Carefully, I lifted the lid to discover a marvelous creature. A caterpillar as long as my hand and two fingers wide. This lovely specimen had horns, projections and bumps all over it. It did indeed look like a monster from another world. In fact, it was a hickory horned devil, or Royal walnut moth caterpillar.

Hickory horn devil caterpillars are harmless formidable looking creatures that grow to be 6” long. They eat the leaves of hickory and walnut trees as well as a few others.
After a few weeks of eating and growing, they bury themselves into the ground and pupate. Their coccoon looks like a thick oval bullet. It is there that they will stay, resting, growing and hoping not to be found for two years. A gorgeous moth with orange and yellow stripes will emerge the second year.
Like most of the large silkworm moths, adult royal walnut moths don’t feed. After emerging, they set out to find a mate. The females will lay a massive amount of eggs hoping some will hatch and feed on the leaves of hickory or walnut. They grow, shed and grow all summer until they are big enough to pupate. Hopefully, some neighborhood kids will find one again and think of me to share in the joy of nature.

Bats are some of the most feared and misunderstood animals in the world. Through the centuries, they’ve been equated with witchcraft, evil, blood-thirsty monsters, and vampires, but bats are harmless victims of a bad rap. Thank you, Bram Stoker. Even the feared vampire bats, which hail from Central and South America, aren’t the blood thirsty demons they are made out to be. Well, they are blood thirsty, but they don’t attack and suck human blood.

Bats from around the world eat a variety of things from fish to nectar to frogs to fruit to blood. All of the bat species we have here in the mid-Atlantic region are insect eaters though.

Insectivorous bats use echolocation to zero in on their prey. By sending out high frequency sound waves that bounce off the insect, the bat is able to hone in on its exact location. They catch prey using their wings or the membrane between the feet. The insects are sort of “scooped” into the mouth.

Here in Pennsylvania, we have six year round resident species and three that migrate.

Year round bat species which include: little brown, big brown, tricolored (formally eastern pipistrelle), northern long ear, small-footed, and Indiana bats, are active in warm months, but seek shelter to hibernate through the winter. Migratory bats include hoary, red and silver-haired bats.

The only flying mammal, these acrobatic fliers can catch and eat over 500 insects per hour and often have several feeding sessions through the night. A large percentage of their diet include moths, grain flies and mosquitoes. Without bats, the mosquito population would explode spreading disease and driving picnics indoors. That’s much scarier than Dracula ever was.

Even today, if a book doesn’t grab me by the throat and threaten not to let go, I am very quick to put it down. So when I come across one that really catches a hold on me, I want to tell the world.

I’ve recently read two books that I can honestly say changed my life. Doug Tallamy’s “Bringing Nature Home” has given me a new perspective on what I do.  For nearly 25 years, I’ve been a naturalist in and around the mid-Atlantic region.  I’ve helped educate and mold children and adults on the decisions they make and the impact it has on the environment.

I’ve always been an advocate for using native plants in the landscape, but never fully understood the ecological principles behind those choices.  That is, until I read Mr. Tallamy’s book.

“Bringing Nature Home” describes the relationship between native plants and the insects that depend on them. How native insects haven’t evolved to feed on non-native plants and therefore, can’t survive on them. This spirals out to talk about the birds and animals that depend on the insects that are depending on native plants.  I knew everything was connected, I guess I just didn’t realize to what extent those relationships existed.

The other book that I want everyone to read is Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. It scared, enlightened, and thrilled me and set my resolve to do better by the animals I eat and prepare for my family. I read the young readers edition since I was assigning it to a class, but I’m sure the grown up version is just as good. Mr. Pollan describes where our food comes from, how it is processed, and why certain ingredients are so pervasive in the foods we eat. Why fast food burgers are so cheap and why it seems to cost more to eat healthy. With concise, easy to understand language and straight forward facts, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” is a great read for the food shoppers, cooks and consumers in your family. Be prepared to be first horrified, then inspired to take a stand.

So throw out your high fructose corn syrup and your pappas grass and enjoy the summer.

Vernal Pool in New Jersey

In what seems like impossibly cold weather, these amphibians have waited underground for the first warm evening spring rain. Warm being a relative term because it is still only about 45 or 50 degrees. But without fail, as the rain falls, spotted salamanders come up from their underground burrows and march sometimes by the hundreds, to vernal pools where they’ve been breeding for decades.

Vernal pools are shallow depressions in the earth where water collects in the spring but dries up by late summer or early fall. Salamanders will not breed in traditional ponds where predators such as fish loom.

Male spotted salamander. Spots are unique like finger prints.

Male salamanders migrate to their breeding pools and hang out in bachelor groups called congregations. But when the females arrive, the party really starts. 40-50 Spotted Salamanders gyrate, rub against each other and rotate their tail in hope of attracting a female’s fancy. If all this foreplay works, she’ll follow him out of the crowd as he swims away. He’ll then deposit a gelatinous sperm packet called a spermatophore. The female will trail him and pick up the spermatophore in her genital opening thus completing fertilization. Within a few days, she’ll deposit 2-3 jelly-like balls with 50-100 eggs in each. The egg sacs resemble snowballs that are attached to underwater sticks. After completing this task, both male and female adult salamanders leave the pool and return to their underground burrow until next spring.

The egg sacs remain underwater for 5-6 weeks when they hatch into tiny, gilled tadpoles. After feeding on small aquatic insects through the summer, the tadpoles metamorphose into miniature adults and leave the water by the fall.

In the late afternoon, one of them would move back in the box. I’ve never seen the fledglings, but I’m hopeful this pair was successful. I want to believe they left the box to encourage the young to leave.

Now, it has been two days, and there is no sign of either. I have to say, I miss them and I’ve been a little melancholy today. I hope they come back next year. I’ve gotten so much pleasure from watching them.

Another recent addition to the yard is a family of Tufted Titmice. They are busy going back and forth feeding their clutch. I counted 7 trips in 15 minutes by both parent. When I hang the laundry on the line which is tied to the tree their box is on, the babies chirp and peep hoping it is mom or dad with their next meal.

I’m hoping they are a pair and the one in the ivy is the male. He’ll feed her through the night as she incubates the eggs. I may try to scope them out tonight since it is supposed to be clear and try to watch the action. Will keep you all posted. Stay tuned. Please comment so I know someone is reading this.

The first year, two English sparrows took up residence in the small boxes. Not okay with me. English sparrows are not native birds and are extremely aggressive. They have been known to build their nest on top of baby bluebirds.

As soon as I noticed the male sparrows checking out the boxes, I opened the side door to discourage them. Later that season, I closed them when I saw a chickadee checking out one of the holes in one of the boxes. Then my summer schedule hit and I got busy. I lost track and before I knew it, the sparrows were back and sitting on eggs. Bummer.

The second year, I kept the side door open. I’d rather no one use the box than provide nesting sites for the sparrows. In the big box though, a Gray Squirrel raised a litter. Not my intention, but okay.

Last year, no one used the boxes for some reason. I thought it was strange since in my area, suitable holes for cavity nesters are in short supply, but nature does strange things.

Two weeks ago, I was in the yard picking up my 20 millionth sweetgum ball. I noticed debris stuffed in the large box. I didn’t have my glasses on, so I assumed it was leaves and a gray squirrel had once again found the box as was raising another litter. I won’t lie I was a little disappointed. My neighbor told me she had a screech owl in her yard nesting for years. She had no idea what an amazing thing it is. What an honor in my mind. She was so off handed, I really wanted to scream at her.

Anyway, back to the over zealous squirrel with the leaves in the box. I thought I saw the leaves move, but since I didn’t have my glasses, I attributed the illusion to just that, my eyes playing tricks. But I went in to get my glasses just in case. I’m such the optimist, so you can imagine my surprise when this is what I saw.

This is an Eastern Screech Owl, cinnamon phase. Screech owls come in two phases, gray and cinnamon. I am so excited about my owl. I’ve become somewhat obsessive. I check to make sure s/he is still there and when I don’t see it, I become melancholy. I haven’t seen my owl in a few days, but the other birds seem especially tense and chatty around the box, so I’m hoping it is a female sitting on a nest and is just hunkered down.

From what I’ve been able to determine, the male and female share the cavity and at night, he hunts and feeds her while she sits. I have only seen one owl, but I’m holding out hope.

Stay tuned for more owl progress. Same owl time, same owl channel.

Many insects such as certain butterflies, beetle larva, moths, and others, over-winter as a pupa or adult. When temperatures rise, they stir and soon will reveal themselves. On a recent walk, I discovered some of these beauties.
On a spicebush plant, I found what appeared at first glance to be a dead leaf hanging from the branch. On closer inspection, I discovered this dead leaf was actually rolled up and sheltered a developing Promethea moth. The caterpillars of these large silk moths spin their cocoon using leaves of trees and shrubs.

Looking closely at a few white pine trees, I found several bundles of needles stuck together. The tips of clusters had been nibbled off, revealing a tunnel. This is the winter home of a pine tube moth pupa. These moths will emerge in spring and mate. The female will lay her eggs on new pine needles. The eggs hatch and the larva will tie a few needles together into a new tube and feed though the summer.

On a recent walk through Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve’s meadow, the brown and tan remains of last years’ grasses offered a great back ground for praying mantis egg cases. These hard, foamy sacs house 100-250 eggs that will hatch. The young mantids make their escape through a specially created section called the “zone of issue”, since the sides of the egg sac are impenetrable.

So next time you’re out and about, take a closer look at familiar things. There might just be something hiding in plain site.