Author: marlenecondon@aol.com

Daily News-Record, June 9, 2023

At this time of year, you might literally almost step on a baby white-tailed deer. One morning I walked over to my daylily garden to see how it was doing. I stopped at the edge and looked towards the back of the garden before looking at the plants right at my feet. When I did look down, I was shocked to see a baby deer looking up at me! Apparently, it felt well hidden among the tall leaves of the daylily plants, and it was. I never would have seen it if I hadn’t gone over there.

A baby deer is called a fawn while wearing its white-spotted, reddish brown “baby coat” and is unweaned; still suckling its mother’s milk. Fawns are born at the end of May and the early part of June in Virginia.

An adult female deer, called a doe, may give birth to one, two, or three young. Very rarely, four fawns may be born. The number depends upon the mother’s age and physical condition. Usually, a single baby comprises her first birth. In subsequent years, she normally will have twins and sometimes triplets. However, females with an inadequate food supply and in poorer health will have fewer babies than deer in top form.

Fawns can walk soon after birth but they don’t go very far for several weeks. Therefore, if you find a baby deer in your yard, as I did, you can figure that your yard or someplace quite close by served as the maternity ward!

A 1972 study done in Texas found that, on average, white-tailed deer fawns were only active 8% of the time during their first two weeks of life. By the time they reached one month of age, male fawns were active about 16% of the time and females were active about 12% of the time.

Each period of daytime activity tended to last less than 35 minutes, increasing from two periods a day during the first week to five or six periods a day by the age of one month. The duration of the activity periods increased with the increasing age of the fawns, but they weren’t active for two hours at a time until they were more than one month old. Only during their first week of life were the young deer most active during midday hours. After that, they moved around in the morning and evening hours.

People often happen upon a fawn during the day and assume it’s abandoned. They take it home to try to care for it, or they take it to a wildlife rehabilitator. But please resist the urge to “save” one of these cute creatures.

Mothers associate with their fawns very little during the first 8 weeks after giving birth so as not to attract predators to a helpless baby. So, if a fawn looks healthy and isn’t crying as if it’s starving, it’s undoubtedly being cared for, and will fare much better with its mom than with humans.

Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books; information at www.marlenecondon.com). You can read her blog at https://InDefenseofNature.blogspot.com

Daily News-Record, May 5, 2023

Mountain laurel is common in the mountains of Virginia. In May, a plant that is situated in a sunny to partly sunny area will be covered with large and beautiful flower clusters. Thus, it’s not surprising that folks often use mountain laurel as a landscape plant. It can reach 20 feet in height and look like a small tree, but it’s more often a many-stemmed shrub between four and ten feet tall.

Mountain laurel is useful to wildlife. Ruffed grouse and wild turkey sometimes nest in mountain laurel thickets. Some insects are lured to the flowers for nectar, and songbirds, reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals may use the shrub’s evergreen foliage for cover.

Songbirds can penetrate the foliage to hide from predators, such as Sharp-shinned Hawks that are common in Virginia during the winter months. Small mammals, such as short-tailed shrews, often make entrances to their subterranean tunnels in the shadow of mountain laurel so the openings are not so blatantly obvious to predators.

However, I once watched an American crow patiently observe a hole in the woods by my driveway for several minutes. It did, indeed, catch an unwary shrew as it poked its head out to survey the surroundings.

Reptiles (scaly, cold-blooded animals) and amphibians (cold-blooded animals that spend part of their lives in water) also make use of evergreens. Lizards, turtles, snakes and salamanders can’t regulate the internal temperature of their bodies. When they’re in need of warmth, they must lie in the sun to absorb heat from its rays. When they need to cool off, they need to seek the shade of plants.

And sometimes they just need privacy. I once found a pair of Box Turtles mating underneath low branches of mountain laurel. They obviously did not want to be seen by a predator while busily procreating!

The large pinkish-white flower clusters attract insects, such as bees. mountain laurel has an interesting mechanism to ensure pollination by these animals.

The pollen-bearing stamens (the male part of a flower) are tucked into pockets at the base of the petals. When an insect lands on a blossom, at least one stamen (or more) will spring out of its pocket and slap the insect!

Pollen is thus deposited on it, and the insect then carries it to other blooms where the pollen might rub off onto the female part (the pistil) of the flowers. Voila! Fertilization occurs, resulting in seeds.

Each cup-shaped bloom is less than an inch wide and imprinted with faint dots. Colonists gave mountain laurel the common name of “calico-bush”, likening the flowers to polka-dotted calico; a fabric that is heavier than muslin — a course-textured cotton.

Mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia) grows naturally in acidic soils, requiring the same growing conditions in your yard as rhododendron and azalea bushes.

Note: All parts of mountain laurel are poisonous to people and livestock. You might want to avoid planting it if you have young children, or you raise bees for honey, which could end up as poisonous, too.

Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People; Stackpole Books. She writes a blog at InDefenseofNature.blogspot.com.

Daily News-Record, April 5, 2023

A fun activity during Easter season is to dye the white eggs of domesticated chickens, but some wild birds produce eggs that are already beautifully colored when they are laid. The South American Tinamou — a somewhat fowl-like bird in its habits — lays eggs that are variously colored in brown, yellow, blue, green and purple. If we could get our chickens to do that, we would not have to dye their eggs for the Easter holiday!

Scientists believe the first birds to evolve laid white eggs just as their reptilian “cousins” still lay today. But apparently, pigmentation that occurred by chance through the ages must have helped eggs to survive and therefore became standard coloration for some species of birds.

Most eggs are marked in such a way as to help them blend into their surroundings. An egg may be splotched with brown or reddish-brown spots at one end or colored all over in the hues of the dried twigs and leaves that make up the nest in which it is found. Eggs that are laid in burrows (such as those of kingfishers) or cavities (such as those of woodpeckers) tend to be white because they are not out in the open where a predator could easily spot them.

Some birds, however, lay beautifully-colored eggs that don’t seem to be well camouflaged. For example, robins and other thrushes lay gorgeous blue or greenish-blue eggs.

One of my first memories is of a blue robin’s egg that had somehow fallen — unbroken — into our tiny fenced-in yard when I was probably no more than three or four years old. The little egg fascinated me with its beauty and I felt it was a tiny treasure, the likes of which I had never seen before. I wanted to keep it, being too young to realize that federal law prohibits possession of bird eggs without a permit, but my older brothers insisted upon placing the egg upon the fence. They thought the parent bird might be able to retrieve it. I was heartbroken when I later found the precious blue egg lying broken on the ground where it had again fallen, this time into numerous pieces with its insides spilling out.

Although an eggshell seems to us to break very easily, it’s a prison to the bird enclosed within. The young avian creature needs to have a sharp “instrument” to escape, and that instrument is an egg tooth, a rough hard projection at the tip of the upper mandible of the bird’s beak. The chick’s movements within the shell cause the egg tooth to scratch the inside surface of the shell, weakening it. After the bird breaks out of its “prison,” the egg tooth disappears.

What I’d really love to see is the egg that’s laid by a warbler in Japan; it’s red, my absolute favorite color. A cuckoo that lays its eggs in the nest of this warbler also lays red eggs, matching the host bird’s eggs.

Happy Easter and Happy Spring!

Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books; information at www.marlenecondon.com). You can read her blog at https://InDefenseofNature.blogspot.com

Daily News-Record, March 7, 2023

Paying attention to the outdoors by looking through windows can bring you many surprises.

One time I glanced out a window when I had gone into my pantry to get food. At first, I thought a vulture was walking down the driveway because there was certainly a big dark bird heading my way. But I couldn’t imagine a vulture doing that.

As I strained my eyes to recognize what I was seeing, I reached for my binoculars in a nearby closet. The big bird was a female wild turkey!

Although I’ve seen and heard turkeys in the woods around my house, I had never observed one just strutting along all alone out in the open. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my camera on the tripod and focused in time to get a shot before she took a turn near the house and went down into the woods.

Another rare daytime visitor to my yard is the red fox. One summer afternoon, my wonderful husband was rinsing dishes for me when he peered out of the window over the sink, having learned well the lesson to always be on the lookout. He immediately called to me that a red fox was crossing the backyard through my day lily garden. Again, it happened too quickly for me to get a photo.

Although not a rare animal in any sense of the word, voles are small rodents that aren’t often visible. They are related to mice, but voles have chunky bodies and short tails, whereas mice are more streamlined with long tails.

Voles are active day or night, but they usually stay in runways that they build beneath thick vegetation. Yet one sunny morning, as I went through my living room and perused the south side of my yard through the large windows, I was amazed to notice a meadow vole run quickly across the lawn from my deck to my little man-made pond. It was the first time that I had ever seen one of these creatures, and I only saw it because I looked out the windows on my way by them.

It’s easiest to look for wildlife during the daytime, but you should also check your yard as dusk is falling. Many animals become active at just this time of the day.

Early one evening, as it was getting dark, I peeked out my bay window before putting on a light. To my surprise, a tiny gray fox was eating sunflower chips — sunflower seeds without the shell — that had fallen onto the ground below a bird feeder. Gray foxes are smaller than their red cousins, sometimes barely larger than a big domestic cat.

So don’t let your windows go to waste. They let light in, but they also give you a view. If you don’t look out them every chance you get, you’re missing the wildlife pageant that could be unfolding before your eyes!

Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books; information at www.marlenecondon.com). You can read her blog at https://InDefenseofNature.blogspot.com

Daily News-Record, February 7, 2023

People ask how I get to see such a variety of critters in my yard. The main reason is the nature-friendly garden I’ve created that supports wildlife.

I’ve planted many kinds of trees, shrubs, vines, and flowers in order to provide food, nesting sites, and cover. I placed a concrete birdbath and “toad bath” (a birdbath placed on the ground so toads can sit in it and absorb water through their skin) in the front yard, and I had two small ponds put in for amphibians to live and/or breed in.

I leave areas of tall plant growth for snakes to find cover as they make their way around the yard, which, in fact, works too well—I hardly ever get to see these reptiles! And there are bird houses and shelves, and a bird feeder or two.

However, if I hardly ever looked out my windows, I would never know if all this effort had accomplished anything. Thus, the “secret” to my numerous observations: I pay attention to my surroundings.

It’s very exciting to see wild animals in your yard, whether they are there for a brief visit or because they’re planning to stay put and accept your hospitality. The one thing you must do to see wildlife is to look outside as much as possible.

One day as my husband and I were eating breakfast, I turned around to look through my office to the window that faces the front yard. At my request, my husband had recently “planted” a snag (with holes drilled into it for peanut butter) in a location that allowed me to see it from the office window. I was curious if any birds were at the snag getting their own breakfast.

To my total surprise, a big Black Bear was ambling down the driveway towards the snag. I immediately yelled “a bear!” and ran for my camera and tripod. While I do not enjoy having my breakfast interrupted, it’s always exciting to see one of

these big mammals and I was quite glad I had turned around to see what might be at the snag.

When I’m working at my computer, I turn my head every so often to see what is happening in front of my house or out back. On August 31, 2000, I was excited to see a Groundhog (aka Woodchuck) heading into my bird-feeding area from the driveway. Since I live in a forested area that is not prime Groundhog habitat, I had never seen one of these animals in my yard or even in the immediate neighborhood.

Gardeners and farmers consider Groundhogs to be pests, but I’m always thrilled to see a new animal in my yard, and truth be told, I have too many plants anyway. I figured this largest member of the squirrel family (in our region) couldn’t possibly make much of a dent in my greenery, and by accepting its presence, I’ve learned much about the life of a Groundhog.

To be continued in March.

Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books; information at www.marlenecondon.com). You can read her blog at https://InDefenseofNature.blogspot.com

Daily News-Record, January 3, 2023

About 20 years ago, Peggy Monks of Charlottesville, Virginia, shared an adorable “family tale” with me. She had enjoyed an article on daddy longlegs that I’d written, and she wanted to share the following story that she thought would interest me. (It did!)

Peggy wrote that “many years ago, my eight-year-old cousin, Charles, always experimenting, read somewhere that the daddy longlegs was so small-bodied because, not weaving a web—or at least not a very efficient one—he could never get enough to eat.” (I love this explanation.)

Peggy continued that “this was enough to get Charles going. He captured a daddy longlegs and placed it under a pint glass and fed it every day. Flies, ants, anything he could forage. Now comes the unbelievable part! My aunt, one day fighting to clear some of Charles’ experiments in his cluttered room, was horrified to find this enormous spider tightly wedged in the glass with three children’s encyclopedias on top to hold it down! The story goes that my aunt had to call in a veterinarian who had to administer chloroform [to render the spider unconscious] so that he could remove the spider before killing it.”

I would hope that nowadays a veterinarian wouldn’t kill the spider, but would instead simply return it to the outdoors. Of course, the daddy longlegs could not really have turned into a huge spider, but I hope that this little family story brought a smile to your face just as it did to mine.

Peggy sent me another story about Charles, this one also a true story that is rather cute. She explained she was an English/American citizen, and the following narrative took place in London.

She wrote that “Charles never lost his interest in anything that moved! He traveled the world and brought back everything from goldfish to crocodiles. Just before World War II, he opened an aquarium on the roof of Selfridges, a large store in Oxford Street. He contracted to service the many fish tanks in Buckingham Palace.”

Peggy went on to say that Charles very nearly lost this contract when a daily paper published a picture of him entering the palace with a large suitcase and the caption, “The only man in London who can take fleas into Buckingham Palace.”

She explained that “What they meant, of course, was Daphnia”, small aquatic crustaceans (a grouping of animals that have a shell or “crust” and live in water) that are also known as “water fleas”. These animals are not insects like dog/cat fleas; Daphnia are instead part of a large class of animals that includes barnacles, crabs, lobsters, and shrimps. Charles was bringing the dead “fleas” to the palace to feed to the royal fish!

I love hearing nature anecdotes as they can be informative as well as funny. I hope you will experience an interesting wildlife encounter this new year, and if you’d like to share it publicly, please e-mail me at marlenecondon@aol.com I may use it in a future column.

Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books; information at www.marlenecondon.com). You can read her blog at https://InDefenseofNature.blogspot.com

Daily News-Record, December 5, 2022

Even as a little girl, I was enthralled by the natural world. Therefore, I was absolutely thrilled to receive a bird feeder one Christmas. Back then, feeding birds was not at all controversial, but nowadays, it is.

For example, some ornithologists express concern about diseases spreading at crowded feeders. However, this result is only likely to happen when feeders are not kept clean of fecal droppings or wet food that has begun to mold. Feeders should not be allowed to stay soiled or to contain rotting (decaying) food.

If you are conscientious about maintaining your feeders in tip-top form and yet you still see a sick bird, should you feel guilty? No. In the real world, weak animals, whether due to injury or lack of food, become ill. Sick birds may find your feeders where it’s easier for them to obtain food without expending much energy.

Such birds may even die at your feeders. But instead of feeling guilt-ridden, throw the remaining seed onto your compost pile or into your compost bin and cover it with some soil to hide it from critters. It will safely decompose.

Then, thoroughly wash your feeder. Disinfect it by dipping the feeder for two to three minutes into a mixture composed of one part bleach and nine parts water. Let the feeder dry completely in the sunshine before refilling it.

Some researchers worry about hawks being able to more easily prey upon birds bunched together in feeding areas. To avoid making your feeder birds “sitting ducks”, be sure to place shelter about ten feet from your feeders. Thickly branched small trees or shrubs, or piles of brush are ideal. It’s best not to grow plants too close to the feeders so wandering neighborhood cats can’t hide there to catch and kill birds coming to eat.

And some scientists worry that feeders help cause window collisions. However, birds do not necessarily hit windows because they’ve been at your feeders. I’ve had Red-eyed Vireos and even a Yellow-billed Cuckoo—both birds of the woods that eat insects and are not often seen in open yards—hit my porch windows that are under cover of a roof.

I now keep most of my curtains and blinds closed unless I’m using a room. I have seen a big drop in birds flying into my windows since I began doing this, so I do believe this action has helped to minimize reflections of the trees around my house, which is what causes birds to fly into the glass. I’ve also found that full-length window-screen fabric mesh outside of windows help prevent birds from getting injured or killed.

A great resource with many suggestions on how to minimize window-caused bird deaths is available from the American Bird Conservancy at https://abcbirds.org/glass-collisions/stop-birds-hitting-windows/

So, whether you wish to treat yourself to a new bird feeder or to purchase one as a holiday gift for someone else this month, I hope you’ll do so. It’s a wonderful activity for bringing nature closer. Happy holidays!Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books; information at www.marlenecondon.com). You can read her blog at https://InDefenseofNature.blogspot.com

Daily News-Record, November 8, 2022

Eastern Screech Owls become active at dusk and retire by dawn. You might be able to attract them by putting up a screech owl box. It may be difficult to find a pre-made owl-nesting box for sale, but you can make your own birdhouse (or get someone else to make one for you) by looking up the dimensions in a book or online (a good site is http://www.wildbirddepot.com/nest-box-dimensions-chart/).

Place your owl box as high on a tree as you can, and no less than ten feet off the ground. Screech owls prefer boxes that are higher rather than lower.

Some books mention placing sawdust or woodchips in the bottom of owl boxes since these birds do not build a nest. Sawdust tends to hold moisture and shouldn’t be employed. I collect dried pine needles and they’ve been quite acceptable to the owls. I only cover the floor of the box, as opposed to using the two to three inches of material recommended in books.

Books typically suggest an entrance-hole of 3 inches. Although a screech owl can fit through a three-inch hole, it will only be able to peek out during the day. My three boxes each have 4½-inch diameter holes, and owls using any of these boxes have perched on the rim of the opening early in the morning, late in the afternoon, and sometimes during the day. It’s a thrill to see them in broad daylight!

Place your box on the south side of a tree, if possible. Though I do I have two boxes facing north and they have been used for nesting as well as roosting, my experience has been that the owls use a south-facing box more often. This box is undoubtedly warmer throughout the winter because it receives direct sun from late morning through the afternoon, which is also helpful when the owls are nesting because it can still be quite chilly in early spring when the eggs are laid. If you can put the nest box where leaves will shade it after the eggs have hatched, this will minimize overheating during the warmer afternoons.

Locate your box among trees rather than in the open area of your yard. Screech owls prefer to roost and nest in woods not far from a clearing, which is referred to as edge habitat.

It may take more than a year for an owl to find and use your box, so be patient. If other animals, such as insects and mammals, have used the box for nesting, they will leave debris that should be removed. Replace the pine needles by the end of each September.

One day you may look at your box and see a screech owl perched on the rim of the opening, completely filling it, and serenely watching the activities going on in your yard. On those days, it’ll be very difficult for you to do anything but stare at your visitor, who is so much more often heard than seen. It’s an exhilarating experience!

Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books; information at www.marlenecondon.com). You can read her blog at https://InDefenseofNature.blogspot.com

Daily News-Record, October 1, 2022

We usually think of insects as being creatures of the summer, and thus expect to see large numbers of them during warm weather and a decline in their populations as cool weather arrives. While this holds true for many species of insects, there are others that appear seemingly out of nowhere in fall. The walkingstick is one of them, which you may have noticed.

Walkingsticks mate in fall, and it’s their search for mates that brings them out into the open where we can marvel at how much they really do resemble sticks. If you watch one, you may observe it gently swaying. This motion imitates the movement of a twig in a breeze and helps to deceive birds, such as Carolina Wrens, that feed upon them.

Lizards and spiders also prey upon walkingsticks, and parasitic wasps and flies lay eggs on them that develop within their bodies. To avoid detection, walkingsticks remain almost motionless during daylight hours unless disturbed, in which case they might drop to the ground. A “twig” that walks will instantly betray its disguise!

Most folks think of walkingsticks as having slender brown bodies, but a careful observer will spot some that are completely light green, or that have brown bodies and green legs. Nevertheless, they mate with each other and are the same species.

A female lays eggs until cold weather sets in, when she will die. She ejects the tiny eggs from high up in trees, and they fall into the leaf litter below. The tough-skinned brown or black eggs remain on the ground throughout the winter and will not hatch until late spring.

The reason you don’t often see walkingsticks during spring and summer is because the nymphs (sexually immature insects that resemble the adults) are doing their best to remain inconspicuous as they feed on plants. Until midsummer they might be found on understory shrubs (those shrubs that grow in the shade of trees), but then they move up into tree crowns where they move slowly along during the night, feeding on the green leaves of their chosen host plant.

Walkingsticks feed mostly upon oak, basswood and wild cherry leaves, but may also eat apple, birch, hickory, locust and dogwood. Since these trees are common in Virginia, it’s easy to understand why walkingsticks are also common here.

As a rule, there’s only one generation per year in our area because it takes most of the season for the young insects to develop. Walkingsticks are unlikely to reach dense enough population levels to defoliate plants.

Because Walkingsticks are such perfect imitators of twigs, you would think that they would stay put on plants where they are so wonderfully camouflaged. However, at this time of year, they can be found on all sorts of surfaces. I’ve seen them mating on car doors and porch railings, and resting on sliding glass doors, carport ceilings, and trash cans. Perhaps they are much less wary now because their lives are about to end, and they may sense it.

Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books; information at www.marlenecondon.com). You can read her blog at https://InDefenseofNature.blogspot.com

Daily News-Record, September 9, 2022

By the end of September, White-tailed Deer in Central Virginia have changed from their beautiful summer coats of reddish brown to drab winter coats of brownish gray. By taking on the predominant colors of fall, winter, and early spring, deer are better able to blend in with their surroundings to evade detection by predators.

However, this is the best time of year for people to see male deer, which are known as bucks. Fall is the breeding season for deer, and bucks come out into the open more as they look for females (does) that are ready to breed. Although bucks are usually identified by the presence of antlers, a few does experience a hormonal imbalance that can cause the growth of small antlers.

Antlers are sometimes confused with horns, but they aren’t the same. Certain mammals, such as goats and cows, have horns that are composed of a bony core surrounded by keratin. Horns are permanently retained unless removed by humans or some other cause. Human fingernails, toenails, and hair are also composed of keratin, a substance made up of sulfur-containing fibrous proteins. There is no blood supply to keratin, and thus it is dead tissue.

Antlers, however, are completely bone and do have a blood supply while they are growing, and thus are living tissue. The blood is supplied by a network of vessels

in the skin covering the antlers. This skin is known as “velvet” because of how it looks and feels.

The lengthening hours of daylight trigger antler growth in spring and growth continues until the shorter days of fall. At this time, a hormonal imbalance occurs which causes the blood supply to the antlers to be cut off. The velvet dies and peels away. If you see dark red or black strands hanging from a buck’s head, you are looking at the velvet.

The antlers have mineralized and hardened by this time, yet bucks only keep their antlers for a few more months. They probably use them more as a sexual attractant for females than for fighting off other male deer or predators.

The size of a buck’s antlers, or rack, is influenced by heredity, nutrition, and age. Genes play a big role in determining the shape of the rack. Nutrition, and to some extent genes, govern the ultimate size of the antlers, with a well nourished deer producing a larger rack than a nutritionally deficient one of the same age.

Bucks build body mass rather than antlers the first two years of their lives, and thus their first two sets of antlers are small. From then, until the prime of their lives at about five and a half or six and a half years of age, each successive rack is larger than the previous year’s if the deer have adequate forage. If a buck lives longer than this (few live beyond four or five years), its rack will decrease in size with each succeeding year.

Bucks are beautiful animals, so keep your eyes open!

Marlene A. Condon is the author/photographer of The Nature-friendly Garden: Creating a Backyard Haven for Plants, Wildlife, and People (Stackpole Books; information at www.marlenecondon.com). You can read her blog at https://InDefenseofNature.blogspot.com