Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy

As we head into the final days before our big Butterfly count, I thought I’d share this Butterfly Identification website that Mona Miller, one of our count leaders, sent over.

Click on the wing shape and a series of photos pops up with common butterflies that look like that.  There are also colors that you can click on in order to narrow in your id from that direction. 

A nice tool for use as you learn the butterflies.

Norm Gresley took this beautiful shot of a _____ Butterfly at the Blue Ridge Center for Environmental Stewardship a few weeks ago.

Can you identify it? After you try your hand at using the id site, hover over the image here and you’ll see what species it is.

Our next selection is On the Wing by Alan Tennant. Sign up via our website to be a part of the nature book club get together in the fall.  Here’s a bit about the book:  

From Publishers Weekly Naturalist Tennant (The Guadalupe Mountains of Texas) describes his efforts to trail peregrine falcons on their epic migratory flights from the Caribbean to the Arctic in a detailed, impassioned account that’s part nature study and part gonzo travelogue.

After radio-tagging a young peregrine off the coast of Texas, Tennant teams up with George Vose, a former WWII combat flight instructor, to follow the bird on its spring migration north. Plenty of excitement—run-ins with Canadian Mounties, trouble with Vose’s battered plane—follows as the men track their “guiding angel,” the bird they name Amelia.

After a trip to the peregrine’s Alaskan breeding grounds, Tennant and Vose follow three new peregrines on the fall migration down the coast of Mexico and Central America, where their adventures include going into a free-fall over the Caribbean Ocean and being mistaken for DEA agents.

Tennant pauses to consider nearly every creature he encounters along the way, from polar bear to insect, describing its connection to the land, and, in the inevitable bittersweet turn, revealing the environmental degradation that threatens its survival. With a nature-lover’s deep concern rather than an ideologue’s rhetoric, Tennant emphasizes the connection between man and beast, reflecting as well on his own need for migration and adventure.

Next meeting is TBD, probably in September after summer travels have wound down.

The latest issue of Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy’s Habitat Herald newsletter was mailed to members in early April. Hopefully you all received it.  Attaching here the pdf of the Spring Issue so you can download it or send it around to friends.

This season’s issue includes:
- Black Bears in Loudoun County (an article all about the lifecycle of Black bears and some notes about sightings from past years in Leesburg, Aldie, Ashburn Purcellville and elsewhere)

- Birdfoot Violet – a wonderful springtime wildflower that you may encounter on a hike

- Brook Trout and Stone fly articles – some interesting information about these stream inhabitants

- and of course all sorts of updates from our committees, nature program and field trip listings, habitat restoration projects and more.

Hope you all enjoy this latest issue!  And feel free to share it far and wide

You can also find past issues of the Habitat Herald and the individual articles in our Habitat Herald Archives.

I recently picked up this field guide, Mushrooms of West Virginia and the Central Appalachians, by William C. Roody.  I had been looking for a good book on fungi for awhile and have a couple but this one is turning into a favorite even though it’s not exactly for our area.

It has great photos of the mushrooms and fungi that are close up, showing different details (like the sides and undersides as well as more traditional views). It also has both Latin and common names, the type of habitat where you’re likly to find the species and key identifiers and comments for each species.

In addition to the facts though, I like how the book is organized. On the side of each page there’s a grouping key that has the shape/type of the fungi so you can quickly get to the right part of the book and then start thumbing through to narrow your search.

So, for example, you can go quickly to the section on bracket fungi or gilled mushrooms or cup fungi, and then look for the specific species that you’re trying to identify.

Mushrooms and other fungi are tricky but because this book is focused on West Virginia and the Central Appalachians, the species in the book are at least likely to be here in Loudoun.

Another field guide I found recently is titled Field Guide to Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic, by Bill Russell. This book is organized by season. It has the text for each species in the first part of each chapter and the photos at the end of each chapter. Personally, I like having the photos and text together.

If you have a favorite mushroom or fungi book that’s good for our area, or if you’ve used either of the books listed above, please post a comment and let us know what you think.

Here’s a really nice resource for checking if a plant is native to Virginia: The USDA Plant Database State Search. Just enter either the common or scientific name of the plant and click on our state and it will come back with the list of varieties of that plant that are native to here.

Try entering Monarda, that’s the scientific name for Bee Balm and Bergamot - you’ll see all the different varieties that are in our state. The one shown here in this post is Monarda fistulosa. From the list that comes back, try clicking on a name that’s highlighted in blue and you’ll see photos and range maps for the plant. Pretty cool.

Of course, Virginia is a pretty big state with a variety of ecosystems that range from mountain to coastal, so you may need to do a bit more research to get species that are good for Loudoun (such as checking out our Gardening for Wildlife Plant List) but this  database provides a good reference.

Springtime is such a fun time to get out those gloves, knee pads and spades and dig in the dirt!  As you do, planting native flowers and shrubs is so important.

Plants and animals have evolved together — with plants blooming at the time when specific pollinators have come on the scene, and animals like hummingbirds, bees, flies, butterflies, ants, developing their bodies and seasonal rhythms to take advantage of what the locals plants have to offer at specific times throughout the year.

 Planting non-natives can disrupt this, not to mention that non-natives often require more water and other resources in order to get them to thrive in an alien environment.

In addition to the USDA Plant Guide database, you can also search and download our Gardening for Wildlife Plant List. Just click on the green button on the left side of the Gardening for Wildlife Plant List page to download the pdf or use the search buttons on the page.

The spring reading selection has been selected!  Our next book is a collection of essays titled Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer.  Yes, it is about mosses – and also the interconnectedness of all living things. 

You can learn more about our nature book club and sign up to be a part of it by visiting our Book Club page.
 
Although our reading group has increased to 25 participants, we have yet to gather much interest in attending meetings. Hopefully when the weather improves and the days are longer we will have more in attendance. 

Stay tuned for the date of the next meeting which will be scheduled for a date in April, location TBD. As soon as it’s been set, the information will be posted on the website. In the meantime, enjoy this great book!

I received an email the other day from a woman asking about a resource that would match up local birds to bird houses and plans for making them. She was looking for something to be able to do with her children so that they could learn about nature and wildlife while providing nesting sites for birds.

This is a really fun topic, not only because it’s fun to set up a new bird house and see the life stories that play out but also because it gives us a chance to look at the world from that bird’s viewpoint and consider the habitat and the features around us that will attract certain birds versus others. It makes us ask questions like: is this a safe spot to raise my young? will it be warm enough or too hot? where will the babies fly to for their first flight from the box? is there food and water around?

But I’m getting ahead of myself…. in terms of books that are great for bird houses and plans, there are two that I’ve found that are particularly good. The first is called Woodworking for Wildlife: Homes for Birds and Mammals. It was put together by Carrol Henderson and published through the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.  I like this book the most because it is organized by bird or mammal (versus by type of house). 

So, for example, there’s a chapter on Eastern Phoebes and in that chapter the author provides and summary of the types of food the bird eats (e.g. insects, berries or seeds), the type of habitat it prefers, places that they like to build their nests and other specifics like the sound of its call and identifying marks. There are also full color photos throughout the book that include pictures of nests, eggs and fledglings.  Then, at the back of the book they have all the plans and instructions for building the nestboxes and platforms and the specific birds that will use each design are listed.

I’ve used this book to make all sorts of houses from woodpecker houses to screech owl houses and of course bluebird nestboxes. It’s really well done. Almost all the birds listed in this book are native to our area as well so it’s a great resource.

The second book that I’ve found on this is called Birdhouses and Feeders You Can Make, by Paul Gerhards. This book is primarily a book of plans and indeed it too has houses for birds that are local to Loudoun. There’s a table in the front that lists the different bird species and their particular needs and then for each plan they list which bird uses the box or platform type.  The nice thing about this book is that it also has feeder plans so you can get into building those too if you want.

These are fun activities to do over the winter. Best time to have your nest boxes up is by the first week of March or so, so that the birds will find them just as they’re starting to nest. Something to keep in mind is putting up predator guards as well (such as stovepipe guards to keep raccoons and snakes out as well as noel guards).

If you have bird houses or plans you’d like to share please let us know and we’ll post pictures and plans here. Also, I’m going to start doing some posts on general info on our local Loudoun birds and appropriate houses for them so stay tuned for that too.

I watched an excellent NOVA program last night called The Lord of Ants.  It’s about the life of E.O.Wilson, one of my personal heroes and sources of inspiration. It’s called The Lord of Ants because of the research on ants that Wilson focused on but Wilson did more than just study ants, he made the linkage from ants to biosystems and teaches us about how life connects to life on our planet and the habitats that we have to protect. 

It’s recognized that we are currently going through a mass extinction and in this program he describes the impact (no, it’s not the end of the world, but the species and diversity of the world will change). With science, rather than emotion, E.O. Wilson makes a call for action in the hopes of saving diversity.

In addition to being really informative and inspiring, there are a couple of things that I especially liked about this program. First, it’s told by him in the present day so it’s current and real. The second is that the program weaves together not only stories that he tells about past research but also present day research that links the past with the present.  He then takes that to the next dimension: turning data into action, turning information into a discussion around the need to protect and preserve habitats. This is something that we strive to do through Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy so I especially grooved on that.

Another part of the program that I really loved was where he points out how you and I can get involved here at the local level. Environmental monitoring programs and activities like a BioBlitz that we do here locally are shown to connect into this big picture tying education and monitoring to conservation. He also talks about the Encyclopedia of Life, which I did a blog post on a week or so ago, and his vision for that.

E.O. Wilson is certainly one of the greatest naturalists of our modern days. I encourage you to check out this NOVA program next time it’s on or watch it online through the link above (it’s just an hour and is not dry at all) and pick up a book or two of his – they are both fascinating and often poetic.

For those who have not seen our winter issue of the Habitat Herald newsletter, it’s been posted to our website both as individual articles that you can download and share as well as the full issue. 

You can find this issue as well as all of our past issues on our Habitat Herald Archives page. 

The Habitat Herald has all sorts of great articles on local Loudoun wildlife, plants, ecosystems and other elements in nature. It also provides updates on our different projects and reports from our monitoring activities.

Many thanks to Liam McGranaghan for writing the lead article on Golden Eagles! (Yes! we do see them in Loudoun!)

I came across this website while reading one of my magazines, OnEarth, recently and it seems really interesting.  The website is called Encyclopedia of Life and was first conceived in 2003 by E.O. Wilson, arguable one of the greatest naturalists of our time.

The goal of the site is to “grant each of the documented 1.8 million species on earth a page featuring a detailed summary of everything known about it: it’s scientific name, habitat and geographic range and distribution, what it eats and is eaten by, and where it is found in the evolutionary tree of life.” So far there are around 170,000 pages set up so it’s coming along.

One of the neatest things about this site (besides great information that we can get on our local Loudoun species) is how it pulls together the pages. There isn’t some poor webmaster sitting there typing all these different pages. Instead, it uses automated indexing similar to how Google functions, to pull in web pages into a standardized format, enabling standalone databases around the world to talk to each other and extract the data. Pretty cool.

Anyway, I wanted to share this with you in case you hadn’t come across it yet since it’s such a good resource as we learn about our local Loudoun wildlife and their habitats.