Tag Archives: Carolina anole

Adorable anoles — lizards with moods!

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Hello, readers — it’s been a while! Time seems to be passing ever faster for me with each new year of life. I was surprised to realize that it’s been a couple months since I posted a blog. So here is a column that I just submitted to a local newspaper with a few more photos than the paper could accommodate.

One of my favorite local reptiles is the Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis). These cute lizards can be seen year-round since they don’t hibernate. In my experience, however, they seem to be more active — or at least viewable — in late summer and early autumn.

Also known as green anoles, they are the only anoles native to the southeastern United States. Green is nevertheless not their only color. You may encounter dark brown, light brown and green/brown anoles and they might even change their coloring as you watch them.

Unlike chameleons, who change color to blend in with their surroundings so that they can hide more easily from predators, anoles mainly change their skin hues in response to stress or their mood, when they are active or when they want to defend a territory. Darker colors may indicate that they are feeling cold or stressed out.

Sometimes when I’ve watched individuals at length, it’s seemed to me as if they were expressing a variety of moods, even if they didn’t change color.

  

 

Full-grown males are larger than females, but you can also guess their sex based on anatomical features. When males hope to attract a female for mating, they display a brightly colored reddish flap underneath their jaws called a dewlap. When a female sees it, this may induce her to ovulate. Males also show their dewlaps when defending territory against other males.

   

Female anoles can often be distinguished by a row of white markings along their spine, which most males lack.

Like other lizards, anoles regularly shed their skin. Observation last year taught me that they may also eat that skin since this provides them with extra nutrients that may be lacking in their direct environment.

 

Their regular diet is varied, including flies, beetles, spiders, cockroaches, worms, ants, termites, moths and butterflies. Seeds and grains can form part of their meals as well.

    

Carolina anoles are known as arboreal lizards because they spend a lot of time in trees and shrubs. From a higher perch, they can survey their surroundings. Climbing up shrubs and trees can also help them escape from predators who cannot follow them because they lack the sticky foot pads that enable anoles to ascend vertically. Other predators, such as tree snakes and larger lizards, can catch them if they are quick.

 

Sometimes, a predator may catch a green anole by the tail and the anole escapes by dropping its tail—a defensive behavior known as caudal autotomy. A new tail will grow but will be weaker as it contains cartilage instead of bone and often will not be as long.

 

Recently, I learned that birds also hunt anoles when I photographed a blue jay who had caught one. Other birds in our area who go after them include kestrels and bluebirds.

 

The Carolina anoles usually live from about 2 to 8 years. A few who live around my front porch sometimes approach me closely and it’s noticeable that they are watching me, too.

  

Another one decided that an unused bluebird nest box was a good place to hide from predators, obviously not during birds’ nesting season!

It’s been so nice to see the anoles out and about the past weeks. Tonight, we’re having our first freeze of the 2022 autumn/winter season so the anoles may start seeking warm places to hang out. Hopefully, they will have found good places to over-winter.

Readers in the southeast USA who would like information on how to create habitats that can harbor anoles and other native reptiles and amphibians can check out this information site: Reptiles and Amphibians in Your Backyard.

  

My next blog will be the first of a series about Yellowstone National Park. I’d originally planned to post the series this past summer but then couldn’t find some photos I’d taken. The missing card “turned up,” so a photographic tour of the park before it flooded this past June will soon commence.

Have a great day!

Chilly mornings and nights – birds coping with and resisting the cold!

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Many birders focus their attention on nest boxes in the spring and summer, hoping to see avian parents bringing food to nestlings – and if they’re lucky, getting to see the young fledge. Those blessed with yards or a voice in deciding what goes in public spaces may create more such places by putting up nest boxes on poles and trees. (Poles with baffles are a better choice as it makes it harder for snakes and raccoons to enter and eat the eggs and nestlings.)

What many people don’t always realize is that nest boxes can be enjoyable birding spots in the fall and winter, too. As more and more people choose not to leave snags in their neighborhoods and/or have trees removed from properties, birds are losing places to construct their natural nest cavities. Nest boxes help make up a little bit for that habitat destruction.

 

In the winter, birds check out nest boxes to get a head start on choosing possible nesting sites come spring and summer. In my own yard, especially the Eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis) and brown-headed nuthatches (Sitta pusilla) will visit one nest box after another to decide which one they might choose as a brooding site in the spring. The nuthatches may be accompanied by a youngster from the past summer who will help raise their new siblings.

 

 

Various species of birds also use nest boxes as warm overnight abodes when the temperatures fall to near freezing and below. Besides the Eastern bluebirds and brown-headed nuthatches, I’ve seen white-breasted nuthatches, Carolina wrens (Thryothorus ludovicianus) and downy woodpeckers (Picoides pubescens) checking out a nest box inside and out.

    

Carolina wren                                                 Downy woodpecker

Some species even use a nest box as a communal overnight refuge, with 12 or more birds squeezing together to conserve their body heat. I haven’t seen so many birds enter a box but perhaps I’m not looking at the right time.

The competition for nest boxes as warm overnight roosting spots can also be intense. A male downy woodpecker in my yard has adopted one particular box as his overnight abode, but the bluebirds would rather have the refuge for themselves. He gets there in the late afternoon and sometimes must pass angry birds to squeeze through the hole.

The bluebirds will then scold from atop the box and while hovering in front of the entrance, but he hunkers down and refuses to leave.

It’s interesting to see that the nest boxes also serve other creatures. Various birds perch on nest boxes while checking out the yard to see what’s going on, like this beautiful Northern flicker (Colaptes auratus).

One day, when looking out my window, I was certain I had seen a lizard peeking out of a box hole. Shortly thereafter, when I was outside, I caught a glimpse of a head and went over to open the box. And it turned out that a Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) is sometimes using that box as a place to rest! The birds don’t enter when s/he is there as far as I can tell.

When it’s cold and damp, you can also see birds using other measures to stay warm and resist the cold. Most birds eat quite a lot to put on body fat that is used up at night through shivering (which helps keep them warm). This means you may have crowds at bird feeders with species sharing space as they increase their body mass.

You may also occasionally get an “invasion” of one species, like the pine siskins (Spinus pinus).

Puffing up their feathers is another strategy that our avian friends use – they trap pockets of warmer air around their bodies.

Ruby-crowned kinglet (Regulus calendula)

                                              Brown thrasher (Toxostoma rufum)

           

Chipping sparrow (Spizella passerina)         Dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis)

The birds keep their feathers in good condition by engaging in vigorous preening. Some water birds oil their feathers to waterproof them, while others grow special feathers that disintegrate, producing a special waterproofing powder. And birds like mallard ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) have a special blood circulatory system in their legs whereby they lose only about 5% of their body heat through their bare feet.

Creating wood piles and leaving dried leaves and stalks from summer and fall grasses and shrubs can provide birds with some shelter from winter winds and cold, so my yard is now home to five wood piles. Several species of birds also seek out protected roosting areas when the deciduous trees and shrubs lose their leaves and the branches no longer provide hiding spots from predators. My native holly bushes serve that purpose for the lovely white-throated sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis), as well as Eastern towhees (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) and Northern cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis). I’m glad it keeps them returning to the yard!

As 2021 gets underway, I wish you readers all the best – hope this new year is healthy, happy and as worry-free as possible for you! And thanks for reading my blog. 😊

My one greed that I do not regret

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My thoughts & walking wander
Sometimes in conjunction
& sometimes on different paths.

The wheezy red-winged blackbird
Calls out time on this quiet Sunday morning.

An hour’s worth of nature should do me today.
Enough to rejuvenate, calm down, re-fill with some contentment.

A dove’s hooo hooooo
A songbird’s chirrups
The hawk’s plaintive cry.

 

A united triumvirate causes the hawk to flee
As it appears to clutch a prize in its claws;
The flight is too fast to decipher its capture.
Nesting & fledging season continues, so the grackles’ vigilance is warranted.

 

As a vulture descends
Circling downward over my head, I wonder
What does s/he know that I don’t?
Or the grasshopper?
The Nez Perce people said: “Every animal knows more than you do.”

 

 

Lichen-covered and veined stones and rocks jut up from the dirt path.
My feet seek purchase since
An injured leg needs no more distress.

 

 

 

 

A silver-spotted skipper alights on spiky purple thistle
Beautiful white patch on velvety brown.

On another day the summer azures caught my eye.
So small with details of their beauty escaping the naked eye.
The wonders of technology bring them closer.

 

 

 

Someone else has been walking here, too,
Where wetlands waters once flowed.

 

The five-lined skink and Carolina anole
Are not coming out today.

 

The beaver pond is placid
The dragons dip and rise
Turtles break surface and sink
Frogs give a cry of alarm, jumping high-pitched into the depths.

A pair of kingfishers
Fly to and fro,
Practicing their observation skills

As they wait for their permanent colors to come in.

 

Leaves are trembling
Branches and twigs waving
The slightest of breezes beckons
And helps the cattails sway a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s hot
Clothing damp and sticking.
Even the honeybee is not staying around long.

 

 

The brown thrasher, on the other hand,
Is enjoying a dust bath and sunbathing in the glaring light…
Until I surprise her/him from behind. Sorry!!

 

 

A three-way Japanese beetle gathering
Is staying put for a while
Eating up the leaves on which they rest.

 

 

A bright American goldfinch stops by.
I do not think of them as sad
Regardless of the name they were given.
Their brief presence makes me happy.

 

Two hours, 20 minutes…
Passed while admiring an eyed click beetle
And acknowledging deceptions in the natural world.

Two not-so-common looking buckeyes delight.
One a little tattered, showing age.
I can sympathize from experience.

 

 

The life-filled ground, plants, water and air
Enthrall.

An hour should do me?

An hour is enough?
It could suffice in some circumstances.
But the one greed I have, which I do not regret,
Is the desire for much more time among the non-human beings in nature.

The trails beckon.
Who’s waiting around the bend?

Surprise gifts from Mother Nature in 2018 – part 2: non-avian wildlife!

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Birding is an activity I enjoy, especially since I can usually spot at least one bird during my outdoor excursions. I’d prefer to call myself a “wildlifer” rather than a “birder”, however, since all kinds of other wildlife also fascinate me. Here is a selection of some wildlife surprises and new species I saw last year, including a new plant – the honeyvine milkweed (Cynanchum laeve).

 

This vine is sometimes described simply as a native plant that spreads by seed and long roots; other websites call it a noxious weed. It does perhaps spread quickly but it is also a food source for monarch butterfly caterpillars so it seems like a desirable plant to me.

This mushroom was another one of my favorite vegetation spottings last year – it looks to me as if it is an animal with large ears.

Mammals are favorites of mine but I only see a restricted number regularly – white-tailed deer, Eastern squirrels, raccoons, Eastern chipmunks. When I get to see an opossum (Didelphis virginiana) – like one who visited the yard at night during our early December snowstorm, it was a treat. It seems many people dislike North Carolina’s state marsupial (and the only marsupial in North America) but it is a valuable neighbor since it eats up to 4000 ticks a week. There likely weren’t many ticks around for it to eat but I hope it found something for a meal!

   

This past year was my “year of the beavers” as I had a chance to follow these nature landscape architects in three different places. And as mentioned in a previous blog, I was so thrilled to get a shot of the warning tail-slapping behavior.

  

2018 was a good year for seeing new insects. Some are so tiny that you can’t really see their body patterns without magnification. Here are a few of my “discoveries”. The flies can be very interesting.

Sunflower seed maggot fruit fly (Neotephritis finalis)


Parasitic fly (Archytas)

2018 was a year for learning about reproduction among the bugs; not only did I see caterpillars but also chrysalids and arthropod parents caring for offspring. The green lynx spider (Peucetia viridans) is a very attentive mother; she often hangs her egg sac from a grass stalk and then encircles it with her body to keep predators away.

One green lynx at the NC Botanical Garden placed her egg sac underneath the “lid” of a pitcher plant and then hung out on that and neighboring plants to keep an eye on the sac. I was lucky to see one of the babies after it hatched.

Another spider was not so lucky – it became a meal for one of North Carolina’s endemic “special plants”, the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula).

North Carolina has many species of grasshoppers; I saw several species this past year, including several mating pairs. Here is a young short-horned grasshopper.

It’s always nice to see some pollinators.

 

  

Brown-winged striped sweat bee                        Small carpenter bee                                (Agapostemon splendens)                                   (Ceratina)

 

I got to see the chrysalids of two fritillary butterfly species, the variegated fritillary (Euptoieta Claudia, left) and the gulf fritillary (Agraulis vanilla, below).

Sometimes, I think the moths get a bum rap, being seen as poor cousins to the “beautiful butterflies”. But there are many really beautiful moths, like the lunate zale moth (Zale lunata) and delicate cycnia moth (Cycnia tenera).

  

I got to see several moth caterpillars this year; the experts at BugGuide were very helpful in identifying them for me.

   

Common tan wave moth                           Gold moth caterpillar  (Basilodes pepita)          (Pleuroprucha insulsaria)

 
Turbulent phosphila moth caterpillar (Phosphila turbulenta)

For the first time, I got to see an evergreen bagworm moth (Thyridopteryx ephemeraeformis). There were several hanging out in trees next to a rural farm pond – they did not restrict themselves to an evergreen tree but hung themselves from a persimmon, privet and cedar tree. I think the last photo shows the caterpillar as it was completing the “bag” into which it would insert itself.

    

In the summer, I was lucky to see a cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia).

   

In December, I discovered two cecropia chrysalids, as well as the cup-like chrysalis of a polyphemus moth (Antheraea Polyphemus, which was empty).

  

Another discovery was that the larvae of soldier beetles look like some type of caterpillar as well.

There were lots of katydids around, including the slender straight-lanced katydid (Conocephalus strictus) and the stockier Scudderia bush katydid.

 

  

Some new bugs appeared in my yard, including a plant bug with muted colors (not yet identified to species) and some more colorful scentless plant bugs (Niesthrea louisianica) on my Rose of Sharon shrubs.

  

  

A seed bug on a seed pod and a head-on photo of a millipede (Narceus americanus-annularis-complex) were cool sightings, too.

   

2018 was a good year for my observations of reptiles, too. Seeing a Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis) flash its red dewlap (also known as a throat fan) was not a new experience but the fact that it was only a foot away from me doing it was a surprise.

   

 

Seeing one of these anoles jump from one small flower twig to another in order to catch a bee for supper was a surprise – I didn’t know they eat bees. I felt a little sad that we lost a pollinator that way, but the anoles have to eat, too.

 

 

 

One day, when walking at the same wetlands where the anole hung out I came across some beautifully colored turtles. The yellow-bellied slider (Trachemys scripta) had a beautiful pattern on its face.

 

 

 

The painted turtle (Chrysemys picta picta) with its long claws had some beautiful bright red striping. It had gotten a prime sunning spot on a log that another turtle wanted for itself; the first turtle held it off.

 

The second turtle circled around and tried to get on board from the other side but turtle No. 1 kept it at bay.

  

My snake encounters included seeing Northern water snakes and rat snakes. It was a beautiful red-bellied water snake (Nerodia erythrogaster) that caught me by surprise when it suddenly veered off its course toward me. I backed up and the reptile stopped approaching, flicking its tongue out as it explored what was going on.

My final spotting to share with you today is another gorgeous snake – a common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis). It had been a long time since I had encountered one and this individual had quite vivid colors.

Next up – some beautiful raptors.

Signs of spring in an uncertain season

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As tiny snowflakes fall gently from the sky, my thoughts have left Costa Rica for a bit and turned to the weird weather we’ve been having in North Carolina. I didn’t move to this state for its weather but in the time I’ve been here, I’ve grown to appreciate the climate – we have four seasons but the winters have not seemed overly long and the spring and autumn temperatures are often fabulous.

 

This year, much of February was unseasonably warm in our Piedmont area and people, as well as plants and animals, were enjoying the warm sun and mild temperatures. Crocuses and irises poked their blooms up a bit early and birds were checking out nest boxes.

 

 

 

Butterflies, like this question mark (Polygonia interrogationis) made an appearance (it was getting sustenance from some dog poop left on a bridge!) and Carolina anoles (Anolis carolinensis) emerged to sun in the warmth.

 

 

 

Then on 12 March, we had a day of snow. The male Northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) and Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) sat amid the flakes between trips to the feeders.

 

 

The female ruby-crowned kinglet (Regulus calendula) didn’t seem too perturbed, but the male resident was not happy – his bedraggled red crown was in evidence, both when chasing her away from the feeders and when he was just coping with the wet snow.

 

 

 

When I left for my Costa Rican rambles, it looked like the spring weather might give way to colder temperatures; when I returned 10 days later, it was definitely more winter-like. Then, this past weekend, we had a brief respite. Despite a cold morning start, friend Karla and I visited the Guilford County Farm. The farm personnel had marked off a section of the gravel parking lot where killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) had placed a nest with four eggs. When the babies hatch, they can walk away from the nest as soon as their downy feathers dry.

 

They won’t be able to fly until about 25 days later, but they can feed themselves. The parents will continue tending to and defending them, however. In the meantime, the parents do not come near the nest so as not to draw attention to it and they will try to lead any potential predators away with a broken wing display. They do fly near the nest often, however, and keep an eye on it in between their own feeding sessions.

Karla quickly spotted Wilson’s snipes (Gallinago delicata) flying over the pond and settling at the water’s edge. As we drew closer, we could spot them occasionally, but they blended really well with the vegetation. Below are a couple photos taken at a fair distance with a high ISO and lots of grain – but you can try to see if you can spot the six snipes in the first photo and the two in the second.

Fortunately, one flew in a bit later and I got a couple more recognizable photos!

  

Some Canada geese (Branta canadensis) flew in and headed for the same corner of the pond.

Then, as I was trying to find the snipe in the grass again, I noticed a killdeer looking for insects nearby.

She was accompanied by a male, who at first seemed to be preening but who was actually trying to impress her with some courtship displays.

 

The males will show off their feathers for their (potential) mates, especially raising and displaying their bright tail feathers as a fan.

The female would walk away and he would eventually move closer in an attempt to get a response.

Nearby, we saw three Northern mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos), two of whom seemed to be males battling over a female. Their dispute was very vigorous and lasted quite a long time. In fact, when they flew away, they were still going after one another!

 

During our continuing walk in the fields and woods near the farm, we saw many other bird species including Eastern meadowlarks, brown creepers, woodpeckers and a pair of kestrels. The woods were kind of strange in that there were very few bird nests visible in the bare trees and also no Eastern gray squirrel nests – in fact, we did not see one squirrel the entire time we were there, which was very odd. An adorable baby donkey (Equus asinus) did greet us as we walked by, though, and our long excursion (about 6 hours) gave us a nice taste of spring. Hopefully, when the snow flurries today end, we will see spring weather come back quickly and be able to enjoy the flora and fauna of this season again. Next blog – back to Costa Rica!