Hot butterflies

Today my wife and I braved near 100 degrees weather, that's without the steam high humidity factored in, to count butterflies for the NABA annual butterfly count. We have been joining the Chippokes count in Virginia for the last several years. This year we were out with several others on Jamestown Island. The weather was quite oppressive (low overnight was around 80 and the heat index was forecast to reach at least 110) so we worked to shorten our day. Usually we are out for most of the day. But this time we started at 9:00 and planned to end by 12:30 before the heat took too much of a toll on us. For that reason, we split the route in two.
Luckily, the butterflies weren't as put off by the heat as the butterfliers. Our small group found 20 species in the three hours we were in the field. That's pretty close to past totals and included some excellent finds. At a marshy area with a few remaining blooms of pickerelweed, there were a lot of skippers including four species on one stalk.

 Nearby we found three gemmed satyrs. Very pretty and a first for my wife and myself. Unfortunately, none decided to pose for the camera.

At our next stop we bushwhacked through some grasses and flowers finding many more species including this female Zabulon skipper and Appalachian brown.

Zabulon skippers were the most numerous species we found. There were also many Palamedes Swallowtails and Silver-spotted skippers. At the end of the morning we met up with the other half of our sector at a small butterfly garden managed by the Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory. It was just outside our sector but offered a nice, central meet-up location. Here, I was able to photograph this grey hairstreak, a species we didn't see on the official count.

All in all, the good butterflies outweighed the oppressive heat. Although, we are really glad we ended early.

Lunch Time

A few days ago I stopped by the local bird store to pick up some seed and Bark Butter for our birds at home. As the sales lady was leading me up to the counter with my purchases another staff member called out that the pine warbler was back for lunch. This bird comes several times a day to the door overlooking their very nice bird-feeding area, and waits until someone puts out some mealworms. It will start chipping at the door if the staff doesn't respond quickly enough. They offered me the honor of feeding it this time.
With a handful of squirmy mealworms, I slowly opened the door and extended just my arm. Almost instantly the warbler hopped over from its place on the back of a patio chair to my hand and grabbed a couple of worms and scarfed them down before returning to the chair. A few seconds later it came back for a second pass. This time I had my phone ready for the event. And it was quite the event. The bird stuck around for nearly 20 seconds eating several mealworms before flying off. It did miss the one that started climbing up my arm.
A yellow-rumped warbler came in to the chair and the sale lady said they sometimes would eat out of people's hands as well but they were a bit more shy. I think flicking the worm climbing under my cuff put the yellow-rumped off so it left. The pine warbler returned one more time for a quick bite before heading high in the trees; a pine of course.
I left the rest of the mealworms on the stone patio for the yellow-rumped friends.
It is always really amazing how small, light, and gentle wild birds are. It landed with just the slightest pressure from its feet on my finger tips. They are so light that it almost tickles like when someone is just barely running their hand over your skin.
It was an incredible experience.

Interactions at the Feeder

So I'm sitting here 30 days into the 2019 government shutdown. During these weeks, I've spent a lot of time feeding and watching the birds in the backyard. I have a log feeder that I made, it is actually the second one after the first ended up splitting after several years, fill several holes with BarkButter. It is really popular with the birds and the other day I noticed a nice waiting line forming. Several birds would sit in the nearby buckeye tree or on the edge of our deck and wait their turn. Since the feeder hangs on a 6 foot long chain from a branch in a pine tree, it moves quite a lot. Either with the winds or when a larger bird lands on it. So, unlike the the tube feeder with safflower seed where every opening is often occupied, the log feeder tends to serve a single bird at a time. Or maybe it is different kinds of birds that frequent this feeder. (Another short study?)

Orange-crowned Warbler on log feeder before study started

I was intrigued by this behavior and having nothing else to occupy my mind, I decided that I would collect a little data. Not being a field ornithologist, I just made up a protocol for my data collection. I knew I wanted an ordered list of who visited the feeder, if anyone actively displaced another bird (or tried and failed), as well as who was waiting in line. For my first attempt I decided to record everyone waiting once a minute for a 15 minute block as well as the ordered list of who visited. This morning it was quite cold for here, 21 F, so there was a lot of activity. I made a little disturbance putting some water out in the frozen birdbath. So I waited a few minutes until activity returned.

While there was pretty constant activity there, it did lack the variety that I sometimes see there. In total, six species visited the feeder during my 15 minute sampling (Northern Mockingbird, Yellow-rumped Warbler, White-throated Sparrow, Carolina Wren, Downy Woodpecker, Carolina Chickadee). Four of those were seen waiting for the feed (not the Downy Woodpecker or Carolina Wren). The vast majority of feedings happened without any overt aggression (26/28). There was also one time where a White-throated Sparrow made multiple attempts to approach the feeder but never landed or took food.

Yellow-rumped Warbler taking food from the log feeder on the wing

There was an average (N=15) of 0.67 birds and median of 1 bird waiting at my count times. Only once were there multiple birds waiting (both a Northern Mockingbird and a Yellow-rumped Warbler) although at that time no one was actively feeding.

The best interactions were a White-throated Sparrow that tried multiple times to dislodge the Downy Woodpecker and failed. It would fly at the feeder and then turn away. There was also an unrecorded bird that dislodged the Mockingbird once.

I'm not sure I learned a whole lot but it was a fun experience and got me thinking about data a little while I'm not working. I did figure out that that it was way harder to collect the data than I was expecting. I need either a better shorthand or collect the data less frequently. But between writing, looking at the timer for the one-minute intervals and looking at the feeder I felt was was always behind and missing something.

Carolina Wren on the log feeder 

End of year birding

I see it has been quite a while since I blogged. A new job with more travel, a new hobby, and a couple of vacations ate into my time. I guess I also wasn't doing as much photography and somehow it seemed like blogging without pictures was a bit of a waste. But that shouldn't be the case. So here I am with the start of hopefully a few catch-up entries.
While I try not to be too competitive birding, I can't always suppress my competitive side. Especially when eBird provides you with data that is so easy to compare. As it got close to the end of the year and I had 199 species for Virginia in 2018, the 200-mark was calling. I thought maybe we would make a stop along the Eastern Shore during holiday travels to Pennsylvania, but the weather didn't cooperate. On the way up we were aiming to reach family before dark and rain arrived and the trip back was entirely in a heavy downpour. That left the last day, New Year's Eve to add that last new species. My BirdsEye app showed 8 species within 25 miles that I could add to my Virginia year list. Five had been seen at or near Fort Monroe. My wife and I bird there frequently and I consider it kind of like my local patch. We had done the Christmas Bird Count at Fort Monroe a couple of weeks earlier and had missed most of those (One showed up after that). Two hundred for the year and missed birds at "my" patch: the sirens were calling.
That afternoon we headed down with the hope of being able to see one or two of the new species along with enjoying the area. First stop was the new waterfront park in Phoebus just across Mill Creek from Ft. Monroe. A white-winged scoter had been reported a few days earlier. At the park, they recently added a parking lot and a floating boat launch. The later is now fully populated with gulls. As I scanned for the common eider that had been in the area for a few weeks, my wife set up the spotting scope. And bang, there along the far side of water was the white-winged scoter. In the scope, the while comma behind the eye was very clear. We often see the other two scoter species, black and surf, around Ft Monroe but this was the first we had seen the white-winged in the area. That was 200. But we were out to enjoy the birds so we moved on to Fort Monroe proper.
Next stop was the Chamberlain hotel where there is often a lot of ducks along the rocky seawall as well as good views of anything out by the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel island. Here we found some brant swimming next to the island. (I had actually seen a few while scouting for the CBC but always a pleasure to watch them.) While my wife was scanning the waters with the spotting scope, I walked to the end near the marina to see around the corner. Just over the wall was the common eider. Not 30 ft away. It was very nice looking male. While watching it we saw a Bonaparte's gull fly by. I was now at 202 for the year. Then, back around the other side of the Chamberlain we saw a female long-tailed duck swimming by. Now I was up to 203.
I was hoping to see one new species for the year to get to that round, but otherwise arbitrary, count for the year. And ended up seeing several new species and some nice views of other winter time visitors. In the end, I was a great way to end the year.

A Rising Tide ...

While a rising tide may lift all boats, here on the coast it also floods the streets and yards. As rising sea levels make tidal flooding a larger and larger concern, several local media companies got together to sponsor a King Tide event. The king tide is the highest astronomical tide of the year. This is when the moon and sun alignment, together with their proximity, drive the tides especially high. There is no guarantee that the king tide will be the highest tide of the year as weather also plays a big part. But the king tide is predictable well in advance, unlike the weather.

So on Nov 5, hundreds of citizen scientists in Hampton Roads went out and, using our smart phones, measured the water intrusion into typically dry areas. High tide was mid-morning, nice for us non-morning people, so we went out around 9:00 am, donned our waders, and walked as close to the water's edge as we could, recording our position every few steps. This created a map of our spots that could be overlaid on predictions models, like the one below.

Mapping data from my first stop

The forecast before we went out was for there to be some wind-induced surge on top of the king tide. Below is a screenshot from a NOAA storm surge prediction site.

Tide predictions just before going out

As you can see, the prediction was for nearly 5 ft above mean lower low water. This is right about the minor flooding stage. The winds seemed to fail and we didn't get quite as much water as predicted.

The same data a few hours later

The first spot I mapped was right along a creek and gave us a pretty good line to measure. There were some trees and bushes to work around but it wasn't too hard. I was frequently stretching out my arm to get over the water line to record the data. And I could easily walk around the trees that grew on the water's edge.

The second spot my partner and I went to is a new apartment complex. It was built right on the edge of the marsh; they may have even built out into the marsh, it's hard to tell. But we could't get around to tidal areas. We did find a low spot where the water table had risen up through the ground. My wife and I see this often at our house where there will be water at low spots in the marsh that didn't flow in from the main creek. We marked that area and added some photographs.

Our final spot was a little park nearby that is bordered by a tidal creek on one side and fresh water pond on the other. The pond provides good winter habitat for ducks and for several years there was a Eurasian Widgeon that would come every winter. But that water wasn't of interest to use this day. Instead we headed over to the muddy creek bed. This is near the maximum extent of the creek, so at low tide there is usually a lot of exposed mud. Over the past several years, the city has been doing work to control run-off into the creek. In fact, one of the first projects going on when I joined the master naturalist was planting trees and shrubs along this creek. That's is all wonderful and the planting have really grown up. But for this activity, having the water's edge protected but twenty feet of brush, brambles, junipers, and other dense planting, was a real pain. Literally. I came away with several scrapes and pokes, even through my adventure pants. Our data here was much more sparse and really limited by where we could push through the plants to get close.

All of the data was collected at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science where everyone can see the mapping data. This is expected to be the first of several such mappings. We may even go out during storms to map what happens.

And since this was sponsored by several media, there was a lot of coverage like this from the Virginian Pilot.

The Young Ones

Several weeks ago Sharon was working in the garden and dug up a couple of small eggs. As she had already disturbed them, she decided to collect them and try to incubate them inside. We thought they were snake eggs as we had seen several snakes in that area and had see some young snakes in the area. She put them in an old tupperware with a lot of leaf litter and a moist paper towel in the bottom. This was shortly before she headed off to Africa for work, so we hoped they would hatch quickly. But for several days, nothing happened. While Sharon was gone, I checked on them occasionally and added a spritz of water from time to time. But still nothing. Then a few weeks ago, I was out birding with our local club and chatted with a snake expert. He said at the park he works at the snake eggs usually hatch in about 10-14 days. They also put them under heat lamps. We had left our outside in the sun room where it was warm but probably not as hot as under a lamp. So it seemed like our eggs were not going to hatch. Sharon returned from her trip and we just left the tupperware and stopped checking on it.

Then today happened. We had had some friends over for lunch and after they left, Sharon headed back outside to finish cleaning up. As she walked past the table that had the tupperware full of leaf litter she saw something move. And then something else moved. She called to me to come quick. On the edge of the table was a small skink. The second one had dropped down onto the floor. Since our sunroom, while a nice place for us to hang out, wouldn't be a good nursery for baby skinks, we had to get them outside. I took the table outside and Sharon went and got a box out of the recycling bin and convinced the one on the floor to climb in so it could get a ride outside.

We killed a couple of mosquitoes in hopes that they would make good food. Sharon also found a small insect in the mulch of the one of the potted plants and offered that too. The offerings were accepted and devoured.

Skink #1 next to her home.

Hiding under the empty rice box

Looking at lunch

Look what I caught

All gone

It took a while for the one in the box to get settled again and climb out. But once again, this was the more adventurous one.  It heading over to the edge of the table and dropping down onto the deck. After about 15 minutes, lots of photos, and a few snacks, we recaptured them into the tupperware and released them into the garden from whence they came. Hopefully we will see them again and again in the coming years.

Ready for my new home

Afterwards, we looked in our guidebook and identified them as ground skinks (Scincella lateralis). It was about six weeks since Sharon uncovered them. And how lucky for us to be here when they emerged. What a wonderful day.

Train version 0

This fall, one of my garden goals is to install the first segment of a garden train. A garden train is a model railroad that is larger than what you normally have around the Christmas tree or is the basement. Rails are about 1.75" apart with cars (rolling stock) being 7-8" tall. We are going to install the first section in one of the existing garden beds. So, instead of building a raised bed or placing the track on the ground, I'm going to put it up on small risers.

Garden train installed on our deck

Part of garden where the train will eventually go

To get some practice and try out a couple of different options, I took the simple oval track that we have installed on the deck and built a platform for it. It was also an opportunity to practice some woodworking skills which I don't really have.

The general idea is to lay the track on decking board which is up on 4x4 posts. I found some instructions online for cutting boards to go around the curves. I started with a piece of PVC board to see how it worked and because it will hold up to the weather. But the boards I had were 1x4s and the track ties are just about 4 inches wide so 4 inch boards don't work for the curves. I have a lot of deck boards for our pier so I switched to pressure-treated lumber. The first pieces worked OK. It at least made the 180 degree turn.

Turn #1

The second turn I had something wrong with the angle and it ended up much worse. I tried to trim the pieces down but that didn't work either. So I ended up taking the first turn apart and using those pieces as templates for the second turn. It still didn't work out quite right and the pieces needed little gaps to make the correct turn.

spreading out the boards to match the track

I also struggled to get the posts cut square; my circular saw blade isn't long enough so I have to make two cuts. After watching YouTube for too long, I found a suggestion for a guide. I tried building my own following the video but still couldn't get it square. But then I saw my miter box on the wall. It is a little jerryrigged but it was close to usable. 

As the pieces came together I tested it out on the deck.

This let me get the straight boards to the correct length. One of the straight segments is the PVC board with rails on the side so I could use gravel to hold the track down. 

Once all of the pieces were cut, it was time to install. I picked an area where we have recently cleared out a lot of wisteria and there isn't any grass.

 

First, I roughly measured out the size of the oval, cleared away leaves, and then set out the posts.

I then attached the two curved ends. By this time it was getting late so I waited until the next game. And then it rained and was wet, and then rained again. So it was a week later before I got back to connecting pieces.

Then the track went on. It took a little adjusting to make sure everything aligned. I was surprised by how uneven the connecting deck boards were. I will have to focus on that next time. Even after adjusting the height of the posts didn't really help. There is one section that really sagged. I probably need to try and get longer straight pieces and use thicker boards for the connections. I used squares of plywood to hold the boards together.

I even had to go in and add another post to hold up the sagging part. The track doesn't lay flat on the boards. 

I tried the engine on the track and it ran. It was a little rough but runs. Soon I will try out the whole train on it. But again, the rain interrupted the work.

But Version 0 is officially working.