Cattails

Posted on January 23, 2014 by tspuckler

Cattails are one of the most common and easily identified of our water-loving plants. Most people are familiar with the long green leaves and hotdog-shaped brown flower spikes.

Cattails grow along lake edges and in marshes, often in dense colonies. The plants are often home to many insects, birds and amphibians.

They are a food source for Canadian geese, muskrats, insects and pond snails. Many birds find the soft texture of the seeds appropriate for lining their nests.

The Cattail’s flower has a brown, cylinder-shaped section with a yellow spike and blooms from May to August. In Autumn, the brown cylinder bursts, releasing the cotton-like seeds into the wind.

For centuries its dried leaves have been used for weaving chair bottoms, mats and baskets. The roots are a edible (I’ve eaten them many times) and nutritious (containing more starch than potatoes and more protein than rice).

Despite all its uses to people and wildlife, sometimes this plant is simply nice to look at; it is often featured in autumn-themed floral arrangements.

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Downy Woodpecker

Posted on January 18, 2014 by tspuckler

Not only is this bird one of our most common and widespread woodpeckers, it also has adapted to a variety of habitats. It can be found in mature hardwood forests as well as in fencerows along fields. It also regularly visits bird feeders.

The Downy Woodpecker, our smallest woodpecker, is six inches long and has a small black bill. It has a white chest and back, black wings with white spots, a black tail and a black head with a white “mustache” and white “eyebrows.”

This bird always seems to be hard at work, constantly foraging for food or excavating holes in trees to be used as nests. Like other woodpeckers, it has several adaptations that allow it to hammer away relentlessly on trees. This includes a sturdy bill and strong neck muscles. Its brain is encased in a protective cavity in its reinforced skull.

Another characteristic this bird shares with other woodpeckers is nostrils surrounded by feathers. This helps to filter out the sawdust created by pecking away at wood. The male has a small red patch on the back of his head; the female lacks this marking.

Downy Woodpeckers use their bills to drill into trees and dig out insects like beetles, wasps, moths and their larvae. In the Winter they sometimes “join forces” and mix with other flocks of different species of birds while looking for food.

While hiking its pretty commonplace to observe this bird busily searching trees and shrubs in search of insect eggs, cocoons and hibernating insects and spiders. It also consumes nuts and seeds, like this one was doing on the Ohio Erie Canal Towpath. They can be quite acrobatic in their pursuit of a meal.

I usually don’t have to go far to see this lively creature which stays here year-round – sometimes all I have to do is look out the kitchen window.

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Pixie Cup Lichen

Posted on January 13, 2014 by tspuckler

Pixie Cup Lichen typically grows on moss on the forest floor, usually on logs or at the base of trees. I have these growing in the rock garden in my backyard. Like other types of lichens, it is a symbiotic relationship between algae and a fungus. The algae provide nutrients with their chlorophyll while being protected from drying out by the fungus.

They are shaped like somewhat battered and sand-blasted miniature golf-tees. This lichen has an extremely rough appearance. The rim of the cup often has a reddish tint. The stem has scales which become larger the further down, as it reaches the ground. The “undergrowth” is a mass of these flattish scales. They are only about half an inch tall.

The cup is thought to act as a spore dispersal mechanism when hit by raindrops. Pixie Cups and related species contain Didymic Acid which was once collected from the lichen and used in folk-lore medicine to treat tuberculosis.

Not only is it an example of a symbiotic relationship with a cool shape and texture, but Pixie Cup Lichen is a sign of life that can been seen in the winter if you do some careful searching.

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Crayfish

Posted on January 8, 2014 by tspuckler

Freshwater crayfish are a wonderfully diverse group of organisms with over 605 described species of freshwater crayfish distributed throughout North America, Australia, southern South America, Asia, Europe, Madagascar and New Zealand.

They come in a variety of sizes, from the members of the dwarf crayfish, which reach less than an inch as adults, to the world’s largest freshwater invertebrate, the endangered Tasmanian Giant Freshwater Crayfish, which reaches lengths over 15 inches and weights of over 11 pounds.

These beautiful creatures come in many colors, including red, blue, orange, green, brown, and even white. There are crayfish with spots, stripes, and various patterns. They also have a degree of ecological variation, inhabiting four main habitat types: fast flowing streams (like where this one was caught), mud burrows, slow water species (ponds and lakes) and cave species.

Like their relatives, lobsters and crabs, Crayfish are crustaceans. They are omnivores and will eat almost anything, plant or animal, live or dead. They belong to the order Decapoda, meaning 10 feet – 4 pairs of legs and 2 pincers. They are not afraid to use those pinchers to defend themselves or to start fights with other Crayfish.

Crayfish have long been used in research to determine the role of vitamin A in vision. They are also a food source for people as well as bait for fishermen. Crayfish have an extraordinary sense of smell. It is estimated that 40% of their brain is devoted to the sense of smell, as opposed to less than 1% of a human’s.

Some people keep Crayfish as pets – including me. Whenever I walk near my the tank, my Crayfish will come running out of its hiding place with its claws above its head, anticipating that I will feed it. Let’s face it: Crayfish may be smarter than we think.

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Eastern Hemlock

Posted on January 3, 2014 by tspuckler

Among the longest-lived species in Ohio, this conical conifer with long, slender branches drooping to the ground grows between 60 and 70 feet tall and is extremely shade tolerant.

It may take 250 to 300 years to reach maturity and may live for 800 years or more. Many species of wildlife benefit from the excellent habitat that a dense stand of Eastern Hemlock provides.

It is easy to identify. The distinctive, flat needles are glossy green above and pale green with two white lines below.

This tree grows best in cool, moist locations such as the north-facing slopes and ravines in eastern Ohio.

Eastern Hemlock has separate male and female flowers in mid-spring. The female flowers quickly develop into small green cones that hang from the tips of the new growth of twigs – here’s a photo from August.

After the cones mature, turn brown and open to release their seeds; they may remain on the branches for several years. The cones are only about 3/4 of an inch long.

Eastern Hemlock has bark that starts out as fairly smooth, but it eventually transitions to a textured surface with prominent fissures and wide, flattened ridges, having a brown to brown-gray coloration.

Native Americans used the moist inner bark to create a paste to treat wounds and sores. Even today hemlock oil, distilled from the needles and twigs, is used in liniments.

This straight-trunked, gracefully pyramidal tree with long, pendulous limbs and short-needled, feathery branches adds color, shape and texture to the Winter landscape.

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American Coot

Posted on December 29, 2013 by tspuckler

The American Coot is also known as a Mud Hen. The Toledo Mud Hens are a minor league baseball team located in Toledo, Ohio that are named after this bird. Coots live near water, typically inhabiting wetlands and open water bodies in North America. These were seen on the Lake Erie shore.

Though commonly mistaken to be ducks, American Coots belong to a distinct order, a group of shoreline birds called Rails. Instead of having the webbed feet of ducks, coots have broad, lobed scales on their lower legs and toes that fold back with each step in order to facilitate walking on land.

This is a social bird species that lives in flocks. Coots are the only members of the Rail Family to live in groups. They can make a wide variety of noises, from grunting to clucking, as a means of communication, between each other and to threatening predators.

They are nicknamed “marsh hen” or “mud hen” because of they way their heads bob when they walk or swim. They eat small aquatic animals, insects and vegetation. American Coots have the ability to dive for their food, much like ducks. When diving, they gather plants that grow on the bottom of waterways. After bringing plants up to the surface, they go through them looking for edible parts.

A group of these birds has many collective nouns, including a “codgery,” “commotion,” “fleet,” “shoal” and a “swarm” of coots.

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Partridge Berry

Posted on December 24, 2013 by tspuckler

Here are some “Christmas colors” that I saw in the woods today. This is a small, woody, trailing vine with 6-12 inch slender stems. It does not climb but instead lays on the forest floor.

Partridge Berry produces trumpet-shaped flowers from late spring to early summer. The flowers grow in pairs and have white petals. They are pollinated by insects. Afterwards each pair of flowers produces a single bright red berry. Here are flowers that I saw in June.

The berries contain eight seeds. Birds are the primary consumer of these fruits and therefore the main distributor of their seeds. For people, the berries are edible but rather tasteless, with a faint flavor of wintergreen.

The humble Partridge Berry is a plant often underfoot and overlooked, but during the cold days of winter, it is a treat to the eyes with its deep, dark-green leaves and rich red berries.

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Silver Shiner

Posted on December 19, 2013 by tspuckler

The Silver Shiner is a slender minnow with large eyes. Adults average three to four inches. The body is silvery, with some blue or green iridescence. All of the fins are transparent, with no spots or other distinctive markings.

Shiners are schooling fish. They feed, travel and spawn sometimes in very large groups. When feeding, the “dimpling” they create may look like raindrops on the water.

They can often be seen jumping out of the water to capture flying insects at the tail end of deep swift riffles in moderate-sized, clear creeks.

This fish can be found in large streams and small rivers with clean water flowing over a bed of rocks. They typically avoid muddy bottoms and rooted aquatic vegetation.

The Silver Shiner is considered to be a minnow. Minnows are a huge family of fishes. About 2,100 species are distributed in North America, Eurasia and Africa.

Minnows are important food items for other fish species. They are essential in maintaining healthy aquatic systems. While several species of minnows are used as bait fish, the vast majority of them never even receive a passing glance from most humans.

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Yellow Sac Spider

Posted on December 14, 2013 by tspuckler

Normally these are outdoor spiders, but sac spiders often invade structures (like my house). Their numbers increase significantly in the Autumn when the weather turns cool and their food supply disappears.

If there is food available, sac spiders can become established indoors. At night they actively search for small insects. When hunting, they run quickly while waving their forelegs in front of them. Their front legs are longer than their other three pairs of legs.

Indoors, they can be observed on walls and ceilings, but they quickly drop to the floor and seek cover when disturbed. Yellow Sac Spiders construct a silken tube or sac in a protected area, such as within a leaf, under a log, or at the junction of a wall and ceiling.

They use this sac as their daytime retreat; this is how the sac spider gets its name. These spiders do not build webs. Outdoors, this species occupies a wide variety of habitats, including trees, the forest floor, fruit orchards and other agricultural areas, as well as shrubs surrounding open fields.

These creatures are usually pale in color and can range from yellow to beige. They are quite small (about 1/2 inch long) and easy to overlook, with no distinct markings.

This species has eight simple eyes aligned in two rows of four, consisting of secondary and primary eyes. Secondary eyes are light sensitive and are used to track movement. Primary eyes are the only set of movable eyes and are used to view close objects.

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Northern Short-tailed Shrew

Posted on December 9, 2013 by tspuckler

While checking out this habitat I came across an odd and seldom seen mammal. At three inches in size, it’s packed with energy. It is the largest shrew in North America.

The Northern Short-tailed Shrew consumes up to three times its weight in food each day. It is mostly carnivorous, preferring insects, earthworms, voles, snails and mice for the bulk of its diet.

It is one of the few venomous mammals that exist; its saliva is used to paralyze and subdue its prey. This enables them to kill mice and larger prey and paralyze invertebrates such as snails and store them alive for later eating.

This animal can be found in grasslands, old fields, fencerows, marshy areas, forests and gardens; its preferred habitats are moist with a fair amount of leaf litter or thick plant cover. Northern Short-tailed Shrews construct elaborate runways under leaves, dirt, and snow and construct their nests in tunnels or under logs and rocks.

Other shrews spend more time above ground than the Northern Short-tailed Shrew, which tends to tunnel below the ground or through leaf litter. Its tiny eyes indicate its poor eyesight due to a mainly subterranean lifestyle. Its ears are almost completely hidden by the fur.

The tail is quite short, amounting to less than 25% of total body length (most shrews have significantly longer tails). The Short-tailed Shrew’s species name, brevicauda, means literally “brief (brevi) tail (cauda).” These deceptively ordinary little creatures are one of our most interesting and overlooked mammals.

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Tim Spuckler's Blog

Reptile Ramblings and More

Cattails

Downy Woodpecker

Pixie Cup Lichen

Crayfish

Eastern Hemlock

American Coot

Partridge Berry

Silver Shiner

Yellow Sac Spider

Northern Short-tailed Shrew