Eyes on the Wild

[The second part of the beaver’s labor of Hercules. One more part will follow, on their food preparations.]

Now that the beavers have got everything ready, the construction project can begin.

The lodge may be a new-build, or a renovation of a fixer-upper. This year, it was the latter. This one is out in the middle of the pond,

so I took my kayak out to get close enough for a good look.

There is no intricate weaving like a bird’s nest, but the beavers create a rough tepee, and a hole is left open at the top for air to escape.

Once the structure is in place, they add a layer of mud, plastered down carefully:

More branches and mud get added as they see fit. Sometimes they seem to get over-excited and build higher and higher, like this exuberant creation, the Sagrada Familia* of Western Maine:

If this was a new lodge, once they have created a giant heap they would excavate the inside from underwater, creating a chamber for the adults and, hopefully, their young, who will be born in mid-winter.

Because they are nocturnal, I rarely see them at work, but eight years ago I captured this shot of a beaver building his abode, on the same beaver pond:

Talk about D.I.Y. I think I’d rather get the builders in.

* Sagrada Familia is a cathedral in Barcelona designed by Gaudí, started in 1882, and scheduled to be finished in 2026! It is famous for its pseudo-Gothic over-the-top extravagance:

[This is the first of two or maybe three posts, that together tell a saga.]

It is November, and I am now cocooning, planning a bathroom painting project, stocking the freezer, and knitting a Christmas stocking for my granddaughter. But a beaver’s version of settling in for the winter is much harder work.

They survive the cold months largely inside their lodge, built of sticks and mud, with an underwater entrance. This is much more work than choosing the right paint color. The supply chain logistics are formidable.

First you cut down your tree(s):

If necessary, you drag them cross-country, including down steep hills, to the water’s edge:

You cut off all the small branches (see later), but don’t waste all that nutritious cambium. Then you chew off all the outer layers from the trunks that are too big to use.

The middle-sized branches and slender trunks are cut into pieces small enough to manage:

Finally, you float everything useful down the canals that you’ve created through the rushes, to your distant lodge:

Once you have your raw materials in place, you have two tasks. Get the lodge watertight and cosy, and lay down food supplies for the winter. And that is the subject of my next post.

Winter is coming here, and things are quieting down.  I will take the opportunity from time to time to show you things from earlier this summer that for various reasons I never sent out.

The world of caterpillars is one that fascinates the inner child in all of us, ever since we read for ourselves or to our children and grandchildren Alice in Wonderland, and then  The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Some of my favorites.

This is a Yellow-necked caterpillar, Dayana minister, in defensive posture, holding on only with its prolegs and curving up both ends of the body in a perfect yoga pose. *

The true stars of the punk caterpillar world are the tussock moths. This is a White-marked Tussock moth:

A Definite Tussock moth

A Milkweed Tussock moth, looking just like a miniature schnauzer:

A Pine Tussock moth

And two Hickory Tussock moths:

Caterpillars have very cool feet; the one in the photo below is traveling at full speed, so the first pair of prolegs are in mid-air.*  Olympic gymnasts on the balance beam cannot compare.

Not so endearingly, the spines (setae) of tussock moths can cause skin irritation. Each spine (seta) has a tiny poison sac at its base.

Figure 25. Diagram of urticating seta and associated venom gland of whitemarked tussock moth (Orgyia leucostigma). Redrawn from Gilmer (1925) by Jane C. Medley, University of Florida.

* Caterpillars have six true legs, like the butterflies and moths that they will become, and several further sets of prolegs, stubby short plump appendages that support the rest of their long bodies.

During all that child-rearing that you saw in my last post, the male was sometimes around, helping out, but by July 2nd his breeding plumage was largely gone, and he was changing into “eclipse” plumage, a rather wonderful term for a bird whose glory has faded now that he has his mate. (Although I am not sure I want my current natural hair color to be termed my “eclipse” phase.) The white neck markings remain all year.

By the middle of August, the birds have dispersed, and I found this solitary male, now in full eclipse plumage, but still with his distinctive red eye

The eclipse plumage is short-lived. As summer starts to wane, they prepare for a new season. Instead of waiting for spring, they set out to attract the females even before the migration starts. This September 7th photo of a scruffy and embarrassed-looking male shows the first glimpses of the return of the breeding plumage

On September 12th , his head is getting there, but the rest of him is still pretty drab.

But look at him on September 2oth: the head is transformed, but the body is not there yet

Finally by September 26th he and his friend look like this, and this new attire seems to be pulling the birds, (a 1960’s UK expression, for readers too young to know), since they were accompanied by two females, one of which is in this shot.

Just for comparison, here is his outfit on May 12th, so he still lacks a few final touches:

But on October 12th, he is returned to his former glory, floating on the autumnal reflections:

PS: The mechanics of molting are quite complex. Like many ducks, there are two molts each year, in spring and fall. In the spring, only the body feathers are replaced, removing the bright breeding plumage and producing the more discrete “eclipse” plumage. In the late summer to fall, first all the wing feathers are replaced, simultaneously, meaning that for about three weeks they cannot fly. Then, once they are mobile again and able to flee from predators, the body plumage is molted and the highly visible breeding plumage comes back in. They are now ready to attract females again and pair formation begins. Because they are helpless for part of this long molting process, they often fly to special secluded molting grounds in the far north, returning to the breeding ground once the process is complete. But some stay in situ, as my photos show.

PPS: I have told this story as if I have been following a single male through his plumage changes, but of course I cannot tell one male from another, so I am sure it is a series of different ducks!

The familiar ecological roles for mushrooms are as helping trees grow in a symbiotic relationship with their roots, and then living on decaying wood and thereby helping to break it down. But they also have relationships with animals.

They are a food source. A surprising number of mammals love a tasty mushroom, like this woodchuck:

and this chipmunk, who has carefully folded a large one in half to make for easier carrying, complete with a sort of dead leaf sandwich filling.

Squirrels store them for the winter by perching them up in trees to dry, which may be what gave the Italians the inspiration for dried porcini.

But the great cycle of life goes on, and some mushrooms thrive on the by-products of mammals, poop. This is bear poop, and it is entirely covered in a pale blue fungus called Penicillium vulpinum .

Here it is in close-up:

In a rather disconnected leap, inspired by the notion that another by-product of mammals is milk, this slime mold fungus rejoices in the name of Wolf’s Milk, Lycogala epidendrum.

If you puncture a young specimen, out oozes an orange gluey substance, which I suppose must be the source of its name. Since I am fairly sure that actual wolf’s milk is white, it doesn’t explain much. But it certainly has a whiff of Halloween to it, so maybe we should think of werewolves?

PS Thanks to Leigh Hayes for the ID of the blue fungus on the bear poop!

One of the best insect names I know is the Calligraphy Beetle. This one is  Calligrapha confluens, and both the larva and the beetle itself feed only on alder.

I like to imagine  that an ancient Tang dynasty Chinese scholar took brush and ink, and wrote a poem to this beetle on its carapace, in lü shi, or regulated verse.

Here is its patterning from above:

It is not a ladybug (lady bird for you Brits), but in the family Chrysomelidae, or Leaf Beetles.

I found a quite different bug yesterday, which I assumed to be related, but it isn’t. This one is a Twice-stabbed Stinkbug, Cosmopepla linteriana, on a mint leaf. 

It is a nymph, i.e. not yet an adult, and when it is all grown up it will be black and red, with two bloody spots that give it its name:

Like all stinkbugs they produce a smell in self-defence. I have never smelled it, because I cannot bring myself to bully the tiny stink bug.

This is a very smart Spotted Cucumber Beetle, on a rose. And look what is hiding underneath the petal:

This beetle delights in the scientific name of Diabrotica undecimpunctata howardi, which would appear to imply it has 11 spots, but I count 12. Maybe the eponymous Mr Howard couldn’t count? Or I suppose the central two closest to the head are almost merged? Dapper though it is, it is a major agricultural pest of cucurbits and corn.

So now you see how exquisite beetles can be, you can see why the Egyptians carved scarabs in their honor, like these fron the Met’s collection.

PS I have more lovely beetles, which I will save for another time.