Category Archives: Biological diversity

Yellowstone National Park. Part 6: “Fire burn and cauldron bubble”!

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When my friend Joan and I visited Yellowstone National Park in May 2022, we were interested in seeing other thermal features in addition to the Mammoth Hot Springs. A major part of the Park is actually a super-volcano, with a caldera measuring 43 by 28 miles (70 x 45 km). It has half of all the world’s geysers, as well as other hydrothermal features (i.e., more than 10,000)!

A visit to the Old Faithful geyser was rewarding for Joan, but perhaps less so for me and others who decided to stand outside nearby. (Joan watched from inside a building with viewing windows.)

I’d seen it from afar before but now thought it would be interesting to be closer. When the awaited eruption occurred (happening about every 69 minutes or so in 2022), I hadn’t realized that I would just get soaked and see only spume and clouds! You readers can see an eruption online without getting wet!

    

Information about Yellowstone often reiterates that the geysers and other hotspots are always changing because of the geothermal dynamics propelling them. Earthquakes can affect them, and human vandalism can also end a geyser’s “life”. For example, in the 19th century, visitors would throw coins into geysers, which eventually plugged up the vents. (No one claims that the visitors pictured here did this; these parents must have been preoccupied keeping watch over their large brood!)


Photo on display in the Park Museum

When I was in high school, our assigned reading included older English texts, including work by Shakespeare. I found the stories interesting, but the language used did not appeal to me, except for an occasional phrase. The line “Fire burn and cauldron bubble” from Macbeth has a nice rhythm and it came to mind when we stopped to watch the mud pots.

The mud pots are hot springs which are so acidic that they dissolve the rock around them. Microorganisms help convert the emerging hydrogen sulfide gas into sulfuric acid; that breaks the nearby rock into a porridge-like clay which bubbles as gases gurgle through them.

Waiting for shapes to emerge from the thick moving masses was not at all boring. Instead, it made for a nice quiet, contemplative time — and judging by how many people were standing quietly and waiting for shapes to pop up, this was a shared experience. A video of one mud pot can be seen by clicking this link.

The area known as the Artists’ Paintpots was more colorful, even though we didn’t have sunny weather to highlight their hues.

There was vegetation here and there, making for some interesting scenes.

  

The Norris Geyser Basin is Yellowstone’s oldest, hottest and most changeable area. The National Park Service notes: “Norris has the greatest water chemistry diversity among Yellowstone’s hydrothermal areas. Multiple underground hot water reservoirs exist here and as their water levels fluctuate, concentrations of chloride, sulfate, iron, and arsenic change. Although Norris is known for its acid features, it also has alkaline hot springs and geysers.”

Norris has two main areas. The Porcelain Basin is bare of trees and vegetation. The Porcelain Springs, named for the milky colors of the deposited minerals, are the fastest changing area in the Norris Geyser Basin.

Fumaroles, the hottest hydrothermal features (up to 280°F/138°C) dotted the landscape in the Porcelain Basin. Where the steam and gases spewing from the holes are rich in sulfur, the feature is called a solfatara. Where the gases are mostly carbon dioxide, the fumarole is called a mofette. The sound of the fumarole can be quite loud, as in this video, sometimes sounding like hissing or whistling.

The Back Basin area has more wooded scenery. It was fascinating to see that there were mounds of bison dung in various places near fumaroles. I asked a park ranger how the bison could travel in those areas and whether they were ever injured.

 

She said that groups of bison will rest around the vents in winter. Their heavy fur apparently insulates them well and they can withstand the heat. She did note, however, that bison have been seen with burns on their legs, so they can be somewhat hurt by the heated clay ground.

 

Visitors should stay alert even when remaining on boardwalks. In 1989, the Porkchop Geyser threw rocks into the air; fortunately, no one was hurt.

In the early Park days, visitors were invited to bathe in the hot pools but that is fortunately no longer the case.

  

Where thermal colors are green, chlorophyll-containing algae predominate.

Where yellow is the dominant color, sulfur abounds and heat-loving and -tolerant creatures (thermophiles) use it to create energy.

The Cistern Spring is a beautiful pool that shows blue, green and brown colors with sunlight. These colors are produced by thermophilic algae and bacteria. They, in turn, are accompanied by tiny insects, such as ephidrid fly larvae that feed on bacteria. Spiders and dragonflies then feed on the flies.

We returned a couple times to see some of the famous features because the first day we visited them, it was rainy and then snowed with lots of cold wind. There was so much steam we could scarcely see the colored pools of water; only some features close to boardwalks were clearly visible.

Signs warned that it was a windy area, and the warning was certainly warranted! (Even so, some visitors were perturbed and complained about being subjected to sleet and flurries during their outing!)

The Excelsior Geyser used to erupt regularly in the 1880s and then stopped. In September 1985, it erupted again for 47 hours and again stopped. It was dormant and not very visible during our visit.

At Grand Prismatic Spring, which has stunning blue, green, yellow and rusty orange coloring, we saw mostly gray steam and mud-like rivulets on one visit.

I spoke with a man in a group of people including grandma, who was heavily bundled up in a wheelchair. He remarked that they had been there the previous day, when it was warm, sunny and scarcely windy at all. (Spring weather is extremely changeable at Yellowstone, not only day to day but within a day as well.) Their group had seen the beautiful colors of the Grand Prismatic and it made for a perfect outing since they had come to celebrate a wedding held on the spot. That was really an auspicious start to the married life of the lucky couple!

All in all, we didn’t get many spectacular views of the colorful thermals, but we did learn a lot. A future visit with warmer and sunnier periods would be something nice to anticipate. Nevertheless, the cold, windy, and partly wet days certainly did not dampen our overall enthusiasm. The visions of bubbling mud pots will last a long time, too.

Next up: a few blogs with some of my springtime sightings and then a visit back to Yellowstone to see some small mammals and Western birds.

World Wildlife Day 2023 and Nature Photo Challenge #2: Eyes

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Cooper’s hawk

Isn’t the intense gaze of the Cooper’s hawk above captivating? It can relate to both parts of the double theme for this short blog, as a symbol of the wildlife many people wish to conserve worldwide and as a fellow being with eyes that mesmerize.

Today is World Wildlife Day, a day celebrated to honor our earth’s wildlife and the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). This year’s theme for this commemorative day is “Partnerships for Wildlife Conservation.”

The term “wildlife” can have two meanings. Some dictionaries and organizations use the word to refer to all animals (mammals, insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds, etc.) that are not domesticated by human beings. Others have expanded the term to also include plants.

Cleared fire line before a controlled burn

I contribute to the goal of wildlife conservation by volunteering at a local nature reserve to help with its upkeep. Our volunteer group, called the “Green Dragons”, removes invasive plants, plants native vegetation, and clears fire lines when controlled burns are done. The photo above shows such a line; it is patrolled by volunteers to watch for and quench sparks that might ignite materials outside the area being burned.

Our Green Dragons group cleared a fire line earlier this week and we were able to relocate several marbled salamanders to an area that will not be burned.

Fellow volunteer Mark also found and relocated a young brown snake.

We hope the weather collaborates and makes it possible to complete the burn before many of the animals begin brooding their young.

One reason so many people want to conserve wildlife and natural areas is because they enjoy watching the non-human life that sustains our planet. We sometimes don’t stop to think about how the animals also spend time observing us.

Fellow blogger Denzil Nature has challenged us to stop and consider the eyes that animals use to see us. Some have eyes that appear at least somewhat similar to ours. The dark eyes of the Eastern chipmunk, black racer snake, and short-horned grasshopper could fall into that category.

  

And then we have the wondrous insects who have compound eyes so very different from ours. The blue dasher dragonfly provides a nice example of that.

If you want to learn more about how different members of the animal world look at life, check out the wonderful book by Ed Yong, An Immense World. It’s fascinating and you can learn a lot about how various wildlife species experience the world using other senses as well! And perhaps it will inspire you to think of new ways to contribute to conserving wildlife.

 

 

 

Yellowstone National Park: Part 5. Grizzlies, coyotes and pronghorns – oh my!

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Note: this long posting is likely nicer to see on a laptop than a phone!

During my first spring visit to Yellowstone National Park in 2016, we encountered black bears (Ursus americanus) throughout the national reserve. When a mother bear with her little cubs was spotted, park visitors stopped often to watch the playful young, especially when they were practicing tree climbing.

During my 2022 visit, we did not see black bears but had the good fortune to see quite a few grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis). Some were quite light in color, while others had dark fur. A mama grizzly and her cub were the first mammals we saw (due to my friend Joan’s sharp eyes!) and we must have seen at least one or two every day. (If not a live bear, there were plenty of them featured in artwork in Gardiner.)

Rangers were often present at our sightings or arrived shortly after we did. They mostly warned humans to keep considerable distance from the bears, but we also saw them shooing the bears away from roads when many people were passing by.

(The bears below were shooed back up the hill; the white spots on the photo are snowflakes.)

The “hump” on the grizzlies’ shoulders helped us identify them since black bears lack this feature. Also, when walking on all fours, the grizzly’s rump is lower than its shoulders. The impressive grizzly claws are also much longer than those of black bears.

Sometimes we spotted the grizzlies grazing far away in fields. A few times, we had the good fortune to spot a mother bear with her young cubs.

One mother in particular gave us wonderful views as she wandered about with her triplets. That was lucky for us as grizzlies have one of the lowest reproductive rates of North American terrestrial mammals.

They are not sexually mature before the age of 5 years. After mating in the summer, implantation of the embryo is delayed until the female hibernates. She could miscarry if she does not ingest sufficient calories and nutrients during the summer. She also will not mate again until her cubs have reached three years of age.

One of the most interesting foods that the grizzly bears eat is the adult form of the army cutworm, called the miller moth (Euxoa auxiliaris). This moth has the highest known percentage of body fat of any animal, comprising up to 72% of its body weight! The moths fly from low-lying farmlands to crevices in mountain slide rocks, where the bears go in late summer to dig them out. It’s estimated that a grizzly can eat up to 40,000 moths in a day, thereby ingesting up to 20,000 calories.

One of the grizzlies’ competitors for food, particularly carcasses, are the coyotes (Canis latrans). These beautiful canids are unfortunately detested by many people, as related by Dan Flores in his informative book Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History.

At one point, we saw numerous cars parked along a road and stopped to see what everyone was observing. There was a coyote feeding on a large carcass that had already been partly consumed.

The coyote was engrossed in getting some meat off the bone, which was apparently not an easy task. These canids usually eat deer and smaller prey such as little mammals (rabbits, hares, rodents), birds, reptiles and amphibians, and invertebrates. It was not entirely clear to me what this prey had been.

A fascinating coyote behavior is that they sometimes collaborate with badgers to dig up rodents. They even appear to like these fierce predators as people have seen coyotes licking a badger’s face or laying their heads on the badger’s body. A decorated jar found in Mexico dating back to the years 1250-13oo showed this relationship.

Unfortunately, although the coyote figures prominently in Native American/Indian folklore, the US government has initiated and supported efforts to eradicate the species altogether. From 1947 to 1956, about 6.5 million coyotes were killed in the American West. However, these intelligent animals have managed to survive and eventually spread to the eastern United States (where they are now again unfortunately detested by considerable numbers of people).

In Yellowstone, the larger ungulates on which the predators such as bears, coyotes and wolves feed include elk and moose. As mentioned in a prior blog, elk (Cervus canadensis) can be seen up close in Gardiner, the town at Yellowstone’s northern entrance, where they wander through the streets and rest in people’s yards. A more melodious name for them is wapiti, used by the Shawnee and Cree peoples. It refers to the animal’s white rump.

To me, the elk appeared quite large but they “only” measure about 4-5 feet in height. The males’ antlers can grow up another 4 feet, however, giving them a much taller appearance.

The males also have another interesting characteristic — their bugling, which is used to attract mates and mark their territories. This sound is the loudest call of any members of the deer family. The males produce it by roaring and whistling simultaneously!

Because elk prefer colder weather, they are more visible to Yellowstone visitors in the late autumn, winter and early spring. We saw females and young elk in town and spotted the males out in the valleys. They are very social animals and one of the largest herds (about 11,000 members in 2022) is known as the “Jackson Elk Herd”, which migrates between southern Yellowstone and the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming.

The other large, hoofed animal which we glimpsed one day was a moose (Alces alces). This ungulate is the largest member of the deer family, reaching a height of 6 feet (1.8 m) and a weight of up to 1,000 lb (450 kg).

We saw a male — identifiable by the antlers which were just beginning to grow — as he grazed in a marshy area beside the road.

Besides eating tree and shrub bark, leaves and twigs, they enjoy eating aquatic plants in ponds and streams. This can have a downside for them. Sometimes, they unknowingly eat snails while foraging and the snails can carry parasitic brain worms.

In Gardiner, we also often saw mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). They can be distinguished from white-tailed deer by their large ears, which measure about 75% of the length of their heads!

They also have a white tail with a black tip, while white-tailed deer lack that feature.

I found them to have a sweet face.

The final ungulate that we had the pleasure to see at Yellowstone were the fast-footed pronghorn antelopes (Antilocarpa americana).

These small-hoofed creatures are not as fast as cheetahs but can sustain their speedy gait for a longer period of time, reaching speeds of up to 60 mph.

The pronghorns not only travel rapidly; they also may travel for long distances. During the winter of 2011, monitoring of a pronghorn herd showed that they had achieved the longest terrestrial migration in the continental USA (not counting Alaska).

While both sexes have horns, those of the female pronghorns are mere bumps, while the males display unique backward-pointing horns that grow up to 12 inches long. (The one grazing below had impressions in the fur on its back that looked like claw marks to me!)

According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service of Montana, “Pronghorns existed in North America at the same time as predators like the dire wolf, saber-toothed cat, and American cheetah, all of which are long extinct. Scientists believe the pronghorn’s excellent vision and extreme fleetness are adaptations to survive these super predators.”

It’s fascinating that so many of the animals living in Yellowstone National Park have been in this area for thousands of years. An upcoming blog will feature smaller mammals after taking another visit to thermal attractions in the park. Before that, I’ll post a couple blogs about some of the wildlife I’m seeing here at home. 😊

Sunflower fields as critter-friendly habitats — part 2: bees and bugs

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Do you know why the common name in English for Helianthus is sunflower? The common name is the same in Dutch (zonnebloem), German (Sonnenblume) and several other languages. In French (tournesol) and Spanish (girasol), the common names refer to “turning to the sun”, an accurate description of how this plant behaves.

Sunflowers exhibit a phenomenon known as heliotropism — an inclination to turn East in the morning so that the developing buds are warmed by the sun. The plant heads track the sun during the day and, at night, they reorient themselves to face East again. So if you pay attention when you visit a sunflower field at different times of day, you’ll notice they face a different direction in the morning and afternoon.

It’s not only birds, butterflies — and people! — that enjoy sunflowers. When these flowers grow in abundance, plenty of varied insects come to enjoy them and I’ll share something about these “sun worshippers” with you.

Bees of varying sizes were feeding in the sunflower fields that I visited. The large carpenter bees (Xylocopa) were not difficult to spot with their smooth shiny abdomens.

The similar-sized, fuzzy-looking bumble bees (Bombus) were actively visiting one sunflower after another.

American bumble bees (Bombus pensylvanicus) were foraging on nearby hibiscus blooms.

At a different site in neighboring Durham county, where sunflowers bloom later, I saw bumble bees on partridge peas and other yellow flowers.

 

There, too, my attention was caught by a bee that looked quite different from others that I’d seen. It proved to be a leafcutter bee (Megachilid), which has large mouthparts that enables it to cut pieces of leaves, plant resins and soil to line its nest.

The leafcutter bees are interesting in their unique method of carrying pollen. Rather than collect pollen in baskets called corbicula on their hind legs, they gather the substance in a clump of abdominal hairs called a scopa or pollen brush.

Back at the sunflower fields, I observed one medium-sized cuckoo bee (Epeolini) eventually become covered with sunflower pollen. These bees do not have an anatomical structure for carrying collected pollen and the females, like avian cuckoos (or cowbirds), lay their eggs in other bees’ nests.

The much smaller Western honey bees (Apis mellifera) were very numerous. It was interesting to discover that for some time, the NASA website included a section on honey bees! It stopped being updated when the principal investigator retired but NASA maintains the site because of the valued information it contains. Some of the interesting facts they listed about these insects:

  • Bees can fly about 20 mph (32 kph).
  • The highest recorded number of eggs laid by a queen was 2,000 per day!
  • Bees have been on our planet for about 30 million years!
  • To make 1 pound (0.45 kg) of honey, bees need to collect nectar from about 2 million flowers!!
  • The average foraging bee (all females) makes about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime.
  • The main way in which honey bees communicate among themselves is via chemicals called pheromones.

The honey bees and common Eastern bumble bees make a good choice by spending lots of time in sunflower fields. Scientific studies indicate that ingested sunflower pollen enables them to suffer less infection from two common parasites, a real boon for bees who might otherwise succumb to colony collapse as a result of disease.

 

Both in the sunflower and other fields, it was fascinating to see other types of small bees as well. The small green sweat bees perhaps prefer more colorful blooms as that is where I mostly saw them.

These tiny non-aggressive bees are attracted to sweat because it provides them with moisture and salts.

There were some other interesting insects besides butterflies and bees in the sunflower fields and surrounding vegetation. While looking at some bumble bees circling a large sunflower head, I had inadvertently photographed a pair of much tinier insects near the center of the flower. I actually only noticed them when I was looking at the photos at home or I would have tried to focus on them better in the field.

When I enlarged the photo, I was able to get a somewhat fuzzy look at them and BugGuide identified them for me as sunflower seed maggots (Neotephritis finalis). These tiny insects have prettily patterned wings, but I discovered there is not a lot of information available about them; some research in North Dakota in 2008 concluded they might be a pest but no other data were easily available. They are a species of fruit fly.

Another insect seen on the sunflowers that many people find distasteful were the green June beetles (Cotinis nitida). The larva can damage vegetable and other plant roots, while the adults will feed on ripening fruit, so many gardeners will try to get rid of them.

A cute little syrphid fly, which BugGuide couldn’t identify specifically (a Palpada species), seemed to be alone with no fellow flies nearby.

There were several slender meadow katydids (Conocephalus fasciatus) to admire with their extremely long antennae.

The most interesting fact I discovered about them is that they have a soft song comprising ticks and buzzes that alternate for time periods of 1–20 seconds.

Sunflower fields are beautiful and spending time observing them as interesting wildlife habitats can really be enjoyable. These flowers also constitute a beneficial cash crop for farmers who can sell the seeds for sunflower oil, for human and avian consumption and the stalks for cattle feed.

And as if all those benefits don’t make sunflowers enough of a value-laden plant, scientific studies have also shown that they assist in phytoremediation, a process that helps remove and destroy polluting contaminants in soil, water, and air. Their deep taproots help aerate soil and make it richer for growing other subsequent crops as well.

Some sunflower fields may still be blooming through August and an online search can help you find them if you’d like to enjoy these wonderful flowers and their wildlife beneficiaries. If you have a garden, you might consider adding sunflowers to your vegetation mix if you don’t have them already. You can still plant some now in hopes of late autumn blooms.

This is a good time also to remember that the Ukraine became the world’s leading exporter of sunflower seeds until the currently ongoing invasion of the country brought this trade to a halt. Farmers who were still able to grow the country’s national flower are stuck with supplies and no income. Consider supporting organizations that are working to provide the Ukrainian people with humanitarian aid:

Sunflower fields as critter-friendly habitats — part 1: birds and butterflies

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Last month, many residents of the county where I live were alerted to the eruption of profusely blooming sunflowers that were attracting both birds and people. The avians were looking for tasty seeds, as well as bugs attracted to the blooms, and the humans were seeking beauty and backdrops for photo portraits.

 

Sunflower fields are so popular in our area that they feature on the TV news and in online tourism guides. The NC Museum of Art has sunflower fields and offered a sold-out Sunflower Photography Workshop.

Many birds love sunflower seeds, but it can be difficult to see the foragers as they may be dining at blooms lower down on stems. The bright blue indigo buntings are sometimes easy to spot but I couldn’t get photos of them feeding. Red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) and American goldfinches (Spinus tristis) will often perch atop a bloom to peck away at the ripening seeds.

   

Other birds were active in the vicinity of the fields, but I didn’t see them at the flowers. For example, the Eastern wood-pewee (Contopus virens) stayed in the vicinity of a nearby pond while I visited.

The Eastern meadowlarks (Sturnella magna) flitted about in nearby meadows. I didn’t see them among the sunflowers.

It’s not only the birds and people that like sunflowers, however. A field of these flowers is a boon for pollinators. The Orange County fields that I visited featured hundreds of butterflies. The most numerous were the orange sulphurs (Colias eurytheme).

As I watched, pairs of sulphurs would often flutter around one another, ascending high up in the air. It was interesting to see that two types of female orange sulphurs were present. Some were yellow-hued like the males; others were whitish in color, known as the Alba variant.

These sulphurs are also known as alfalfa butterflies and the larva is sometimes called the alfalfa caterpillar. An interesting fact about these sulphurs is that the males’ hind wings have an ultraviolet light reflectance pattern, while the females’ hind wings have an ultraviolet absorbing pattern so that they can be distinguished in flight.

Another abundantly present butterfly species were the cabbage whites (Pieris rapae), which were accidentally introduced into North America around 1860. They didn’t seem attracted to the sunflowers per se but instead were fluttering around and landing on the other flowering plants mixed in with them.

Of these small butterflies had me stumped for an ID at first; it was yellowish in color and didn’t have prominent black spots. However, an entomology expert on BugGuide assured me that it was a cabbage white.

Various types of skipper butterflies were feeding on the sunflowers.

There were a few variegated fritillaries (Euptoieta claudia) visiting the sunflowers and an occasional black swallowtail (Papilio polyxenes) fluttered into view as well.

Both the cabbage whites and orange sulphurs were visiting muddy spots at a nearby pond.

This behavior is known both as mudding and mud-puddling and occurs when the butterflies are looking for certain nutrients in mud and rotting plant matter.

Observations have indicated that most of the puddling butterflies are males who often appear to be ingesting salts and amino acids. These substances seem to improve the males’ reproductive success and they transfer these compounds to females when they mate. The nutrients then contribute to the survival of the deposited eggs. Wouldn’t it be interesting if human males could transfer nutritional benefits to offspring in that way?

A latecomer to the puddling parties was a lone common buckeye butterfly (Junonia coenia Hübner). This species generates several generations of offspring each summer and I’m always pleased to see them in my own yard.

Next blog: the sunflower field visit continues with some other numerous visitors!