Going Batty

International Bat Week, a global celebration of the world's most misunderstood mammal, fittingly comes to a close tomorrow on Halloween. To celebrate, let's take a trip down memory lane to that time five years ago when I helped with a bat colony count. It was late summer in 2017. I was just a few weeks away from leaving the Northwest and returning to my native Pennsylvania. I was invited to a pot luck for volunteers at Northwest Trek, a wildlife park in Eatonville, WA. I'd worked with them doing amphibian egg mass surveys for the state and nature mapping for Nisqually Land Trust. There was also a bat colony count happening that night, and I was asked if I would like to join. Of course I said yes. After white nose syndrome was detected in Washington, the state fish and wildlife service wanted to colony counts to establish a baseline population for monitoring purposes. Having worked on other conservation projects with Northwest Trek it was only natural that they would ask them to partner up again. And it was a no-brainer for me to get in on the action. After eating, we took an extended afterhours tram ride through the free roaming area to see the deer, elk, bison, moose, mountain goats, and bighorn sheep who don't know they're lving in captivity. There's nothing wrong with a little extra time hanging out with our animal friends. Afterwards, we returned to the park entrance. I was supposed to monitor the comings and goings at a bat box inside the park just inside the entrance. All I had to do was count how bats flew out and how many flew in, until I couldn't see anymore. Ins and outs, then subtract and the difference is my count. Very simple. But the bats had other plans for the night. Before we even got inside we could hear bats moving around inside the roof of the entrance. I never made it in. Instead, I stood outside the entrance counting bats. I watched as a little bat would drop down from the roof and gain altitude as it moved towards me. I only ducked once or twice. It was just instinct. I knew they wouldn't hit me. I figured with their echolocation they could tell where I was long before I saw them. I could hear theirs wings flapping and feel the breeze as they zipped past my head. At the end of the night, all the participants gathered to turn in their tally sheets. The counting station at the entrance, which wasn't on the list at the beginning, and was almost an afterthought, turned out to have the highest count of the night. I don't remember how many bats we counted collectively, or what my total was. It was a great night and I hope we collected important data. I'm forever thankful I was able to be a part of it.

Firefly Watch 2022

The 2022 season of Firefly Watch was the most disappointing so far. There was a dramatic decrease in the number of flashes counted from 2021, which was a decrease from the previous season. Run by Mass Audubon, Firefly Watch monitors populations of fireflies nationwide, using citizen science observations. Observation protocols are simple. Count how many flashes you see in three separate ten second periods. I space mine ten minutes apart to get varying levels of darkness, starting just before sunset. We also record the flash pattern (single, double, or triple flash for instance), start and end times, wind, precipitation, and temperature. For good measure, I also record the colors of the flashes. I start at the end of May and depending on how long I keep seeing fireflies, I go until late August or early September. I use the same location every year to track the same population, and try to stick to the same dates every year. This year the dates for my second observation of the week were a day later than last year. I end the season when I go two consecutive observations with no fireflies. The latest I ended was September 26 in 2018. This year I ended on August 24, the first time I didn't make it into September. The last firefly I saw was August 7, so I actually went beyond the two night standard. 2022 saw a decrease of 94 flashes from 2021, nearly a 16% drop. That's close to 30% fewer than 2020, the highest count so far. The charts below show the population trends. Chart 1 shows each year's counts by date and how the number of flashes observed changes within the season. Chart 2 shows each year's total counts side by side.

While I could use rainy nights in 2021 as a partial explanation for the decreased count, I only had rain during one or two observations this year. This summer was abnormaly dry, but not quite a drought. Not enough rain could be a possible cause. Other factors include light pollution, although the amount of light is unchanged year to year, and pesticide use, but I have no way to measure who is using what pesiticides in the neighborhood. One final explanation is that the neighbors cleared some vegetation from their small woodlot in the back yard. I'll continue monitoring and hopefully the negative trend will reverse itself.

Firefly Watch 2021

Just because I haven't been writing this year doesn't mean I haven't been doing nothing this whole time. I completed my 4th season of Firefly Watch. This program is run by Massachusetts Audubon, but anyone anywhere can participate. 

Observation protocols are simple. Count how many flashes you see in three separate ten second periods. I space mine ten minutes apart to get varying levels of darkness, starting just before sunset. We also record the flash pattern (single, double, or triple flash for instance), start and end times, wind, precipitation, and temperature. For good measure, I also record the colors of the flashes. I start at the end of May and depending on how long I keep seeing fireflies, I go until late August or early September. I use the same location every year to track the same population, and try to stick to the same dates every year.

2020 saw an increase over the previous year and 2019 saw a slight decrease, with 2018 being the initial and baseline year. 2021 was the first year to see a significant decline in the number of flashes. Not only was it lower than last year's total, it was the lowest of all four years. In 2020 I counted 708 flashes. In 2021 I counted 593, a 16% decrease. 

I have no explanation for the drop. There were a few more rainy nights when I was doing observations in the previous years, and that may have grounded some of the fireflies. One night early in the season there was a thunderstorm with heavy rain and gusty wind and no one was flying that night. But in the previous three years I counted a grand total of 17 flashes on that date. While rain may account for some missing fireflies, it still leaves quite a void. Hopefully 2022 will see a rebound.

Year by year comparison of flash counts

Flashes by date

The Hunt for Red Knot

For the second time in three years, I journeyed to the Delaware Bay beaches of New Jersey in search of the red knot, a long-distance voyager from South America. In 2019 I spent a day scouring Cape May County and while I had a great day of birding, I was unsuccessful. I decided to try again in a year, spending a few weekdays on vacation there to have 24 hour access to the beaches while avoiding the weekend crowds. That trip was cancelled because of Covid, although I'm sure the shorebird migration was unaffected. This year I was able to make the trip, giving myself a Sunday, Monday, and part of Tuesday to find the elusive little sandpiper.

Red knot (USFWS)

Sunday, May 23rd was one of the warmest days of the year so far. I wasn't in a rush to get anywhere so I wasn't on the road at the crack of dawn, but I didn't want to waste any daylight. Leaving by 7:30 was a good compromise. I made great time getting to the beaches in the area of Villas, NJ. Two years ago my first stop was Kimbles Beach, a part of Cape May National Wildlife Refuge. I decided to stop there first again. There were laughing gulls and "peeps", a generic term for the little sandpipers that all look alike to me. They weren't present in as great a number as 2019, and it could be because this year's trip was a little later in the migration than before.

Peeps and gulls feeding at Kimbles Beach

The tide was on its way out, and there were quite a few horseshoe crabs on the beach, and pearly green eggs in the wrack line. Some were making their way back into the bay, while others were burying themselves in the sand. Still more were dead, becoming meals for the birds and other critters. I scanned up and down the beach, but no red knots. There was a volunteer naturalist on duty, and she told me to check back later in the day when the tide is coming back in, about four in the afternoon.

Horseshoe crab eggs

It was late morning, so I had quite a bit of time to kill until then. My next stop was Higbee's Beach, where I saw my first American oystercatcher two years earlier. This time there were more people than birds on the beach so I didn't spend much time there. The highlight of this beach was a whelk egg case that had washed ashore.

Whelk egg case

The clock was still slowly ticking away until the tide returned, so I went to Fire Control Tower #23, a World War II observation tower. It was lovingly restored and opened to the the public for tours while I was living in Washington, and in 2019 I arrived just after it closed for the day. I was determined to get inside this time after years of wondering what was in there.

Skipping over the history lesson and staying on track with nature, the real reason for my visit, I had a picnic lunch at Cape May Point State Park before hitting the trails there. The trail I chose was a loop through a maritime forest and around a freshwater pond. Swans and ducks were beating the heat with a swim, songbirds serenaded me, and the air was scented with saltwater, bayberry, and eastern red cedar. Some wildflowers added a splash of color, and a muskrat lodge was the only sign of mammals. By the lighthouse, a flock of purple martins flitted around their little hotel on a pole, calling to each other and snagging insects like little flying acrobats.

Muskrat lodge

I checked in at my AirBNB just a block from the bay and took a nap until it was time for the tide to return. I went back to Kimbles Beach and waited. The horseshoe crabs were still there, and in greater numbers. The laughing gulls and peeps were still there, but no sign of red knots. A few other people came to the beach and we talked about wildlife for a while. I was scanning to the south and Liz, a birder from North Jersey, was scanning to the north. She spotted the red knots in a mixed flock. Finally, after two years I got the bird I was after. Much like the first time seeing the horseshoe crabs spawning, it was a surreal experience.

Horseshoe crabs coming ashore to spawn

A mixed flock that includes red knots

Seeing the red knot on the first day freed up the rest of my time to look at other wildlife areas. I went to Sunset Beach, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mercury and Venus after sunset, but the clouds had already come in by then. I spent some time at the gift shop and got a few items for my friends while I waited for the traffic situation there to clear out, then got some nighttime lighthouse pictures.

Monday was cloudy, drizzly, and about 30 degrees cooler. I wasn't about to let a few raindrops ruin my day. A rainy day at the beach is better than a sunny day at work. After breakfast in Cape May, I went to the Nature Conservancy's Garrett Family Preserve. It's a small property in between a residential neighborhood and Cape Island Creek. The property is a matrix of forest and field up against a salt marsh. I saw and heard quite a few songbirds, a young rabbit, a baby diamondback terrapin, a duck, a turkey vulture, wildflowers, a pile of feathers and bones, and some bee hives. In the salt marsh, there was an osprey on the nest and a bunch of holes where I saw some kind of motion. It was fiddler crabs scuttling back into the holes when they saw me coming.

Baby diamondback terrapin

My next stop was South Cape May Meadows, another Nature Conservancy property on the Atlantic. I first went there in 2019 and had a great day of bird watching. This time was more of the same, despite the drizzle. I saw my first glossy ibis and more turtles. However, it was just turtle heads poking out of the water so I couldn't tell what kind they were. There was another muskrat lodge, swans, ducks, geese, terns, and peeps. On the beach in the fenced off nesting area there were terns, oystercatchers, and some other bird that was too far for me to identify. I came across a toad, lots of feeding peeps including dowitchers, otter scat, and more piles of feathers where some bird met its demise. 

Long-billed dowitcher

Beach toad

Glossy ibis

A walk around Lake Lily brought me pond lilies, a robin fledgling, and a family of swans. After a late lunch I went to the wildlife refuge's Two Mile Beach unit on the Atlantic outside of Wildwood. While I didn't see them, there are snowy plovers nesting there. By the time I got there, the rain became steadier than a drizzle and the dark clouds and high wind made for an angry looking ocean. I continued walking the trails. More ducks and peeps, my first eastern towhee, and my first yellow warbler were waiting for me.I decided to head back to the bay to see if the red knots would be back with the rising tide. But first, I had to hit the boardwalk and grab some more gifts. Bubble blowing unicorns are in, license plates with your name are out.

Kimbles Beach was getting a steady rain when I arrived, but the wind was gone. Despite the incoming tide, the waves were almost nonexistent. So were the crabs. And so were the red knots. I decided to order dinner and call it a night. I had one last stop planned for Tuesday before going home, but my GPS wanted me to drive around a trailer park so I just left. One of the last things I saw before leaving New Jersey was a great blue heron flying over the Delaware River. 

The plan for finding the red knot worked. I avoided weekend traffic for the most part, I slept in an ideal location, the weather was mostly cooperative, I learned a lot, and saw a blend of new sites and old. I saw close to 30 different bird species, 5 that I never saw before, including the one bird I went to see. My long weekend was a nice break from the office and recharged my batteries for me, in spite of the miles I put on my feet.

The 17 Year Itch

That sound you hear isn’t the Six Million Dollar Man using his bionic powers. It’s cicadas by the billions. Every year, at least a few cicadas emerge during late spring and serenade us with their mating call. Chunky and scary looking, these insects are totally harmless but to me at least, just hearing them makes it feel a little hotter and muggier. 

This year is a little louder than most. Brood X, the largest brood of periodical cicadas, is emerging after 17 years underground in the larval stage. They’ve been tapping into tree roots during that time and now that they’ve reached adulthood they’re ready to go out in a blaze of noisy glory. They'll mate soon, lay their eggs in the tree tops, and die. When the eggs hatch, the larval cicadas will drop from the tree, burrow into the ground, and start the timer on another 17 years.

Expect it to be a little louder than usual in the Northeast
(From "This Is Spinal Tap")

All those bugs means not just a lot of noise, but also a lot of food for just about everything. The reason cicadas emerge by the billions is to overwhelm their predators’ stomachs. The strategy is that lots of cicadas will get eaten, but based on sheer numbers, many will survive to continue the life cycle for another 17 years. 

Periodical cicada (NPS)

Speaking of 17 years, why such an odd number? It’s another evolutionary strategy. What other critter can you think of with a 17 year life cycle? It reduces the risk of broods emerging during a population boom for a predator species. As a double failsafe, broods have stragglers that emerge either before or after the 17 year period.  Most are within a 13 to 21 year period. It gives the brood a better chance of survival in the event that the 17th year is a boom year for predators. 

Molting cicada (Baltimore Sun)

I've never seen a cicada coming out of its shell. Like all insects, they have a hard exoskelton, and immediately after emerging they molt. From what I'm being told, people all over are finding a lot of those shells on tree trunks and other surfaces. I haven't seen any yet this year, but I haven't been able to get outside much other than a birding expedition to New Jersey which you can read about later. This week's information comes from the University of Connecticut.