Naturalist News - October 2010

If you keep a naturalist field journal or  a nature journal here are some writing and drawing prompts for this month.



Nature Calendar 
October New moon
October 8th - 9th - Draconids meteor shower
October 21st - 22nd - Full moon
October 22nd - Full moon
October 18th - 31st - Autumn colors peak in Southeastern Pennsylvania




What to observe right now

• Look for migrating songbirds at your feeders
• Squirrels busy storing food for winter
• Ruby-throated Hummingbirds are migrating south. Keep hummingbird feeders filled until freezing is a problem.
• Monarch butterflies are migrating (Cape may point State Park is a good place to see the migration)
• Waterfowl migrate south this month
• Hawk migration peaks in mid-October (Cape May Point State Park, Fort Washington State Park, Hawk Mountain)
• fungi (mushrooms) sprouting in the leaf litter

Natural History - What to learn now

• Leaf colors of common trees
• Why leaves change colors
• Read information on migration in last month's newsletter if you missed it.

Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) butterfly in the Pine Barrens

Nature Photography and drawing -  What to photograph and draw now

• leaf colors
• fall berries
• nuts and seed pods
• harvest time
• animals preparing for winter (including humans)
• mushrooms and fungi
• fall flowers

Polyphemus Moth (Antheraea polyphemus) - luminous beauty

Polyphemus Moth caterpillar eating Blackjack Oak.

These photos of a Polyphemus Moth, fat and eating steadily, reminds us  our the natural world moves with its' own rhythm. Getting ready for fall, the caterpillar eats until must pupate one last time. This larva seems to be in its last instar or growth stage before wrapping itself into a cocoon.

It will probably spend the winter as a cocoon in the leaf litter beneath the Blackjack Oak it was eating. Next year it will emerge as a beautiful night-flying Polypehmus Moth.  

I was in the Pinelands (Pine Barrens) last Saturday. I took a nature photography workshop and the Whitesbog area was our project place. 

We spotted this fluorescent green caterpillar hanging upside down from a Blackjack Oak (Quercus marilandica) tree.

The photo is good but it doesn't do the caterpillar justice. It was luminous. The sunlight backlight the caterpillar as it ate the leaves of the Blackjack Oak.  It is about five inches long and thick,

After we spent several rapturous minutes madly shooting photos, we decided it was a Luna month larva. But we were wrong. One of our group, an entomologist,  had Caterpillars of Eastern North America by David L. Wagner, in his car trunk.

We debated and decided that the yellow lines that pass through the spiracles, confirmed that this is Polyphemus Moth. Spiracles are the pores on the side of the caterpillars body, that the animal breathes through.


Whitesbog in Brown's Mill, NJ.  It is located in the 1.1 million aces of Pinelands National Reserve. The Pinelands is commonly called the Pine Barrens. The Pine Barrens is located on the Atlantic Coastal Plain and habitat is known as a Pine-Oak Forest. To learn more about the Pinelands, visit the New Jersey Pinelands Commission.

Polyphemus Moth lives across North America except for Arizona and Nevada

Habitats: barrens, woodlands and forests.

Host plants : apple, ash, birch dogwood, elm, hazel, hickory, oak, rose, and willow. Especially favors birch, rose, and willow family plants.

Natural history information was obtained from, Caterpillars of Eastern North America by David L. Wagner. This book has 512 pages of butterfly and moth caterpillar photos and information. Awesome!

Leaf Colors of Common Trees Here in the Oak-Hickory Forest

Fall along a busy urban street

The Philadelphia area is graced with a show of spectacular fall tree color. We are just far enough north for the tree leaves to change and just far enough south to miss frigid winter temperatures. Perfect.

The trees leaves change colors according to their species DNA. Here is a list of the colors of common tree species here in the Oak-Hickory region of the Eastern Deciduous Forest.


Oaks
bear oak - yellowish brown
black oak - dull brown
blackjack oak, pin oak, turkey oak - reddish with orange tinge
post oak - brown red oak - dull brown
scarlet oak - bright scarlet to deep red
Virginia live oak - green this is an evergreen oak)

Hickories

all hickories have yellow leaves in fall.

Maples

box-elder - yellow, sometimes reddish

red maple - red

silver maple - pale yellow

striped male - yellow

sugar maple - bright orange, turning to yellow

Birches

birches - all turn shades of yellow

Other species

American beech - light yellow and turning brownish tan

American chestnut - brownish yellow

Black tupelo - deep dark red

Bigtooth aspen - orange-yellow, turning pale yellow

Eastern cottonwood - yellow

Eastern sycamore - brown

Flowering Dogwood - deep red

Pin and wild cherries - reddish, turning yellow

Quaking Aspen - yellow varies form pale to deep

Sassafras - reddish becoming yellowish

Sumacs - orange, turning bright red

Sweetgum - orange-red, turing yellow

Tamarack (American Larch) - bright yellow needles

Tuliptree - bright yellow

White ash - maroon, dark reddish green