In all the years I've lived in the holler, I have never seen a robin in the yard around my house. At the moment I took this photo, there were four of them foraging together outside my window, eating seeds I scatter for ground feeding birds.
American Robin (Turdus migratorius) on March 1, 2023. [Photo: Cathie Bird]
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A little more than a year ago I saw my first Louisiana waterthrush. It was grooming its feathers on a branch, easily identifiable with binoculars and almost beyond reach of the camera lens I was using at the time. I felt lucky to get any kind of usable image.
Louisiana waterthrush (Parkesia motacilla) on June 11, 2021. [Photo: Cathie Bird]
After my first sighting, I looked this species up at Birds of the World -- something I like to do for any bird I find in the holler -- to predict what my chances of seeing more of them might be.
Pretty much centered in the breeding range for Louisiana waterthrushes, the holler's natural features match a majority of those where these birds more frequently breed. It's hilly with closed-canopy mixed deciduous and evergreen forest, and has two high to medium gradient headwater streams running through it. Neither stream could be classified "perennial" but, in most years I've lived here, they'd have had plenty of water flowing during the waterthrush's peak breeding season. Not an exact match, but I thought I had a good chance of seeing them again.
Louisiana waterthrush, June 28, 2022. [Photo: Cathie Bird]
Just a few days ago, I caught sight of one searching at the edge of the woods beyond my driveway and hanging around my planter garden, hunting and catching insects.
Louisiana waterthrush with an insect it caught, June 28, 2022. [Photo: Cathie Bird]
Prior to this sighting, my Merlin app had suggested one might be around but I was unable to match my recording to any of the typical songs/calls. I've now seen and heard its calls every day since I saw it on June 28th. It's interesting to me that its appearance near the house coincided with a stretch of really dry weather during which the flow of both streams had slowed considerably, so I'm wondering if that's why it came in closer or if it was just branching out a bit.
Louisiana waterthrush near the planter garden yesterday, July 3, 2022. [Photo: Cathie Bird]
Good photos of this individual have been hard to get. It seemed shy at first and would scurry for cover if it saw me at my bird-watch window. Now that it's coming closer, my imaging difficulties relate more to its speedy foraging style -- lots of blurry pictures to weed out.
Such an interesting bird. Makes me happy to hear and see it around the holler.
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Recently, I started bringing suet feeders into the house at night because they were being emptied, and probably not by birds. Most of the seed feeders had been showing signs of night raiders as well, but a few adjustments seemed to work to protect those feeders from take downs. Adjusting my timing for restocking ended excessive seed disappearance.
This past weekend, however, the holler went somewhat silent when Shadow, my best friend and watchdog, passed away. I wondered how long it would be until critters I knew were out there in the night holler would start to show up during the day.
Last night, one of those that I suspected as the primary suet-gorger (and feeder-wrecker) came while it was still light enough to get a photo:
Raccoon at the suet log, June 9, 2022 [Photo: Cathie Bird]
For now I'll probably bring the suet in earlier, but events like this always spark a reassessment of feeding birds and the wildlife that bird feeders may also attract. I'll also watch to see what other animals come closer to the house now. Before I got pets, white-tail deer and wild turkeys came through the yard -- maybe they will again. I've continued to add native flowers and fruit plantings, and reduce (or eliminate) any mowing and brush cutting in areas near the house unless it's for my own safety as I move around the yard. Sometime soon I want to do a post on what I see -- other than plants -- in my planter garden. I'll continue to share thoughts and photos on how I live as a human being and evolve my relationship with all the amazing creatures whose relatives lived around the holler before people did.
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Buckeye-1 on March 29, 2017. [Photo: Cathie Bird]
For a couple of months, I've been planning a post on longer term changes I've noticed with plant and animal neighbors here in the holler. I've lived here 18 years, now, tracking these lives as well as my own in relation to theirs. I recently discovered that I've reached a new milestone of sorts: 10 years ago, I began formal submission of data on life phases of several species across the seasons for Nature's Notebook, a project of the USA-National Phenology Network.
This year, USA-NPN and Nature's Notebook celebrate a decade of data collection by citizen observers with new logos, and a special web page that will feature a different aspect of the network's 10-year history every month.
At the time I signed up, I didn't register that Nature's Notebook was a new project. So, I was somewhat surprised to learn last week that I'm one of three observers who have contributed data in all 10 of those years.
New 10-year celebration logo for Nature's Notebook. [Photo: USA-NPN]
Two major questions pervaded my reflections on last season’s holler observations: where did all the bees and butterflies go, and, how does the interplay of natural succession, climate change, and shifts in land management practices impact what I'm seeing (and thus reporting) in my observation area?
Thoughts about the history of human occupation at the geographic coordinates of the holler start to roll. The picture gets complex very fast, taking me into possibilities too numerous to manage in easily accessible mental spaces. I come back to the simple act of recording what's up with Buckeye-1 or the Great Spangled Fritillaries at that moment, on that day, in this holler in east Tennessee, knowing that others in the phenology network are recording observations for their species, where they live.
Great spangled fritillary (Speyeria cybele) on geraniums, May 13, 2017. [Photo: Cathie Bird]
Such ins and outs of thought, of awareness, have been a regular feature of my "phenology practice". It occurs to me as I write this post that this microcosmic process reflects a macrocosmic one: the expansion and contraction of subtle energy fields as a fundamental pattern of the cosmos, and noticeably at play in my practice of Qigong (a "Quantum physics technology").
I grew up in the grip of scientific materialism. My undergraduate training as a naturalist in the late sixties/early seventies was rooted there as well, though I can look back and see shifts toward thinking about the world in terms of whole, integrated systems rather than a collection of independent, disconnected parts. This shift even led me to change career goals and pursue a graduate degree in contemplative psychotherapy, as well as certification as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist.
For many years I felt a kind of tension growing -- between seeing forests and seeing trees -- often feeling that I was, at heart, more of a forest person. The feeling of energetic oppositions came alive especially when I remembered the tree person of my childhood exploring the life and landscapes of the Flint Hills and the Rocky Mountains.
I see myself now with at least a toe-hold in an integral world view, appreciating multiple points of view, and enjoying the heck out of migrations between wild, non-local exploration of mind and spirit, and the feet-on-the-ground-dodging-poison-ivy collection of phenology observations. I look forward to another 10 years of it!
Answers to the huge questions about bees and butterflies -- how their numbers and life phases reflect human numbers and life phases -- will reveal themselves over time. I'm content with supplying local observations to people who've dedicated their lives to figuring that kind of stuff out.
Just to finish this, in a bit of synchronicity, these articles popped into my viewshed as I was writing this post:
Questions, more than answers, are the pathway to collective wisdom (Daniel Christian Wahl, 1/16/18)
Beyond Biodiversity: A New Way of Looking at How Species Interconnect (Jim Robbins, 10/12/17)
Give one species the task to come up with a theory that spans them all: what good can come out of that? (Hanna Kokko, 11/29/17)
How Rising CO2 Levels May Contribute to Die-Off of Bees (Lisa Palmer, 5/10/16)
What’s Causing the Sharp Decline in Insects, and Why It Matters (Christian Schwägerl, 7/6/16)
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I'm still working on a new blog post, but wanted to share a great article I saw at The Atlantic. I found it fascinating and relevant to the general content of HollerPhenology. The article at Science Advances is open access, and can be downloaded here.
From the article:
About three-quarters of tree species common to eastern American forests—including white oaks, sugar maples, and American hollies—have shifted their population center west since 1980. More than half of the species studied also moved northward during the same period.
These results, among the first to use empirical data to look at how climate change is shaping eastern forests, were published in Science Advances on Wednesday.
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While I work up a post on what I saw in the holler this week, I want to acknowledge that today is Earth Day, and that, across the United States and around the world, thousands of people have shown up to March for Science.
I had planned my own march down the holler to celebrate, combining my (almost) daily holler walk to observe phenophases with contemplation of my role as a citizen scientist. But heavy rain -- 3.5 inches as of 11:30 am -- has so far put a damper on that. I opted to sit on the porch for awhile and listen for birds.
The only ones out in the downpour, however, were an eastern phoebe and a hooded warbler. So, I turned my inner witness toward my own thoughts, reflecting on my life-long connections to nature and (eventually) to formal study of nature through science.
One of my favorite #MarchForScience signs. Photo from a Facebook friend.
The theme that arose today centered on my experience of ways we can know the world. Science as we commonly, humanly understand it is certainly one of those. I find it enjoyable to explore, observe, and question nature with citizen scientist eyes.
Over time, I've discovered other ways of knowing. I've learned not so much to privilege one way over another as to flow between and across them, to integrate the experiences, to welcome awareness of multiple meanings and possiblities.
It's wondrous to me how, on so many holler walks, my citizen-scientist-self -- focused as it is on phenological details of another life -- allows my citizen-philosopher (or some other self) to surface, revealing something new, deepening my relationship with that other being and with the holler as our common home.
Here are some of the articles I've enjoyed reading this week on the #MarchForScience:
March for Science draws big crowds across U.S. (Reuters, April 22, 2017)
Historians say the March for Science is ‘pretty unprecedented’ (Chris Mooney-Washington Post, April 22, 2017)
We Stand for All Sacred Life on Earth (Joe Brewer, April 22, 2017)
How the March for Science Misunderstands Politics (Andrew Jewett in The Atlantic, April 21, 2017)
The March For Science May Be Flawed, But It's More Than Worthy Of Your Support (Kavin Senapathy - Forbes, April 14, 2017)
Showing Up to Shape the Science March (Megan Halpern, March 23, 2017)
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In March I posted some information and photos of plants I observe for Penn State's "shady invader" project. This week -- with help from a National Phenology Network identification tool and some photos I took -- I figured out that the lone honeysuckle bush in the holler is Lonicera maackii (common name, Amur honeysuckle), one of the species being tracked:
Amur honeysuckle bush leaves have pointed, hairy leaves. Click on the photo for a larger view and you can see some tiny flower buds. In the enlarged view you may be able to make out some of the leaf hairs at the leaf edges. Small hairs are present on all surfaces of these leaves if one gets closer than I got in this photo. April 7, 2017 [Photo: Cathie Bird]
The bark of the Amur honeysuckle has distinct ridges. April 7, 2017 [Photo: Cathie Bird]
Now that I'm confident of the ID of this bush, I'll add it to my observation list.
This week, the mapleleaf viburnum shows distinct leaves and very tiny flower buds visible:
Mapleleaf viburnam (Viburnum acerifolium) on April 7th, 2017. (Compare with a 3/29/17 photo in a previous post.) [Photo: Cathie Bird]
Further down the holler, most of the leaves on the multiflora rose have reached full size, and totally new branches are starting to grow out of the older ones (you can see one of them in this photo):
Rosa multiflora on April 5th, 2017. [Photo: Cathie Bird]
This week I saw my first bumblebees of 2017 on the flowers of an autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata), which is also an invasive species. This observation led me to explore my own mixed feelings about this shrub/tree. Some preliminary searches online revealed that not everybody finds this plant to be annoying. It is not one of the species observed as a 'shady invader', however, and at some point I think it deserves its own post. Meanwhile, I'll snag some current photos of it.
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A monarch butterfly on butterflyweed, a type of milkweed, at the Lenoir Preserve Nature Center in Yonkers, New York. (Photo: Don Sutherland/flickr/cc)
Herbicide-resistant genetically modified crops have brought the iconic monarch butterfly to the brink of extinction, according to a new report presented by the Center for Food Safety to Congress on Thursday.
The report, Monarchs in Peril (pdf), is the most comprehensive look yet at how Monsanto's 'Roundup Ready' crops have helped decimate the monarch population, which has declined by 90 percent in the past 20 years.
Monsanto Crops Pushing Monarch Butterfly to 'Verge of Extinction' at www.commondreams.org
The report linked above [Monarchs in Peril: Herbicide Resistant Crops and the Decline of Monarch Butterflies in North America] summarizes some of the recommendations for federal agencies, Congress and state governments that have been put forward by scientists and public interest groups concerned about the monarch's future. These include listing the monarch under the Endangered Species Act, and reopening past assessments of herbicide-resistant crops by the USDA pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Monarch Breeding Map/Center for Food Safety
In August of 2014, the Center for Food Safety, the Center for Biological Diversity and several other organizations filed a legal petition to protect the Monarch Butterfly under the endangered species act. The USFWS responded by opening a review of the the monarch's status.
In December, the USFWS published their 90-day findings on the monarch in the Federal register. The public comment period is open through March 2, 2015 on whether to list the monarch butterfly under the ESA.
See also my March 2014 review of work the David Suzuki Foundation is doing to encourage citizen scientists to help protect the monarch.
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Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) on Echinacea purpurea. Photo by and (c)2007 Derek Ramsey
I found an article from the David Suzuki Foundation yesterday that makes a great pitch for citizen science and for helping out the awesome monarch butterflies, so thought I would share it on HollerPhenology.
The article begins with a brief history of Monarch Watch and its effort to engage citizens in tracking monarch migrations. Now, with monarch populations declining due to human activities such as illegal logging in Mexico, herbicide use on genetically modified crops, and impact on climate change, Suzuki and many others have asked citizens and their governments to take action on behalf of these butterflies:
In February, in response to a letter by Mexican poet Homero Aridjis, signed by more than 100 scientists, writers and environmentalists — including Canadians Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje and John Ralston Saul — U.S. President Barack Obama, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreed to "establish a working group to ensure the conservation of the monarch butterfly, a species that symbolizes our association."
The letter to leaders said, "As Mexico is addressing the logging issues, so now must the United States and Canada address the effects of our current agricultural policies." Those problematic practices are mainly associated with large-scale planting of corn and soy genetically modified to resist the herbicide Roundup, or glyphosate. It doesn't kill crops — just pretty much everything else, including the milkweed monarchs need to lay their eggs and that is their caterpillars' main food.
The Suzuki Foundation hopes that leaders will honor their agreement, and that citizen scientists will get excited about helping scientists and researchers to better understand monarch life cycles.
Check out some of the "related posts" links below for more information. Or take a look at Monarch Watch's Bring Back the Monarchs campaign page. Another interesting presentation on the monarchs can be found at the website for the film, Flight of the Butterflies.
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More research on why neonicotinoid pesticeds are so harmful to bee populations:
BRIGHTON, UK, January 29, 2014 (ENS) – Controversial pesticides ingested by bumble bees can seriously impact the insects’ ability to collect food, even at very low levels of contamination, finds new research from the University of Sussex and the University of Stirling.
The study shows that even tiny doses of a neonicotinoid pesticide called imidacloprid reduce the amount of pollen collected by bumblebee colonies by 57 percent, and that the effects last for at least a month after exposure.
Read more at ens-newswire.com
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