Bonaparte's Gulls at Cowan Lake

Yesterday, Matty and I drove up to Cowan Lake. It was warm and gorgeous, and we wanted to enjoy the last of Indian Summer before the expected cold front sweeps in bringing rain and possibly snow...

Painting 199. Bonaparte's Gull at Cowan Lake, Field Sketch 2

(watercolor)

A small flock of Ring-billed Gulls and Bonaparte's Gulls were flying and fishing across the lake when we pulled into the parking lot by the dam. A Common Loon and Pied-billed Grebe were swimming and diving too. We hoped they would come in closer, but they had other ideas. Bonaparte's Gulls are so polite and refined...and cute! I loved watching them fish. This was the first time Matty and I had ever driven up to Cowan Lake, and we're definitely going back...

Painting 198. Bonaparte's Gull at Cowan Lake, Field Sketch 1

(watercolor)

November is a good time to see Bonaparte's Gulls in our area. They are migrating through and will spend some time at the larger lakes. Since they are not scavengers like other gulls, you usually get to see them doing a lot of fishing.

Yikes! What kind of photo is this? It's bad, but you can still pick out the identifying field marks for a Bonaparte's Gull in non-breeding plumage—the black spot behind its eye and the cute, cute, red-orange legs!

...same for this photo....bad, but the bird is so cute, and I wanted to show how easily it is to see the spot behind the eye. We were at the dam and the birds were fishing far across on the other side of the Cowan Lake. Good thing I had my paints to capture the moment, because the camera wasn't up to it!

In addition to the gulls, we saw lots of other birds, including a very sweet mixed flock of Brown Creepers, White-breatsed Nuthatches, Tufted Titmice, and Carolina Chickadees. We were sitting on a ridge on the Lotus Cove nature trail looking out on the large American Lotus colony (now withered and brown) when the flock descended. The Brown Creepers were first, their tiny peeps and musical chatter caught our attention, and we watched as they went from tree to tree, starting low and spiraling up through the branches.

A Common Loon

...continued from the Large Milkweed Bugs post.
Let’s hop back a week to Saturday, Nov 7, when I went to Caesar Creek State Park with the Cincinnati Birding Club and saw 10+ Common Loons. My photos of the loons were horrible. We were so far away that they just looked like little silhouettes, so to get a decent view I had to paint one. The Common Loons we saw that day were not in breeding plumage, they were much duller in their basic plumage of gray and white, but if you’re going to paint a loon, he might as well be wearing his finery…

Common Loon in Breeding Plumage

In Cincinnati, we only get to see loons during migration, and even then, if you’re not in the right place at the right time, it’s hard, so I’ve never heard the incredible mating calls you hear so much about. I want to head up north one of these summers during breeding season so I can experience that. I would love to see a nest as well…

Since I’m not that familiar with the Common Loon, I got out my “Birds of Ohio” book by Jim McCormic to see if he had any interesting tid-bits about the bird. Part of the reason I like McCormic's book is because he throws in interesting facts you don’t find in standard field guides. The Common Loon is a diver, and if you’ve ever watched one, you know he can swim great distances under water. You probably also noticed he sits noticeably low in the water. Mr. M explains why,

“These divers are well adapted to their aquatic lifestyle: most birds have hollow bones, but loons have nearly solid bones that make them less buoyant. As a result, loons float low on the water, resembling partially submerged submarines.”

I would assume the extra weight helps them stay under the water as they dive for food, and probably has something to do with the fact they have to run across the water for so long (like an airplane on a runway) before they can become airborne. I remember reading somewhere that loons never glide when they are flying...I guess they have to flap those wings non-stop to keep their considerable heft aloft! Their wings are also fairly small for their bodies--all to help them dive and swim under water.

Flap oh hefty one, flap!

Another one of my favorite Ohio bird books is “The Birds of Ohio,” by Bruce G. Peterjohn. This is a must-have book. He lists records of sightings going all the way back to the 1800s, but what’s really helpful is the array of breeding bird atlas maps. If you have a question about a breeding bird in Ohio, it’s a great place to start. I always read this book to find out non-field guide information. It’s huge, too…coming in at 637 pages.

...like this photo is any better!

(Do you see why I had to paint this dude?)

If I want to get out and see some more of these birds, I had better hurry. According to Peterjohn,

“Common Loons are most numerous in autumn. The largest movements occur during November, when these loons become common to abundant along Lake Erie and fairly common to locally abundant on large inland lakes. During most years, numbers of Common Loons are greatly reduced by the first week of December. Most December sightings are of 1-8 loons, with occasional flocks of 15-40. The last flocks disappear by mid-December, although scattered individuals will remain into the first half of January as long as open water remains available.”

P.S. I just read on the Birding in Cincinnati website that 225+ Loons were on the river at Crooked Run Nature Preserve to the Meldahl Dam. I need to find out where this place is!

Large Milkweed Bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus)

Saturday I went on a very exciting field trip with the Cincinnati Birding Club to Caesar Creek State Park in Warren County, Ohio. We saw some fabulous birds and the weather was perfect, but while searching for birds, I saw these Large Milkweed bugs...and they were close and immobile, and photographed infinitely better than the Common Loons, Hooded Mergansers....and American Bald Eagles I saw along the way (more on those pretties later)!

Large Milkweed Bugs on a Common Milkweed pod. One adult is at the top (he has wings), two fifth instars are at the bottom (they are nymphs, or immature versions of the Large Milkweed bugs--notice that they don't have usable wings yet.)

Milkweed bugs molt five times (nymphal instars) before they become adults. During these stages, the nymphs look similar to the adults except their color pattern is a little different and they do not have fully developed wings (during the middle instars black wing pads start to form, but they can not use their wings until they are adults--a great way to keep the kids at home and safe until they grow up).

Close-up of a middle instar. You can see the black wing pads. He's definitely not flying anywhere with those things! Eggs hatch in about a week if the temp is 75 degrees F or above. The bug goes through the five molts to become an adult in about a month! The adult then lives for about a month.

Three adult Large Milkweed Bugs and two instars.

At the tip of the Milkweed pod a group of adults are massing together to form a color warning to birds and other predators.

This behavior is thought to amplify the Milkweed bug's ability to broadcast a color warning. Since Milkweed bugs eat milkweed, which is toxic, they do not taste good. A young bird will think twice before downing another orange and black bug the second time it comes across one...and a great big mass of orange and black is a big warning to stay away! This is the same sort of protection Monarch butterflies receive because as caterpillars they too feed on Common Milkweed. Click here for an older post explaining how Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies and Monarch butterflies receive the same protection (and for a look at how beautiful Common Milkweed is as a flower in the summer).

I love how delicate their legs look against the silk of the milkweed seeds.

What do we have here? At first I thought it was a different bug, but if you look closely, you can see it's an adult with abnormally developed wings. For some reason they have shriveled and dried up. Perhaps on his final molt he was not able to pump hemolymph (bug blood) through the veins in his wings to unfurl them. I don't know...

Another view of our adult Milkweed bug's shriveled wings.

You can see how different the Large Milkweed bug looks without wings to cover his body.

For more information on Large Milkweed bugs, click here.

For photos of all the instars of Large Milkweed bugs, click here.