An Autumn Bouquet

Nashville Warbler, Goldenrod, Sumac and Carpenter Bee      20 August 2015

A flurry of migration, the warblers are on the move!  Autumn is in the air!

Image taken using Canon 7D and Canon EF400mm f5.6 L lens

Harmony

Early Autumn Timing in the Circle          12 August 2015

Ruby-throated Hummingbird and orange spotted touch-me-not

One of the most important themes in Biology is that of interdependence.  The evolution of an ecosystem's complexity, the harmony in its parts, is built upon the many relationships between those parts.  It takes more than a complex enumeration of the members of an ecosystem to approach understanding. To truly begin to grasp an ecosystem's living harmony is to seek an understanding of intersections between key life history events, the flowering, the pollinating, the migrating, the birth, the death, the mating, the growing... These events do not just intersect in space.  They also intersect in time.

The spotted touch-me-not, known to many as jewel weed, may not have any name at all in the universe of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, but it has a deeply entrenched meaning to the bird.  As summer's days grow short, cold northern weather patterns increasingly bring azure skies and a brisk chill to the morning dew.  Even the latest nests of hummingbirds are fledging their young.  As the young grow in strength and the breeding season becomes a fact of the past, hummingbirds ramp up in their determination to migrate south to the tropics.  It is during this time that the jewel weed are blooming, the nectar fueling hummingbird migrations, the hummingbirds actively and incidentally transporting the jewel weed pollen.  For the hummingbird, the jewel weed signals the end of the breeding season and the urgency of migration.  For the jewel weed, the hummingbird migration brings a promise of genetic diversity and a boost in sexual reproduction.  The two are entwined in the story of survival, mutualism and urgency in new life.  The two represent production and growth in a time of year when so many species are tucking away in preparation for winter.

All images were made with a Canon 40D, Canon EF400 mm f5.6 lens, and a Gitzo basalt tripod. And where would somebody go to find spotted touch-me-not?  A beaver pond, of course!

Looking the Part...A Way of Life

Bald Eagle and Blood-stained Feathers                     16 June 2015

This Bald Eagle was feeding on a deer carcass.  Normally bright yellow, the feet are a strange hue of orange, an accent of dried blood.  The blood on the feathers of the face is more recent, as you can see a full crop on this well-fed bird!   Canon 7D and Canon 300mm f4L IS lens.  

Brewster's Warbler

Musings About Habitat               25 May 2015

Brewster's Warbler singing in prickly ash

The Brewster's Warbler is a hybrid, the outcome of a mating between a Blue-winged Warbler and a Golden-winged Warbler.  The two species are very recently diverged, sharing some similarity in basic song and nearly identical Type II aggressive song. Though it is clear a number of events have caused them to be two distinct species, hybridization still occurs when ranges overlap.  While Brewster's Warbler hybrids lack the black throat of the Golden-winged Warbler, each one seems to be unique. Some are pale yellow with a white face.  Others are largely gray and pale, like a Golden-winged Warbler, but with splashes of lemon yellow on the breast.  Some are not easily distinguished from the Blue-winged Warbler except for a pale gray cheek.   Check the face, the back, the breast, the wing patterns, and it becomes clear that there are many plumage possibilities at play!

Brewster's Warbler in young burr oak

 Both nest in younger, brushier habitats, though ideal habitat for each species is really quite different, the differences being felt better than described.   To me, Blue-winged Warbler habitat is found near young farm forests, mowed walking trails bordered by dogwood and prickly ash, the thickets within a stone's throw of a bluebird house trail, maybe even older upland forest adjacent to a wide and marshy clearing with a stream, dead trees, and a margin of sun-dappled grape.  In Blue-winged Warbler habitat, the red fox slips by just out of view, cows bellow in the distance, and elements of the wild are woven amid neatened rows of agriculture and forgotten back field edges. A lazy "tzeeeeeee bzzzzzz" rings out while Field Sparrows, Gray Catbirds, Common Yellowthroats, and Eastern Towhees join the song chorus.

Golden-winged Warbler habitat is a little more stoic, a picture of "up north" wild.  To me, Golden-winged Warbler habitat is found in a grove of young aspen at the edge of flooded wiregrass sedge, a broad finger of alder running far out into a wild and timeless wetland criss-crossed by deer trails.  It may be, perhaps, a wide clearcut patch of county forest stumps, brush and young chokecherry adjacent to a deep and dark forest of oak, birch, maple, and white pine,  Wolves have marked the sand road with their droppings here, and bears keep cool in the shade of older trees just down the slope.  Scarlet Tanagers, Nashville Warblers, Sedge Wrens, and Chestnut-sided Warblers provide the background ambiance to the invigorated "beee-bzzzz-bzzzz-bzzzz-bzzzz". 

A problem emerges in my habitat generalization, of course.  I have found Blue-winged Warblers in equally wild land.   But I also have found a common player where ranges overlap--European Honeysuckle.  My realization is just tantalizing enough as a hypothesis to maybe find its way into research.  As I write this, I find myself looking into the research of the Golden-winged Warbler Working Group to see if they have had a common thought... Could a European exotic provide ecological stimulus to influence hybridization?

Brewster's Warbler in young white oak

Brewster's Warbler lurking behind the honeysuckle flowers

Foraging in the honeysuckle

A wonderfully wet May, all around life is flourishing.  Time moves along relentlessly, and for just one month each year, Wisconsin shares nearly the same climatological data as a Costa Rican rain forest. The birds are here, back from the tropics, joining our resident birds, and they are busy!

Belted Kingfisher and beaver pond

Tree Swallow and overcast sky

All images were made with a Canon 7D, Canon 300mm f4L IS lens, and a lot of drizzle, fog, and cloud. A beautiful, tropical day along the St. Croix River!  Spend a little time afield with the Brewster's Warbler here at my YouTube channel!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xcsjcRIjaU

Back When There Was Film...

Sedge Wren and Aggressive Display                     Date: UNKNOWN

There is a certain beauty to film.  Only a few years ago, we loved the different grains and the character given to an image by its imperfection.  We chose films for their colors.  I was a big fan of Velvia and Provia for their "Spring and Summer up at the Lake" kinds of colors, but I also loved the look of Kodak Lumier S.  The "S" stood for "Saturated".  The saturation leaned toward "warm."  Perhaps the greatest beauty to the film was the simple fact that we could get away with just a little more imperfection in our craft.  A razor-sharp look at a bird's eye was still ideal, but there just wasn't enough information in the protein-and-chemical matrix to cause us to throw out a shot if we loved it. I have grown to love the sense of anonymity in time presented by my old film.  There is no digital stamp, no record of travels in a series of numbered files.  A lone slide in a sheet of twenty archived favorites is at high risk for sliding into mystery, giving up its exact time and context to the aging memory.  This Sedge Wren was photographed amid the alders on the south end of a dirt road in Burnett County, Wisconsin.  I still know the exact spot.  The dirt road still exists as a levy, and the wire-grass sedge and alder lowland still beckons me to explore.  This Sedge Wren sang a territorial song there one year in late May, perhaps June.  It was after 2003 and before 2007.  It was a beautiful day that I remember well, but I really don't remember when it happened.   Sometimes the joy in a memory is the strength of the grain and the imperfection in the image.

This image was made with a Canon A2E that I purchased in 1999.  It was made with a Canon 300 f4L IS lens that I purchased in 2003.  The film was, most likely, Fuji Provia 100.

Sharp-tailed Grouse

Life on the Lonely Lek?               20 April 2008

Sharp-tailed Grouse male, displaying

Brushland prairie is rare, valuable stuff.  Very few places in Wisconsin have the right sands, a history of wild fire, and the right landscape to promote the Sharp-tailed Grouse.  The places that remain tend to hand wildlife biologists plenty of challenges and mysteries.  Piles of grouse feathers were scattered in piles about the lek in 2006. Perhaps it was the work of a talented harrier, a grouse lek picked apart by predation?  And what about the nests and the continuing promise of new birds?  Overrun by nest-dumping Ring-necked Pheasant, perhaps?  By 2008, this dancing ground held only a single bird.  He was determined, but, on this day, he danced alone.

All images were made with a Canon Rebel XTi and Canon 300mm f4L IS lens.  It seems like yesterday, but these images were made nearly seven years ago!

Keep Looking Up!

A Change of Perspective                         3 January 2015

Trumpeter Swans, soft sunrise, photographed with Canon 7D and 300mm f4L IS

Trumpeter Swan photographed with GoPro Hero 3+ Silver, set to time lapse once every 0.5 Seconds.  Eventually, a shot makes the hit!