Many of the animals in my yard make noise. I hear them during the daytime and at night, though it's usually different animals at different times of the day. Many can be reliably identified by the sound alone.
It's helpful to learn the sounds of the local animals. Birds, insects, and amphibians are usually the ones that call out with identifiable voices. Here's a quick quiz to see if you can tell which amphibian makes this noise:
How did you do? Let me know on the video comments section. or on the comments for this page. Would you like to see more quizzes?
You may have seen the videos of the huge dragonfly swarm on the beach in Rhode Island in the news recently. That swarm was most likely the Common Green Darner species of dragonfly. This species forms huge groups for migration. They typical move down the east coast in late summer. Although it looks rather startling if you happen to be on the beach at the time, Common Green Darners are harmless. Dragonflies do not sting, and they do everything they can to avoid bumping into people. If you hold one improperly, then it can bite, but rarely does. If you are bitten by a dragonfly, it's just a pinch. No fangs, no venom, just tiny mouthparts designed to crunch the insects that form their diet. Dragon fly nymphs, however, live in the water and are voracious eaters of almost anything organic. They will bite if they can, and their bite can be painful, due to the strong mandibles.
This past week, I had a dragonfly swarm in my backyard. It was smaller than the dragonfly swarm in Rhode Island, but still pretty impressive to see up close. Of course, I filmed it and even captured one of the dragonflies to get a good species identification. While some dragonflies are easy to identify with a casual observation, others require detailed scrutiny pr even magnification to properly identify. In this week's episode of "What Lives in My Yard?" you can learn about the important parts of the dragonfly anatomy for species identification and how to tell the male from the female easily.
In the second episode episode of the new series on YouTube. What Lives in My Yard? Episode 2: Spider Fangs!gives you a close-up look at the eyes, claws, fangs, and even the beating heart of a living spider. I find a spider in my yard and capture it to put it under the digital microscope to get a close look at the fangs it uses to deliver it venom and to see why spiders are so good at climbing walls. We also add a few new moths to our Master List including one whose caterpillar has tiny barbed "hairs" that can cause a painful reaction if they come into contact with your skin. I put these under the microscope as well and let's just say the porcupine has nothing on this guy except size. Visit our new YouTube Channel to join me on my weekly quest to find and identify every animal species that lives in my yard.
Here is the first full episode of the new series on YouTube. What Lives in My Yard? Episode 1: A Trap Made of Light shows you how to make the world's easiest and safest trap. I show you what I caught on the first day. I add what I thin is the biggest rodent that lives in my yard, and teach you how I identify a moth species. Visit our new YouTube Channel to join me on my weekly quest to find and identify every animal species that lives in my yard.
WE'RE MOVING! No. I'm not changing where I live, and starting on a different yard, but I am moving this quest to find every animal species that lives in my yard to a video format on YouTube. Every week-end I'll be publishing a new full episode of "What Lives in my Yard?" In between those weekly episodes I'll put out some short videos about the upcoming episode or some other interesting tidbits. Obviously, I'll be focusing more on video of each creature I find in my yard. I'll be putting things under the digital video microscope to get a closer look, and revealing details we couldn't see before like the fangs and beating heart of a spider in Episode 2.
I'll be much more interactive on the new channel, reading every single comment and responding to as many as I can. Be sure to let me know what you think of the videos and feel free to ask any questions either on the video comment section, or on the channel's community page. Once I get more accustomed to video publishing, I hope to have some live feeds from time to time, whether it's just me answering questions, or a live camera out in the yard.
I am really looking forward to adding many new animals to the Master List of What Lives in my Yard which will be updated at the end of each episode.
Come join me on the new YouTube channel for more of the great content you've found here in a new format!
In theory, every species expends its energy to further the continuation of its own genetic code. One might assume that means not aiding other species of dissimilar genetic code, especially those that compete for the same resources in a common environment. Essentially, however, it is in the interest of every species to maximize its return on investment in terms of genetics. So, if helping a species that competes for the same resources results in a higher overall survival rate of one's own species, then helping that other species survive is an overall net win. It's basic game theory.
For the strategy to be effective, the effect of the lost resources taken by the other species has to be outweighed by the benefit gained from having the other species sharing those resources.
Let's look closer at two example species: the tufted titmouse and the black-capped chickadee. In New England, and specifically where I live in New Hampshire, the Tufted Titmouse and the black-capped chickadee share the same territory. Where you find one of these two species, you are quite likely to find the other. They will even visit bird feeders together. They generally eat the same foods and should be protective of food resources against one another, but they are not. So, it seems, the benefit to each species of having the other around must outweigh negative effects of sharing available food resources.
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: Wild Animals in Nature Videos for many more animals videos
What sort of aid might they give each other? One type of cooperation is that they both give vocal warnings when they notice a potential threat and each species responds to the threat call of the other. This gives the advantage of extra sets of eyes watching out for danger when the birds are feeding. In this video you can here the alarm calls of both the chickadee (the familiar CHICK-A-DEE-DEE=DEE call) and of the tufted titmouse whose call seems to me tonally similar to the DEE-DEE-DEE part of the chickadee alarm call. At twenty-two seconds into the video, you'll hear the tufted titmouse's alarm call. At forty seconds, the alarm call of the black-capped chickadee. Both bird alarm calls are meant to be loud and attention getting, so that birds in the nearby area can hear them and be alerted to the threat. Chickadees even change their call to indicate the severity of the threat and whether the threat is from below or from the sky. In that sense, it's a primitive language in that they are communicating specific meanings with their vocalizations.
In the case of these two bird species, it seems, the benefit of having that extra warning when there is possible danger outweighs the burden of sharing food and habitat with each other.
What are some other forms of interspecies cooperation that you've noticed? Let us know in the comments below.
In addition to this blog highlighting all the animal species that I find in my yard in New Hampshire, We also have a YouTube channel featuring Wild Animals in Nature . On that channel, we are presenting videos not only of animals that we've found in our yard, but other animals that we've encountered in our travels.
Currently, we have 31 videos posted featuring everything from Prairie Dogs, Porcupines, Moose, Eagles, and Whales. We'll be adding more on a regular basis. Subscribers who click the Notifications Tab when subscribing will get a YouTube alert when New Animal Videos as posted to our channel. When relevant, we'll include links or embedded videos on the pages of this blog to videos we've taken of the specific animal found in our yard. We're also going to try to create complete video entries with all the information about the specific animal as you'd find on this blog. That's still a work in progress at this point, but here's an early example featuring information the Great Egret (Ardea alba) which as it turns out isn't really an Egret at all! Turn on sound or Closed Captions for information about this magnificent bird.
We also encourage you to subscribe to the YouTube Channel: Wild Animals in Nature. Our goal for that channel is to get 1000 subscribers. As you can se, we have a long way to go, but every new subscriber helps. If that channel becomes as popular as this blog, we should have no problem.
YouTube channel subscriptions are free and can be anonymous depending in your own account settings.
Our intent with the YouTube Channel isn't to replace this blog, but to augment it with video content and to provide video content of animals that may not be found in our yard as well. We encourage you to leave comments on the videos to let us know which ones you like and why.
