A fawn vs. Deer overpopulation

We had some excitement last night.

I glanced over and saw a doe and her fawn in a neighboring yard. (The neighbors were out of town.) I tried to signal the woman walking down the street with two VERY LARGE dogs that they were there. She stopped, but one of the dogs got away from her and went bounding toward the deer. The doe quickly ran away, and the fawn instantly dropped to the ground in this very awkward-looking posture. Meanwhile the dog dashed to the fawn. I was sure it was going to rip it apart, but the dog just sniffed it curiously. I grabbed the dog's leash and returned it to its owner.

So now we had this tiny fawn all alone. The mother was nowhere to be found. I fervently hoped that she would come back to get it during the night. And the next morning--not knowing what I would do if it were still there--I went to check. Phew! It was gone, and I was off the hook.

But it brings out a lot of issues. For one, who could not love this cute little fawn? It was definitely one of the cutest animal babies, and so vulnerable, too. I worried about it all night.

At the same time, though, I don't want deer in my yard, and I don't want so many deer destroying our natural areas, either. We have a serious problem with deer overpopulation. It's not good for our home landscapes, it's not good for our natural areas, it's not good for people who may collide with them while driving...and it's not good for the deer, either.

I feel very conflicted about this dilemma. I want the best for this little baby, but it also represents the huge problem of an ever-increasing deer population--a population which is beyond the carrying capacity of our region. I know it's a disaster to have so many deer. I also know that the solution cannot be a happy one, but one that must take into account a larger view of what is healthiest for the earth.

I ended the evening feeling very sad about the problems we face--and very uncertain whether humans are up to the challenges facing us.

UPDATE: Our overwintering swallowtails emerge!

Just emerged. Its wings are still crumpled.

I was about to give up hope. After all, the idea of these little black swallowtail pupae overwintering on a freezing cold screen porch all winter, nine months after they became a pupa is itself preposterous. And the time we had this situation before, they had already emerged by this point in May.

But today, when I happened to glance at the aquarium that has housed these pupae all winter, I saw a swallowtail, with its wings still crumpled, having very recently emerged. It's currently still just hanging from the stick, waiting for its wings to become strong enough to fly away. I'm happy that this morning is one of the few days that there's some sun. I'd hate to release him into a rainy outdoors.

It's amazing to think that this is the first time it has seen the light of day since last July or so! 

UPDATE:  After hanging around a few hours, its wings were fully expanded and flight-worthy. He was ready to go out into the world for his first venture post-caterpillar.

Here he is sitting on some beautiful shooting stars.

I'm glad we have lots of zizia, dill, and parsley growing so if it manages to find a mate, there are places they can lay eggs for the next generation.

Our former tadpoles growing up

One of our former tadpoles, growing up

Over the past few years, toads have laid tens of thousands of eggs in our ponds. By the time they're ready to leave our ponds, there are somewhat fewer, and I imagine that after a few weeks out of the ponds, their numbers are considerably diminished. On days when many are leaving the pond, I've seen birds with little legs sticking out of their beaks.  But after all, how many toads could our yard support anyway? Natural attrition is built into the system.

Still, toads are so beneficial that we're hoping a good many survive. It's hard to know how many do survive since mating season in the ponds is the only time we see toads routinely. (Frogs hang around the pond all the time--one reason we really miss them.)

It's always fun to discover some of our own toadlets growing up. Yesterday, I moved a stone and discovered two adolescent toads! We don't know if they were last year's toads or toads from the previous year. (I put a dime near him to show his relative size.) We relocated them to an area with lots of cover, and we're sure they'll be helping us as they grow by eating increasing numbers of slugs and other pests.

Unusual visitors to our pond

A few years ago a pair of mallards visited our pond briefly, but we hadn't seen any since then ... until tonight. Our pond is just barely ten feet across, so I don't believe it's adequate to support a pair of ducks, but it's interesting to have them as visitors.

Our biggest concern about having these otherwise welcome guests is that they'll eat our toad tadpoles. We've had batches of toad eggs in both our upper pond (the one shown here) and in our lower pond, which is next to the house. The toads laid many thousands of eggs, so as long as they don't go into our bottom wildlife pond, then we'll probably have as many tadpoles as our yard can support anyway.

It was interesting watching the two enjoying the pond and stream. As I kept crawling closer, they seemed to become quite comfortable with my presence, but seldom took their eyes off me just in case.

They finally left the pond and stream and wandered into my meadow garden for a little while before taking off.

American lady butterfly laying eggs

American Lady butterfly laying eggs on pussytoes

I'm not sure when we've first seen American Lady butterflies in the past, but it seemed early. Maybe that's just because it has been so rainy and cold following such a long, snowy winter that it's hard to believe it's actually May. At any rate, it was certainly encouraging to see life beginning anew!

It always amazes me to see butterflies finding their host plants. I have a few good patches of pussytoes (Antennaria), but even so, they're dwarfed by all the other plants in the yard. Still, the ladies find them, as they must.

We're still waiting for the dill to grow so the black swallowtail butterflies will have something to lay their eggs on. Of course, they could also lay their eggs on parsley, but they always seemed to prefer the dill. We also have some zizia, their native host plant, which is starting to grow.

If you think YOUR life is boring...

Three toads spending the day in the pond skimmer

These three toads spent the entire day in the pond skimmer without moving a muscle. That might have been fine for the toad on the top, but I wouldn't have wanted to be the toad on the bottom!

I assume this is their sleeping time, resting up for the nighttime frolics in the pond. We've had at least four batches of eggs laid so far.

I've had to remove two mating pairs from the skimmer and put them in the bottom pond, but they seemed to disappear after a while. Maybe they gave up and went away.

I don't like to disturb them, but any eggs they laid in the skimmer would be going up through the return pipe, through the biofalls lava rocks and into the stream. I don't think they'd survive, so moving them is the best I can do. At any rate, we have so many thousands of eggs now developing that I don't think more eggs would necessarily mean more toads.

The saddest thing is to hear all the toads singing throughout the neighborhood, knowing that the majority of them are laying their eggs in swimming pools, which will soon be chlorinated.

More info on my frogs and toads is on my website at www.ourhabitatgarden.org/creatures/amphibians.html.

Toads mating!

The black and white string in the top left quadrant is the string of eggs

The toads started singing a little late this year, but we finally have success!

The past few days we've had a group of toads hanging out in the pond skimmer--apparently their favorite place. We've heard a lot of singing the last two nights, and they've still been singing in the morning when I get up.

One pair finally got together to lay eggs. Note how much larger the female is than the male. There are still five males hanging out in the skimmer, so we hope some more females come around tonight.

We especially would like them to find our pond. If they don't, they usually end up in someone's swimming pool, which means all the little tadpoles die when the owners add chlorine.

More on amphibians on Our Habitat Garden website.

A towhee visits our yard

We were happy to see a towhee in the yard. At first glance, we thought it was a robin since it has the same coloring. But a towhee has much more vivid coloring and much more clearly-defined borders of white and black. Unfortunately, he wouldn't turn around for a good photo of this, but these birds are striking.

We especially like to watch him scratching about in the leaves under the clethra shrubs, apparently his favorite place. He does the little insect scratching motion just like song sparrows and other true sparrows do, but in a much more vigorous way.

I'm glad we've left this leaf litter, which can be a rich source of little insects for birds. So many people seem to think any natural materials under shrubs have to be raked up and discarded like trash. What a shame!

Publish Post

First butterfly of the season!

When I stepped outside today, a butterfly flew over my head. Although I didn't see it clearly, I believe it was a mourning cloak. The photo (taken a few years ago, not today) shows a mourning cloak, somewhat battered. I'm not surprised that it should be a mourning cloak since they overwinter as adults, in contrast to other butterflies that overwinter in other various stages.

For example, we're still waiting for my black swallowtail pupae to emerge. They've been sitting in their pupal form in the aquarium since mid-summer last year! When the temperatures reach 60, I expect they'll start thinking about emerging.

I also saw a number of bees today, though I saw my first bee a few days ago. But I wonder what they're eating? There are very few things blooming--not even the pussy willows, which are still gray catkins.

Maybe the early bees just take the chance that they'll be able to survive and thus get a head start. If so, then these lost the bet...

Chipmunks return!

I saw my first chipmunk yesterday (April 2). This was the first winter I can recall when I didn't see a chipmunk during a January thaw. Why? Because there never was a thaw. There was a constant, usually very thick, layer of snow the whole season. It's really a wonder how chipmunks can survive in their burrows for so long without seeing the light of day or getting fresh air.

I know many people regard chipmunks as vermin, but I don't have a problem with them. I haven't noticed any great damage--I even have tulips come up year after year, and I haven't planted any in ten years.

And what if they did a little damage? I get more enjoyment watching them than I would having another tulip. Humans can't just keep the whole world to ourselves.

Shrubs took a hit this winter

Our chokeberry shrub

The snow was unrelenting this winter. Snowstorm after snowstorm--and sometimes ice storms--piled mountains of snow on mountains of snow. This constant layer of snow probably helped our herbaceous plants, but it was hard on our shrubs.

As you can see in the photo, many of the branches were snapped off. I'm cutting these broken branches off cleanly, but some shrubs will have to be cut back almost to the ground. I'm sure they'll regrow, and it may even allow some to grow into better shapes than they were in before.

The shrub I worry about the most, though, is my buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis). It was flattened this winter, and its branches were still trapped under the last bit of snow until yesterday. I hope it is able to straighten up some. It's still a young shrub, but it had three or four flowers last year.

Starting up for pond and stream for the year

The snow and ice finally melted enough so we could start the pond and stream again. A real sign of spring, even though there's not yet much green.

It always amazes us that it's so easy to get started each year--just pop in the pump, which has been in a bucket of water in the basement all winter, plug it in, and it starts. (Of course, the water is finger-freezing cold while setting in the pump and so on, but that's John's job, not mine...)

The birds noticed immediately that their small flowerpot-saucer birdbath had been replaced with a "real" stream. I expect the robins will be especially happy, since they're our stream's most dedicated bathers.

It's so nice to again hear the stream flowing, though it's still so cold that we have to go outside to hear it.

Next spring milestone we're awaiting: toads singing!

Robins like winterberries in spring, too

These winterberries (Ilex verticillata) may be wizened and not nearly as appealing as they were during the winter, but now that the northern mockingbird is no longer claiming them as his own, this robin is getting a meal.

Fresh new berries won't be available until the serviceberries (Amelanchier canadense) are ready in June.

Uglifying a plant to make a beautiful butterfly

A few years ago, I thought there was some horrible insect destroying my pussytoes (Antennaria) and pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea) plants. They were covered with white cottony structures with ugly black things in them. Sometimes you could even see a caterpillar inside these structures. BUT I learned that these are the caterpillars of the American Lady butterfly, and despite the apparent destruction, it doesn't hurt the plants at all. After being eaten year after year, they're as healthy as ever. Their relationship with the American Lady butterfly goes back a long ways! I admit this isn't exactly the way I'd like the plants to look, but my reward is knowing that they're helping make more American Lady butterflies, an especially cute little butterfly. So I've been dividing and transplanting more and more pussytoes and pearly everlasting plants to create even more host plants for these butterflies. They're one of the easiest butterflies to raise inside, too. I've brought some plants with caterpillars inside and I'm raising them in an aquarium. Just make sure you have plenty of these plants available so you can supply fresh leaves for them.

Amazing migration right in my own yard!

I've been participating in the Vanessa Migration project, a citizen science project that tracks the migration of the Vanessa butterflies (Red Admiral, American Lady, Painted Lady, and West Coast Lady). I had sent in a few observations of American Lady and Red Admiral butterflies I had seen in my yard during the past week. I recorded them as "Presence of butterfly in my area." The photo is of one of these butterflies exploring my yard.

I was amused that they asked for "Flight direction." What do you mean "flight direction"? Don't butterflies just fly around? Well today, I saw a couple of red admirals, then a couple more, then a steady stream of about one every few minutes. And they all entered my yard from one direction and left heading North-northeast! They actually did have a "flight direction"!

Later when we walked to Wegmans (lately we've gotten all our food by taking our backpacks on the 3-mile round trip about four times a week), we saw Red Admirals all along our walk, all heading NNE. Truly amazing!

The wonderful thing about citizen science -- apart from the fact that it helps collect important data that can't be collected any other way -- is that it sharpens your powers of observation and alerts you to all these events in nature. I imagine this migration has taken place every year, but I never bothered to notice before now.

Warblers and tadpoles

We saw two warblers yesterday - a gift of our stream, since we rarely had warblers before we built the stream and pond. One was a yellow-rumped warbler and the other was a common yellowthroat, though not so common anymore. We also decided to rescue more tadpoles from the swimming pool down the street. This time I took our pond net. I learned last weekend that chasing tadpoles with a small plastic box wasn't very efficient. There were *literally* millions -- possibly zillions! -- of tadpoles of various stages of development, so there were obviously more than a few batches laid in that pool. They were so far surviving very well in the shallow water above the plastic pool cover, but either they will be killed when chlorine is added or they (probably) won't be able to manage the slippery plastic to leave the pond when they're ready. I hear toads singing all over the neighborhood, and I suspect almost all are in swimming pools. So sad! Because of our last few years' failures in getting tadpoles to the stage where they can leave, we've put some in an aquarium, which is now residing on our kitchen countertop. (We're making good use of our small handlens, shown in the photo, to see not only the tadpoles, but all the other fascinating micro-creatures in the pond water.) I think they're probably happier there than they would be in the very cold ponds at the moment, but it mainly is an experiment to see if they survive better than their siblings in the ponds. Probably this year there won't be a difference, though, since now we suspect that it was our own green frogs that were eating the tadpoles in previous years. Since our frog didn't overwinter successfully, we don't have that problem this year. If we get frogs this year, we'll know whether we can in the future raise them in aquariums after the eggs are raised. After all, we don't need the aquariums again until the monarchs come back and we use them to raise the caterpillars!

An American Lady laying eggs

We saw our first American Lady butterfly, and she was laying eggs on the pussytoes (Antennaria) and on the Pearly Everlastings (Anaphalis). It's always amazing to me that in a yard full of all sorts of plants, butterflies can find exactly the ones they need to lay eggs on. This butterfly probably wasn't going to live much longer with such tattered wings. It shows how important it is for there to be readily-available larval host plants. I recorded the sighting on The Vanessa Migration Project.

Birds and tadpoles

Since the last post, we've had many seasonal "firsts." The first catbird returned two days ago, and the first wren yesterday. The catbird is one of my favorites because of his beautiful gray color, his sleek silhouette, and his beautiful singing (when he's imitating a bird that sings beautifully anyway). I also enjoy the scurrying of the house wrens. They're sometimes justifiably nicknamed "mouse wrens" because when you see them out of the corner of your eye scurrying on the ground, they can easily be mistaken for a mouse. Too bad they have the annoying habit of taking over other bird's nests by putting what we call "wren sticks" on top of existing nests. (The photo shows the wren with some of the nest materials he's been removing from the existing nest. Fortunately, it's just a house sparrow's nest.) Our toad tadpoles are developing well, though somewhat more slowly than we expected, probably because of the cold weather. For the last few years, they've reached this point in their development and then disappeared. We're trying to increase the odds of repeating the success we had the first few years by raising at least some of them in an aquarium, safe from predators. We suspect that our green frogs might have been the culprit, since the toad failures started about the same time we acquired green frogs. Our frogs haven't survived the past few winters, so weren't currently frogless - a real disappointment since we enjoyed them so much in the past.

More signs of spring

We've seen more signs of spring during the last two weeks. One welcome even is that one pair of toads successfully mated, and the eggs are slowly developing--slowly because of the return of cold weather after some unseasonably warm days. The tadpoles should be wiggling soon and escaping from their gelatinous string of eggs they're in now. (I don't know the proper term for this...) We'll welcome as many toads as possible in our yard so they can assist us with reducing the slug population. Robins are also frequent visitors to our yard. One reason is that, of all the birds that visit, they seem to most love taking baths in the stream. Another reason, though, is that our yard has what they need right now: mud, bits of grass etc., and moss. They don't seem to be actually nesting in our yard, but more than one pair is using our "construction materials" for their nests. It's not hard to see why--most suburban areas are asphalt and turf grass! The chickadees seem to have settled on the driveway nestbox. I hope the wrens don't take it over again this year by filling it with sticks. That has happened fairly frequently in the past. I'm happy to see that our mayapples seem to be spreading a little, and that some of our bluebells that we started from seed a year ago last fall has managed to survive. It looks like some creature may eat their fleshy roots. Everything else seems to be growing well, too--a yearly miracle!

The toads are back again this year!

I'm back again, too, after a year of procrastinating. There have been a lot of things happening in my habitat garden --I just didn't have time to post them. The toads started singing two days ago, but are silent tonight - probably because it's 20 degrees colder tonight than it was last night. I know they're still around, though, since I saw them both in the pond skimmer all day. And since this is the last week of Project FeederWatch, it's a good time to start FrogWatch USA! The bumblebees are back, too. The big queens have been exploring for possible nesting sites. There's not a lot of nectar plants at the moment, but the bumblebee was enjoying the pussy willow. I love it when it's in full flower. I'm also excited to see all the spring wildflowers coming up. Some of the bloodroot is already blooming!