Cliff Swallows

When I walk in Grandview Heights at lunchtime, I've often noticed cliff swallows swooping through the air along the river bank and gliding inches from the water...but I never thought to look for their nests until I saw an article in the Columbus Dispatch last week about the swallows nesting underneath the Fishinger Road bridge in northwest Columbus (http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/science/stories/2010/06/20/adapting-to-life-in-ohio.html; the article was still live when this posting was written). This week I took the time to look up under the highway overpasses as I walked, and sure enough, spotted very small colonies of nests under two of them.

Cliff swallows (Hirundo pyrrhonota) are the famous swallows that have returned to the San Juan Capistrano mission in California for decades. These small, graceful birds once built their mud nests, which resemble small clay jars, on rocky cliffs. The colonies can be quite large, with hundreds of birds raising their broods simultaneously. As their habitats change they are adapting to building on man-made structures such as building ledges and yes, highway bridges. Even the Capistrano swallows now apparently prefer a nearby country club's building to their traditional nesting sites!

Cliff swallows nest in colonies and feed in flocks, catching insects on the wing. They are dark gray-brown above with some white on the forehead and back, with white belly, buff rump, and a reddish-brown throat. In flight they resemble the barn swallow, also found in central Ohio, but the cliff swallow's tail is square at the tip rather than forked. These birds are aerial acrobats, swooping and diving after insects and even dipping down to drink on the wing. This small colony is very entertaining on my lunch hour walk as they catch their dinners--mosquitoes, I hope!--and wheel through the air like tiny barnstormers.

A Butterfly Morning

Writer Robert Heinlein once said that "Butterflies are self propelled flowers." If the curmudgeonly Heinlein could appreciate the beauty of Lepidoptera, how could the rest of us resist?

I went walking at Highbanks Metro Park, on US Rte. 23 just north of Worthington, Ohio this morning. I spend a lot of time at Highbanks. My favorite season there is winter, when the structure of the woods is stark and the birds and other inhabitants are more easily seen (you can see my photos of Highbanks in all seasons at http://www.flickr.com/photos/44801031@N03/sets/). As a photographer, I find the summer woods overwhelming and difficult to photograph when everything is disguised under leaf cover!

That said, this morning's walk was enlivened by summer butterflies. The open areas at Highbanks support a variety of attractive wildflowers, and even in the shade of the woods the butterflies come to look for water. They are quick and elusive, but I managed to take recognizable photos of three varieties.

Great Spangled Fritillary

(Speyeria cybele)

As a group, butterflies have some of the most wonderful names going...fritillary, sulphur, comma, swallowtail. Two of these fritillaries were flitting around some clumps of butterfly weed along the path. They would settle, wait for me to be ready to click the shutter, then flutter off to another flowerhead, leaving me to refocus and try again.

Red Admiral

(Vanessa atalanta)

Unlike the fritillaries, who wanted only to flirt with my camera, this guy fluttered past me, landed beside the path, and appeared to pose. He seemed unimpressed by me and by several other walkers who passed by and stopped to look at him.

Red-Spotted Purple

(Lemenitis arthemis astyanax)

This beauty was also not shy, but landed in the middle of the walking path for all to admire. There should be red spots at the top curve of the wing

for this species, but either my angle on the wings doesn't let them be seen or this particular butterfly has only white spots for some reason. Are there any butterfly experts out there who can tell me about this?

Those of you in central Ohio who would like to explore Highbanks would do well to go during the week or early in the morning on weekends, when there are fewer walkers. It's a wonderful place, interesting geologically as well as having beautiful walking trails and a variety of birds and wildlife.

Bristling Thistles

Along the same walking path where I first began contemplating invasive plants, there is a thriving thistle population. Many varieties of thistles are also invaders in this area, and are notorious for spreading quickly in disturbed areas and in suburban lawns and flower beds. They are, however, also often attractive (once you get past the spines!), with interesting blossoms. At least one nation (Scotland) has made the thistle its symbol, so they are not universally considered lawn pests!

Bull Thistle

The first photo shown is a Bull Thistle (Cirsium vulgare). Bull thistles can be quite tall...this bloom was right at eye level. Bumblebees love bull thistles; one flew away from this one just before I took this photo.

Nodding Thistle

The Nodding Thistle (Carduus nutans) is well named, as is shown in this photo. I watched this bloom for several days as it opened, from the time it was a barely-opened, dark rose bud. My favorite of the thistles along the path, the nodding thistle has a spine-free stem leading to the blossom. And, as with other thistles, bees love the blossoms.

Canada Thistle

Considered a pest plant in central Ohio, these thistles grow in large, fast-spreading clumps. It is believed that Canada thistles (Cirsius arvense) may have been spread in animal feed. However they arrived here, they are now common, found in large unattractive bunches in fields and waste areas. The blossoms of the Canada thistle are small (these were about a half inch in diameter) and appear in bunches, unlike the large single blossoms of the bull and nodding thistles.

Next time you spend an afternoon attempting to remove the tap root of that thistle that's taken up residence in your daylily bed, consider the toughness and resilience of its species. If that stubborn, spiny (dare we say it) weed were elsewhere, it could grow into a blossoming plant beloved of Scots and bees. How can it be all bad?

Clovers and vetches and non-native invasive plants, oh my!

There is a walking path in Grandview Heights where I sometimes take a quick walk at lunchtime. This path runs along and underneath sections of an interstate highway and has seen a good deal of construction in its recent past, so the plant life tends to be species that thrive in disturbed areas. In the past week, I've been noticing just how many of the common plants in the area, while pleasant to look at, are not native to this area at all. Ohio has seen recent efforts to remove honeysuckle, ailanthus trees, and wild grapevines, to mention a few invasive species, but how many of us even recognize how many of our common herbacious plants came from elsewhere? Nearly all of the plants along the edge of the path here are invaders.

Crown Vetch and Birdsfoot Trefoil

Somewhere, someone realized that crown vetch was great for covering difficult sloped areas (like highway rights-of-way) with attractive flowering plants that didn't need mowing. Unfortunately, crown vetch not only spreads over those difficult slopes, but everywhere else its roots can reach. It forms thick mats of vegetation that choke out other plants and cover large areas with its white, pink or purple blossoms. Some biologists compare crown vetch to kudzu for agressive growth. A close relative, birdsfoot trefoil, has also become increasingly common in open areas, its cheerful yellow blossoms often mixing in with crown vetch.

Sweet Clover

In late spring open areas in central Ohio are often covered with white and yellow sweet clover. This plant has been very common here for decades; I grew up in Ohio and it was certainly widespread when I was a child (ahem) several decades ago. Sweet clover is very attractive to bees; I've seen several types of bees (including the increasingly rare honeybee) sharing blossoms along the path.

Bad Plants?

Are invasive plants "bad" plants? Not necessarily...but when they crowd out native species they may change their new environments permanently. It behooves us all to be careful about what kinds of plants we use in our landscaping, as many invasive plants are garden escapees. A few to be cautious about: barberry, privet, honeysuckle, ailanthus, purple and/or gooseneck loosestrife, purple passionflower. More use of native plants in our gardens can not only help prevent unplanned changes in our environment, but will also decrease the amount of time spent maintaining plants that may not be ideally suited to conditions here in central Ohio. 

Musings of an amateur naturalist

Once upon a time I wanted to be a biologist when I grew up. That didn't work out, and eventually I realized that I wasn't all that interested in studying the processes of life at a cellular level anyway. What I REALLY wanted to do was be able to identify, observe, and enjoy the plants and animals around me. The suburbs of Columbus, Ohio might not seem like an ideal place to walk and study nature, but Ma Nature is everywhere, from the local metroparks to walking trails on abandoned railroad rights-of-way to rebellious, unlandscaped corners of suburbia. My intent for this blog is to post some of the things I notice on my wanderings, just for the sake of sharing with like minds in Cyberland. Enjoy.