Down in our Garden!

Steller's Jay - Cyanocitta stelleri

Down in our garden so much is happening!  Lots of butterflies and tons of bugs are still feeding on the flowers! A male Anna's Hummingbird has become the guardian of the bee balm and is busy chasing away other hummers!  Some of the sunflowers are going to seed, and new birds have arrived to feast!  Year-round residents, such as the Steller's Jay above, are also enjoying the abundance of seeds!  Gray Squirrels are busy burying walnuts for the winter!  What a hub of activity!

Green-tailed Towhees (adult & juvenile) - Pipilo chlorurus

The Green-tailed Towhee that I saw last week is still hanging around eating seeds!  Surprisingly I discovered that she has a young juvenile with her!  I have watched this juvenile for several days now, pecking and scratch/hopping backwards on the ground just like the adult!  What a treat it is to see these two uncommonly seen birds!

Lesser Goldfinch(male) -Carduelis psaltria & Spotted Towhee(juvenile) -Pipilo maculatis 

Another new arrival is the Lesser Goldfinch (above left)!  There are quite a few of them in the garden right now, feasting on the Sunflower seeds!  They will spend the next month or so in our garden eating seeds.  As the weather cools and the days grow shorter, they will migrate down to the foothills for the winter.

I was also thrilled to see this juvenile Spotted Towhee (above right)!  Spotted Towhees are year-round residents in our neighborhood.  In spring and summer they mainly eat insects, as well as some plants.  In fall and winter their diet consist of mainly seeds, especially sunflower-family plants and thistles.  Right now they are taking advantage of the multitude of sunflower seeds in our garden!  Every morning I see them looking for food on the ground, pecking and scratch/hopping backwards! 

Anna's Hummingbird (male) - Calypte anna

This little bejeweled beauty has been fiercely defending the plot of Bee Balm in our garden!  I don't think he actually hurts any of the other hummingbirds, but he definitely spends lots of time chasing them away!  Right now there are about 5 hummers coming to his "patch".  When he's out chasing one hummer, the others are able to feed on the Bee Balm until he gets back.  In between flights he rests and feeds!  I was so thrilled to get this photo of them actually "in combat"!  Wow!

Dotted Blue - Euphilotes sp.                 Monarch - Danaus plexippus

Garden Pollinators!

Out in the garden there are so many insects pollinating and feeding on the flowers!  Insects can be difficult to photograph because they are so small, and they often move quickly and erratically!  It's also difficult to identify some of them because, especially with native bees, there are so many choices and a lot of them look alike!  I am not an entomologist, but I am curious about insects!  I've attempted to identify the ones pictured below, but am not sure I did it correctly, so don't take my guesses as facts!  The website https://www.BugGuide.net is a great source for pictures and names of insects!  Check it out!

   Woodland Skipper - Ochlodes sylvanoides & White-lined Sphinx Moth - Hyles lineata

California Carpenter Bee - Xylocopa californica & Small Carpenter Bee - Ceratina sp.

I think I was able to identify 4 new native bees!  They are all solitary in habit, and do not live in colonies. The two Carpenter Bees above, are only similar in their habit of making nests in wood.  However, the Small Carpenter Bee (above right), will also make nests in the stems of non-woody plants.  At first I thought the Small Carpenter Bee was an ant!  It's so tiny, especially when compared to the California Carpenter Bee (above left)!

Urban Anthophora - Anthophora urbana  &  Long-horned Bee - Melissodes sp.

Both of these bees (above) are "Digger Bees"!  Their names comes from their habit of digging underground tunnels, in which to lay their eggs!  Like Bumblebees, they will make a brood pot out of wax at the end of a tunnel, and fill it with nectar and pollen.  They then lay an egg on the top of this brood pot and seal up the tunnel.  When the larva hatches it feeds on this stored food.  Once the honey and pollen are consumed, the larva become dormant and remain underground for many months.  In spring they will pupate and emerge as adults. In some species the male larvae hatch before the female larvae.  They spend the first days of their lives hovering above the nesting area, waiting for the females to emerge!  As soon as a female emerges, a male mates with her!  Sometimes, the males even dig the females out!  Sheesh!

       

Bee Wolf - Philanthus multimaculatus  &  Xeromelecta - Xeromelecta californica

The Bee Wolf (above left) is a wasp not a bee!  As its name implies, it is a predator of bees!  The Bee Wolf digs tunnels underground, with a brood chamber at the end of each tunnel.  It will then paralyze bees by stinging them, and put 1-6 of them in each brood chamber!  It will then lay one egg on top of a paralyzed bee and seal up the brood chamber.  When the larva hatches it will feed on the paralyzed bees, pupate, and emerge out months later as an adult!

The Xeromelecta (above right) is a native bee.  It is a type of "Cuckoo Bee"!  They are named after Cuckoo birds because they are nest parasites!  (Brown-headed Cowbirds are the local birds that have this same nest parasitism behavior.)  Cuckoo Bees lay their eggs in the nests of other bees.  The Xeromelecta favors Digger Bee nests.  It will sneak into a nest, kill the Digger Bee eggs, lay its own eggs and fly away!  

It's tough out there, even for bees!!!  

 Western Gray Squirrel - Sciurus griseus  &   Steller's Jay - Cyanocitta stelleri

Other Critters!

I've been watching this Western Gray Squirrel hide individual walnuts in a variety of places.  They don't store a lot of food for winter, as they remain active throughout the year, but usually have a few caches of nuts!  As soon as the squirrel left, this Steller's Jay showed up and checked out what the squirrel had been burying!  Apparently the walnut didn't interest him, as he left it alone!  Steller's Jays are another year-round resident in my neighborhood.  They are very smart, curious, and observant birds!

Gray Fox - Urocyon cineroargenteus

I've seen the Gray Foxes in the same area several mornings this week!  It seems like they are warming themselves up in the morning sun!  In the heat of the afternoon, they retreat into the shade.  I've found a spot beneath some bushes that definitely looks like their bedding area!  Nighttime is when they are usually out hunting!   This afternoon I found a bunch of bird feathers in our garden that might be from a Towhee!  Perhaps one of the foxes caught it!  I'll keep you posted!

It's getting dark earlier now.  When I walk my dog in the evenings, 

I see lots of bats in the twilight sky!

What kind of bats are they?

Will the juvenile Towhees survive?

How are the young Mergansers doing?

 What about those Crayfish?

Check back next week for the answers 

to these questions and more!

Fur, Feathers and More!

Gray Fox - Urocyon cinereoargentus

Gray Foxes!

I had some friends visiting this week!  On one of our walks we saw two foxes sunning themselves on the limb of a broken tree!  We only saw them for a few seconds, but it was an event!!!  Unfortunately we didn't have our cameras!  Rats!  I went back the following morning and luckily got these photos!!  I think the younger one is on the right (below).  They are so camouflaged!  Aren't they beautiful!!

Gray Foxes - Urocyon cinereoargentus

Gray Foxes will make their dens in clefts, rock piles, small caves, or hollow logs and trees.  They give birth to up to 7 kits in the Spring.  Young Gray Foxes are weaned at 3 months, and hunt for themselves at 4 months.  The family remains together until Fall, when the young reach sexual maturity, and then they disperse.  

Gray Foxes are omnivores and eat insects, small mammals, birds and bird eggs, fruit, seeds, and grasses!  They usual forage at night, but are often seen in the daytime.  Gray Foxes are the only foxes in North America that can climb trees!

Raccoon - Procyon lotor

Raccoon!

My friend was walking around on our property and came across the remains of a 

long-dead raccoon!  He thought this raccoon was probably killed by a Mountain Lion!  He found lots of fur, part of the upper jaw and nose, and the tail!  Mountain Lions are definitely in my neighborhood.  In fact there have been a couple of local sightings of one, just this month!  Now that would be something to see!

 Western Tanager (feathers) - Piranga ludoviciana

Western Tanager

I found a dead, female Western Tanager on our property this week.  It had been dead for some time, but didn't have any damage to its body.  There are many reasons why wild birds die.  The biggest cause of bird death is the destruction of habitat. Disease is also a major cause of bird death, but number totals are unknown. Feral and domestic cats kill 500 million birds annually!  Cars kill 60 million birds annually!  Pesticides kill 72 million birds annually!  Window strikes are another major cause of bird death, with a staggering annual total of 97-976 million fatalities annually!  

These window strike deaths are totally preventable!  I put plastic flagging tape outside, in vertical rows about 10" apart, on all my home windows.  This seems to have stopped the birds from crashing into our windows.  You can get LOTS more information on how to make your home "bird safe" at www.flap.org.  Please check it out, and do your part to help wild birds survive!

Chipping Sparrow - Spizella passerina   & Green-tailed Towhee - Pipilo chlorurus

Look-a-likes!

These two similarly feathered birds showed up in our garden this week!  One was a lot smaller than the other, but it wasn't a baby!  The rusty orange crowns made me think they were the same type of bird!  Wrong!  They're two distinctly different species, but are commonly found together at this time of year!

Chipping Sparrows (above left) range in size from 4.7" - 5.9", and usually weigh .4 -.6 of an ounce!  Pretty small!  They prefer to live in evergreen forest that are interspersed with grassy openings.  Right now they are eating seeds on the ground, and their feathers are molting!  They will migrate south to southern California, Arizona, or Mexico for the winter.

Green-tailed Towhees (above right) are much larger than Chipping Sparrows.  They are approximately 7.2 " in length, and weigh about 1 ounce!  Their tail is yellow-green, and they do not have a white stripe above their eye.  They usually spend the spring and summer at higher elevations, up to 10,000'!  At this time of year, they drop down to lower elevations below 4,000' to molt and fatten up before migration.  In winter they will migrate south to Arizona or Mexico.

  North Yuba River - June 2, 2017           North Yuba River - Aug. 12, 2017

North Yuba River Update!

As you can see from the photos above, the river has slowed down and the water level has dropped significantly in the past 2 months!  It has also warmed up a bunch, and is perfect for swimming!  My friends and I spent hours on the river this week, 
swimming and exploring!  

Rainbow Trout "Fry"- Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus

We found that the fish fry (above) are getting bigger, but they're not quite fingerlings yet.  We looked for Crayfish, but weren't able to find any!  Did the Heron eat them all?  I'll get a snorkel and mask and look harder!

Damselfly (adult & nymph) - Argia sp.

We also found this Damselfly adult (below) and exoskeleton on a river-side plant!  

Damselflies are similar to Dragonflies only they are a lot smaller.  They also differ in that they hold their wings at a 45° angle or parallel to their body when at rest.  Dragonflies hold their wings at a 90° angle.  Like Dragonflies, Damselflies live underwater as nymphs for a year or more before they emerge out of their 

exoskeleton as an adult!  They certainly have huge eyes!!!

Pollinators!

There are all kinds of pollinators ranging from birds to tiny native bees!  I found  Anna's Hummingbirds, two kinds of wasps, carpenter bees, and honey bees in my garden!  Up in the Lakes Basin I came across some Ranger Buttons (a wildflower) that  two kinds of native bees were pollinating!  It turns out that there are 1,000 species of bees that are native to California!  I had been told that Honey Bees are not native to North America.  However, a newly identified fossil shows that honey bees (Apis nearctica) lived in North America at least 14 million years ago, but did not survive through the following eras.  Colonists brought the honey bee (Apis mellifera) from Europe in 1622.  This is the Honey Bee you might see in your garden.  I'm going to see how many native bees I can identify locally, and post them for you next week!  

Okay, so next week I'll hopefully have some information about Crayfish!

I'll also post what native bees I find!

What will the weather bring?  

Are we going to get some rain?

Are there local fires happening?

Are the Yellow Jacket Wasps out yet?

Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!

Feathers!

Bird feathers are beautiful, complex structures. They serve a wide variety of purposes including flight, insulation, and ornamentation.  All birds have lots of feathers, up to 25,000 per bird!

Feathers are not living structures and cannot be repaired by a bird.  The process of getting rid of old, worn feathers and growing new ones is called "molting."  Birds usually molt once a year.  Most often molting begins after the reproduction cycle has finished, and before migration begins.  The molting process can take up to a month to be completed.  The feathers are lost gradually, in a symmetrical pattern across the body.

Right now is one of the premium times for birds to molt.  That's why I've been finding lots of individual feathers on the ground lately!

"Pterylosis" is the scientific name for the arrangement of feathers on a bird.  Each feather has a very specific place and use!  The downy feather (above left) is probably from a young bird, and was used for insulation.  The contour feather (above right) is probably from a large adult bird such as a Canada Goose, and was used for flight.  The beautiful breast feathers (below) are from a Sharp-shinned Hawk, and were probably for insulation and ornamentation!  I think they are all incredibly beautiful!

Sharp-shinned Hawk (breast feathers) - Acipiter striatus

Bullock's Oriole - Icterus bullockii

Preening & Parasites

the Maintenance of Feathers 

Whenever I'm watching birds, like the Bullock's Orioles above, they are often scratching or digging into their feathers with their bills and feet.  Apparently what they are doing is removing parasites, dust, and dirt from their feathers!  They are also using oil from their preen gland, located just above the base of the tail, to help waterproof and keep feathers flexible.  Additionally, they are aligning each feather in its optimum position!  

Birds have to deal with a lot of parasites!  Bird Lice eat their feathers and skin.  Feather Mites feed on feathers or skin.  Feather flies are blood sucking parasites!  To deal with these parasites, birds sun themselves, take dust baths, bathe in water, place ants that exude formic acid on their feathers, and even occasionally apply plant juices to get rid of them!

Common Merganser female & ducklings - Mergus merganser

River Bird Update!

I watched the Common Merganser female (above) and her four ducklings on the river this morning!  I was surprised to see these downy ducklings, this late in the season!    They can feed themselves within one or two days after they're born, but remain with their mother for 60 to 75 days.  Winter migration will begin in October.  Hopefully these ducklings will mature by then! 

Great Blue Heron - Ardea herodias

Four mornings in a row, a Great Blue Heron has honked as he flew past me along the river this week!  These large birds are the only species of heron living above the foothills of the Sierra!  They are 4' tall and have a wingspan of 7'!  They are usually solitary, except when nesting colonially.  Fish, frogs, crayfish, reptiles, other birds, and aquatic insects are their main prey.  Maybe this is the critter that leaves all those Crayfish shells behind! 

Gray Fox - Urocyon cinereoargentus

Gray Fox!!

Just this morning when I was walking my dog, Buster, this Gray Fox barked at us from farther up the road!!!  When we got close to where we thought the fox had been, I saw him watching us from the bushes!  WOW!  I just got this one photo before he dashed off!  How exciting!  I've seen foxes in the evening, but it has always been too dark to photograph them!  Earlier this Summer, my neighbor saw an adult fox playing with its offspring in the same area!  I hope I get some more photos to post soon!

Lizard Hatchlings!

I've seen several lizard hatchlings in my garden this week!  The eggs must have just hatched, after being buried underground for several months!  They are so tiny, only about 3" long!  I think these are Northwestern Fence Lizards.  I didn't pick any of them up, but apparently their bellies are blue!  The neutral colored pattern on the rest of their body really camouflages them!  These lizards don't have any vocal chords, so they communicate solely with body language!

Western Fence Lizards' blood carries a special protein that kills the Lyme Disease bacterium, Borrelia!  This bacteria is carried in the guts of ticks.  If an infected tick bites a Western Fence Lizard, the Borrelia is completely killed off!  Wow!

       Monarch Butterfly - Danaus plexippus  & Western Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly - Papilio rutilus rutilus

Butterflies!

There are still lots of Butterflies flitting around our neighborhood!  Since it's not bird nesting season, they don't seem to be prey for lots of birds right now!  I love how their wing patterns are also found on their bodies!  Very fancy!

Monarch butterflies migrate south to spend the winter as adults.  Most Swallowtail Butterflies do not migrate for winter.  They pupate and overwinter locally, in a chrysalis.  

 The only guess I got back from my readers, about what they thought the Black Bear had been eating, was from my sister!  She guessed he was eating Grape Nuts Cereal!  Nope!  If you guessed that the Black Bear had been eating Blackberries you guessed right!  It's all the tiny berry seeds that showed up in his poop! 

OK, so next week I'll talk about Crayfish and where they live!  I have some friends coming to visit, that I'm sure will catch a couple of them for me!  

Will the Merganser ducklings survive?

What else is busy pollinating the flowers besides Butterflies?

Are the Yellow Jacket Wasps emerging soon?

Check back next week for the answers to these questions and more!

Hot and Smokey!

When I got back home, after my vacation in Yosemite, it was hot and smokey in our neighborhood!  There was a wildfire north of us, and the wind was bringing lots of smoke into our area.  The temperatures were in the high 90's!  It was hotter than heck, so I spent most of this past week on the North Yuba River!  It had warmed up a lot, due to the heat, and was perfect for swimming!

Spotted Sandpiper - Actitis macularia

Shore Bird!

 The beautiful Spotted Sandpiper that I saw a few weeks ago, was still hanging around on this one section of the river!  It must have been a female, as it was definitely trying to distract me!  Remember that the female Sandpipers are the ones that defend the nesting territory, while the male incubates the eggs.  I didn't find a nest, but there must have been one in the area.  A few days later, I found these parts of a Sandpiper egg on the shore.  The eggshell (below left) was in pieces, and the albumen (below right) was kind of thick and rubbery.  I don't know if this means the egg hatched, or if a predator got the egg.  I couldn't find out if all the albumen would be absorbed by the time a chick hatches.  I'll have to ask some of my bird-watching friends.  I hope the chick made it!

Spotted Sandpiper eggshell and albumen

Canada Geese - Branta canadensis

Geese!

I saw this pair of Canada Geese, and their gosling, foraging in the river.  They were not looking for aquatic critters to eat!  They were looking for aquatic plants!  They are mainly vegetarians, but occasionally eat small fish, insects and crustaceans!   Canada Geese mate for life after their second or third year.  The young usually stay with their parents for the entire first year.

Most Canada Geese fly much further north to breed, but these Geese have raised their young in our neighborhood for many years now!  I remember the first year they came, it was a cold and snowy Spring, about 10+ years ago. They nested on the first bend in the river, downstream from our bridge.   That same year a neighbor couple, that lived right near the bridge, started feeding them.  They've returned every year since then to breed, and so have their offspring!  The neighbors that had been feeding them have moved.  I don't believe the new neighbor feeds them anymore.  We'll just have to wait and see how that affects this family of Geese!  I think they'll do just fine without being fed!  What do you think?

Common Merganser (female) and juveniles - Mergus merganser

Diving Ducks!

A small group of Common Mergansers quickly left the area, when I showed up on shore!  They went about 300 yards downstream, where they proceeded to climb up on rocks and preen their feathers!  I've been watching them in the river since early Spring!

Common Mergansers live in clear water lakes and rivers, and dive underwater for their food.  They eat aquatic mollusks, insects, crustaceans, worms, frogs, plants, and fish!

Their bills have sharp serrations to grab slippery prey!  They can stay underwater for up to 2 minutes, but usually stay for 30 seconds.  The young are precocial when born, and can catch their own food when they are only 1 or 2 days old!   They initially feed on aquatic insects, and then start eating fish at about 12 days old.  The young are commonly eaten by birds of prey, foxes, and large fish.  Often several females and their ducklings will become one big group for safety!  I once saw a female Common Merganser with 27 ducklings! 

       Black Phoebe - Sayornis nigricans & Western Wood Pewee - Contopus sordidulus  

Flycatchers!

The Black Phoebe and the Western Wood Pewee are some of the most commonly seen flycatchers in the Sierra.  I've been seeing both of these birds in our neighborhood since the very beginning of Spring.  I saw the two of them definitely interacting with each other down by the river this week!

Black Phoebes prefer to live near water.  They fly out from their exposed perches to catch flying insects, crawling insects, and even small fish in the river!  Apparently, if conditions are favorable, they stay year-round in the same area!  I'll have to watch for them this coming Fall and Winter!

Western Wood Pewees also fly out from exposed perches to catch flying insects.  They do not stay here all year.  They migrate to the northern end of South America for the Winter!  

Whirligig Beetles - Gyrinus sp. & Western Aquatic Garter Snake -Thamnophis couchii

 Aquatic Critters

I found these Whirligig Beetles (above left) in a shaded, still water part of our creek!  They move so fast I had a hard time getting a picture of them!  I have never seen them before!  It turns out that they're really interesting insects!  

As adults these beetles spend most of their time on the surface of the water, looking for insects to eat.  They also look for prey underwater.  They can see above and below the water surface, because they have eyes that are divided in half horizontally!!!  The bottom half sees underwater.  The top half sees above water!  If alarmed these beetles will dive underwater for safety.  The middle and hind pairs of legs are "natatory" (adapted for swimming), and are quite hairy.  Their front legs are used for grasping prey.  Their outer wing covers are covered in a waxy layer that is water repellent!  If their watery environment dries up, they can fly away to another area!  After mating, the female lays eggs on the stems of submerged plants.  The eggs hatch into aquatic larvae that live in streams. These larvae pupate in cocoons, above water, when mature.  I find all of these adaptations to their watery environment astonishing!

Every time I go to the river I see at least one Western Aquatic Garter Snake (above right) underwater!  They like to hang out motionless among the underwater rocks, just waiting for a fish to go by!  They are not poisonous, but they might bite if you handle them!  I've seen a large 4.5' one, some 7" ones, and this one was about 2' long.

Anna's Hummingbird (female) - Calypte anna

In My Garden!

I finally got a good picture of the iridescent feathers on a Hummingbird!  I was photographing this beautiful female Anna's Hummingbird in our garden, when she stopped to check me out!  WOW!  Aren't those feathers amazing?

I also was lucky enough to photograph a Monarch Butterfly (below left) in our garden. The life cycle of a Monarch Butterfly only takes 6-8 weeks.  It begins in the Spring, when female Monarch Butterflies lay 100's of eggs on the underside of Milkweed leaves (below right).  Four days later the caterpillars hatch out of their eggs!  These newly hatched caterpillars will eat only Milkweed leaves for the next 2 weeks.  Then each caterpillar will form a chrysalis and pupate.  After 10 days a new adult butterfly will emerge from each chrysalis, and start the whole process again.  This process will happen four more times in the Summer.   As adults, they feed on nectar from a variety of wildflowers.  The one pictured below is sipping nectar from a Butterfly Bush!  All mating stops in September. The last generation of Butterflies born in the Summer, is the one that migrates south for winter (all the other generations die after they mate, and lay eggs).  Some Monarch Butterflies travel 2,000 to 3,000 miles to reach their overwintering grounds!  

Unfortunately, due to the use of systemic pesticides in agriculture, the majority of native milkweeds have been killed in many areas.  This lack of milkweed plants has caused a huge decline in the population of Monarch Butterflies.  You can help many different organizations preserve Monarch Butterflies.  Check out this website for more information http://www.nfwf.org/monarch/Pages/home.aspx.

Monarch Butterfly - Danaus plexippus  and  Purple Milkweed - Asclepias cordifolia

More Bear Poop!

I found this fresh scat near our garden, but have not seen the bear yet!  

Can you guess what its been eating lately?

Where do the Crayfish live in the river?  

Why do I keep finding parts of them, but not a whole Crayfish? 

I've been finding a lot of individual feathers on the ground.  
Are birds molting now?

I just saw a baby lizard!  Are their eggs hatching now?

Check back next week 

for the answers to these questions and more!