Great Blue Skimmer

I was looking at pictures from earlier this summer, and came across a photo I had taken of a dragonfly in Kenney Park. I had not identified this species previously. Last night, I saw this picture again, and thought, could this be a great blue skimmer? I sent it off to Larry Rosche, and he said it looked good. If so, it would be quite a find for Franklin County. I checked the Ohio Odonata website, and I know the maps there are slightly out of date, but according to that sight, this species hasn't been recorded in Franklin County since before 1950.

 

Tom

These are making you sneeze

Here's a tribute to two plants that make me miserable this time of year, and send me to the medicine cabinet for my allergy remedy of choice, Claritin. (Seriously, just looking at these things sets me off. I just sneezed twice while writing this, Megan yelled bless you from the other room).

The two ragweeds, Ambrosia artemisiifolia and Ambrosia trifida..

 

 

And no, goldenrod is not what makes you sneeze! I think people just see fields of goldenrod about the same time their late summer allergies flare up, and figure that it must be the fields of yellow that is causing their suffering. Goldenrod, though, is not pollinated by wind, but by insects. Wind pollinated plants give us problems, since the pollen floats around the air and eventually winds up in our noses, causing us to have these annoying immune responses. These two plants are both annuals, so they are likely to be found in recently disturbed places, such as an empty lot in a new development, or any exposed dirt area.

Wait, I want to be in the picture too.

You know how you'll come back from vacation and you'll have a few shots where some strange little kids jump into the background of the picture and make faces? Well, the same thing happens at Kenney Park along the Olentangy River, except that unwanted insects, rather than kids, are somehow getting into my photos.

On Sunday, I was really tired after working the day before, but my trigger finger was itching since I hadn't been back to the Olentangy River since Megan and I arrived back in Columbus. A few steps off the pavement and I saw the first lepidopteran of the day, an eastern tailed blue. This tiny butterfly was pretty ragged looking, and it was checking out pokeweed. I took several shots, but look what happened to sneak into one of them! Some type of flying green metallic thing. I'm not sure if this is a bee, wasp, or fly, but it is kinda neat. I don't think I could have captured a shot like this if I had tried 1000 times.



So, onto the next butterfly, this one also very ragged, a pearl crescent. This individual was getting nectar from a goldenrod plant. I put the camera on burst mode and ran off a bunch of shots. Sure enough, back at the house, another intruder had crept into the photo, this time a cabbage white butterfly. What is going on?



Apparently in this shot, the cabbage white had left, leaving just the spectacular pearl crescent.



After photographing the crescent, I strolled down to the river, and I noticed that my favorite rock from which to fish was occupied by two pancakes. Oh wait, those aren't pancakes, those are spiny softshelled turtles. The spiny softshell loves to bask on rocks and logs in the Olentangy, and even on its muddy banks. But they are really wary. You can't get within fifty feet without them sliding into the murky water. Luckily, today, I was watching for them, and sure enough, I was able to get a few nice shots by hiding behind a sizable cottonwood tree. As soon as I creeped down the bank to get a closer shot, these guys slid off into the river. Back at home, I checked out the photos, and this time, another flying insect had crashed my photo. Two American rubyspots appeared in the photo, one flying, and one basking on the rock.



I'm taking this as a sign that I most definitely need a camera with clear and precise viewfinder. That Canon Rebel XTI really sounds good right now. Ok, I guess that really does sound like a pretty bad excuse to get a new camera.

Tom

Maine Damsels

Dragonflies and Damselflies darted in and out of the swamps and bogs at little pond. All types, from bluets to spreadwings, and meadowhawks to darners were present in Maine. Here is a roundup of the damselflies of Little Pond.

First, the damselflies:

Eastern forktails, a tiny little damsel that we have in Ohio as well, were quite common.

Here is the male. He is perched on bog rosemary, Andromeda polifolia var. glaucophylla, common in bogs in Maine, but a shrub that has become extirpated here in Ohio.



And this, possibly, is a female. Female damselflies are typically much less striking than their colorful male counterparts. Although not as boldly colored, they still possess a sublime beauty.



Here, I think I have another eastern forktail mail, but this guy has more of a bluish color. He still has the distinctive lines on his thorax that somewhat look like exclamation points, but notice, there is not a complete gap like the fragile forktail, a species I did not see in Maine.



Next up we have a sphagnum sprite, Nehalennia gracilis. This species is named because it lives in habitats with sphagnum moss, and bogs are bogs because of sphagnum, or peat moss. The emerald green thorax tipped me off that this guy was interesting. I remember people pointing these out to me last year at Singer Lake Bog in northeast Ohio, but this was the first time I had photographed this species.



Next up is what I believe is a vesper bluet. I haven't seen this species before, but Larry Rosche writes in his book that this species lives in lakes and is most often seen sitting on lilypads, so I think I'm on the right track. The neon yellow thorax and the blue abdominal segment look to match the illustration in his book as well.



To switch things up a bit, now we'll enter the world of spreadwing damselflies. These can be difficult to identify, and I'm not even going to try to guess which species are in the following pictures. Note that these damselflies hold their wings out at an angle while at rest, while other damsels hold their wings closed and above their thorax.

Graceful Descent

John Howard captured this image of myself at Lake Katharine State Nature Preserve:

Birds of Little Pond

While in Maine I had the opportunity to do a little birding. All of these shots are taken from Megan's parent's house at little pond. I'll give a little bit of information about my observations. Feel free to chime in with I.D.'s if I have gotten something wrong.

First up is this nice bird that was perched late in the afternoon high up in a white pine tree. I'm guessing this is a warbler of some type. Anyone have any guesses? The bird was high in the tree tops and this is the best shot I took.



The common yellowthroat, a warbler that I do know well. This individual was quite tame and allowed me to approach within 10 feet.



Ruby-throated hummingbirds were really living it up at little pond. Megan's parents have three feeders full of sugar and water around there house, and we constantly heard the chirps and buzzing of these tiny birds.



I saw this warbler in a tamarack, and managed to get a few shots before it flew off. Its belly looks yellowish. Is this a confusing fall warbler?



Next up is the good old mallard duck. These three individuals liked to alight on the floating dock in little pond. I also alighted on this dock, although I climbed up the ladder rather than flying there. I must say, it is quite a perch with a superb view of the pond. There are also wood ducks on the pond, but they were not seen on this floating duck, just back towards the shore amongst the pickerel weed and water shield.



This, I believe, is a solitary sandpiper. If it is, this was my first sighting of this bird. I don't remember Sibley's exact words, but these birds supposedly like to hang around ponds, and I couldn't think of a better one to hang out at if I also had to be all alone like this crossed-up solitary sandpiper. (Please, correct me if this is another wading bird).



Common ravens, were, well, common around Megan's parent's place. They especially liked to perch on roadside power lines and swoop down to pick fresh meat on the road. This one flew high overhead, and I managed to take a picture before he went down below the tree line.



And, perhaps the raven was the inspiration for this flying creature? I couldn't help but notice the similarities. This old-looking plane broke the silence at little pond late one afternoon.



All in all, not the best photos in the world, but a sampling of the birds and other flying things seen at Little Pond.

Tom

Lake Katharine State Nature Preserve

So after being in Maine, I joined the Ohio heritage naturalists today at Lake Katharine State Nature Preserve in Jackson County. My first time at the preserve, and what a place. The activity of the day was fern searching, and we came up with over twenty species. I'm not sure what the final count was exactly.

Anyways, other interesting things today were:

A southern two-lined salamander.

 


New to me, the banded pennant dragonfly, as identified by John Howard.

 

Next up is the big-leaf magnolia, which has the largest leaves of any tree in Ohio that I have ever seen. Lake Katharine is a hotbed for this state-listed species.

 


Finally, the group gets ready to photograph me just before I descend a steep slope. Hopefully, we'll have pictures of me sliding down. I'm not exactly sure why I was such an interesting subject.
 

Tom

Little Pond, Otisfield, Maine

Megan and I just got back from Little Pond, Maine. Little Pond is about 26 acres. Here in Ohio we'd call it a lake, for sure. In Maine, it is only a little pond.

Here is the location of little pond:

Little Pond at Yahoo Maps

Why did we go there? Megan's parents own (and live in) a sweet place right on the pond. This pond is surrounded by sphagnum bog, white pine and balsam fir forest, and even a small swamp forest. It is quite a place. It is loaded with plants that would be "mega-rarities" if they were in Ohio. This was basically my playground for four days. Some introductory photos to acquaint you with Little Pond. More to come.

       

Tom

Headed to Maine

Megan and I will be visiting her parents in Maine this weekend. We will be flying on upstart Skybus Airlines. I'll have plenty of photos.

Tom

Views from the Ohio State Fair

 

 

 

 

-Tom-

Views from Saturday Morning on the Olentangy

 

 

 

 

Pokeweed

I love pokeweed. I ok, that sounds somewhat funny. Pokeweed is this really interesting plant in the pokeweed family that has very dark purple berries that will be ripening soon. I remember my seventh grade teacher tricking students into squeezing the berries, and once they did this, their hands were covered in a spectalarly sticky, brilliantly magenta covering. What a plant. I also love wikipedia, and there is really quite a nice article about this plant there. What did I learn? People in the south actually eat this plant, even though it is highly toxic to mammals (but not birds, apparently). They'll boil the leaves three times, each time removing the water, and then turning the boiled leaves into poke salad. Wow...sounds interesting. Has anyone eaten poke salad? Anyways, the Latin name for this guy is Phytolacca americana.

 

 

Here you can see the inflorescence of pokeweed, which botanists call a raceme. Its not a spike, since each flower is on a little stalk called a pedicel. Pokeweed berries are not yet ripe, they are still green in Kenney Park here in Columbus. But soon I'll go out and crush some berries is my hand, turning them purple, just for a little memory of being a kid again, but now I'll surely wash my hands, knowing this plant is fairly toxic!

Tom

P.S. Green Deane has an excellent post about pokeweed at his blog. Check it out here:

Eat The Weeds Blog

Another Hackberry Munching Butterfly

So a few days ago, I posted a picture of the tawny emperor butterly, whose host plant was hackberry.

Last week, while on a trip with the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, someone brought up the species of butterflies in Ohio whose host plant is hackberry. It turned out that I had photographed one of these species, the American snout, this past June.

 

This butterfly is not easily forgettable. When I spotted this guy on the banks of the Olentangy, I wasn't sure if it was a butterfly or a moth. The long extension of its head is just odd looking. Sure enough, he's an American snout, Libytheana carinenta.

Tom