Observations from three locations:
Wednesday evening, April 9 out in front of my house just outside of Apollo:
The first spring peepers of the season!
As I have written out on the Spring Peeper species page on our Virtual Nature Trail ( www.nk.psu.edu/naturetrail): One of the truly great signs of early spring is the rolling, night time chorus of the Spring Peeper. This tiny frog is found throughout much of North America and is especially abundant in the eastern United States. The Peeper’s scientific name, Pseudoacris crucifer, means “false locust” (for its insect-like call), and “cross” (for its distinctive X-shaped marking on its back). It is found in variety of colors from yellow to olive green and gray to brown, and lives in marshes, ponds, wet meadows, and temporary pools throughout the United States with the exception of southern Georgia and Florida. The Spring Peeper is a tree frog and possesses toe pads that help it to climb the trees, shrubs, and tall grasses that surround its ponds. It is from these perches the male frogs sing their distinctive mating songs.
The mating choruses begin in early spring typically 15 minutes or so after sundown. The calls require a very large expenditure of energy by each individual which may explain why the males bunch together to form a large, high volume ensemble (even though it greatly intensifies mating competition between individuals). Each frog is able maximally to make 90 calls a minute over a four hour chorus time. The mating/calling season only lasts for 4 to 8 weeks. Male peepers begin to sing when they are three years old and the age, size, and overall health of the frog greatly affect the calling frequency. The temperature of the evening also affects calling patterns. On warmer evenings the frogs call much more frequently.
Tuesday morning, April 8 on the Penn State New Kensington Nature Trail:
I spent three hours out on the nature trail this morning. My dog, Kozmo, raced up and down the ravine slope for about an hour but then gave in to exhaustion and followed me as I put out the new arboretum tree markers (I also had a bag of dog biscuits in my pack!). I put markers on 20 trees that had been selected by one of our past students, Mr. Chris Hone (Forestry Major at University Park) as outstanding examples of some of the 32 different tree species that are present along the trail. Next week I will be putting a downloadable and printable arboretum map and arboretum guide out on the Virtual Nature Trail. In honors of Earth Day (Tuesday, April 22), the Penn State New Kensington Arboretum will be officially open!
While I was putting the markers on the trees I was followed by a small flock of golden crowned kinglets. These tiny (about 3 ½ inches long..smaller than a wren) round bodied little birds perched on the lowest branches around me and serenaded me with their high pitched “see-see-see” calls and songs. They seemed very interested in the numbered discs I was attaching to the trees. Maybe, like chickadees, they were attracted to the noise of my hammering. Loud noises in the woods could mean breaking branches, and breaking branches may mean exposure of insect larvae that live inside the wood. Aldo Leopold noticed that chickadees were attracted to the sound of his shotgun and hypothesized that they were gathering in anticipation of broken wood and the possibility of exposed ant larvae. We have done two very extensive bird surveys (in 2002 and 2006) throughout the campus, but this was the first sighting of these not uncommon, but seldom observed birds.
As I was finishing the last tree marker, I looked up and saw a pileated woodpecker perched on the side of a white ash tree about 15 feet away. The pileated woodpecker is almost 20 inches long and, especially after watching the little kinglets, looked the size of bulldog affixed to a tree! We have a species page about these woodpeckers out on the Virtual Trail. We have had nesting pairs of pileated woodpeckers out on the Nature Trail for the past 12 years. Hearing their loud, eerie call as they fly through the trees is one of the great experiences of the Pennsylvania woods.
Thursday morning, April 10: Rock Furnace Trail, Kiski Township:
The yellow poplar trees are flowering! The flowers are large (one to one and a half inches wide), cup shaped and showy with six greenish-yellow and orange petals. They are found at the ends of the leafy twigs high up in the tree canopy (you have to use binoculars to really see them!). These beautiful flowers are pollinated by several types of insects but honey bees are especially attracted to them. Check out the species page on the Yellow Poplar on the Virtual Trail!
The red maples all along the surrounding ridges are in flower. Each tree is encased in a distinctive, red aura generated by the tiny flowers. It is very easy from almost any vantage point to make a visual assessment of the incredible density of this species all over the surrounding hills! The red maple has become one of the most abundant trees of the eastern forests. The destruction of the primal oak, chestnut, hemlock, and white pine forests of Pennsylvania and the rest of the eastern parts of the United States generated ecological conditions that favored trees that could produce large numbers of seeds, grow under a wide range of environmental conditions, and produce a sufficiently large number of seedlings to survive the intense, destructive force of winter deer browsing. The red maple, under these selection criteria, has experienced a true population explosion!
Down on the broad pool of Roaring Run just above the new bridge, I saw the first water striders of the season. There were four of them taking advantage of the high surface tension of the water and their remarkably adapted three pair of non-wetting legs to scamper across the water surface in search of prey (primarily aquatic insects and larvae). The striders themselves were very small and very hard to see, but the distortions that each of their legs made on the water’s surface refracted the sunlight into bright, color-tinted, circular patches that raced across the silty, light brown stream bed.
The trillium leaves are up! All along the lower section of this trail the trillium are pushing their triple leaves up through the covering leaf litter. In past years, the display of these magnificent flowers up and down these hillsides has been spectacular! I think that with all of the rain we’ve had this spring, this year will be something special! I will keep you posted.
Finally, the eastern phoebe I mentioned last week is still active up and down the trail. But, instead of harassing and cursing at me, he was vigorously occupied in gathering nest materials. I spent several minutes watching him strip the fibrous under-bark from of a dead black cherry sapling. He methodically worked the fibers loose of the underlying wood and bunched them together into a beak-full load which he immediately took up into a surrounding stand of young hemlocks. He must have secured his territory and was now getting a nest ready to impress the soon to be arriving females.
A great week, everyone! Watch for the arboretum guide and map which will be available next week. Happy almost Earth Day!