Desert
I love the desert especially at night. Don’t get me wrong, I love the desert during the day also. There is just something very special about the desert when the dark sky is perforated with millions of twinkling stars. Most people believe the desert is devoid of any wildlife. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have traveled all over this country to study wildlife and it’s my opinion the desert is full of wildlife. Several times a year I make a trek to the Sanoran desert in southeastern Arizona. And this is where you can find me this week. Surrounded by a multitude of cactus, sand and a wide variety of birds, reptiles and bats. I am here to study and photograph many of these but tonight I am on the prowl for one particular bird. The smallest owl in the world, the Elf Owl (Micrathene whitneyi). It lives in this area. It’s just minutes after sunset and we just drove several miles on a very rocky and rutted road that required our truck to have high ground clearance and four wheel drive. With me are noted author and photographer Rick Bowers and photographer Jim Zipp. We have parked at the base of a small mountain hoping the area we have chosen for tonight’s adventure will hold some Elf Owls. Once we are out of the truck we set up our cameras and flashes along with special high powered flashlights for an evening of desert exploring. We head out into the desert night. It’s cool with a light breeze, requiring us to wear a light jacket. Perfect weather for this kind of work. Within a couple hundred yards of the truck we come across the first of several Western Screech-owls. They are calling back and forth to each other. We slowly approach and using our hearing we guess their location in the dark. We switch on a flashlight and sure enough one of the screech-owls is right before us. The owl is not in a good position to photograph so we switch off the light and move on to find another. We don’t go far before locating another screech-owl calling. Again we flip on the light and there it is. This time he’s in the open and we set up to photograph him. We are all excited at the prospects of photographing this owl but this is not why we are here. After just a few minutes we move on. We move away and start climbing up the mountain side, picking a path with the least amount of cactus. The mountain side is steep and rocky. Each step results in dislodging some rocks sending them down the mountain and running the risk of loosing our footing. This is not good when you consider that over my shoulder is over 15 thousands dollars worth of top of the line camera equipment. About 20 minutes later we arrive in the area we want to be and start looking around. It isn’t long before we hear a male Elf Owl calling. We stop and try to pin point where the sound is coming from and slowly move in that direction. Sometimes owls call so softly they sound like they are very far away when in fact they are very close. Only experience can guide you when this happens. After more searching we locate what we have come for–the Elf Owl. He is calling within a cavity located inside a tall Saguaro cactus about 15 feet high. Since we are on such a steep mountain side the height of the cavity is actually at eye level, making it perfect for photographing. While setting up the owl suddenly jumps for the cavity and flies off into the desert night. It doesn’t take long and we see him flutter back to the nest cavity. As I mentioned before Elf Owls are the smallest owl in the world. They stand just over 5 inches tall, which is about the average size of a sparrow. But what I found so amazing about the Elf Owl is the way it flies. While trying to land at the nest cavity it will flutter its wings just like a butterfly. In fact each time it landed on a branch or at the cavity it fluttered. It’s broad round wings looked just like a moth or butterfly. It wasn’t long and we were getting some amazing images and my cohorts and I were thrilled at the opportunity. After a round of high fives we were struck with the reality that we still need to climb down the mountain side and there is about a million cactus between us and the truck. Working our way back down I was unfortunate enough to run into several cactus which impaled their thorns through my pants and deep into my lower left leg and ankle. Having no time to stop we kept going until reaching the truck. I was able to remove some of the larger, more obvious thorns but the rest will have to wait. It was slightly after midnight and I was climbing into bed and each time I rolled over I could feel more thorns in my leg. I had to get up and using my pliers continue to remove each of the thorns I could find but I couldn’t find them all. Two days later I could still feel some thorns in my leg. Eventually I got them all removed but I must admit the experience with the Elf Owl was well worth the time and blood. Until next time Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the US to study and photographer wildlife. He can be contacted via his web page at www.naturesmart.com
American Woodcock
I love all the diversity in nature. I mean, there is so much diversity in the bird and animal species that it continually amazes me.
Western Grebes
In the world of birds, mating rituals are a fascinating aspect of life. I mean, there are so many different courtship rituals. Male hummingbirds for example, fly amazingly high speed patterns directly in front of the perched females. The male Ruby-throated Hummingbird flies in a gigantic U-shaped pattern up to 40 feet in the air, all to impress a female. Male Ruffed Grouse beat their wings so fast and often that is sounds like he is beating on a drum. Male Eastern Bluebirds will perch in front of a female and wave his brightly colored wings to catch a female’s attention. The list of crazy courtship rituals goes on and on. This spring I have been spending some time with some birds that take the courtship ritual to a new level. It is the Western Grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis). The Western Grebe is a handsome black and white water bird with blood red eyes. It has a long thin neck and a thin yellow bill. This bird looks like it is well suited for spending a lot of time underwater. It feeds mainly on small fish along with many species of aquatic insects, a few amphibians and most interesting and unusual are feathers. The adult grebes feed the babies small feathers as they grow. A typical young grebe will consume hundreds of feathers by the time it reaches adulthood. Feathers taken from the adults can be found in stomachs of chicks only a few days old. Studies show that fifty percent of the stomach content may be feathers. So what’s the purpose of this behavior? Apparently feathers help to pad the stomach from the sharp fish bones which is eats in great quantizes. Also, a tight ball of feathers acts to grind up the fish in the birds gizzard and aids in digestion. When a bird moves or holds itself in a particular way, it signals a great deal of information to another bird of the same or different species. This movement is called a display. There are displays for many reasons. Courtship employs many displaying rituals. The Western Grebe has a crazy ritual that is used for reinforcing the bond between the male and the female. Whenever the male and female are separated, say for example one is out hunting for food, upon returning the pair swim out to greet each other. The greeting consists of facing each other and lowering their heads down to the waters surface. At this point they will make all sorts of loud vocalizations. This can last for just one or two seconds or up to fifteen seconds. Then suddenly the pair springs up out of the water and runs across the waters surface. Their bodies are tall and erect. Their heads are cocked forward as their feet kick up a large rooster-tail of water. This behavior is called “rushing”. The rushing can last just a few feet or more likely it will go for twenty or thirty feet. At the end of the rushing the pair will dive forward into the water head first, thus terminating the rushing underwater. Shortly after the rush, the pair will sometimes dive to the bottom of the lake and grab a beak full of weeds. When they surface the will present the weeds to each other, again in a much ritualized way. The pair stands up tall in the water and with their necks stretched out they present the weeds to each other. This may last for up to a minute before they drop the weeds and return to normal behavior. All of this elaborate behavior serves to reinforce the bonds between the male and female after being separated. Witnessing this behavior firsthand and to spend the many hours watching this behavior, I find it incredibly interesting. I hope you find this story interesting also. Until next time Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the US to study and photograph wildlife. He can be contacted via his web page at www.naturesmart.com
Ducks and Geese
There are many different kinds or groups of birds in the world. For example there are the hawks, hummingbirds, black birds,
Warbler Migration
Early to mid-May is warbler migration time. For those of us lucky enough to live in the eastern half of the country or in the upper Mid-west, it’s a time we relish and look forward to all winter. All sorts of small colorful warblers are flitting around the tree tops in search of bugs putting a visual sparkle in a warm spring day. In addition, beautiful warbler songs fill the woodlands. But the warbler season is short and fleeting. Just like spring. There are over 50 warbler species in the US. Each one is small, dainty and often very colorful. Nearly all are woodland residents. They are very active birds, constantly flitting about in search of their next insect snack. Warblers spend about 80 percent of their day searching out insects to eat. I often think, what it would be like if we didn’t have birds to eat all of these insects? No doubt we would be over run with billions of insects. It’s hard to even imagine how bad the bugs would be. All warblers have short pointed bills, perfect for snatching up insects. Warblers are also acrobats. Their dominative size allows them to hang upside down, cling sideways and just about any other position while seeking out hidden insect meals. They probe flowers, the undersides of leaves and even behind tree bark to find their next bug meal. Some warblers are even known to catch flying insects, snatching them right out of the air in a process called “hawking”. The preferred habitat for most warbler species is in the tree tops. This is where most of the bugs are found. It makes sense that it’s easier to live where the food is located. Tree top dwelling warblers tend to be brightly colored. There are some ground dwelling warbler species such as the Ovenbird. These warblers also eat a wide variety of bugs but they tend to be drab in color, thus blending into their terrestrial surroundings. All warblers are very strong flyers. That makes a lot of sense because warblers are true Neo-tropical migrants. This means they spend their winters in the tropics of Central and South America. Each spring they fly thousands of miles to return to their breeding grounds in the upper Midwest. It’s important to note that the warblers are not nesting on their wintering grounds in the tropics. Or at least that is what we have always assumed until recently when it was discovered that a couple species did reproduce in the tropics in the winter after the regular nesting season in the U.S. was over. Not much is known about this very unusual second nesting behavior. Some warblers nest in cavities such as the Prothonotary Warbler. However the over whelming majority of warblers build a small cup nest in the branches of a tree or on the ground. Warbler nests are small affairs constructed of fine plant material. It is fashioned into a cup shape with the interior part of the cup that fits the female’s body perfectly. They often decorate the outside of the nest to help conceal its location or make it blend into its surroundings. However what the warblers are best known for is their brightly colored feathers. The Blackburnian Warbler and the Cape May Warblers are good examples. Their striking black and orange colors make them stand out. Other warblers are not colorful but can be very striking. The Black and White Warbler is a good example of this. Their bold black and white markings make them stand out from the other birds. The songs of warblers are some of the most beautiful songs in the bird world. In general they have high pitched melodic songs. Each phrase is repeated many times and interspersed with secondary songs. A typical warbler song lasts 3-5 seconds and is repeated over and over. A warbler’s song is how the male claims a nesting territory and also serves to attract a female. The combination of the male’s bright colors and beautiful song makes him irresistible to the females. If you get a chance this spring, be sure to get out and spend some time looking up in the trees. Afterwards you might want to make an appointment with your chiropractor. A stiff neck is one of the drawbacks of spring warbler migration. Until next time Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the US to study and photograph wildlife. He can be contacted via his web page at www.naturesmart.com
Summer
The doldrums of summer are coming up on us fast. Now that the fevered pitch of spring is over you can almost hear Mother Nature give a huge sigh of relief.
Animal Parenthood
The bond between a parent and child can and should never be underestimated. If you are a parent you don’t need further explanation.
Monarch Butterfly
Quick, what has six legs, four wings and is an international traveler that doesn’t need a passport? Need another hint? What starts out as a tiny spherical egg and goes through more physical changes in its appearance than Michael Jackson. Ok, this is too fun, just one more. What is capable of flying thousands of miles yet weights less than one ounce. I’m sure by now you have figured out I am talking about the Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) The Monarch Butterfly is one of those truly amazing critters in nature. An amazing marvel of ability and determination in a small package. It starts out as a tiny white egg on the underside of milkweed leaf no bigger than the head of a pin. From this emerges a tiny green, yellow and black caterpillar and its first order of business is to eat its own egg shell. From that its moves onto eating the very leave where the egg was attached. You see, the female monarch is very specific as to where she will lay her eggs. She flits about landing on different plants. At best we can tell, once she lands on a leaf she rapidly taps her two front feet on the leaf in a drumming action. Presumably the leaf gives off an odor or chemical that the female picks up by her antennae to tell her if she is on the right plant or not. If she is she will deposit a single egg on the underside of the leaf. She will repeat this over and over again until she had laid dozens of eggs. As the tiny caterpillar feeds, it grows quickly. In fact at this stage of life that is all it does is eat. It takes less than two weeks to eat enough to grow large enough to become an adult caterpillar. The green leaf it feeds on is one of the milkweed family. This is a highly specialized group of plants that all contain a milky sap in the leaves and stems. The sap contains toxic chemicals called cardiac-glycosides. The effects on a bird or mammal that eats it is rapid heart rate, nausea and vomiting. However the Monarch assimilates the chemical into its body and doesn’t have any side effects. When the caterpillar can grow no more, it enters a new life stage. Positioning itself so it can hang upside down on a twig or branch the Monarch caterpillar attaches itself at the tail and freely hangs head side down. Shortly after moving into the hanging position the skin of the caterpillar splits open and peals down the back revealing a green sack, called a chrysalis, ornamented with gold dots. Inside the sack all of the caterpillars cells liquefy and rearrange forming the soon to emerge butterfly. In just over a week the butterfly is fully formed and ready to emerge from the chrysalis and complete the last stage of life. At this point the chrysalis splits open and the fully formed Monarch butterfly emerges. And if that wasn’t interesting enough the life of the butterfly compared to the caterpillar and chrysalis is truly amazing. At the end of summer a special generation of Monarch butterfly adults prepares to migrate south. There are several migratory insects but the Monarch is the only one that travels across international borders and also migrates to and from a set destination at a specific time of year. All of our Monarchs in Eastern US will migrate to the Mountains of Mexico where millions of Monarchs over-winter by cling to the leaves of trees high up in the mountains of Mexico. Early in spring the Monarchs leaves Mexico and start their journey north into the US. Along the way the females mate and begin laying eggs on Milkweeds in the southern states. This is as far as this generation of Monarchs will make it. They will die but their eggs will hatch leaving this generation to continue flying northward. Along the way they will also mate and lay eggs. Depending upon where you live it may take several generations for the butterflies to return and everything starts all over again. Talk about amazing. Until next time Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the US to study and photograph nature. He can be contacted via his web page at www.naturesmart.com
Lightning and Thunder
Recently around my neck of the woods we’ve been hammered with heavy thunderstorms packing damaging winds and dangerous lightning and thunder. Sunny summer days suddenly turn dark and ominous. Thick dark clouds blot out the sun and the sky opens up and lets loose with torrential rains, high winds and most impressively–lightning and thunder. Are you noticing that I am saying “lightning and thunder” instead of the usual way of saying “thunder and lightning”? I think it sounds more natural to say thunder and lightning but really there is no thunder without lightning so it seems strange to put the cart before the horse. So what is lightning and thunder? I think we all take lightning and thunder for granted. It’s part of nature but if you think about it you would agree that bolts of electricity shooting out of the clouds containing enough electricity to light a small city is truly amazing. In order to understand lightning we need to step back and take a look at where lightning comes from. On hot humid summer afternoons the sun warms the land. Large columns of hot air rise into the sky. As the air raises it cools and the water vapor trapped in the air condenses which forms a cloud. These puffy round clouds are called cumulous clouds. They have flat bottoms, which indicate the condensation level. As the summer afternoon wares on the amount of cloud building increases. The small clouds become huge towering clouds with dark bottoms. Often these clouds are now called thunderheads, and they can reach up to 50,000 feet up into the atmosphere. Now these clouds are called cumulonimbus clouds. Within these clouds are very powerful winds surging up and down within the cloud causing the tops of the clouds to billow or mushroom out forming rounds puffy tops. Within the clouds are water droplets and ice crystals bump into each other as they ride up and down on the strong internal winds. The constant collisions of the cloud particles build up electric charges within the cloud. The positive and the negative charges within the cloud are mutually repulsive which means they separate and segregate from one another. The negative charges migrate to the bottom of the cloud while the positive changes inhabit the middle and upper part. At the same time positive electrical charges are building on the ground below the cloud. Positive electrical charges gather on the tops of trees, buildings and any other prominent feature found below the cloud. When enough positive electrical charges build up on the ground, a discharge of electricity flows from the cloud to the ground. During this process the electrical charges illuminate. The result is a flash of lightning. The flash is fast, only taking a millionth of a second but it can also take up to two seconds giving you plenty of time to see it. Lightning can also occur from cloud to cloud or from within the same cloud. The positive charges on the ground often jump up to meet the descending charges from the cloud giving the lightning the appearance of going from the ground up. Lightning bolts have so much electric energy that they heat up to extreme temperatures. The average lightning bolt has temperatures between 30,000 and 50,000 degrees F. That is hotter than the surface of the sun. As the lightning bolt passes through the air, it heats up the surround air very quickly. The heated air expands so quickly that it creates a shock wave of expanding air. This fast moving air is what creates the thunder. So you can see there is no thunder without the lightning or the other way around. We can see lightning from many miles away but sometimes we don’t hear it. This is often referred to as heat lightning. However as we just learned if there is lightning there will be thunder. When lightning strikes the light we see travels at the speed of light. In nature nothing travels faster than the speed of light. However sound doesn’t travel very fast at all, so it is very possible to see lightning and not hear the resulting thunder because it is so far away. You can hear thunder up to 20 miles away but not beyond that. You can estimate the distance that lightning struck by slowly counting after you see the lightning flash. Since sound travels at about 5000 feet per second and there are 5280 feet in a mile, you can safely say that if you hear the thunder 5 seconds after you see the lightning, it was about one mile away. Lightning is deadly so if you do see lightning take shelter immediately. There are over one hundred people struck by lightning every year in the United States. The National Weather Service calculates a one-in-three hundred chance that you will be struck by lightning during your lifetime. Until next time Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the US to study and photograph wildlife. He can be contacted via his web page at www.naturesmart.com
Cicada
Nothing reminds me more of summer than the loud buzzing of the cicada. What, you say you don’t know what a cicada is? Well, just go outside on any warm day in late summer and listen. The loud penetrating buzzing sound coming from the tops of the trees is the cicada. Cicadas are a common summer insect. Admittedly, most people haven’t seen this insect but just about everyone has heard their loud buzzing sound that comes emanating the tops of the trees at this time of year. Cicadas are rather large insects with nearly two-inch long, clear membranous wings that are used to carry them from tree top to tree top. While most insects such as crickets and katydids, use their wings or legs to make sounds, cicadas have a large hollow section of their abdomen that vibrates like a drum to make their specialized and loud call. There are many different species of cicada and each has its own unique song which may be a loud continuous buzz or a pulsating buzz. But either way it’s loud. They are often incorrectly called locusts. The term locust is reserved to describe times when our ordinary grasshopper becomes over populated and causes crop damage. Only the male cicada produces the buzzing sound which is meant to attract prospective females for a tree top rendezvous. After the lofty encounter the female cicada moves to another tree and seeks out small dead twigs where she will wedges her eggs in tiny slits and cracks of the dead branches. She deposits her eggs with a specialized needle-like appendage called an ovipositor. The eggs quickly hatch into small bug-like nymphs that purposefully fall to the ground and land unharmed. The nymph then burrows into the ground where begins to feed on the roots and sap of the host tree. The nymph carries on this subterranean life for many years before emerging. The periodical cicada (Magiciada spp.) emerges only once every 13 or 17 years. They come out by the tens of thousands which usually attracts the attention of the local media because it is such an unusual sight. These are some of the longest living insects on the planet. The more common varieties of cicada, emerges every 1 to 3 years, which means we have at least one species of cicada every summer to serenade us. No matter how long they spend underground, the newly emerged nymphs climb the nearest tree or vertical structure where they attach themselves and then split open their skin and the winged adult cicada finishes the climb to the top of the tree to announce another summer is at hand. Until next time Stan Tekiela is an naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the US to study and photograph wildlife. He can be contacted via his web page at www.naturesmart.com