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Thankful for Nature
Enjoy your Thanksgiving! Just some shots to help you be thankful for nature.
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Why Do Butterflies Migrate?
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Migration for butterflies is very similar to why birds migrate. They are looking for a warmer claimant to spend the winter. Just like some birds a butterfly’s food source is not available in this area during the winter. The butterflies may travel thousands of miles to find a place to spend the winter, like the monarchs that migrate to Mexico, or they may travel just a few hundred miles, like the painted lady or red admiral to southern states. Unlike the birds that return each spring the butterflies that return to our area are not the same adults that left in the fall. For the adult butterflies it is just a one way trip. These adults will spend the winter months but when spring arrives they will only start the migration back. The adults will mate and the female will lay eggs, shortly after that they die. It is the next generations that continue the journey back. For some of the migrating butterflies they will be four to five generations removed from the adult that made the fall migration. Scientists are still unsure how these tiny little creatures find their way but each year more information is discovered about butterfly migration. Thanks to organizations like Monarch Watch some day we may know the answer to the question of how they make is incredible journey.
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The Hardiest Warbler
Guest entry by Skip Layman.
TheYellow-rumped warbler is one tough little guy. The other warblers travel far south and are gone from our area by mid-October. Most warblers are insect eaters that must migrate to find this food source. The Yellow-rumped also eats berries and is particularly fond of the white berries on poison ivy. If the berry crop is good enough they may stay here all winter. Here is a November picture I took of a Yellow-rumped in winter plumage getting a drink at the fountain at the Germantown MetroPark Nature Center “Window on Wildlife”.
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Fun butterfly Facts
Here are some fun facts about butterflies. 1. The name butterfly comes from the Yellow Brimstone butterfly commonly seen in Europe, it was called “Butter colored fly” 2. Butterflies are found anywhere in the world that is not too hot or too cold 3. Butterflies can not fly if their body temperature is below 86 degrees 4. Butterflies don’t increase in size as an adult butterfly 5. Caterpillars are boneless but have over 1000 muscles 6. butterflies are a valuable food source for songbirds 7. Top speed for a butterfly is 12 miles per hour 8. North America has over 700 species of butterflies
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Affecting the Butterfly Population
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Is there a way for a person to affect the population of butterflies? Yes, a person can change the the population of butterflies. Yes, this can happen in both a positive or negative way. It is all related to a person’s care of habitat. The first way to really make a positive difference is to increase habitat for butterflies. That involves planting host and nectar plants for caterpillars and adult butterflies. All animals need a place to live and without it they will move out of the area and find a new home. Some folks have asked about just raising butterflies and releasing them into the wild. Although their heart is in the right place, if there is no habitat for the newly released butterflies this will not make any lasting change.
Female butterflies look for specific plants to lay eggs on. These plants are the food that the newly hatched caterpillars will eat. If the plant is not the correct host plant these baby caterpillars they will die. The butterfly that was released was just one generation. That release has done nothing to increase the population on the long term.
The first step must be establishing the habitat. Once the plants are in place the butterflies will come to enjoy the home you have provided. Multiple generations would use the plants and over time an increase in the butterfly numbers could be seen.
The second step would be to encourage the care of habitats beyond your own yard. There are many organizations that work to save habitat or to restore habitat. By supporting these organizations you can make a difference on a large scale.
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Great Morning at Sugarcreek MetroPark!
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This morning, as the Miami Valley was awaken with a gentle mist and gray skies, avid birders joined me on the Adult Nature Walk at Sugarcreek MetroPark, which happens every second Tuesday of the month. We counted 17 species: Northern Flicker, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Nuthatch, Blue Jay, Carolina Wren, Golden-crowned Kinglet, Yellow-rumped Warbler, American Robin, American Goldfinch, Tufted Titmouse, Eastern Towhee, Carolina Chickadee, Cedar Waxwing, and White-throated Sparrows!
This afternoon I presented Birds of Dayton to a club in Brookville. I heard a lot of stories; one fella mentioned he had Great-blue Herons on his property, and listens to them at night. Close to the end of my presentation, I throw up some slides of my warbler workshop. Seeing that splash of color really gets people to understand that birders aren’t hiking miles to see a Blue Jay. We’re after many of these little colorful birds that most people here in America don’t even know exist! Anyhow, one fella was absolutely in awe, and had no idea such birds live right here in Dayton. His father-in-law told him to just get outside with binoculars. Indeed.
As the days get shorter, drawing migration season to a close, now is a great time to catch the stragglers. Enjoy the flocks of Grackles, Redwing Blackbirds, and others, and be mesmerized by how they all fly together as one cloud, making its way across the sky. Close this web browser, get away from your computer, and get outside! Life is happening out here!
Eastern Redcedars are great for birds
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Yesterday the Eastern Redcedars, Juniperus virginiana, around the Nature Center were full of birds eating their round cones now ripe and covered with a beautiful blue waxy substance. Byron “Skip” Layman called me out of the office and we marveled at some of these beautiful birds. We noted a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers which have also carved some nice rectangular holes in the nearby trees. I had fun recounting a story from last fall when a Pileated was very brazen about eating these cone “berries” a few feet away from our front door. He hung on dearly to the weak branches and bounced up and down, sideways, upside down eating his fill. Other birds attracted to this native tree included Yellow-Rumped Warbler, Golden-Crowned Kinglet, Fox Sparrow and Purple Finch. The Purple Finch female has some wonderful steaks on her face making identification easy when compared to the more common female House Finch. Many of these birds also visit our water feature in front of the Window on Wildlife and Skip was able to get some excellent photos of them, some posted here: male Purple Finch, Eastern Redcedar “berries”. If you’d like to learn more about our winter birds, we invite you to participate in our Project Feeder Watch Programs starting on Friday, December 5 from 12:30 to 2:30 and Saturday, December 6 10:30 to 12:30 and every other Friday and Saturday thereafter through the winter. We sit at the Window on Wildlife and count the high number of each bird species seen during the count period. This is a citizen science project coordinated with Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Bird Watchers of all levels are invited to participate for the whole counting periods or just for a few minutes during your nature center visits. For more information call us at (937) 855-7717.
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