Lesser Purple Fringed Orchid

On Sunday, Erika and I found several Lesser Purple Fringed Orchids alongside the Bog Boardwalk at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum (Carver County, Minnesota). Identification was easy--the Arboretum labeled them. I called the Arboretum and asked if these orchids were natives, or if they were planted.  The Arboretum Library replied that they have no records of the orchids' being planted and presumed them to be wild.

The Lesser Purple Fringed Orchid grows in much of northeastern North America in wet environments. This orchid is endangered, rare, or threatened in at least a half dozen eastern states. The Iroquois used the plant in aid in childbirth, cure cramps in children and to treat other injuries (University of Michigan). The species is pollinated by butterflies (Dave's Garden.com). In Minnesota, the range is from the northern Twin cities into the Arrowhead, and in the southeastern part of the state. In the Friends of Eloise Butler Wild Flower Garden website, we learn that Lesser Purple Fringed Orchids were introduced to that Minneapolis wildflower preserve by Eloise herself in 1908 with a plant brought from Nova Scotia. Despite subsequent introductions then and in the 1930s, the species is no longer to be found in the preserve.

Tina Negas informs us that other orchids in this genus are named "Devil's Fingers, Bloody Bones, Dead man's hand - what horrible names for such a lovely flower! The names derive from the tuber - DEFINITELY not for digging up! The swollen tubers were thought to indicate LUST, the flaccid ones, an antidote - no prizes for guessing why." According to the Merriam Webster On-Line Dictionary, several European orchids in other genera are also called Dead Man's Fingers due to their pale digitate roots.

Verdin

Although Erika and I were disappointed with the Arizona Desert Museum (see last post), we were delighted by an easy hike across the street from the museum and up the King Canyon Trail (part of the Saguaro National Park). The trail leads to Wasson's Peak, seven miles distant, but we hiked a two-mile loop, up a dry riverbed to a picnic area. This hike was pleasant in March, but be forewarned, summer temperatures can be life-threatening and no water sources exist along the trail.

We came upon several Verdins, birds heretofore unphotographed by me. These active little birds prove to be North America's only representatives of an Old World family, the Remizidae, or Penduline Tits. The species is found across the extreme southwestern United States, from Texas to California, south to central Mexico. Verdins build round nests with openings at the bottoms. They make nests for breeding and others for roosting.

We met group of local hikers. "Did you see the pictographs?" they asked. We were blown away that we did not see the images on the canyon walls right in front of us--too busy birding and watching for snakes I guess. These paintings were left by prehistoric Hohokam people (for more information, see Phoenix.gov or Wikipedia).

Gila Woodpecker

After leaving New Mexico last March, Erika and I visited the Arizona Desert Museum in Tucson. We had fond memories of visiting the museum 44 years ago. This time we were disappointed--the museum was more like a zoological park than a desert preserve, and completely full of people. Tucson has grown in the last half century.

We did see a few wild birds, including this Gila Woodpecker poking out of a cavity in a Saguaro Cactus. The woodpecker is a year-round in southern Arizona and northwestern Mexico. The species is characteristic of Saguaro deserts, but is also found elsewhere. This is a noisy, aggressive woodpecker and is easy to find. It is an omnivore, consuming cactus flowers and fruits, insects, other animals and even bird eggs (Edwards and Schnell 2000).

Sandhill Crane

Driving through Rice County, Minnesota, soybean fields on Sunday, 8 July 2012, Erika spotted a family of four Sandhill Cranes. Since soybeans do not fruit until August, these cranes were probably farmer-friendly, consuming insects among the soy plants. The status of these majestic birds appears to be changing.  Once considered uncommon and local in our area, Sandhill Cranes are increasingly reported as breeding in Rice and surrounding counties. Apparently the cranes are adapting so as to coexist with human-altered habitats.

Sandhill Cranes do not breed until they are at least two years old and can live to over 20 years. Pairs are monogamous and stay together for more than one breeding season. They lay two-egg clutches but, unlike the birds Erika discovered, they rarely raise more than one young to fledging (Tacha et al. 1992).

Willow vs. Alder Flycatchers

Last month Erika and I photographed this Willow Flycatcher at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. We are confident of our identification because the bird was singing "Fitz-bew." Willow and Alder flycatchers overlap in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region (see eBird), and the two species are very difficult to tell apart in the field. Alder Flycatchers, however, sing "Free-beer" and sometimes "Fee-bee-o!" Even in the hand, the two species are nearly identical. Some identification guides suggest that Willow Flycatchers tend to have browner backs than the greener-backed Alders.  Nevertheless, the Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) would rather that non-singing birds simply be labeled "Traill's" Flycatchers. Below is a photograph of what I am fairly certain is an Alder Flycatcher but which I reported to the BBL as a "Traill's" (at their insistence). (The bird was banded in May 2008 near Dundas, Minnesota.) I have previously posted on why these two birds are now considered to be separate species. (The song links in this post are used with permission of Thayer Birding Software.)

Review: Beauty of Birds

Princeton University Press has embarked on an interesting project called Princeton Shorts. These eBooks are selections from larger publications. Recently they digitally published chapter 5, The Beauty of Birds, from Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experienceby Jeremy Mynott. The eBook is only 40 pages long (not counting notes and citations and costs $2.99 (vs. about $20 for the whole, 392-page book). The Beauty of Birds is available through a wide variety of eBook programs, including Kindle and Nook.

Mynott, former CEO of Cambridge University Press and a fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, ponders what makes birds beautiful. Examples of these inquiries include the following questions. Are rare birds inherently more beautiful than common ones? Is the Red-winged Blackbird less beautiful for an American birder than for someone seeing it for the first time? Are swans and cranes inherently more beautiful than sparrows? To what degree is bird behavior intrinsic to their beauty? Despite conventional wisdom, is a bird in the bush worth more than one in the hand? Is a dead Scarlet-bellied Mountain-Tanager as beautiful as a living one?

Are species celebrated in poetry, art and music more beautiful than others? How does an interest in birds connect with other parts of our lives? To what degree is our appreciation of birds spiritual? How do birds affect our powers of imagination and association? How has our appreciation of bird changed through history?

Do improvements in bird art affect our appreciation of birds? Are birds appreciated more because of artists’ ability to capture essences of bird behavior? Are bright birds more beautiful than subtle ones? (Interesting questions, considering The Beauty of Birds is illustrated only with black-and-white plates! The photos in this review are mine--the blackbird from Minneapolis and the mountain-tanager from Peru.) Mynott includes a plate of naked women in his discussion of beauty, photos that seem incongruous in an essay on avian aesthetics.

Mynott concludes that “Birds are beautiful…a fact of life, a fact about some of our lives.” Perhaps birds are appreciated to different degrees by different people. Not mentioned in this essay is the role of flight in our appreciation of birds. Welty, writing from a less politically correct time, attributed flight for our love of birds “When the anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker recently surveyed native school children of Northern Rhodesia and asked them, given a free choice, what they most wanted to be, nearly half the boys wanted to be birds. Almost half the girls wanted to be boys but about one quarter of the girls wished that they, too, might become birds….”

Here is a link to this eBook:
The Beauty of Birds: From "Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience" (Princeton Shorts)

Two-tailed Swallowtail

An early Two-tailed Swallowtail fluttered across my New Mexican brother's lawn while we visited last March. Not always common, this butterfly is found from British Columbia east to central Nebraska and south through Mexico. Adults take nectar from a variety of weeds, including thistles and milkweeds. This species is similar to the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail but has thinner and fewer black stripes and each wing has two tails. It is that state butterfly of Arizona.

Mexican Jay vs. Western Scrub-Jay

As I converted my life list to eBird, I lost several species. One was the Mexican Jay I saw in Oaxaca. According to eBird, Mexican Jays are not found in Oaxaca. So it was with enthusiasm that I followed my brother during our recent road-trip to New Mexico. He told me he knew where to look for them and how to separate them from Western Scrub-Jays. According to the field guides, as you can see from these photos, Mexican Jays (above) have gray throats and cobalt-blue upperparts (this last color is well-illustrated in the National Geographic Guide), while scrub-jays (below) are darker blue above and have white throats.

"The way you tell them apart," said my brother, "is that Mexican Jays are found in higher elevation, oak forests and are seen in noisy flocks. Scrub-Jays are usually alone or in pairs and are more often silent."

The Mexican Jay is found from the southern southwest United States to central Mexico. This jay is highly social, flocking in groups of five to 25 individuals. These flocks have a complex organization. Several females may breed simultaneously and monogramously. The young, however, are fed by most flock members. Flocks tend to be sedentary and non-miratory. Individuals within the flock may live past 20 years, either in its birth territory or in an adjacent one (McCormack and Brown 2008). My brother knew just where to look.

Compared to Mexican Jays, Western Scrub-Jays are found over a wider range across the western United States and central Mexico. They also enjoy a wider habitat range, including suburban cities. Scrub-Jays tend to frequent lower and drier areas than Mexican Jays. Western Scrub-Jays are less social than Mexican Jays or Florida Scrub-Jays (Curry et al. 2002).

Racket-tailed Emerald

Among the emeralds, writes Paulson, the Racket-tailed is the easiest to photograph because it frequents forest clearings and paths and lands more frequently than other emeralds. This species is found from Minnesota into New England and southeastern Canada. This emerald eats blackflies and often cruises around people in search of these annoying arthropods. Erika and I found this lone Racket-tailed Emerald at the Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Dakota County, Minnesota.

Rainbow Bluet

Dubois writes, "seeing this strikingly colored bluet for the first time is a notable experience!" This common damselfly has been a nemesis odonate for me--I have been searching for it since I first started paying attention to these insects two years ago. Well worth the wait--what a tropical-looking species!

According to Montana Field Guide, larvae feed on various aquatic insects (like mosquito larvae) and adults cosume about any small flying insect they can capture, including "mosquitoes, flies, small moths, mayflies, and flying ants or termites." I found this male on Monday in tall grass along the large pond at St. Olaf College where Scott K. found them earlier during the day. The species is found from southern Saskatchewan, Montana and Colorado east into New England and southeastern Canada.