2020 Spring Bird Survey

Prothonotary warbler, Protonotaria citrea, ushers us into our 2020 spring bird survey.

May 11 into 12, 2020 was the 24 hour period picked for our annual spring bird survey.  Early May is the perfect time to try to find the highest number of species found in or around the Edge of Appalachia Preserve.  This time of year you can find straggling winter birds that have not gone north yet, breeding birds that just returned from the south and migrants that are passing through. Just the right time for a wide variety of birds.

Rose-breasted grosbeak, Pheucticus ludovicianus

The biggest observation of this year is the large numbers of certain birds like rose-breasted grosbeaks, scarlet tanagers and Baltimore orioles.  If anyone has been feeding birds using sunflower seed, they undoubtedly saw many grosbeaks this spring.  I have never seen so many of these birds in my 22 years birding...by far.  It was not uncommon for any of the preserve staff to see 30 grosbeaks at a time at our feeders!  And if you had oranges or jelly out for orioles, their numbers have been just as impressive.

Rose-breasted grosbeaks crowding the feeders.

Scarlet tanager, Piranga olivacea, feeding at ground level.

We started the afternoon in a grassland habitat.  This was the coldest day recorded for our spring bird survey.  The high temperature on Monday, the 11th was 48F.  The birds felt this cold day too.  In the afternoon, the birds seemed to stay low to the ground, and the insect were probably hanging low as well.  This year was the first time I've witnessed days of numerous scarlet tanagers perched and hunting low to the ground.  And the kingbirds, bobolinks and dickcissels of the fields were low to the ground, still and approachable.  Below are some of the species found in and around old fields and grasslands.

Eastern kingbird, Tyrannus tyrannus

Bobolink, Dolichonyx oryzivorus

Dickcissel, Spiza americana

orchard oriole, Icterus spurius

Indigo bunting, Passerina cyanea

Savannah sparrow, Passerculus sandwichensis

After scanning the field habitats for particular species, we headed to lakes, ponds and marshy fields to see what kind of water birds we could find.  Adams County has only a few large bodies of water, and is not known for its large numbers of water birds.  But we did luck out finding a blue-winged teal, our annual least sandpiper on a dam spillway and for the second time ever finding  Virginia rails in a marshy pond near the Ohio River.  Rails are unusual birds for us to find here, and there was a pair of them....which I believe were breeding!  This same pond has shocked us with the sounds of a sora (Porzana carolina) this year as well.

Blue-winged teal, Patula discors

Least sandpiper, Calidris minutilla

Virginia rail, Rallus limicola

I shouldn't forget the year-round birds that most of us see in our yards.  They count on the survey too, even though we spend most of the survey searching out the unusual or rarely seen species.  Yards around the preserve create an "edge" affect between the forests and openings.  Many birds prefer this kind of habitat.

Eastern bluebird, Sialia sialis

Gray catbird, Dumetella carolinensis

Brown thrasher, Toxostoma rufum

Song sparrow, Melospiza melodia

The biggest "hunt" in the 24 hour period has to be catching a glimpse of the hard to find and harder to photograph warblers of the forest.  We found 27 warbler species in total.  These tiny and generally colorful birds seem neurotic as they constantly move about the tree branches.  Eventually, I get lucky to catch some semi-clear shots of these fidgeting beauties.  Below are some of the highlights.

Prothonotary warbler, Protonotaria citrea

Magnolia warbler, Setophaga magnolia

Yellow warbler, Setophaga petechia

American redstart, Setophaga ruticilla

Chestnut-sided warbler, Setophaga pensylvanica

Palm warbler, Setophaga palmarum

Yellow-throated warbler, Setophaga dominica

124 species were seen or heard on or around the Edge.  This annual survey produces many of the same birds every year, documenting the movements of birds through this part of Ohio.  The preserve protects 20,000 acres of land crucial to the breeding, overwintering and migration stopovers for these bird species.  The diversity of birds found in one day correlates with the diversity of habitats protected.  If you would like to see different kinds of birds, visit different kinds of habitats and listen!  Interesting sounds can lead you to interesting sights.

Posted by:  Mark Zloba

Mid-Season Spring Wildflowers Part II

Flowering Dogwood, Cornus florida, shines against a clear spring blue sky.

Part II of our look at some mid-season spring wildflowers on the Preserve starts with a buttercup. The buttercup family, Ranunculaceae, is pretty large. On the Preserve there are about 25 different species of plants from this family. The one in question is Hispid Buttercup, Ranuculus hispidus.

This Hispid Buttercup, Ranuculus hispida, had attracted a small fly.

Flowers in this genus are often yellow and shiny. This particular one is growing in great carpets in a flood plane near Ohio Brush Creek. It makes for a beautiful display of cheery golden yellow and happy spring green colors.

This floodplane is carpeted with large amounts of Hispid Buttercup.

Staying in the color yellow, next up is Celandine-poppy. Now before you get excited, let's review all the yellow-colored plants that have celandine in their name and figure out who is who.

Greater Celandine, Chelidonium majus, member of the Poppy family, non-native and listed as a noxious weed in several states.
Lesser Celandine, Ficaria verna, member of the Buttercup family, non-native and listed as a noxious weed in several states.
Celandine-poppy, Stylophorum diphyllum, member of the Poppy family, native and found on moist soils in several Midwestern states.

It is the last one of which we're going to talk about. Here it is.

This Celandine-poppy, Stylophorum diphyllum, is opening back up after a rainstorm and is sporting a fuzzy seed pod.

Very pretty. This spring ephemeral has large, four petaled flowers and two leaves up on the stem. Those leaves are deeply divided and have fairly large teeth along each lobe. When it grows along side the pure white of Large-flowered Trillium, its creates quite a display. Also of interest are the very fuzzy buds and very fuzzy seed pods. Both of the celandines from the Poppy family have long histories of medicinal uses, and due to the bright yellow sap found in the plant was used as a yellow dye in the past.

A brand new golden bloom is about to burst out of its fuzzy bud coverings.

Here is one of the rare plants found on the Preserve, False Garlic, Nothoscordum Bivalve. It's listed as a threatened plant in Ohio. A look at the range map of this plant shows that we are at the northeastern end of its range. It can be found quite commonly in the southeast US and in places such as Missouri and Texas. False Garlic has slender, grass-like leaves and dainty clusters of white flowers at the end of the flower stalk. Along some of the roads within the Preserve, it can grow quite profusely, sometimes by itself or mixed in with other flowers like Dwarf Larkspur, Wild Blue Phlox, Wild Ginger and Toad Trillium. 

False Garlic, Nothoscordum bivalve,  opens in bight sunlight awaiting any number of bee visitors.

As the name implies, there is no onion-y or garlic scent to this plant. It does not appear to be edible to humans but does play a role in the lives of several kinds of bees. If fact, there is a particualr bee that only visits False Garlic. Bees that limit their foraging behaviors to one or a few related plants are called oligolectic bees. You can read more about them here.

Everything about False Garlic seems ling and slender. It's leavers, petals, stamens and general appearance.

Here is another rare plant on the Preserve, again due to being on the edge of its range. This gem is Nodding Mandarin, Prosartes maculata. It's very captivating as the leaves tend to have an upward lift to them while the flowers hang below like bells. Another common name for this plant is Fairy Bells! 

Fairies or not, this beetle sure seems to be enjoying itself!

Nodding Mandarin, Prosates maculata, got its specific epithet from the lovely purple spots decorating the six petals.

Last for our very brief look at mid-season wildflowers is one of the many, many violets. I enjoy this one as it is pretty common, stays in bloom for a long time, and has somehow wrapped up all the best springtime colors into one gorgeous plant. This is Canda Violet, Viola canadensis, one of about a dozen different violets on the preserve. While violets in general are very easy to recognize, they are notorious for being difficult to separate into individual species.  

Canada Violet, Viola canadensis, is a larger (for a violet) fairly easy to recognize native violet.

Canada Violet thankfully has a couple of things that make it a little easier to ID. So first off, it's white. There are other white violets, but this one is a pure white and actually quite large for a violet. The other characteristic which separates it out from its cousins is on the back of the upper two petals.  There will be a wash of purple which can range in intensity from very light to quite dark.

The wash of purple on the back of the upper two petals helps to make a positive ID of Canada Violet.

This bee is fully committed to scoring that sweet, nectar-y reward.

Like most flowering plants with large, showy flowers, this violet depends in part on insects, like bees, to pollinate it. Placement of nectar within the flower can help position potential pollinators just right. Maybe that is what's happening here.

This was just a small taste of all the great flowers that make their appearance as the spring season rolls on. We are fortunate that the prolonged cool weather has kept things blooming for longer than they might under warmer conditions. It's not too late to find some great mid-season wildflowers blooming wherever you are!

Posted by: Robyn Wright-Strauss

Mid-Season Spring Wildflowers Part I

Jacob's Ladder, Polemonium reptans, opens and closes with changing light levels.

Springtime for a naturalist can get pretty overwhelming, even during normal times. After what can seem like a slow start for all the early flowers, bees, fungus and the like that we always keep and eye out for, things really start to ramp up. It can be hard to keep up with all the new things blooming, butterflies coming out, birds arriving from the south (and departing to the north).

Now, this year things have been relatively cool and that not only helps to slow things down, but also keeps things blooming longer. While I can't share all the springtime wildflowers here, I'm going to try and include as many as I can. They are all amazing and play a special and unique role in our eastern forest ecosystem, whether we have discovered what that is or not!

Let's start with a couple of classic, well known, but well loved flowers. Two of the most common trilliums we have on the preserve are the Large-flowered and Toad Trillium. The former has the prestige of being our state wildflower, the other possible a bit more humble. All the trilliums seem to have several common names, which makes knowing the scientific names handy when discussing them. Those names can be helpful too, in that they are often descriptive of how the plant looks. Large-flowered Trillium, Trillium grandiflorum, is named for it's large flower. Toad Trillium, Trillium sessile, is name for the fact that the flower is stalkless. All trilliums are in the genus of the same name indicated their parts in sets of three.

Large-flowered Trillium, Trillium grandiflorum, is one of four trillium species found on the preserve.

Toad Trillium, Trillium sessile, has an interesting dark, maroon red flower.

Next in our line-up are two of the more curious spring wildflowers. First is Wild Ginger, Asarum canadense. This is one plant that unless you know what you are looking for, you may not ever notice the flower. The three-petaled flower lies on the ground at the base of the plant and towering over it are a pair of fuzzy, heart-shaped leaves. Usually the flower, like the Toad Trillium, is a dark, maroon-red color. 

This Wild Ginger, Asarum canadense, is sporting a green flower instead of the usual dark red.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum, is a very cool flower from the Arum family. Plants in this family have two parts to their flower, a spathe and a spadix. The spathe is the part that wraps around or folds over the spadix which has the actual flowers. Jack-in-the-Pulpit owes its coolness to the fact that while is it dioecious, it can change it's sex from year to year. Plants that are dioecious have either male flower or female flowers, rarely both. In this case, depending on how much energy the plant has, it will be either male or female. When conditions change, the plant can change to. A fantastic adaptation!

Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Arisaema triphyllum, can change from having onl male flowers to having only female flowers from year to year.

Let's move on to some flower in one of my favorite hues - purple. Dwarf Crested Iris, Phlox, Jacob's Ladder, Wild Hyacinth and Wild Geranium are all in this line up. Dwarf Crested Iris, Iris cristata, is an incredibly striking plant. Forming colonies through underground stems called rhizomes, the mass of blooms becomes an outstanding display. These beauties are only a few inches high and found in mesic forests unlike their taller wetland loving cousins.

Dwarf Crested Iris, Iris cristata, being all awesome and iris-y in a sunny spring forest.

In general, Phlox is a well known kind of flower. Found both in the the wild and in the horticultural industry, most folks have encountered some kind of phlox before. According to USDA Plants, there are over 70 different species of phlox. They have been cultivated for hundreds of years and are popular in garden settings. Wild Blue Phox, Phlox divaricata, is an especial favortie of mine. The color can range from a pale lavender to an intense mouth watering purple. I love the color so much I think it should be some sort of flavor! 

Wild Blue Pholx, Phlox divaricata, is one of four native species of phlox occurring on the Preserve.

Jacob's Ladder, Polemonium reptans, is a funny one for me. I don't anticipate it coming into bloom each season, but when it does I'm super excited to see it. It's a delicate looking plant with long stems adorned with several flowers at each end. Jacob's Ladder is a popular plant in the insect world. Flies, bees and beetles are all know to visit feeding on both pollen and nectar. However a flower visitor is not always a flower pollinator. Larger sized bees seem to be best at actually pollinating this plant.

Jacob's Ladder is a popular pit stop for pollen and nectar.

Next up is one that I DO anticipate each year. Wild Hyacinth is an extremely attractive, pleasant smelling, spring wildflower. From grass-like basal leaves, a tall flower stalk emerges with a plume (technically, raceme) of gorgeous 6-petaled, pale lavender/blue flowers that bloom from the bottom up. It's not super common on the Preserve but can form large patches where it does grow. 

Wild Hyacinth, Camassia scilloides, invites you to experience the sweet scent of its flowers.

Ah, Wild Geranium. I know that spring is advancing when this gem comes into bloom. Another lovely purple-hued flower that can range in intensity of color. Geranium is a really good source of nectar and pollen for a wide range of insects. Beetles, flies, and a decent sized list of bees have been documented using Wild Geranium. It is also a host plant for two moth species, Parectopag eraniella, a leaf-mining morht, and Orgyia leucostigma, a tussock moth.

Wild Geranium, Geranium maculatum, offers both pollen and nectar to visiting insects.

With so many delightful mid-season spring wildflowers to share, I'll divide this into two posts. Stay tuned for Part II and more on EOA's spring wildflower show!

Posted by: Robyn Wright-Strauss