Discovery: Field Notes of a Naturalist

By Richard Trump

Richard F. Trump, the author of Discovery, spent a lifetime carefully observing the natural environment. What he observed, he wrote about in an often humorous and always entertaining and informative style. Discovery explores the rich natural environment available nearby to almost everyone. You don't have to travel to an exotic location to explore and discover the bounties of nature. You can do it in your own back yard, in a park or in the fields at the edge of town.

In 38 chapters and 38 excerpts from his own field notes, the author takes the reader on a journey of discovery. Woodchucks, bees, whippoorwills, snakes, blue-jays, wasps, land crabs, rabbits and even grasshoppers all tell interesting and captivating tales through the words of Richard Trump. Set out on your own journey of discovery by reading this interesting book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AniLibre
• Release date: Mar 22, 2012

Book preview

Discovery

Field Notes of a Naturalist

Richard F. Trump

Published by AniLibre Books

Smashwords Edition

AniLibre Books is a division of Aniable LLC, Cheyenne, Wyoming

Copyright © 2010 Richard F Trump

All rights reserved.

http://www.AniLibre.com

Table of Contents

Forward

Introduction

About the Author and this book

Chapters:

A Discovery

First Catch the Woodchuck

Woodchuck Ways

Keosauqua, Iowa; population, more than a thousand

It's a Snake!

Park People

Wasp Watching

Whippoorwill Days

Contribution?

Woodchuck and Watcher

The Ways of a Land Crab

What's Ahead

A Sampling of Squirrels

The Average Age of the Woodchuck is Too Long!

Two Companions

Cool Storage

Another Sleeper

The Deep Sleep

How Far Do They Travel?

Neighbors

More About Neighbors

Still More Neighbors

Woodchucks and Woodchucks

Another Generation

Another Generation (continued)

Then There Were Bees

Grasshoppers I Have Known

On Leaving Home

Can I Pet a Ground Hog?

Jay Watch

Rabbits' Habits

Prairie Hills

Ground Squirrels Don't Climb Trees

Prairie White-Foot

Woodchuck and Watcher; Again

More Watchers

Leftovers

Return to Great Bend

Field Notes:

July 9, 1939

July 27, 1939

August 3, 1939

October 26, 1939

November 9, 1939

November 16, 1939

December 29, 1939

February 1, 1940

February 15, 1940

February 22, 1940

March 28, 1940

May 9, 1940

September 28, l94l

May 17, l944

May 28, 1944

March 19, 1945

June 2, 1947

May 15, 1956

October 17, 1958

September 14, 1960

September 2, 1961

October 20, 1964

October 28, 1965

May 4, 1968

June 21, 1971

May 18, 1973

May 25, 1973

November 3, 1973

July 20, 1974

February 27, 1976

July 2, l980

August 26, 1984

October 26, 1986

February 3, 1991

June 22, l992

August 23, 1992

September 3, 1992

July 29, 1993

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Forward

The memories of my childhood are filled with images of exploration. Dad was an explorer. He still is. He took me along on many of his wonderful journeys. I would still follow him anywhere, because when he takes you on a journey of exploration you will undoubtedly meet the unexpected. And you will be the richer for it.

Sometime in late 1945 or early 1946 I followed him through the scrub of the hills around San Diego. He was still serving in the Navy. We trooped up the hillside, which in my mind I still envision as a golden mountainside. I ran ahead probably no more than a few yards, but suddenly I felt very much alone. After all, we were in the mountains and where there are mountains, there must be mountain lions! The thought, spurred by some small creature rustling in the grass and brush, sent me racing back to the safety of my dad. No, he explained, I probably was not being pursued by a mountain lion!

In San Diego, we explored tide pools as well as the hillsides and discovered together the wonderful San Diego Zoo. When we returned to Iowa, we explored woods and streams and fields. In the cradle of the branching limb of a tree we found a small pool of rain water and discovered wrigglers; mosquito larvae. Life in an unexpected place! Stretched out along the edge of a tiny stream, my face almost pressed to the water, I looked for a long time before I saw what he was pointing out to me; a horse-hair worm, the incredibly thin strand undulating gracefully in the stream.

In the cup of his hand, he held clear, jelly-like mass of frog eggs. Later, we watched them hatch into tadpoles and grow daily into tiny frogs. Did he tell me to count the ants crossing the paving stones along the southwest corner of our house? I don't remember that he told me to. I do remember that it seemed important to know.

My dad explored the woods and fields around Ames, Iowa with a sense of wonder and discovery. More famous names in exploration trekked across Antarctica or through the jungles of Africa. Beebe, suspended himself in a steel ball on the end of a cable and descended a half mile into the ocean. The Johnsons brought back photographs of elephants and lions. Ivan T Sanderson explored the bat caves and rain forest canopy of Guatemala. I read about all those explorers, but I learned first hand from my dad that there is much to discover within walking distance of home. Across, the street and down the hill there were discoveries to be made. Along a trail that led through mossy undergrowth, we found tiny land snails. In a clear stream no more than two feet wide, we found a silver dollar sized snapping turtle, as fiercely aggressive for his size as he would be when full grown. In a moist field hundreds of yards from surface water we discovered a tiny daubed mud tower that was home to a crayfish. Under a decaying log on the edge of our own lot we discovered pill bugs and millipedes. Everywhere he went and I followed along, he taught me to discover.

This is a book of discovery.

David M. Trump – March 19, 1994

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Introduction

I've been browsing an encyclopedia of the world's natural wonders. Ames High Prairie should come between Amazon River and Amojjar Pass. But it isn't there. Squaw Creek should appear between Spitsbergen and Staubbach Falls. It's not there either.

That is why I am reviewing my field notes. Every natural area is a natural wonder, even the little patches in which humans dominate the landscape.

Some of us will never float down the Amazon or conquer Amojjar Pass. We must settle for smaller wonders. Hilly prairie and the flood plain of Squaw Creek qualify. They are clothed by bluestem grasses, prickly ash, and burr oak. They are populated by honeybees and whippoorwills… and woodchucks. This is about my life with those wonders, my search for understanding.

Field notes: July 9, 1939

A dullish bird, slightly smaller than a robin flew awkwardly to a dead limb on the white oak just west of the lodge. The park hikers who were with me watched. After gaining its balance, the bird sat there fluttering its wings - whining thin hunger cries.

In less than a minute another bird flew to the same limb - smaller, brownish, with a chestnut patch on its crown and white eye-brows. Edging up to the larger bird, it poked an insect down the hungry throat. Then it was gone, in search of another morsel.

When a robin flew past, the dull bird immediately began its hunger cries, fluttering its wings. But the robin did not stop, and the beggar waited quietly until the small brown bird came with another insect.

That is all we saw. If we had searched the brushy border a few weeks earlier, we might have found a neat little nest lined with hair. Several of the eggs would have been very small, bluish green with darker spots. One egg, however, would have been huge by comparison, and heavily speckled. A cowbird had laid an egg in the nest of a chipping sparrow.

From the time the young struggled out of their shells, the cowbird demanded more food than the other babies. Being larger, it got what it wanted. Perhaps some of the rightful residents were crowded out of the nest and left to starve while the parasite baby grew faster and demanded more and more food.

Not all birds will tolerate a cowbird egg. In the nest of a wren or a robin it is promptly thrown out. Some birds will build a false bottom over a cowbird egg and begin a new clutch. For the most part, however, this parasite has no trouble finding a willing provider. In the nest of the smaller birds, like the redstart, there is only one survivor, the cowbird.

Arthur A. Allen once placed a cowbird infant in the nest of a house wren. Although the wrens would have thrown out a cowbird egg, they were unable to resist feeding the young bird. When the cowbird was ten days old, ready to leave the nest, Allen placed it in a cage below the wrens' nest. For twelve days the wrens continued to bring food; and they might have done so longer if the beggar had not escaped.

Will that big awkward parasite that was mooching from the chipping sparrows ever learn to fend for itself? Yes, it will soon join others of its kind and follow the cows where it will find its own insects. You may see it sitting on a cow's back, picking off flies. But next year, along with its mate, it will be watching for another willing provider.

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A Discovery

One of the memorable events of the year 1939 was the invention of the helicopter by Ili Sikorsky. It's in the almanac. My personal discovery of a woodchuck is not.

At 5:20, June 7 of that year, I was crossing the footbridge over the creek that flows into the Des Moines River at Ely's Ford. On the east bank a gray blur, followed by a hairy tail, disappeared into a den. Believing that the animal might return to the entrance to see who had disturbed its outing, I set my Kodak Junior at 1/25th, f11, focused at 10 feet, and waited.

In about three minutes a nose appeared - a blunt nose. A minute later its head its head emerged. There it remained, motionless, for another three minutes. Then with a quick forward movement, it was half way out of the den. Its small eyes stared into the world of light, unblinking. Once its nose twitched.

I waited, hoping for a full view. A fly landed on my trigger hand, checked the flavor of my skin - and tested my endurance. For a while I resisted, then in desperation blew the pest away with a puff of air. Still the animal remained motionless, only sniffing. Fearing that my quarry would move out too rapidly for an exposure of 1/25th of a second, I pressed the trigger. No response to the click. ...Is this species unfamiliar with danger from above? Could I have done this from a lower elevation?

Then there was a sound in the trees overhead, and I raised my head slightly to peer upward. When I looked down, the animal was gone. But I had discovered the woodchuck.

A week later I discovered it again, in the south meadow. I'd been watching one that was feeding there in the clearing: How often did the rodent stop eating, sit up, and inspect its territory? What percentage of its time was devoted to nutrition, what percentage to vigilance? After each inspection period, it moved forward a few steps, directly toward me.

Feeling that I should cooperate, I moved cautiously from the border to meet it. When it sat up, I stood. When it fed, I moved, one step, then another, then another. At 25 feet, I decided to retreat. Perhaps I could reach my Model A Ford and get the net. But on the woodchuck's next advance, I saw that it was gaining on me. I waited and watched. At ten feet it sat up and stared directly at me - in my white shirt, standing there in a meadow, wooded hills to the south, the Des Moines River north.

According to my field notes, it had a pale belly, its upper parts brownish gray. If I had paid less attention to its behavior, more to its color, I would have recorded a tannish face, the mouth bordered with pale gray. Its eyes seemed small for a cat-size critter, but that is perhaps because I am more familiar with cats and rabbits, whose nocturnal life requires a wider aperture. Its ears were small too, and I learned later that this digger is able to close its ear canal. There were several ticks feeding on blood from its right ear.

As this vegetarian devoured clover leaves, I watched. Occasionally it reached out with a front paw and pulled a stem toward its mouth. Suddenly, without any signal that I detected, the woodchuck dropped down and ran in a sort of labored gallop to the denser cover on the hill. This too was discovery.

Come to think of it, I am still, after 46 years, discovering the woodchuck. Just a week ago I dug through a snow drift to reach an enclosed hibernating den that I had constructed. Raking away the insulating mound of leaves, I levered the door open and brushed away the dried grass in which the hibernator had buried itself. I found it curled in a tight ball, its nose between its rear legs. When I lifted it out, it straightened slightly and squealed faintly, but did not open its eyes. To observe its first signs of arousal, I placed it in a box by the fireplace and watched intermittently for four hours. Finally it stretched and raised its head. When I picked it up to replace it in the nest, it squealed again but did not struggle.

Why the woodchuck? Why should I enjoy associating with this ground hog, this whistle pig, this varmint? There are other mammals: The fox has sleek beauty, the raccoon amazing dexterity; both the mink and weasel are master predators; the skunk has a high tech defense system; and the cottontail rabbit has big eyes. The answer now is no doubt different from the answer I would have given in 1939. The change must relate to the fact that the more you learn about a living thing, the more you respect it, the more you want to learn. Interest compounds, the way it does in a savings account.

The train of events that led to my association with this rodent began when I was standing in a registration line at the University of Iowa on a Saturday morning. In my first year as a biology teacher in Keokuk Colleagues advised me that the way to get ahead in education was to enroll in Saturday classes. I rode with the chemistry teacher.

Waiting in line has never appealed to me. And why would I ever queue up to register in a class on school finance? Wouldn't it be more sensible to step out of line and try to find a ride to Ames? Iowa State offered graduate work in psychology, botany, zoology, genetics.... Any of these would help me get ahead. Also, Lorene lived in Ames.

I arrived in early afternoon, and to assure that I would not forget why I had traveled 150 miles farther west, I first went to the campus and found zoologist George Hendrickson in his basement laboratory. It smelled of mammal skins, bird feathers, and reprints of wildlife reports. I wondered if he remembered that when I was a student in Zoology 23a I knocked a preserved lobster off the laboratory table. Hearing the crash of broken glass, Hendrickson walked slowly back and handed me a towel. Looking down at the pickled crustacean, he said, It was already dead.

I am unsure why, as an undergraduate, I had enrolled in a three-course sequence of zoology. I was oscillating between becoming a forester or a poet - or perhaps between teaching agriculture and becoming a musician. So I enrolled in a sequence intended for students of veterinary medicine. Having completed the first two courses, I found that the laboratory for 23c would conflict with orchestra rehearsal. And when I reported this to Hendrickson, his only remark was, You'll be back.... Did he know more about me than I did?

Well, I was back. I told him about some of the books I'd found helpful as a supplement to our biology text. I probably mentioned Hegner's Parade of the Animal Kingdom, Peattie's Green Laurels, and Dorsey's Why We Behave Like Human Beings. He nodded and suggested that we talk again some time.

The next time came a year later. I had arranged for a summer job as a park naturalist for the Iowa Conservation Commission. Could I supplement this with field-work on one of the predatory birds? Hendrickson leaned back in his chair, looked at me quietly, and asked, Have you considered people? They are an interesting species.

When he appeared convinced that I wanted something a bit lower in the kingdom, he pointed out that no one had worked on the woodchuck in Iowa. We should know more about this species. It was present in Lacey-Keosauqua State Park, and because it is diurnal rather than nocturnal, I would see it frequently in connection with my work.

After we had settled on giving the woodchuck a try - or rather giving me a try on the woodchuck - Hendrickson advised, Watch the animals for a while. You'll soon have something to work on. Later, after the pattern of my research became clearer, I asked his advice about catching and tagging woodchucks. He replied, I assume that is what you are going to learn.

Well, the Indians saw it first. As they expanded across the dry Bering Straits from Asia, pushing south and east, they gave this mammal colorful names in their various languages: weenusk, thellocho, monachgen, moonack.... Mark Catesby, a young naturalist from England, arrived in Virginia in 1712. He associated with Indians as well as with wildlife, and he called it monax. This means digger, and the Latin name became Marmota monax, the digging marmot. Another Indian name, perhaps garbled into French, then regarbled into English, became woodchuck. Ground hog and whistle pig still have advocates; in some areas the male is the boar, the female the sow.

By whatever name, it is a remarkable animal. Any creature that can survive pestilence and predators (including those with arrows and bullets), along with changes in climate, is remarkable. It no doubt took me a while to recognize this truth. I've had help too, from casual woodchuck watchers, who have described their experiences for me, as well as from biologists who have reported in the dignified journals. And as I review 50 years of field notes, I'll continue watching. There are more discoveries (Or should I call them rediscoveries?) out there waiting for me.

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Field notes: July 27, 1939

When a jury of birds passes judgment on a screech owl, there is no need for testimony. The verdict is guilty.

The owl landed on an open limb of our elm, and within minutes two blue jays were making a public statement. By the time Lorene and I reached the porch with field glasses, two pairs of Baltimore orioles were there, flaunting their colors and flitting nervously within a few safe feet from the intruder.

And before we reached the sidewalk, several robins arrived with their high-pitched terror cries. They were followed by two young robins, still wearing their speckled vests. For a few minutes the young ones acted as if they knew all about owls and how to cope with them. But a moment later we noticed that they had retired to a remote limb and appeared to be discussing the scarcity of worms. A couple of red-headed woodpeckers hurried over the larger limb, pecking fitfully and keeping up a chatter that almost rivaled that of the jays.

Other jurors were arriving too fast for us to list the order. There were three bronzed grackles, a male cardinal, a pair of rose-breasted grosbeaks, and a flicker. The scolding of a little house wren was lost in the confusion of other sounds, but its tail jerked as though it was pumping some kind of owl eradicator into the air. The chickadees, however, appeared to have decided that the situation was under control. They continued their search for insects among the leaves and twigs.

Although house sparrows are plentiful in the neighborhood, only a few of them investigated the excitement. A pair of catbirds clung to the trunk of the tree; they apparently considered that a few well-tuned catcalls were sufficient and did not join the birds that were making mock attacks on the owl. The orioles came closer than the other accusers, but while we watched none of them so much as plucked one of the offending feathers.

By time news of the trial had circulated, there were young orioles, apparently of more than one brood. For a while their juvenile plumage made us think we had discovered a new species.

The flycatchers were represented by the great crested, the wood pewee, and a whole family of kingbirds. Although kingbirds are called the policemen of the bird world, their contribution here was only noise.

The ruby-throated hummingbird was more concerned with the orange blossoms of the trumpet vine. It poised for a moment in midair, then was gone like a bullet. A yellow-billed cuckoo came and left so quietly that it would have escaped notice had there not been two of us watching. The white-breasted nuthatch hurried over the limbs head downward, searching for larvae, calling with its soft nasal voice. Two of the birds we were unable to name with certainty. One, we believe, was a species of sparrow, the other one of the vireos.

We suspect that this trial had moved from tree to tree as the owl moved, picking up jurors as it went. Certainly it was a gathering that had come in common cause; but it appeared they were too busy hurling insults to agree on a proper wording of the verdict.

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First, Catch the Woodchuck

You'll soon have something to work on. As I think back to that interview, I suspect that George Hendrickson led me to believe that it was my own idea, working on woodchucks. He probably commented on problems his other graduate students were investigating, involving raccoons, striped skunks, spotted skunks, red foxes, weasels. And he probably said it's unfortunate that we know so little about a mammal so common. I suspect he even planted in my mind that I wanted to know more about the woodchuck's choice of den sites and how far it wanders from its den, and how it gets along with other species.

I knew that being able to identify individual chucks would be helpful in almost any ecological problem. The Iowa Conservation Commission provided numbered aluminum tags, with special pliers for clamping them on ears. But first I must catch the woodchuck.

Park visitors, attending my scheduled hikes, offered advice: Chase him up a tree and go up after him; he's afraid to jump.... Hold a noose at the entrance of his den and snare him on the way out.... Pad the jaws of a steel trap, and you won't injure his leg.... Make a figure-4 trigger on a nail keg; he'll blunder in.

Or wait till he's out in the middle of a bean field. Then chase him down with a butterfly net. That was my own idea. It came after repeated failures to bait him into a modified cat trap - chicken wire over a wooden frame.

The idea may have come on the evening of July 6 when Lorene and I approached Ely's Ford, the spot where the Mormons crossed the Des Moines River. A big chuck was feeding near the road in the west meadow, and when I stopped the car the animal seemed unconcerned. Wondering whether I could outrun a woodchuck, I opened the door and dashed in pursuit. Three-fourths the distance across the meadow, I overtook the marmot and ran in front of it. Instead of detouring around me, it stopped so quickly that it almost rolled over in the grass. There it flattened out on the ground with its head almost buried in the vegetation. It glared at me.

Oh for a net! No net in the car. But Lorene brought the tagging crate, which had no floor. I walked slowly forward and tried to push the crate over the squatting mammal. But in its sprawling position, it was too big. Just as the crate touched its rump, it made a wild dash for cover, entering along a runway that led to a den.

But I could outrun a woodchuck.

An opportunity came to test the net when Wilfred Crabb caught a woodchuck in one of his spotted skunk traps, baited with an old sardine. He was working the Stockport area, northeast of Keosauqua. Releasing a tagged individual in the park might provide data on how the animal behaved in a strange locality. My plan was to transfer it to my tagging crate by removing a slat from one end of the crate. The woodchuck, however, seemed to prefer the skunk trap, refusing to move out. When I tried to nudge it out with a stick, it merely whirled around and snapped at the stick.

Having the net ready, I removed the door, giving the captive a free run. Still it refused, and in desperation I finally upended the trap and shook the marmot out on the ground. It landed running. I grabbed my net and followed. When I scooped it into the net, it promptly tore an opening and headed for the edge of the meadow. Hoping to entangle the escapee in what remained of the net, I chased and scooped. Again it broke out.

By this time it was near cover. I tried to head it in the opposite direction, but it zigzagged sharply. It was only 30 feet from a thicket of prickly ash and woodbine when I netted it again and got a grip on its tail.

No problem with the tagging. The ear was tougher than I had expected, and I was surprised that there was no bleeding. When released, the chuck entered the cover only a few steps from an active den, which it bypassed at close range. Curious whether it would take refuge there, I steered it back. This time it passed directly over the mound of soil at the entrance but did not go in. When I last saw my first marked monax, number 1377, it was crouching in the middle of a patch-of poison ivy. If any woodchuck serving the cause of science deserved freedom, this one surely did. (Reviewing my notes on this incident, I am surprised that I failed to mention that the odor at an occupied den might act as a repellent to visitors.)

A strong net might help - an ash sapling with two branches bent into a loop, laced together; and heavier netting. Chasing woodchucks would not substitute for trapping, but Hendrickson had suggested that I watch. And the stalking that preceded the chase was mostly watching.

Those were exciting days. But the woodchuck wasn't the only watchable thing in those 1600 acres. There were turkey vultures soaring above the hills, their slender wings up-tilted in dihedral, distinguishing them from the smaller red-tailed hawks. Occasionally I saw groups of the vultures on the small island at Ely's Ford. Their featherless heads were ugly. At least they were un-birdlike. On the ground these big birds were grossly awkward. And their takeoff was labored. Airborne, effortlessly riding the thermals, they were thoroughly graceful.

Lacey-Keosauqua's two major creeks invited exploration. Upstream from the river, a quarter mile from the woodchuck bridge, the stream flowed beneath an overhanging ledge of limestone. There was a mossy nest sealed against one of the slabs, the labor of a pair of phoebes. I had seen such nests under bridges. Above that stream, in company with lichens and ferns, it was splendid. And I must get better acquainted with those ferns.

Thacher Creek emptied a half mile downstream. It flowed past an abandoned quarry. Farther up, the water splashed over a ledge and fell into a clear pool where water striders raced out to apprehend a stranded insect, and minnows darted in and out of the mirrored clouds. One hot evening Lorene and I joined the minnows. We could understand why they liked that pool.

Still farther up, between the hills, the gravel resembled that of the creeks in northeast Missouri where I found my first arrowheads. I must check this out.

The 30-acre lake, created a few years earlier when the headwaters of the creek were dammed, could have been a troublesome distraction for me. Waders like the great blue heron had already delivered strands of algae and seeds that helped nourish the water. Dragon flies patrolled the shore line in their search for airborne prey. Fish had been stocked, as witnessed by the calls of the kingfisher. Had the painted turtle and the snapper found their way upstream and over the dam? What an opportunity for monitoring ecological changes!

Along the River Trail a basswood tree shadowed the path, and there was a hole in the trunk. A fragment of discarded snake skin dangled from the hole. We could hear the scolding of the crested flycatcher, but seldom saw it. I