Parasites

We recently went hiking at a newer acquisition to the Door County Land Trust - Bear Creek Nature Preserve.  While there our guide explained for us a couple of common parasites that make use of all of the Canada Goldenrod that is feeding the bumble bees this time of year.  The following photos were from our walk here on Saturday.

The structure at the top of the stalk is a goldenrod bunch gall or goldenrod rosette gall. It is caused by a tiny insect called the goldenrod bunch gall midge - Rhopalomyia solidaginis.

In early to mid-summer a female midge lays an egg in the top (terminal) leaf bud of the plant stem.  As the larva hatches and feeds, chemical secretions interfere with the normal growth signals of the plant.  Instead of the stem growing taller it arrests the plant growth and produces a dense, rose-like cluster of short leaves.  

The midge pupa overwinters in its chamber deep within the rosette, pupates the following spring and emerges as an adult.  The midge gets free shelter, protection from predators, hijacks the plants resources for food and prevents it from flowering and producing seeds like a healthy plant.

You've likely spotted this before; it is called a goldenrod ball gall or stem gall.  It is caused by the goldenrod gall fly - Eurosta solidaginis.  It is another parasite.

In late spring a female gall fly lays a single egg inside the growing stem of the goldenrod.  After it hatches, chemical compounds secreted by the maggot's saliva mimic the plant's growth hormones.  This triggers the plant to grow a dense, corky ball of nutrient-rich tissue surrounding the insect. The larva chews an escape tunnel before snowfall, overwinters inside the sphere and by springtime the pupated adult fly escapes.  Most of the time.

Further evidence that only the strong survive and weak are killed an eaten; the parasitic gall fly is the target of another parasite. 

A small wasp - Eurytoma gigantea uses its ovipositor (egg-laying tube) to lay an egg with the fly larva.  Upon hatching, the wasp larva consumes the fly larva, takes over the gall for the winter and emerges as an adult the following spring.  Take that!

It's not over yet.  Overwintering chickadees and woodpeckers easily locate these round spheres and will peck into them to feast on the fat, protein-rich larva inside.

It's a rough world in nature and a fascinating food web.

Take A Hike

From yesterday. 

By 10 am the rain stopped and skies cleared.

Bumble bees galore gorging on golden rod.

Great day for a hike.

Door County Land Trust: Bear Creek Nature Preserve   

 

Native Blooms

From our walk yesterday we found some Bottle Gentian (Gentiana andrewsii) also known as the closed bottle gentian.  This native wildflower is characterized by its blue-to-purple blooms that never actually open.  This unusual feature serves as a barrier to keep out smaller, nectar-seeking insects.

Because the flowers remain sealed the plant relies almost exclusively on larger bumble bees for pollination.  Bumble bees are big and strong enough to force the petals apart and crawl inside.

As a reward for this herculean effort is the high sugar (40% to 45%) content nectar.  Think of it like a high-energy soft drink for the bumble bee.

An additional trait is visual signaling.  Flowers with white tips signal that nectar is available while blooms that have transitioned to pink or purple signal that a bee has already paid a call and exhausted the nectar within.

If you're interested enter the word gentian in the search box located in the upper left corner of the blog homepage.

Fungus Among Us

From our walk today there were fungi; everywhere on the trails. 

The first one is possibly a Shaggy Mane and the orange one is likely a Jack-o’-Lantern.  

The remaining ones are anybody’s guess. I’m not picking them. 

Ran the trail camera trapline too.

Stay-tuned…

Mighty Oak

While working last weekend on the construction of a deer stand on the lean-to of the barn (granary) I spied this.

A tiny oak seedling seeking freedom thru the crack in the deck.

Imagine that.

An acorn likely gathered and secreted by a critter in its lair beneath the porch decking.

Against the foundation, middle of the deck, the acorn germinates in near darkness.

Miraculously, it seeks and follows the smallest amount of sunlight filtering through the crack.

And emerges triumphantly into daylight.

Astonishingly, this happens to be the little oak that beat nature's odds.

I'm not betting on it's long term plans for survival or its options; but I'm gonna leave it be for the present.

Some things in nature never cease to amaze me....

  

Situational Awareness

We happen to have plenty of pollinators winging around the joint.  Naturally, that is a consequence of creating conditions conducive to supporting them; namely habitat.

Anecdotally, it seems to me the numbers have diminished over the years and have dropped-off from the high water mark of 2019.  Don't take my word for it, if you peruse the labels located in the left margin of the blog homepage anything to do with Monarchs or Butterfly Biology is clustered over a handful of years six to nine years ago.  Of course it's also possible my taste for insect subject matter has changed too.  Nevertheless, my anecdotal observation on the raw numbers seems pretty solid.

Anyway, a few days ago The Missus was potting some plants on the picnic table and spotted this newly-emergent monarch sitting of the driveway beneath the table drying its wrinkly wings.  Under ordinary circumstances this moment would pass entirely unobserved.

Likely the first generation born of an earlier migrator.  

You can learn more about the generations of Monarch butterflies here.  And pay attention to what's going around in the natural world.  Situational awareness you know.... 

Summer Solstice

Solstice Stone - Stonehenge, UK

Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice here in the northern hemisphere which means that on Sunday we receive more sunlight than any other day of the year.  Naturally, you would conclude that this date would have the earliest sunrise and latest sunset, no?  

Don't jump to conclusions.  Even though the solstice has the greatest amount of daylight - the earliest sunrise occurs before the solstice and the latest sunset falls afterward.  The occurrence of those events is dependent upon how far you are from the equator – a function of the tilt of the Earth on its axis.  

Here is an interesting factoid – I went to the US Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department and looked-up the Sunrise and Sunset times for my location here at The Platz before, during and after the solstice. 

June 17 Sunrise 5:03 Am Sunset 8:38 PM

June 18 Sunrise 5:03 AM Sunset 8:38 PM

June 19 Sunrise 5:03 AM Sunset 8:38 PM

June 20 Sunrise 5:03 AM Sunset 8:39 PM

June 21 Sunrise 5:03 AM Sunset 8:39 PM

June 22 Sunrise 5:04 AM Sunset 8:39 PM

June 23 Sunrise 5:04 AM Sunset 8:40 PM

June 24 Sunrise 5:04 AM Sunset 8:40 PM

                                       June 25 Sunrise 5:04 AM Sunset 8:40 PM

Notice that the three dates preceding the solstice have almost the same amount of daylight.  The implication is that the solstice lasts more than half a week. 

 

What's the explanation?  Does it have something to do with our location being almost equidistant from the North Pole and Equator?  Or is it a consequence of rounding the precise times?

 

The notion that the solstice lasts for a few days or a week is a very common perception that even ancient astronomers noted.  But mechanically-speaking, it's a beautifully precise illusion caused by trigonometry and orbital mechanics.  

 

The earth orbits the sun in a smooth, continuous curve.  Because the earth is tilted on its axis by 23.5 degrees the angle of the sun relative to earth's equator (called solar declination) changes throughout the year.  If you plot this change on a graph over 365 days it forms a sine wave.

 

At the Equinoxes the curve is at its steepest.  The sun's position changing rapidly every day meaning you notice significant differences in daylight length from one week to the next.

 

At the solstices the curve reaches its absolute peak (or trough).  In calculus and trigonometry the top of the smooth curve has a slope of zero.  As the earth approaches this peak the daily rate of change slows to a crawl. 

 

During the days immediately preceding and following the solstice the difference in length of daylight is measured in seconds (not minutes); consequently, to our everyday clocks and senses it appears static.

 

While the "effect" of the solstice lingers for about a week, the astronomical event itself happens in a precise fraction of a second.  That exact moment is when the earth's axial tilt is inclined closest (or farthest) from the sun.  It is a single point in time occurring simultaneously for everyone on earth regardless of time zone.  For me that is June 21, 3.25 AM CDT.

Apologies for making your head hurt.

Death To The Invader

Monday brought another bad day for phragmites, reed canary grass and woody invasives out back in the prairie planting.    

Following a prescribed burn in May of 2020 we invited a field team from Robert E. Lee and Associates to return in late summer to perform follow-up chemical treatment.

Since then we've been on a twice a year cycle - spring and fall.    

If you're wondering why I don't just do this myself the short answer is that I probably could - but I'd be breaking the law.  Because the work is performed in a delineated wetland habitat only licensed applicators can pull a permit from Wisconsin DNR and perform the work.  You know me - I'm all about doing things on the up and up. Pulling, cutting and treating other invasives located in less sensitive locations remain my responsibility.

While crew members periodically returned to their truck to refill backpack sprayers with herbicide I chatted it-up with some of them and took the opportunity to look around the pollinator habitat in the immediate yard to see if we had any early bloomers.

Sure enough; there was Ohio spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis)

And Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea)

Both of these are native perennial wildflowers.  And I missed a shot of a monarch butterfly on the plant in the photo above.  Oh well.  

You can learn more about NES Ecological Services here

Meanwhile, Death To The Invaders! 

More Spring Blooms

More evidence that you don't have to walk very far to take-in more of Ma Nature's work just take a stroll around the yard to take it in.  

We planted this tree in the front yard twenty-two years ago.  It was one year-old bare root stock; a pencil-size twig.  And for the longest time we never thought it would amount to anything.

It's grown into a handsome young oak tree. The species is Northern Pin Oak (Quercus ellipsoidalis) commonly known as a Hill's oak.

Only a few weeks ago I noticed that the tree had large numbers of catkins hanging from the branches as the leaves of 2026 emerged from their buds.

Yes, oak trees have blossoms too.  These are one of the flowers that are produced by a tree – the male flower to be certain.  This species is monoecious – meaning that it produces both male and female flowers.  Each male flower typically has six stamens (ranges from two to twelve) which have long spreading white filaments when the flower fully opens.  The female flowers are more reddish-green and appear as small slender spikes in the axils of new growth.  

I gave this tree a thorough examination and could find no flowers of the female persuasion. Not surprising inasmuch as they are not visible to the naked eye.  Doh!

Anyway, last week there was this...

click on image for a closer look

The male catkin flowers are still there and If you look carefully you can see itty-bitty immature acorns beginning to develop from the female flowers. 

Those acorns will mature by the close of summer and the critters will hoover them up. 

Chorale

Further evidence that there is more sign of spring and less of winter there is this chorus in the evening.  

They’ve been singing for almost a couple weeks now unless the overnight temps drop to freezing.  If I step out on the porch, rap on a pillar and in my deepest director voice announce:  ‘AHEM!’  The chorus stops immediately.

It resumes in short order so clearly sway over my subjects is limited; consequently I’ll not let my authority go to my head.

I recorded this last Sunday evening - so turn-up the volume for some chorus frogs. 

(The flashing hazard lights emit from towers on Brussels Hill)

 

Late Summer Blooms

From our walk there is this. 

Prairie Dock - Silphium terebinthinaceum.  Also commonly called rosin weed.  It is a sunflower-like plant it can grow to a height of 9 feet. With a 14 foot tap root it is exceedingly drought-resistant and can flourish for decades. 

The plant gets the name rosin weed because it produces a sweet-smelling resin when injured. While Prairie Rosin weed is the correct name for this specific plant, there are other plants called rosin weed that are different species within the same genus, Silphium. 

It is just now beginning to come on-line and pollinators are attracted to it as it blooms for more than a month. Birds love the seeds.

When we planted our prairie 20 years ago this species was not in the seed mix.  Like several other species it has found its way here and established itself on its own.

Bonus! 

 

The Power of Observation

From an earlier walk we found this perfectly camouflaged katydid perfectly blending in with the shadows.

 

Autumn

From our walk this morning there was more than a whiff of autumn in the air.

There was also silky dogwood - Cornus amomum.

This deciduous shrub has an open-rounded form and features tiny yellowish-white flowers in flat-topped clusters in late spring to early summer, followed by attractive berry-like drupes that ripen from white to blue in late summer.

It is typically found in moist lowland areas, such as swamp borders, floodplains, and along streams and ponds.

The berries are edible for birds and wildlife. The berries can be used in teas or other preparations when ripe but are otherwise toxic to people. 

Late Summer Blooms

From our walk there was white turtlehead (Chelone glabra) is a native perennial wildflower known for its distinctive white, two-lipped flowers that resemble a turtle's head. It thrives in moist to wet soils, such as those found in swamps, stream banks, and rain gardens, and prefers full sun to partial shade. This plant is a valuable host for the Baltimore Checkerspot butterfly and attracts pollinators like bumblebees and hummingbirds.

 

Summer Blooms And A Bonus

From our walk yesterday morning it was much warmer.  Nevertheless, there was Great Blue Lobelia, bumblebees on Joe Pye Weed and Pileated Woodpecker wood working.  They'll keep at it until they disassemble that snag.

 

Trails and wildlife openings are complete! 

 

Situational Awareness

From our walk this morning we found swamp and bur oak acorns.  The critters gonna love all this mast.

And the big bluestem was pollinating. 

Yes, grass pollinates.

It costs nothing to be aware of the natural world... 

Wildflower Blooms

From our walk this morning, and thanks to the newly-cleared trails, we added some new finds to our growing list of natural stuff…

Cardinal Flower

Wild Quinine (Feverfew)

Nodding Pink Onion (Lady's Leeks)

And a Yellow Garden Spider snacking on its prey 

Two Rainbows In Two Weeks

Alerted by multiple cell phone audible alerts a fast-moving July storm moved thru quickly this evening at the start of our Lions Club meeting.

And after all the ruckus was over on my way home I was greeted with this.

A doubler. 

When you live in Flyover Country the panoramic views are far better than in an urban setting.  Two rainbows in two weeks.

Ma Nature smiled on the landscape with her all-clear sign….

Thunder Month

The full moon we experienced last Thursday is sometimes called the Thunder Moon.  This is as a consequence of weather patterns in our hemisphere being the stormiest in the month of July.  None of this is a result of climate change – it’s just the way it’s always been.  

So far we haven’t experienced any particularly show-stopping storms but I did stumble across one from 2016 that is worthy of sharing.   

Ordinarily I would not recommend standing on a wet porch in your bare feet during a lightning storm.  But the view of that stormy sunset was spectacular.  

And as the ruckus breathed its last gasp Ma Nature hurled some extra lightning bolts at the setting sun....

 

Thunder Month

July is known for its storms.

Ma Nature is known for her rainbows…..