Bald eagles!!

I got your Spring showers right here, chump

My favorite fact about that capricious whistlepig, Punxsutawney Phil is that, as with most progrnosticating animals, he is wrong over half the time. And that's with a 50/50 shot of being right. Today my mom and I spotted this beefy white-chinned woodchuck fiercely defending its cozy little drain pipe.

On my way home from CCV today I decided to drop in at Salmon Hole and see what avifauna all that open water might have brought out. And boy was I delighted! After watching the gulls hunting fish, I spotted a mature eagle hanging out on the ice down stream. I went home to get my camera and convince my mom to come out and join us. When we got back to Salmon Hole the eagle had left already. In its stead was a beautiful assortment of water loving birds. Bonus challenge: Spot (and name) all four species in the photo below?

Can you spot four different species in the above photo?

After hanging out for about 20 minutes, the gulls just went berserk and all those standing around chittering with each other burst up into flight. Sure enough, flying straight towards them from downstream was the eagle! The gulls scattered and circle around until the eagle disappeared in the distance (it flew over My Web Grocer towards St Mikes). 

The littlest of leaves...

White ash

I've so enjoyed watching all the buds leaf out this year. Each species has its own way of opening up to the warm spring weather - they unfurl, burst, surreptitiously emerge, bolt, elongate, crack, pop, and slither open. What a joy to watch.

Common buckthorn

Speckled alder

Sugar maple

Basswood

Maple-leaf viburnum

Striped maple

Green ash

White pine

Bitternut hickory

Staghorn sumac

Glossy buckthorn

Sapsuckers and sap flow

What: Last week, I was out checking the bees with Zac and Sophia and we noticed that the boxelder looked like it had wet its pants. A few days earlier, Clay had spotted an odd ball woodpecker in our backyard and I thought from a quick glimpse it may have been a sapsucker. When we inspected the "wet spots" on the boxelder, sure enough there were all sorts of little drill holes. We licked the bark and it was delicious.



There are a lot of origin stories about the human discovery of maple sugaring. I'll bet almost all of them are false and created many generations after humans were utilizing syrup. I've got three bets for how humans discovered sugaring:

1. Red Squirrels: I've watched red squirrels chew little notches in branches of sugar and red maples. I've also watched them return and lick off the sap from bark later.
2. Sapsuckers: Water can be hard to come by in the winter. Curiosity, particulalry when there's a need for something, runs high in humans. My first inclination when I saw the drill holes and wet bark was to wonder what the sapsucker was after. My second inclination was to taste the sap. I was rewarded with a delicious treat.
3. Broken branches: Silver maples and boxelders both grow along floodplains. Winter can be rough on trees and without the metabolic activity to heal wounds, exposed wound sites will "bleed" once the sap starts flowing. Early in the sugaring season, when temperatures still drop well below freezing at night, any sap that might flow out of a broken branch can freeze into a sapsicle. The water freezes first and the outer coat is extra sweet. Kids love to suck on icicles and I'll be it was a kid that first discovered these sweet treats. 

I've kept an informal list over the years of species that I've seen sapsuckers tapping. The list this year includes: Black walnut, Red oak, Boxelder, Silver maple, Hemlock, Bitternut hickory, White pine, Norway spruce, Black cherry, and Paper birch.

black walnut with drill holes from sapsucker

Turkey Vultures

What: It's FOY (first-of-year) season, and the skies are abuzz with the wing beats of our first returning migrant birds. Apparently, they didn't hear about our record-setting cold weather. I love the first flocks of vultures returning north. They come with the male red-winged blackbirds, the waterfowl (if only our ponds would thaw!!), and the courtship behavior of our over-wintering birds like chickadees.

I spotted this committee of vultures (see my post on collective nouns) over the St Joseph Cemetery on Archibald St in Burlington on Saturday afternoon. There were at least 15 birds.

Over the next few weeks we'll see more and more birds returning to the state. It's an exciting time of year - I'd love to hear what other folks are starting to see as the days get longer and (hopefully) warmer.

Bud scales & the most adorable leaf ever

What: The forest is mostly green now that all the buds have opened or are opening. While out in Centennial Woods the other day I was collecting leaves of all different sizes from Norway maple (Acer platanoides). Like other maples, the scales on Norway maple buds open and form these elongate leaves that subtend the normal leaves (seen as the plus sign in the photo below). Buds are made out of modified leaves and these are deciduous once the normal leaves (there's probably a technical name for these) are more fully developed.

Something must have gotten messed up somewhere along the way on one of the branches I was looking at. It appeared that the bud scale decided that it was going to get back to its roots and form a leaf. In the photo above, the mini leaf was actually attached to the tip of the bud scale leaf.

Bird a Day - Downy Woodpecker

What: Female downy woodpecker above. Male shown below, note the visible red blotch on his nape. Sex is pretty easy to determine for most of our woodpeckers. General rule: If it has red on its head it's a male, if not it's female. Beware, as this doesn't always work (as with pileated woodpeckers - both have red on their head).

Hairy woodpeckers (coming tomorrow) can be really difficult to tell the apart from downys. A hairy woodpecker is beefed up downy woodpecker (hairys are about the size of robins, downys are just slightly bigger than titmice). My old roommate, and fantastic naturalist, Emily Stone, used the following mnemonic:

    "What bill??" - downy woodpecker
    "What a bill!!" - hairy woodpecker

Note that the downy has a thin narrow bill shorter than the bird's head is; hairys have thick chunky bills longer than the diameter of the bird's head.

Where: Silver maple in my backyard

Bird a Day - Cardinal

What: We've had cardinals successfully - and unsuccessfully - fledge young in our backyard. This male has been courting a couple of females, so hopefully this will be a "successful" year. Females have the same body shape, but are a waxy yellowish color with dustings of red on the sides. Their songs (and both males and females sing) are simple, but variable. They have that same sweetness to them that the titmouse has, but cardinals tend to sound more like a toy laser gun. Birdie Birdie Birdie Pew Pew Pew Pew.

Where: The silver maple!

Other notes: Their nests, which certainly aren't the tidiest of affairs, are often placed in super shrubby thickets where they have access to lots of cover (which is partly why they like honeysuckle so much). They always use strips of grapevine bark in the outer layers of their nests. Not sure why, perhaps to help conceal their nests from predators. In Medicine Quest Mark Plotkin describes eagles that select medicinal twigs to line their nests with (supported by research from Ohio Wesleyan). I looked up medicinal uses of grapevine bark and couldn't find any references, maybe the cardinals know something we don't?

Birds can't produce red pigment on their own, so in order to display a red plumage a cardinal needs to ingest foods with red in them. The pink of a flamingo is variable with the the amount of brine shrimp and blue-green algae in their diet; the more algae relative to crustaceans, the deeper the pink color. Both of these food sources contain carotenoids, and a redder coat may advertise to potential mates a healthier individual.

Male cardinals need to ingest foods with red pigments to get that brilliant color of theirs. Similarly, the better they are at procuring food the redder they'll be. Cardinals molt in the fall and so their spring coloration is due to what their diet consists of in the fall when they're replacing their feathers. All those fall berries (dogwood, barberry, grape, honeysuckle, etc.) provide the pigmentation the males need to say, "Yup, I'm fit and healthy and don't have a darn bit of trouble feeding myself." Males will also feed females as part of their courtship, as if to say, "And I can feed you to."

Other questions that come up for me:

• Why risk being red when you can just sing? 
• If you're already red to advertise your fitness, then why also sing? 
• If they have similar diets, how do females avoid turning red?
• Given their different colors, what's the difference in predation rates on males vs females?

As I was writing this I thought of an obvious possible explanation for why red is a common pigment among cardinals (and related species in the finch family Fringillidae and grosbeaks, which includes Emberizidae). Members of these two families, as evidenced by their bills, are granivores/frugivores (seed and fruit eaters). Plants advertise when their fruits are ready (which coincides with when the plant is done growing the seed and everything it will need to germinate and begin a new life) by changing colors. Most start green and turn a red, purple, or other color to signify to animals that they can eat the fruits now. The pigments used to signal this are, you guessed it, carotenoids.  Plants readily produce carotenoids to a) protect exposed surfaces from the sun, b) aid in photosynthesis, and c) advertising when fruits are edible. So the birds rely on the plants to tell them when to eat them and the pigments that tell them that to give them their coloration!

Bird a Day - House Finch

What: There's been a house finch singing around my property the past couple of weeks. Here's a shot of the male mid-song. The females have the same patterns on their bodies, but as with other finches (Fringillidae family) and grosbeaks (Emberizidae family), they are a drab brown.

Ecological notes: House finches are more recent "introductions" to the eastern US. According to Cornell's Lab of Ornithology's website, All About Birds, the story goes that they were being sold illegally in pet shops in NYC (can't sell migratory song birds under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918). Fearing prosecution, shop holders released their charges into the wilds of Long Island. They quickly spread out of the city and now cover much of the US (map). In the east, house finches stick more to urban and suburban areas, and in these places have begun replacing the native purple finch, which bears a similar red to the house finch.

Where: My backyard

Bird a day - Titmouse

What: The silver maple has provided me endless entertainment these past couple weeks. We've got a local flock that will swoop through and feed on it for about a half hour before moving on. My room's on the third floor, so I'm more or less "in" the canopy of the tree. While working the other day I snapped some photos of them li'l birdies and will post one species a day this week. The photo I didn't get in time was of a pileated woodpecker! It didn't stay long, which I hope indicates that the tree is in relatively good health.

Bird notes: The little guy above is a male tufted titmouse. They're similar in a lot of ways to black-capped chickadees, but their alarm calls are a much raspier: phweeet phweeet phweeet! and their songs a very sweet "Peter Peter Peter" akin to a cardinal (so much so it has caused much confusion for me). They've got an adorable little crest, slaty blue back, orange sides, and a white belly. There's a pair in this flock.

Where: My backyard

Silver maple buds exploding

What: Spring is definitely here. The energy of the land has shifted and there's a buzz all around that is singing "Life!" One unfortunate change is that the sap has started to go "buddy" - it has a bitter and unpleasant taste to it. This occurs when the buds swell. Right now, the buds on the silver maple outside my window are completely swollen (all that sap that's been flowing has to go somewhere), and they're about to burst. I'll be tracking this little twig over the coming weeks as it leafs out. You can track leaf burst dates with Project Bud Burst.

basswood buds

What: I just wanted to post a quick photo of a basswood bud. My friend Emily Stone told me a few years back that the buds looked like a mouse wearing a motorcycle helmet. I love that description, and it's definitely evident in the photo. The buds are edible and delicious (though a bit mucilaginous). Emily also taught me that you could eat the young leaves when they open. It's one of the first spring greens to come out and such a wonderful treat to be able to eat.

The little bumps visible on the twig are lenticels, the mouths along the branch. Basswood twigs, like most other species, are photosynthetic. If you peel back the outer bark you can see a thin layer of green tissue. The lenticels provide oxygen and other gases to move back and forth in support of respiration.

Amphibians moving

Wood frog (note black mask on its face)

What: Sophie, Sam and I headed down to New Haven last night after the Crow's Path potluck to check for amphibians. Amphibians start moving from their upland overwinter sites down to breeding grounds during the spring thaw. This usually happens late-March, early-April when temps are 37 or above and we get rain that soaks the ground. I can't find my records, but last year was super early and I think they started moving sometime around March 10th or so. I spend most of my time at Shelburne Pond, but that site doesn't see movement until after the New Haven site (the amphibians cross at the south end of SP, which is north facing and usually thaws around April 1).

We were out from about 9:30-10:15pm and here's our list

• Jefferson's salamander: 15
• blue-spotted salamander: 8
• Jefferson x blue-spotted hybrid?
• spotted salamander: 6
• Wood frog: 4
• Spring peeper: 2
• 4-toed salamander: 1
• eastern newt: 5 (all dead)

Ecological notes: The temp had dropped down to about 37 when we got out of the car. All the newts were dead (abbreviated DOR by herpetologists) and we wondered if they had started moving earlier when it was warmer out - maybe coinciding with when folks were driving home. In order of activity level in the 37 degree weather it seemed like Jefferson's were the quickest followed by blue-spotted salamanders and then spotted salamanders. Each had their own jiggly little dance. I'll try and post videos later this month.

Where: North St in New Haven, about a mile north of Plank Rd. Super hot spot, usually one of the first spots in the Champlain Valley to see movement.

Dragonflies and Butterflies

What: I have been seeing this beautiful, big, white-bodied dragonfly with distinct striping on its wings for over a month now in Centennial Woods. I could tell immediately that this was a dragonfly and not a damselfly (the other major group of Odonates) because of its large abdomen and broad four translucent wings that lay flat when at rest (a damselfly's wings would rise up vertically). I once worked with an ecological researcher who studies dragonfly behavior, but I couldn't remember for the life of me what this particular one was. Was it a darner, a skimmer, a cruiser, an emerald (common groups of dragonflies)? So I scoured the internet trying to remember what this very common white-tailed dragonfly was, and lo and behold, it is the Common Whitetail (Plathemis lydia, formally Libellula lydia). It is so common, in fact, that it is found in all of the 48 conterminous United States and most of the Canadian provinces.
            As for the butterfly, it didn't take too long to identify it using this site: http://www.thebutterflysite.com/vermont-butterflies.shtml. I took a look at the names for the different butterflies, and noticed that there was a group called "Swallowtails." If you look a the photo above, you'll see that is a fitting name for this kind of butterfly. Then I looked through the names of Swallowtails, and noticed there were two species named "Tiger Swallowtail," again, the yellow wing with black striping suggests such a name would be apt. One is the Canadian Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio canadensis), and the other is the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus). I tried to read a little bit more on distinguishing the two, but the most common trait identified was the smaller wingspan of the Canadian, which is not of much help to meet with this one fleeting photo I captured. I am happy with my Papilio classification - you can add more if you'd like!

Ecological notes: Common to members of the Odonata, the Common Whitetail dragonfly starts off life as an aquatic "nymph." You'll remember seeing dragonfly and damselfly nymphs in collections of stream macroinvertebrates if you ever did those exercises in school! This particular dragonfly nymph is tolerant to polluted waters, so it is not used as an indicator of stream health (although it doesn't mean the stream is unhealthy if they are present). Both the nymphs and the adults feed on other insects, so remember to not be afraid of these possibly intimidating insects, as they will help keep those mosquito and black fly populations in line!

Where:  I encountered this breeding male (as denoted by the starch-white abdomen) basking on the boardwalks that run through the powerline cut in Centennial Woods, close to the stream. This is really where it thrives, as it is after mosquitos and other insects that are found around ponds and slow-moving streams. This male stayed very close to one piece of boardwalk, and that is also a common behvaior, as breeding males with guard a 10-30 meter stretch of river or pond side as their territory. I saw another male Whitetail about 100 feet up the trail on the other side of the stream, most likely guarding its territory.

Other notes: It was fun to finally explore more of our charismatic minifauna, as I think these two are both beautiful and showy, albeit small in size. These are two great insects to get to know, as they are apparently very common throughout North America. Now it's time to explore more butterflies and dragonflies. Be on the lookout for the Vermont state butterfly - the Monarch - on its massive migration to feed on milkweed later in the summer!

Dandelion

What: Dandelion is one of my favorite flowers and edibles. It's one of the first to pop up and last herbaceous plants to send it's energy back to its roots for the winter. More often than not in any given area you can find the plant in all four stages of its reproductive life during the whole growing season (with flower buds, flowers, pollinated flowers, and seeds - or achenes - sticking out from the "receptacle").

In the photo on the top left, the early and abundant flowers are providing some of the first food for a pair of house flies (Musca domestica). Dandelions are in the Aster family and have what's called composite flowers meaning that the big round yellow guy sticking up (called a calathidium) is actually closer to a 100 mini flowers (called florets) than one flower (similar to how coral or the Portugese man o' war are not individual organisms but a collection of organisms that resemble and function as a single organism).

I didn't find a good source on the anatomy of a dandelion flower, so I thought I'd offer one here. In the bottom left photo of the dandelion in cross-section you can see the bracts - the little greenish purple guys beneath the flowers, the receptacle - the u-shaped structure that holds the seeds and has sap oozing out of it, and ray flowers - which are bisexual flowers that are attached to the receptacle and give the flower head - or ligulate head - its appearance. If you look at the underside of the flower head, the outer most florets have a beautiful maroon coloration to them and look like the bracts. If you look closely, each "petal" is actually 5 fused petals (notice the teeth at their tips) and corresponds to an individual flower.

The white fluff are the pappus and will form the all to familiar white parasols that float the seeds up to 5 miles away. Just above this, the split curly structures are the pistils (female) and fused to this in a ring at the base of the pistils are the stamen. I got this all straightened out after conferring with Liz Thompson and Matt Kolan. The fat short stubs in the middle of the flower head are florets that have yet to open (and might not open at all). And that's it! If you're going to learn flowers, dandelions probably aren't the best place to start.

Ecological notes: Dandelion thrives in places with little nutrient availability. As such, it has deep taproots that can access scant minerals deeper down. It's leaves spread out generously (called a basal rosette) and lay flat both to block other plants from sprouting near it (which would siphon away nutrients) and to take full advantage of the sunlight. The biggest one I've seen was more than 2' across! They're perennial so they can sprout up early in the spring and get their basal rosette out before other things can germinate.

Where: Everywhere (but the photos were taken in my backyard and an access road adjacent to Centennial Woods).

Other notes: Because of how common this plant is, it has lots and lots of names. Dandelion - Taraxacum officinale - translates in to "Tooth of the lion" because of the large teeth on the leaves. The French call it pissenlit, or "piss in bed" because of its diuretic qualities (often used to purify the liver). The species epithet, officinale, is mideval-Latin and indicates that it was used medicinally (as with the specific epithet for jasmine, lavender, rosemary, comfrey, ginger, fennel, rhubarb, and speedwell).

Spring peeper & Toads

What: I can now hear the chorus of American toads (Anaxyrus americanus) in the retention pond under the power lines in Centennial Woods, which is about .2 miles from my house. There are fewer gray treefrogs this year, but the trade off is a solitary spring peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) and a solitary bullfrog, Lithobates catesbeiana (you can barely hear the bullfrog around 55 seconds in to the video), both are firsts for me in the last 4 years of monitoring amphibians in Centennial Woods. The wood frogs are no longer making any noises.

Ecological notes: Toads sing when the temps get around 60 degrees or higher. The recent rains seems to have brought out more of them. If these temps keep up, we should start seeing some fireflies in the near future! I was also surprised to see a beaver swimming around in the retention pond. I haven't seen them this far from Centennial Brook before. This one slapped its tail at me three times indicating that it might be an different beaver than the three that live in the brook that know me much better.

Where: Centennial Woods power line retention pond

Other notes: The taxonomic groups of bullfrogs, spring peepers and toads have recently been changed. When a species gets moved to another genus it keeps its specific epithet (the second part of the latin binomial). The former names for the three are Rana catesbeiana, Hyla crucifer and Bufo americanus, the bold parts changed, the non-bold parts remain the same by convention. I personally prefer the old names for reasons outlined quite well in this article on the taxonomy of treefrogs: Pseudacris vs Hyla

Red Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis)

What: I have been seeing these flowers a lot during my recent wanders in the woods and never knew what they were called! Their droopy shape managed to catch my eye a couple of times along with their beautiful red hue. I found this group growing at a pretty high elevation towards the summit of Mt. Philo, in between the cracks of a boulder. ( I found out later that Red Columbine is also sometimes referred to as Rock Bells! Its pretty amazing to see where some plants grow!

Ecological notes: The Red Columbine is a member of the buttercup family and likes to grow in shady, rocky areas. The plants grow up to three feet tall and is native to North America. It is pollinated by hummingbirds and contains a very sweet nectar! This plants blooms from March to July and sets fruit mid summer.

Where: These pictures were taken hiking Mt. Philo but I have also seen these beauties in Centennial Woods and the Burlington area.

Other notes: This plant is also referred to as honeysuckle which is the name I knew it by. As I peeled back the petals I sucked out the sweet nectar and was immediately brought back to those summer days eating honey suckle in my backyard as a child. Red Columbine is a popular garden perennial because it lives up to 3-5 years and can regenerate itself by seed.

 I am still wondering why these flowers face downward and what purpose this serves the plant?

Vinca, Garlic Mustard and an Eastern Cottontail

What: The patch of woods behind my house (dominant trees are black walnut, slippery elm, boxelder, and and Norway maple, with black cherry, honeysuckle, and common buckthorn in the understory and that is literally all) has about three different herbaceous plants growing in the understory and they form near monocrop patches. The first is Vinca spp. (or periwinkle), which I have growing in dense, impenetrable thickets closest to the walnut (walnuts have juglone in their roots which is known to inhibit growth of other plants). Farther away is a 1-2' tall forest of garlic mustard. The scilla, which I already posted about has pretty much gone through its life cycle before the garlic mustard is up.

Ecological notes: I've long just attributed this overwhelming abundance of garlic mustard and vinca to the fact that this is a heavily disturbed area and so non-native exotics like garlic mustard would thrive. The Vinca was probably ground cover from an ornamental planting. There's virtually no leaf litter (all that's there is from this year) due to an over abundance of earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris), the soils are pretty darn sandy, and there's lots of browsers and not a lot of predators.

But I've also been noticing more and more a rabbit in my backyard. The rabbit's an Eastern cottontail, Sylvilagus floridanus, which, for Vermont, is an introduced species that has largely outcompeted the native New England cottontail. We don't really ever get foxes or other rabbit predators and so I think that the rabbit population might be big enough to essentially be controlling the herbaceous layer. I see them eating violets, dandelion, the grasses, and my blueberry shrubs, but they have entirely avoided the garlic mustard and vinca.

Where: My backyard! Sandy soils, an old plowed field (abandoned in the 70s).

Other notes: I tasted a periwinkle flower and it was okay at first and then had a taste reminscent of black licorice but much worse. I haven't seen any really browse sign on them at all so stuff seems to pretty well avoid it.

Beavers in Centennial Woods

What: Our first rains in ages!! And that new rain seemed to be a bit too much for the beavers of Centennial Woods. The rain started on Saturday night and continued well into today (Monday). I was out yesterday and the lower dam (which burst in January and was repaired in February) blew out by about 1pm. Sometime later on Sunday the upper dam blew out. Luckily over the last week they had built a new dam in between that kept up a channel about 3' deep. 

Ecological notes: The water was awfully murky from the heavy siltation due to all the rains. Not only was this the first rain in a while, but the temperature has dropped considerable. I watched the beavers from about 4:30 to 8:30 and by the end I could see my breath pretty clearly. Since the beavers are right next to the trail, it was neat to watch how they respond to dogs and hikers. They definitely perceived the hikers with dogs well before those without. It also took the beavers less time to return to baseline following a hiker without a dog. Hikers with dogs were less likely to notice the beavers. Everyone was definitely enthused about the beavers though and it was great to get to share their excitement.

And I'm still trying to wrap my head around why the beavers will slap their tail. It's not as easy as they do it when they feel threatened and to ward of would-be-predators. I think they will do it to communicate to others over longer distances. This one slapped its tail while it was on one side of the bridge and the other two beavers were upstream. It was as though it were saying, "Hey don't forget about me, I'm down here where all the people are (there were 8 of us at one point)." It seems to also serve as an indication of investigation, as with the chickadees, "Chicka-dee-dee" call they make when they get close to people. It seems like they're saying, "I"m going to go investigate something, would you check in with me in a little bit to make sure I'm still alright." I've seen beavers make this sound to nothing in particular before they headed upstream out of eyesight of other beavers.

Where: Middle terrace of the beaver dam under the Velco powerlines.

Other notes: Twas also a great afternoon for birds. Saw a pair of geese land in the retention pond, a Cooper's Hawk, flicker, and phoebe skirting the edge of the pond, winter wrens singing, and lots of cardinals, robins, song sparrows, grackles, and red-winged blackbirds. Surprised I haven't seen more nests yet - I'll have to spend some more time tracking individual birds. And no sign of Ryan's ruby-crowned kinglets today.

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

What: Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula).

Identification: The Ruby-crowned Kinglet is one of the smallest songbirds in North America, weighing only 5-10g (0.2 - 0.4 oz). Its distinguishing characteristics are the wing bars and olive & yellow coloring on its wing tips and backside. The ruby crown that the males wear is hard to see until a male dips its head, and even more rare is when it sticks up the crest like a bright red mohawk. The song is challenging to describe, as it is a jumble of notes; it often begins with 2-3 high pitch "tsees," followed by 5-6 low "tur" notes, and ends with ending with a repeated "tee-da-lett!"

Where: Centennial Woods

Ecological Notes: Ruby-crowned Kinglets can be found as a year-long resident throughout Southern New England, but will come up to mixed woods forests of Northern New England and Canada for breeding. We won't find their nests unless we scale 100-foot tall trees, but they are known to make nests that are quite large compared to their body size, in order to accommodate a large clutch.  Its small, thin bill is indicative of its feeding habits on small insects, but it will also forage lower in the forest on fruits and seeds in the late autumn and winter.

Other Notes: These tiny songbirds are feisty and hard to track, hopping from tree to tree with such alacrity. I went through dozens of worthless, blurred photos before I could capture one in its fleeting stillness. Teage and I began our morning walk being prompted by a mentor of ours who knew the call right away. The rest of the morning, we trailed several kinglets until we made it past the power line clearing, where they came down to just above eye level, and we finally got a good look at the male's fire red crest.

Firefly larvae!!!

What: Just a heads up that I saw my first fire fly of the year! It's not unusual to see them "calling" from the ground, as this one was. During mating season females, for example, signal the ground that they are rather particular to the luminescent advances of a male. Mating, of course, ensues. It's still early for that, and there weren't any flying males to be receptive to. Fireflies will also light up as juveniles. Which is crazy that a sexually immature firefly will light up. I'm assuming it has something to do with advertizing toxicity. Maybe I'll try eating one and see if it's bitter...