greenmother's Journal

I am so excited to find this. I am making an account for my eldest child because there are many photographs to upload and label. Right now, in central Oklahoma, we are in the midst of a drought. It has been serious enough to effect the blooming of our native flowers. Meaning that there are not as many blooms and they do not last as long. This has negatively affected our Domestic and Feral honey bee populations. We have also not seen as many hummingbirds at the feeders. Mice have been getting into the house lately, because I suspect they are looking for food and water. Normally that is not a big problem here. This area is also in transition from farmland and pastureland to mcmansionville. So a lot of habitat is being bulldozed under and transformed from flower filled fields and patches of trees, to sterile lawns and paved roads. This in turn is forcing a lot of animals to shift further and further out to rural and semi-rural areas.

I was at an event and my mother called from Arizona to marvel at how freaken hot it was yesterday.

Because of the dearth of flower blooms this summer, I have had to feed my domestic bees. In the area that is my garden, because it get's watered, I have had a lot of crown and beards and wild sunflowers pop up. So I leave them and have let them bloom so the domestic and the wild bees and butterflies have something to gather pollen and nectar from. This morning I saw a Sunflower bee, a Svastra of some kind, and there are leaf cutter bees, brown belted bumble bees and various sweat bees. I have seen a few Monarchs, Painted ladies, Tiger Swallowtails and a lot of skippers. This year no Question Marks though, but I suspect they prefer wetter conditions. We only see them in these parts when we have a lot of rain.

Moles, mice and gophers have been a real pain because there is water and food here. The day before yesterday we put a juvenile bluejay back in the tree.

There are lots of ravens, jays, cardinals, chickadees, titmice, bluebirds, and scarlet tanagers.

We still occasionally see deer, though they are getting more sparse as urban sprawl encroaches. Turkey too and the occasional road runner.

What I do not see any more, Horned Toads or Tarantulas. Both were plentiful in Central Oklahoma when I was a child. Now I only see them in zoos or in books. :(

Usually during the late spring til the first frost, there are spates of time where one finds a lot of dead tortoises and toads and frogs on the roads, especially in the country.

This year there are very few of any of these animals. And I can recall several years now, in a row where there were very few amphibians out and about except for in enclosed garden areas and ponds, lakes and streams.

Is this because there simply aren't as many toads and frogs in the area? And why? Fungus? Or Use of certain chemicals? Loss of habitat?

Normally you would see Woodhouse Toads everywhere in these parts, even in a drought. But I haven't seen any in this area since last year.

We hear and see Tree Frogs, even some leopard frogs, but no terrestrial toads? !

Several times now, while driving at dusk on or near the service roads that run parallel with US I-40 East, I see 0 [as in zero] dead frogs or toads on the roadways. Even after a rain or when a cold front moves through.

We still find tree-toads and tree frogs. I took a living leopard frog from my barn cat and turned it loose in a fenced garden area.

But no Woodhouse Toads, which are normally prolific in these areas.

It is ironic, that in the housing areas on the local AFB there are woodhouse toads easily caught.

While fishing at 10 acre lake in Choctaw, no toads. We hear peepers and bullfrogs in the water and tree toads in the woods, but we see no toads.

Usually toads come out at dusk to catch bugs attracted to street lights. Often we used to see them on the roads and parking areas, because that is where the light is, and where the bugs are attracted. You would also see a lot of large wolf spiders and grass spiders also hunting, and bats.

Because toads are attracted to street lamps, it used to be they would be out in such numbers that one might find hundreds of toads hopping on the roads, or dead [road kill] run over by cars.

Last year was wet in these parts and numbers were still very low to zero. Though last year we did see more turtles crossing the roads. This year, very few and only in the early spring. Now? 0. That could be due to drought, though I wonder if the water quality has changed due to pollution associated with new developments or other man-made causes.

I found Swallowtail Larvae on our plantings of Parsley. I am going to take a tomato cage and wrap it in mesh and put this over these plants {because they are not tall} and that way it will protect these little guys from the chickens. And we can then document their metamorphosis into butterflies.

Very Exciting!

In other news it is again 103 in Oklahoma County and the National Weather Service indicates that it will hover between 103 and 104 til at least Thursday. :(

We need more rain.

We have tons of jumping spiders and crab spiders out here. I am unsure the arachnid project manager wants me to post the same sorts of spiders when I find them in different areas, or if just one photo of that type will do.

???

I have been hoping to spot some tarantulas, but I haven't seen any live ones in the wild, in the areas I frequent-- in decades.

When I was a child, we would have to deal with tarantulas migrating. Some could be quite grumpy. I remember more than once being chased by a tarantula on a bicycle--as strange as that may sound.

The last time I saw wild tarantulas would have been in 2002, on Mt Scott near Medicine Park Oklahoma on the Wild Life Refuge.

Today at dusk [about 9 pm] a young red fox ran across the SE 15 coming from the North going South just before the intersection of 15th and Choctaw Road.

I have seen lots of coyotes out here, but never foxes. It looked very thin. It appeared to have something in it's mouth. I have no idea if it were animal or vegetable or even a bit of garbage?

According to older accounts regarding the range of Red Foxes, they seem more common in the ozark-type woodland areas, rather than in the grasslands where this one was spotted:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3669458

Here is a site about red foxes from Cornell http://icwdm.org/handbook/carnivor/foxes.asp

The drought has been causing mice to come into the house. We have been trapping a lot of them. I wonder if the foxes are following the mice into town?

But I am curious as to how complicated that is? I am interested in doing something on pollinators. Any advice on whether I should leave that to a serious expert, or if a layperson like myself could start something like that?

Any advice out there?

An area I that I often visit in Oklahoma County, a field that is normally covered with crown and beards and wild sunflowers, as well as a kind of course mint [punctata?] I notice that for the first time in 3 years, there are no bumble bees. Normally they would be all over that mint, the minute it opened up. And I recall that they are very territorial about it as well. But there were none. There were also no hornets or wasps on those plants either. I did see some little blue bees, leaf cutter bees, and a sunflower bee [svastra obliqua], but zero bumble bees.

I did note that the area appears to be taken over by fire ants. And I wonder if perhaps the combination of bad weather, lack of forage and invading ants, didn't squeeze them out of that area.

Normally the bees would be so thick on this patch of flowers that I will only use my zoom function to take pictures of bees that are not on the flowers directly by the road. I barely saw any bees going all the way back to the tree line.

Perhaps it isn't the weather, perhaps someone sprayed something.

Finally! Some rain! A completely unexpected, but most welcome surprise.