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Wednesday, 01 September 2010 3:37 |
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by Neil A. Case
Wind generators of electricity are green. Solar generation of electricity is green. Better insulation in homes and other buildings, cars that get more miles per gallon, light bulbs that use less electricity and geothermal heating are green. Green is the symbol of things that are environmentally friendly, that is, not environmentally destructive or as destructive as other options. Green is good.
The emerald ash borer is green. The adult insect has a greenish sheen. Environmentally, however, the emerald ash borer is not green.
This is an insect that is native to Asia, to northern China and Mongolia, to North and South Korea and Japan. It was introduced into the United States inadvertently, unknowingly, fifteen to twenty years ago. It’s not known exactly when it was introduced, nor how, though it was almost certainly brought in in wood, in a packing crate or a pallet perhaps. It was first discovered, or identified, in Michigan, in the area of Detroit. It was discovered when it was identified as what was causing ash trees to die.
Adult emerald ash borers, little green “bugs” that look something like a cross between a grasshopper and a fly, are harmless. Or they would be if it wasn’t for mating, producing and laying eggs. These the females deposit on the bark of ash trees. The eggs are tiny, like dots of resin. They hatch into larvae which are like little, flattened white worms. These bore into and through the bark, then feed on the layer of wood just beneath the bark.
The larvae of the emerald ash borer are what kill a tree. As they eat the wood they create worm-shaped cavities in that part of the wood that normally conducts water from the roots to the branches and leaves, the upper part of a tree. With its water supply cut off the tree dies from the top down.
Frequently, usually, the presence of the emerald ash borer isn’t recognized until the upper part of a tree is dead, the leaves fallen, the top quarter to a third barren. By then it’s too late to do anything for that tree. But if the presence of the ash borer is found earlier there is a treatment.
Chestnut blight, white pine weevil, gypsy moth, Dutch elm disease, emerald ash borer is one more in a list of disastrous plant diseases and harmful insects that have been introduced to North America. Some, chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease to name two, affect only a single species. Others, gypsy moth for example, are harmful to many species. The emerald ash borer effects three species, white ash, green ash and black ash. It does not affect mountain ash but mountain ash, in spite of its name, is not truly an ash.
Treatment for gypsy moth and other earlier introduced pests was chemical spray. Thousands of acres were sprayed by low flying aircraft to kill gypsy moths. The chemicals, poisons, killed other insects and birds as well as gypsy moths. Eventually, largely as a result of the public furor created by Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring,” such large scale spray programs were discontinued and laws were passed banning the use of some of the chemicals.
Treatment for emerald ash borer is not by spraying. For ash borer a chemical is put around the base of a tree. The chemical goes in the trunk like water, with water, and kills the borer larvae. The problem is to find that a tree is infected and treat it before it is already dying.
A second problem with the emerald ash borer is preventing its spread. The adults fly. But most of the spread is done by larvae carried in wood, frequently firewood and even wood chips. Larvae in wood, that’s probably how the emerald ash borer got to North America and that’s how it’s being spread around the continent. by Neil A. Case Wind generators of electricity are green. Solar generation of electricity is green. Better insulation in homes and other buildings, cars that get more miles per gallon, light bulbs that use less electricity and geothermal heating are green. Green is the symbol of things that are environmentally friendly, that is, not environmentally destructive or as destructive as other options. Green is good.
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Thursday, 26 August 2010 11:27 |
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by Neil A. Case
One purple martin will eat 2,000 mosquitoes in a day, claimed J. L. Wade, author of the book “What You Should Know About the Purple Martin.” If one martin will eat 2,000 mosquitoes, the more purple martins there are around, the fewer mosquitoes there will be in the area, Wade claimed.
Purple martins are swallows, the biggest of all the swallows of North America. They’re bigger than tree swallows or barn swallows or bank swallows. They’re bigger than downy woodpeckers, nearly as big as cardinals. They’re longer than downy woodpeckers, but they’re more slender, lighter.
The range of purple martins in spring and summer is from the Atlantic Coast to the Rocky Mountains and along the West Coast west of the Rockies in Washington, Oregon and northern California and parts of Canada south to the Gulf Coast. Within that broad range, however, whether there are purple martins or not depends on places for them to nest. Like downy and other woodpeckers, they nest in holes. But unlike downys, they can’t make their own nest cavities. They have to find holes.
Purple martins also nest together, a few to many pairs using holes close together, even side by side. They’ll nest in multiple compartment bird houses, as every bird watcher knows. But they won’t nest in every house put out for them. I put up a martin house and no martin ever used it. Our neighbor put up a martin house and now plans to put up another because every compartment in the first house was used this year. And people ask me how to attract purple martins. They should ask my neighbor. Or they should have asked J. L. Wade.
Wade lived in Griggsville, Illinois. He had a factory that made, among other things, aluminum purple martin houses. He had the people of Griggsville put up many martin houses including 15 levels of houses around a pipe tower 40 feet tall near the center of town.
There have been people who dispute Wade’s claim that a purple martin will eat 2,000 mosquitoes per day. Martins, they’ve pointed out, fly about catching insects during the day while mosquitoes are out at night and at dawn and dusk. Such an argument, logical as it seems, doesn’t hold any weight with the residents of Griggsville. Their town, they advertise with billboards by roads into town, is the Purple Martin Capital of the Nation and, they’ll tell you, it’s mosquito free.
We’ve been to Griggsville in summer when the martins were there. We had a picnic, ate our supper, outside in a public park there. We were not bothered by mosquitoes or by flies or by other flying insects.
Griggsville is not the only town where there are many martin houses. Topeka, Indiana is another. Residents there, too, say their town is mosquito free and they attribute this to the martins. Greencastle, Pennsylvania is another. People who live in Greencastle claim their town was the first to encourage people to put out multi-compartment houses for martins. They’ve had such houses in the business district and throughout town since 1840.
Even before Greencastle, before the first settlers came to America from Europe, Indians cut holes in gourds and hung them on poles and on branches of trees around their villages to attract purple martins. People still put out gourds with holes for purple martins to nest in.
Any box with four or more compartments, each compartment six inches square with a hole to the outside big enough for the birds to get in and out, put on a pole twelve feet or more above the ground in an open area, preferably near water, may attract purple martins. The best martin houses, according to martin experts, are made of aluminum.
Maybe I’ll get one of those aluminum houses and put it out where it can be seen by the martins using my neighbor’s house. by Neil A. Case One purple martin will eat 2,000 mosquitoes in a day, claimed J. L. Wade, author of the book “What You Should Know About the Purple Martin.” If one martin will eat 2,000 mosquitoes, the more purple martins there are around, the fewer mosquitoes there will be in the area, Wade claimed.
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Friday, 13 August 2010 8:33 |
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by Neil A. Case
Thistles are spreading their seeds. Thistle blossoms are nearly gone and in their place are blobs of thistledown. Wisps of thistledown, each with a seed attached, separate from the blobs, the flower heads, then drift in the air, driven by every breeze, every puff of wind.
Thistles are tall, stout stemmed, spiny leaved plants. Everybody who has been to the country in summer must recognize a thistle. Most of them have purple blossoms though a few have yellow blossoms and a few have white. Nearly everybody who has walked through a pasture or in the grass around the edge of a hay field has, at one time or another, brushed or walked into a thistle and felt its spines.
Each thistle blossom is a cluster of little flowers called florets, like a dandelion blossom. There are hundreds of florets in every blossom and each floret becomes a seed with a plume.
Most people also know little about thistles. I didn’t. I knew there was a Canada thistle and a bull thistle and at least one thistle that had yellow flowers and one that had white.
An oddity among thistles, which I didn’t know about, is Barnaby’s thistle, a native species of Europe that has been introduced into North America. It has very long spines around the base of the flower but its leaves are wooly and do not have spines.
There are actually hundreds of species of thistle, I learned, and they’re distributed almost worldwide. There are more than 160 species native to North America and there are a number of introduced species. The common Canada thistle is an introduced species, as its name implies. But it’s a native of Europe, not Canada. It was introduced into Canada first, then spread to the United States.
Most people don’t like thistles. I don’t. They’re a nuisance in our pasture. Our horses won’t touch them nor will the horses feed immediately around a thistle. They’re a problem in our hay field for a bale of hay with a couple thistles will be shunned by the horses. Some, Canada thistle particularly, can spread rapidly and become so thick they crowd out other plants.
But thistles also do have some good points, I learned. I knew goldfinches feed on the seeds and use thistledown to line their nests. I didn’t know that honey made by bees that got nectar from thistles is said to be particularly sweet. Nor did I know that other insects, including several butterflies, get nectar and some get shelter from thistles.
I didn’t know that thistle seeds could be roasted and eaten or that the leaves of Canada and bull thistles, with the spines removed, can be eaten as a salad green or cooked like spinach or dandelion greens. Peel the outer layer off the stems of some species and the inner stems can be steamed and eaten like asparagus.
Some thistles are believed to have medicinal value. Blessed thistle, a species of southern Europe, is supposed to cure many diseases including plague. An extract from milk thistle is sold in health food stores as an antidote for liver disease, hepatitis and cirrhosis.
Most thistles are biennial, that is, live two years. The first year they’re small, the second year they grow tall and produce flowers and seeds. However, there are some thistles that are perennial or long-lived. Canada thistle, unfortunately, is one of these. It not only reproduces by seeds, it has a spreading root system and new plants grow from the roots as they spread.
So thistles aren’t all bad. Parts of some of them are edible. At least two are supposed to have medicinal value. Goldfinches benefit from them. So do honey bees and many other insects. Their flowers are certainly pretty.
But I still don’t like them. by Neil A. Case Thistles are spreading their seeds. Thistle blossoms are nearly gone and in their place are blobs of thistledown. Wisps of thistledown, each with a seed attached, separate from the blobs, the flower heads, then drift in the air, driven by every breeze, every puff of wind.
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Wednesday, 04 August 2010 9:41 |
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Birds have easy living in summer
by Neil A. Case
It’s summer time. Days are long and hot, the sun beats down like a physical weight on our heads and shoulders. Thunderheads, great white billowing clouds grow in the afternoon sky, sometimes to towering heights.
Robins no longer sing to the dawn nor do I see them on the lawn prospecting for worms and grubs. Robins are gone from our yard and from other peoples’ yards and from city and county parks. But they haven’t gone far, not yet, only to woods near where they nested. There they fly from tree to tree, land on the ground to forage and perch among the branches at night.
The young barn swallows are out of the nest on the side of a beam in our barn, the young cliff swallows are out of their nest under the eaves of our barn. The barn and cliff swallows haven’t left like the robins. They still fly around the barn during the day, the barn swallows even sometimes in and out. Both circle over our pasture and hay field and marsh throughout much of the day, chittering continuously as they fly. Tree swallows that nested in bird boxes put out for bluebirds and in natural cavities in the willows and cottonwoods that stand in and along one side of our marsh and their fledglings fly with the barn and cliff swallows. Some of the swallows land now and then on the electric line to our barn and on the power lines along the side of the county road before our house.
Late in the afternoon more and more swallows land on a roadside power line, looking from across the road like a row of clothes- pins on a clothesline.
Red-winged blackbirds and starlings, like the robins and swallows, have finished nesting. They’ve collected in flocks like the robins but instead of going to the woods they drift over the countryside during the day, landing to feed on the ground in harvested hay fields and in corn fields. Late afternoon and evening the flocks of redwings and starlings, and of grackles and cowbirds gather and roost together in cattails in a marsh or in willows and cottonwoods and alders growing around and in the edge of a marsh.
Song sparrows, chipping sparrows, even house sparrows have raised their broods. But not all birds have finished nesting even though it’s the hottest part of summer. Mourning doves were among the earliest to start nesting last spring and they continue to nest. I recall when I was a boy hearing the plaintive calls of mourning doves on hot summer afternoons when other birds were silent, except chimney swifts flitting about overhead. I’ve found mourning dove nests with eggs and with young in July and August and even September.
American goldfinches are nesting now. They didn’t start nesting until thistle seeds began to blow. They use the wispy plumes that grow with thistle seeds to line their nests. Seen often clinging to the heads of thistles bearing seeds, goldfinches have been called thistle birds.
Mourning doves and goldfinches and a few other birds are exceptions. For most birds, summer is a time of relatively little activity. They’ve claimed and defended their territories. They’ve mated and built their nests. They’ve raised their broods. Food is plentiful. Most haven’t begun to migrate though a few shorebirds have left their nesting grounds and started flying south. For birds that haven’t started migrating, however, it’s a time to wander, to feed and to rest. They’re often inactive during the hottest part of the day, perching in the shade, bills open, actually panting.
It’s summer time and, as in a line from a song, the living is easy, for birds that have finished nesting and haven’t started migrating at least. by Neil A. Case It’s summer time. Days are long and hot, the sun beats down like a physical weight on our heads and shoulders. Thunderheads, great white billowing clouds grow in the afternoon sky, sometimes to towering heights.
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Sunday, 01 August 2010 10:19 |
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by Neil A. Case
“Toledo Zoo releases endangered butterflies” is the heading of a newspaper article a friend sent me. The butterflies described in the article were Karner blue and the release was scheduled for July 8. It was to be the fourth release site in Ohio of Karner blue butterflies raised at the Toledo Zoo.
That’s like whooping cranes and California condors and peregrine falcons, individuals of an endangered species raised in captivity and released in suitable habitat in an effort to establish a wild population, usually in an area where the animal formerly lived. I didn’t know endangered species of butterflies were being released like that. I didn’t know endangered species of butterflies were being raised in captivity.
I did know, of course, about whooping cranes and California condors and peregrine falcons. As a result of raise-and-release efforts whooping cranes may be seen in spring and summer at the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin and in winter at or near the Chassohowitzka and St. Marks National Refuges in Florida, and during migration, by lucky observers, in states in between. California condors are now living wild and may be seen at a few places in southern California and Arizona. One place where they may be seen is the Grand Canyon.
Peregrines are now living wild in many places. But not, most of them, in their former wild habitats. They’ve adapted to life in cities. They nest on ledges and roofs of city buildings. They prey, largely, on pigeons.
Raise and release is one program to benefit endangered species. Trap live, transport and release in a new area is another. This has been very successful with wild turkeys. Trap, transport and release has also been successful with animals other than birds, with wolves in Yellowstone National Park, with beaver and river otters in many areas. Now trap, or at least catch, carry and release is being done with butterflies. It’s proposed anyhow.
The regal fritillary butterfly used to have a range of Maine into Nebraska. Now it is extinct in New England. But reading about butterflies I found that there is a program to trap regal fritillary butterflies in Pennsylvania and release them in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. It may, it quite possibly already has been done. The information I found about it was in a book published in 1987.
Recently I wrote in an article that butterflies didn’t interest me like birds do. Bird watchers, or birders, are legion. They are everywhere.
But I know only a few butterfly watchers. (Should we call them butterflyers?) Yet butterflies have many of the same attributes that make birds attractive. They fly. There are many kinds, species. Some are conspicuous, brightly colored. Some are difficult to distinguish, challenging to identify. There are more little brown butterflies, more little brown jobs, I learned, than there are little brown birds.
There are also many little white butterflies. Until I went out with a friend who is as enthusiastic about butterflies as I am about birds I called all little white butterflies cabbage butterflies. The same is true of little yellow ones and, as with the whites, I lumped those all under one name, sulfur butterfly.
In my search for information about butterflies, prompted by the article a friend sent me, I learned of one other condition or program where an endangered species of butterfly is like an endangered species of bird, specifically the California condor.
California condors were once extinct in the wild. They lived only in captivity. The same is now true of the Schaus swallowtail butterfly.
It’s extinct in the wild. It lives only in captivity in Florida. Will Schaus butterflies be raised and released in the wild? Will they become established again in the wild like California condors have, or will the last Schaus butterfly die in captivity like Martha, the last passenger pigeon? by Neil A. Case “Toledo Zoo releases endangered butterflies” is the heading of a newspaper article a friend sent me. The butterflies described in the article were Karner blue and the release was scheduled for July 8. It was to be the fourth release site in Ohio of Karner blue butterflies raised at the Toledo Zoo.
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