The Days of Summer - Day Fifty-nine through Day Sixty-five

Here is installment nine of my Days of Summer photo project - I am trying to catch up, but I have been very busy with scheduling school program  I started this project on the Summer Solstice (21 June 2018) with a photo from a sunrise hike at the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Bundy Hill Preserve.  My plan is to photograph something every day until the Fall Equinox (22 September 2018) and share one image from each day.  I am currently in week ten of the project.  To see the previous installments click here.
 
Day 59 (18 August 2018) - American Robin feathers

This image was photographed at my parent's home in Clinton County.  While searching for something to photograph, I found a dead American Robin lying on the ground on a mowed path through the woods.  This picture shows some of the feathers on its back and wings, with just a tiny bit of orange from its neck at the bottom left of the image.


Day 60 (19 August 2018) - Woodpecker holes in a birch trunk

This picture was taken at the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy's Hall's Lake Natural Area during a stewardship outing.  I noticed this log while searching the woods for Autumn Olive (an invasive species) and went back to photograph it later.  These holes were probably originally created by a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.  Now a Hairy Woodpecker was taking advantage of the easy access to search for insects in the rotting trunk.


Day 61 (20 August 2018) - Goldenrod Soldier Beetles on Rosinweed

This image was taken in our home native pollinator garden.  At any given time (especially during late summer) I can find dozens pollinators in our garden.  This year, for the first time, I noticed an influx of Goldenrod Soldier Beetles.  This mating pair was crawling around on one of the Rosinweed plants.  This image has been cropped from a horizontal to a vertical format.


Day 62 (21 August 2018) - Bombus impatiens on Purple Coneflower

I love bees, especially bumble bees!  This image of a Common Eastern Bumble Bee (Bombus impatiens) was taken at the Forest Hill Nature Area.  I cropped the image to a square just because I thought it looked best in this format.


Day 63 (22 August 2018) - Storm clouds

This picture was taken at Chipp-A-Waters Park in Mt. Pleasant late in the day.  This image reminds me of the froth created by waves crashing on a beach.


Day 64 (23 August 2018) - Monarch caterpillar

This Monarch (Danaus plexippus) on a Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) was photographed in the field next to the Isabella Conservation District office.  On days that I spend a lot of time in the office, sometimes I just need to go outside for a few minutes.

Day 65 (24 August 2018) - Native Pollinator Garden at Winn Elementary

The Isabella Conservation District planted and currently helps maintain native pollinator gardens at two local schools and the Mt. Pleasant Discovery Museum.  With school starting, I spent a couple hours pulling weeds and moving "volunteer" plants from pathways at the Winn Elementary School Garden.  The Leopold bench in the picture was one of six constructed with students back in 2013.  They were all recently repainted in the school colors.

More Photos from the RAM Center at North Higgins Lake State Park

Yesterday was the first full day of 2016, Michigan DNR Academy of Natural Resources.  I had a little bit of time before and after class sessions to explore and photograph the area around the RAM Center.  A few of the photographs have been labeled, but not all of them.

Deer remains among conifer trees

Backlit spider web

Snail eggs on a decaying log

Daddy-long-legs (not a spider) camouflaged against pine bark

Birch Bark curls

Shelf fungus on a birch log

Daddy-long-legs on birch

Ripples in Higgins Lake

Surpise monarch predation

Yesterday (Sunday) Shara and I stopped into her classroom to drop off her new classroom pet and to tag and release a couple of Monarch butterflies that had emerged from their chrysalises late on Friday.  When we got into her classroom we could see that something was not right.

There were no Monarchs fluttering in the pop-up habitat.

When we looked inside this is the scene that greeted us.

The destruction at the bottom off the habitat

Discarded wings from a dead Monarch

Every single chrysalis had been pulled from the top of the container and and its contents devoured.  All that remained of the two adult Monarchs was a pile of wings.

What caused this destruction?

Sometime between Friday afternoon and Sunday morning a mouse discovered the enclosure, climbed to the top of the habitat, chewed an entry hole and slipped inside.  After eating every living thing inside, it climbed back out the same entry hole and disappeared.

The total loss was two adult monarchs and about a dozen chrysalises.

It could have been worse.  We still have 10 chrysalises at home in a different container.

Almost every year we lose a few caterpillars/chrysalises to parasites.  Sometimes we have a few that are deformed by a protozoa infection.  Losing almost half of our year's crop of Monarchs to a mouse was something that we never expected.

Life and Death on a Grass Seed

Yesterday afternoon I got bored with sitting at my desk so I grabbed my camera and wandered out into the field behind the office.  I was just about to come back in when something caught my eye.

Female Goldenrod Crab Spider feeding on a beetle while a smaller male spider guards her to deter rival males

That is a beetle (unidentified) being grasped in the jaws of a female Goldenrod Crab Spider (Misumena vatia).  If you look closely, a smaller male spider is perched on her abdomen.  I am guessing that they had recently mated and the male was hanging around to chase away other male spiders.

Quigley Creek Porcupines

Last year during a plant survey at the Quigley Creek Natural Area I found the remains of a dead North American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum).

North American Porcupine skeleton

A couple of weeks ago (20 MAY 2015), during a return trip to Quigley Creek, we found a porcupine den tree.  This hollow tree has probably been occupied by a porcupine for months.  The ground beneath the tree was covered by a thick layer of scat.

Porcupine den tree