I've been monarch ranching for awhile, but I've always wanted to ranch some swallowtails. Some species of swallowtail caterpillars feed on parsley. Earlier this spring, I found out that we had accidentally had a black swallowtail living in our apartment (we guess it came in as a caterpillar on some of Cinnamon's parsley) but I wanted to it right this summer, and find the caterpillar and watch it grow. Mr. Neil has some parsley (above) in his garden, so I decided to see if I could find swallowtail caterpillars on that. I find that locating caterpillars takes a long time the first time you look for them, but once you find them, your eyes become trained and in the future, they are easier to find. I sat down and studied the parsley.
After a good ten minutes of study, I found six small caterpillars. They looked nothing like any of the swallowtail caterpillars in my books. I looked up the general characteristics of the black swallowtail: caterpillars are found on parsley (check), on the top side of the leaf (check), and early stages resembles bird poop (check). But still, if you look at what a large black swallowtail looks like, the books show you this. This tiny thing doesn't look like that at all. Fortunately, with the magic of google, you can narrow your search of images on the internet and I found photos of young black swallowtail caterpillars and they look just like what I found in the above photo--success, we have swallowtails!
I took four of the six swallowtail caterpillars and put them in my butterfly pavilion. You can see a water bottle inside, holding a bunch of curly parsley for them to feed off of, right along side a water bottle full of milkweed and monarch caterpillars. Next to the pavillion is a bunch of milk weed in a different water bottle--those are plants with monarch eggs on them. I keep the eggs separate until the caterpillars hatch so I don't confuse leaves with eggs with the leaves for feeding. Should be an interesting couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, we've had an early sampling of our dangerous honey from the Olga hive. Mr. Neil told us to mix some of our honey and comb with some plain Greek yogurt. YUM!
It's like a decadent dessert, only it's yogurt...and honey... from our own bees--that's got to be healthy, right?
Don't forget, tonight at 6pm is Birds and Beers (a gathering of birders to have a drink and talk some birds) at Merlin's Rest. People of all abilities are encouraged to come, if you're interested in birds, you're invited. Non Birding Bill will also be there too, so if you want to bring a non birding spouse, bring 'em along.
Here's the announcement on Merlin's Rest website:
Tuesday: The Birds and the Beers! Join the Birdchick, our ornithologist publican (John Dingley), our ornithologist bartender Bob, and many others for an informal gathering of birdwatchers and enthusiasts. And did you know that Minnesota has its own ornithologists union? Check ‘em out. Smart folks and great photos in their gallery.
I think I need to put a clarification up before I go further with this post. Mr. Neil has cats. I have given him all the information on the Cats Indoors Campaign, and some of his cats are strictly indoor cats, however one cat in particular cannot be an indoor cat (Mr. Neil readers know him as Fred the unlucky cat). Please do not bombard him with info on Cats Indoors, he knows it, I know it--we've discussed it, especially after the time when young Fred showed up with four puncture marks on his hind quarters in the shape of great horned owl talons. And yes, in a perfect world for me, all cats would be indoors--however, who out there lives a perfect world? It's not always an easy task to turn a free roaming outdoor cat into an indoor cat. We're not going to change every mind in one night and we're not going to get every cat out of the wild by tomorrow morning. We do what we can, as we can, and the Cats Indoors campaign is a gradual effort.
That said, Fred is an outdoor cat who lives in the garage. There is a special cat door that only opens when Fred is standing in front of it, he has a special sensor on his collar that causes it to open. We keep all of the bird seed in the garage (and beekeeping equipment). Recently, something has been coming into the garage and living large in the bird seed--most likely a raccoon. The only way that I could find that they could be getting inside, would be the cat door, I'm sure raccoon claws could outsmart a sensor. We have a motion sensitive game camera and set that up:
Raccoon one (apparently wearing a monacle) came in through the door. I had the camera too close to the cat door and the flash WAY over exposed all the images. Non Birding Bill did a lot of tweaking to get them to this state.
Raccoon two came into join the party. If one has figured it out, it's not long before others follow.
And raccoon number three--this one appears to be smaller than the first two. So far these three have kept there shenanigans to the bird seed and have left the bee supplies along. I'm not sure what the next step is going to be. On of Mr. Neil's readers has suggested a door that uses image recognition software. I suggested leaving Cabal, his large white german shepherd in the garage for a few nights.
And so, here is one of the coons leaving, a little fatter. Perhaps they will eat so much they will not fit through the door--much in the same way Pooh got stuck in Rabbit's hole after eating too much honey.
And yet another grasshopper sparrow, they are everywhere I go, I can't escape them. I've seen them before, but not like this summer. I don't know if I'm just paying more attention or if we are having a bumper crop of grasshopper sparrows...or if aliens from some distant planet are trying to send me a message about saving the planet via grasshopper sparrow (although, that would seem to me to be an unreliable messenger).
You can tell this press release about Cape May Bird Observatory's new website was sent by a hardcore birder: "Since you all have blogs and/or have close connections to Cape May I thought you might like to take a look at the site..... and in the event that you might be looking for something to write about given the slow nature of the summer......."
Slow nature of summer? Not in my neck of the woods! There's always some birding happening (and now bees--and some new caterpillar madness had started which I'll be talking about soon). Oh, how my grasshoppery ways have caught up to me this last week--sheesh. Here it is Monday, and I have bloggin' left over from last Friday.
So, Friday at Carpenter was a first for me--banding a tiny bird. Usually, at Carpenter, I'm happy to lurk and watch the pros but the bands swiftly on the birds. I enjoy trying to get the birds out of the net and bringing them in, but I always felt my place at the table was to just promote all the cool things that they do. I'm used to banding large birds, but not the tiny ones, so I have avoided actually pacing a band on a bird. Friday that changed. There have been offers before, but every time I always answer, "Oh, let's wait for a cowbird, let me practice on a cowbird, not a chickadee or goldfinch."
Friday, Jen Veith, the Development Director and experienced bander would not take no for an answer and had me band my first tiny bird--a house wren--man oh man, talk about a really tiny bird to band! Larry took a photo of this momentous occasion (above photo). It all happened so fast, and I was so freaked about not breaking one of those tiny wings, or legs that I barely remember it.
Up next was a house finch. Larry helped supervise the banding of that bird. You will note that we are doing these outside. Jen recommended that the first few times I band birds outside, that way, if I accidentally let one go, it won't risk injury by hitting walls and windows indoors. I was much more comfortable putting the band on this one.
Here I am taking the wing cord--fancy talk for measuring the wing. This house finch was a hatch year bird (hatched this year) and we couldn't tell if it was male or female. I measured the wings, all went well and the bird flew away.
Since many of the birds I have banded (pelicans, hawks) it's still hard for me to get the songbird bander's grip down: holding the bird in my left hand with it's back to my palm, it's head between my index and middle fingers, also holding it's chest. With my small hands, the finch and wren fit easily in my hand...
Then came a much larger hairy woodpecker--not so easy to hold in one hand--good grief, how will I ever hold a blue jay in one hand? This bird we could tell was female and were able to determine her age by her eye color (brown to grayish brown indicates that this bird was hatched either last year or this year). She also had a brood patch for incubating eggs and chicks, which she wouldn't have if she hatched this year, so that means she is a second year bird--she was hatched last year.
In between teaching me how to band, Larry got to band an eastern phoebe. I took a picture with his new Sony digital camera--it's got a pretty good macro feature--look at that feather detail. While we were taking this photo, the phoebe flapped a few times, and each time we heard a rapid clicking noise--phoebe's snap their bill when agitated--just like owls do! I never knew they did that. Of course, I've never had the opportunity to make a phoebe angry.
After banding, Jen and I explored the prairie area at Carpenter--loaded with grasshopper sparrows (another one above) and sedge wrens. Jen and I came upon a family of grasshopper sparrows, and the young were just learning to fly. It was a hoot to watch their labored flights around us and then the oh so awkward landing on what looked like a sturdy perch but turned out to be a wobbly prairie flower. About as graceful as a girl in her first pair of high heels.
There was also a pair of eastern meadowlarks scolding us, we must have been too close to their nests. It would be fun sometime to move the banding operation out to the prairie and get some bands on the birds out here.
I picked Ornithoblog for the 8 Random Facts Meme and he asked me translate. My French is a tad rusty, but here are what I think his 8 random things are translated into English. If anyone out there finds fault with my translations--please let me know:
1. I bungee jumped the highest bridge in Europe at 182 meters.
7. I like to walk in the woods and along water's edge
8. I have been attack by a vulture (in a park), a pony and by a buzzard (hawk?) (it got me on top of my dark blue bike) but people are usually bit by poodes.
I'm not 100% sure on all of the translation there...especially the one about the concubine. Maybe that's just a pet name for his girlfriend? NBB has called me an infamous creature, I'm sure that can lose something in the translation. Again, if anyone wants to help in my translations, I welcome it. It's been awhile since my last French class.
Non Birding Bill and I headed out to check the status of the Kitty hive. Last time, we had placed a new queen in a cage inside the queenless hive. The cage opening was covered with hard candy. The workers were supposed to chew their way inside and by the time they got to her, the whole hive would be under the spell of the new queen's pheromone.
When we took out the frame with the queen cage, several bees were gathered around the queen, a good sign. They didn't appear to be attacking the cage, but VERY interested as to what was inside. I decided to remove the cage from the wax to see if the queen was still inside.
You can see on the side of the box is a piece of tape with a hole chewed through it. Behind the tape is the cage's opening. The opening is jammed with hard candy. The hole in the tape and the tunnel in the candy tells us that the workers have been trying to get the queen out--and have almost made it all the way through.
If you look at the workers on the side of the cage, you can see their proboscis is out to feed the queen nectar through the screen--they look like they are ready to serve under her rule. We did one more test. I had NBB smoke the cage to remove all the workers and we waited to see how long it would take for the workers to come to her again. Not long! They came to the cage before I had a chance to turn on my camera. Watch them come to the queen:
I think it's safe to say that they are assimilated to her. We put her in on Tuesday and here it is, Saturday afternoon and they are all over her cage, and have almost chewed their way through the hard candy. I decided to go ahead and open up the queen cage like we did when we first installed the bees in April. I'm an old pro at that now. I gave NBB the camera and had him make a video of this momentous occasion:
Did you catch what happened there? In case you missed it, that big bee flying away above my hand in the last few seconds of the video is our queen, flying away. HOLY CRAP! That wasn't supposed to happen! As soon as the camera was off, she flew to the right, I almost had her in my hand. She landed on one of the brood boxes. I went to get her and then she flew behind NBB and I lost track of her. It was not unlike the moment in A Christmas Story when Ralphie lost all the screws when he and his dad were changing the tire and he said in slow motion, "Oooooooooooh Fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge."
Only, I didn't say "fudge." Imagine the worst profanity you can think of and that's pretty much what I said at that moment. What else could possibly go wrong with the Kitty hive? I briefly thought back to just a scant two months ago when Olga was the problem child.
Then, I immediately switched gears to problem solving mode, and thought back to the beekeeping class I took. The instructors warned us that this could happen when we would be hiving our new packages and releasing the queen. They said the thing to do is just stand where you are when the queen left and wait for fifteen minutes. The queen who just flew off is full of eggs and ready to lay and therefore, kinda heavy. She can't fly far and as she leaves she will realize that this isn't really what she wants, she's not going to find what she's looking for on this flight and back track. She'll look for familiar objects from where she she started--what could be more noticeable than two giants dressed all in white?
We stood and waited. I noticed when she flew that she was obviously larger than the workers and flew like a drone--slow and heavy. I went behind NBB to see if I could find her clinging to any nearby bushes, but didn't see her. NBB and I still waited. A large bee flew by my head, I watched it land at the entrance--drat, it was only a drone. The noon time sun combined with my tension of wondering if the queen would come back started to form sweat along my forehead and back. I kept remembering what the instructors told us, that the queen would come back, even if we didn't see her. After fifteen minutes, go ahead and close up the hive, she was probably in there. Although, those instructions were for installing a package in April when there were no leaves on the trees, no flowers, and much cooler weather. This was a warm, sunny day, with clover all around, and trees chock full of leaves--perfect for a queen to hide. Would the same strategy work?
Another large bee bounced off my hood, I watched it fly low to the ground, and then to the entrance. Another #$%& drone.
I started to form another strategy in head. The queen dealer wasn't far, maybe I could pick up another queen and start all over? Boy, that would be embarrassing to explain that I lost another queen. Although, I prudently hadn't killed the queen cell with an egg that we found last week, maybe I could just go with that plan? Suddenly, a large bee came from behind NBB, it was heavy and slow, and very tan. It landed right on the frame where the queen cage had been. Could it be? Was it really? YES! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes yes! The queen came back! Of course, we videoed her triumphant return:
I'm sure we only waited for less than five minutes, but I have to say that it felt like we were waiting for an hour! In case you are having trouble viewing her in the video, I did get photos:
She's right in the middle of the photo, surrounded by attendants. Note how her abdomen extends well past her wings. She's also much lighter in color than the original Queen Kitty. We have noticed that our workers in both hives have been changing colors. This hive started with lighter bees and now has darker bees, I'm sure it has to do with what types of drones the queen was mated with. The queen dealer told me that he had mated this queen with a variety of males, including a couple of carniolan drones which should bring me some colorful workers. Since carniolans are black, I wonder if the original Queen Kitty was carniolan?
Anyway, help us, Queen Kitty II, you're our only hope. The workers will show her around, she'll get rid of any queen cells in progress, and commence to layin' some eggs. Man, oh man, what nail biter that hive visit was.
In other news, the Olga hive continues to be a model of good bee behavior. We got in our new Ross Rounds comb honey super and are going to try that since we are having so many problems with the original comb honey kit. I'm happy to report that not only did the Ross Rounds kit come with instructions (unlike the other kit) but it was already assembled. Since I didn't want to waste time, we didn't paint it, but added it right to the Olga hive. You can tell the Ross super from the rest because it's not painted. Here's hoping we get some good old honey out of that.
I love celebrities who have a sense of humor about themselves. It's an admirable quality. The US readers of this blog may not have seen it, I've been chuckling about since I found it on You Tube last month (it's about five and a half minutes):
A question came up in the previous entry about banding young raptors, do we worry about being bit and do we band the adults (and if so, how do you get the adults)?
Let's talk about handling raptors: If you have ever noticed from my fall hawk banding photos, we always are holding the hawks and falcons by the feet. It's the same with the young osprey, note Reier in the above photo. It looks like he is cuddling the bird, but he's keeping the feet safely away from his body and since the bird is pressed to his body, that prevents it from flapping around.
We're not really worried about the the hooked beak. The feet on raptors are the business end of the bird--their powerful toes are what separates them from other predatory birds--they grab and kill with their toes. So, when a raptor (eagle, hawk, owl, falcon, kite) feel threatened, their instinct is to always defend or attach with their toes and sharp talons. The beak is a last resort, it's too close to their eyes, and eyes are so crucial to their hunting ability that they don't want to risk putting them near danger.
In the last few years, researchers have also been taking blood samples from the birds. This could be useful for future DNA studies--especially if the populations fall low again and a reintroduction is necessary. Again, in the above photo, note how Amber is holding the young osprey's feet, and has her other hand over the bird's chest to hold it in place while mark takes its blood. Osprey are about five weeks old when we band them, they have learned to stand up and walk a little, but their wing muscles are weak. They also haven't figured out quite what their feet are for. As we are holding them, sometimes they will weakly and slowly make grabs with their toes, but they aren't nearly as swift and as strong as the adults.
Even when its time to put the bands on the legs, one person needs to hold the large chick while another places the band on the legs. Above, Amber holds the bird and feet steady as Mark places the band on the young osprey. Already, osprey banding is a two person job. However, that's just putting the bands on--getting the chicks out of the nest is another matter altogether. You either need...
...a cherry picker to donate their time and truck to go up and retrieve the chicks and put them back. Or you will need...
...a professional tree climber to donate their time and skills to go up and retrieve the chicks. It's a group effort to band osprey--at least two to three people are needed. Note that the climber in the above photo is also having to climb past a slick metal raccoon baffle to to get to the top.
As to the adults, they don't band them anymore in Minnesota. They used to do that when they first started the reintroduction program in the Twin Cities, but I've never observed it. To my understanding, it's not easy. It's not like other raptors where you can put out a bait pigeon and some mist nests--osprey only eat fresh (live) fish. From what I understand, they would take one of the education eagles from The Raptor Center and perch it out near the osprey nest. The adult osprey would fly in to chase off the eagle and either get tangled in nets surrounding the eagle, or some other type of trap. I remember a few times that adult osprey were brought in to TRC from banding because after they trapped it, they found fish hooks in their talons and were able to remove them and return the adults to the nest that day.
And for those curious, no education eagles or wild osprey were hurt or got hold of each other during the banding process.
Now, on to get check the the doin's a transpirin' out at the Kitty hive.
I don't know how many of you readers have been following the Zickefoose Blog about blogging styles: as a blogger, are you an ant (writing posts ahead of time and having a store of well thought out, well written, typo free entries) or are you a grasshopper (posting as the muse strikes you, never bothering to have a larder of entries)? If you haven't been able to catch on by my typos, I am very much a grasshopper. I would say that for the most part, that works for me. However this week, the blogging has been a struggle. Nor for lack of inspiration--but lack of time and alertness to do many posts. I have a back log of entries.
Now, on to Thursday's osprey banding:
My friends, Amber and Reier picked me up Thursday morning for some osprey banding with Mark Martell. We stopped at four different nests and had some interesting discoveries.
Nest 1: only one chick to band (mark did two nests on Sunday and each had three chicks) and the adult female had a transmitter on her back--she's from Milwaukee. Can you see the chick in the nest in this photo? When the osprey parents call the warning, the chicks go flat like a pancake, this only shows their brown feathers and hides the white feathers. To a passing aerial predator, the nest would look empty.
Nest 2: three chicks, one died as soon as it was taken out of the nest--very similar to what happened in 2005. The necropsy of the 2005 chick showed that it was severely weakened from a liver problem and that it died from cardiac arrest. The stress of being taken from the nest killed it, but had it been healthy to begin with it, then it would have survived the banding. The problem that the chick had would have killed it either before it left the nest or not soon after. I have a feeling, the necropsy for this bird will show that they same thing happened. Bummer.
Nest 3: Two healthy chicks. Although, besides just the pair of adults screaming at us as we banded, a third flew over and joined in the screaming and yelling. You should be able to see three birds in the above photo, flying in the sky.
Nest 4: Empty. What was interesting about this nest was that chicks were observed in the nest this past Sunday but a mere four days later they were gone. It was way too soon for them to have left the nest and even still, there should have been some osprey activity and it was dead quiet. A new eagle nest was built withing half mile of the osprey nest and Mark speculated that the eagles at the chicks sometime between Sunday and Thursday (guess the pancake defense didn't work so well that time). Talk about getting two birds with one stone (harhar)--they get to juicy birds as well as cut back some of the competition for fish in the lake.
Sometimes great horned owls will take osprey chicks, but they aren't strong enough to carry the body away and eat it right in the nest. An eagle, is much larger and can easily carry an osprey chick. The lack of feathers and body parts in the nest points the finger to the eagle.
For me, the best part of the day was at the Lake Josephine nest. There were some kids who came to watch the banding and while this bird waited its turn to be banded, I let them touch it and even better--smell it. Since osprey only eat fish, they have a very distinct aroma. They also became our helpers, holding the bands and other equipment before we put them on the birds. They did a good job. Perhaps future naturalists?
And, because I feel like everywhere I go, I'm finding grasshopper sparrows, I'll include the above photo. This bird was near one of the osprey nests, perched on top of a sapling covered with a plastic tube (to keep deer from chewing it) and then covered with netting on top (to keep bluebirds from going into the tube looking for nest cavities and getting stuck). It tried not to move, hoping I wouldn't notice it just sitting there with some incredibly incriminating billful of food, on its way to feed a nest of hungry chicks. I was more entranced by the insect that whipped around in the tiny bill. I wonder what it was?
I keep trying to do a blog entry about osprey banding today, but I keep finding ticks. I've lost count of how many I have found crawling on me and I'm not sure what's more disturbing: the number of ticks I keep finding or the fact that I've been out of a tick area for over six hours and I'm still finding them. Why are they just crawling on me, why aren't they latched on? Am I not to their taste or is something wrong my blood?
I've been monarch ranching for awhile, but I've always wanted to ranch some swallowtails. Some species of swallowtail caterpillars feed on parsley. Earlier this spring, I found out that we had accidentally had a black swallowtail living in our apartment (we guess it came in as a caterpillar on some of Cinnamon's parsley) but I wanted to it right this summer, and find the caterpillar and watch it grow. Mr. Neil has some parsley (above) in his garden, so I decided to see if I could find swallowtail caterpillars on that. I find that locating caterpillars takes a long time the first time you look for them, but once you find them, your eyes become trained and in the future, they are easier to find. I sat down and studied the parsley.
After a good ten minutes of study, I found six small caterpillars. They looked nothing like any of the swallowtail caterpillars in my books. I looked up the general characteristics of the black swallowtail: caterpillars are found on parsley (check), on the top side of the leaf (check), and early stages resembles bird poop (check). But still, if you look at what a large black swallowtail looks like, the books show you this. This tiny thing doesn't look like that at all. Fortunately, with the magic of google, you can narrow your search of images on the internet and I found photos of young black swallowtail caterpillars and they look just like what I found in the above photo--success, we have swallowtails!
I took four of the six swallowtail caterpillars and put them in my butterfly pavilion. You can see a water bottle inside, holding a bunch of curly parsley for them to feed off of, right along side a water bottle full of milkweed and monarch caterpillars. Next to the pavillion is a bunch of milk weed in a different water bottle--those are plants with monarch eggs on them. I keep the eggs separate until the caterpillars hatch so I don't confuse leaves with eggs with the leaves for feeding. Should be an interesting couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, we've had an early sampling of our dangerous honey from the Olga hive. Mr. Neil told us to mix some of our honey and comb with some plain Greek yogurt. YUM!
It's like a decadent dessert, only it's yogurt...and honey... from our own bees--that's got to be healthy, right?
