For beauty in winter, look to the birds...

A Carolina Chickadee perched in a bare tree amid plummeting temperatures and snow flurries embodies winter's beauty...

A Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) in the snow. 

Chickadees are fluffy little balls of beauty. They are spritely and chipper and their flank and belly feathers, washed in soft winter whites, creams, and buffs, are a subtle complement to the season. Coal-black caps and bibs contrast dramatically with their white cheeks, creating a target that draws the eye in...almost like an X marking the spot. It's good design! ...and it's welcome beauty in winter.

A chickadee looks up as snowflakes whip past on a strong arctic breeze. The chickadee takes it all in stride with nary a feather out of place...impeccably dressed in a classic winter palette. 

While cold winds rage, a chickadee will still sing out its happy and cheerful song. The sound of those sweet notes cutting through cold and gray days is soothing and hopeful, and its magic adds to the bird's charm and beauty. I never tire of hearing a chickadee's sassy chatter. I bet if they did a scientific study, researchers would find a chickadee's call lowers cortisol levels in humans...Chiggy Therapy (sign me up)! 

Beauty in winter is not hard to find when you look to the birds.

...a tiny tilt of the head amplifies the cute ratio of this bird. Chiggy...are you playing with us? If you are, don't stop! 

The Polar Vortex
...what a winter this has been! Rick just told me they are forecasting 17 below zero Monday night. So far, our birds seem to be weathering this arctic blast very well, but we haven't hit 17 below yet. We are worried about our Carolina Wrens. In our area, Carolina Wrens are susceptible to extreme cold and may not survive. These southern wrens have expanded their range north, so they are not equipped to survive long arctic snaps like we are having now. As I was writing this, however, our little Carolina Wren appeared outside the window as if he wanted to put my heart at ease. He sang out his happy song and seems to be faring well in the sub-zero temps we have endured so far. I hope he can weather the incredible cold headed our way.

Click here to go to the Great Backyard Bird Count data page that details the Carolina Wren's shifting range. The last die-off was back in 1977-78. It took 10 years for the Carolina Wren's population to restore to current numbers. That was also the winter we lost all of our Bobwhites.

Click here for an article in The Nature Conservancy that lists other animals at risk from the arctic temperatures riding in on the Polar Vortex.

...on the brighter side, the extreme cold of the polar vortex might wipe out emerald ash borer larvae. Click here to read an article about it. To read about the dangers of the invasive emerald ash borer to native ash trees, click here.

A Mourning Cloak butterfly sips sap from our dying ash tree...

In our backyard we have a huge weeping willow tree and several birches, so I always hoped Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) butterflies would show up. Both of these tree species are host plants for the butterflies, but it took our dying ash tree to finally lure the beautiful butterflies in...

A Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) butterfly sips from a sap flow on our ash tree. Emerald Ash Borers have left their D-shaped holes all over our tree, and sap flows are everywhere. The only (short-lived) benefit of the infestation is an abundance of butterflies feasting on the sap, especially butterflies I don't normally see in our backyard, such as this Mourning Cloak. (Click here for an older post on the Emerald Ash Borer.)

I photographed this Mourning Cloak butterfly at about 4:30 in the afternoon. The sun was bright and washed out the butterfly's color. Here the butterfly appears to be trimmed in white, but really the edge is yellow. The bright light also brought out a reddish cast on the wings, but when not in bright light, the dorsal side of the butterfly looks more like a dark brown or velvety black. Against the black, the border is noticeably more yellow. The same shade of iridescent blue spots show in dark or bright light. 

Morning Cloak butterflies are called "brush-footed butterflies" or "four-footed butterflies" (family Nymphalidae). They have six legs like any other insect, but you can only see four of the legs. The other two are very small and resemble brushes. They are tucked up underneath the butterfly's "chin," and are not used for walking or perching. To read a little more about brush-footed butterflies, click here.

The ventral side of the Mourning Cloak butterfly looks wrinkled and bark-like. The dark, black color helps it blend into the tree bark. Mourning Cloaks love tree sap, so it's great camouflage. Additionally, this photo clearly shows how the butterfly looks like it only has four legs. The last two legs are small and brush-like, and make the butterfly look like it always needs a shave! 

The beautiful dorsal markings of a Mourning Cloak butterfly

Mourning Cloak butterflies undergo aestivation—a type of hibernation sometimes called "summer sleep." Mourning Cloaks like cooler temps. In the summer during hot and dry weather, the butterflies will go into aestivation and do not resume feeding until the cooler temperatures of fall return. Saturday was our first cool day of the season. Rain on Friday pushed in a much-needed cool front, and two Mourning Cloaks took to the wing on Saturday in our yard. (Source: "The Life Cycles of Butterflies," by Judy Burris and Wayne Richards, pg 138.)

A Mourning Cloak butterfly tucks itself up into a cedar tree for the evening. I was surprised as I watched it land on the tree and then slowly crawl deeper and deeper into it. By the time it was all the way tucked in, I couldn't see it anymore. Mourning Cloaks are one of the longest-lived butterflies in Ohio (can live 8-10 months). They overwinter here by hibernating through the winter. I'll have to keep my eye on this tree. It is well protected and would be an ideal place to hibernate.

In the spring, Mourning Cloaks are one of the first butterflies to take flight, and I have seen them flitting on sunny March days when snow is still on the ground! Since they are dark, they bask in the sun to raise their body temperatures for flight. They are solar powered on those cold days! Being sap lovers instead of flower nectar lovers helps these butterflies because they have a ready food source as soon as the sap starts to flow. Mourning Cloaks also love to feed off rotting fruit. This summer, I started a little area in my "wild patch" part of the yard where I would dump fruit that had started to turn before we could eat it. I put it out there for the hummingbirds, because I know they love to nab fruit flies from the air, but maybe the little fruit dump helped to lure these butterflies in too.

Our big, beautiful ash tree has been bitten by the little emerald green bug...

Ever since I first heard about the Emerald Ash borer invading Warren county several years ago, I've dreaded the day it would come knocking on our door. We have a huge ash tree in our back yard, and as my son, Matty, put it, "It's part of our family." I've had it treated for several years with "preventative" trunk injections, but unfortunately, the treatments didn't work. Early this summer, we saw our first "D" bored into the bark. Last year, I noticed a few limbs had died, but I didn't want to believe the borer had reached us. After all, the tree was supposed to be protected from the metallic green insect through yearly pesticide treatments. I chalked it up to normal aging and squeezed my eyes shut. This spring, however, suckers (epicormic shoots) started sprouting from the lower limbs. I knew epicormic growth was the kiss of death, because those shoots indicated tree stress and were a sure sign the Emerald Ash borers had taken up residence. Then a few weeks ago, Matty saw a metallic emerald green bug walking on some rocks near the tree. We decided to take a closer look. We didn't have to look far...

The little D-shaped Emerald Ash borer holes were easy to spot. I was surprised how perfectly they were bored into the bark. There's no mistaking them.

There were several grouped together on some branches, while others just had one or two. It breaks my heart to see these holes and know that just under the bark, Emerald Ash borer larvae are eating away at the cambium, destroying the xylem and phloem, which would eventually cut off the flow of carbohydrates, nutrients, and water. As a result, our gorgeous tree could be dead in two seasons...

When I saw these suckers growing on the lower branches this spring I knew we were in trouble. Shoots like these, often called "waterspouts," have sprouted from an epicormic bud on the branch and indicate the tree is under stress. Epicormic shoots are a clear sign of Emerald Ash borer infestation.

Emerald Ash borers were first detected in Detroit, Michigan in 2002. It took them until 2006 to make it to our area (they probably hitched a ride in a batch of firewood). When they first arrived in our area they moved about a quarter- to a half-mile a year, but now they are reported to be moving about 20 miles a year. I guess we should be thankful we got as many years as we did out of our huge tree. I wish the trunk injections had worked. While looking up treatment options for this post, I came across a Cincinnati tree service company that offers a 100% guarantee to their trunk injections. I think I'm going to give them a call and see if they can save the tree. They use a special solution of Emamectin Benzoate, called TREE-äge. They use a different style of arbor plugs than the treatments we've received over the past couple of years, and they are supposed to be much less expensive (yeah!). Click here to see their process for protecting ash trees. They also only require treatment every two years. I'll let you know if I use them, and if their process works.

Not all hope is lost... 

Individual ash trees may be able to be saved in residential areas using bi-annual pesticide applications, but that solution will not work for the thousands of trees in our forests. Are they all doomed? Recently I read on the Ohio Archaeology Blog about an Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) experiment that's being conducted at the Cedar Bog Nature Preserve in Champaign County in central Ohio. Cedar Bog is a fen and is home to many rare plants, including a huge stand of White Cedar trees (glacial relicts). A good portion of Cedar Bog is a hardwood swamp forest made up of Black Ash, Green Ash, White Ash and Pumpkin Ash, so prevention of an Emerald Ash Borer infestation is critical. If the experiment works, salvation will be in the form of a teeny, tiny exotic wasp. Back in 2003 the USDA found three natural predators of the EAB in its native home of Asia. These non-stinging wasps are parasitic on the larvae and eggs of the imported pest, and experiments have found that they parasitize only the EAB. In October of 2011, the first EAB was found in a pheromone trap at Cedar Bog, and on May 25, 2012, the first round of parasitoid wasps was released. Click here to read all about the Cedar Bog experiment on the Ohio Archeology blog. Let's hope it works!!

 

This video by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture shows the lifecycle of the Emerald Ash Borer.

This video by the University of Nebraska shows how to identify the Emerald Ash Borer.

Have you hugged your Ash tree lately? If you haven't you might want to. You never know how long it will be around...