver-freckled Skipper (maybe). I've talked about some butterflies that don't especially like nectar and thus don't visit flowers very often (including recently ) [2]. Silver-spotted Skippers actually do like nectar but like many pollinators they're kind of picky eaters. Silver-spotted Skippers and most butterflies aren't big fans of yellow flowers, generally preferring a nice red or purple flower instead. (FWIW bees are frequently big fans of yellow flowers.) Since many related flowers have different colors, and since nectar is mostly just sugary water, I'm assuming that some animals have simply come to associate certain colors with food, and thus visit those colors more often. I'm skeptical that th

Here's a few skipper butterflies that're kind of good-looking when you get a good look at them: Zabulon Skippers . At least I'm pretty sure it's a Zabulon; there are other skippers in the area that look similar: Hobomok Skipper - More common in northern New Jersey, and generally veinier. Delaware Skipper - The forewing should have a weird harpoon-like dark shape, and it's also rather veiny. Broad-winged Skipper - Should have an even larger dark mark on the forewing that makes the yellow/orange patch resemble "a boot kicking a stone". In the 1st 2 pictures you can see the yellow/orange patch has a little point or hook out wide that's lacking in the other butterflies. In the 3rd picture you only seen the (less distinctive) wing bottoms, yellowish with spots. This is consistent with the Zabulon, not so much for the Hobomok. Skipper identification isn't easy, especially if you don't get a picture and don't quickly spot a field mark. Too many

I actually got to meet 3 Red-spotted Purples 1 day last May. As this day shows, if you're in the right place at the right time, you can run across them semi-regularly. Of course, "place" can mean different things; this place had 2 Red-spotted Purples interacting with each other, while each of the 1s in this post were seen separately and may have never met 1 another [1]. If you see a largish dark butterfly, it's usually worth trying to get a better look. Sure, sometimes they'll flutter away faster than you can pursue, but if you do get a good look you'll almost certainly discover that the butterfly is more colorful than you realized. These guys will reward you with that black contrasting with the light blue plus those orange spots. This is another species that isn't especially partial to drinking nectar, probably accounting for the lack of flowers in these pictures. In the 1st and maybe the 2nd picture it's possible that the butterfly was hoping to fi

Since I posted my 1st mushroom picture a couple days ago [1], I figured I'd follow it up with another photogenic mushroom for Throwback Thursday. This 1 is probably a Hemlock Varnish Shelf mushroom. At least I got an iNaturalist confirmation on it. As far as identification goes: The good news is that it doesn't appear to have any look-alike mushrooms that are poisonous. The bad news is that it does have look-alike relatives, and without identifying the tree it was growing from, it's hard to tell some of them apart. This mushroom does look varnishy though, doesn't it? Two of its similar relatives are: Ganoderma lucidum - This is a European relative that's certainly out in California and Utah but can occasionally be found in the northeast, feeding off of hardwood trees. Lingzhi (aka Reishi) - This mushroom is native to China and Japan, and it's probably not here in the US. It especially likes maple trees, and has long been used in Chinese and Japanese folk rem

Here's 1 of our more common and distinctive dragonflies, a Common Whitetail . Though probably average-sized by length and wingspan, they're robust-looking and eye-catching enough that you might be fooled into considering them to be on the large side.  I think this is the 1st dragonfly I learned to recognize. Or at least the male Common Whitetails were; the females look quite a different from the males but look quite a bit like the Twelve-spotted Skimmer females. (I don't know if Common Whitetails ever double-date with Twelve-spotted Skimmers and the males forget which date is theirs [1].) Although I've heard of naturalists who've been bitten by dragonflies, we're not even close to what they consider to be prey. I didn't follow up with the bitee, but I've wondered whether he had been handling the dragonfly and the dragonfly took exception to this. May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292816739, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] On the othe

Here's a cool-looking mushroom I saw sprouting out of a fallen dead tree trunk. It was identified on iNaturalist as a Dryad's Saddle mushroom (AKA Pheasant's Back mushroom).  If this is a Dryad's Saddle, it's considered edible when cooked, and pleasant enough to eat when young. (It sounds like it gets all fibrous when it gets old.) Years ago I bought a book called Mushrooms of Northeastern North America with the intention of learning to identify our local mushrooms. There were problems: Though I'm sure New Jersey has only a subset of these, the book covers 1500 species of mushrooms. That's a lot of potential candidates to work through. For many species, a proper ID often requires obtaining a spore print, obtained by putting the mushroom on a piece of white paper, covering it, and waiting 8 hours. Spore prints aren't really compatible with my light-traveling, quick-visiting nature walks. Finally, I'd hate to identify a mushroom as edible only to f

Here's a Mallard swimming through shallow water. I've talked about Mallards before, including their willingness to hybridize with relatives and that most domesticated ducks are domesticated Mallards . And I've also mentioned that only the female Mallards make the classic quacking vocalization ; you can compare their sounds here . Us humans try to represent the male's calls as "wrack" or "kwek" [1][2]. May 25, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 292816482, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] You can try all the quacking, wracking, and kwekking you want, but you're probably not going to convince a Mallard that you speak their language. (I'm also skeptical that honking at them will fool them into thinking you're a goose either.) [2] You might notice that "wrack" rhymes with "quack" while "kwek" is basically "quack" with a different vowel. It's easy to believe these similar-but-distinct sound

Here are 2 adult and 2 juvenile Canada Geese out for a swim. I don't recall if they jumped into the water to avoid getting their picture taken by me. (If that was the plan, it didn't work.)  Canada Geese and most ducks have opposite strategies towards reproduction. Ducks are famous for large broods with little adult supervision and thus high attrition rates. Canada Geese tend to go the opposite route, having smaller broods which the parents attentively teach and defend, leading to a higher percentage of goslings making it to adulthood. Both strategies can work since we have quite a few ducks and Canada Geese kicking around. This is probably a family of geese, though my understanding is that at some point the male goslings are taken under the wing of other male geese, and a symmetrical thing happens with the female goslings. Since there's virtually no sexual dimorphism in Canada Geese, I can't tell you exactly what's going on. My guess though is that these goslings

Here's a female Tree Swallow taking a little time to do some feather preening . (I'm pretty confident the gray coloring instead of a shiny blue indicates this is the more modestly colored female.) While bat wings are mostly a thin membrane of skin, much of the functional part of a bird's wing consists of its feathers. Feathers are also important for warmth and (especially among waterfowl) waterproofing. Unfortunately for birds, their feathers become dirty, wet, infested with parasites, and the feather barbs become separated, all of which can reduce their effectiveness. Thus it's important for birds to preen themselves to keep their feathers working properly. Preening is done quite a bit by the conscientious bird. Sometimes (as in this picture) a preening bird will essentially "nibble" on a feather to dislodge dirt/parasites and to smooth it out. In other cases they'll pass their bill over each (reachable) feather to accomplish the same result. In many sp

I have to admit I struggle with bee identification, but this was identified on iNaturalist as a Brown-belted Bumblebee , so that's what I'll talk about. My Bumble Bees of North America book says: Simple keys based on color patterns may appear easy to use and may work well on small local faunas, but they are unreliable for correct identification at the continent-wide level. Not only do bumble bee color patterns often vary a lot within species, but different species can also look similar to one another. The book also states that a lot of important characteristics can only be seen with a microscope or a strong hand lens; the bees I meet generally tolerate my presence but are unlikely to agree to this sort of examination. We'll just have to trust that the iNaturalist identifier knows what they're doing. (I will say the identification sounds plausible .) Despite the name, not all of these bumblebees have a brown band on their abdomens (AKA belts). And unlike with humans, ha

For Throwback Thursday, here's a bird I rarely encounter along with a bird I frequently encounter. The 1st 2 pictures are of a Little Blue Heron while the last picture is of a Great Blue Heron . Notice how dark all over the Little Blue Heron is, with its purple-maroon head and slaty-blue body. Wait, that's not what you're seeing? Sorry, that was a description of an adult Little Blue Heron; juveniles start out looking all white, and could be confused with a smallish Great Egret . In fact, the main reason I didn't make that mistake was because I had heard that a Little Blue Heron had been sighted here, so I was halfway to the right ID before I even saw it. Having said that, there are differences between Great Egrets and juvenile Little Blue Herons: Size: Normally I'd hesitate to even mention this since judging size from a distance can be error-prone. But in this case (see below) there was a Great Blue Heron standing nearby to use as a reference. Bill: The bill of the

Here's another Veery from last spring. Veeries are in a fairly good-sized family of birds, the thrushes . Some of the other thrushes look somewhat similar, some rendition of brown on top and whitish below: Hermit Thrush Swainson's Thrush Wood Thrush Other relatives are red-breasted, making them a little easier to identify: American Robin Eastern Bluebird  And then there are birds that sound like they're related to the thrushes, but are actually a type of warbler : Northern Waterthrush This is the complicated world of the birds. May 18, 2023 at Willowwood Arboretum Photo 292813063, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

This Brown Thrasher was out and about last spring. These birds are part of a family of bird mimics that includes the Northern Mockingbird . Though the Brown Thrasher doesn't look much like the Northern Mockingbird, if you can't see the bird but only hear the mimicry, you can confuse them. The main difference is that while the Brown Thrasher will mimic a sound (frequently but not necessarily a bird song/call) twice before moving on to the next sound, the Northern Mockingbird will mimic a sound 3 times before moving on to the next sound. This particular bird was slightly hidden by foliage, though it's not too bad a picture. Though range maps show Brown Thrashers spending the winter a little south of here, they are expected to winter as close to here as Delaware/Maryland. Given that birds probably adjust their migration from year to year based on temperature and the abundance of food, it wouldn't surprise me if someone spotted some of them around here in the winter. May

Satyrs may have started out in Greek mythology, but these days you can find them in modern lepidoptery. Here are a couple of Little Wood Satyrs I saw at 2 different locations on the same spring day. Many of the satyrines (aka "browns") abstain from nectar-feeding altogether as adult butterflies, preferring sap, rotting fruit, and other organic juices. Little Wood Satyrs break with their brethren species in this regard, and thus can sometimes be found on flowers. They're also known to feed off aphid honeydew  [1]. As caterpillars the satyrines tend to chow down on grasses and sedges; perhaps the butterfly in the 1st picture is reminiscing about a memorable meal from its childhood? Or regretting that it's now completely unable to consume blades of grass? May 18, 2023 at Fairview Farm Photo 292810726, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) May 18, 2023 at Willowwood Arboretum Photo 292813027, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] Given their ta