Purple Martin Colony Update

As I dropped the gourd racks my grand-daughter waited patiently for me to begin today's nest check.I perform these checks every five days to see how things are going.  As I have stated before, having a martin colony allows one to have an up close and personal relationship with these beautiful swallows.  Which is truly a blessing.  We  recorded 79 eggs and 12 newborn nestlings and while doing this came across an interesting find.

We found one nestling that had just hatched, with a portion of the eggshell still attached to it.  I removed the eggshell so that it wouldn't "cap" one of the other eggs that had not hatched yet.   If one or more eggshell hemispheres remain in the nest after a nestling hatches chances are a half could end up attached to the end of any remaining unhatched eggs.

If this happens the nestling inside the egg may have difficulty hatching.  Usually the adult martins with either remove the eggshell or consume it for its calcium content, but sometimes its overlooked and capping occurs.  One of the many duties of the purple martin landlord.

Camp Notes

April 6, 2012

We spent a weekend doing work up at our camp and brought our grand-daughter along so we could go exploring once the work was done.  While I worked she ran all over the place looking at all manner of crawling and flying things- butterflies, moths, birds, dragonflies, beetles.  Not long after we arrived I went to look in my bluebird box to see if they were going to nest here this year.  You may recall in a previous post I spoke of how the last two years resulted in no bluebirds nesting in this box because of a problem I was having with wasps.  Well it looks like my thorough “soaping” of the inside of the box worked keeping the pests from building, because I was presented with a nest that contained four feathered nestlings.  I was so excited to see that they were back.  If not, I would have moved the box to a different spot to hopefully renew their interest in it.

As soon as my grand-daughter heard this she was at my side wanting to see.  I then retrieved my camo blind and set it up near the house so we could watch the parents come and go as they fed their young.  

We watched as the male and female took turns flying sorties and returning with beetles, moths, and the occasional caterpillar. 

Look closely at the photo of the female leaping from the house- she has a fecal sac in her beak.  

Bluebirds, as well as many other birds, remove fecal matter produced by the nestlings to help keep the nest clean.  They drop them onto the ground a distance away from the nest so as to not to attract predators.

April 22, 2012

Returned to the camp to mow grass and work on repairing part of my barbed wire fence that had been damaged by a fallen pine branch.   Before I got started I walked over and checked my bluebird box and found that all of the nestlings had fledged.  Well I hope they did.  Seeing that I can’t keep a close eye on them like I do my purple martins at home, I can’t be really 100% sure that they fledged.

While mowing I noticed that the blackberries that grow rampant around here are beginning to ripen.  So as soon as I got finished I grabbed a couple of Ziplocs and started picking before the foxes and skunks eat them all!

I ended up picking a couple pounds of berries.  My grand-daughter loves these, so one bag will go to her, and some of the other bag will go into some muffins I plan to bake when I get home.  Nothing like fresh berries, but there is a small price to pay- sharp thorns and stained hands. 

While I’m working I always keep my ears and eyes open for any and everything.  Male orchard oriole, great-crested flycatcher (heard)  white-eyed vireo (heard)  , blue-gray gnatcatcher (heard)  , blue jay, mockingbird, chimney swifts, and turkey vulture.  I also saw a six-lined racerunner near the barn, and several swallowtails and a gulf fritillary butterfly.

North American Bird Phenology

If you are a citizen scientist like me you might be interested in the North American Bird Phenology Program ran by the USGS and the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. Phenology is “the scientific study of the relationship between natural phenomena (flowering, breeding, migration) and climatic or seasonal changes”.

This program houses millions of handwritten Migration Observer Cards, that clarify the population status and migration patterns of North American birds dating way back to the latter part of the 19th century through World War II, and volunteers are asked to help with entering the information from these scanned cards into the program’s modern database to be analyzed.

This information can be compared to recently collected migration arrival times in order to understand how climate change has affected bird migration.  They also provide an email newsletter so you can keep up with anything new happening with this worthwhile program. Check it out.

Chippers

[Excerpted from a January 2012 Journal Entry]
After I finish my cigar, newspapers, and the last dregs of my now warm beer, I sit back and allow the sounds of the wild that are all around me to engulf my senses. Soon after a small cluster of chipping sparrows appear and alight on the nearby feeder that I recently topped off with a seed mix.

Ornithologist Edward Forbush once said “The chipping sparrow is the little brown-capped pensioner of the dooryard and lawn, that comes about farmhouse doors to glean crumbs shaken from the tablecloth by thrifty housewives.”

These energetic passerines spend the winter months here. They do nest in Texas, but a bit northeast of my area. I sit still and watch as they react with glee at the new found mound of grub. Each digging into the heap, pushing it side to side until each of them uncover the seed they’re looking for.

Their nickname “hairbird” was derived from the fact that they collect the hair of horses, humans, cattle, deer, and even raccoons to line their nest which also consists of rootlets and fine dead grasses. They’ve also been known to pluck hair from sleeping dogs.

You will very rarely ever see one by itself as they always journey in packs in search of crab and pigeon grass seed or an unawares spider, weevil, or caterpillar. They watch me intently at first, but eventually become accustomed to my motionless mass and feed to their heart’s content before flitting off into the field. Tonight they’ll sleep well with a full belly.

Great Blue Heron Nest Live Cam

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has set up a live streaming camera near a great blue heron's nest allowing you to watch as the eggs hatch and the nestlings develop and interact with the adults. As of today there's three eggs in the nest. Check it out here.

Longleaf Pine Project

“The emotion of standing in an ancient grove of longleaf pine can perhaps best be described as spiritual. Wind stirring through the tops of the 350 year old trees, the perfume of pine resin, the sounds of birds scurrying about through a lush carpet of grass cause the visitor to draw in a breath of awe and suggest that something this magnificent was surely not created by accident.” (1)


The Big Thicket is a very large, diversified area, but its longleaf pine forests have dwindled greatly over the years. These majestic trees once covered an area that spanned from Virginia down to Florida and then west to Texas. Now there’s less than 3% of this previous range left due to aggressive, unmanaged harvesting over many years. Of all the southern pine species this one has the longest of life spans reaching upwards of 250 years. Some living even longer than that, but these old-growth ecosystems are few and far between.

This tree, compared to other pines, is the most resilient.

~It has a higher resistance to insect attack southern pine beetle, pine tip moth.

~Its wood is dense and strong rendering it less likely to be blown over by strong winds like other pines, such as slash and loblolly which were laid to waste in areas of the Big Thicket when the abrasive winds of hurricane Ike and Rita came through this area.

It is more tolerant to fire- in fact, it needs fire for its perpetuation. Natural fires, mostly caused by lightning, not only reduces competition by culling the growth of understory hardwoods and but also clears out ground litter, exposing and creating fertile soil for seed germination. (2)

It is has a higher resistance to diseases such as root rot and fusiform rust.

The one thing it is not resistant to though is the much maligned feral pig, which unearth these trees during the “grass stage” of its growth to feed on the tender buds and roots.

It is also important to wildlife in several ways:

This tree also plays a pivotal role in the survival of the red-cockeded woodpecker, which depends primarily on the longleaf for its nest site. Where other woodpeckers bore out cavities in rotted snags, these excavate theirs in this living tree. It is more resinous than other pines and the woodpecker utilizes this by boring holes or “sap wells” directly below the entrance to the cavity allowing this resin to ooze down. This acts as a defense mechanism or “resin barrier” impeding the movement of climbing predators- specifically rat snakes, which are its main predator. The detriment of this tree has caused this bird to become a threatened species.

Its seeds provide food for birds and mammals, and needed habitat for white-tail deer, bobwhite quails, turkey, and fox squirrels.

Texas trailing phlox is only found in the pineywoods of East Texas and not only grows in association with longleaf pines, but like these trees, is also well adapted to fire. As the pines began to disappear so did the phlox, which caused its endangerment to the point that it was once thought to be extinct. It was rediscovered later and then listed as a federally endangered species.

Back in January I will spent the day with many other volunteers to try and right this wrong and help bring back this once prolific tree and in turn help the plants and animals that rely on it.

I arrived at the Big Thicket National Preserve Visitor Center at around 9:15 a.m. to help with the longleaf pine restoration project headed up by the National Parks Conservation Association.

We were in the field most of the day planting longleaf pine seedlings in an area that at one time was a longleaf pine forest. These old-growth pines were eventually harvested and replaced with the quicker growing, but lesser resilient loblolly and slash pine.

This area was later obtained from a lumber company and added into the Big Thicket Preserve. The Nature Conservancy, along with the help of Temple-Inland Forest Products Corporation began trying to restore this plot of land back into a longleaf pine forest back in 1999.

The project is ongoing despite setbacks caused by past hurricanes (Rita in 2005 and Ike in 2008), and will continue until the restoration is complete.

Members of the park service gave us a short lecture on the natural history of the longleaf and instructed us on the planting of seedlings using what is known as a “dibbler”, the tool used for perforating the ground to plant them.



We were there from around 10 a.m. until about 4 p.m. and in groups planted a total of 5,344 seedlings scattered over the project area. I recorded the GPS co-ordinates of one particular seedling (see below) that I planted myself.

Hopefully it will be one that survives so that my grand-daughter, in the future, can find this tree and know that it was her grand-father that had planted it. Isn’t that just cool…..


References and Suggested Reading:

1) Quote

2) Longleaf Pine

3) Texas Trailing Phlox

4) The Life of the Longleaf

Goodreads Website

I recently came across a website called Goodreads. It's where people list books they've read, are currently reading, or wanting to read. My list is not quite done, but if you'd like to see it so far go here.

Canyonland Creek Ecology

From June 12-27 of 2004 I attended an Earthwatch project entitled “Canyonland Creek Ecology” in Utah’s Canyonland National Park. Earthwatch is an organization that allows non-scientists, that is average people like you and me to help out with actual hands-on research on a myriad of different projects. Their website has a listing of what they offer and I encourage everyone to check this out.


In 1994 a backcountry management plan was established by the Canyonlands NPS (National Park Service) after consulting with scientists and the public over concerns as to whether or not the existence of 4WD recreational vehicles in the park were having negative impacts on the vegetation and wildlife there. 4WD enthusiasts felt that what they were doing had little if any impact. The NPS compromised by allowing limited number of vehicles per day. An environmental group decided to sue the NPS over its management of the 4WD roads, feeling that allowing any of this activity was harmful to the already known fragile environment there and that the NPS was in violation of the backcountry management plan for allowing even a limited amount. All of this went to court and a judge decided to close down a section of the road near Salt Creek agreeing that the ecosystems were being harmed. In turn, the 4WD enthusiasts decided to file their own lawsuit trying to overturn the ruling. The NPS asked to be able to access the issues and that’s when Dr. Tim Graham, an ecologist who works for the USGS (United States Geological Service), decided to seize this opportunity to see how the removal of vehicular recreation affected the vegetation, amphibians (toads), and invertebrates (specifically insects). So we collected insects and amphibians in an area where 4WD vehicles had been refused access for the last 5 ½ years and this data would be later compared to the data of other sample sites where it is still allowed. This collected data “can provide park managers, and the courts, with info about the condition of the different parts of Salt Creek whether they differ and if so, how”. So our project and the work we did could play a pivotal role in the ultimate fate of Salt Creek and the organisms that live there. That’s pretty much the project in a nutshell.

After a four hour wait at the airport in Salt Lake City, Utah I boarded the Bighorn Express shuttle for a 4 ½ hour ride to Moab. Once there other team members along with myself, met up with Tim and his two assistants and then went to a restaurant to dine and get acquainted.

We checked into the Lazy Lizard youth hostel and spent the first few days sorting insects at the Canyonland Field Institute in Moab that had been collected by prior teams, which was really interesting. They gave us a quick course on insect identification and then sat us at our own dissecting microscope where we separated the insects and arachnids (spiders, scorpions, mites, etc.) that had been caught in the various traps, preserving each in its own vial of isopropyl alcohol along with a label.

After three days of this we packed our belongings into our backpacks and loaded the vehicle with supplies and gear and drove to the Needles District of Canyonlands and parked at a camp site (known as "Peekaboo") which we would make use of later. We then hit the trail and hiked a long, hot, rugged 8.5 miles, and believe me it was every bit of that distance. The terrain was constantly changing, as one minute we were hiking through deep sand, then pea gravel, then over large river rocks. The scenery though was breathtaking. All around there was prickly pear cactus, blackbush, snakeweed, canyon walls, and cheatgrass, which has a way of working itself into your socks. Several times we came across black bear tracks in the sandy parts of the trail, but unfortunately we never saw the bear.

We arrived at the Angel Arch campsite about 4 hours later where we pitched our tents in the (nice) shade provided by two large cottonwood trees. The first morning, and the following days after, we would hike about 3 miles to the study site where we put all of the various types of traps in service. We used four types of traps:

Pitfall Traps- There were three rows of these types of traps with five pitfalls per row. The pitfall consisted of a container buried in the ground that contained a smaller container which held about 3 inches of soapy water. We added soap to the water in order to break surface tension, which prevented the bugs from floating and getting out. They would sink like a rock and drown. A funnel was placed over these containers and as you will see in the photos a long plastic “wall” ran along each of the pitfalls. An insect crawling along would bump into the wall and then turn and follow it eventually walking right into the path of a funnel and into the trap.

Window Traps- These consisted of a square piece of plexiglass hung over a dishpan filled with soapy water. These were hung from small trees about 4 foot above the ground. You guessed it….an insect would be flying along and run smack into the piece of plexiglass or “window” and drop into the soapy water below.

Bowl Traps- These consisted of four sets of four Styrofoam bowls, each containing soapy water. One was plain water and the other three contained water with food coloring. There was yellow, blue, and red. Insects would come along and crawl or fly into the soapy water and sink. The colors were added to see if specific insects were attracted to specific colors.

Bucket Traps- these consisted of 5 gallon buckets sunk into the ground with plastic walls leading to them as with the pitfall traps. These were used for trapping toads, which were identified, weighed, measured, and then released. Most of the toads captured were of the Woodhouse variety, along with the occasionally Red-spotted toad. We also caught lots of Whiptail lizards along with a few scorpions.

Each day we would take each of the insect traps and strain the insects from the soapy water using small aquarium nets, then put the traps back in service.

The insects were then put in appropriately labeled plastic film canisters containing isopropyl alcohol as a preservative and would later be sorted.

As far as our meals go- breakfast consisted of bagels, fruit, peanut butter. Lunch consisted mostly of sandwiches, sausage, cheese, fruit, carrots, cookies, etc. Dinner was dried lentils with tortillas, or pasta, or some other type of freeze dried food that was reconstituted with hot water boiled on our camp stove.

Our drinking water came from a small pond near the camp. It was collected in buckets and then pump through a filter into our water bottles. They also had powdered Gatorade that we could add to make up for all of the salt we lost from sweating.

The weather was hot during the day reaching sometimes close to 100, but the low humidity helped tremendously. At night temperatures would drop into the 60's making it nice for sleeping. One afternoon we finished early around 11:00 a.m., ate our lunch and then lazed around the campsite.

Dark clouds began to form overhead and thunder soon followed. The wind picked, followed by a light steady shower dropping the temperature about 20 degrees, so we climbed into our tents to relax and enjoy this soothing storm, which lasted about 3-4 hours. As I said before each day we would get up every morning around 7 a.m. for breakfast and then by 8 a.m. begin the 3 mile hike to the trap area to collect insects and toads that were caught the night before.

During a couple of those days we went out at night with headlamps and performed what was called a “toad survey”. We would spread out, covering a predetermined area and collect, identify, measure, and weigh every toad we came across.

There was one night we found 74 toads, mostly Woodhouse, but we also captured a few of the Red-spotted toads, which were the ones that did all of the peeing when you picked them up. Not talking about a dribble either. I’m talking about a gush. We got lots of laughs from this.

We took a side hike one day to catch a glimpse of the rock art or petroglyphs on a rock face near one of the trap sites. These were drawn by the Anasazi (in Navajo it means “Ancient Ones”) Indians some 800 years ago.

They were basket makers and farmers and lived in pueblo type structures. There were paintings of warriors, handprints, and animals. Some of the handprints had been blown on the rock. This was done by placing natural made pigment inside a hollow bird bone and blown on a hand that was placed on the rock. Incredible how this art has stood the test of time.

I had hoped to come across a rattlesnake, but unfortunately I didn't see any, but did get my hands on several gopher snakes. Each time they became entangled in the thick brush piles where I caught them and had to let go or risk injuring them. We also saw several whipsnakes, and there were tiger whiptail lizards everywhere you looked, always rustling in the brush looking for something to eat.

They were very quick and pretty much impossible to catch by hand. We did find several in the toad traps enabling me to get a nice photo. As far as birds go I saw pinion jays, yellow-breasted chats, towhees, and violet green swallows. Ravens were also very common, which are very crafty and intelligent. One stayed around our camp for days cawing from a cottonwood branch as if to try and annoy us into leaving. Tim warned us not to leave anything out, because they would either eat it, haul it off, or tear it up. One popped in while we were gone and got into one of our food containers discovering a bag of sugar. There was sugar everywhere which we had to clean up to prevent an ant raid. Someone else had left a paperback book out and it had the cover torn off. There were others camping near us and two ravens raided several of their backpacks, figuring out how to unzip them and then scattered clothes and whatever else all over the place. It was pretty hilarious. We warned them…..

Lots of folks asked me….”where did you go to the bathroom?” Easy…..we dug a hole in the ground with the community garden trowel, squatted, and did your business. As Ed Abbey once said “Instead of flushing our bodily wastes into the public water supply, we plant them back in the good earth where they belong. Where our bodies must go as well, in due course, if we are to keep the good earth productive”. On the fifth day we packed up and hiked back the 8.5 miles to where we had parked the truck and I must say that the second time was not quite as strenuous. I later found out the reason for this was that on the way in we were gradually traveling uphill….on the way back, naturally, downhill. We unpacked again, set up camp and stayed at this particular site for four more days. We ran two traps sites near there following the same collecting procedures.

On the way back to town we stopped for a picnic near what is known as Newspaper Rock Historical Monument. It is a large petroglyph panel etched in sandstone done by the Anasazi, Navajo, Fremont Indians, and Anglo cultures recording some 2,000 years of human activity in the area. There were lots of images drawn of very large feet. Had they seen Bigfoot??

On our last day we pretty much goofed off. We rode over to Arches National Park and hiked to the various arches which were formed from 100 million years of erosion. Scenery, again, was breathtaking.

This park contains the largest concentration (more than 2000 catalogued) of natural sandstone arches in the world and other geological features such as spires, pinnacles, pedestals and balanced rocks all up against incredible layouts of buttes and canyons.

We stopped of to see the Turnbow Cabin at Wolfe Ranch. Ed Abbey spoke of this rustic structure in his book Desert Solitaire. We then hiked the 1.5 mile trail following the "cairns" that had been set up by visitors to help you find your way to the most widely-recognized landmark in the park- Delicate Arch.

The arch itself is pretty much hidden from view until you get to the last corner and then suddenly it’s there, and what a sight it is.


I was blown away at the size of this arch as you see in the photo where I’m standing below it with my arms raised.


As usual with every Earthwatch project I’ve been on everyone involved (project coordinator, assistants, etc.) were all extremely nice and generous with their knowledge. Always going out of their way to make sure we were having a good time and that we were seeing everything-scenery, parks, wildlife, etc. we wanted to see. Neither words nor pictures do justice in depicting the immensity and beauty of all the canyons and rock formations that we were exposed to. You would definitely have to be there to get the full effect.

If you ever have the opportunity to attend an Earthwatch project do not hesitate. You’ll not regret it.