A Cherry Festival!

Band-tailed Pigeon in Cherries! - Columbia fasciata

Once again the ripened "wild" cherries in our neighborhood have attracted lots of birds! The trees produce small cherries that are mostly pit, but that doesn't deter the birds!  Band-tailed Pigeons were the first ones to show up this year. Soon after the Pigeons, Grosbeaks, Tanagers, Orioles, and, Steller's Jays joined in the feasting.

The red eye of the pigeon pictured above was a surprise to me! I hadn't realized that they had red eyes! So of course I wondered why. I did some research and learned that no one really knows why, yet. There are some studies being done on bird eye color, but it's a complicated subject. 

Audubon states that the three main areas of study are: "The pigments and structures birds use to create different eye colors, the genetics underlying those diverse hues, and the evolutionary function this variation may serve." 

You may think that all red eyes are caused by the same combination of elements, but that is not the case. Audubon states; "The stark red of a cowbird’s eyes comes from unusually large blood vessels, whereas the Canvasbacks and vireos depend on two completely different types of pigment compounds."

Because of its complexity, bird eye color is mainly a mystery right now. In the meantime, I love how the Band-tailed Pigeon's eyes match the cherries!

Steller's Jay (adult) - Black-headed Grosbeak (male)

Cyanocitta stelleri - Pheucticus melanocephalus

There are three main methods that birds use to eat cherries.  Some, like Steller's Jays, pick them one at a time and then take "bites" out of them while holding them with their toes. Others, like the Black-headed Grosbeak pictured above right, take bites from the cherries while they are still attached to the tree, leaving the pit behind.  Still others pick a cherry, roll it around in their mouth to remove the fruit, and then spit out the pit! 

Bullock's Oriole (female) - Cedar Waxwing (adult)

Icterus bullockii - Bombycilla cedrorum

I love watching and listening to all these birds, as they feast on the cherries! The population of the cherry trees is constantly changing as the birds come and go, and there is lots of chattering and fluttering of wings going on. Some trees are more favored than others, but over the course of two to three weeks every single cherry in the neighborhood is eaten!

Columbian Black-tailed Deer (male) - Black Bear (adult)

Odocoileus hemionus columbianus - Ursus americana

Mammals also feast on the cherries!  New this year, I saw a young buck eating cherries from a tree!  I've never seen that before!  I have seen Black Bears eating cherries up in the trees, but not this year. The photo above was taken in our backyard, 6 years ago!

River Otter - Lontra canadensis

Neighborhood News!

To my absolute delight I spotted a River Otter in our neighborhood this week!!!  Yay! I hadn't seen one in a year and a half!  I was looking down at the North Yuba River from the Open Slope and I saw a large wake. I immediately thought of the Mallard I had seen on the river lately, but this critter dove underwater! It popped up twice, and luckily I got a photo right after the second time it popped up!  I waited around for quite a while, hoping that it would surface again, but it didn't. There are not a lot of River Otters in the river, probably no more than 4-6 (or less) in a 26 mile stretch of the river. How lucky I was to see this one!

Swimming is second nature to River Otters. They are powerful swimmers! They can travel 440 yards underwater without surfacing, hold their breath for 8 minutes, dive to a depth 70', and swim 26 river miles in a day! Their nostrils and ears close underwater. 

 They mainly hunt at night, using their long whiskers to locate prey, but I have seen them catch fish  during the day. They eat fish (2.2 to 3.3 lbs of fish in a day), crayfish, turtles, muskrats, ducks, frogs, garter snakes, and newts. 

Northern River Otters are active year-round, and are most active at night, dawn, and dusk. Typically they become much more nocturnal in the spring, summer, and fall seasons, and more diurnal during winter. 

They are large, strong animals weighing 11-31lbs. They range in length from 35"-51", with their tails an additional 12"-20"!

Western Ladies Tresses - Stream Orchid - Dense flowered Rein Orchid

Spiranthes porrifolia - Epipactis gigantia - Piperia elongata 

Orchids have been showing up in both the damp and dry areas lately!  I found the Western Ladies Tresses along a roadside ditch. I love how the tiny flowers spiral up the stem!  Hundreds of Stream Orchids grow on a north-facing seep along Highway 49.  The flowers are large, about 1.5" to 2" wide! Just beautiful! The Dense flowered Rein Orchid grows in the dense, dry forest on very tall (19") stems with lots of tiny, tiny flowers. The flower buds look like little green tadpoles before they open up!  The flowers have very long nectar spurs!

Steller's Jay "sunning" - Cyanocitta stelleri

I was down in our garden when I saw a Steller's Jay fly across the road and land spread-out on some hot dry grasses!  It was a really hot day, about 100 degrees or more in the sun. I had never seen this behavior before!  Apparently it's a normal behavior called "sunning", and it helps birds get rid of parasites, such as feather lice!!!

Audubon states; "Birds devote about 9 percent of their time to so-called maintenance behaviors. They use their bills to pick dirt, mud, and other impurities out of their feathers, and also use them as weapons to hunt for unwanted hitchhikers—parasites, such as feather lice. A feather louse is only about 1 millimeter long, and made of keratin, the same material found in bird feathers as well as human hair and nails. Feather lice are so skilled at hiding amid a bird's feathers that they can be hard to remove by preening alone. The presence of lice isn't just a hygiene issue—it can make it harder for birds to find mates, possibly due to duller plumage or the need for more frequent preening.

While birds often sun for these practical reasons of warmth and dryness, a growing body of research now points to one largely understudied purpose: to rid themselves of pesky parasites living on their skin and feathers. Sunning is a valid way of controlling ectoparasites."

After about a minute in the hot sun, the Jay flew off!  How cool to see this unusual behavior!

Polyphemous Moth wing being carried by an ant! - Antheraea polyphemus

I went out wandering one morning last week and this Polyphemous Moth wing seemed to be moving on its own on the ground! Upon inspection, I realized that an ant was dragging it!!! Which made me wonder, how much can an ant carry? The following website answers that question, https://askabiologist.asu.edu/content/ant-factoids;

"According to different estimates, ants can carry 10 - 50 times their body weight, or maybe even more! How? Because ants are so small, their muscles have a greater cross-sectional area (they are thicker) relative to their body size than in larger animals. This means they can produce more force pound-for-pound (or in the case of an ant, milligram-for-milligram).

Ant bodies are built to withstand a lot more force if they need to, though. Studies estimate that their joints (or places their different body parts connect) can experience forces of more than 3,000 times their own body weight without breaking." WOW!!!

Corn Lilies in a wet meadow - Veratrum californicum

Lakes Basin Update

I went on two glorious hikes in the Lakes Basin in the past two weeks and saw lots of wildflowers!  The wet meadows are green and full of growing plants but not quite blooming yet! The dry land however has lots and lots of wildflowers in bloom!

Mt. Elwell from the Round Lake Trail

Spotted Mountain Bells - Snow Plant and Swallowtail - Western Peony

 Fritillaria atropurpurea - Sarcodes sanguinea - Paeonia brownii

I saw these flowers on the Round Lake Trail.  There were also lots and lots of buckwheat, Blue-eyed Mary, Lupine, Paintbrush, and Pussy Paws! The Spotted Mountain Bells aren't that common and are hard to find, because they are green and brown in color.

Un-named pond off the Mt. Elwell Trail

Drummond's Anemones - backside of petals - Dwarf Billberry 

 Anemone drummondii - Vaccinium cespitosum

Every year we hike up the Mt. Elwell trail to see these Drummond's Anemones. Some years they have already bloomed and gone to seed before we got there. Sometimes there's too much snow covering them. This year we lucked out and they were in bloom! This is the only area in the Lakes Basin where we've seen these beautiful flowers! 

Un-named pond off the Helgrammite Lake Trail

 Mountain Pride - Penstemon newberryi

Mountain Pride is blooming in profusion everywhere!  The higher up we went in elevation, the more prevalent it was. Such gorgeous color!

What the heck is this wooly stuff?

What's happening on the River?

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

After 8 years of posting my blog, I've decided that I'm only going to post my blog twice monthly from now on. My next post will be on the weekend of July 20th. See you then!

Your questions and comments are always appreciated. Please email me at northyubanaturalist@gmail.com. Thanks!