Red-shouldered Red-bellied

We call him The Interloper. He arrived in mid-January, when this photo was taken, and has been here ever since. I'm surprised that not only did he show up in new territory during the winter, but that he managed to keep it.

When I first saw The Interloper, I thought the sun was reflecting oddly off his wing feathers. Turns out that it wasn't the sun: his shoulders and wings have red-tinged feathers instead of the traditional black.

So far he's kept his red epaulets, but red-bellieds don't molt until late summer so that's not a surprise. Here he is from a few weeks ago:

Wish he was banded so we could tell if his feathers grow in normally during this season's molt (since if they do he'll just blend in with our other red-bellieds).

I've spoken with a couple ornithologists and biologists, and don't have a definite answer for this coloration, other than some type of genetic mutation. I believe this could be an example of erythrism: when black or brown feathers (or fur, hair) take on a reddish tint. This is different than the more commonly seen red, orange and yellow variations due to the manufacture of carotenoids based on diet.

We'll wait and see what the late summer molt brings!

Great Spangled Sex

I've been watching dozens of Great and Variegated Spangled Fritillaries in our back field for the past week or so. They're amazing to watch - fast moving, flashes of bright orange against the green grass. I've only seen them come to rest a few times.

Today I came across this hidden in the grass. I had the uncomfortable feeling of being voyeuristic as I peered through trying to figure out exactly what it was.

Yep, Great Spangled sex!

This photo makes me chuckle. I love what looks like an "expression" on the left butterfly:

In the above photos you can see the gorgeous silver spangles on their underwings. (they flash bright metallic silver in the sunlight) 

This photo shows the two connected by the male's claspers:

In the next few weeks we can expect a decrease in female Great Spangled sightings as they go into hiding before laying their eggs in late August/early September. She'll lay approximately 2,000 eggs (wow! most butterflies lay 100-200) on various violet plants. The eggs will hatch 3-4 weeks later and the first larvae will drop to the ground where they'll  hibernate over the winter without eating (and hopefully without being eaten).

When the larvae emerge from hibernation in April, they're at the base of young, succulent violet plants which they voraciously dine on until they become a spiny black caterpillar nearly 2" long. Here's a post from earlier this spring on the Great Spangled Fritillary larva I found in the garden under a clump of violets.


(note that most of the technical information was gleaned from books and various respected sites, one of which is the lovely blog Springfield Plateau. Just a heads-up, you'll want to be careful Googling "butterfly sex!")

Juvenile Hairy Claims Suet Log

 
It's been fun to watch the Donwys and Hairys learn to use our suet logs. They've been coming to the feeders for about 8 days now and in the last couple they've started to defend their territory on the feeders.

Wonder what switch gets thrown in their heads to go from all piling onto the suet log together to defending it against any other bird that comes to it, including this innocent White-breasted nuthatch.

 

(the nuthatch flew off before the Hairy had to spread its wings)

Fairy Bubbles on Irises

Apparently tiny garden fairies were blowing bubbles in our Siberian Irises last night. They were beautiful this morning: all jeweled with teeny tiny droplets of water from last night's nasty storm.

Melting Flowers

How hot was it yesterday? Apparently  hot enough to melt these tiny pink flowers in one of my front planters. (they really are a pale pink - this was taking early this morning in low light)

Yesterday morning I noticed the first blooms on the plant. Late afternoon I noticed the blooms were gone and thought something had nipped them off. I looked closer and no, they had melted.

The melting created this cool bright purple droplet of water though!

I live in Minnesota. We're not supposed to have melting flowers.

Blue Jay Fledgling

A young, disgruntled looking Blue Jay was hopping around the cabin's property last weekend. Every time someone walked by or its parents flew over, it'd open its mouth wide open begging for food (and increasing its funny, curmudgeonly look).

Being on the ground is typical for fledgling birds; many of whom leave the nest before they can fly. Blue Jays, cardinals, robins are some of the most common species to do this.

Note that the fledgling is just developing its flight feathers and tail feathers. They simply do not have room to do this packed into a nest with other brood members. So, they flop out of the nest around day 14 and spend 6-8 days on the ground learning to look for food, how to evade predators and practicing short flights. The whole time the parents will be around, feeding and protecting them.

In about six days this little guy should be flying, harrassing its parents at our feeders!

Is it Winter? A Leucistic Goldfinch

For the past month, every time I look out the window and see a goldfinch I think to myself: "Wow! He's super yellow. Wonder why..."  Duh. It's summer.

My slowness on the change of seasonal molt is due to the fact that one of our most active goldfinches is a very pale male. He still looks like he's in his winter colors, which has lead my slow mind to be surprised whenever I see our normal, brightly-colored finches. We noticed him for the first time in late February, when the other male finches were starting to get their yellow patches.

The finch is leucistic meaning that its regular pigmentation is washed out. Sometimes this happens in splotches, sometimes it's an overall wash. In this bird's case it's an overall wash of his yellow feathers (with some whiter areas) - the black feathers are normally pigmented.

The funny thing is, the nape of its neck is dark. You would expect it to be the same washed-out yellow:

Even though goldfinches have two molts a year, his feathers will not improve with a molt as leucism is a genetic mutation.


Add'l Reading: Cornell's Lab of Ornithology has a great article explaining the differences between albinism and leucism. 

Meet Milbert

This has been quite the year for butterflies so far. Seems like every day there's a new visitor to the yard. Or two. Or three.

Today's visitor: Milbert's Tortoiseshell.

It doesn't look that impressive closed, but when it opens it's very distinctive:

We've now spotted in our yard all three tortoiseshells that are found in Minnesota (Compton's, Mourning Cloak and good ole Milbert).

Great Spangled Fritillary Larva

While weeding around our poppies I found this caterpillar at the base of a violet clump. (I love violets and tend to leave them, until they form large masses, then out they go.)

Glad I left them! Violets are the main food source for the Great Spangled Fritillary larva, which I was able to ID thanks to the wonderful resources at BugGuide.net.

An Agreeable Moth

Hanging on a friend's white door the other day was this intriguing moth.

It was agreeable to handling and let me photograph it before transferring it to a protected area of the porch.

A bit of research turns up that it truly was an Agreeable Tiger Moth. Yep. That's the actual common name of it. Or at least I'm 99% sure this is an Agreeable Tiger Moth. There are three very similar moths (Virginian Tiger Moth and Pink-legged Tiger Moth being the other two). Please offer comments on the ID...

I must remember to start photographing the abdomen of moths to assist with ID'ing. The agreeable has an orange wash at the base of its forelegs and there's a bit of that showing on the close-ups of this moth (whereas the Virginian doesn't have the orange marking).

Here's a pretty cool head-on photo of an Agreeable Tiger Moth.

While the moth appears to be pretty widespread in the Eastern U.S., I couldn't find much information about this moth online. Will have to pick up the new Peterson Guide to Moths, co-authored by Seabrooke Leckie (@seabrookeleckie)!

Hummingbirds!

Wow. What timing. I've been incredibly busy and have neglected spring preparations. Saw posts today on MNBird Listserve and on Twitter about hummingbirds moving and thought to myself "oh oh. Better do it while I have the time."

So glad I made nectar and hung a couple of our favorite feeders this morning before heading out to meetings: We just had a couple male Ruby-throateds at our favorite window feeders (these photos are of the same bird).

Thank you network, for keeping me on my toes! (and keeping our hummingbirds happy and fed)

Raindrops on...Everything

After working this weekend, I had this morning off and took advantage of it by bundling up and having coffee on the stoop. It had rained overnight and the air was soft, moist and filled with a pine scent. If I closed my eyes I swear I was sitting lakeside (alas, no such luck).

Once the morning coffee woke me up, I started poking around in the garden only to discover everything was covered in water droplets. That, of course, prompted more action on my part and I dug out the camera.

These small irises (only about 5" tall) are gorgeous.

Water droplets perched on the top of a tiny grape hyacinth plant:

 

The tiny baby sedum and moss growing on one of our garden rocks reminds me of a small succulent garden. Even the little moss tendrils were covered in tiny drops:

But I think my favorite is the perfectly aligned droplets on a blade of grass:

All Abuzz

Amazingly, our wild plum trees did not get zapped by the recent frost that killed so many of our other blooms. Maybe it's because they're one of the few things blooming right now, but during yesterday's warm afternoon the trees were filled with the buzzing of bees.

I counted at least six different types of bees and tried to get photos of most of them. Interestingly, there were only two big fat bumblebees mixed in the group and they never wandered down from the topmost branches. I did not see any of the metallic green bees that we have on the property. Maybe they've not emerged yet?

There were several butterflies, too, but the bees were what amazed me. Must have been nearly 1,000 of them moving from blossom to blossom. You could hear the buzzing from 25' away.

There were three types of teeny, tiny bees that made up the majority percentage. Here's one of them:

The other ones were the sharply lined black and yellow bees that I grew up calling "sweat bees," and these odd little ones that I never saw land on a flower. It seemed their number one task was attacking the few wasps that were also buzzing around:

As frightening as wasps look while flying, their markings are amazingly beautiful. I love the copper wings and the designs on its body, the construction of its eye and the bright red at the base of its antennae.

On all the wasps I noticed a small divot with a little raised bump right on the top of its head. You can see it in the photo below, right in the center of its head. Looks like a little push button. (I didn't try pushing it.)

Using da Google, I learned that this is called a dorsal ocellus (ocelli, plural) and is a "simple eye." Turns out that there should be three of them (and I'm assuming there are, just not visible in photos). The central one and two lateral ones above the regular compound eyes.

Much of this was far beyond my understanding, but basically these three eyes, being simple in their design, don't actually transmit images to the brain but rather are highly evolved light meters used to detect shadows created by movement, etc. The cool thing about these tiny eyes? They are much more sensitive to light (and changes in it) than the compound eyes, and due to their simple design they function much faster than the compound eyes. Who would've thought I'd learn all that simply by watching bees buzz around my plum trees? One of the great benefits of writing a blog: You learn something new every time.

Getting back to the bees... I love this bee. Completely covered in bright yellow pollen, I originally thought it was part of its markings.

These black bees had a solid black butt, but looked like they were wearing a wooly golden shrug:

And this honey bee looks like it's up on the latest fashion trends, wearing large sunglasses:

I think this is the same bee, but from different angles the eyes look completely different.

Thanks for sharing in my bee adventure!

Bluebird and First Warbler of Spring

Our first warbler of spring, a Yellow-rumped, shared a bath today with one of our bluebirds. Some Yellow-rumpeds apparently over-wintered in parts of Minnesota this year, but this is the first one we've seen on our Afton property.

Spring "warbling" is going to be tough this year with the trees all leafed out!