Wahkeena Nature Preserve
"… to be used for nature study and as a preserve for birds and other wildlife."- Carmen Hambleton Warner
Skunked!
In the dark of night, a hungry skunk searches for beetles, berries, eggs or whatever he can find to fill his empty belly. One thing skunks are very good at eating is baby yellow jackets!
Wait, what??
Yes, the larva of yellow jackets, our colonial wasp that often makes its home underground, is a buffet for a hungry skunk. In late summer and early fall these colonies are at their largest. The nest is made up of a paper covering with combs that house the young wasps. Each cell contains a morsel packed with protein.
Before a skunk comes along, there is not much to see. All the action is taking place underground. A small hole with wasps coming to and fro are our only clues as to what it happening.
These are some yellow jackets going about their daily business. Adults forage for nectar and protein sources for the young. This time of year, food can be scarce causing the yellow jackets to forage at picnics and trash sources. The goal is the same sugar and protein for the larva. I’ve seen them go after soft bodied insects and lunch meat – whatever is available.
So, when Mister Skunk comes along, he uses his sharp claws to dig up the nest. Here are the results from a nest down the road.
The hole the skunk made was bigger around than my arm. Comb was strewn about.
Here is a closer look at a hunk of comb. This is where the larva would have been.
The cool part for me was seeing remnants of the paper still inside the hole. You may find this very similar to the Bald Face Hornets’ nests that hang from trees. Same concept as the yellow jackets, who by the way can also have their nests above ground.
While yellow jackets have an important role in nature, they can be unwanted close to home. Thanks to our friend the Skunk, he will take care of them for you for free!
The Best Time of the Year?
Could this be the best time of the year? Cool nights, warm, sunny days, stately wildflowers, and the start of fall color make for a fantastic combination of nature. I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone who did not like this time of year. Lots of wonderful things are taking place around Wahkeena at this time of the year. I’ve captured just a few. With just one more week of summer to go, (I know, tomorrow is the start of Fall,but I started this post a week ago!) we can say farewell to green leaves, singing cicadas and pesky mosquitoes. As we welcome Fall next weekend tomorrow we will say hello to crunchy leaves, frosty nights and lots of beaver activity!
Above is one of the most beautiful summer wildflowers, Great Blue Lobellia. This flower originally planted in our wet meadow has spread quite nicely throughout the preserve. We can now find it in the old garden, along the driveway and along the dam on the far side of the pond. The three lower lips of this flower provide a perfect landing pad for big bumble bees seeking its nectar.
Blue Mist Flower used to be in the genus Eupatorium along with White Snakeroot and Joe-Pye Weed. That genus has been busted up and only the Bonesets and Thoroughworts are in that genus. Mistflower’s new genus is Conoclimium. All of these flowers as we will see in the next series of pictures, are actual lots of individual flowers all put together making a veritable buffet of pollen and nectar for insects.
White Snakeroot, Ageratina altissima can become a little weedy. However, like the other late summer/early fall wildflowers it provides a much needed food source for insects and others along the food chain. In this picture you can see quite clearly that the individual flowers are small and set very close together.
Enjoying the buffet is this halictid bee (sweat bee). The pollen and nectar are what it’s after.
Here is a close up of the bee. If you click on the picture you will be able to see the three simple eyes on the top of the head. Most insects have both simple eyes – often used for light sensing – and compound eyes used for seeing.
Lying in wait for bees and other insects is a small crab spider. Do you see it in this picture?
How about now?
Yep! There it is! There are lots of different kinds of crab spiders and even within species they are variable in color. Common colors are yellow and white. Check out this Bugguide page on crab spiders here. These are ambush predators and with that superb camouflage, incoming insects won’t see them. The name crab spider comes from their long front legs that are held wide apart and makes them look like a crab. Those long legs are what grabs the prey and holds it until the spider injects its venom.
Goldenrod is a perfect place to look for crab spiders. It really is amazing how closely the color of the spider and flower can match. By the way, this is not the plant that is making you sneeze right now. Ragweed is the culprit for allergy sufferers. For a picture of ragweed click here.
This bee better be careful! Who knows what kind of danger is lurking in the flowers.
I just really liked this picture.
Speaking of spiders, here is another cool spider to look for this time of year. Easy to recognize, this is a Garden Spider. The bold black and yellow markings are distinct. Even the web is recognizable. The thick zig zags of silk through the center of the web are a good way to spot this large spider. So, as I was taking her picture, she dropped down out of my view. I took my eye away from the camera and discovered that a tasty snack had been snared in her web.
She wasted no time in wrapping up her meal.
Faster than the camera can see, she produces silk from silk glands inside her body and extrudes them with her spinnerets. Spiders can produce different kinds of silk. There are differently shaped “nozzles” that make up the spinnerets. The silk being produced here for wrapping prey is obviously different from the kind of silk needed to construct her web.
She then seemed to bite the prey. I don’t know if she was injecting venom for the first time or she did that before she wrapped it. I didn’t see the first encounter with the prey because of the camera. Anyway she stayed like this for a bit.
This is what the center of her web looked like. I took advantage of her being below with her prize. You can see past meals in the web. Is she finished with them? I would think that if she was, she would have cut them out, but maybe she is just messy?
I went on to focus on other things with the camera along the driveway and when I came back, here she was. She had returned to the center with her meal and did seem to be feeding.
Blooming in time for the Ruby-throated Hummingbird’s journey south is Jewelweed. Also known as touch-me-not or impatients there are two species, one with a yellow flower and the one pictured here with an orange flower. The name Jewelweed is derived from the plant’s ability to resist water. Look closely at the leaf just above the bloom and you can see all the beads of water glistening in the sunlight.
Cool nights lead to cool mornings and I happened upon this large fellow before he had a chance to warm up. This Green Darner Dragonfly will be joining thousands of others just like him as they migrate south. For more info on this very cool phenomenon click here.
There are still lots of cool bugs out and about. Here is a colorful bug. He has the classic warning colors of black and red. He probably doesn’t taste very good.
This time of year is also a great time for caterpillars. Here is a dagger moth caterpillar. I see a lot of these on Redbud trees. Lots of other caterpillars are out and about. Maybe enough for a whole post!
Coming into bloom in the wet meadow and along the driveway is Big Bluestem. This native grass can get many feet tall and after the first frost turns a beautiful red color. Native grasses provide food and appropriate habitat for many different animals including song birds.
Some of the last flowers to bloom at the end of summer and often well into fall are the Asters. Many asters can be difficult to identify because they tend to hybridize. But there are a few that are pretty distinctive. The top picture is New England Aster, the middle is unknown (to me), and the bottom is Crooked Stem Aster. This last one is much branched and tends to have a zig zag appearance.
The Silky Dogwood in the along the boardwalk always gets a head start on fall color. No complaints though, it is very beautiful ranging from bright red to dark purple. This plant is just a precursor to the much anticipated fall season. Hope it will be a colorful one!
More Bugs!
It seems that the Bug Post has been really popular! So, here are some more bugs! This time, I have a few more predatory bugs to show you. Enjoy!
Let’s start with a really cool, yet ferocious looking bug. This is a kind of assassin bug which I believe is in the genus Sinea. If you click on the picture to make it bigger, you can really get a good look at his spiny body. See how his long front legs are folded up? His reach is much longer than it looks. I certainly wouldn’t want to be caught by those! Also, see how long his piercing, sucking mouth part is? It too is folded up along his head. Actually, it is so long that the the end of it is resting in part of his thorax! Wow! This predator is sitting on an Orange Coneflower waiting for some unsuspecting insect to arrive. It sure is a dangerous world out there!
Here is another kind of sit and wait predator. This is an ambush bug. Great name, right? This one operates much in the same way as the assassin bug above. As we saw in the last bug post, there are lots of different kinds of insects that utilize flowers, whether they are actually pollinating or not. These kinds of predators are just taking advantage of the buffet!
This picture is not very clear, but this crab spider is also taking a look at the buffet. Like the first bug we looked at, this crab spider has really long legs in the front to help him grab prey when it comes near. Excellent camouflage is his ticket to a nice meal. Look for crab spiders on goldenrod flowers. There are the exact same color as the flowers, making it hard even for us to see them!
This is a kind of fly often called a gnat-ogre. Any guesses why? Even flies can be predators. This tiny insect makes a meal out of an even tinier one!
So I’m not sure if the insect in the two above pictures is a halactid bee (sweat bee) or a cuckoo wasp. I will update when I know. Regardless, it is a beautiful metallic green, and deserves notice just for that.
**Update**
This is a halactid bee. They are pollinators and will also come to the honeydew secreted by aphids. By the way, it looks like I have never posted on the woolly aphid colonies that inhabit beech tree branches, so look of that coming soon. Anyway, I kind of wanted this insect to be a cuckoo wasp because they are parasitic to other bees and wasps and it would be really cool to see one! Oh, well, i’ll just have to keep my eyes peeled.
**Update**
This is a halactid bee. They are pollinators and will also come to the honeydew secreted by aphids. By the way, it looks like I have never posted on the woolly aphid colonies that inhabit beech tree branches, so look of that coming soon. Anyway, I kind of wanted this insect to be a cuckoo wasp because they are parasitic to other bees and wasps and it would be really cool to see one! Oh, well, i’ll just have to keep my eyes peeled.
This pearl crescent butterfly better be careful! There are a lot of hazards out there!
This soldier beetle is better watch out too. He’s got some pretty good camouflage though, that should help out.
Speaking of camouflage, can you see the insect in this picture? Look closely!
Can you see him now? It’s some kind of orthopteran (grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids). With excellent camouflage such as this, hopefully he’s got a chance out there.
Good luck Bugs!
2013 Rock Mill Celebration
It’s that time again, time for the Rock Mill Celebration! Join us on September 7 and 8, for history, music, food, arts and more! This year’s highlight will be water going over the wheel! If you haven’t been out to Rock Mill before, what a great time to experience this very cool park. The mill was built in 1824 and nearly lost to neglect. But now restored with the recreated 26-foot water wheel in place, it’s time to see this baby turn!
Wahkeena will be there of course! Come check out our interpretive display on the fur bearers of the mid 1800’s. Interpreters will be on hand to help you discover the mammals of that time. We’ll have furs and skulls to explore! Right next door to that will be the Wahkeena Book Store! Oh, and you can get your Birch Beer fix too. There will be plenty of ice, cold, soda-y goodness to enjoy.
Hope to see you out there!
Monarch!
Look what I saw the other day! It was a female too, so hopefully she laid some eggs while she was here.
A Bug Post
Bugs! You either love ’em or hate ’em. I love them. Here are just a few…
Everybody knows that honeybees pollinate flowers. But lots of folks don’t know that honeybees are not native. What?? Yep, they are from Europe, brought over very early by the first colonists. However, there are LOTS of native bees. Many of our native bees are solitary. This means that the female bee, once mated, works all by herself to construct a suitable place to lay her eggs and provision those eggs with food. This bee is on White Vervain.
This bumble bee was literally the biggest bee I’ve ever seen. Happily, it wasn’t very active so I was able to take lots of pictures. So bumble bees are pretty well known, and are also native. These bees are social, but not exactly like the Honey bees. Bumble bees form much smaller colonies, and do not put away large stores of honey. Native bees also differ from their Honey bee cousins in that they can fly under cooler and wetter conditions.
Did you know that beetles can also be pollinators? I don’t know if this particular one is, but maybe. It’s on Wingstem by the way.
These very small beetles were hanging out in one of the pink Swamp Rose Mallows.
This is a true bug making himself right at home inside this Obedient Plant flower. These guys have been all over the Obedient Plant ever since it started blooming. You can tell if you are looking at a true bug in a couple of ways. One way is that they will have a piercing, sucking mouth part. Also, their wings when folded make a sort of ‘X’ shape on their back.
Flies too, can be pollinators. Again, not sure if this one in particular is a pollinator, but he sure is pretty!
Okay, a quick note here. All of the pictures above were taking with my point and shoot camera and all the picture below were taken with our site camera which is a SLR. We just got a new macro lens for it, and since I’m still learning the ins and outs of this lens, some of the pictures are not quite as crisp as I’d like. But that’s what practicing is for!
This is a nymph (immature) of something, but I had to take his picture because of his awesome green eyes!
Here is another native bee, often called a Sweat Bee. They are very colorful and metallic looking. This one seemed to be taking a rest inside this flower!
This is a Hopper of some kind. There are Tree Hoppers, Leaf Hoppers and Plant Hoppers. They also have piercing, sucking mouth parts and yep, you guessed it – can hop really well to get way from predators.
I know I just posted about butterflies, but I wanted to put this picture in because it shows the Least Skipper with its wings closed. It also shows how much better a picture can be taken with the nice big macro lens!
This is a bug that belongs to a group that includes Grasshoppers, Crickets, and Katydids. Most of these guys are characterized by long hind legs that are made for jumping. Many make sounds both at night and during the day.
Okay, this is not a bug – but it would eat bugs! Here is a newly metamorphosed Spring Peeper. At the time they emerge from the pond in their newly formed froggy bodies these oh so small frogs can fit on a dime!
Anybody read MAD magazine? Does this face remind you of Spy vs. Spy? This is a Scorpionfly. They are so named because the end of the male’s abdomen looks like a scorpion’s tail! There are no stinging parts to a Scorpionfly however, these guys are scavengers.
Last, but not least and also not technically a bug, is a spider. Lots of us may not like them very much, but we need them to help keep that ever growing bug population down. Lots of spiders are actually very beautiful if you take the time to really look at them.
As a quick ending note, I wanted to let you know that most of the “bugs” in this post were found within about 10 feet of each other in the wet meadow. That’s the other really fun thing about insects, you don’t have to go very far to see lots of really cool animals!
August Wildflowers
My favorite time of the year is fast approaching! I love summer wildflowers – I love the colors, the fact that they are often tall and robust, and that they last a while. Oh, and best of all, I love all the really cool insects that visit them! Each flower seems to have it’s own little food chain. Insects that eat/collect pollen and nectar come in while predators like crab spiders and assassin bugs sit and wait for them. Of course they all have to watch out for bigger predators like a praying mantis or dragonfly!
So let’s first take a look at some of the wonderful flowers blooming now, and then stay tuned for the follow-up post of all those amazing insects!
Here is some beautiful Ironweed. A favorite nectar plant for butterflies, and oddly enough, the pollen is white!
Everyone knows this one, it’s Queen Ann’s Lace. Look for Black Swallowtail caterpillars on this member of the Parsley family.
Thin-leaved Coneflower is one of many yellow composite flowers that can be confusing. For a great blog post about these kinds of flowers click here.
Wingstem can be found along woodland edges and can you believe it? It has wings on its stem!
Heal-all, a member of the mint family and quite common.
Here is another yellow composite. What is it? I don’t know! This is a picture from last year and it wasn’t labeled! Oh no!
Here’s a real beauty! Swamp Rose Mallow. Yes, it’s a kind of Hibiscus, but still a native plant. The ones we have here are a light pink or a magenta color. These like to have wet feet and most are found all around the pond.
So that’s just a few, there are and will be more. For example, yesterday we saw cardinal flower in bud, and flat-topped aster in bloom. Each time you come out to the preserve there should be something new to see!
The Butterflies are Out!
To me, we haven’t seen the usual amount of butterflies this year – until now. Perhaps it’s had something to do with all the cool, rainy days we’ve had. In any event, they are out now, and it is a pleasure to see them! Here are a few pictures that show just some of the butterflies one can see here.
Buttonbush is such a fantasic nectar plant for butterflies. I was in a precarious spot trying to get this shot, and it’s not quite the one I wanted! When I first came upon this cluster of flowers there were 4 swallowtails, 3 or 4 silver spotted skippers, and several other insects all together! In the shot above, I was able to capture 3 of the swallowtails, 1 skipper, and a bee!
Here is a closer view of the silver spotted skipper. That white mark on the side of the wing is unmistakable. This is also our largest skipper (that I know of) making it pretty easy to identify. This particular individual is nectaring on some obedient plant.
Also enjoying some obedient plant nectar is this spicebush swallowtail butterfly.
There have been lots of these little guys around – in the parking lot, along the road, driveway and trails. It’s a summer azure.
So for the next few pictures, I can’t give you a positive ID because I cannot locate my butterfly field guide at the moment. But stay tuned – when I do find it, I will update this post with the correct IDs. So above is one of the satyrs. This is one of the butterflies you can find in a woodland habitat.
Okay gang, I have found my book! Above should be the Carolina Satyr. Looking at the map in my field guide, we seem to be on the edge of its range.
I am fairly certain that both of the butterflies pictured above are the same species, but again, once I get a hold of that field guide, I’ll have a better idea! Anyway, I can tell you that these are skippers, and very very small ones at that (they may end up being least skippers.)
Indeed, I am going to go with Least Skipper. Although these two specimens do not look totally alike, their behavior and habitat that they were found in matches up with the description in my guide. By the way, feel free to chime in with agreements or disagreements on my IDs!
Indeed, I am going to go with Least Skipper. Although these two specimens do not look totally alike, their behavior and habitat that they were found in matches up with the description in my guide. By the way, feel free to chime in with agreements or disagreements on my IDs!
Here is another kind of skipper. This one seemed quite large for a skipper, although certainly not as big as the silver spotted!
After much deliberation, I am going to go with Zabulon Skipper for this guy. And guy he seems to be. The females of this species are colored quite differently. Again, in the description provided by my field guide, I found this creature to be doing just what it said. Males perch on tall vegetation and wait for a female to fly by. This particular guy as you can see was perched on some nice Monkey Flower.
After much deliberation, I am going to go with Zabulon Skipper for this guy. And guy he seems to be. The females of this species are colored quite differently. Again, in the description provided by my field guide, I found this creature to be doing just what it said. Males perch on tall vegetation and wait for a female to fly by. This particular guy as you can see was perched on some nice Monkey Flower.
And finally, here is that same skipper only he had his picture taken with a better camera! The difference is amazing I think. Thanks to Susan M. who sent me this photo!
Transition Time
As the flowers fade from the Rhododendron…
we transition from the green and white time to the longer lasting summer wildflowers. These will be blooming in the sunny forest edges, small meadows, and around the pond, like this Swamp Rose.
Some of these are:
Obedient Plant
Purple Coneflower
Rattlesnake Master
Royal Catchfly
Swamp Milkweed
Monkey Flower
Monarda (or Bergamot if you prefer)
and Fringed Loosestrife
Other flowers that are in bloom now include but are not limited to:
Lopseed
Black Cohosh
Buttonbush
Heal All
Hustonia spp.
Spotted Wintergreen
Trumpet Creeper
White and Blue Vervain
Adder’s Mouth Orchid