I'm glad this viceroy couldn't hear my thoughts as I rushed inside after the camera.  "Another monarch!  How exciting!  I wonder if their populations are on the rebound this year?"

Of course, if you enroll in the witness protection program (aka practice Mullerian mimicry), I guess you want to be mistaken for someone else?

I should have realized that our habitat is just right for viceroys --- full of willows to host their caterpillars --- and less prime for monarchs.  I find it hard to complain about this beautiful insect's identity when he opens his wings and the light shines through like sun in a stained glass window.

Have you been hearing reports about the periodic cicadas and wonder if they'll show up in your neck of the woods?  I stumbled across a great website --- magicicada.org --- that includes answers to every question you may have (and probably several you didn't even think to ask) about the currently active cicadas.  For those of you who are technically inclined, 2011's edition is brood XIX, which is a type of thirteen year cicada that lives in the areas pictured on the map above.

Go here and input your state and county to find out when periodical cicadas have been sighted in your neck of the woods.  In general, 13 year cicadas live in the south while 17 year cicadas are found in the north, but the Appalachian Mountains count as "the north" by cicada standards.  Scott County, Virginia, (where I live) had 17 year cicadas flying in 2008, which means we aren't slated for another showing until around 2025.  I guess I'd better practice patience.

You know your husband hasn't been toeing the party line and peeing on the compost pile when you see clusters of swallowtails like this.  I don't mind foregoing the garden fertility for such a dose of beauty.


We live remarkably close to nature despite all of our mowing and weeding and manipulating the environment around our trailer.  For example, a chorus frog moved into the drainage ditch beside the East Wing last week and yesterday a toad joined him.  Blobby clusters of chorus frog eggs and long strands of toad eggs now grace the puddle, and I can't decide whether to hope this spring's relentless rain eases up so that we no longer have to wade through ankle-deep mud, or whether I want it to keep raining so the tadpoles-to-be will turn into insect-eaters.

At night, a spider comes to spin her web outside our kitchen window.  I watch as she teases long strands of silk out of her abdomen and ponder how much we change the natural world just by turning on a light to read by.  In the end, I decide that I'm heartened by knowing that our disturbances don't just help the invasives, but also give our frogs and spiders a spot to thrive.

I posted a slew of photos of native pollinators over on my homestead blog, but couldn't resist adding one more over here.  This bumblebee moth is a sphinx moth that mimics bumblebees, and I had the wool pulled over my eyes when I watched the insect from a distance.  Up close, though, the moth is clearly un-bee-like in shape, and even more so in habit --- the bumblebee moth hovers in front of flowers instead of landing to suck up its dinner.

The bumblebee moth is also known as the clearwing moth, the hummingbird moth, and the bee hawk-moth.  The moths are easy to identify to the genus level (Hemaris) because they fly in the daytime and hover in front of flowers, but it's tougher to get close enough to tell the four North American species apart.  Check out Bugguide for more information on individual species.

My eyes are always peeled for the first spring flowers, but this year, I seem to be more interested in the insects on those flowers.  Perhaps it's because I'm obsessed with chicken foraging, and chickens love bugs, or maybe I'm just starting to get a real inkling for how important insects are in the landscape.

Except for our honeybees, I hadn't seen a single insect until about two weeks ago when the Commas/Question Marks (I never look closely enough to tell the difference) and the Mourning Cloaks started flying.  Within days, the Spring Azures had joined them, and this week I even saw big, showy Tiger and Zebra Swallowtails visiting my manure pile.

Butterflies are the prettiest early spring insects, but they aren't alone out there. When the hepaticas started blooming a week and a half ago, tiny little beetles were busy collecting pollen, and this week I started seeing Greater Bee Flies hovering around flowers.

I love how in sync the natural world is.  Bee flies show up one day; the next day, our first nectarine flowers open.  I get bit by a mosquito one day; the next evening a bat is swooping through the air gathering dinner.  It's all a reminder that the beautiful spring flowers we love so much didn't evolve for human enjoyment.  Flowers are here for the bees, so we need to protect our pollinators if we want the show to go on.

Although the army ant column and its camp follower birds were the highlight of my visit to Coba, dozens of other types of animals caught my eye.  As you can see in the top photo, my old friends the leaf-cutter ants were out in force, carrying leaves and even immature fruits along paths they'd cleared through the woods.

Nearby, termite mounds hung from branches.  More properly known as termitaries, these nests are made of a combination of digested wood pulp and merely chewed and regurgitated wood pulp, which together make a cardboard-like wall.  Later, I read that trogons like to hollow out old termitaries to make their own nests, and I couldn't help thinking that the half-digested wood pulp would make a good garden mulch.

Speaking of trogons, I was lucky enough to catch a view of this perching insect-hunter.  I didn't catch enough details to tell whether my beauty was a Violaceous Trogon or a Black-headed Trogon, but I did get to see it foray out from the branch in search of flying prey.  These photos don't do the bird justice --- its breast is brilliant yellow.

One of our most amazing sightings occurred right at the beginning.  As we poked around the Coba group (near the entrance), a rustling in the undergrowth caught my attention.  We crept closer and peered through the leaves to see a huge turkey with a blue head.  The Ocellated Turkey was too quick for me, as you can see from this photo, but that's probably a good thing since Mayan legend holds that the Giant Turkey Spirit is one of the Lords of the Forest which takes revenge on folks who kill more turkeys than they need.  Maybe snapping too many photos would also incur his wrath?

Then there were all of my old friends who had flown south for the winter to Coba.  This waterthrush bobbed along the ground just like it does along the edges of our creeks, although it seemed content to spend the winter away from a burbling brook.  Later, I saw several warblers  and vireos who were far too fast for my camera, but who looked awfully familiar as well.

Beside the trail, a brilliant Blue Bunting stripped grass seeds.  Later, as we ate our own lunch overlooking the lake, we were treated to a flock of grackles bathing in the shallow water, several Great Egrets, and a pair of grebes who continually ducked under the surface, only to pop back up moments later.  Oh, and did I mention the beautiful little lizard (maybe a Ghost Anole?) that was so sure of its camouflage that I was able to poke my camera lens nearly down onto its back?

In fact, between the lucky viewing of the army ants' camp followers and the other very tame wildlife, I have to say that Coba is the best spot I've been too for birding and wildlife viewing in years.

Keep your chickens happy and healthy while you're on vacation using our homemade chicken waterer.

The ruins at Coba were stunning, but my very favorite part of the visit (and of the entire vacation) was running across a group of army ants.  I've read about army ants for over a decade, about how these masses of insects march through the forest consuming other insects, lizards, small birds, and anything else they can get their hands on.  More recently, I learned that dozens, perhaps hundreds, of species of "camp followers" are associated with army ants.  These hangers-on take advantage of prey that flies out of reach of the ants, but which can be quickly consumed by larger, winged predators.

It was these camp follower birds who first caught my eye.  At the quieter, southern end of Coba, several birds were hanging out at the edge of the woods and seemed relatively impervious to my approach.  I snuck closer, trying to snap a shot, and saw a Woodcreeper (top photo) working its mouth like crazy, trying to get a cricket to go down its gullet.  Next, I noticed two Brown Jays watching the ground, and one darted off the branch to snag another insect.

Lower down, a brilliant orange-brown Rufous Piha reminded me of our Wood Thrushes.  Before I knew it, a real Virginia native popped out of the undergrowth --- a Hooded Warbler had flown hundreds of miles to winter in the Yucatan and was enjoying its army-ant-flushed dinner.

By the time I tired of photographing tame and unwary bird life, over half an hour had passed and Mark had wandered off.  As the Mastercard commercial goes, "Entrance to Coba, $5.  Experiencing an army ant foray --- priceless."

Faunal species at Hidden Valley are plentiful. Game animals abound including Black Bear, White-tailed Deer, Bobcat, Raccoon, Squirrel, Turkey, Ruffed Grouse, etc. But there are other animals worth noting too such as Southern Flying Squirrel, numerous salamanders, dragonflies, and myriad butterflies.

Hidden Valley is well known for its birds. Several species of high elevation warblers, vireos, woodpeckers, cuckoos, and raptors, inclusive of an occasional Bald Eagle, are found here.

Although you don't really need to learn macroinvertebrates down to the family level to use the SOS method of stream monitoring, after monitoring the same stream for a while, you'll notice individuals within the broad identification groupings.  Usually, the Clinch River is chock full of Common Stoneflies (Family Perlidae), which have a beautifully mottled thorax like the one shown to the right.  But this week we stumbled across a new family --- Pteronarcyidae, or the Giant Stoneflies (pictured above.)

I was thrilled to read that the presence of Giant Stoneflies in the Clinch is a sign of good water quality since they are even more sensitive to environmental stresses than are other stonefly larvae.  Unlike the mighty hunters in the Common Stonefly family (which eat just about any smaller insect they can get their hands on), Giant Stoneflies shred and scrape debris for their dinner.  And, as you can see, they are so slow-moving that they grow algae on their backs.

Giant Stoneflies turn into salmonflies, thus named because of their importance in feeding fish.  Fly fishermen often try to mimic salmonflies when they create stunning lures like the one shown here.  I guess stream monitors aren't the only ones interested in identifying aquatic macroinvertebrates down to the family level.

Stream monitoring through the Save our Streams network is a great way to get involved in the health of your local waterways.  The system uses an ingenious series of biological indicators so that your average Joe can quickly learn to assess the water quality in a stream.  Rather than measuring the levels of every possible contaminant, you just scoop a random sample of aquatic macroinvertebrates (water bugs) out of the stream, pluck them off the net into white ice cube trays, and then tally up how many of each type of bug is present.  Do a bit of simple math and you can rate your stream on a scale of 0 to 12, where 0 to 7 ia unacceptable water quality conditions, 8 is a gray zone, and 9 to 12 means the stream is healthy.

In the mountains of Virginia, good quality streams tend to be chock full of scary-looking stoneflies (top photo) and delicate mayflies, while lower quality streams host worms, midges, and lunged snails.  Although the Save our Streams method doesn't delve further than high and low quality water, a book like J. Reese Voshell, Jr.'s A Guide to Common Freshwater Invertebrates of North America will turn your haul into even more of an indicator of water conditions.  For example, snails are usually abundant in hard water where dissolved calcium makes it easy to build their shells, and common netspinners (like the ones pictured below) abound in rivers with high levels of suspended debris for them to catch in their nets.  Straight pipes in the watershed upstream from our testing site make common netspinners especially abundant in our portion of the Clinch --- perhaps the reason our most recent sampling sunk the Clinch down in the unacceptable zone.

Although a few of the aquatic macroinvertebrates we net during stream monitoring live in the river all their lives, many more are larval stages of flying insects.  Most of the "stream bugs" live by scraping algae off rocks, filtering or capturing debris out of the water, or eating smaller macroinvertebrates.  None of them bite.

The Izaak Walton League of America developed the Save Our Streams network, but most states seem to have their own organization that coordinates with volunteers to sample local streams.  Here in Virginia, Virginia Save Our Streams runs training weekends and compiles data on their website.  Even more local groups, like The Clinch Coalition, often have stream monitoring equipment available for you to borrow and will help set up teams of two or three to monitor each stream.  If you decide to join up, you'll be responsible for monitoring your stream four times a year, a fun excuse to jump in the water.

The first time I found a gentian flower, I kept checking on it day after day, hoping the flower would open up enough for me to identify it.  Little did I know that the bud-like flowers are the easiest way to identify gentians.

Gentian flowers have evolved to be pollinated by one of our most important native pollinators --- bumblebees.  These hefty insects are able to push their way into gentian flowers, and I assume that the exclusion of other pollinators makes gentian pollination more efficient.

I found this lovely bloom along the Chimney Rock Trail on High Knob a few weeks ago.  Although I got too excited to take photos once I got to the top, I highly recommend this half mile trail because of the large sandstone cave at the peak of the hill.  To get there, park at the Bark Camp Lake day use area and walk a short way down the road toward the boat ramp.  Before you reach the boat ramp, you'll see the trail branching off on your left.  Since the trail is a loop, you'll see the trail branching off again a few yards further down the road.  The trail is well built, with lots of switchbacks that make the climb feel insignificant.

I caught this pair of Pipevine Swallowtails mating in the garden Tuesday.  Although clearly the same species, the striking blue band on the top butterfly makes me think that Pipevine Swallowtails are sexually dimorphic.

On the other hand, it's just as likely that the bottom butterfly is merely older and faded from a hard life.  The Polyphemus Moth I posted about in July was a prime example of how tattered and faded the wings of butterflies and moths can become after a few months of flapping around and evading predators.

Whatever the explanation, I appreciate these butterflies holding still and letting me snap a shot.  Thanks for reminding me to pause my incessant weeding and take in the world's beauty.

Anna:

While walking down the Hidden Valley Nature Trail, we stumbled across a line of ants carrying bits and pieces of leaves on their backs.  The ants were following paths brushed clean of any debris, as if a gush of water had flowed through and washed 4 to 5 inches of ground clear.

Maggie and I joined the line of ants and soon came upon a huge mound, about twenty feet wide and three feet tall.  The mound was clearly the center of the leaf-cutter ant operation, with trails radiating out in all directions from their home.  I tried to follow a trail to its end, but eventually gave up --- the ants travel long distances, often running along horizontal tree limbs in addition to their cleanly swept trails.  I decided that ants must prefer certain tree species to go to so much trouble when they could use the leaves of the trees growing right out of the mound.

Costa Rica is home to two genera and several species of leaf-cutter ants, but a handy pamphlet (The Fabulous Leafcutters, by Amy Mertl) explained that the most common species is Atta cephalotes.  Just like the Azteca ants farm mealybugs, the leaf-cutter ants farm fungi --- they carry home leaves, chew the plants up to feed the fungi, then eat the gongylidia produced on the fungal strands.  When new queens leave to form their own colony, the queens carry a little bit of fungus with them, just as the first European colonists to the Americas brought along seeds of their vegetable crops.

Later, I watched another colony of leaf-cutter ants gnawing circles out of an elephant ear leaf.  An ant stood on the bit of leaf it was biting off, then reached out its legs to grab onto the main part of the leaf just in time so that excised section and ant didn't fall together to the ground.  The leaves remaining on the plant looked like someone had gone after them with a hole-puncher.

Although Maggie and I thought the leaf-cutters were unbelievably cool, farmers are less impressed.  Every day, a colony of leafcutter ants can harvest as many leaves as an adult cow, and the ants are quite fond of banana, sugar cane, and corn.  Scientists estimate that leaf-cutter ants harvest 12 to 17% of Costa Rica's total leaf production every year --- and I thought our deer problem was bad!

I did have a small run in with the leaf-cutters after months of watching their work.  During the rainy season, I often carried home plant specimens to draw indoors, but one day I noted:

Yesterday was a glorious and horrible day --- nearly more than I could bear.  It was the day of La Caminata, another of the Friends' School's impressive fundraiser ideas.  The concept --- La Caminata was a 12.5 kilometer walk up to San Geraldo Mirador, from which, on good days, one can see the Arenal Volcano.  We didn't get to see the volcano --- too misty --- but we did see the lake at its base through the mist, saw lovely new scenery, and had a ball getting there.

While ants are numerous sidekicks in just about every habitat I've explored, these insects are main characters in Monteverde ecology.  Stay tuned for a post about the most obvious Costa Rican ants --- leaf-cutter ants --- in the near future.  For now, I want to share the story of the most fascinating case of symbiosis I've ever seen.

The common Cecropia found in open areas all around Monteverde is home to a three way mutualism that benefits the tree, the ants, and the mealybugs farmed by the ants.  At first, the tree does most of the work, providing hollows within its trunk for an ant colony to move into, then feeding the ants with nutrient-rich Mullerian bodies attached to the petioles of its leaves.

The Azteca ants never leave the Cecropia tree once they move in, so they farm mealybugs to round out their diet.  The mealybugs feed on the phloem of the Cecropia and the ants lap up the honeydew from the mealybugs, so in a way the tree is still providing for the ants, albeit secondhand.

But once an ant colony becomes established, the tables turn and the partnership becomes more equal.  With their food and housing provided, Azteca ants have plenty of time on their hands to protect their host tree.  The ants quickly chew through vines that try to climb up the Cecropia's trunk, and they destroy epiphytes sprouting on the tree's branches.  Azteca ants also attack and drive away herbivores nibbling on the tree's leaves, especially the devastating leaf-cutter ants I'll write about soon.  Although less obvious to the lay observer, Cecropia's pet ants even feed the tree --- the frass they leave behind in the center of the trunk is sucked up by the Cecropia and provides 93% of the tree's nitrogen intake.

In fact, when scientists add up the pluses and minuses of the interaction, the disadvantages are few and all three species come out winners.  In nature, real symbiosis is rare, but the Cecropia-Azteca-mealybug story seems to be a tale of true partnership.

Although we felt lucky to be able to take part in a ready-made community during our stay in Monteverde, I sometimes felt like I wasn't holding up my side of the bargain.  If I had been an Azteca ant, the Monteverde Cecropia probably would have kicked me out as not worth its while.

5-5-01
Today was a pretty bad day.  Well it's only 3:30, but if the day is not quite over, it ought to be.

First came Meeting.  Tyse (our neighbor's dog) has broken loose, with chain trailing, and followed us there, despite me yelling at him.  He whined and barked during Meeting so that a lady went out and sat with him the whole time, which made me feel horrible.  Then, during announcements, he started up again, and I took him home.

It was also potluck day, and I had made a pudding.  The dessert gelled last night, but by the time I got it to Meeting, the dish looked horrible, and of course no one ate it.

The day left me feeling like I have nothing to contribute to the community --- all I do is cause problems.

During our tour of Uxmal, our guide pointed over at a tree with green and orange patches of peeling bark.  "That's the Tourist Tree," he said, going on to explain that the Gumbo Limbo (Bursera simaruba) is often nicknamed the Tourist Tree due to the resemblance of the bark to the sunburnt skin of unfortunate tourists.

The Gumbo Limbo tree grows wild from California and Florida, through Central and South America, and across the Caribbean islands.  But the species is so useful that it is also extensively planted.  Farmers often cut three foot long limbs, trim each end, and poke them into the ground to create fence posts.  The severed limbs will quickly root and grow, merely needing to be trimmed back each year so that the branches don't overshadow the field.  The trees are also used as windbreaks, for firewood and light lumber, and the resin is collected to use as glue, varnish, incense, and perfume.  Finally, the bark has been used medicinally to sooth itches, sores, and --- ironically enough --- sunburn.

What really caught my eye, though, was the importance of Gumbo Limbo in the life of the Stingless Bees (Melipona beecheii), which have been raised in domestication by the Maya of the Yucatan peninsula for thousands of years.  Traditionally, a hive of Stingless Bees would be collected from the wild by cutting off the entire hollow tree limb housing the bees, carrying the log home, sealing the ends, opening a small hole for the bees to fly in and out of, and hanging the hive on the side of a building.  The sealed ends of the log could be opened up when necessary to allow the beekeeper to remove honey and wax, or to split the hive to increase the number of colonies.  The Stingless Bees were considered to be sacred, with images of bees found on various Mayan artifacts, and some scientists believe that the honey from the Stingless Bees was second in importance only to maize in the culture of the Maya.

Although honey from the Stingless Bees is considered tastier than honey from the European Honeybee, the small bees produce much less than their larger counterparts.  So  it should come as no surprise that the European Honeybee became the primary bee species raised in the Yucatan in the twentieth century.  Currently, populations of Stingless Bees are declining rapidly, partly because of lack of interest and knowledge, but also partly due to environmental degradation.  While the European Honeybee is quite content pollinating clover and field crops, the Mayan Stingless Bee requires mature, flowering trees.  In fact, one of their favorite foods is the nectar and pollen from the Gumbo Limbo tree.

What do you do if you find a moth, want to identify it, but have no idea where to start?  Bug Guide's moth silhouette page is a great place to begin since it will help you narrow down your choices to a family or group of families.

If your moth has a chunky body surrounded by huge wings, chances are it's a member of the Giant Silkworm and Royal Moth family (Saturniidae).  The luna moth is the best known species in this family, but the moth I found perching on my dwarf Meyer lemon tree is nearly as common.

A week and a half ago, I noticed this little critter swimming through a puddle of tadpoles in our floodplain.  The insect was translucent and hard to see (and very hard to photograph), but its manner of swimming using all six legs was distinct enough to catch my attention.  Every so often, it paused in its flight and drifted to the surface, letting its tail break the boundary between water and air and suck oxygen down into its body.

I finally stumbled across information about the Giant Diving Beetle and its larval form, called the Water Tiger, on the Royal Alberta Museum's website.  I've included their photograph, which is a thousand times better than mine, so that you can get an idea of what the insect really looked like.

It turns out that my beautiful, elegant critter is a cold-blooded killer.  Here's what the Museum has to say about the Water Tiger:

Plants sit politely for you to take in their beauty, but the amateur naturalist is often sorely disappointed by the lack of animals along his path.  To most wildlife, we bumbling humans are potential predators, to be avoided at all costs.  Since wild animals are faster, quieter, and more alert than we are, we're often lucky to see as much as a chickadee and squirrel on our walk along the trail.

Think like a wild animal, though, and signs of life quickly become apparent.  The River Trail is the best place on Sugar Hill for wildlife watching since nearly every animal needs to stop by the river for a drink now and then.  The extreme fertility of floodplain plant life makes it a great place for animals to stop for a nibble too.

Patches of mud are often indented with the hand-like prints of a raccoon or the divided heart of a deer hoof.  On a little rise, an elongated scat (that's naturalist-speak for pile of poop) marks the boundary of a fox's territory.  And don't miss the beaver stumps, gnawed to a point where these river-dwellers chopped down saplings and trees to strip the tasty inner bark and then tote the remains away to build their lodges and dams.

Birds are even more apparent --- with their wings to carry them to safety, many are willing to let you catch a glimpse of their brilliant plumage.  The Great Blue Heron can often be found wading in shallow water at the river's edge, waiting for a passing fish to be speared by its elongated bill.  While the heron wades, the Belted Kingfisher waits patiently on a perch overhanging the water, ready to swoop down on the unwary fish.  Open your ears and you'll likely hear the kingfisher's rattling call as it flies along the shore to a new branch.

Dragonflies are hunting here too, but they are in search of much smaller prey.  They dip and soar over the water, scooping up minuscule insects to fill their bellies.  Below the water's surface, the larval forms of the dragonflies feed the fish that feed the birds, and the circle of river life continues.

Although the floodplain is brimming with life, the Clinch River's true claim to fame lies beneath the surface.  I dig my hands into the sand along the river bottom, and before long my fingers touch something hard.  The flowing water washes away dirt and reveals an elongated seashell --- one of the Clinch's many freshwater mussels.

The Clinch is home to 45 species of these mollusks, with names ranging from the evocative Little-winged Pearlymussel to the less enticing Tennessee Heelsplitter.  Although they all look pretty much the same to the untrained eye, their astonishing diversity is one of the Clinch's main claims to fame.  For a bit of perspective, you'd have to explore every stream in Europe and temperate Asia to find as many species!

Adult mussels are sedentary, moving no more than a few inches along the bottoms of the rivers and spending their time flushing water through their bodies and extracting microscopic organisms to eat.  Their young, however, are more adventurous.  Mother mussels trick fish into coming close by showing off fleshy appendages that act as bait.  When a fish swoops close to eat the "bait", the mussel shoos her babies out into the water and they dash to latch onto the fish's gills where they'll spend the rest of their early childhood.

Like the picky caterpillars of the Pipevine Swallowtail, each species of mussel has a different species of host fish which it uses as its nursery.  Perhaps a decline in their host fish is partially responsible for the recent loss of mussels from the Clinch River --- whatever the reason, over the last few decades, species after species has dropped out of sight.  In the 1960s, 53 mussel species were found in the Clinch, but more recent surveys have only been able to turn up 37.

An even more likely reason for the plummeting diversity of the Clinch River is dirty water.  Both mussels and the fish they depend on require pristine water to survive, and the Clinch River can no longer be considered pristine.  The Carbo coal-fired power plant a few miles upstream from St. Paul has severely damaged the Clinch River through two toxic spills, one of alkaline fly ash slurry in 1967 and one of sulfuric acid in 1970.  The combination of these two spills affected the Clinch River for nearly 90 miles, all the way downstream  to Tennessee, and created a 12 mile dead zone in which nearly all mussel species were killed.

In 2009, Dominion Virgina Power began construction of a second coal-fired power plant on the banks of the Clinch, putting the future of the remaining mussels in jeopardy.  Although appeals to the Virginia State Corporation Commission, Department of Environmental Quality, and various legislators have been ignored, a groundswell of opposition has sprung up around the region.  Please take a few minutes to write to your congressmen and ask that the Clinch's unique beauty be protected for future generations to enjoy.

The oak-hickory community is not just a world of turkeys and squirrels.  While leading a hike of naturalist wannabes along the trail, I keep my eyes peeled for millipedes' black, shiny backs dotted with yellow or red.  Millipedes are common in our mature forests, where they live a simple life of munching on decaying vegetation and minding their own business.  Until, that is, I come along to disrupt them.

“Aha!” I exult, snatching up the little critter.  My hikers draw around me, intrigued, as I close my fist gently around the millipede and give it a light shake or two.  The traumatized arthropod curls up into a ball to protect its soft underbelly, and when I open my hand it lies still, playing dead.

“Now smell!” I command, wafting the shaken millipede under each viewer’s nose.  “Oh!” they inevitably exclaim, as the scent of almonds or cherries rises to their nostrils.  I release the millipede (frightened but unharmed) as I explain why it is so strongly scented.

We humans often confuse millipedes with their more voracious relatives --- centipedes --- but the two types of animals are actually miles apart.  Centipedes have flattened bodies with one pair of legs per body segment while millipedes have rounded bodies with two pairs of legs per body segment, but the cosmetic differences pale in comparison to the lifestyle differences.  Centipedes, like salamanders, are mighty hunters of the forest floor, but unlike salamanders they paralyze their prey with their poisoned bite.  If I was an inch or less in diameter, I would run as fast as I could when I saw a centipede coming.

Millipedes, on the other hand, are gentle critters who would never hurt anyone.  All they crave is to be left alone to nibble on their rotting plants.  So, rather than wasting energy to create a poisoned bite, millipedes save their poisons to deter predators.  When a bird swoops down to scoop a millipede off the forest floor, the millipede emits cyanide, iodine, or quinine out of holes along its length.  These poisons, if aimed accurately into the bird’s eyes, will temporarily blind the predator and give the millipede time to scurry away.  When I shook up my millipede (both literally and figuratively), the frightened critter squirted out its poisons in hopes of scaring me away.  Since the chemicals only hit my skin, though, they did no damage.

The bright markings along the sides of the millipede are a warning to predators (especially birds) to steer clear.  After trying to eat one stinky millipede, most birds learn their lesson and stay away from similar looking critters in the future.  I hope that my millipedes live long and happy lives, burrowing amid the leaf litter and scaring away birds ten times their size.

Many of the plants outlined in this chapter are most visible in the spring, but you will notice the interwoven vines of Dutchman’s Pipe at any season of the year.  Like the wild grapes that grow nearby, Dutchman’s Pipe begins as a sprouted seed on the forest floor, then winds its way up into the canopy, draping over tree branches to cushion its ascent.  Unlike the grapevines, though, Dutchman’s Pipe has smoother bark that does not come loose in curling strands.

If you keep your eyes open in June, you may see another field mark of the Dutchman’s Pipe --- black caterpillars speckled with orange spots.  These are the offspring of the Pipevine Swallowtail, so named because its caterpillars munch solely on the leaves of Dutchman’s Pipe and the related Pipevine.  You have probably heard of Monarch caterpillars that will only eat milkweed and related plants, but you may not realize that several other caterpillars are just as picky eaters.  Adult butterflies, like many adult humans, are happy to flit from food source to food source, but caterpillars are more like human children who refuse to eat anything except pizza.  To the caterpillars of the Pipevine Swallowtail, Dutchman’s Pipe is pizza --- the only food worth eating.

Why so picky?  Scientists cannot explain why your kid will only eat pizza, but they have made progress toward deciphering the picky nature of Pipevine Swallowtail offspring.  As the caterpillars munch on Dutchman’s Pipe leaves, they gather poisons out of the plants and safely pack them away within the caterpillars’ own bodies.  Blue Jays and other predators may consider the big caterpillars and butterflies easy pickings, but as soon as they eat their first poisoned caterpillar, the jays get a serious case of food poisoning and quickly learn to hunt down more nutritious food.  Although a few Pipevine Swallowtails may die in the process, the species as a whole is able to bypass most predators through its childhood of picky eating.

As you will soon learn, nature is full of cheats.  Several other butterflies in our area look remarkably similar to Pipevine Swallowtails --- the most common example is the black female version of the usually yellow Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.  The Eastern Tiger Swallowtail caterpillars cannot eat Dutchman’s Pipe leaves without getting sick themselves, but they can mimic the species that does.  The result?  Blue Jays tend to leave the black Eastern Tiger Swallowtails alone, afraid to take any chances on another noxious nibble.  Like the grapevine, the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail has learned to get ahead by working the system.

Wild Ginger lacks the perky flowers of other early spring ephemerals.  In fact, most hikers miss its flowers entirely --- to find them, you have to lift up the leaves and look for a little brown cup that does not really resemble a flower at all.  Whenever I see Wild Ginger flowers, I think of the related species Little Brown Jug, named for the brown blooms that resemble another product of the Appalachian mountains.

Once, I wondered why Wild Ginger has such drab blooms hidden away where no one can see them.  Most of the other early spring ephemerals are pollinated by flying insects that are attracted to the bright colors facing the sky.  But Wild Ginger has gone another route.  It seeks out ground-dwelling beetles who stumble upon the Wild Ginger flowers as they amble across the leaf mold, crawl inside, and then wander back out covered with pollen to dust the pistils of the next flower.  Later, ants collect the seeds and carry them back to their burrows where some sprout and turn into new plants.  Now I find myself asking myself --- why should Wild Ginger flowers look up when they have so much to gain by looking down?

Just as descendants of the Arcto-Tertiary forest are well-represented in the canopy of the cove hardwood forest, they are widespread on the forest floor as well.  Wood Anemone and Sharp-lobed Hepatica are two examples of plants with close relatives found both here and in Asia, but nowhere in between --- signs of an Arcto-Tertiary ancestor.  In fact, the majority of the herbs on the floor of the cove hardwood forest show one of two related patterns, both of which are shared by herbs in China and (scientists believe) in the ancient Arcto-Tertiary forest. 

One pattern consists of perennial plants like trilliums and Jack-in-the-Pulpit that send up a bloom and leaves in the spring, then linger in the shade of the forest canopy for the rest of the year, putting out no new growth.  Instead, these plants are sucking up what little light comes their way and turning it into energy to store in their roots and feed next year’s blooms and leaves.

The other pattern is even more distinctive, enough so that this category of plants has been given its own name.  The early spring ephemerals bloom even earlier in the spring than the trilliums, some in late March when the days are still cold and only flies are out and about to act as pollinators.  Most --- like the toothworts, Rue Anemone, and Spring-Beauty --- have white or pale pink flowers to attract these generalist pollinators.

After blooming, the ephemerals quickly unfurl leaves and soak up late winter sun before the trees above them wake up.  Then the ephemerals' leaves fade away just as quickly.  By May, most of the early spring ephemerals are long gone, except for the roots nestled in the leaf litter that have stored enough energy to repeat the cycle next year.  Their tiny seeds have been carried away by ants to germinate a few feet from the parent --- small wonder that these species take so long to recolonize a forest after it has been clearcut.  Although once widespread in cove hardwood forests, the masses of early spring ephemerals found at Sugar Hill are now becoming the exception rather than the rule.