Nature Photography (Formally Spring is in the Air)

[Doug Watson]

"The attack in Cape Breton is the first case of this nature in Nova Scotia. There was a fatal case reported in the United States (California) in 1981 (Timm, Baker, Bennett and Coolahan 2004)."

Even then they mention it as though it has been mentioned before but it hasn't and they don't offer any details. Strange it's as though they didn't want to dwell on it.

[paleoferroequine]

Loving the pictures everyone! I'd love to go to Florida one day, and seeing an armadillo would be a real blast for me! Doubt there's any chance of them suddenly arriving in Scotland, which is probably a good thing because they might displace something native, and Britain's ecosystem is messed up enough as it is. Can we please send all the mink and grey squirrels back across the pond? Also: RHODODENDRONS. GO. HOME.

OK, deal!   However, we get to send back 150,000,000 starlings. Oh, and Steve Easterbrook. And make sure Piers Morgan stays there. I know you're Scottish but, close enough.

[Tyto_Theropod]

Also all your house sparrows. They're actually declining over here!

[Gwangi]

Also all your house sparrows. They're actually declining over here!

Must not be enough other birds to satisfy their blood lust in the UK. They seem quite content murdering American species. Seriously though, I have read about their decline in their native range. It's odd because they do really well here, especially in urban settings and I can't imagine those same types of habitat are unavailable in the UK.

[Doug Watson]

Also all your house sparrows. They're actually declining over here!

I have actually noticed  a sharp decline in their numbers in my part of Canada in the last few years. I always thought these little buggers would survive a nuclear holocaust.

[Gwangi]

Not to backtrack here but for anyone interested in eastern coyotes I suggest watching the PBS documentary  "Meet the Coywolf". Nova Scotia as well as the death of Taylor Mitchell are addressed as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bwoJI6isks

[Doug Watson]

Not to backtrack here but for anyone interested in eastern coyotes I suggest watching the PBS documentary  "Meet the Coywolf". Nova Scotia as well as the death of Taylor Mitchell are addressed as well.

Very interesting, I have seen some truly huge Eastern Coyotes in the greenbelt around my home. Really remarkable when I remember the tiny size of the Western Coyote I saw in Jasper in Alberta. One morning I was biking on a bike path that ran alongside some Agriculture Canada land when I saw something trotting towards me on the other side of the fence. It was a large Coyote out in the middle of the rush hour. We both stopped beside each other about 6 feet apart with the fence between us. I had the thought who was sizing up who? It stood there for a good few minutes and then resumed its trot. I have seen others in pairs stalking Canada Geese in the same fields or pouncing on the snow crust to get rodents under the snow. Back in the eighties we had a real problem with Coydogs resulting from packs of feral dogs breeding with coyotes that resulted in larger and bolder animals. There was a concerted effort to eradicate them and the feral packs and also educate people on the dangers of letting dogs run wild or turning them loose when they no longer wanted them.

[Halichoeres]

Thanks for that, Gwangi. This is shaping up to be an interesting century, for sure. I'm also predicting northern and eastern expansion of the fish I study. I'd say western too, but all the rivers to the west of them are likelier to dry up than host new fish.

[Gwangi]

Thanks for that, Gwangi. This is shaping up to be an interesting century, for sure. I'm also predicting northern and eastern expansion of the fish I study. I'd say western too, but all the rivers to the west of them are likelier to dry up than host new fish.

What fish are you studying? Not silver carp I hope.

[Halichoeres]

Thanks for that, Gwangi. This is shaping up to be an interesting century, for sure. I'm also predicting northern and eastern expansion of the fish I study. I'd say western too, but all the rivers to the west of them are likelier to dry up than host new fish.

What fish are you studying? Not silver carp I hope.

Nope, but I mean, the same prediction probably applies. I know less about them. I study characins (tetras), which are tropical in origin, but I think they're going to spread east and north from Texas (their current northern limit).

[Gwangi]

Thanks for that, Gwangi. This is shaping up to be an interesting century, for sure. I'm also predicting northern and eastern expansion of the fish I study. I'd say western too, but all the rivers to the west of them are likelier to dry up than host new fish.

What fish are you studying? Not silver carp I hope.

Nope, but I mean, the same prediction probably applies. I know less about them. I study characins (tetras), which are tropical in origin, but I think they're going to spread east and north from Texas (their current northern limit).

Oh wow, interesting. I wonder if the same could be true for cichlids? I believe I read that there is only one place where the ranges of cichlids and centrarchids (sunfishes) overlap naturally. I wonder if one restricts the movement of the other? Interesting stuff.

[Halichoeres]

Oh wow, interesting. I wonder if the same could be true for cichlids? I believe I read that there is only one place where the ranges of cichlids and centrarchids (sunfishes) overlap naturally. I wonder if one restricts the movement of the other? Interesting stuff.

That's a good question. I've collected in Guatemalan lakes that were full of cichlids until the USDA decided that Guatemalans should have largemouth bass to eat and introduced a bunch. Those lakes are now mostly bass. But those lakes are kinda high-altitude, so they aren't terribly hot. It might be that centrarchids hang on to cool places, but cichlids colonize the lowlands as they heat up, but I'm really speculating. It turns out that even with circumstantial evidence like the decline of cichlids, it's really hard to demonstrate direct competition between two fish species. Lots of people think that minnows and tetras limit each other ecologically, but I think that their being in competition is even less obvious, as tetras have very different dentition and are substantially more carnivorous (except things like scrapetooths and flannelmouth tetras, but then you're potentially getting into competition with catostomids). In general, I suspect that the ability of tropical fishes to tolerate lower oxygen levels is going to help them as North America warms.

[Newt]

Speaking of range expansion...

I spent some time a few years ago looking at the range expansion of green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea) in the mid-south. Their "traditional" range is essentially the Coastal Plain, from Texas to the Chesapeake and up the Mississippi Embayment to southernmost Illinois and Missouri. Records of this species from above the Fall Line (the inland boundary of the Coastal Plain) began showing up in the 1980s and '90s - just a few miles in at first. As time went on they were found further and further from the Coastal Plain, making significant incursions into the Piedmont, Interior Low Plateau, Ohio Valley, and even the lower valleys of the Ozarks and Appalachians.

Of course, it's always possible that some populations had simply been overlooked in the past, but I find that unlikely in this case. For one thing, many of the localities where Green Treefrogs are now well-established had previously been the subject of herpetofaunal surveys, all of which failed to find this species. Also, Green Treefrogs are not exactly inconspicuous; they're brightly colored, loud, usually abundant wherever they occur, and are often attracted to streetlights and windows. They're difficult to overlook. Thirdly, the new extra-Coastal Plain records show a chronological progression - close to the Fall Line in the early 90s, increasingly far away in the 2000s.

I was unable to make any firm correlations between the expansion of this species and any other biotic or abiotic factors. If they have any direct competitors, I've been unable to figure out what they are. Other treefrog species with the same habitat preferences are still abundant at the sites invaded by the greens. Greens are known to genetically swamp Barking Treefrogs (H. gratiosa) at some localities, but they normally have different habitat preferences, and in any case, the decline of barkers in the newly-invaded areas long predates the arrival of the greens. The new sites at which I found greens have little in common beyond being lentic wetlands, and show no consistent changes from the period prior to colonization that I could determine.

The period of expansion did correlate with a period of increasingly mild winters, but the correlation was pretty weak, and I was unable to find much in the literature about the effect of temperature on this species. After I conducted the study, there were several quite harsh winters, but they had no appreciable effect on the Green Treefrog populations I was able to revisit.

Sorry for the text wall; it's just a subject near and dear to my heart.

[Newt]

That's a good question. I've collected in Guatemalan lakes that were full of cichlids until the USDA decided that Guatemalans should have largemouth bass to eat and introduced a bunch. Those lakes are now mostly bass. But those lakes are kinda high-altitude, so they aren't terribly hot. It might be that centrarchids hang on to cool places, but cichlids colonize the lowlands as they heat up, but I'm really speculating. It turns out that even with circumstantial evidence like the decline of cichlids, it's really hard to demonstrate direct competition between two fish species. Lots of people think that minnows and tetras limit each other ecologically, but I think that their being in competition is even less obvious, as tetras have very different dentition and are substantially more carnivorous (except things like scrapetooths and flannelmouth tetras, but then you're potentially getting into competition with catostomids). In general, I suspect that the ability of tropical fishes to tolerate lower oxygen levels is going to help them as North America warms.

I think one thing zoogeographers occasionally overlook is the dyanamism of ranges. We can't just subtract anthropogenic influence and call what's left the status quo; it's merely another moment in history. The fact that cichlids and centrarchids have so little range overlap may have less to do with how they interact with one another than with the moment in history we happen to be in. They may have simply not had enough time and opportunity to move into one another's ranges yet. The Great American Interchange is not something that happened and is done with, it's something that's still happening. Many environments and communities are still rebounding from the end of the last glaciation.

Who knows; maybe if humans had come along a few thousand years later, we would have found a world in which the Great Lakes teemed with cold-hardy cichlids and the rivers of the Neotropics were well-stocked with centrarchids.

[Halichoeres]

That's a good question. I've collected in Guatemalan lakes that were full of cichlids until the USDA decided that Guatemalans should have largemouth bass to eat and introduced a bunch. Those lakes are now mostly bass. But those lakes are kinda high-altitude, so they aren't terribly hot. It might be that centrarchids hang on to cool places, but cichlids colonize the lowlands as they heat up, but I'm really speculating. It turns out that even with circumstantial evidence like the decline of cichlids, it's really hard to demonstrate direct competition between two fish species. Lots of people think that minnows and tetras limit each other ecologically, but I think that their being in competition is even less obvious, as tetras have very different dentition and are substantially more carnivorous (except things like scrapetooths and flannelmouth tetras, but then you're potentially getting into competition with catostomids). In general, I suspect that the ability of tropical fishes to tolerate lower oxygen levels is going to help them as North America warms.

I think one thing zoogeographers occasionally overlook is the dyanamism of ranges. We can't just subtract anthropogenic influence and call what's left the status quo; it's merely another moment in history. The fact that cichlids and centrarchids have so little range overlap may have less to do with how they interact with one another than with the moment in history we happen to be in. They may have simply not had enough time and opportunity to move into one another's ranges yet. The Great American Interchange is not something that happened and is done with, it's something that's still happening. Many environments and communities are still rebounding from the end of the last glaciation.

Who knows; maybe if humans had come along a few thousand years later, we would have found a world in which the Great Lakes teemed with cold-hardy cichlids and the rivers of the Neotropics were well-stocked with centrarchids.

Yeah, or at least they used to. Most of the biogeographers I know incorporate dynamism pretty explicitly. My dissertation describes the invasions of North America by Neotropical fishes subsequent to the GAI as ongoing. All the same, it's pretty clear that anthropogenic effects are swamping ordinary changes that Earth would be experiencing anyway. I mean, if you pull anthropogenic CO2 emissions out of the equation, we ought to have been cooling down.

[tyrantqueen]

Found this shroom when I was out walking the dog. It was growing in a group on some dead leaves and grass. I have a good mushroom book in storage somewhere that I can dig out, but I want to know if anyone else can identify it first.





I have no interest in eating it (too many Death Cap horror stories) but I brought it back because of sheer curiosity. Does anyone know what species it is? It doesn't look like a Death Cap to me, but you never know...

EDIT: found out from my dad that it is a Field Blewit. Edible but can cause stomach upsets in some people. I put it on the compost heap in our garden.

[Halichoeres]

Never heard of a blewit, I'm embarrassed to say! Is it pronounced like "he blew it"?

[tyrantqueen]

Never heard of a blewit, I'm embarrassed to say! Is it pronounced like "he blew it"?

Yes. I've never heard anyone pronounce it any other way. Binomial name is Lepista personata. I think it's only found in Europe

[Doug Watson]

All that talk about Coywolves got me thinking about my one close encounter with a Grey Wolf. I have only seen one wolf in the wild and I didn't get a shot of it but in 1982 I was doing a bronze of a wolf for the Canadian Wildlife Federation and as luck would have it I met Richard Morin from Quebec who was doing a study on wolves. He had two Grey Wolves on his country property that he rescued, a female that he got from a woman in California who thought a wolf would make a great pet until it destroyed her home and a male named Caruso who came from a zoo that had unwanted babies. Caruso was only somewhat tame but I was able to get lots of reference shots. I have attached a couple we took outside of his large enclosure. In the enclosure we got even closer. My wife was holding her hand out for Caruso to sniff when her hand disappeared into his mouth. He stripped my wife's woollen mitt off of her hand and his canines left two long scratches on her hand that she didn't even feel. Caruso defended the mitt with teeth bared like like it was defending a kill but Richard got it back because giving in would have hurt his Alpha status. He had forgotten to tell us that Caruso liked to steal mitts and cameras. While they took my wife in to clean her hand I was left in the enclosure. I soon became aware that Caruso was standing in front of me with head down and ears back. I had ended up standing over his large soup bone. I slowly backed away letting him pick his bone up. Outside of his enclosure Caruso was less aloof since we weren't invading his territory. We even got him to howl. What a thrill it was to be so close to such a magnificent animal.

Caruso



Caruso, Richard, my wife and me.

[Halichoeres]

@TQ: Thanks! Kinda wanna try one now, maybe in a stew. (Blewit? Stew it!)

@Doug: That's amazing, what a cool experience. Glad your wife's hand survived...