Deer Rub-Urination

OK, this is a weird one, involving bodily fluids. You have been warned.

I just learned about something White-tailed Deer do to enhance their scent and communicate with each other. Deer have scent glands on their inner hind legs (among other places). To get these spots on their legs nice and stinky, deer will periodically do something called "rub-urination," where they pee on these spots and rub their legs together; the urine combines with bacteria and the glands' secretion to produce a strong odor that deer use to identify each other, display dominance, and so on. Apparently males rub-urinate especially frequently during breeding season, but both males and females do this throughout the year. (See this article for more information.)

How did I learn that deer have this behavior? Because a deer helpfully walked in front of my trail camera last week and demonstrated it. Animals are so weird and interesting!

 

May Yard Birds: Week 1

It's May! So many different birds are moving in and passing through right now, many of them with amazing colors and costumes that are wonderfully offset by the just-emerging leaves on the trees. My goal is to post weekly digests to keep up with the constant avian parade in our yard this month. There's so much going on! And with that, here are some new arrivals (and some familiar creatures) from the past week.

Pretty much as soon as the calendar rolled over into the new month, this bizarre silhouette appeared in one of our trees:
 

OK, I guess you really never know what creatures will show up in May! I certainly never expected to see a Green Heron in our yard, let alone at the top of a tree, calling out like some sort of songbird. Perhaps this bird was attracted to a neighboring pond; I actually saw a few more Green Herons flying around later in the week as well. Really, though, what a weird sight:
 

Ruby-throated Hummingbirds now blaze through our yard like tiny buzzy helicopters. I met up with this little guy while he rested in between sips of Virginia Bluebell nectar:
 

This male Eastern Bluebird has been hanging around for a while, but he finally sat still long enough to have his picture taken; that's some blue!

(Speaking of blue birds, I saw our first male Indigo Bunting of the year yesterday, but he wasn't in very good light. Here's hoping I'll get more chances to admire these birds in the coming weeks.)

A pair of Baltimore Orioles has been hanging around this week, and I even saw the female carrying long bits of nesting material up to the top of a nearby tall tree. A few days ago, the pair was eating nectar from a neighbor's blossoming apple tree:
 

Mmm, flowers:
 

The male Baltimore Oriole really is gorgeous; this is one of those birds that just seems too brightly-colored to belong in this part of the world, but here it is!
 

I think I startled the female oriole earlier today, because she landed in a nearby bush and yelled at me. She's very pretty, too, although not nearly as fancy as her mate:

And of course, the warblers are starting to pass through (Blackburnian; Nashville; Yellow-rumped; Black-and-White; Black-throated Green!), although they've been generally keeping their distance from me and my camera. A couple of male Chestnut-sided Warblers (one of my favorites) were foraging above my head the other day, showing off their dark suspenders:
 

This female Common Yellowthroat was mostly hunting inside the bushes, but she made some very brief appearances in the open; I've never noticed that faint wash of chestnut on her forehead before:
 

The Gray Catbirds are back, calling and singing from shady perches (I've missed these funny birds!):

We've got all these new characters showing up, and the familiar birds keep on doing interesting things, too. Yesterday I came across a male Northern Cardinal singing so, so gently at the female perched just below him:
 

And this is a little outside the purview of this post (it happened at the end of April rather than the beginning of May), but I was excited last week to watch a White-breasted Nuthatch hunting. It was actually peeking up into the bark crevices on its chosen tree trunk, turning its head to look with one eye:
 

And then the other:
 

I don't think I've seen this behavior before, although of course it makes a lot of sense. Bugs are hidden everywhere, and nuthatches have their own ways of looking for them!

I can't believe one whole week of May is already over. I plan to take full advantage of every day in this awesome month!

Early Spring Families

It's spring, and that means it's time for babies! Starting from at least last Friday, the mom Eastern Phoebe who made her nest on the back of our house has been incubating eggs. I snuck around the corner of the house to take this picture, but we've been careful to give her plenty of space:

I love how flat she stays, with her eye just barely peeking over the top of the nest. According to allaboutbirds.org, Eastern Phoebes incubate eggs for 15-16 days. So in just over a week, we might have some baby birds as next-door neighbors....

This female Eastern Bluebird has been hanging around our yard with her flashier mate recently. I wonder if they're working on a nest in a neighbor's yard:

What a pretty lady:

Our trail camera picked up an interesting scene last Friday night. I've never seen a White-tailed Deer lying down before. Am I crazy, or does this doe look a little pregnant? She's certainly rounder than the scraggly deer who walked by the camera just before her:

 

While so many other animals are just starting to make babies, Fox Squirrels give birth in late winter (March or earlier), so their families are pretty well grown by now. On Sunday, I looked up at a tree in our woods to see a Fox Squirrel face looking back at me; and then a second squirrel poked its head out of the same cavity:

Fox Squirrel babies! OK, they're pretty big babies, but they're still adorable:

I wonder if their mom is one of the two female Fox Squirrels who regularly come to the house to pick up bird seeds. Aw, snuggly babies:

There were probably more than two squirrels in that cavity, because little faces kept pushing out of the hole and then going back in again. I took this video of the Fox Squirrel family from a distance, so it'll be easiest to see the babies if you watch it in full-screen mode:



I wish all these families the best of luck, whether they're just starting out or almost all grown. It's going to be a busy summer around here; and a lot of the breeding birds haven't even returned yet!

Two Weekends of Wildflowers

Everything's changing so quickly outside now! Last weekend, I went into the woods behind our house to check out the wildflowers, and I was pretty well astonished by the variety of blooming plants I found just in this little sloping area. A bunch of these flowers were ones I'd never encountered before!

The Cutleaf Toothworts (Cardamine concatenata) were fully open:

I seemed to have missed the peak blooms on this Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides), which was holding onto only a few flowers:

Twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla) flowers danced on long stems next to the plant's strangely shaped leaves:

Patches of Rue Anemone blooms showed up in pale pink and white:

The pink blooms were very pretty:

But I especially liked the white flowers:
 

It seemed like this Spring Beauty was trying to be extra beautiful with its bonus petals:

I haven't been able to identify this small yellow violet that was blooming by a stream, but it was quite a lovely flower, named or not:
 

Speaking of yellow flowers, after seeing tons of Trout Lily leaves, I was happy to find a few plants in bloom! These are some of my favorite spring plants:

Small beetles (Asclera ruficollis, I believe) were also enjoying the Trout Lily blooms, apparently munching on the pollen:

A few other insects were out and about on this sunny day, including this Green Stink Bug:
 

Although most of the Bloodroot blooms in the woods had faded, this amazing patch lit up a corner of the yard:

When I went out exploring again yesterday, I found almost an entirely new cast of characters. Well, the Trout Lilies and Spring Beauties at least are still going strong; our yard is practically carpeted with Spring Beauty blooms, which is quite a lovely thing to see:
 

Jack-in-the-Pulpit leaves and flowers are starting to pop up all over the woods:
 

Big patches of Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) are just starting to open their bright blue flowers:

And I'm so, so happy to see Large-flowered Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) with its billowing blooms. These plants are scattered all through the woods, and one gorgeous patch even came up right next to the house:

Spring is in full swing now, and I'm excited to see what creatures and plants will show up next!

A Bed of Brown Snakes

Late last Friday afternoon, I was walking through the yard when I saw something rustling under the dry leaves in a flower bed. It was a warm sunny day, so I guessed there was a snake moving around under there. When I flipped over a leaf to investigate, though, I wasn't expecting to see two snake faces looking back at me:
 

Ahh, Brown Snakes (Storeria dekayi) are maybe the cutest little snakes I've met, and I'm very happy to have them in the yard. These guys didn't seem inclined to move, so I shifted another leaf to get a better view, and hey, three snakes! (Or maybe even four?? It's hard to see how those looping bodies all connect.)
 

I've read that Brown Snakes sometimes hibernate in groups, but this might also be the right time for mating activity. So I'm not entirely sure what I uncovered, but I just love these snuggly little snakes with their friendly faces:
 

I like having a flower bed full of Brown Snakes. :)