Luna, Io, Sphinxes and more!

It was a warm night last night so I set up my black light and sheet for the first time in a week. I got lots of new stuff at the light and my yard moth list continues to grow. I think about half the species I identified were new for my continually growing yard list.

That's one seriously covered sheet...

I thought I had likely missed them for the year but two Luna Moths were my first for the yard. Like most of the giant silkmoths (Saturniidae) these are big and showy so people get excited about them (myself included) but they're actually quite common:

Luna Moth (Actias luna)

Also in the big showy category was a nice male Io Moth:

male Io Moth (Automeris io)

And sphinxes as usual put in a showing:

Twin-spotted Sphinx (Smerinthus jamaicensis)

Give the abdomen a good tap and they'll show you their scary eyes!

A less showy sphinx, the Laurel Sphinx (Sphinx kalmiae)

But there were also some pretty cool less showy species out:

Sharp-lined Yellow (Sicya macularia)

Streaked Ethmia (Ethmia longimaculella)

Putnam's Looper (Plusia putnami)

Grape Leaffolder (Desmia funeralis)

And this little guy had to be my favourite. Looks like someone drew an angry/sad face on it!

Angry-face Moth AKA Elegant Grass-veneer (Microcrambus elegans)

A closer look at that sad, sad face :(

And if the moths weren't good enough entertainment, I had a Virginia Rail calling all night and my first Eastern Screech-owl for the yard as well!

Lark Bunting on Amherst Island

Amherst Island is a well-known birding spot for many people. Most people know it as an amazing place to come see winter owls and it also hosts globally significant concentrations of waterfowl, for which it is designated an Important Bird Area. But the island is also a great spot for another group - grassland birds. A trip at this time of year will yield dozens of Bobolinks and Eastern Meadowlarks and scattered Upland Sandpipers at a few places. It's really a nice time to visit! And if that's not enough this is one of the best places in Ontario to see Wilson's Phalaropes which nest at the Kingston Field Naturalists' Martin Edwards Reserve.

Wilson's Phalaropes at the Martin Edwards Reserve

As of yesterday you can add another reason to visit Amherst Island - a Lark Bunting has been found! Sherri Jensen found it last Thursday and word made it to the broader birding community yesterday. So after work I picked up James Barber and Erica and we made the trip out. We weren't disappointed as he popped up onto the telephone wire and started singing basically as soon as we got out of the car.

Most of the time the bird spent in the field but flew up several times to sing from an exposed perch.

Lark Buntings don't throw their head back when singing like most sparrows, but rather lean forward.

Having never heard a Lark Bunting in person before but it was striking to hear how similar this bird's song was to that of a Northern Cardinal. Check it out in the video below:

Anyways this was a pretty cool little bird. Normally, Lark Buntings are found in the grasslands of central North America - Ontario has 29 records accepted by the OBRC to date. This is my second in as many years having twitched one near Clarendon in northern Frontenac County last May.

More moths

I've been thinking about moths a lot lately. Besides leaving my lights on more at night (on purpose!) I got an Ontario moth list from David Beadle and another one from the Natural Heritage Information Centre. I combined the two and linked it to the taxonomy that is downloadable from the Moth Photographers Group - if you'd like a copy of the finished product just email me and I'll send it to you. It's just shy of 3000 species!

Anyways, moths sure are photogenic, have awesome names and there's new stuff every day. Here are a few from this week:

Green Marvel (Agriopodes fallax)

Viper's Bugloss Moth (Ethmia bipunctella)

Anna Tiger Moth (Grammia anna)?

Hummingbird Clearwing (Hemaris thysbe)

Blinded Sphinx (Paonias exxcaecata)

Yellow-collared Scape Moth (Cisseps fulvicollis)

Butterflies have also been good on the yard with Silver-spotted Skipper being new for me for the year and up to four Giant Swallowtails:

And here's an Emerald Spreadwing (female) that I scared up from the low veg:

Just a typical day in eastern Ontario

I'm lucky enough to live in one of the most biodiverse parts of Ontario in the Frontenac Arch; Right in the middle of the transition between the southern deciduous forests and agricultural fields and the mixedwood forests of the Canadian Shield. I had a busy day on Saturday exploring and I wasn't disappointed!

I started by leading a group of folks from the Quinte and the Prince Edward County Field Naturalists Clubs to one of eastern Ontario's best kept secrets - the Napanee Limestone Plain Important Bird Area. This place is basically an eastern version of Carden Alvar. We met in Napanee then headed for our first stop just south of Newburgh:

Alvar south of Newburgh

As you can see, it's beautiful alvar habitat with thin soils over limestone with scattered trees and shrubs. Typical alvar plants like Prairie Smoke put on a great show as did this provincially rare Balsam Ragwort in full bloom:

Balsam Ragwort

The plants didn't disappoint and neither did the birds. We saw all of our target species: Grasshopper Sparrow, Clay-colored Sparrow, Wilson's Snipe, Upland Sandpiper, Eastern Meadowlark, Bobolink, and of course, Loggerhead Shrike. The Loggerhead Shrike is the "trigger species" for the IBA status here with usually about 1/3 of the eastern Canadian population breeding here.

Phone-binned shot of an Upland Sandpiper

After lunch I headed to Charleston Lake Provincial Park to help with the afternoon leg of the annual Butterfly and Dragonfly count. Butterflies were slow as we seemed to be a bit late for the early species and too early for the next wave this year but dragonflies put on a good show and there were a few other highlights too.

The rarest sighting of my afternoon was probably the young Gray Ratsnake that coiled up on the path in front of me - the park is one of the best places in Ontario to see this rare snake. My two butterfly highlights were probably as follows:

Juniper Hairstreak

Baltimore Checkerspot caterpillar

As I said earlier, dragonflies were out in good numbers and in the couple hours I was out I managed to find 26 species including some provincially rare species like Harlequin Darner, Cyrano Darner, and Lilypad Clubtail.

male Harlequin Darner

Springtime Darner

Lilypad Clubtail

Add in a couple of Cerulean Warblers and the Brewster's Warbler (hybrid) that I also had and it was really just a typical day in one of the richest parts of Ontario.

Connecticut Warbler (from late May)

On May 25 Ken and I birded Long Point which was a pretty good day (see the report here) - as we were coming back to my parents place my Dad texted us to let us know that Ted Cheskey had found a Connecticut Warbler in the north end of Waterloo - a really good bird for inland southern Ontario. So after dinner I went out to try my luck. After wandering around for a good 45 minutes I finally came to the spot that fit the description of where Ted had found the bird earlier in the day and after a short wait a Connecticut Warbler started singing not 10 metres in front of me!

Now if you know much about Connecticut Warblers you'll know they can be notoriously hard to see and this one was no different. For a good 20 minutes the bird sang loudly directly in front of me but despite slowly getting closer and closer (to just a few metres!) I couldn't see it....I finally decided it was time to try a different tactic, so I put my binoculars up and tried scanning the thick vegetation where the bird was singing. Almost immediately the bird decided it was time to move about 20 metres away. Luckily, it continued singing non-stop so I restarted my search to see the songster. I crept closer and closer until it sounded like it was head height about 5 metres away, but I still couldn't see it! There was an apple tree between me and where I thought it was so I decided it was time for desperate measures - crawling. I got on my hands and knees and slowly crawled another metre or two closer and finally I got sight of some movement.

As you can see, he continued singing even after I finally located him visually. It occurred to me that I should try to capture the sound so I switched over to video mode and managed one song before he decided he had had enough of this human crawling around following him!

This is probably the first video or song recording of a Connecticut Warbler in Waterloo Region and one of very few documented records there at all. As far as I am aware the only other photo/video/audio records are of one or two banded individuals at rare on the Grand River in Cambridge. Connecticut Warblers tend to be more common during fall migration but their skulky nature make them very difficult to find at that time of the year (when they are silent).

Weekend mothing

We had some friends up this weekend and took advantage of their expertise to do some mothing. It was a bit cooler than is ideal but still lots of nice moths showing at the light!

Checking out the moth light

We were able to come up with about 65 species with some nice showy species.

Cecripia (left) and Io (right) moths 

Cecropia Moth is one of our biggest moths

Close-up of Cecropia body

 There's a fun game you can play with moths where you try to see how long you can last with one sitting on your face. It's extra tough if the moth's legs are in your nostril!

But seriously, lots of other fun moths:

Lophocampa caryae (Hickory Tussock Moth)

Drepana arcuata (Arched Hooktip)

Marathyssa inficita (Dark Marathyssa)

Hydrelia albifera (Fragile White Carpet)

Paonias excaecata (Blinded Sphinx)

Dryocampa rubicunda (Rosy Maple Moth)

Pheosia rimosa (Black-rimmed Prominent)

Furcula borealis (White Furcula)

One of my favourites is the Io Moth, of which we had a male put on a good show. Most of the time the big eye spots are hidden but if you scare them they'll flash you to try to scare you away.

Partially hidden eye spots

Fully open eye spots

There were also some day-flying moths out and about this weekend including this Nessus Sphinx:

Amphion floridensis (Nessus Sphinx)