Pictures Of The Week 7

Last weekend I flipped a rock over in my back yard and found this guy. He's a lot smaller than he appears in the photos -- only about a foot long and slightly thicker than a pencil at his widest part. He wasn't happy with me at all and kept lunging at me. A member of the GardenWeb online forums idenitfied it as a Midland Water Snake, Nerodia sipedon pleuralis (thanks Mike). It's not venomous, but obviously it will bite. I went to get a bucket I could use to relocate it (don't want my dogs getting bitten), but when I came back it had disappeared. I guess it's still in a flowerbed somewhere in my yard. According to information I found online, if a snake has round pupils it's not poisonous (at least in North America). Venomous snakes have vertical pupils like cats.

Once a caterpillar has formed its chrysalis, there's not much it can do to protect itself. In this photo, a stink/shield bug has inserted its rostrum, a piercing and sucking mouth part, through the outer layer of the chrysalis of a Gulf Fritillary and into the caterpillar. It sucks all the juices out of the caterpillar, which obviously kills it. For defense, some chrysalises blend in with their surroundings -- looking like leaves or tree bark. Some even look like bird droppings. The chrysalises of Gulf Fritillaries generally look like curled-up leaves. I guess this one wasn't that convincing, or this particular stink bug happened to be exceptionally clever.

I've had this website for more than two years now, so I was surprised when it occurred to me that I didn't have a single picture of a slug...so here are five for you. I guess I don't have the problem with slugs that lots of homeowners/gardeners do. I only remember them being a problem when we had hostas, which we don't anymore. I put out beer traps (just a bowl full of beer), and there would be dozens of dead slugs in the bowl in the morning. They must not be very interested in the plants we now have in our yard because I don't see them very often. One night, though, I did see one as long and fat as a Sharpie marker. Anyway, one night this week I found this one on our rubber mat at our back door and realized I had never tried to photograph one, so we had a modeling session. I never knew that slugs had eyes at the ends of their antennae, which are also called tentacles. They also have a second pair of tentacles below their eyes that they use for feeling. They can extend and retract these tentacles and reshape their bodies dramatically. If you'd like to know more about slug anatomy, I found this quick guide. You can click on any of the pictures above for a larger image. I did not give this slug any beer.

Monarch caterpillars and pupae (chrysalises) are attacked by a number of predators and diseases. If you hold your mouse over the photo on the left, you'll see a hole that appears on the right side of the chrysalis. The two chrysalis photos were taken 11 days apart, and I assume the hole is where a predator burrowed out of the chrysalis after killing the pupa. I think the photo on the right shows a caterpillar that's been killed by disease, probably nuclear polyhedrosis virus (NPV), also called Melt because the caterpillar essentially liquifies. Another disease that's especially destructive to Monarchs is Ophryocystis elecktroscirrah, or OE. This will often kill the pupa -- the chrysalis turns black -- but the caterpillars with OE that survive into adult butterflies become spreaders of the disease. An infected adult Monarch unknowingly drops scales of OE onto the host plant, milkweed, when she's laying eggs. The caterpillars that hatch ingest the scales when they eat the milkweed and become infected. This year I think our Monarch caterpillars were hit by both OE and Melt, which is surprising because they're not in captivity -- they're just coming to milkweed plants in our yard. I would expect it more if we were raising them, because things like overcrowding and scarce food supply weaken their immune system. This winter I'll need to cut down all the milkweed plants the infected caterpillars were on, because the disease could still be on the plant for the next year.

This is the second Unicorn Caterpillar I've found in our yard. The last one was the Picture of the Week on 2/17/08. That one was on a Serviceberry leaf, this one was on a Red Chokeberry leaf. The head is at the bottom of the photo on the left. This caterpillar gets its name from the "horn" on its back, right behind the green segments. You can see it's gripping the leaf with its three pairs of "true" legs -- they look orange and they're on the green segments -- and with four pairs of "prolegs" -- the fleshier legs in the middle of its body. I included a second photo below for a different perspective.

Well, we've had a lot of company lately, and I haven't spent much time outside to see what's going on in the yard. So I'm posting a picture of Pace this week. As you can see, he's gotten a bit spoiled (and yes, he's missing an ear). If it's not sunny outside he'd rather stay in bed all day. I guess I can't blame him. You can find out more about Pace by clicking the button on the top left called "Stranger In The Pool".

Our temperatures jumped up to the low 60's today, but I was still surprised to stumble across this toad that had come out of hibernation. He was in one of our flowerbeds, but I don't think he'll have much luck finding any insects to eat. The only other living thing I saw in the yard today was a very fat slug. Maybe it's what's for dinner. Yum.
I believe this is a Fowler's Toad, Bufo fowleri.

Our Crossvine continues to spread like crazy, and in the fall/winter the leaves take on a huge variety of colors. The vine has taken over a shepherd's hook, hummingbird feeder, downspout, and a nearby crape myrtle. Birds can be completely hidden inside all the leaves. It's not a problem to cut back though, and if it's native to your area I highly recommend it -- hummingbirds really like the trumpet-shaped blooms in the spring and sometimes again in the fall.

This Trumpet Honeysuckle has been fooled into thinking it's spring by our temperatures that hit almost 80 degrees this week. I've never noticed that this causes a problem with the vine blooming again when it's really spring. This is another great plant for hummingbirds, but don't mistake it for the invasive, non-native Japanese Honeysuckle.

These photographs are from September of last year. This is a male Common Whitetail Dragonfly basking in the sun. As you can see, this dragonfly is comfortable perching either horizontally on the ground or vertically on a stem. Some types of dragonflies only do one or the other. The female Common Whitetail actually has a brown abdomen -- that's the rear part of the dragonfly that's glowing white in these photos. These are common across all of the continental United States.

I haven't been very focused on my website lately. One of our dogs, Emmy, has a tumor on her back ankle. On Wednesday the 14th it's going to be biopsied to see if it's a harmless Histiocytoma that will go away on its own, or if it's a serious Mast Cell Tumor. It will take about a week to get the results. If it's a Mast Cell Tumor her leg may need to be amputated, which would be especially hard because she's only two years old. We found her starving on the street about one year ago, and when we couldn't find a home for her she became part of our family. I'm hoping for the best but trying to be prepared for the worst. Meanwhile I'm trying to find out all I can about the options that are available. Keep Emmy in your thoughts, and hopefully everything will be OK.
UPDATE: Emmy's biopsy came back negative for cancer, which was a huge relief. Her stitches will be out in about a week, and she'll be good as new.

For about a week in June 2008 this pair of Mallard Ducks showed up in our back yard. They ate whatever food they could find under our bird feeders and spent some time soaking in our fountain. I believe this explains where all our tadpoles went -- I think the ducks ate them. We were having work done inside our house, so we boarded the dogs during the day. That gave the ducks some free time to spend leisurely exploring the yard. I took these photos through a window so I wouldn't disturb them -- that's why there's a glare on the photos. The duck with the green head is the male, the female has a brown head.

I was going through some old photos and found this one from August 2007. This is the same toad that's sitting on a dime in a photo on Picture of the Week Page 3, but I think this gives a better idea of just how small it was. I believe this was the first day this toad left the water of our small fountain/pond and started its life on land. Before that, he was one of THESE tadpoles. It's hard to believe any of these little guys survive into adulthood.

From last summer, a bumblebee is loading up on pollen and nectar from a Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis). This was the first year the plant bloomed, and it was extremely popular with butterflies and bees. A North American native plant, it does well in wet areas, and ours is about 6 feet tall now. It's also a host plant for the Sphinx Moth, but I never found any caterpillars on it.

Last summer we had a handful of sunflowers pop up underneath a bird feeder. They never got very tall -- maybe 2 feet at the most. We also had a few safflower plants grow underneath another bird feeder. Maybe we should start cultivating both plants so we can harvest the seeds -- buying enough bird seed from the store to keep the birds happy gets expensive.

This is the flower from a pink crabapple tree blooming last September. I planted it in the back yard to give the birds fruit and the dogs some shade, though it will be years before it's big enough for that. It also gives the birds a place to perch between trips to the feeders so they have a little more protection from hawks. I've seen songbirds use branches, bushes, and trees as obstacles when trying to escape a sharp-shinned hawk.

The feeder in the top photo is hanging from an ant trap seen at left, which is just a reservoir filled with water. Ants have to cross the water to get to the feeder, and they won't do that. Don't use vasoline to keep ants away. It will end up getting on the hummingbirds' feathers, which would be disastrous. If you want to attract several hummingbirds, it's probably best to put out several feeders in different parts of your yard because they're very territorial and will defend "their" feeder.

It will be another month before we see Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds in Memphis (we actually see more in the fall, when this photo was taken), but they should start appearing in the southern U.S. any day now. You can see a map of sightings (date and location) for the northward migration HERE. If you put feeders out for them, you don't need to use the nectar that's been dyed red -- there's a suspicion that the dye causes tumors on hummingbirds. Also, any nectar should be replaced every few days, and the feeders need to be cleaned regularly. If you're shopping for feeders it's a good idea to keep this in mind and buy feeders that are easy to clean. The one in the photo on the left isn't very easy to clean because it has a narrow mouth, but since its opening is at the top, it won't drip, which can be a problem with other types of feeders. Dripping nectar will lead to ants and/or mold, and every feeder should have an ant trap to keep ants out of the feeder (they will find it).

We had quite a snowstorm -- by southern United States standards -- Saturday afternoon. Our yard got about six inches of snow, and areas farther north of us got more than a foot. This came two days after our temperatures reached 70 degrees, and we'll hit the seventies again in a couple of days, so the snow is already quickly disappearing. In the larger photo you can see the Forsythia that was already in full yellow bloom, ready for spring. I liked how the snow looked like a frozen wave coming over our gutter in the bottom smaller picture. I'm hoping this freeze killed the wild onions that were already popping up in our yard, but they're pretty tough.

This is one of the Plume Moths, probably the easiest moths to identify because they look like the letter "T" when they're perching. It's one of the few I've ever seen, and I believe it's the only one I've photographed. This one was really small -- maybe a quarter of an inch tall. I don't know much about them, but I've read that they can be pests to geraniums and snapdragons, and we don't have either of those plants in our yard.

I recommend clicking on this photo to see the larger image - there are lots of details in the dew drops. This is the beginning growth of an Old Fashioned Bleeding Hearts plant, but the droplets are the real subject. Some of them really have a lot of color in them. I couldn't get a photo exactly like I wanted before I had to go to work, so I'm hoping conditions will be the same another morning this week. I wish I had a camera that could fill the frame with that large dew drop...maybe someday down the road.

I was going through some old photos from the 1990's (before digital cameras) and found this photo I took inside my apartment in middle Tennessee. My roommate and I had the patio sliding door open, and this Luna Moth flew into the apartment because it was attracted to our ceiling light. When we turned off the light it dropped almost immediately to the floor, and when we turned it back on it would start back towards the ceiling. It took us a while to get it to fly back outside, and before it did it took time to pose on a Sierra Club poster. We had no idea what it was at the time, and it's the only Luna Moth I've ever seen in person.

At the beginning of spring, our back yard turns pink - phlox, eastern redbuds, pink crabapple, wild plum trees, and these Old-Fashioned Bleeding Hearts are all in bloom at the same time. When I bought these I thought I was getting the native variety, but I was wrong. I don't think there's anything harmful about them, but as far as I know they don't provide any benefit to native wildlife. They are interesting to look at though. It's easy to see how they got their name.

Yesterday (4/4/09) I was weedeating and saw this Monarch laying eggs on the new growth of a Milkweed plant. This is by far the earliest I've seen Monarchs in our yard - the Milkweed is barely out of the ground so there won't be nearly enough food for the caterpillars once all these eggs hatch. We'll have to find a local nursery selling Milkweed that hasn't been treated with chemicals. Milkweed is the only plant Monarchs will lay their eggs on and the only plant the caterpillars will eat (their host plant). Adult Monarchs, however, will eat nectar from all kinds of plants. Milkweed contains a toxin that's poisonous to many of the Monarch's predators. By eating the plant, the caterpillars (and the adult butterflies they grow into) become toxic to those predators (which the predators don't know until they try eating one). The caterpillars are still preyed on by insects like wasps and stink bugs. You can watch a video of this Monarch depositing its eggs HERE.

This weekend I found some Butterfly Weed (a type of Milkweed) at a local nursery for the Monarch caterpillars that are about to hatch (see last week's Picture Of The Week). I bought the only three plants they had left, so I'll have to go back next weekend to buy some more because caterpillars eat an astonishing amount every day. The nursery only had Asclepias curassavica, which is native to South America. Asclepias tuberosa is the Butterfly Weed that's native to the Southeastern United States, but I think our caterpillars will take South American cuisine over starving to death.

Yesterday I found that the Monarch caterpillars hatched, two weeks to the day the eggs were laid. In the photo on the left you can see two empty egg shells and one egg that still has a caterpillar inside (you can click on each photo to enlarge it). I videotaped it for a couple of hours hoping to get it coming out, but then the rains moved in. The eggs aren't much bigger than a grain of salt, so obviously the caterpillars are really tiny. They'll practically double in size every day over the next two weeks. I've bought out all the milkweed/butterflyweed I could find at local nurseries, which wasn't much, but I think I have enough for them now. In the picture on the right, next to the caterpillars towards the top you can see the milky substance that comes out of the leaves - it's where the name "milkweed" comes from, and I believe it's also what contains the toxin that makes Monarch caterpillars and butterflies distasteful to many predators.

Yesterday this young Red-Eared Slider came through the yard. He could fit in the palm of your hand. "Red-Eared" comes from the red stripe right behind the eye -- you can see it in the picture on the left. These are the turtles you'll often see basking on rocks or logs in ponds and lakes. When disturbed they "slide" off whatever they're on and into the water for safety. That's where the other part of their name comes from. The adults will be about one foot long. There are lakes in our neighborhood, but I'm not sure what brings them through our yard -- we're not very close to one. Several years ago our dog Chance investigated one about this size for a few minutes. You can see that video HERE.

Our barn swallows have returned to their nest above our front door for the fourth year in a row. They add on to the nest each year, putting in a new bottom, and taking the nest closer and closer to the "ceiling". I only take pictures of the eggs when I see that they're not at the nest so I don't cause them any stress. They're very protective of the nest and will swoop and shriek at anyone or anything that comes too close. As I was leaving the nest today they came back and weren't happy with me. I snapped the middle photo and then left them alone. As you can see they make quite a feather bed for the eggs and/or the hatchlings. You can see video from previous years of them building the nest and feeding the hatchlings.

The first Monarch chrysalises just started forming last week. The eggs were deposited on 4/4/09, so it's been almost exactly a month from egg to chrysalis. It rained the day I took the photo, which is why the chrysalis is wet. I have several caterpillars and milkweed plants inside a mesh container outside.
One part of the metamorphosis that usually gets overlooked is the creation of the extensive silk "adhesive" the caterpillar attaches itself to the leaf with. I've never noticed a caterpillar doing this, but it looks like it would take some time. I'm guessing it's done very slowly and subtly. I think the chrysalis stage lasts about 10 to 14 days before the Monarch emerges. I'm hoping to catch the creation of the chrysalis on video (which would be a first for me for a Monarch), and the adult Monarch emerging from the chrysalis (another first). Stay tuned.