Signs of Spring

There has been significant rainfall across much of the Southeast this month, as well as more-or-less steadily increasing temperatures.  It’s spring already, and the weather has brought myriad changes to the ecosystems of my neck of the woods.  One of the first of these changes that I noticed was the sudden appearance of the early spring frogs; upland chorus frogs and spring peepers seem to be everywhere in this part of northeastern Mississippi.

All sorts of trees are beginning to bloom.  The most obvious ones, in both urban and semi-rural areas, would have to be the Bradford or Callery pears (Pyrus calleryana), with their profusions of medium-sized white flowers.  These trees originated in China and Vietnam, but have a long history of cultivation.  Even though they are invasive, I have to admit that they tend to have a nice shape, and the bright blossoms catch the eye in the predominately gray-brown landscapes of late February.

Callery pear

Winged elms (Ulmus alata) are other early bloomers.  In fact, it seems that most of the elms in my neighborhood have already moved past the blooming stage and into the fruiting one.  Elm fruits are known as samaras, which means that they are dry, winged, and do not naturally split open along “seams” in the manner of, say, hickory nuts or walnuts.  Maples produce samaras, too; theirs are the familiar propeller-shaped fruits that spiral down to the ground later in the season.  The elm samaras in the photo are oval, notched at one end, and edged with short “hairs,” or pubescence.

Elm fruit

While there are plenty of trees and shrubs with fuchsia-colored flowers, the eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis) is one of the relatively few native ones in this part of the world.  White redbuds exist—cultivated from the related western redbud—but I much prefer the striking purple-pink of the wild ones.  Redbuds are understory trees, rarely attaining heights of more than 30 feet.

The redbud tree is just a little above the center of the picture.  Look at those fuchsia flowers!

Obviously, herbaceous plants (that is, those lacking woody tissue) also bloom this time of year.  Native wildflowers such as wild garlic, eastern spring beauty, bluet, clover, henbit, and many others can be found on lawns and in fields right now. 

wild garlic (Allium ursinum)

spring beauty (Claytonia virginica)

Certain colorful cultivated plants, such as daffodils, are hard to miss!  These particular ones grow near the driveway, under the shade of oak trees.

These warm, sunny days bring out lizards, like this basking Carolina anole.

Hawks and vultures come out, too.  This Red-tailed Hawk—a juvenile, its tail brown with horizontal bars rather than solid red—flew from its perch after spotting me as I was strolling down the driveway. 

The Turkey Vultures often soar in small groups, taking advantage of the rising warm air.  These two look like random punctuation on a bright blue page of sky.

Hawks, owls, and vultures will be nesting in this part of Mississippi very soon, if they’re not already doing so.  Most of our breeding birds nest a bit later in the season, though, and many of them have yet to arrive from their wintering grounds in the tropics.  The Eastern Phoebes, however, stay here year-round, and have begun to build a mud-and-moss nest atop old, unused mud dauber nests in the garage.  This looks a little precarious to me, but maybe the nest will stay in place for the duration of the breeding season.

Within another month or so, the phoebes will likely be joined in the garage by Carolina Wrens, constructing their domed straw nests in the nooks and crannies.  Mockingbirds and thrashers, which are already singing to defend their territories, will build their messy twig nests in the privet shrubs.  Choruses of green, Cope’s gray, and squirrel treefrogs will replace the spring peepers and upland chorus frogs in the moist woodlands.  The wild places are in a state of rapid transition right now.  Don’t miss it.

A White-eyed Vireo Nest

The following piece is about an interesting discovery from last summer.  I couldn't resist sharing a little about these birds!

Have you ever had to remove a wasp from the house?  While I normally hold nothing against the industrious little predatory insects, it's frustrating to deal with them when they decide to leave their natural environment and invade mine, instead.  Fortunately, this particular intruder—which had been flying erratically around the dining and living rooms before finally retreating to the living room window blinds—turned out to be a relatively easygoing, harmless mud dauber, not one of the more aggressive red paper wasps building nests above the front porch.   Whew!  Easier to capture and release.

As I was catching the mud dauber, I happened to notice a White-eyed Vireo perched in the thorny elaeagnus (also known as thorny olive) shrub growing next to the window.  Then I saw the nest, a papery, woven pouch about four or five inches deep, suspended from the crotch of a twig.  This was the closest I had ever been to an active vireo nest—close enough for me to appreciate the tight construction of insect and spider silk, grasses, bark strips, and other materials.

The nest, with a wary -- and hot -- White-eyed Vireo!

The silk webbing that serves as the foundation for vireo nests is probably what makes them so durable.  I’ve noticed that vireo nests tend to hold up very well even months after the nesting season is over.  I have seen a few empty nests in decent condition, most recently a probable White-eyed Vireo one on Mississippi State University property, winter 2014, and what I suspect was a Bell’s Vireo nest at Frog Bayou Wildlife Management Area in northwestern Arkansas, summer 2014.

2014 Bell's Vireo nest -- Arkansas

Active nests are generally much more exciting to observe than old ones, though, and the White-eyed Vireo nest in the thorny elaeagnus was no exception.  Although I had not noticed any nesting activity earlier in the year, I was aware that adult vireos were probably already raising their second brood of the season.  White-eyed Vireos typically arrive in the northern half of Mississippi by early April, and, according to "The Birds of North America Online" (http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/), they take three to five days to complete a nest, one day to lay each of the three to five eggs, thirteen to fifteen days to incubate eggs, and nine to eleven days to raise nestlings.  Given the birds’ typical arrival dates and the rapid development of the young, June 15 would probably be unusually late for a pair to still be working on a first brood.  

 

Because the nest was such a deep pouch, I initially had trouble seeing into it to determine whether eggs or young were present.

Once I began to observe the parents bringing various insects to the nest site, it was obvious to me that there were nestlings.  Caterpillars, small wasps, and beetles were among the species that the vireos stuffed into the yellow maws of their offspring.  For the first two days, June 15 and 16, the parents made these feeding trips at intervals of approximately 10 to 20 minutes.  Feeding seemed to slow down a bit over the next few days.  I suspected that these nestlings were already a day or two old on the 15^th, and my later observations seem to bear that out.  Interestingly, one egg had failed to hatch.

Vireo young and unhatched egg on June 21, 2016

The nestlings developed quickly, becoming noticeably larger, sleeker, and more alert each day.  The photograph below was taken only a day after the previous one.  The infertile egg was still there, too—just hidden under the young birds.

June 22, 2016

On June 22, the birds were ready to fledge.  I missed watching the first one, which apparently left the nest sometime in the late afternoon.  The second bird stayed for a while longer, but by the end of the day, it, too, had fledged.

Over the next couple of months, the vireos—both the adults and the fledglings—chattered, foraged, and flew around the shrubs near the house.  Juvenile White-eyeds have dark brown eyes during the summer, making it very easy to distinguish them from their parents.  They begin to live up to their moniker in late fall or winter, when their irises permanently turn white.  By that time, they and their parents have most likely left for their wintering grounds in Central America, the Bahamas, Bermuda, or, in some cases, the southeastern portions of North America.  I'll be watching for them again this year.