December 2, 2025 –

Snow weighs heavy on hemlock branches, some close enough to touch the ground, while laughing nuthatches crawl along their trunks. Below them, rabbit, squirrel, and deer tracks intermingle in the pillowy white blanket quieting the landscape. Over the frozen pond outstretches a walnut, gnarled and dead, but strong enough, it seems to scoff, still to offer perch to a pair of bluebirds. Winter has arrived at Wahkeena.

Bouncing above in a redbud are two downy woodpeckers. One leaves the main trunk for a less supportive branch and sends snow glittering down beneath it. Eventually, they both dispatch to a neighboring buckeye. Most of these trees have lost their leaves by now, but American beeches persist despite the cold.

And if you were a bat, you’d be grateful! In spring, as the bats that didn’t overwinter here begin to migrate back, they have to stop to rest somewhere along the way, and what better place to be than camouflaged among tenacious beech leaves just their color? To the would-be predator, they’re nothing more than another leaf shaking in the breeze.

Other plant species may retain their leaves at this time of year, and even their green color, but often this tells of something much less beneficial for wildlife. Nonnative plants like Japanese honeysuckle, multiflora rose, and climbing euonymus are green at this moment, meaning there’s still chlorophyll in their leaves and they’re continuing to photosynthesize and grow while their native competition is entirely dormant. This is one advantage nonnative, invasive species have that allows them to outcompete native plants.

However, not all that is green during winter is bad! Our native rhododendron is evergreen, ferns such as the aptly-named Christmas fern remain fresh and vibrant-looking, and American holly, even at the northern end of its range, hold out during the cold and lose their leaves one at a time like pines and spruces instead of all at once like maples and oaks.

Elsewhere on the preserve, deer search for anything edible they can find. In the warmer months, their diet mostly consists of green foliage and fruit, but in winter here, we’re generally lacking in that department, so they must rely on twigs and buds low enough to reach, and, when available, hard mast such as acorns.

Very occasionally, deer will consume mushrooms and lichen, and in winter, when we receive a lot of snow and other precipitation, some fungi flourishes.

For the species that don’t migrate or hibernate, the search for food in winter is on-going, and tracks left behind tell of the search.

We hope you’ll come visit us sometime this winter to see all wild wonders that persist even in our coldest and darkest months – just remember that preserve hours are Wednesday-Friday 9am-4pm until March 14, 2026. Stay warm and happy holidays!

– Naturalist Leah

When considering the age-old question of what time period would you go back to if you had a time machine, here at the preserve, we’ve had our answer locked and loaded for a very long time. We would visit 1931, when Carmen and Frank Warner first bought the property that would become Wahkeena and began gardening and altering the landscape, and we would implore (beg!) her not to plant winged euonymus (winged burning bush).

This species may just be the most invasive and most problematic one we’ve got. Years of pulling – and occasional herbicide application on the cut stems of plants too big to pull – have seen progress, but because it is such a prolific seed producer and because the parent plants of the current crop we’re working to control grew and reproduced for some 50 years, there is a massive seedbank of still viable seeds in the soil. Additionally, birds love the seeds and will happily consume and inadvertently spread them. Deer too, of which we have plenty on site and in Fairfield County, encourage the growth and spread of winged burning bush precisely because they DON’T eat it, and instead favor native seedlings, effectively removing winged burning bush’s competition.

Perhaps the single positive quality our euonymus has is that it’s easy to identify, particularly in fall when it turns pastel pink. You can look for the glaring pink plants in October/November, or you can examine the plant individually and find that very often, especially on older plants, it will have brown “wings” jutting out from its stem and branches from which it gets its name.

Additionally, it’s usually fairly easy to remove via hand pulling. In certain spots where the ground is especially hard, the stems may break away from the roots, and then a pickax may be required to fully extricate the root system – something you definitely want to do to properly kill the plant and avoid suckers emerging next year. In plants that are too big to pull or pry up with the pickax, cutting the stem and applying an herbicide is the best/only option.

Now that you’re familiar, happy picking! This plant is a popular ornamental nursey item, still sold commercially despite being designated as invasive by some states, and many, many homes and yards host one or more. We hope you’ll consider removing any on your property to make room for native species, and if you’ve got any energy leftover, come help us at one of our volunteer removal days!

– Naturalist Leah

It’s that time of year again. It’s been so hot and so dry for so long, and we’re tired of it – especially when the dryness hasn’t seemed to keep the gnats and flies and mosquitos away. Soon, cool temps and a lack of vegetation for food will put most of our insects to rest for the winter. But before it does, let’s take a minute to celebrate the diversity, creativity, and tenacity of our little bug friends!

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Above, you can see a monarch egg recently laid, close to hatching, the first instar caterpillar just after hatching, and finally, the first instar caterpillar dining on its very first meal – its own eggshell.

Well, that about sums up our bug blog report! Our efforts saw 12 new moth species added to our preserve list, and we’ve loved sharing our finds with our visitors. We look forward to next spring, when it will start all over again.

– Naturalist Leah

August, September and October – fall, to us. We enjoy pumpkin flavored beverages and sweets, pick apples at orchards, bundle up boots and in warm-tone knit sweaters. But what do the animals – who are not Starbucks rewards members – do? They’re prepping for winter. We know some settle in burrows for hibernation, some migrate thousands of miles south, and some, like slug moth caterpillars, are approaching pupation at just the right time. While relatively few lepidoptera overwinter as adults, hidden away in a brush pile (question marks, Eastern commas, mourning cloaks), or even as eggs, more spend the cold, dark, seemingly endless months as larvae or pupa. Some of our coolest caterpillars, aptly named slug moths, will overwinter as pupa – but before they do, they’re more easily found and seen than all summer long!

Most often, caterpillars prefer to feed on the underside of leaves to help stay hidden and avoid the ever-present, searching eyes of their most common predators, birds. But, once they’ve reached their final instar (i.e. stage of growth), some, such as the skiff moth, will begin exploring the leaf upperside or even leave the host plant altogether (how many times have you seen a black and brown wooly worm crossing the road?). They’re also the largest they’ll ever be as caterpillars, and that helps in spotting them, too.

Recently at Wahkeena, we’ve found nine species of slug moth! Three have been found on redbud (yellow-shouldered, elegant-tailed, and monkey slugs), and six on beech (saddleback, button slug sp., smaller parasa, jewel-tailed slug, crowned slug, and skiff moth).

Literature often cites oak as the most common host for slug moths, as well as lepidoptera in general, and for good reason – oaks in North American support over 500 species of butterflies and moths! However, we’ve learned something interesting at the preserve about our caterpillars’ preferences. We have plenty of oak here, but it’s all in the canopy, and the slug moths in particular are usually found between knee and head height. Our understory is essentially entirely dominated by beech – a trend we’ll come back to – and its what we’ve found the majority of our caterpillars on. Putting two and two together, we can assess that as important as the simple presence of a host plant is, it might just be that vegetation height/size is just as important.

This finding is something to think about when we consider that in the eastern United States, our oak-hickory forests are slowly but steadily being replaced by beech-maple and have been for some time. Other animals beyond caterpillars need oak, too; squirrels, deer, turkey, and a number of other vertebrates reply on the hard mast produced by oaks to survive. While some butterfly and moth species may be able to simply switch to another host plant, others may not, and what does that mean for the future of our insect life? With insects in trouble, serious problems with far-reaching effects loom on the horizon.

If you’ve some land, we suggest planting any suitable native oaks to your area that you can, and in the meantime, take a peek below to see what these odd cats look like.

Here, you can see just how slug-like these caterpillars have adapted to be. Of all the slug larvae encountered this year, the skiff moth seemed to be the most mobile.

Of these nine species, six have stinging hairs or stinging spines (though the yellow-shouldered and elegant-tailed slugs lose them in their last instar) and in fact, most slug moth caterpillars have them. Recall that their prolegs have been modified into a slimy belly pad – they glide or undulate on this pad along the surface of leaves, and for that exact reason, they prefer leaves with a smooth surface over one that is hairy. This also means they move a little slower than most other caterpillars, which would make them more vulnerable to predators. To defend themselves, they developed these stinging apparatuses that pack a serious punch – sometimes as bad or worse than a bee sting, even resulting in bubbling blisters! The skiff moth slug and elegant-tailed slug are the only two lacking these threatening, elongated tubercles.

The slug moths have adapted in other ways, too. Their eggshells are particularly thin, so they lack any and all spiny structures in their first instar (the one that emerges from the egg) to avoid breaking that fragile chorion. Their heads are also entirely recessed, protecting the most important and most vulnerable part of them. Still, like other caterpillars, many fall victim to parasitoid wasps and flies, whose larvae will burrow into the caterpillar and feed on it from the side out.

While we’ve found nine slug moth species in caterpillar form of the 18 that inhabit Ohio, our mothing records show we’ve had a whole lot more historically, and the season of slugs is just beginning, so we’ll keep looking! Who knows, maybe we’ll turn up a spun glass slug…

– Naturalist Leah

If you’re a beech blight aphid (take our quiz here here to find out), you’d best run while you can! North America’s only carnivorous butterfly caterpillar is on the loose, and on the menu? You.

The harvester is an energetic flyer as an adult, feeding on sap, dung, and mud (as opposed to nectaring on flowers), but the larva is a little different; it is slow but steady, certain death.

Something so sinister shouldn’t look so cute and fuzzy, but the harvester caterpillars are just that – mostly white and hairy, which helps them seamlessly blend in to the aphid colony they haunt. In some cases, they even attach the discarded carcasses of their aphid prey to themselves with silk, making themselves the invertebrate version of wolf in sheep’s clothing!

The aphids themselves feed on the sap from their host tree, and the liquid they excrete, honeydew, is a delicacy among insects. Ants, wasps, flies, and other invertebrates (including the adult harvester!) feed on the sweet substance. Some, such as the ants, will even defend the aphids to ensure their continued access. This honeydew also drips down onto the host’s branches and ground, where a fungus, sooty mold, grows – yellow while actively growing during summer and black in the winter.

After the harvester caterpillars have spent a week feeding and growing on their strictly meat diet, they will have gone through four instars and are ready to pupate.

It was actually this pupa (below) that I found first, before spotting the caterpillars of a second brood (above) about a month later.

When the adult butterfly ecloses the following spring, the carnage will continue.

– Naturalist Leah

You wouldn’t necessarily think of a caterpillar as a particularly gluttonous creature – although, Eric Carle’s very hungry caterpillar certainly could be described as such. Typically, when we think of the hungry heavy hitters of the animal kingdom, we think of bears, elephants, lions, or even snakes fitting something seemingly much too large down their gullets with ease. But, a caterpillar’s sole job as the larval form of a butterfly or moth is to eat! Pupating and metamorphosing into their adult forms requires a great deal of energy, and in some moth species, such as the giant silk moths, the adult moths have no functioning mouthparts, so their fat stores are extremely important. This particular species pictured above is a butterfly and will possess the ability to eat, but it’s doing a stellar job consuming calories as a larva, too.

The Appalachian azure, as an adult, is small – about the size of a thumbnail – with wings so pale blue on the outside, they almost look white. Dark brown flecks mare them. Like other members of the Blue family (Lycaenidae), they rarely rest with their wings open, but if you catch one in flight, you might see flashes of a more saturated blue inside. The caterpillar varies in color but is often pale green to blend in with the unopened floral buds of its only host plant, black cohosh, with brown splotches that appear with age.

The head of this caterpillar is not commonly seen, as feeding activity is concealed within the flower bud. Their long, extendable neck allows this, and their thick, fleshy prothorax forms around their neck to protect them during this vulnerable time.

While this caterpillar is a voracious eater, it is also a picky eater. Not only does it solely feed on black cohosh, but it also prefers the pollen sacs inside the plant’s unopened flowers. It will chew through the sepal concealing the tightly folded petals to reach the pollen. However, much like us, the caterpillar expands its palette with age, eventually feeding on the rest of the flower bud, and, even the foliage, if, and only if, they must – when no parts of the flowers remain. Black cohosh produces steroid-like molecules, a defense mechanism best avoided by would-be plant munchers, that are more concentrated in the green tissues of the plant. In laboratory studies, when confined to close quarters, early instar larvae would resort to cannibalism.

But the curiosities surrounding this caterpillar don’t stop there. Also on this plant, and often on the caterpillars themselves, are ants, and they’re there for a reason.

The ants and the Appalachian azures have a symbiotic relationship. A very small percentage of all caterpillars reach adulthood; most are picked off by birds at some point during their larval stage or parasitized by a number of wasp species. Caterpillars that are tended by ants, though, may be defended from parasitoid wasps, flies, and/or other predators. The ants do this in exchange for honeydew, a sweet substance which is secreted by the caterpillars. They obtain it by tapping their antennae on a fourth or occasionally third instar caterpillar, prompting it to release an amount I couldn’t begin to quantify. Younger caterpillars haven’t yet fully developed the organ that releases the honeydew, so the ants pay little attention to them. Once mature enough, a drumming sensation from the caterpillars also signals to the ants that the caterpillars require tending.

Other lycaenids use chemicals to “encourage” protection via ants; they may release a pheromone or store a pheromone in their waxy coat that mimics the pheromone of an ant larva, tricking the ants into caring for the larvae as their own. The ants will carry the caterpillars into their colony where the caterpillars will be fed like the ants’ larvae, or perhaps even the queen ant if the caterpillar produces a noise similar to hers (acoustic mimicry), or where they may feed on the ant larvae themselves. This is known as brood parasitism. Research by David Nash at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark suggests that the ants are somewhat aware they’re being duped, and are constantly evolving different pheromone signatures in defense.

Still, another lycaenid, the Japanese oakblue, appears somewhat sinister – it secretes a substance that, while sugary and nutritious, when consumed by an ant, actually causes the ant to abandon the rest of their kind to guard the caterpillar. Researchers found that the secretion contained chemicals that affected the dopamine levels in ant brains, so much so that when a caterpillar inflated defensive, tentacle-like organs, the ants would suddenly become aggressive and search for any nearby threat!

Our sweet little Appalachian azures engage in no such trickery. Their relationship truly is mutually beneficial… right?

– Naturalist Leah

After a very poor bloom year in 2024, the native rhododendron, Rhododendron maximum are bounding back this year. the first flowers are now in bloom, but the majority of buds are still closed. Over the next couple of weeks more and more flower buds will swell and open fully displaying a large cluster of white flowers. (Unlike the cultivated rhododendrons that bloom in May, the native species does not typically bloom until last June to early July.) You can check back at our Bloom List for blooming update.

Your first impression of the dutchman’s pipevine flower might be that it looks somewhat… carnivorous. Perhaps like a pitcher plant? Well, that association isn’t all that off base!

Pollination for this species does involve trapping an insect inside the body of its flower, but only temporarily. The dutchman’s pipevine derives its nutrition, including nitrogen and other important minerals and compounds, entirely via photosynthesis, unlike carnivorous plants, which get some nutrition from photosynthesis, but also get some from the insects they consume. Carnivorous plants, like the sundew, bladderwort, and pitcher plants that are native to Ohio, live in nutrient-poor soil and could not subsist without supplemental nutrition from trapped insects. In dutchman’s pipevine, there is no need to permanently trap an insect, and in fact, this would adversely affect the plant; an insect that is trapped and dies cannot pollinate another flower.

So what DOES happen inside the flower? When blooming, the flowers emit a scent likened to rotting flesh – this attracts insects like gnats and flies, who climb down into the tube of the flower in search of the source, all the while becoming coated in pollen. Numerous small hairs inside the tube prevent the insect from leaving until the following day, when the hairs drop and the flower, now pollinated and no longer needing to attract insects, discontinues emitting its fragrance. The insect is free to leave and do it all over again inside another flower.

But, it’s not just flies and gnats that are tangled up in the dutchman’s pipevine’s tendrils! The pipevine swallowtail butterfly lays its eggs (below) on this plant.

After hatching, the miniscule caterpillars stick together, adhering to the “safety in numbers” principle.

Several weeks later, they’ve reached the size of my pinkie finger and will leave their hostplant to pupate in a chrysalis for 10-20 days. When they emerge, they are a gorgeous black and metallic blue adult butterfly.

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Spring really is here, and all over the forest floor, one of my favorite unconventional spring wildflowers is popping up. It’s easy to miss if you’re only looking for a flashy purple bloom backed by brilliant green foliage, but bearcorn, whose name we’ll investigate momentarily, lacks chlorophyll, the pigment that makes most plants green, and has no colorful inflorescence. But wait – isn’t chlorophyll part of photosynthesis? Yes, and actually, photosynthesis can’t take place without it. So then how does bearcorn get energy if it’s unable to photosynthesize?

By stealing it from another plant! Most often oak trees, particularly red oaks. Beech trees may also be selected as hosts. This means bearcorn is a parasite. Specifically, its underground tubercles connect to the roots of its host tree, and with the help of a mycorrhizal fungi already present in the soil and on the host, extract water and nutrients. It should be noted that most parasitized trees continue to grow just fine.

So they’re a flower – does that mean they’re pollinated by bees, butterflies, and bugs? Actually, no. Despite the presence of a flower, very few instances of insect pollination have been recorded. Self-pollination is the name of the bearcorn game. Then, the seeds that are later produced from pollinated flowers simply drop to the ground below, ensuring that they remain close to a host (though, mice have been found to consume the seeds, which would allow for bear corn to travel much farther from is parent).

Other animals make use of bearcorn, too. In fact, it gets its common name from the fact that it 1. resembles corn, and 2. is eaten readily by bears emerging from hibernation in the spring. Research has found that it’s quite high in fiber, which helps get the bears’ digestive systems and processes working again after so long spent immobile and without eating. Deer may also graze on bearcorn. It is technically edible for humans but is extremely bitter.

An individual bearcorn plant generally lives about 10 years. If you see the darkened late summer and fall version, rest assured the plant isn’t dead, only that year’s fruiting stalk.

That’s it for this unusual plant feature – stop by this spring and summer to see some for yourself!

– Naturalist Leah

Can you believe it? May is nearly here! The birds certainly know it – black-and-whites, hooded, worm-eating, and common yellow-throat warblers have joined the foray in the last week, as well as wood thrush, veeries (below), indigo buntings, red and white-eyed vireos, ovenbirds, and, as seen above, great-crested flycatchers.

A pair of Baltimore orioles has been frequenting the last of our suet, and Tom made a special trip into town for an orange and jelly feeder to keep them around. Also visiting our feeding station – though not for suet or sweet fruit – have been 3 separate families of geese! They may not be everyone’s favorite, but we enjoy watching the fuzzy babies waddle around the preserve.

Our territorial friend the Louisiana waterthrush (below, right) continues to serenade, particularly in the early morning, though he didn’t seem to mind the temporary company of a solitary sandpiper (below, left) last week.

In plant news, bear corn (below, left) – which, despite its odd appearance, is indeed a wildflower – is popping up all over the forest floor, and showy orchis (below, right) has just started to show itself!

Above: Bearcorn flowers. This plant is lacking in chlorophyl; instead of producing its own energy via photosynthesis, it syphons nutrition from the roots of beech and some oak species, particularly those of the red oak group.

Another unusual-looking plant currently in bloom is wood betony (below). Color varies, commonly burgundy and more rarely, as seen at Wahkeena, pale yellow.

Less likely to be seen, but still going about their business, are long-tailed salamanders.

And finally, another new addition to the Wahkeena flora and fauna registry! I just happened to notice a moth on the inside of our screen door while holding it for Tom last week, and we’re fairly certain it is an artichoke plume moth.

– Naturalist Leah