Unique Bugs at Dodge Nature Center

Sometimes while I am out looking for birds, butterflies and dragonflies I come across a different type of insect that is interesting.
In June I found this nessus sphinx moth sipping nectar from the flowers at the Dodge Nature Center. The interesting thing that I found when researching this moth is that most people consider their range to be in the eastern portion of the country with Wisconsin being the western border in this area. Dodge is in the Twin Cities, so it was obviously in Minnesota. On the butterfliesandmoths.org website there are only two Minnesota Counties that have recorded sightings of the nessus sphinx moth and Dakota County, I believe that Dodge Nature Center is a part of Dakota County, is not one that is listed. So it is possible that this is the first recorded nessus sphinx moth in the county, as well as one of the few seen in the state.
I am not sure what this second bug is. I found it at Dodge Nature Center that same day. It has some pretty cool antenna. If anyone knows what type of insect this is, or even a clue, please leave a comment and I will look it up and do some research so that we can all learn a little more.

Dodge Dragonflies

Well it looks like the mainboard on my PC is fried. I had hoped that it was just the power supply but no such luck. Fortunately I have more then one PC. So I spent Friday evening into Saturday morning transferring data and installing programs so that I would be fully functional again. It has been a beautiful weekend so besides all the computer repair I have also gone out and taken another 20gb worth of pics. It will take a while to get them sorted, cropped and posted but that shouldn't matter too much since I still have over a months worth of pics in back log. So here are a couple more dragon pics. I took these at Dodge Nature Center the last weekend in June.
This first one is a meadowhawk, although I am not sure which type. The face does not appear white enough for a white face and since the legs are black it can not be an autumn. That is about as far as I can narrow it down other then this is a female, the male would typically be red in color.
This second dragon is also female but unlike the first it is easy to ID. This is a female widow skimmer. The male widow skimmer is blue in color.

White Tail Fawn Dodge

While I was photographing the dragonflies, butterflies, and bees out in the flowering lupine of Dodge Nature Center, in mid June, I got a plesant surprise, I looked up to see a young fawn heading across the field. I don't think that it noticed me until it was about 10 to 15 feet away. When it did notice me it stopped and checked me out curiously while I took the opportunity to snap some great pics.

Eventually he left the field and dissappered off into the woods.

Butterflies at Dodge Nature Center

Even though I appears to me like we have less butterflies around this year then we did last year I did find a couple on my visit to Dodge Nature Center in mid June.
The first is a common ringlet. These butterflies are common in the northern and western part of the US as well as southern Canada and Alaska. They are a member of the satyr (Satyrinae) subfamily and are commonly found flying close to the ground.
This second butterfly is an eastern tailed blue. I was really excited when I first saw it fluttering around the blooming lupine. I had hoped that it might be a Karner blue. The Karner blue is a sub-population of the Melissa blue which lives in the great lakes area and is currently listed on the endangered species list. The caterpillar of the Karner blue only eats lupine so any blue that is sighted around lupine in this area could potentially be a Karner blue. Since this one had a small tail poking off the bottom of the wing, it is a bit tough to see at this angle, then it could not be a Karner but was either and eastern or western tailed blue. The western-tailed blue only has one orange dot on the lower wing so since this one had more then one it must be an eastern-tailed blue.

Turtle Symmetry

Although predators themselves dragonflies have many things that they need to be wary of. At Dodge Nature Center the dragons have to keep an eye on the sky, where birds and other dragons are a potential threat, and the other on the water, where larger fish, frogs and turtles, like the one below, are a danger.
When they are young painted turtles are mostly carnivorous, eating mainly beetles, maggots, and larvae, including dragonfly larvae. As they get older they become more omnivorous, at this point they mainly eat fish, insects, fruit, plants, and carrion. I took this pic because I loved the symmetry between the turtle and the log.

Midland Clubtail a Lifer Dragonfly

Not all of the dragonflies and damselflies that I found at Dodge Nature Center in mid June were common ones that I often see. That day was the day that I spotted my first clubtail. Clubtails are named such because of the enlarged, club looking, segments at the end of their abdomen. Clubtails are also one of the few types of dragonflies where there eyes do not meet at the top of their head, they are set more like damselfly eyes.
Although this species of clubtail, the midland clubtail, is not listed by the Minnesota Odonata Survey Project as a species of interest, species which are listed as special concern or rarely seen in Minnesota, several others are, such as the zebra clubtail, splendid clubtail, skillet clubtail and the least clubtail. Still this was the first one of this type that I have seen or in birding

world terms it was a lifer. One of the interesting things that I found out about the midland clubtail is that they are large, around 2.2 inches long, and are strong fliers. This allows them to prey on other dragonflies, not only the small species but also dragons as large as eastern pondhawks and twelve-spotted skimmers.

Familiar Bluet Damselfly at Dodge Nature Center

Although damselflies are quite common many people are not aware what a damselfly is. Many people mistake them for dragonflies. Although they are related to, and similar in appearance to dragonflies, there are a few distinct differences between them.

Damselflies are usually smaller and weaker fliers then dragonflies.
The eyes of the damselfly are separated and on the sides of the head while those of the dragonfly are closer together and more on the front of the face.
All four wings on the damselfly are the same size while the hindwing of dragonflies are larger at the base.
While at rest damselflies hold their wings up over their backs parallel to their body, except for the spreadwing damselflies, while dragonflies hold their wings out perpendicular to their body.
The familiar bluet are a fairly common damselfly that inhabit ponds and other marshy areas. The male familiar bluets, pictured above, have more blue then black on their abdomens with the eighth and ninth segments being entirely blue.
The female familiar bluet, the left most damselfly in the picture above, can be blue, tan or greenish with more black on the abdomen then the male, including black on the eighth and ninth segments.
Damselflies mate the same way that dragonflies do. The male begins by transferring sperm from his testes, under the ninth segment, to his hamulus, under the second segment. He then initiates the mating by grabbing the female by her thorax and head.
The male then begin to arch his abdomen downward while the female brings her abdomen up to the male's hamulus. This is called a wheel position and it is how copulation takes places. The pair will usually fly to a safe location or some dragonfly and damselfly copulate while in flight. This pair may have been attempting to get into the wheel position or they may have already been laying eggs with the male guarding the female. This type of guarding, where the male holds on to the female, is called contact guarding.

Most of this information came from the Minnesota Odonata Survey Project.

Birding Dodge Nature Center

While I did take quite a few dragonfly pics at the Dodge Nature Center, when I visited in mid June, I did get a few bird pics too.

Even though house wrens have a cheerful bubbly song they can be very aggressive and territorial during the nesting season. They will often work hard to prevent other cavity nesters from nesting in or near their territory. This may include filling empty potential cavity nesting sites with sticks or even breaking the eggs of other birds.
At Dodge there seems to be enough room for the house wrens and eastern bluebirds, a competing cavity nester, to coexist. The bluebirds seem to occupy at least one of the bird houses. Inside they will build a nest made of grass, sometimes they use pine needles however there are few pines in the area so they are most likely using grass, and line it with fine grass and feathers. The clutch is typically between 3 to 6 eggs which will hatch in about 12 to 18 days. The young fledge in about 17 to 20 days, sometimes the male will continue to feed the fledglings while the female begins another nest.

Over looking one of the many small ponds that are part of the nature center I found a green heron. Green herons spend much of their time foraging for small fish, frogs and insects at ponds, rivers and other marshy areas. A clever bird, they will sometimes drop bait, like worms, sticks or feathers, on to the water to attract fish or frogs to come to the surface.

I also spotted another member of the heron family at another pond. The great egret hunts its prey, mainly fish, frogs and reptiles, by stealthily wading through the water until it finds something to eat. At that point it will slowly move into position and then lunge forward with its beak to impale its prey.
Dodge has a pretty good population of wild turkeys. Last fall I found about 30 of them on one visit, most of them were females with only a few toms. On this trip their were 3 toms in the field right behind the headquarters building. Turkeys are not what most people would consider a beautiful bird but I like the way that they look in the sun light, their feathers get an almost metallic look to them.

Dot-tailed Whiteface at Dodge Nature Center

Another dragonfly that I saw quite a few of while visiting Dodge Nature Center in mid June is the dot-tailed whiteface.
This small, 1 5/16 to 17/16 inches, mostly black dragonfly is a member of the Libellulidae, or skimmer family. They are easily Identified by their white face and the square yellow spot on the top of the seventh abdominal segment.

Their preferred habitat is ponds or marshy lakes with heavy vegetation. They are frequently seen perched on algae mats or vegetation along the shore. They often use these perches to hunt their prey, which consists of soft-bodied insect such as mosquitoes, flies, mayflies, moths, and butterflies.
Mating typically occurs while the pair is perched near the waters edge. After mating the male will often guard the female as she lays her eggs by dipping her abdomen into the water while she hovers slightly above the surface. The male guards the female to prevent her from mating with competing males. Typically this type of dragon will watch the female by Hover Guarding. The male will hover or perch near where the female is laying her eggs so that he can attack and chase away rival males. On rare occasions a male may grab a competing male, pretty much the same way that he would hold his mate during copulation, and hold him until the female has completed laying her eggs. This type of guarding is known as karate guarding. Immature and female dot-tailed whiteface dragonflies often have more then one yellow dot on their abdomen, as pictured above.

Twelve-Spotted Skimmer Dragonfly

The dragonfly population, which had been some stagnant mostly due to the late winter that we had, seemed to explode in the middle of June. This was a good thing, as the birding had gotten a bit stagnant after the migration and there were few butterflies around to photograph.
So while I did shoot some bird pix, when I visited Dodge Nature Center at mid month I spent a lot more of my time photographing dragonflies.
One of the most common dragonflies around the Twin Cities so far this year is the twelve-spotted skimmer.
These fairly large dragonflies, up to about 2 inches long, are named for the dark spots on their wings. Each wing has three brown spots for a total of twelve total spots.
It is usually easy to identify the males by white spots in between the brown spots. The females are a bit more tricky because they have little to no white spots on their wings and resemble the female common whitetail dragonfly. However the twelve-spot females are typically larges and the yellow spots running down the sides of their abdomen line up in a fairly straight line. On the whitetails the yellow spots form a jagged line.

To Bee or not to Bee

Back in early 2007, when I first decided to start blogging I spent a lot of time trying to come up with the right name for my blog. It was very important for me to find the right name for the blog so I spent a couple of weeks coming up with ideas and then narrowing the choices down to just a few. In the end I decided on Ecobirder because of Michelle's recommendation. She liked Ecobirder because it described the main theme of the blog, which is birding, but also suggested the possibility of more. The eco portion of the name, which represents the environment, would be my excuse to run around places like Yellowstone, photographing and posting about other things in nature besides birds.

This turned out to be a good thing because last year I found that there are times when birding is not so sexy and it is hard to get the pictures that bring people back. That is when I began to expand and added posts and pics of butterflies and dragonflies.
Earlier this year I read an very interesting article in the Audubon Magazine May-June issue about bees. So when I was out at Dodge Nature Center at the beginning of June, and many of the wild flowers were in bloom, I decided that it would be fun and interesting to start taking some pics of bees and include them in the blog.
Honey bees like the ones above are very important to the environment. They are one of the primary ways that many plants get pollinated. Unfortunately over the past few years there has been a mysterious rash of honey bee colonies colapsing and dying off. No one knows for sure why this happens, although there are several theories, but it has a lot of people worried about possible food shortages in the future if the honey bee population continues to decline.
The article in the Audubon Magazine is about a study by researchers at Princeton University as well as visiting researcher Rachael Winfree into how much pollen is spread by native bees as compared with honey bees. They hope to find out if native bees, like the bumble bee above, can pick up the slack, or even replace if necessary, the honey bees if they continue to decline. You can read the article here.
Now that I have started to include bees on the blog what can be next, wild flowers?

Nesting House Wren at Dodge Nature Center

Once we had returned from Yellowstone most of the spring migration was over. Most of the colorful birds that I had enjoyed almost daily for several weeks had moved on to the north.
With out the variety of migration I had to look for interesting behavior from those birds that spent their summers in the area. In early June the most interesting behavior that I could find all revolved around mating and nesting.
For instance I came across this house wren working on a nest inside this tree cavity at the Dodge Nature Center on June 9th.
I first noticed it when it was out on one of the side branches of the tree singing in hopes of attracting a mate and to claim its territory. Since it was alone I am guessing that it is a male. Unlike the spotted sandpiper in the last post, the male house wren arrives in the breeding territory first. He then finds a suitable cavity and begins to fill it with sticks for nest building.
When he finds a female she will put the nest together and line it. House wrens also frequently nest in nesting boxes and have been known to puncture the eggs of other species of birds that they find in boxes. This behavior has helped them to increase their numbers across much of their range which stretches from Canada down to the tip of South America, depending upon the season.

Eastern Bluebird

We do not typically have mountain bluebirds in Minnesota to get confused with indigo buntings but we do have eastern bluebirds here. This year seems to be a good year for eastern bluebirds here in the Twin Cities. I have seen quite a few around this year. I photographed this bird at the Dodge Nature Center on June 9th.
Eastern bluebirds are cavity nesters and most of the bluebirds that I have seen this year have been close to locations where there are nesting box. Often the bluebirds have to compete for the boxes with other small cavity nesters, especially house sparrows, house wrens, and tree sparrows. This year it appears as though the bluebirds have been more successful in claiming nesting sites then they were last year, which has enabled me to get some nice photos.

Birding Close to Home.

I have been making a concerted effort to try and do more birding closer to home lately. This is partly to help the environment and partly to help my wallet. So far this has not been a problem since the warblers are migrating through the area and giving all of us birders plenty to look at and photograph. One place that I have been spending some more time at this year has been Dodge Nature Center. I visited Dodge on the first Saturday in May and had a pretty good day.
One thing that I have been seeing more of this year are female red-winged blackbirds. They have always been around in years past but the females typically are harder to spot. That is because they usually spend most of their time down in the reeds where their coloration helps to camouflage them. This year though it seems like I am seeing more of them out in the open. I am not sure why this is. Maybe the female red-winged blackbirds are sick of sitting in the shadows and want their turn in the light, they see a woman running for president this year and have decided that this is their year.

Some birds, like northern cardinals, are pretty common around here all year long, but that does not mean that if a cardinal gives me a great pose that I will not stop to take its pic.
White-breasted nuthatch are another year round resident.
Yellow-rumped warbles are now extremely common.
Palm warblers are fairly numerous right now also. They are usually the ones hoping around on the ground.
You can also tell the palm warblers by their typical little tail bopping.

The common yellowthroat is one of nine species of yellowthroats. They range through out the US and Canada, except the far north, during the summer and migrate to Mexico during the winter.
This photo is not great but it is not usually that easy to get a picture of a sora so I was happy just to get a recognizable photo. The sora is a member of the rail family. It lives in the cattails in fresh water mashes and is more usually heard then it is seen.
On the other hand wild turkeys have become quite plentiful around here. Each evening they can be seen in fields through out most of the state.
A pleasant surprise on this evening was spotting a coopers hawk out on the prowl. I was able to get a couple of shots as it flew over head.
Coopers hawks are part of the accipiter family of hawks. Accipiters have rounded wings just like other hawks, buteos, do but the wings are shorter and their tails are longer. This gives them more maneuverability when they fly which they need since much of their diet consists of small birds. The other accipiters that are native to North America would be the sharp-shinned hawk and the goshawk.

The birds were not the only thing out on that evening. Reptiles, like these painted turtles, are cold blooded and can not regulate their body temperature on there own. That is why you can often see them out sunning themselves on nice days.
As dusk approached the white-tailed deer began to come out. Minnesota has an over abundance of white-tailed deer. This is due to loss of natural predators like timber wolves and bear. Hunting helps to curve some of the over population. Even though I have never hunted and I am not a very big fan of hunting, it is more merciful to put some deer down quick through hunting then to allow them to starve to death in the winter because there is not enough food to support the large population. However many of the deer have gotten smart and live inside the city limits where hunting is not allowed.