"I don't think I'll find THAT many new birds..." Visiting the Ozarks, Part 3

Ozarks Spring 2017 Series

Part 1

Part 2

This is Part 3

Part 4

One of the most unexpected highlights after the first hour or so of hiking in the Ozarks was the birdlife.  Almost none of the birds were migrants, save for a Veery or two I heard.  However, the breeding birds I got to see and hear were incredible. Every morning and evening at our cabins, this Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) would come out and sing.

The pond behind our cabins was simply spectacular.  It was called Beaver Pond, but there was a lack of beavers.  I'd call it Birdwatchers Pond, personally.  The birdlife here was full of birds I'm not used to seeing in Illinois.  The Indigo Bunting (which I find in Illinois) was only the tip of the iceberg.

We could see an unknown mountain as we looked out from our campground.

The turtle diversity was impressive.  We recorded Northern Map Turtles, Painted Turtles, Red-eared Sliders, and this Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina)- all in the same pond!

The pond did have one downside- the grassy edges were full of ticks.  I found fifteen-odd ticks while walking around the pond to take this photo.  Thankfully, none of the ticks I found on this trip were attached.  Still, the numbers are quite alarming for me.  I never had a tick until about the age of 10, and I also had a childhood acquaintance nearly die of tick-born Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

So, after that hike, we remained on the cabins side of the pond, but thankfully so did tons of birds.  This Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) had a nest in the eaves of my cabin.  A few oaks with dying branches near the cabins made for excellent photography spots.  Apparently, I read after the trip that there was a drought in this area a few years ago, and as a result many of the oaks in dryer spots had a number of dead branches.  All the better for photography, I say!

I'm not sure what this Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) was doing, but it held this pose for about thirty seconds before never showing up again.  This titmouse was the only one of the trip, oddly.  I'd expected to find more of them, but I wonder if they prefer moister woods than the Ozarks.

Another great bird was a Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris).  This little humdinger loved the Beebalm plants growing abundantly nearby, and regularly fed on them.  Also, it surprised some members of our group by sitting down on a branch for a few moments.  I'm curious how they thought Hummingbirds nested and laid eggs, but I presume they hadn't thought of that.

Also abundant, the little Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) warblers called from all over the grasslands, though these shy birds were rarely seen.

However, all of these birds are regulars in my area.  The following ones are rarities for me or straight-up lifers- birds I've never seen before.

The first lifer I had was this Mississippi Kite (Ictinia mississippiensis), a hawk I've always wanted to see.  I'm aware they are far more common in Southern Illinois, but even so, anywhere in Illinois this is a state-listed bird.  I'm hoping, next time, to get a better look at one- as this photo is about as much of a view as I had!  The Mississippi Kite is a species of bottomland old-growth forests... I'm not sure what it was doing over the uplands of the Ozarks, but I suspect it was migrating through the area on its way to better habitat.  It might reside down near the Black River, however.

This White-eyed Vireo (Vireo griseus) was a sort of a lifer- I'd just head a White-eyed Vireo at Revis Hill Prairie back in Illinois (more details here), but this was my first photo and look at one in the wild.  This bird is SO shy.  I heard it near-constantly, but I only ever got this one look at it for about twenty seconds, over three days.  It always called from a nearby clump of bushes, every day.

Equally vociferous, and somewhat less shy, was this Yellow-breasted Chat (Icteria virens).  This unusual bird is sort of  a cross between a Common Yellowthroat warbler and a Mockingbird.  It imitates other birds and nearly equals the noisiness of the Mockingbird, including the tendency to call in the middle of the night.  However, it has the Common Yellowthroat's colors, and its behavior is intermediate between the two.  It's not half so bold as a Mockingbird, but neither is it as shy as a Yellowthroat.  In looks, in habits, and in calls, this is a perfect hybrid of the two.

 (Mockingbirds are in the group of birds called thrashers or mimids.  I'm not sure why they're called thrashers, to be honest.  Mimids comes from mimic- these birds mimic other birdcalls and noises.)

At present, the Yellow-breasted Chat is a taxonomic oddity.  It's currently considered a warbler, but in habits it acts more like a thrasher. I'd categorize it as the one and only Thrash-Warbler.

At this point, a genuine warbler showed up- the Prairie Warbler (Setophaga discolor), one I'd been wanting to see for years. There were three birds seen on this trip I'd been wanting to see for years- Mississippi Kite, this Prairie Warbler, and one upcoming one.

This Prairie Warbler also helps to prove that more species of warblers exist, something I've come to doubt as of this spring.  Here's why:  I have seen nine species of warblers in Illinois this year.  There are thirty-six species of warblers that are regularly recorded in Illinois, and most of these are migrants only around for about two months or so. So, I've missed 3/4 of the warblers in Illinois this year.  However, this Ozarks trip got me several I've missed, so I'm up to 14 species for the year.  I really need to just bite the bullet and go to Montrose Point in Chicago, widely considered the best spot to find warblers on migration in Illinois.  I've missed spring migration, but fall migration is a thing, so...

Anyway, this Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) accurately represents what most people have done at this point, I assume -dived down to more interesting content.  Oddly, this was the only mammal we saw near the pond.  For all the deer ticks, the deer were lacking in visibility.

What wasn't lacking was lizards, as I've mentioned before.  Nathan mentioned seeing something with a blue tail and an orange head on the steps, so we went back and found this skink, probably a Five-lined Skink (Plestiodon fasciatus), though the ID group to which I submitted it was in doubt.

It proved to be quite fond of sunning itself on the rockwork of our cabin.

Nearby,  a second skink, presumably another Five lined Skink, rested on the wall. They hid in cracks in the wall whenever we approached too closely.

While looking at skinks, we found this hidden Luna Moth (Actias luna) under our deck's bench. This was initially thought to be the best moth of the trip, but it proved not to be...  However, it was one of the best, and finding a Luna Moth is always great.  They only live for a week as a moth, so finding Luna Moths is somewhat a matter of luck and somewhat a matter of timing.

The skinks reappeared, vanishing after a certain time in the morning.  Hayley spotted them fighting each other at one point, or at least biting each other.  I'm not entirely sure what they were up to.

Now, at night, the shower house attracted a huge variety of insects, including this four-inch-long Narceus millipede.  I call these Patriotic Millipedes because they are red and blue-striped.

This lifer Io Moth (Automeris io) is a female, due to its duller brown coloration.  I'd never seen an Io Moth before, so this was very exciting!  I would say that this is the best moth of the trip.

This moth that looks like bird poop is named the Beautiful Wood-nymph (Eudryas grata), which proves that the people who name moths are crazy. Mothing has taken off as a hobby in the US, and I can certainly see the appeal in the case of these unusual moths!

A Harnessed Moth (Apantesis phalerata) fell into the two groups of moths; the colorful and the camoflaged.  It is in good company with the Io and Luna moths for that.

This Lichen-like moth was the last interesting moth we saw. I'm not going to try to bring it to species- that's for mothers.  (MOTH-ers, not mothers.  Mothers is not going to catch on as a title for those whom go out looking for moths, I suspect.  Mothwatchers?)

This notice was posted on the side of the shower house.  Needless to say, it was a slight concern after the events of the Scour Trail hike!  We probably weren't cautious enough while out at night.

The last day got us a few new birds for the campgrounds, as we were "packing", including this Blue Grosbeak (Passerina caerulea), a bird people in Illinois go nuts over. However, they seem fairly common in Missouri- this is the third one I've found in Missouri in the past month!

The third of the three lifers I really wanted to find, this Orchard Oriole  (Icterus spurius) was one of several that hung about our campground all three days.  The last one posed the best, however.  Orchard Orioles look like a Baltimore Oriole that was burned in a campfire, and they retain a sort of smoldering look to them.  I don't mean that as a detraction, but merely as a metaphor.


As we were getting supplies into the van to leave on the last day, a Green Heron (Butorides virescens) landed in our tree.  It was the last species we found at the cabins before we left.

On our drive to Taum Sauk Mountain, the highest point in Missouri, on the last day, we found not one but two Three-toed Box Turtles (Terrapene carolina triunguis) crossing the road.  I took this quick photo as a reminder that we'd found these lifer turtles.

Taum Sauk Mountain, the highest point in Missouri, (at 1772 feet) looked out over much of the rest of the Ozarks.  The glade below looked fun to explore, so I went down there.

I found some Gray Beardtongue (Penstemon canescens) here, and then noticed about twenty ticks on my legs.  The total, after much pulling, was 22. Bear in mind, I walked twenty feet into the glade, took a few photos, and then walked out once I saw some ticks on me.  That had to have been five minutes, tops.  This is why I complain about all the ticks so much!

Back on the overlook, I spotted another Ruby-throated Hummingbird, while listening to a Yellow-throated Chat declare its presence in a nearby tree.  The views behind this were spectacular, too, as we could look out over dozens of peaks.  Our cabins may have had much in the way of birdlife, but I wonder if I sat down at the overlook for the same amount of time, how much I would have seen?

At any rate, there were LOTS of birds I didn't even mention: the Whippoorwills that Hayley loved so much because they kept her up at night (and which I finally got to see in person!), the Turkey Vultures that sailed right over the pond, the Brown Thrashers fighting on the road, and so many more.  If you want to know all the birds that we saw, click the Ebird links below.

I have one last blogpost in the Ozarks, and then I have to start posting about my Kentucky trip!  This spring has been very busy (another reason for the lack of warblers), and I'll have many adventures to write about.  I've made it my motto lately that I can sleep in July... there's too much to see now!

Campgrounds:
First day:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S37025497
Second day:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S37025633
Third day:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S37026063

Taum Sauk Mountain:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S37026095

"Bears haven't been seen in THAT area for a year now..." Visiting the Ozarks, Part 2

Ozarks Spring 2017 Series

Part 1

This is Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

... So, I left off here, with Nathan and Tayo stuck on a rock.  They're currently still on that rock, a week after our trip.  Hayley and I left them and wandered up to an open small set of glades/hill prairies, sunny grassy gaps in the woodland along the edge of the bluffs above.

Ok... Tayo and Nathan might have gotten off the rock and joined us, too.  We found some wild Canada Onions (Allium canadense) in bloom on the glade, surprisingly all in flower without a single bulbil.  This plant grows small bulbs often instead of flowers.  However, on the glades here grows a flowers-only variety that seems to not cross the Mississippi River.

Nearby, I flipped over a rock and found the ever-present Fence Lizard (Sceloporus consobrinus), before it dashed away.  It is a novelty of the Ozarks, the presence of lizards everywhere.

Another novelty was the abundance of fruticose (shrubby) lichen on the glades:

Several butterflies flitted about on this trail, and on the next trail, to Horseshoe Glade, including this favorite of mine, the Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos):

Growing along the trail to Horseshoe Glade were some unusual-looking plants, that happened to be lifer Ozark Bunchflower (Veratrum woodii).

This can be found in Illinois very rarely, but it's far more common in the Ozarks of Missouri.

Blooming alongside was a fine Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum biflorum).  This area got us dozens of ticks collectively, all over our pants and legs.  We kept pulling them off as we went along, generally creeped out. I believe the group average for this hike was 20 a person, but some people had none and those who used our bugspray had significantly MORE ticks. I even tested this by not having bugspray on later and getting fewer ticks than those I was with who had it on.  Evidently we need some new bugspray or anti-bug repellant of any kind.

We got to a side glade initially, and looked out over the St. Francois Mountains:

As we walked through the glade, after removing many of the ticks gained along the trail, I spotted a Lichen Grasshopper (Trimerotropis saxatilis), a species of well-camouflaged grasshopper found only in acidic igneous glades with lots of fruticose lichen (seen earlier).  This glade fit the bill, but Horseshoe Glade did not. This ended up being one of the few Lichen Grasshoppers of the trip.

Also growing on this glade was a plant I've always wanted to see, a plant so famous it's literally called Fameflower.  I have no idea why it's called Fameflower, but this particular example was the Small-flowered Fameflower (Phemeranthus parviflorus), which if you ask me is an excellent tongue-twister.  At any rate, it's the majority of the plants growing in the photo below:

Next, we went back on the trail, which had improved into an open, tickless dry pine-oak forest.  This came to a glade, the signature Horseshoe Glade of the trail.

Here I finally saw a lifer warbler, the Blue-winged Warbler (Vermivora cyanoptera), though I'd heard it the day before.  The Blue-winged Warbler sounds like a cross between a buzz and a sigh, "bee-buzz" being the traditional way of sounding it out.  Here, it's at the southern limit of its breeding range.  This bird is unusual in that it is expanding its range northwards, and taking over the habitat of its extremely close relative, the rapidly vanishing Golden-winged Warbler. Here, however, only Blue-winged Warblers live, nesting in the shrubs at the edge of the glade.

Horseshoe Glade gets its name because it wraps around a creek and that creek's valley, so that the glade forms a "horseshoe" shape. At the tips of the "horseshoe", a mass of rock made for the perfect place to fully de-tick and eat our packed lunches.

Another Fence Lizard hid up here, and pretended not to be hiding in plain sight:

On the way back down, I spotted an unusually short, ground-flowering Spiderwort (Tradescantia sp.), something I presume to be a new species for me.  We went back down, removed some more ticks, and then we decided to go to the Scour.  It had been my idea to go to the glade, and it was Nathan's idea to visit the Scour.  I'm not sure whose idea was better...

Speaking of which, let's discuss bears.  Black Bears can be found in Missouri.  However, the person at the visitor's center told us that they hadn't seen a bear in the area in a year.  I would just like you to keep this fact in mind, as the events unfold.

The Scour trail began with a bargain- we traded ticks for mosquitoes.  I'll take that deal- mosquitoes freak me out a lot less for some reason.  The difference in soil moisture made for a new community of plants, including this strange-looking anemone-like plant I found.

Now, among our number was a woman named Hanna.  Hanna liked to go ahead of us on the trail.  She enjoys taking her time on trails, also, and she generally does not come straight back, at a brisk walk.  Therefore, when she came immediately back at a brisk walk, we knew something was up.  She informed us that after rounding a bend in the trail, she came upon a mother bear and two cubs.  It is common sense to not mess with that combination, at risk of death.  Mother bears are very defensive of their cubs.  We decided to take the trail going the opposite direction and see what was down there several hundred feet away.  I had my field hook, a titanium stick with a hook at the end for flipping logs, and I stayed to the back of our group, as I was probably the best-armed since I had that.

A very fat Fence Lizard met us at a far distance in the opposite direction.  I presume this is a female with eggs, to be so obese.

We slowed down our pace, realized we had re-entered tick country and deticked, and took photos of the fungi.  There were several unusual specimens about.

Perhaps the most strange was this fungus, growing off an oak tree.  I don't know what it is, but it really fascinates me. I'm not even 100% sure that is a fungus, to be honest!

Something I am certain of is that this is White Wild Indigo (Baptisia alba), a favorite of mine.

We came to an opening in the trail, and we found this, an usual grove of Shortleaf Pines (Pinus echinata) growing in a tepee-like shape.  This area had lots of Shortleaf Pines, the only real pine tree present in the Ozarks.  Eastern Red-ceder also grows here, and the two are basically the only coniferous trees in the area.  Yet they are also two of the most common trees here.

Here, Purple-stem Cliffbrake Fern (Pellaea atropurpurea) and Gray Beardtongue (Penstemon canescens) grow side-by-side.  I've never seen the fern before, and this was also my first experience seeing Penstemons and Ferns growing side by side in nature.  Generally ferns like lots of water, and penstemons disdain too much of it.

We walked through a stand of pines to reach the Scour, a modern development of Johnson's Shut-Ins.  Back in 2005, this area was a typical wooded valley, like all the rest in the area.  However, on December 14, 2005, something happened that changed Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park forever.

At the top of the nearby Proffit mountain, a gigantic dam (visible in the middle of the photo) was built, the AmerenUE Taum Sauk Reservoir.  This was done for "Proffit", namely, to generate electricity for the nearby area.  However, the original dam that surrounded the lake was not maintained or inspected correctly.  One wall collapsed on December 14, 2005, tearing out all of the forest in the valley below and flooding the main river valley with sediment.  It even destroyed the original visitor's center.  Since it was December, no one died, thankfully, but boulders are still strewn out miles away thanks to this flood.  There's a boulder field across from the visitor's center thanks to this flood! The Scour, an area stripped of all forest by the rushing waters, was created below the dam.

We looked at the Scour, but as it was hot and we lacked water, we didn't spend much time there.  Plus there was still a wild bear or three about, so we went back and reported those to the visitor's center.  I hope to come back and explore this area again-  provided no floods occur when I visit!