The heronry is open for business!

On January first Matty and I decided to explore the woods beside our house and see what was there. The woods lead into a protected green space we had never hiked, so we were excited to check out a new area. While walking the banks of a winding creek in a gorge, we stumbled across a small heronry. Was it active? We didn't know. We'd have to wait until late January or early February when male herons returned to their heronries to stake their claim. Rick and I hiked there several times through January to see if anything was happening, but the nests remained empty, until finally, at the beginning of February we started noticing herons flying low over our house! They had to be headed to the heronry! Last summer when we moved in, Big Blue would fly over our house every morning and evening. We assumed he was flying to Lake Isabella or the Little Miami River. Little did we know a secret heronry was his real destination! On Sunday Rick and I set out to see if the heronry was active...it was! We counted 19 herons. We avoided the creek because we didn't want to be under the heronry disturbing the birds (it's much further downstream and very hard to reach, not to mention dangerous!). Instead, we climbed up to a ridge that overlooks a small valley and the creek. The heronry is on the other side. We were really far away, but with a zoom lens and binocs, we could see the activity...

A male heron makes an early stake at a local heronry, his nuptial plumage visible in the fading light of evening.

We were there around 5:00 and the sun was sinking fast so silhouettes were all we could see, but that didn't matter.  It was so exciting knowing Great Blue Herons would be flying regularly over our house all spring and summer. 

A Great Blue Heron circles his nest preparing to land. Even the fading light
can't hide the lovely nuptial feathers silhouetted against the evening sky.

...settling in for the night.

Nuptial plumage...

Nuptial plumage or breeding plumage are the beautiful feathers birds sport on their head and neck during the mating season. Not all birds have nuptial plumage, but herons and egrets are famous for it. Click here for a link to a Little Blue Heron showing beautiful breeding plumage. (I photographed him on Pinckney Island in Hilton Head back in 2011).

At our previous house, we lived three miles from a huge Great Blue Heron heronry. Over the years I posted a lot about that heronry (starting in 2009). Click here for photos of that heronry in full swing! 

Barred Owl along the Little Miami River

It's been so long since I've been able to get out in the woods and look for sweet, sweet, little birdies, so when the sun came out and the temp climbed up, I grabbed my camera and headed for the river. I saw Black-throated Blues, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Wood Thrushes, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Scarlett Tanagers, Red-eyed Vireos, Chestnut-sided Warblers, woodpeckers, and all the other usual suspects...and then I saw this fellow perched high in the branches staring at me......sweet!

A Barred Owl perched in a tree along the Little Miami River.
What a surprise to look up and see this fine face looking back at me!

The Little Miami Conservancy is turning 50 in 2017!

The Little Miami Conservancy (LMC) is celebrating its 50th year of river conservation, restoration, cleanup and protection of the Little Miami National and State Wild and Scenic River.

Become a Member
If you would like to become a member of the Little Miami Conservancy and make a donation to help protect our Wild and Scenic River, click here for the website, and click the Donate button.

Contact LMC
To contact the Little Miami Conservancy to learn about volunteer opportunities:

     Little Miami Conservancy
     209 Railroad Avenue
     Loveland, OH 45140

     call: 513-965-9344 (leave a message)
     email: partee@littlemiami.com
     ...or click here for a little history of the Little Miami Conservancy

Little Miami River posts over the years...
I just looked on the blog and found I have 118 posts on the Little Miami River and 50 from the Little Miami River Bike Trail. You can find so much beauty along its banks, and we owe that to the formation of the Little Miami Conservancy 50 years ago. Without their stewardship this last half century, much of the beauty would have been lost. Their endless efforts to have the river certified in the National and State Wild and Scenic River programs protected it from development and continue to help ensure it will remain pristine and beautiful.

To see a little more of the Little Miami River's beauty and a few of the birds and plants you'll find along its banks, click here for Red and the Peanut blog posts over the years.

Bristly Greenbrier along the Little Miami River...

Rick and I walked the Little Miami River yesterday afternoon and were surprised when we came across this Jack-and-the-Bean-Stalky type vine. The leaves were huge, and the vine was growing straight up the tree alongside a poison ivy vine...

Large, tropical-looking leaves grow on Bristly Greenbriar (Smilax hispida), a native vine that produces berries eaten by birds and other animals. All the leaves are simple, and there is only one leaf per node along the vine.

With the exception of invasive honeysuckle, all the leaves on the trees in the area were down, which made this large green vine stand out. I'll have to keep an eye on it and see how long the leaves stay green (the vine always stays green).

My cell phone offers a good size comparison for this large leaf. (Looks like a hungry caterpillar visited this summer!)

The sharp prickles start to thin out as you look further up the vine. What looks like a large thorn is the remnants of a leaf stem. Tendrils extend from it and seem to have grown wherever a node was. Higher up the vine (newer growth), the stalk is smooth and green with no prickles.

At the base of the Bristly Greenbrier's green stalk, dark needle-sharp looking bristles of all sizes protrude. Very intimidating...enough to keep any Jack from climbing this beanstalk! 

Thanks to Rick for taking these photos with his cell phone! They look great. I didn't have my camera with me, so Rick stepped in to capture these images for me. I didn't have my binocs either, so I couldn't see if there were any berries at the top of the vine. I photographed a Red-bellied Woodpecker eating greenbrier berries along the Little Miami River a few years ago. It was a different species of greenbrier and the leaves were much smaller. Click here for a link to see the woodpecker eating the berries.

Yellow-rumped Warblers and poison ivy berries...

Butter Butts and poison ivy berries go hand-in-hand in autumn. If you find a large patch of poison ivy berries high in a tree, keep your eyes open, because sooner or later a Yellow-rumped Warbler will happen by and gobble up the tasty treats...

A fall Yellow-rumped Warbler perches in a tangle of poison ivy in a Sycamore tree. Good eats for the wee bird, a winter food supply of waxy berries entices a few of these warblers to overwinter in our area! 

In autumn and early winter, Yellow-rumped Warblers switch their diet from the abundant insects of spring and summer, to the abundant waxy berries of fall and winter. Because this warbler can survive without insects being its primary diet, it is the only spring warbler to overwinter in Ohio. All the other neotropical migrants head south for the winter where the insects still roam free. Not all of the Yellow-rumps migrating through our area stay all winter, however. Most head south as well, but you can usually see a few in the woods on bird outings all winter long. Rick and I have seen them many times along the Little Miami River in the winter.

The tell-tale camera click gives me away every time!
"Really?" our little warbler seems to say. "Can't you see I'm dining on poison ivy, the most delectable of all the berries? No photos, please." 

Oh, what a tangled web...of poison ivy vines! This very old sycamore was covered in hairy poison ivy vines, and the tree hosted several of the migrating (or overwintering) Yellow-rumped Warblers. 

Of course, Yellow-rumped Warblers are not the only birds to feast on poison ivy berries. Woodpeckers love them too. On winter hikes along the Little Miami River, I've watched Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Downy Woodpeckers, and a Northern Flicker pluck and eat them one berry at a time.

Being able to absorb and metabolize the fat in the waxy coating on the berry is unique among warblers and allows Yellow-rumped Warblers to be the most northerly wintering wood warblers. 

...you can barely see the little "pat of butter" above its tail that gives this sweet warbler its nickname, Butter Butt!

Click here for a previous post that shows a better view of that little pat of butter!

Click here for a look of a Butter-butt in all his springtime glory.

Why can Yellow-rumped Warblers survive on waxy berries in fall and winter?
Almost all the literature on Yellow-rumped Warblers mentions they are hardy warblers that can survive cold winters by eating waxy fruits such as poison ivy berries, bayberries, and wax myrtle, but the literature never explains why, so I did a little searching and found an article that details the warbler's unique digestive abilities in The Auk, 109(2):334-345, 1992 by Allen R. Place and Edmund W. Stiles titled, "Living Off the Wax of the Land: Bayberries and Yellow-rumped Warblers." Click here for the pdf of the article. It explains how Yellow-rumped Warblers are able to efficiently absorb and metabolize the wax that coats many of the fall and winter berries such as bayberry, wax myrtle and poison ivy.

Red Admiral along the Little Miami River...

...what a beauty, and what a fast and elusive flyer too! A few weeks ago, Rick and I watched this fellow zipping all around us showing off his agility and quick moves. He'd fly in close enough to get our hopes up, and then he'd fly out again, until finally, he flew in and lit on a stem within camera range. What a twisty little thing he was. You would think he was a professional flyer or something...

A Red Admiral (Vanessa atalanta) at rest (finally). Even with his wings closed, he is a beauty when viewed up close.

Seasonal migration
Red Admirals are fleet of wing, and like Monarchs, they undergo seasonal migrations. They can't survive cold winters, so they don't overwinter in our area. Some of the butterflies from the fall generation migrate south to winter in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, and other southern states. North America is then recolonized each spring by butterflies coming up from the south. Click here for a 2012 post about a Red Admiral at a sap flow on our dying Ash Tree. It explains more about their migration patterns and also irruption years.

With wings open, the orange and black make Red Admirals a perfect Halloween butterfly. 
Too bad they usually take off for southern climes before October 31.

Brush-footed Butterflies
If you study the first photo, it looks like the butterfly has only four legs (two on each side), but insects have six legs, so what's up? Brush-footed Butterflies (family Nymphalidae) have six legs, but the first two are so small, you don't notice them. The butterflies don't walk on these very short forelegs, and some species don't even have feet on them, they just have little brushes or hairs, which accounts for the common name, "Brush-footed Butterflies." Because you only see four legs, this family has another nickname, called "Four-footed Butterflies." To learn more about them, click here or here. You can also click here, for an earlier post on a Mourning Cloak butterfly, which is another Brush-footed Butterfly.

A black-, orange- and white-checkered moth walked in...

...and decided to stay! Thus begins the story of the Ailanthus Webworm Moth and its excellent adventure. (This is a companion piece to an earlier post on the Common Buttonbush.) While Matty and I were sketching the Buttonbush flowers along the Little Miami River, we noticed a small black-, orange- and white-checkered insect was on a lot of the blossoms...

Ailanthus Webworm Moths on a Buttonbush Inflorescence
These two dapper moths look like they are tiptoeing through the styles of each tiny flower. 

Ailanthus Webworm Moth
I'd seen the bug before, but had never studied it, so when we got home, I got out my "Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America," by Kenn Kaufman, and sure enough, there it was, an Ailanthus Webworm Moth (Atteva aurea), a day-flying moth that pollinates a lot of flowers as it visits them to sip nectar.

An Ailanthus Webworm Moth clings to the underside of a Swamp Milkweed flower along the Little Miami River near Spring Valley Wildlife Area. 

Tree of Heaven
This moth, which looks like a long skinny beetle when seen from a distance, is "sort of" a native to the United States (and here is where its excellent adventure kicks in). The lovely little moth got brave one day and jumped host plants. Originally, the moth was native to southern Florida and Central and South American, where its host plant, the Paradise Tree grew, but one day, it found a Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima), which is closely related to the Paradise Tree, and decided to live on it. The Tree of Heaven is not native to the United States. It's from China, but it was introduced to the U.S. in the 1700s.  Since then, it has spread across the country, and the Ailanthus Webworm Moth moved along with it. (Click here for a detailed history of the Tree of Heaven in the United States and control strategies to prevent its spread.)

The Ailanthus Webworm Moth originally was native to southern Florida, but it followed the Tree of Heaven, an invasive introduced from China in the 1700s, as it spread across the nation.

The Tree of Heaven looks a lot like our native Staghorn Sumac (Rhus typhina), which produces seeds beneficial to the birds. There are several ways to tell the two trees apart. The easiest is the Tree of Heaven has smooth leaflets that turn yellow in autumn, while Staghorn Sumac has serrated leaves and turns bright red. Click here for an earlier post on Staghorn Sumac to see what it looks like in the fall, and learn about how it helps birds get through deep winter.  Click here for a pdf titled, "Invasives Strike Force Plant Guide, 2012," from the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference. This guide teaches you how to spot many invasive trees and tell them apart from native look-alikes.

An Ailanthus Webworm Moth, an early instar Monarch caterpillar, and a Monarch butterfly all share a Swamp Milkweed flower. The larvae of the Ailanthus Webworm Moth only eats Tree of Paradise leaves, but the adult moths are not picky and pollinate many types of flowers. 

One more thing...
The Tree of Heaven is famous for its starring role in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," by Betty Smith. Click here for a link to a critical essay on the symbols in the book, including the Tree of Paradise described in the first chapter, where the tree was a metaphor for all the immigrants coming into New York City during the 1700s and 1800s.


Additional references
For more information on the Ailanthus Webworm Moth, click here for "Moths of Ohio Field Guide," by David J. Horn, Ph.D; Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife, or here for an interesting post on the blog "MOBugs; Missouri's Majority."

(I really enjoyed spending the day sketching with Matty (8-7-2015) at the Spring Valley Wildlife Area. Getting out in the wild with pencil and paper is relaxing and helps cement memories. The next day, I drove out with my camera to get photos. Beauty was everywhere...)

Common Buttonbush along the Little Miami River...

A few weeks ago Matty and I went up to Spring Valley Wildlife Area along the Little Miami River with our sketchbooks. We spent the afternoon rambling about, sketching whatever we saw. When we came across a stand of Common Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis), we stopped and studied the tree and its blossoms, noting that the leaves occurred in whorls of three, and the "honey bell" was made of hundreds of tiny blossoms...

Common Buttonbush flower ball, also called a honey bell, dangles from a stem and looks a lot like a firework display, a starburst...or in a less romantic view, a pin cushion! 

Common Buttonbush is native to Ohio. It loves water and swampy areas, and true to form, we found a large colony hugging the edge of the lake and another in a low boggy area beside the lake, just steps from the Little Miami River. The flower balls were intensely fragrant, which is where it gets its nickname "honey bell" or "honey-ball," and butterflies were everywhere...

A female dark morph Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) nectars on a Buttonbush flower-ball (inflorescence). The butterfly uses its proboscis to sip nectar from each tiny perfect flower and pollinates the florets in the process. 

Two Silver-spotted Skippers (Epargyreus clarus) cling to the pin cushion for a sip of nectar as well. The long, projecting styles of each perfect flower in the inflorescence create the pin-like, starburst look.

The cranberry red stems of a Common Buttonbush shrub are almost as striking as its flowers. Its leaves have both a three-stemmed whorled arrangement (often near the flower) and an opposite arrangement elsewhere on the shrub.

Before the inflorescence bursts open, the tiny flowers (florets) are encased in tight mint-green buds (sepals). Here the flowers are just starting to open, but you can still see remnants of some of the buds and the light-green color.

After the flower petals have fallen away, little ball-shaped seed heads remain. Some will hold on through the autumn and winter. Each tiny flower in the inflorescence produces two seeds called nutlets. Often buttonbush trees grow at the edge of ponds, lakes, streams and rivers (or even in the water), so when the nutlets ripen and tumble out, they float and are dispersed by the currents. Wood Ducks, Mallards, teal, and other waterfowl like to eat the nutlets.  

For more information on the Common Buttonbush, including its historical use as a quinine substitute for malaria, look in "The Book of Swamp and Bog; Trees, Shrubs, and Wildflowers of Eastern Freshwater Wetlands," by John Eastman, pgs 34-37. For an online resource, click here for a link to The Hilton Pond Center's website, or here for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry website.

What is an inflorescence?
When you look closely at a Buttonbush flower you'll notice it's a collection of hundreds of tiny flowers, called florets. Each one of the florets in the collection is a "perfect flower," which means it has a pistil (stigma, style and ovary) and stamens (anther and filament). The collection or grouping of florets is called an inflorescence. Common flowers with inflorescences are sunflowers and all the flowers in the daisy family. Click here for a past post called "Hummingbirds and sunflowers" that describes an inflorescence in more detail.

Spotted Jewelweed sparkles along the Little Miami River...

Bright splatters of orange along the riverbank in August can mean only one thing, Spotted Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) is in bloom! Matty and I saw these orange gems last weekend along the Little Miami River at Spring Valley Wildlife Area. The temps were warm, the humidity was high, and the cicadas were singing...all indicative of late summer and the slow march to autumn...

A Spotted Jewelweed flower dangles from a translucent green stem. This beautiful flower is a powerhouse of fuel for the Ruby-throated Hummingbird during fall migration. 

A hummingbird's horn of plenty...
Spotted Jewelweed's conical horn-shaped flower with its tubular nectar spur was made for hummingbirds, literally. The flower coevolved with hummingbirds and is the main nectar source for the tiny bird on its return flight south in late summer and early fall (jewelweed blooms well into October). In return, the hummingbird is the flower's main pollinator. The downward angle of the nectar spur forces the hummingbird to go deeper into the flower to reach the nectar, which means more pollen ends up on the hummingbird's head, ensuring pollination and making the hummingbird a very efficient pollinator.  To learn more about nectar spurs and pollinators, click here for the article, "The relationship between nectar spur curvature in jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) and pollen removal by hummingbird pollinators," by Steven Travers, Ethan Temeles, and Irvin Pan.

When you look at Spotted Jewelweed in profile, you can see how its horn-of-plenty shape and the small tubular spur at the base of the flower that holds nectar is perfect for a hummingbird.

Disperses seeds like a pro...
Jewelweed's common name, Touch-me-not, comes from its unusual method of seed dispersal. When the seed pods ripen, the slightest touch (even that of a strong breeze) triggers a pop that ejects the seeds up to four feet away. Unlike most wildflowers, Jewelweed is an annual, not a perennial, which means its only way to reproduce is through seed. Efficient seed dispersal is critical to its survival, so it's no surprise it has developed such a cool method of ensuring its seeds get distributed. In addition to jewelweed's showy horn-shaped flower, another type of flower called a cleistogamous flower contributes to seed production. This flower is inconspicuous, small and green, and it never opens. It is self pollinated, and when it ripens, the seeds are not thrown as far. Botanists assume this ensures some seeds stick close to the parent plant where they will thrive in the same habitat. The seeds from the pollinated flowers come from genes from two parents and are more likely to be able to survive in conditions that might be slightly different, so they are tossed far and wide. Additionally, it's scientific name of "Inpatiens" derives from this "impatient" explosion of seeds. Source: "The Book of Swamp and Bog; Trees, Shrubs, and Wildflowers of Eastern Freshwater Wetlands," by John Eastman, pgs 91-95. (p.s. This book is part of a series of three. The other two are "Forest and Thicket" and "Field and Roadside." I love them because they go into detail with lots of interesting tid bits!)  

The deep oranges and reds of Spotted Jewelweed are a preview of the warm colors of autumn. It's a perfect transition flower from summer to fall.

...if you want to wax whimsical, this little flower could totally be a hat for a little flower fairy or gnome. Too cute!

Jewelweed reseeds itself and grows in large colonies. It forms a dense canopy and can crowd out noxious weeds (much to the delight of migrating hummingbirds in late August, September, and early October).

Sparkling silver leaves...
I used to think jewelweed was named for its jewel-toned orange and yellow colors, but it's not. Several years ago, I photographed the yellow-colored jewelweed (Impatiens pallida), and after researching it, I learned the moniker referred to the leaves. When water droplets form on the leaves, they shine like tiny, sparkling jewels, and when the leaves are placed under water, the underside shines like silver. Click here to see photos of Yellow Jewelweed (Pale Touch-me-not). The post also covers its use as an antidote for stinging nettle burns, poison ivy rashes, and mosquito bites!

Summer Green and the Little Miami River at Clifton Gorge...

With a dew point of 77 degrees and the temperature pushing 90, yesterday was decidedly tropical, so it was especially nice to slip into the cool embrace of the steep walls of Clifton Gorge, where summer green filters through the trees and settles on every available surface, and rushing waters create an ancient atmosphere of escape and respite...

The Little Miami River rushes wildly through the green corridor at Clifton Gorge. As you descend the wooden steps at the beginning of the trail, you feel like you're entering another world. 

The profusion of lush foliage and moss is appealing to the senses and almost seems to glow electric in the deep shadows. You want to linger and listen as the river rushes past every plant, moss-covered rock, and watery seep trickling down the cliff.  

...special things grow here, simply put. The riparian corridor at this stretch of the river holds rare boreal relics left over from seeds deposited by the Wisconsinan glacier meltwaters over 10,000 years ago. The steep cliffs of the gorge form a cooler microclimate that allow northern plants such as Eastern Hemlock and White Cedar to survive.

Dark Silurian dolomite limestone walls add drama to an already stunningly beautiful backdrop. 

To the Little Miami River," by William H. Venable, 1836

Romantic the rocky and fern-scented regions,

          Miami, the grots where thy brambles begin,

 By cedars and hemlocks, in evergreen legions,

        With silence and twilight seclusion shut in.

There darkling recesses in miniature mountains

          Recall to my fancy the haunts of the gnome;

     There fabled Undina might rise from  the fountains,

     Or sport in the water-falls glistening foam.

           

Click here for a pdf brochure and map of Clifton Gorge by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Click here for a pdf of "The Ohio Naturalist," Vol IV, February, 1904, for the article "The Topography and Geology of Clifton Gorge," by W. E. Wells.

For information on Ohio's Silurian period, click here for "Geology of Ohio -- The Silurian," by Michael C. Hansen, or here for an article by Ohio History Central.

Osprey family near the Little Miami River and Halls Creek Woods...

Yesterday morning I hopped on Mason-Morrow-Milgrove Road and headed to Halls Creek Woods State Nature Preserve. It's gorgeous...I loved it...and I'll be back often. Halls Creek is a tributary of the Little Miami River, and it's only 15-20 minutes from my house. How could I have not known about this preserve? I'll have more to write on it soon, but first...OSPREYS! An osprey nest is located north of the preserve on a gravel pit that hugs the Little Miami River...

Two young ospreys and one adult overlook the water. If you look closely, you can see the juveniles have reddish-orange eyes and white-tipped feathers, while the adult has yellow eyes. Juveniles retain their orange eyes for about a year.

After I checked out Halls Creek Woods, I headed north on Mason-Morrow Milgrove, pulling off the road at a small look-out point. The first thing I saw was the osprey nest, and I was glad I pulled over! Initially I thought the nest was perched on the Little Miami River, but I could hear what sounded like canoes on the other side of the trees. Maybe the trees were an island in the river? No! I quickly realized the water was a lake from an old gravel pit (Miami View Mining), and the paddlers were floating down the Little Miami River on the other side of the trees. The birds paid no attention to the noise the canoeists were making, and the cars that would occasionally rush past on the road didn't bother them either. City birds...country birds...

Papa Osprey looked my way every now and then. I love seeing those yellow eyes head on!

Below is a quick video of the osprey family. The gravel parking area was a distance away from the nest, so even though I'm zoomed in at 400mm, the birds look small. One of the nestlings moved out of view, but you have a fairly good view of the other one preening. I was glad to see the pull-off was gated, so the nest is protected and people can't get too close.

Osprey with young at Halls Creek Nature Preserve from Kelly Riccetti on Vimeo.

Blue eyes winking along the Little Miami River...

...but they're not mine, my eyes are green! These eyes are the tiny flowers of Blue-eyed Grass, a delicate flower in the iris family. The unassuming blossoms of Blue-eyed Grass often go unnoticed where it hides in wet prairies and sunny forest edges. "Sweet" best describes these soft blue blooms that nod on elegant long stems whenever a breeze catches them..

Blue-eyed Grass is a native perennial that hides along the Little Miami River on both sides of the bike trail. 

Even though Blue-eyed Grass is a member of the iris family, it's easy to understand why its common name marks it as grass. The leaves and stems are flat with parallel veining, just like blades of grass.

Although it has grass in its name, and its flat stems and leaves look like blades of grass, Blue-eyed Grass is actually a member of the iris family. 

What makes an iris an iris?
The parts on an iris always come in groups of three, so it's misleading when you first look at this flower. It appears to have six petals, but really it has three petals and three sepals that look just like the petals. (Usually sepals are green. They encase the flower when it's a bud. When petals and sepals look alike, they are called tepals. So our little flower has six tepals.) It also has three stamens, but with Blue-eyed Grass the yellow stamens in the center of the flower are close together and appear as one. (Botany in a Day, p 201, by Thomas J. Expel).

The delicate flower of Blue-eyed Grass nods in the gentle breezes of late spring.

Blue-eyed Grass closes up as the day progresses. I photographed these flowers in the early afternoon, and they were still going strong. In another couple of hours, the blooms would have closed.

Blue-eyed Grass

I love the poem "Blue-eyed Grass," by Mary Austin. It appears in her book, The Road to the Spring (collected poems), but a notation in the book said the poem was also published in St. Nicholas (a children's magazine) in the June 1904 issue, and it was slightly different. I found a bound collection of the 1904 issues of the magazine on Amazon and ordered it so I could see the differences. I always liked the poem in The Road to Spring, but after reading the version in St. Nicholas, I might like it more. You can decided which version you like better:

Blue-Eyed Grass                                              Blue-Eyed Grass 

BLUE-EYED grass in the meadow                           BLUE-EYED grass in the meadow
    And yarrow-blooms on the hill,                                 And yarrow-blooms on the hill,
Cattails that rustle and whisper,                                 Cattails that rustle and whisper,
    And winds that are never still;                                   And winds that are never still;

Blue-eyed grass in the meadow,                                Blue-eyed grass in the meadow,
    A linnet's nest near by,                                               And the laden bee's low hum,
Blackbirds caroling clearly                                        Milkweed that runs to be first in the field
    Somewhere between earth and sky;                          Before the butterflies come;

Blue-eyed grass in the meadow,                                Watersnakes making lacy rings
    And the laden bee's low hum,                                   Round a cardinal-flower's red spear,
Milkweeds all by the roadside,                                 And blue-eyed grass in the meadow
    To tell us summer is come.                                       To mark the noon of the year!

                          by Mary Austin                                                        by Mary Austin

St. Nicholas, June 1904, pg 703                                The Road to the Spring: Collected Poems
(A children's magazine)                                              of Mary Austin, pg 209

The art of spitting...

The other afternoon while walking along the Little Miami River, I saw plant after plant covered in frothy bubbles of spit. From a distance, the globs looked pretty gross, but up close, they just looked pretty...

Bubble art is created by a tiny nymph called a spittlebug. The glob of soapy froth functions as the nymph's home while it matures. The froth keeps it hidden from predators and prevents it from drying out in the sun as the nymph feeds on the plant.

A spittlebug is the nymph stage of a tiny insect called a froghopper. Female froghoppers lay eggs in late summer on plants. The eggs are impervious to cold and frost, so they last through the winter. In the Spring, the eggs hatch out, and the nymphs attach themselves and start eating and creating bubbles from the plant's sap. These bubbles provide protection and moisture, and the nymph will hide and live in the glob until it's an adult. Predators can't see the nymph in the foam, and because it has a bad taste, predators tend to leave it alone. The foam also insulates the nymphs from the drastic temperature changes associated with spring, and the moisture keeps them from drying out in the hot sun as summer comes along.

"Welcome to my foam home," said the spittlebug. Common names for the frothy, spit-like mass are frog spit, snake spit, and cuckoo spit. The foamy bubbles are a little sticky and don't break up easily. They are not like "real" spit.

For a more detailed account of spittlebugs, click here for an article written by Roy Lukes titled "The Insect Whose Babies Live in a Bubble."

What is a nymph?
A nymph is the juvenile stage of an insect that undergoes simple metamorphosis. Eggs hatch into nymphs, which resemble adults but have no wings.

Differences between complete and simple metamorphosis...
Butterflies undergo complete metamorphosis. We are all familiar with the lifecycle of a butterfly, which goes from an egg, to a caterpillar (larva), which spins a cocoon (pupa), to an adult butterfly. In complete metamorphosis, the adult looks completely different from the larva.

Spittlebugs undergo simple metamorphosis. Their lifecycle goes from an egg to a nymph, to an adult. In simple metamorphosis, the adult looks similar to the nymph.

What is an instar?
Both nymphs and larvae go through instars. Nymphs and larvae eat and eat until they burst out of their exoskeletons and molt into slightly larger versions of themselves. The stages between molts are called instars. Nymphs (simple metamorphosis) molt into adults from their last instar, but larvae (complete metamorphosis) pupate in a cocoon after their last instar before emerging as completely different adults. Spittlebugs usually go through about five instars before becoming adults (can vary with species)

For an illustration that shows examples of instars in complete and simple metamorphosis, click here.
For an earlier post I did that shows several instars of Large Milkweed Bugs, click here.

How does the nymph manufacture the bubbles?
I didn't know how the nymph created the spit, but a quick look in my Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America, pg 94 (by Kenn Kaufman and Eric Eaton) clued me in. The nymphs use liquid waste products from the sap they have been feeding on mixed with mucous they secrete. They have tiny fingerlike projections near their hind end at the tip of their abdomen that they use to pull in air that mixes with the liquid to create the bubbles.

For a cool video of nymphs walking in and out of the foam, click here.
For a video of a nymph creating bubbles, click here.