Nature Notes from Sue

Greetings, Late summer is a great time to find caterpillars.  I'm sure you are all familiar with the beautiful Monarch caterpillar.  This brood when it emerges will be heading to Mexico!  Just look for a patch of Milkweed and you are likely to see one of these. Now, here is a caterpillar most of you are not familiar and may not even think it was a caterpillar if you saw it!  This is the caterpillar of a Flannel Moth.  This caterpillar will feed on many of the hardwood trees found in our region.  HOWEVER BEWARE!  This caterpillar packs a painful and poisonous sting!  They have poisonous stinging spines underneath the hair. Final note, there was a bear in Mount Hebron a few days ago!  Please make your yard unattractive to bears.  That means bring in bird feeders at night, keep garbage cans inside if possible, don't feed feral cats and look for water sources in your yard.  It is not good for a bear to associate houses as a food source in such a densely populated area.

 Greetings, Well, look at the beautiful spider I found in the kale patch today!  This one belongs to the family of Crab Spiders.  After I picked my kale today, I carefully checked every leave for caterpillars and spiders and was delighted to find this one tucked inside the folds of one of the leaves.  I carefully removed the spider and returned it to the kale patch so it will feed on garden pests.  Well, tomorrow is 8/31 and I believe the method you receive my blog posts will change after this.  From now on, you should receive an email directly from me with the link to the newest post.  My home email is sonicsusiee@gmail.com.  If you do not receive an email from me after this by the weekend, email me directly as I may not have your email address.

 Greetings, Most of you are probably noticing more spiders around as we head towards fall and young ones are maturing.  I found this beautiful Yellow Garden Spider this week.  It is a member of the Orbweaver family.  These are the spiders that build the large round webs that many people say look like a bicycle wheel with spokes.  The one in the photo below is a female, the males don't have the bright yellow colors.  The white zig zag pattern in the web is referred to as stabilimenta.  It is thought that this gives added support in the center of the web, making it more difficult for larger insects to escape.   Hope you will love this idea.  I have a vegetable garden in my backyard and I have a problem with the non-native cabbage worms on my kale plants.  I have been picking them off my plants and then throwing them in the webs of the many Orbweavers in my yard!  It is fun to watch the spiders attack instantly and then wrap their dinner in silk.

 I was reminded today of these beautiful pollinators, when a neighbor found a nest in a tree next to where she puts out the garbage each week.  Her immediate reaction was to notify the HOA and demand that it be removed.  I assured her that the insects really were not interested in her, they just wanted to maintain and protect the nest.  I suggested she just put her trash out on the other side of the tree each week until winter and she would not be near them.  The last thing in the world anyone should do is grab a broom and swat the nest out of the tree.  This would likely cause maximum stinging as the insects try to protect their nest.  So if you encounter these nests in your yard or neighborhood, try to appreciate their role in the environment as pollinators.  I see them in my vegetable garden from time to time and welcome them.  I just don't pick my vegetables when I see one in my garden.  We live in harmony, I provide plants for them to gather nectar and in turn, they pollinate

 Greetings, It is that time of year for those unsightly Fall Webworms .  You are probably already noticing them as you drive down the highways.  This insect especially loves Black Walnut trees.  Inside those webs are tasty caterpillars.  Especially tasty if you are a Yellow-billed Cuckoo .  This bird had a feast in the spring with all those Cicadas.  Now they will be feeding on the Fall Webworms.  Please don't spray them, they won't kill your trees.  You will notice a couple branches die back.  Remember, the birds love to eat them.  If you spray them, you could kill the birds that eat them. Here is the Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Finally, I am still working on the changes with the delivery system of this blog.  I will make decisions by next week as to how you will receive this.  Stay tuned!

 Greetings, I came across this Coyote over the weekend.  It may surprise some of you to know that Coyote are present all around the County.  Humans have caused the perfect scenario for the Eastward expansion of the Coyote's range.  First, we removed their main predator, the Gray Wolf.  Then we created suburbia where there is a plentiful food supply of feral and domestic cats, geese, rabbits, fawns, etc.  Coyotes actually are omnivores and will eat insects, berries and other fruits too. If you raise chickens, you should secure them at night as these are easy pray for Coyote.  Please keep your cats indoors for their safety as well as the safety of baby birds that are everywhere now. Finally, the rules here at my blog are changing in August.  If you subscribed to have the posts sent directly to your email box, this will be ending.  I am working on a solution where it will come to your email box, but it will come directly from me.  Stay tuned as I test this out. Sue

 Greetings, Wild turkey are probably more common than you think!  It is hard to believe this bird was heading toward extinction 100 years ago.  Their habitat is oak/beech/hickory forests.   Check out this photo of a female Wild Turkey with 5 poults in a backyard in Ellicott City.  This photo was taken yesterday by Dave Savin.  The photo was sent to me to confirm breeding of this species in the Savage NW block in the MD Breeding Bird Atlas. As a reminder, this project is mapping the distribution of breeding birds every 10-square miles across the State and DC.  If you see turkey with young, please snap a photo and send it to me with the date, time and location.  This is a hard bird to confirm and it usually is just being in the right place at the right time when you just happen to see them.  I don't need a National Geographic cover photo!

 Greetings, It is not every day I find a Red-headed Woodpecker nest.  Last week however, I found two in two days.   July 2nd, I was conducting my weekly Breeding Bird Atlas survey in my assigned area of Woodbine.  Imagine my surprise when I turned the corner of A. E. Mullinix Rd., a red, white & black colored bird flew right in front of me and landed in a Walnut tree.  I stopped right there on the road with excitement, a Red-headed Woodpecker (RHWO)!  The bird then flew down to a fence post right along the road and I was able to get a look and a photo, but disappointed that it did not have any food in its bill.  Those of you familiar with A. E. Mullinix Rd. know that it is without a shoulder and parking is very difficult.  A car came up behind me and I had to move on.  All I could think was that bird had no reason to be there if it wasn’t breeding.  I know at this time of year, RHWO’s are feeding their young now.  I was prepared to park over a mile away (where I had permission) and

 Greetings! Well, July is just a couple days away.  Did you know that July is the month to see the most species of moths?  In fact, the last week of July is National Moth Week.  One of my favorite places to survey moths is my old office on Oakland Mills Rd.  In fact, I went by the office a couple weeks back to look at the moths.  I was excited to see a moth I know I had never seen before.  I later identified it as the Wood Leopard Moth seen below. My excitement though was short-lived.  I looked on the Maryland Biodiversity Project  website and learned that it was a non-native species.  Unfortunately, it is a pest for fruit growers.   Many of you are familiar with the Giant Leopard Moth (which is native) in the photo below.  Both Leopard Moths certainly look similar, but can easily be identified by looking at the spot arrangement.  

The Importance of Crayfish and Other Crustaceans in MD with Emilio Concari  Date and Time: Wed, Jun 16, 2021 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM (Local Time)  Organized By: MD Natural Places Committee Event Organizers: Marc Imlay   (301) 442-5657 Lily Fountain   (301) 474-2762  Emilio will be speaking about the ecological importance of crayfish and other crustaceans within Maryland’s ecosystems. Additionally, the presentation will discuss our rare and endangered crustacean species, and how we can preserve these often underappreciated animals moving forward.  You must RSVP at this link to attend. If you have trouble with the link, email Lily Fountain that you would like to attend.  Test 2 Testing links mmmmmm

Greetings, Some of you may be intersted in this talk tomorrow night on Crayfish sponsored by the Sierra Club. The Importance of Crayfish and Other Crustaceans in MD with Emilio Concari Date and Time: Wed, Jun 16, 2021 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM (Local Time) Add to Calendar Organized By: MD Natural Places Committee Event Organizers: Marc Imlay ialm@erols.com (301) 442-5657 Lily Fountain lily.fountain@mdsierra.org (301) 474-2762 Emilio will be speaking about the ecological importance of crayfish and other crustaceans within Maryland’s ecosystems. Additionally, the presentation will discuss our rare and endangered crustacean species, and how we can preserve these often underappreciated animals moving forward. You must RSVP at this link to attend. If you have trouble with the link, email Lily Fountain that you would like to attend. https://act.sierraclub.org/events/details?formcampaignid=7013q000001lVwLAAU&mapLinkHref=

Greetings, I think we are just starting past the peak of the cicada activity. I see no new larvae coming out from the ground. They are now flying, singing, mating and dying. This is a great time to contribute to science by helping to document them! We have 3 different species in Brood X and the Maryland Biodiversity Project (MBP) is making efforts to document them all around the state. The best way to doument them is by submitting photos through the iNaturalist app on your phone. When photographing them, be sure to take a view of the top as well as the bottom of the insect. This is easy to do since so many are dead on the ground now. All 3 species look different underneath. If you go to this link on the MBP website, "https://www.marylandbiodiversity.com/viewChecklist.php?genus=Magicicada", you will see the 3 species at the top of the list. You can click on each one to see their photos and how they look different. The one called Cassin's 17-Year Cicada, is

Greetings, Well June is here and with that, many young birds and other animals are in your yard! Before you head out to mow or weedeat, please take the time to look for young birds and animals on the ground. Box Turtles love to come to lay their eggs in nice soft mulch beds. This means they must cross your lawn. Young birds that can only fly a few feet when they first fledge, may be on the ground as well. It only takes a few minutes to take a quick look for animals so you don't mow over them. In my own yard yesterday, I found these two baby rabbits in my strawberry patch that just left their nest. I have been watching the nest for a couple weeks since I first discovered it. Mama rabbit comes around to tend to the babies around dawn and dusk every day. Now that the babies are on the move, I will be extra careful with any maintenance. Another note, PLEASE keep cats inside. Awkward baby birds are an easy target for cats. Cats are not a natural predator on birds. In my

Greetings, Saturday night I was out conducting my first moth survey of the season in Talbott County. The habitat was a deciduous forest. The largest moths we have in Maryland are in the "Giant Silkmoth" family. We saw the Polyphemus Moth and the Luna Moth on Saturday. The caterpillars of both species feed on a variety of deciduous trees and are common around the state. They are big and beautiful! Polyphemus Moth Luna Moth When I conduct moth surveys, I attach 2 ropes between two trees. One rope I hang a white sheet on and the other I hang a black light so that it shines on the sheet. Black lights are really good for attracting nocturnal insects. The insects will land on the sheet and then I photograph them. This is something you can do in your own backyard! I contribute my observations to the Maryland Biodiversity Project. There are over 2600 moth species already documented around the state!

Greetings, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to post this photo of a Turkey Vulture in the early morning sun at Triadelphia Reservoir early this morning. Many of you have probably noticed this bird on a light post or sign along the highway perching with the wings spread out and wondered, why? The main reasons are thermoregulation and drying. At night, this bird actually lowers its body temperature. Spreading the wings in the early morning sun can help the bird warm up as well as dry the dew from its feathers. Do you know where any of these birds are nesting? If so, please let me know! This one is a hard one to document in the Breeding Bird Atlas. They nest in rock crevices, tree hollows and stumps, abandoned barns and sheds, etc.

Greetings, Have you been noticing butterflies fluttering about lately? This past weekend I was at the Patuxent Research Refuge and saw this lovely Red-banded Hairstreak. It isn't the biggest butterfly (about 1 inch), but there is no mistaking that red band on the wings! The caterpillar for this species feeds on fallen leaves of oaks and sumacs, so plenty of caterpillar food in our area. Just a reminder, the Howard County Bird Club has an online form on their website for you to submit your butterfly observations in Howard County, https://howardbirds.website/butterflyreport/

Greetings, Tomorrow starts a 4-day event all around the world! It is the " City Nature Challenge ", where cities around the world compete over 4 days to record the most number of species using the iNaturalist app. Baltimore is in the challenge, and all observations from Baltimore City and Howard, Carroll, Baltimore, Anne Arundel, Harford and Queen Anne's Counties are included in the species totals for Baltimore. You can participate on your own and make observations from your yard or favorite park. I organized this event for Howard County Rec & Parks in 2018 & 2019. It was cancelled last year because of Covid. Since I am retired now, I am not leading the event for Rec & Parks. However, the Park Rangers are sponsoring several opportunities to partipate in Howard County, check them out! If you don't know how to use iNaturalist, they will get you started. To find the scheduled opportunities, go to https://hocovolunteer.org/ and search for "Ci

Greetings from Sue Muller "citizen"! Are you the kind of person who likes to walk off the beaten path? For those of you that like to walk through grassy fields/meadows at this time of year, when vegetation is low, please be on the lookout for nests! Yes indeed, a perfect example is the Killdeer. This bird is easy to identifly with the two black bands that stretch across the front of the bird and the red circle around the eye. However, if you happen to be walking through a grassy meadow and see this bird acting funny, it is trying to lead you away from a nest that is on the ground. Sometimes this bird will walk along dragging a wing or as I saw recently in the first photo, it was just sitting in one place in the meadow flapping around like it was injured. I backed off immediately, as I didn't want to step on the eggs. Watch where you step! .

Recently, a friend asked me what were all the white trees he was seeing blooming along all the highways? Unfortunately, those trees are the non-native Bradford Pear. This is an invasive species. When you see it in bloom at this time of year, it is obvious how much it has spread around the area.

Siberian Squill is a flower planted in yards and is now escaping cultivation and showing up in natural areas. If it is planted in your yard, please don't let it spread out of your yard!

 Great Horned Owls like to use old hawk nests to raise their young, especially Red-tailed Hawk nests.  Let me know if you come across any owl nests so I can submit them to the Maryland Breeding Bird Atlas.

This male Wood Duck was seen on the Potomac River along the C & O Canal NHP.  

 This bird was a major influence in my chosen career path into Wildlife Management. Bald Eagle