Brown Thrasher Toxostoma rufum

How fun: a pair of Brown Thrashers decided to make a nest in my yard (June 2010)! We found the nest hidden in a tangle of grape vines. Later we discovered three eggs inside the nest. According to Wikipedia, both parents take turns incubating the eggs. We often saw the mom or dad in the nest. We were very hopeful at the prospect of baby birds but when we returned from vacation sadly the nest was empty.

What made this nest? I’m going to post pictures of bird eggs and nests in order to help others identify nests or bird eggs that they find.

This nest was made mostly of small twigs and dried leaves in a tangle of grape vines in a yard in Southern Maryland. It was about five feet off the ground.

I’m briefly holding this egg in my hand so you can see relative size.

The brown thrasher is still commonly found in its range but its numbers have declined in some places due to habitat loss.

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Teach kids how to care for the simple needs of a land snail. Locally found snails don’t cost anything to keep and don’t require a big commitment. They can be kept until the novelty wears off and then released back into the wild. Keeping a pet snail (however temporary) will give kids an opportunity to learn about it. Watch closely when they eat. You can’t see its mouth but you can see how the food is munched bit by bit. They use a radula to file bits of food into its mouth. A radula is like a tongue with teeth. Cool, I know. The land snail pictured here is interesting to watch. It has eyes at the tip of its antennas (the top pair) and the bottom pair is used for feeling and smelling. Best of all you can watch your snail slime its way around using only one muscular foot.

I live on the East coast of the United States so this is a common land snail around here.

If your snail starts to dry out, it will close itself inside its shell and wait for conditions to improve before venturing out again. This state of inactivity is called estivation. They can seal the opening with a sheet of a clear substance that looks like dried egg whites.

If you plan to keep your snail for more than a week or so, you will need to add a source of calcium to the snail’s enclosure. For this you can add a piece of plain chalk or a piece of cuttlebone.

This is Snailie the land snail. You might just find your next pet in your flower garden.

Set-up:

A glass container works well. I found this vintage jar in the woods at an old unofficial trash dump. All that remained of the dump was glass and large metal items. I thought this jar was cool so I took it home. Do they still make jars like this?

A piece of cheese cloth or breathable fabric. You don’t want your pet snail getting lost in your house.

An elastic band. Save and reuse elastic bands that come off vegetables like broccoli and asparagus.

Daily care:

Wash jar. Don’t forget to take the snail out of the jar first!

Replace damp paper towel.

Add food: a leaf of lettuce (not iceberg), a piece of your apple core, spinach, carrot, or a raw potato slice. You are sure to find some yummy vegetable scraps left-over from dinner preparation. The food scraps shouldn’t be rotten however. Take out any food that gets moldy.

Keep your snail out of direct sunlight. You don’t want it to get too hot or dry.

As a child I had a vivarium set up with plants and a pet snail or two. If you choose to set up a vivarium (terrarium), make sure you choose plants that like a moist environment. Also add potting soil, plants, a log and some dried leaves to mimic it’s natural environment. Keep the soil damp.

Note: avoid chlorinated water, avoid washing your container with soap (or at least make sure you rinse really well).

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In this photo is a damselfly larvae (arrow points to it) and to its left is a salamander larvae (more on it in another post).

How interesting to discover the world living in pond water. When I scooped up some pond water and brought it home for observation, I didn’t know that there was a damselfly larvae in it; we just wanted pond water full of tiny aquatic insects to feed our salamander larvae (more on this salamander larvae later). We were delighted when it crawled out of the water and soon emerged as an adult damselfly.

To make your micro pond you need only to find a container, gather some pond water, and add a stick and/or rock. We used a large glass cookie jar. We broke the top sometime back; it is 10.5 inches height and about 9 inches across (see picture). But you can use what you have or can find; think outside the box. Use an extra large pickle jar (ask for one at a sandwich shop; that’s what I did), find a secondhand fish bowl (not hard to find at thrift stores), or use a large glass carafe from a coffee maker (one that the coffee maker itself is broken but not the carafe).

The idea is to keep your micro-pond around long enough to allow things to grow. We plan to keep ours for most of the summer or until our frogs metamorphose. Some frogs like bull frogs and sometimes green frogs hibernate at the bottom of ponds and therefore will not finish metamorphosing until the following summer. Bull frogs will sometimes take 3 years. If tadpoles don’t complete their metamorphosis, we will let them go before the fall (more about keeping tadpoles in another post). To keep the critters in your micro- pond alive you must add new pond water to it every week. Take out some of the old water at this time. Basically, the tiny things swimming around are food for the larger things. 

According to this website: http://www.dnr.state.md.us/bay/cblife/insects/damselflies.html, larvae feed on other insects and small invertebrates while adult damselflies feed on mosquitoes and other flying insects.

The three “tails” at the back are called the caudal lamellae. These are the insect’s gills.

The skin that the insect leaves behind after turning into a winged adult damselfly is called an exuvia.

Here is a snapshot of the adult damselfly. You will want to put a screen across the top of your pond if you suspect a damselfly larvae will be emerging soon. I was unprepared and this guy got away in my house.

More about this soon.

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Summer is on the way and many families head to the beach. Make a special effort to seek out amphipods. They are rather interesting little creatures.

You can find amphipods such as this big-eyed beach flea on or in the sand. This picture was taken in Southern Maryland. They like to feed on decaying vegetation that washes up on the beach.

This amphipod is commonly called a beach flea. Don’t worry though, they don’t bite. They feed only on organic debris. If you get flea bites from a visit to the beach, you got them from common fleas (like the kind you have on your cat or dog). Common fleas can also be found on beaches.

Big-eyed Beach Flea Talorchestia megalophthalma

Have you ever come across any of these funny looking things with excellent hopping ability while at the beach?

More about amphipods:

About 7,000 species of amphipods have so far been described.

Amphipods are found in almost all aquatic environments.

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To learn about this lovely place located along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.

Click on the link and you will find pictures of everything from bright green bugs to mischievous raccoons.

Our ever -growing collection of local (Elms) “critter” pictures.

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Attract birds to your yard with home-made environmentally friendly gourd bird houses. You can make several in an afternoon and have fun doing it. You can keep it simple or you can tap into your playful side.

How to:

Getting the gourd

Ask around at local farms and farmer’s markets. There is a good chance that you will find some already dried. If so, you can start making your birdhouse right away.

If you plan ahead, you can grow your own gourds. How cool would that be?!

Drying the gourd

The easiest way to dry your gourds is to spread them out in a box and place them in the garage for the winter. They are going to mold on the outside a bit no matter what you do: no worries. Check on your gourds: if a gourd is rotting (i.e. the shell is getting soft), you should discard it so it won’t spoil the others.

Cleaning your gourd

Some people soak their gourds in a bleach solution to remove the mold. I don’t like to use bleach more than necessary and I find it isn’t necessary here. Either way you will need to scrub and wash and even scrap your gourd clean. It takes a bit of elbow grease. Don’t you like the patterns left on its skin? 

Drilling the holes

Use a drill bit for the size you want your birdhouse hole to be. You can find suggested birdhouse hole size for specific birds online. I used a two inch (diameter) hole for the birdhouse seen here.

I also drilled small drainage holes in the bottom of the gourd just in case rain should get inside.

Finished birdhouse has linseed oil applied.

Finishing the birdhouse(s)

Find salvaged paint (your own or someone else’s leftover paint). I found a small container of exterior paint at the Restore and used that to paint one of my birdhouses. I also used the two hole pieces, from the door openings which I painted white, for the eyes of this amusing birdhouse. I used Gorilla glue to attach them.

For my other gourd, I applied linseed oil. Linseed oil is a natural oil used as a wood preservative and is made from flax seeds. Use a rag to rub on a thin layer of oil. If using multiple coats, allow to dry between applications. The linseed oil will give the gourd a polished look and will help repel the rain. Linseed oil doesn’t preserve your birdhouse for as long as other products but you can compost the old and make a new.

Hanging the gourd birdhouse

Use a piece of scrap rope/ string or even an old shoe lace to hang your finished birdhouse. If you want to be fancier, you can bend an old coat hanger into a hook. First drill two holes to slide the wire through.

This purchased birdhouse has an orange stain on it. Stain is nice because it gives the birdhouse a color but the natural look of the birdhouse shows through. The diameter hole for this birdhouse is 2 inches. I placed this orange gourd birdhouse outside my front door where it is sheltered by our house roof. It is hanging on the wall of our house. Despite the fact that wren birdhouse hole sizes are recommended to be much smaller, a pair of wrens moved into our gourd birdhouse and successfully raised six chicks last summer (2009).

 I hope they will be back, I do love wrens. On a side note, I’ve seen wrens go in/ out of our gourd birdhouse in the winter. I assumed that it or they were seeking shelter from the cold. This is one of the baby birds that left the nest that day. So cute!

This is a snapshot of the mother or father wren that worked tirelessly feeding all those babies!

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My daughters found some salamander larvae in a stream in Southern Maryland in March. They are out there but how many of us ever see them. To find these little guys, you will need to look more closely and perhaps have a bit of luck.

Some salamanders have an aquatic larval stage. The larvae can swim and they have gills in order to breathe in water.

The photo shows the aquatic larval stage of a salamander in Southern Maryland. Note the feathery gills extending out of the neck area. Eventually the larvae will metamorphose into an adult salamander.

Naturally, I wanted to find out what kind of salamander these guys would grow up to be.

I did some research and of all the salamanders found in Maryland, the only salamanders that can be found in the Southern part of Maryland and have an aquatic larval stage are: Dusky salamanders, Two- lined salamanders (see: http://www.funinthemaking.net/2009/11/05/finding-salamanders-for-fun-and-study-where-to-look-and-how-to-handle-for-your-safety-and-theirs/), Mud salamanders, and Red salamanders. I’m not sure it is possible to identify them at this young stage. If you have any knowledge on the subject, please pass it on.

Here is the website I referenced to discover the Salamanders in Maryland:

http://wwwnew.towson.edu/herpetology/Amphibians.htm

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Post Correction: I made a mistake! We did not find  an American eel. In fact we found several lampreys!

On a recent hike along a stream (Maryland USA / March) we found several young American eels (Anguilla rostrata) swimming around.

I did a little research on these eels and discovered that the females lay their eggs in the Sargasso Sea. That’s a long way away from Maryland. Apparently all eels spawn in the Sargasso Sea. The eggs hatch into a larvae and are carried by ocean currents to areas along the Atlantic coast. They are called glass eels because they are transparent at this time. Next they make their way into freshwater rivers and streams. When they begin to get some color they are referred to as elvers. When they reach 4 inches they are called Yellow eels. Yellow eels can stay in fresh water for many years. Eventually they making their way back out to sea to spawn and die.

Eels can produce slime. The slime coat protects it from disease. (This is not an American eel as it turns out but a lamprey!

We promptly returned this guy to the stream after a quick photo shoot.

Read more here: http://www.agmrc.org/media/cms/AmericanEel_42EA03380CDE9.pdf

Or here: http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/fishfacts/eel.asp

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After seeing rabbit prints on the road, we decided to follow them into the woods.

The tracks meandered this way and that way and around trees.

We must have startled him because that’s when we noticed the rabbit dart away.

I took a picture of the rabbit standing very still. See it hiding mid picture?

I was able to get closer and then closer still. I took this picture. It turned out that we were tracking an Eastern cottontail. It looked just like the picture in my field guide that I referenced when I returned home.

A rabbit’s front paw print is about the size of a grown–up’s thumb print.

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Feb. 2006

Feb. 2006

Our first experience with a hawk attack was a year or more after we first started raising chickens. A local farmer warned me that hawk(s) would eat my chickens like they eat all of his. I guess I thought he was being pessimistic. Our first spring summer and fall was free of predation of any kind. We were devastated when our first chicken, my children’s favorite chicken (named Duck) was killed by a hawk.

I heard the chickens squawking in panic so I ran outside to investigate. Sadly, the hawk had already killed our hen. I was surprised to find that the hawk did not fly away. Instead he held his ground not wanting to leave his prey behind. You see the chicken was too big for it to carry off. As I got closer, he opened a wing in an attempt to hide the prey. At least, that is what I think he was doing. Then it spread both wings to look bigger and to keep me away from the meal it hoped to eat. I was able to get very close to the hawk. After I determined that it was too late to save the chicken, I ran for my camera. I love nature so I was very excited to be able to observe a hawk so closely but I was heart broken because our chickens were like pets. Lesson learned.

This chicken was a Buff Orpington and was supper sweet. My daughters loved them the very best because of their sweet trusting manner.

Feb. 2006   I believe this hawk is a red tailed hawk. Any experts out there? I noticed that he is banded.

Feb. 2008

Feb. 2008

A year later I caught another hawk on camera.

We came home (Southern Maryland) one afternoon in Feb. and found our chickens again in a panic. I went in the hen yard and discovered this hawk under the hen house. I believe it is a Cooper’s hawk. (Does anyone know how I can tell for sure it isn’t a sharp-shinned hawk?) One of our chickens, Raven a black Australorp, (a sweet hen that does all the raising of the chicks) was trying to hide from the hawk but apparently the hawk went under there after it. The hawk had its talons securely attached to the side of the chicken’s head. Despite my screaming and crazy arm swinging, it didn’t fly away. I had to pry its talons, one by one off my chicken. Only then did it fly away. It didn’t go far; it didn’t even leave the hen yard until we chased it off; by then my kids were helping. These guys are persistent I tell you! Good news though, my chicken came out of it fine.

Dec. 2009

Dec. 2009

My daughter heard the chickens making a lot of noise and I ran out to find this guy had a buff Orpington. I thought she was dead but after scaring the hawk away, which isn’t easy, the hawk first tried to drag the hen away with him, the chicken than sprang back to life. She made a complete recovery. I think this is another red-tailed hawk.

Usually if a hawk comes around hunting and I know about it, I gather the chickens and lock them up in their henhouse/ run/ chicken shelter combo. Usually I let the chickens free range in a very large fenced in area. I use a fence because they dig up my landscaping and eat plants I don’t want them too etc.. Also, the fence keeps out the occasional stray dog. I usually keep them locked up for a day or two after because the hawk is sure to come back. I’ve seen them boldly strutting around the hen yard; looking for the prey it almost had.

We lose about one chicken a year to hawks and I thwart one or two more attempts each year. I know what to look for and listen for. I can tell by the way they act or by the sounds they make if a threat is around. Unless you are willing to completely cage your animals, and I’m not, you have to accept the possibility of loss.

We no longer name all our chickens. Also, we’ve decided against getting any more Buff Orpington chickens because they seem to be particularly vulnerable but if you have a large completely enclosed living area, they would be great. I think I’ll try hanging aluminum pie pans in the trees to help keep the hawks away. Maybe I’ll try putting out a fake owl too.

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