summer wouldn't be summer

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Appropriately named, I have had a summer tanager visiting me the past few weeks. He mainly stays high in the American beech that towers over my back deck. I hear his raspy "picky...tucky......tuck" song routinely but rarely see him.

That's a shame. 

Once known as the "Summer Redbird" as opposed to the year-round redbird, the Northern cardinal, they are long distance migrants that will leave in a few weeks to return to Central and South America. Now, my scarlet visitor is just putting on weight and molting before his long flight. He eats berries and insects and is noted for taking bees and wasps, which led to another long ago sobriquet, "Bee Bird." 

Neat niche. We wish him well.

Another highlight of summer is perchance getting to see a juvenile male summer tanager. Take a look at this photo by Priscilla Burcher, click: molting into adulthood.  

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a society of millipedes

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It has probably been a while since you thought about millipedes, so let me do it for you. 

Perhaps it is the rain of the past few days, but around my house, inside and out, millipedes are enjoying the moist humidity. And no fear, millipedes are vegetarians, more specific, as a rule they are detritivores that eat the detritus or all the organic material that falls to the ground such as leaves. 

I found this interesting colony feeding with their young in a pile of rotting wood near my driveway. It is a social millipede, probably Brachycybe lecontii or at least that's the best educated guess of local naturalist Nick Stahlman. They are also known as feather millipedes and it has been documented that the males "man-up" to protect the eggs, we assume while the females trundle about to lay additional clutches. This millipede species feeds on fungi growing on rotting wood making them fungivores, a comfortable niche since most things wouldn't bother.

Millipedes are one of the oldest groups of land living animals on Earth with a lineage that goes back over 350 million years and it is somewhat reassuring to know that good parenting skills have been around for some time.

Thank you, Nick!

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possum season, yet again?

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The surprise here was not that I received a phone call yesterday morning from the University of Tennessee Veterinary Hospital. That often happens. Janet Jones, a Veterinary Medical Tech was on the line and wondered could I transport some orphaned baby animals to local wildlife rehabilitator Lynne McCoy.

That wasn't the surprise. I am on the list of volunteer transporters. McCoy is so busy with feedings every two hours, she doesn't have the time for the one and a half hour round trip from her home in Jefferson County to retrieve the foundlings.

The surprise was that in addition to the robins and bunnies that needed to be delivered to her there were eight baby possums. This is July, a little late for the annual spring litters produced by America's only marsupial and one of my personal favorite mammals. I dedicated an entire chapter in my first UT Press book Natural Histories to the non-placental mammals because they are so unusual.

McCoy already had over 25 orphaned opossum pups she was caring for and believes that climate change, with its addition of more days of warm weather, has created a longer breeding season. Female possums are apparently producing a second spring brood. On one transport trip the second week of May, I discovered she was caring for over 60 orphaned possum pups!

"Why so many?" I asked.

"Well, a single female can have up to 13 young ones in a litter. If she is killed, that's a lot of orphans," McCoy replied. So it would only take five mom possums to be hit by cars in the Knox County region to produce those kinds of numbers. 

And with the addition of a longer breeding season, is the increased number really a surprise?

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Thanks, Science Café

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A special thank you to David Spakes for inviting me to speak about science/nature writing and cicadas at the July edition of Science Café. The bulbous homopterans make an appearance in my first book Natural Histories published by the University of Tennessee Press.   

We met at the Bearden Branch of the Knox County Public Library last Thursday evening while the scissor-grinder cicadas were buzzing outside on a typical hot, sultry July day. 

Spakes has been hosting Science Café at different locations since April 2011 and he does a wonderful job finding interesting and varied topics every month.

And special thanks to Sheila for the kids activity.

Supplied photos by David Spakes. 

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insect time

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This is the time of the year when bird activity slows down. Most have finished raising their families and the parents need to put back on some weight and molt into their non-breeding plumage which takes a lot of time and energy and pushing through pin feathers is not a comfortable thing to do.

So many ever-on-the-search naturalists turn to the local insects which just so happen to be most active during the heat of summer. 

Luckily there are several good field guides to help you learn what you are seeing or hearing. 

Betty Thompson recently sent me three photos of dragonflies. 

And myself? I will be doing three local talks that include two Science Cafés for David Spakes about those buzzing bubbas up in the trees: the chunky cicadas!

Many thanks, Betty!

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21 years ago today

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And now an anniversary to acknowledge.  

July 4, 1998 was the first day I took one of the state-permitted, non-flighted birds-of-prey outside for a walk at the nature center. On that day it was a red-phase screech-owl.

That's 21 years ago.

For me, it was a sea change, it reoriented my life. My heartfelt thanks to Ijams for allowing me the opportunity to realign my priorities. 

Thank you wildlife biologist Pam Petko-Seus for training me and having the faith that I could handle large birds-of-prey all those years ago and Dr. Louise Conrad who followed in her footsteps.

And now that I am retired, I care for a state-permitted, non-flighted American kestrel. His name is Doc, or Dox, honoring Dr. Cheryl Greenacre who treated him when he came into the University of Tennessee Veterinary Hospital last January with a badly broken right wing. 

Sadly, Doc will never fly again but he is good-spirited and has taken on the role of wildlife ambassador for the state of Tennessee helping to raise public awareness of kestrels, the smallest falcon to live in the Americas.

We'll also acknowledge the cliché, "my, how time goes by" but, my, how time goes by.

With Doc, a state-permitted, non-flighted American kestrel.
Photo by Shirley Hamilton at Wild Birds Unlimited. 

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