Olive-sided Flycatcher (Contopus cooperi)

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Olive-sided Flycatcher

Olive-sided Flycatcher (Contopus cooperi) is a medium-sized tyrant flycatcher (family Tyrannidae) but a large “flycatcher” as that common name is applied. Only Great-crested Flycatcher is larger. It has the longest migration of any North American flycatcher. Breeding grounds are the Rocky and Cascade Mountains from Texas to Alaska, across Canada and the northern border states to Newfoundland and Vermont. In Minnesota the breeding range includes the northeast third of the state. Wintering grounds are mostly in Panama and the northern Andes Mountains from northern Venezuela to western Bolivia.

Olive-sided Flycatcher is the only North American flycatcher to feed exclusively on insects caught in flight. When feeding it perches at the top of a tree or on a dead branch, launching occasionally to catch a flying insect in the air, and returning often to the same perch. Small insects are consumed in the air. Larger insects returned to and beaten against the perch to subdue.

Flycatchers are notoriously difficult to identify by plumage alone. Olive-sided Flycatcher is one exception to this rule. It is easily identified by its white breast and contrasting dark “vest”. It is further distinguished by its large size; indistinct pale wing bars; whitish undertail coverts with well-defined, dark, V-shaped markings; and inconspicuous eye ring.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Birds/Olive-sided_Flycatcher.html

Peeling Puffball (Lycoperdon marginatum)

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Peeling Puffball

Peeling Puffball (Lycoperdon marginatum) is a common and widespread, medium-sized puffball. It appears on the ground, individually, scattered, or in groups, usually in sandy soil. It is often found in the woods under deciduous or coniferous trees, but is also found in the open on roadsides and in waste places.

The skin is covered with short, erect spines that often aggregate in groups of 2 to 4 creating pyramid-shaped warts. As it ages, the outer, warty or spiny skin sloughs off in thick, irregular patches or chunks revealing the smooth, pale to dark brown inner skin below. When mature, a pore-like mouth develops at the top through which spores are released.

Peeling Puffball is distinguished by the outer skin that is covered with pyramidal warts and sloughs off in thick, irregular patches or chunks.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/Peeling_Puffball.html

green frog (Rana clamitans)

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green frog

Green frog (Rana clamitans) is a mid-sized true frog, the second largest frog in Minnesota after only the American bullfrog. It is common throughout the eastern United States, less common in Minnesota where it is at the western edge of its range. It is an aquatic frog, found in large marshes, streams, deep ponds, larger lakes, and roadside ditches.

Green frogs are often seen on a shore within one quick leap to a body of water. They hunt by sitting still and waiting for prey to cross their path. The mating call can be heard from May through July. It is usually described as the sound of plucking a loose banjo string, “plunk”. The call is a single note but is often repeated. No other frogs in Minnesota sound similar.

Green frog is distinguished by the large size; the prominent back ridges (dorsolateral folds); and the fourth toe on the hind foot, which is not webbed beyond the second joint.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Amphibians/green_frog.html

Bold jumper (Phidippus audax)

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bold jumper

Photo by Terry Hayes

Bold jumper (Phidippus audax) is an extremely common jumping spider in eastern United States. It is a medium-sized spider but a very large jumping spider. It can be found from spring to fall in old fields, prairies, open woodlands, backyards, gardens, and human houses.

The most distinctive feature of this spider is the iridescent green or blue mouthparts. Both sexes share this feature, but when courting, the male will wave its forelegs and sense organs (palps), showing off his colorful parts.

Bold jumpers hunt during the day, not at night. They sneak up on their prey and pounce, releasing silk while jumping as a drag line to prevent falling. They will bite if molested but are usually too quick and wary to be caught. They can jump 10 to 50 times their body length.

There are about 5,000 species of jumping spiders. Bold jumper is distinguished by its large size; conspicuous, iridescent green or blue mouthparts; massive, high, front body segment with rounded sides; four pairs of matte black spots on the abdomen; the arrangement of usually four pairs of white spots on the abdomen; and its occurrence in the northern United States.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Arachnids/bold_jumper.html

Rope dodder (Cuscuta glomerata)

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rope dodder

Rope dodder (Cuscuta glomerata) is an annual herbaceous vine that parasitizes the above-ground portion of other plants. It is considered a noxious weed in the United States and a restricted weed seed in Minnesota, but is listed as threatened in Florida and is a Special Concern species in Wisconsin.

In the spring a seed produces a single, slender, fast-growing stem, and a single root. The root is for anchoring only. It does not absorb nutrients and withers away after the stem attaches to a host plant. The stem lives solely on the nutrients stored in the embryo. It must find and attach to a host plant in 5 to 10 days or it will die. It seeks a compatible host by detecting and growing toward specific airborne volatile organic compounds. When it encounters another plant it wraps around it. If the plant is a suitable host the dodder stem will produce sucker-like, specialized roots (haustoria) that penetrate and draw nutrients from the host plant’s tissue. As it continues to grow it becomes more robust and climbs the host, twining in a counter-clockwise spiral.

From May to early July rope dodder looks like orange tangled string. In July it produces flowers on parts of the stem that are tightly appressed and attached to a host plant. The inflorescence is a dense, rope-like mass of tiny flowers wound spirally around the stem of the host.

There are at least 7 species of dodder in Minnesota. The dense, rope-like inflorescence distinguishes this from all other dodders.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Plants/rope_dodder.html

Elm sawfly (Cimbex americana)

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elm sawfly

There are about 9,000 living species of sawflies worldwide. Elm sawfly (Cimbex americana) is the largest sawfly in North America. Adults are found in woodlands across the continent from mid-May to mid-August. As the common name suggests, they feed mostly on elm and willow, but also other hardwoods including maple, birch, and American basswood. Larvae feed on the leaves. Adults use their powerful mandibles to cut horizontal gashes in the bark of twigs and small branchlets in order to feed on sap. They sometimes girdle the limb, causing it to die. They can cause sporadic defoliation but are not considered forest pests.

Sawflies are not flies. True flies (order Diptera) have just one pair of wings. Sawflies have two pairs of wings and are more closely related to ants, bees, and wasps (order Hymenoptera). Adults are distinguished by the parallel-sided body (not waisted like a wasp), and by special structures that help hold the forewings in place when at rest. Larvae are distinguished by six or more pairs or leg-like structures on the abdomen, and a smooth head with no cleavage line.

Elm sawfly is identified by the large size and orange, slightly clubbed antennae with 7 or fewer segments.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Insects/elm_sawfly.html

Eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis)

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eastern red bat

Eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis) is a medium-sized hairy-tailed bat. In their definitive work on eastern mammals, John O. Whitaker, Jr., and William J. Hamilton, Jr. describe it as “one of the most beautiful of all American bats.” It is widespread in Minnesota but not common. It is found in trees near open areas.

During the day they hang by their feet in a tree or shrub with dense foliage above and to the sides but clear below, leaving a clear flight path. They for just a few hours beginning at dusk. They locate their prey both by echolocation and by sight. Males and females have different summer ranges. They are solitary individuals but come together to migrate in flocks of up to several hundred individuals. They head south for the winter but their wintering range is unknown.

Bats are important vectors of the rabies virus but rabid bats pose little threat to humans. They are passive, will not attack, and will not bite unless handled.

Eastern red bat is named for the brick-red fur of the male. It is further distinguished from other bats in Minnesota by white shoulder patches, long tail not extending beyond the wing-like flight membrane, flight membrane near the tail densely furry above, tail hairy above, and the projection partially covering the ear opening hairy at the base.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Mammals/eastern_red_bat.html

Witches’ Butter (Tremella mesenterica)

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Witches’ Butter

Photo by Heather Ellis

The cycle of nature dictates that dead trees, branches, and twigs in wooded areas become hosts to wood-rotting fungi. These fungi are saprobic, obtaining their nutrients from dead and decaying wood. Some of these fungi are themselves hosts to other fungi.

Witches’ Butter (Tremella mesenterica), a very common and widespread jelly fungus, parasitizes wood-rotting crust fungi in the genus Peniophora. It can be found during wet periods year-round but especially in late fall, singly or in groups, on logs, branches, and twigs of oaks and other hardwoods. The wood on which it is found may be fallen or still on the tree but is always dead and usually has the bark still attached.

When young and fresh the fruiting body is one or more stemless, gelatinous but tough, ¾″ to 4″ wide, 1″ to 2″ in height lobes and folds. The lobes are translucent, shiny, and pale orangish-yellow to bright yellowish-orange. When clustered, they fuse together and resemble an exposed brain. They are mostly water. In wet conditions they swell and lose shape, looking like a dollop of melting butter. When they begin to dry they become darker orange, more opaque, and smaller. In dry conditions they become dark orange, shriveled up, hard, and brittle. Sometimes they collapse into an inconspicuous film when they dry, but will revive with the next wet weather. It is not poisonous but cooking it will release the water and leave little to eat.

Witches’ Butter is distinguished from other jelly fungi by lobes that are thin, broad, stemless, yellowish-orange, shiny, folded, and brain-like in appearance when clustered; by its occurrence on logs, branches, and twigs of hardwoods; by its shriveling when dry; and by its host Peniophora.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/Witches_Butter.html

True Tinder Polypore (Fomes fomentarius)

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True Tinder Polypore

Anyone who spends time in the woods in the northern half of North America is likely come across a hoof-shaped fungus growing on the side of a tree or log. One of the most common and widespread hoof fungi is True Tinder Polypore (Fomes fomentarius). It is usually found on birch on a live tree or a standing or fallen dead tree. An individual conk (the hoof-shaped fruiting body) can survive for years, even decades, forming a new ridge or furrow each year.

True Tinder Polypore gets its name from its most common usage, as tinder for starting fires. Otzi the Iceman, the 5,000-year-old mummy found in the Alps in 1991, was carrying four pieces of it.

This species can easily be confused with another birch-loving fungus, False Tinder Fungus (Phellinus igniarius). True Tinder Polypore is distinguished by the lighter, uncracked upper surface of older specimens; whitish margin of actively growing layer and underside; pore tubes that are not layered; and lack of white threads running through the cut flesh.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Fungi/True_Tinder_Polypore.html

green-faced clubtail (Gomphus viridifrons)

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green-faced clubtail

Green-faced clubtail (Gomphus viridifrons) is an early season, medium-sized clubtail. While it is more common in the northeast than in Minnesota, it is uncommon and considered rare over most of its range. It is found from mid-May to mid-July near rapid medium streams and rivers with gravel, silt, sand, and rocks on the bottom. Males are most active in late afternoon, especially under cloud cover.

Green-faced clubtail is distinguished by the face with only light markings, missing middle stripe on the side of the thorax, unusually small abdominal spots, no spots on abdominal segments 8 through 10, and abdominal segment 9 shorter than segment 8.

http://minnesotaseasons.com/Insects/green-faced_clubtail.html