A Peregrine Falcon in Mt. Pleasant

I have said repeatedly in the past that I am not a birder, but I seem to have spent a fair amount of time lately looking for specific birds.  In January I shared photos of several Snowy Owls from around Mid-Michigan.  This is not the only uncommon bird to show up in the area this winter.  For the past month, there has been a Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) hanging out in Mt. Pleasant.  This is only the sixth Peregrine Falcon reported on eBird for Isabella County all since 2014. 

This bird has chosen to hang out on the City of Mt. Pleasant water tower located north of Pickard Road, between Mission Road. and Kinney Avenue.  When I saw the Falcon it was perched on a metal seam along the center of the tower.  Others have seen it perched on the railing above the catwalk at the base of the tank. 

Good luck searching for this bird.  I saw it on my first attempt, but I know of one birder that has made at least four unsuccessful attempts to find it.

Wild Canids of Mt. Pleasant

Michigan is home to four species of wild canines (Family Canidae):  Gray Wolf (Canis lupus), Coyote (Canis latrans), Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes), and Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus).  Of the four, three can be found in Mid-Michigan; the Gray Wolf is currently found only in the Upper Peninsula.  Although I have seen Gray Fox in Isabella County, I have yet to see one in the city of Mt. Pleasant.  I have also not personally seen a Coyote in Mt. Pleasant.  (I have seen at least two in Alma near my house.)  I have witnessed Red Fox in Mt. Pleasant on several occasions.

Red Fox and Coyote have both become infrequent, but regular, sightings on my trail camera.  On the most recent batch of pictures (14 June - 10 July) a Coyote showed up on two separate dates and a Red Fox appeared three separate time.

Coyote pictures:

Although a Coyote showed up on two separate dates, I have only included pics from June 20th.  The Coyote passed through in low light at approximately 4:30AM and then either the same animal (or possible a different one) returned at a little after 7:00AM.
 

Red Fox pictures:

The Red Fox showed up on camera three times (June 29th, July 2nd, and July 10th). 

 

I really like how these photos show the size difference between the two species.  If you look at these next two images, the Fox and the Coyote are standing in essentially the same place.  

The Coyote is 1.5 to 2 times the height of the Fox (23-26 inches vs. 14-20 inches).  It might be two or even three times the Fox's weight; average weight for a Coyote is 18-44 lbs vs. 5-30 lbs for a Red Fox.  

Both animals are omnivores and often compete for many food sources.  Despite their size difference, it is rare for a Coyote to kill and eat an adult Red Fox.  They will however eat Fox pups on occasion.

I've finally gotten them to walk in front of the camera during daylight hours, now if I could just get them to turn and face the camera once in a while.

A hawk makes a kill...

Yesterday I shared a short video segment that I recorded at Forest Hill Nature Area.

Today I wanted to share just a couple of photographs from the same walk. 

As Shara and I walked along the edge of the property's South Woods, we noticed a Red-Tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) fly up from trailside and land in one of the trees.  It stayed in the tree for about 10 seconds and then flew away.

A Red-tailed Hawk in distant tree

This photograph is nothing to write home about.  It was taken from about 50 yards away with a lens more suited to close subjects.  The real excitement came when we approached the spot where the hawk had been on the ground.

Plucked feathers indicate a kill site

The ground beside the trail was strewn with feathers.  Lots of feathers.  Obviously, the hawk had been on the site of a kill.  While Red-tailed Hawks often eat mice and other small animals whole, with larger animals they use their beak to pluck the prey's fur (or in this case feathers) before feeding.

Several of the feathers on the ground were quite distinctive such as the spotted feathers to the left of the photo and one iridescent purple/blue feather.  My first impression from the feathers was that the hawk had made a kill of a Wood Duck (Aix sponsa). 

A little more searching confirmed this as I found the remains of a Wood Duck drake (adult male) a few feet away on the other side of a tree.

This Wood Duck drake was killed and partially eaten by a Red-tailed Hawk

The breast of the duck was completely plucked and most of the meat had been eaten from one side of the breast.

Although Red-tailed Hawks have been persecuted in the past because people thought that they preyed on large numbers of game birds and game animals (such as rabbits), the majority of their diet is made up of small mammals such as mice and voles.  Overall, between 80% and 95% of their diet consists of mammals (mostly rodents).  Birds (of all types) consist of at most 10% of their diet.  The remainder of their prey consists of insects, reptiles, and amphibians.  Red-tailed Hawks will also occasionally feed on fresh carrion such as road-killed deer.

I don't know if the hawk flew away from the kill because it heard us (we were still not visible when it flew) or if it was just done with its meal.  Either way, the meat from the duck will not go to waste.  The hawk may have returned after we left to resume feeding or another animal would eventually find it and scavenge the remains.

Although I have found kills by hawks (or owls) in the past, this was by far the freshest.  It was pretty cool to be able to piece together this story so easily.

Nature Happens - Shopping for Lunch at the Lansing Mall

On Sunday (14 FEB) Shara and I stopped at the Lansing Mall to buy a few things and have lunch.  As we were driving along the outside of the mall we noticed a large flock of American Robins (Turdus migratorius) feeding on the ornamental crab apple fruits.  Then Shara looked into a spruce tree alongside our truck and noticed something staring out.

Cooper's Hawk (Photo by Shara LeValley)

Cooper's Hawk (Photo by Shara LeValley)

That's a Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii).  The Cooper's Hawk belongs to a family of raptors known as accipiters.  Accipiters typically live in forested areas and have short wings and long tails that allow them to maneuver swiftly through trees.  Many accipters prey on other birds.  This Cooper's Hawk was intently watching the flock of robins.

When we exited the mall about two hours later Shara noticed the Cooper's Hawk sitting on the ground.  It had successfully made a kill and was feasting on a robin.  While people wandered the mall, "nature" was happening right outside.

Cooper's Hawk with kill (Photo by Shara LeValley)

Cooper's Hawk with kill (Photo by Shara LeValley)

Cooper's Hawk with kill (Photo by Shara LeValley)

Earlier that morning I had debated about whether to take my camera or not.  I should know by now that if i don't have my camera there is a good chance that I will end up regretting it.

Let me tell you 'bout the frog and the snake...

I have lots of stories.  When I show one of my photographs in a classroom, I often have a story that goes along with it.  Unfortunately, many of my best stories don't translate well to the written form.  This is because my storytelling usually has a physical component - I don't just tell a story, I act it out.  So until the day that I become a better writer (not likely to happen), or I start to record videos of my stories (even less likely to happen), many of my stories can only be experienced in person.

There are a few, a very few, of my photographs that can almost tell the story on their own.  One example is this sequence of pictures from 2006.

I remember discovering this Common Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) struggling with a Gray Treefrog (Hyla versicolor) in the woods at Mission Creek Woodland Park.

I have made a habit of discovering interesting things not only by sight, but also by smell and sound.  My attention was drawn to this pair by a horrible grunting squeak that I couldn't replicate if I tried.  It was not a sound that I usually hear in a forest or anywhere else for that matter.  It was so unique that I had to search for the source.  When I first spied the snake and frog in the leaf litter, the snake had a hold of a single hind leg of the frog.  This was enough...

 A garter snakes jaws are lined with many small needle-sharp teeth.  They help the snake get a grip on struggling prey.  By walking its jaws along the frog's body, it was quickly able to position the frog in the preferred head-first swallowing position.  The frog had no real defense for this - it tried to puff up its body to make itself to large to swallow, but the garter snake is an expert on frogs.

I think I will let the snake show you.

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.

Ladies and Gentlemen... The Beetles!

My wife like to joke about my love of beetles.  The insect, not the rock band.  The band spelled its name Beatles (with an EA replacing the double E).

I like the band's music, but it only had four members.  The Order Coleoptera (beetles) has over 450,000 identified species!  This makes beetles the most diverse order of animal on Earth.

That means that there are always new species to discover.

Last Friday (31 July), I stopped at the Saginaw Chippewa Academy to photograph some of the flowers in the Native Pollinator Garden.  As I was walking around, I noticed several tiger beetles running along the sidewalk.  This is not something new,  the tiger beetles moved in several years ago. In the past, I have only seen Six-spotted Tiger Beetles (Cicindella sexguttata) in this location, but at least one of these beetles lacked the bright metallic green coloring and the distinctive white spots on its elytra (hard outer wing coverings that protect the fragile inner wings).

This beetle was more of a brown/gray color and had fainter spots on its elytra.  Tiger beetles are known for being very fast.  This means they can be very difficult to photograph. I managed to get only one photograph, but it was enough to make an identification.

Without further ado, the new-to-me beetle in the garden was a Backroad Tiger Beetle (Cicindella punctata).  The species is also known as the Punctured Tiger Beetle (hence punctata) and the Sidewalk Tiger Beetle.  The species is found across much of the United States east of the Rockies and into southern Canada.

Backroad Tiger Beetle (Cincidella punctata)

This cropped picture shows the faint markings on the elytra that helped me make the identification; however, color and markings are highly variable among individuals.  If I had seen a different individual, I may not have been able to come up with an ID.

Backroad Tiger Beetle (Cincidella punctata) - cropped image

Finding this species was exciting to me for a couple of reasons.  First of all simply because of the fact that it was a new species for me.  Second, finding predators such as tiger beetles in the garden means that there are other invertebrates present for them to prey upon and this means the garden is doing its job as a habitat.