Do Deer Molt?

Here are a couple pictures of Mrs. Whitetail during a nocturnal snack stop last Saturday night.Poor girl.....she's lookin' a little tatty! I'm not sure what's going on, but I wonder if she's starting to lose her summer coat now in preparation for fall?

Here are some pictures I took last October out in the woods. Talk about blending in!!

Imagine how much Mrs. Whitetail would stand out in that reddish summer coat if she were out in these autumn woods in October?



Obviously my camouflage isn't as good, because this sharp-eyed doe didn't have any trouble spotting me up in the tree taking pictures!

Even though August is just beginning, I'm starting to see some signs of fall. They creep up slowly, but what I always notice the most are the shorter days. It's now dark enough in the mornings again that I can't work on any knitting projects during the ride into work. Boo Hoo! I'll have to start searching for one of those lights to wear around my neck because I hate to think of that 20 minutes of time every morning just going to waste when I could be knitting!

A Trip to the Northwoods

Today's post is courtesy of a guest blogger--my Sissy. She's graciously agreed to share the story and pictures of her recent vacation on Snowbank Lake near Ely, Minnesota.



This bay is just down the hill from our "cabin". I love the way the mist hangs above the water on cool mornings like this one. I think the temp dropped overnight that night to the low 50's. The lake was actually warm enough to swim in, at least in this bay.

The first morning we were there we woke up to a thunder shower. It didn't last very long and the rising sun really looked neat on some of the storm clouds. If you look closely, you can see the rain drops falling off the eaves. Once the storm passed the day was beautiful, perfect for heading into town for the Blueberry Festival!


We had sunshine every day while we were in Ely, temps in the 70's and lower 80's. Many of the flowers were blooming in the woods and this fireweed just off our porch provided the perfect photo op. A couple of bees wanted to get their picture taken so they buzzed in for a moment, too.


Most of the vacationers at the resort go there for fishing and/or hunting. We're kind of an oddity as we just go there to relax. While others arrive and unpack all their fishing paraphenalia, we unload suitcases filled with "girlie clothes" and shoes (11 pairs for my daughter!) and a full-length mirror, since there's only a small mirror above the sink in the bathroom. We want to look good at all times! This gull looks like he's laughing--probably because he saw us unloading the car when we arrived!


The fishing on Snowbank Lake is very good so there's an abundance of fish guts almost every day. They are collected each day in 5-gallon buckets and every morning Matt (the dock boy) heads off to "fish gut rock" in one of the fishing boats. I tried a couple of times to go along so I could get some picture of the eagles but they weren't very cooperative. On this particular day we only had a small amount of guts so not many birds came in. Once the guts are dumped and Matt backs the boat up the gulls come in first. They have to hurry because the eagles and ravens are just waiting for the boat to get a little farther out into the bay before they take over.

There are 8 eagles and a couple of ravens in this photo. I don't have a real great camera and it's hard to take decent pictures from a moving boat but this one turned out pretty good. Ruthie circled the eagles that are harder to see so no one has to hunt to find them. When the fishing is good there can be as many as 30 eagles in this area. It's really awesome to watch them come in and scrap for the best guts. Yummy! I guess you have to be a raptor to understand.

While we were on the opposite side of the bay, I was able to get this picture of a juvenile bald eagle and one of its parents sitting at the top of a jackpine. It was very cool!

The juvenile eagle hung around for a while so I could take some additional photos and this was the best of those. I love that you can see the "hook" on the tip of his beak.

On the morning we were leaving I could hear an eagle screeching very close by. I went out to take a look and he (or she) was at the top of a jackpine just south of our cabin. I really wanted a picture of this one since he was so close. My camera has quite a delay on it so I just kept snapping pictures from different angles and I got lucky enough to get this one. It looks like the eagle is looking right at me, probably wondering what the heck I'm doing out there in my pajamas!

There were a lot of other birds also and I was able to get this photo of a phoebe just outside our door. There were lots of them also and they are a lot of fun to watch. Hummingbirds are abundant on Snowbank also but they didn't cooperate for photos.

The place we stay is called Smitty's on Snowbank and it's about 20 miles east of Ely, nearly at the end of the road. You take the Fernberg road to get there and there's a beautiful overlook about halfway between Ely and Smitty's. We always stop there at least once to take a picture or two and this year was no different. The body of water is called Rookie Pond. Sometimes moose are spotted there but we've never seen one in that spot. The view here is absolutely gorgeous in the fall!

This year we came home via the North Shore because Kathy wanted to stop at the Duluth Zoo. No trip down the North Shore is complete without stopping to take a photo at Split Rock Lighthouse. I think this is one of the most beautiful spots in the entire state!

Thanks for coming along with me on my vacation. I hope you enjoyed the trip!

~~Nature Knitter's Sissy

Squish It or Let It Go??

Warning: If you hate big beetles, you will want to skip today's post.... I'll put this sunflower picture right at the top to take up space so there's no chance you will get an accidental look at the giant beetle.

So here's the scenario (and I'm sure you've had similar situations at your house)......I hear Mr. Johnson come into the basement and he hollers at me, "Ruth, c'mere"

Ruth: What?

Mr. J: Just c'mere!

Ruth: I can't (I was coloring my hair......)

Mr. J: Come see this big beetle! (he knew that would get me)

Ruth: Where? in the basement?

Mr. J: Yeah, come see it before I squish it!

Ruth: NOOOO.....DON'T SQUISH IT, I'll be there in a second (as I rush to grab my camera)

Once in a while get those black ground beetles in the basement and I think he's seen those before, so I figured this must be a really outstanding beetle if he wanted me to come and see it that much. What do you think?

It was HUGE! At least 1 inch long and 1/2 inch wide! This was definitely the biggest beetle EVER in our basement.

I took some pictures and convinced him to "just let it go in the garden" instead of killing it. After reviewing the photos against my field guide, I'm reasonably certain this is a Hermit Flower Beetle. They're in the Flower Scarab beetle family. According to my field guide the larvae develop in rotting wood of dead or dying hardwoods, so how it ended up in my basement is a mystery. (Here's another picture I found by googling Hermit Flower Beetle for comparison.)

More Miscellaneous

I'm kind of getting into this "miscellaneous" theme and since I've recently purchased more memory for photos, I'm going to take advantage of it! Here are some more "miscellaneous" sights from my backyard......I'm amazed at what I've started noticing when there's a camera around my neck!

Juvenile Rose-Breasted Grosbeak (out on its own already)

Hedge-Nettle (Stachys tenuifolia)

Wild Monarch Butterfly (male)

Twelve-Spotted Skimmers (male)

Cedar Waxwing in Mulberry Tree

Cooper's Hawk feather

Sophie on the loose

Miscellaneous Monday

I have quite a few pictures stored on my Compact Flash card and since I didn't have any other ideas for a post tonight, I decided to clean out the memory and share some of these pictures with you.

I'll start with a few photos from about a month ago--over at the little stormwater retention pond I've been visiting frequently this summer. I finally got a good picture of one of the little frogs before it leapt into the water (leopard frog? I think). This guy was really tiny but you can't tell it from this picture......

How about now? Same frog with an oak leaf for better size definition.

I also got this nice picture of an Eastern Comma Butterfly (summer form). This butterfly was loving the moist mud at the edge of the pond.It's hard to get pictures of them as they sit and continually flap their wings--I just keep snapping away and eventually I'm lucky enough to get the shot when its wings are open all the way.

One night last week while doing the dishes, I glanced out the window and there was the Cooper's Hawk--sitting right on the edge of the ground feeding tray (this is the same tray my night-time deer eat corn from). Occasionally I'll see the Cooper's Hawk swoop through the yard and sometimes even find little piles of feathers from a bird it has killed, but I was really delighted to see this one land and sit still long enough for me to snap some (less than ideal) pictures through the window screen. Judging by the color of the breast feathers and dark orange-appearing eye, I'm calling this bird an adult.

My, what big ears you have!!

We saw this little fawn last Saturday night in a hayfield in Fillmore County.

I've started saving water from the air conditioner that I've always previously let run down the drain. I get from 3-4 of these jugs every day and with 8 birdbaths around the yard, this really saves on running water from the tap, plus it's much easier to carry a couple of jugs than the big bucket of water I used to fill from the outside faucet.

When I got home from work this afternoon, I noticed something with black wings flying around in the Swallowtail Ranch jar. "Hmmm, that seems odd, those wings are too small for a swallowtail," I thought to myself.
Upon closer inspection, I realized it wasn't a butterfly at all, but a wasp! How disappointing. This is one of the parasitic wasps (Trogus species). When I found this swallowtail caterpillar and put it in the "ranch" it was almost completely full grown. Here's what my Kaufman Field Guide to insects says about these wasps: "All are internal parasites of caterpillars but emerge as adult wasps from the pupa of the host." Yuck!! The field guide even shows a picture of one of these wasps emerging from the pupa of a swallowtail butterfly. The other swallowtail caterpillar I found was much smaller (the green cocoon you can see in the picture). I hope that one didn't become a victim of one of these wasps too, but I'll find out for sure if (and when) the butterfly emerges from this green cocoon.

"The Cruise"

Today we participated in "The Cruise" a motorcycle rally to raise funds for the Ronald McDonald House here in Rochester. There was a 40% chance for rain and after an early morning shower, a check on the weather radar showed that other storms out in South Dakota were heading southeast and probably wouldn't affect us, so we decided to take part in this motorcycle event.

When we arrived at the registration site around 9:45, we found there were already quite a few other bikers there. This event gets bigger and better organized every year and this is the first time we've ridden by ourselves--not as part of a much larger group. We did see some familiar faces of people we knew from work out on the ride, so it wasn't like we were riding with a bunch of people we didn't know.

This year's route went through Fillmore, Winona and Olmsted counties--about 132 miles total. It was nice to travel some familiar roads and also ride down some new ones we've never been on before.

Our best reception was in Fountain, Minnesota--a small town in Fillmore County about 6 miles from where I grew up. The good folks of Fountain actually had their main street blocked off so bikers could park right on the main drag.
We also had a stop in Rushford, Minnesota--a town hit by a devastating flood only a year ago. It was strange to sit at the Kwik Trip and eat our lunch remembering last year's pictures of the same Kwik Trip store almost completely covered by flood waters.

My odometer turned over to 10,000 miles just outside of Rushford!

There is a large Amish community in Winona County near St. Charles, Minnesota and my best memory of today's trip was riding past the residence where the Amish families were having their Sunday worship and fellowship......seeing all those buggies parked along the driveway and waving to the little Amish boys in their white shirts and dark vests and trousers waving back at us!

By the time we got back to Rochester, the sky had completely clouded over and there were even a few sprinkles falling. We decided it would probably be best to head for home ASAP, but by the time we got halfway there, the sprinkles were getting more frequent and heavier. About 4 miles from home it was pretty much pouring and had been for a while as the pavement was pretty wet. In addition to the discomfort of wet clothes, rain spotted eyeglasses and windshields, the greater danger is losing control on slippery pavement when only on 2 wheels. Fortunately, we made it home without any mishaps.

We just heard on the local news that there were about 1200 bikers on this fund-raising trip, but no mention of how many dollars were raised for Ronald McDonald house. I will post that amount tomorrow as soon as the information becomes available.

Monday Update: Here are the results of yesterday's ride (an excerpt from today's local newspaper)
• 1,200 riders raised a record $104,392 this year.
• Rider participation has nearly quadrupled since the first official Cruise in 2001, when 340 riders raised more than $14,000.
• In eight years, the event has raised more than $500,000.

Butterfly Ranching

A few weeks ago, I chanced upon the first monarch butterfly caterpillar for "Monarch Ranch 2008." It finally hatched last Wednesday (the day I left work early).
It was a pretty female and I released her on the lantana flower blooming on the deck. I like the way her colors coordinate with the blossoms, don't you?
I also have a couple of swallowtail cocoons in a large jar on the kitchen counter. These butterflies take longer than monarchs, but I'm hoping maybe one day this week they will hatch. I think they're probably going to be Black Swallowtails because I found the caterpillars on some wild parsnip I was cutting down.

I like the way their chrysalis is color-camouflaged to match the object it's attached to.
I'm guessing this one is green because that's the generic color? (if it was attached to a plant stem instead of a clear jar)
While I was off on Wednesday afternoon, I took advantage of the time to search for monarch caterpillars and eggs to re-populate the monarch ranch. My personal choice is to start with eggs or very tiny caterpillars because there's less worry about parasitic wasps or flies laying their eggs in the caterpillar.
Here are some eggs (you should almost always find the eggs on the underside of common milkweed leaves).
Here are some more common milkweed leaves with tiny caterpillars and an egg. This gives you an idea of how small these are--you have to look really carefully when scanning underneath the leaves.
Once I bring the leaves in the house, those with caterpillars on them can go directly to the "ranch." The leaves with eggs I put in a separate dish--this guarantees that the eggs don't accidentally get eaten when the larger caterpillars are munching on the milkweed leaves. I monitor the eggs and when they're almost ready to hatch, I cut off the portion of the leaf (with the egg still attached) and place it in the ranch on a fresh milkweed leaf.

I can hear you asking......"but how do you know when the egg's ready to hatch?" and here's a picture to show you:I'm still working on my close-up photography skills, but I think you can tell the egg on the left has gotten really dark on the tip--that's the little caterpillar's head! The egg on the right is still completely white. When they hatch, they're about the size of this letter "I"--soooo tiny! But they grow fast and in a couple of days they've doubled in size.

I'm fortunate to have lots of common milkweed growing in several places in the backyard and if I was a good planner, I would pick a bunch of milkweed leaves and keep them in a baggie in the fridge, but I usually have enough time to pick fresh leaves every morning. I transfer the caterpillars to their new leaves and yesterday's old, dried-out leave goes in the compost bucket.

Once they hatch into monarch butterflies, I release them in the backyard where there are plenty of purple coneflowers blooming for them.
Compared to last year's records, my first monarch (also a female) was released on July 30th, so I'm actually a week ahead this year! I grew and released a total of 19 monarch butterflies last year and right now I have 6 eggs and 3 caterpillars for the ranch. My goal for 2008 is to beat last year's total by 5 (an increase of 25%). I also ordered my monarch tagging kit and a butterfly net from MonarchWatch. Last year I tagged 10 monarchs that I raised and also some wild ones I caught in the backyard (but I can't find that record sheet right now). Watch for future Monarch Ranch updates in the coming weeks.

While I was searching the milkweed patches, I also came upon this little spider in a really lovely web. Does anyone know what kind of spider this is? It was very long and skinny.

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I would also like to wish a "Happy Birthday" to my Sissy, who's enjoying an excellent time in Ely, Minnesota, shopping at the Blueberry Arts Festival and feeding fish guts to bald eagles on beautiful Snowbank Lake. Hopefully she'll bring back some good photos to share on my blog.