Anonymous National Park Rangers

ANIMAL WISE

Some trees had begun shedding their leaves and a few yellow and orange leaves floated in the Little Lehigh Creek. A brown trout nudged the leaves tipping them slightly. She did this to every leaf that floated near her.

An inch & a half long, huge by mayfly standards, hexagenia mayfly with a brown body and yellow abdomen emerges on the Little Lehigh Creek in Allentown, Pa in late August / early September.

One of those huge mayflies drying his wings and rafting on a leaf came near the trout she tilted the leaf saw the mayfly and grabbed her meal on a leaf.

One supersized hexigenia mayfly for every 7 to 10 leaves tilted up was worth the effort for this trout.

Nudging leaves to tilt them to see what's on top doesn't seem to be an instinctive behavior.

This was one smart fish. 

From the trout’s slightly underwater view all the leaves looked the same. The first time she found the mayfly riding on the leaf it might have been accidental. But she was very purposeful, searching each leaf that floated near her for a mayfly. I think she imagined that some leaves could have a juicy mayfly riding on it.

She was careful not to bang into the leaf. That would have caused the mayfly to fly off. She just nudged the leaf enough to see what was on top and then shot up and grabbed the mayfly.

I learned that fish aren't as dumb as people think.

When watched, animals and birds watch back. They seem to be sizing me up. Wondering what I'm up to and if I'm dangerous or have food. I believe lots of animals, birds and even social insects can solve problems by visualizing a solution.

Cats and dogs seem to be reasoning out what I'm thinking.  At the same time I'm wondering what's going on in those little heads.

A decade or two ago most biologists dismissed studies of non-human reasoning. Research biologists who saw clear evidence of abstract reasoning in animals did not label it as such because they feared being laughed at by colleagues.

Within the last decade the scientific community have begun to accept the work of biologists who find that animals do think.

You might say, "Of course animals think." You see it every day. But science doesn't guess, observations need to be noted and quantified.

"Animal Wise-The thoughts and emotions of our fellow creatures" by Virginia Morell is an easy to read overview of some of the latest and very remarkable findings in what our furry, finned and feathered fellow travelers are thinking and feeling. 

Conservation 

University of Washington

GATHERING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

June 10, 2013Wildlife4 Comment

Jason G. Goldman reviews Virginia Morell’s Animal Wise

Virginia Morell

 Virginia Morell is an acclaimed science journalist and author. A contributing correspondent for Science, she has covered evolutionary and conservation biology since 1990. A passionate lover of the natural world and a creative thinker, her reporting keeps her in close communications with leading scientists in her fields of interest. Morell is also a regular contributor to National Geographic and Conde Nast Traveler. In 2004, her National Geographic article on climate change was a finalist for Best Environmental Article from the Society of Environmental Journalists. 

MORE AT:  

 http://www.gillianmackenzieagency.com/books/authors/48

The Brandywine Valley Eagle

A view of the Brandywine and Joe Pye Weed with tiger swallowtails at the Brandywine River Museum

On Sunday my daughter and her boyfriend took my wife and me to the Brandywine River Museum. The museum is built onto an old mill. Two of the restaurant walls are floor to ceiling windows with a view of the Brandywine.

After breakfast we toured the 3 story museum exhibits wearing our little stickers that showed we had arrived early on Sunday morning when admission is free. The occasion was my 70th birthday.

I enjoyed the N C Wyeth paintings; paintings of other American artists and some really cool weathervanes on exhibit.

The highlight of the day was unexpected. On our way back to Coatesville we rode on narrow Chester County roads that mostly followed creek valleys.  My daughter said, “Is that a hawk?” I saw a flash of white tail. At first I thought, Northern Harrier. But the entire tail was white. I shouted, “It’s an eagle”.

American bald eagle was flying less than 100 feet away about 50 feet above the ground. She or he flew in about the same direction as our car for several minutes.

I had only seen photos or viewed bald eagles downstream of Conowingo Dam on the Susquehanna River. At the Conowingo site he eagles are out in the river quite a distance away. This was up close. We didn’t need binoculars. It was an elegant bird with dark brown body and wings and brilliant white head and tail feathers 

I doubt that this fierce and regal king of the sky or for that matter the small birds harnessing him thought much of us poor earthbound creatures cramped in a machine following a macadam path; but that eagle made my day.

Museum Restaurant

Brandywine River Museum

Brandywine Conservancy 

Are mosquitoes making your backyard cookouts itchy? Try tree swallows & bluebirds.

Tree swallows take flying insects on the wing. Once the tree swallows come back to our house daytime mosquitoes disappear from the our yard.

A nesting box designed for bluebirds will also accommodate tree swallows. They are easy to find or if you have the skills you can make your own.

I use metal wire fence posts to mount the nesting boxes. Predators (mostly squirrels) can’t climb them easily.  If they can get to the nest box squirrels will chew at the entrance hole so they can get inside.

Bluebirds require more territory for nesting. Their boxes need to be about 60 feet or more from each other. However bluebirds and tree swallows will tolerate each other so put up nest boxes in pairs of two a few feet apart. It’s very important to put the boxes at least 10 feet from cover that can hide a predator.

This is how my boxes are arranged in the yard.

As you can see from the photos cats also can’t climb the metal poles. She only tried this one time.

Tree swallows use aerial tactics when driving off cats. One will come from behind and get the cat’s attention while a second, or sometimes third bird swoops down and pecks the cat’s head.  Now my cats avoid the tree swallows air space and hide under the porch furniture.

Duck flank feathers lining the nest with 4 white eggs.

Check out the video below. Sorry for the shaky camera, it’s just an iPhone. You can see the little tree swallow poking his head out at the end for just a second.

It’s almost time for the swallows to fly south. But blue birds nest a second or even a third time.

For more information check out:

 Tree Swallow 

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology