We have a Wild Animals YouTube Channel

 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.

As always, thank you for your support!

Gray Tree Frog in Its Green Coat

 When an animal has a specific color in its name, you expect it to be that color, but that isn't always the case. Take, for example, the Gray Tree Frog. This small climbing frog can be brownish-gray, bright green or any shade in between those two extremes. In fact, its Latin name is Hyla versicolor  (or Dryophytes versicolor) which means many colored tree frog or changing color tree frog. 

Gray Tree Frog (Hyla versicolor/ Dryophytes versicolor)
from WhatLivesinMyYard.Blogspot.com
Photo: Brad Sylvester, all rights reserved

Tree frogs are climbers. They climb trees (and houses) using the sticky pads found on the end of each of their toes. It is thought that they climb to escape predators like snakes which mostly live on the ground in the range of the Gray Tree Frog. The toe pads provide a suction-cup adhesion that lets them stick to smooth surfaces. For rougher surfaces, the tree frog can still climb by wrapping its legs around to the sides or back of smaller branches and gripping. The gripping pressure is created by using its muscles to provide opposing pressure to both sides of the branch. By using both gripping pressure and suction cup adhesion, the gray tree frog is able to climb faster than it could using either one of the methods alone.

Tree frogs mate and lay eggs in the water of ponds or vernal pools. The eggs will be attached to underwater plants. They will hatch as tadpoles and live in the water until they grow legs and can live on land. Once they leave the water, they spend most of their time in trees, except when hibernating in the winter. They tend to hibernate under leaf litter or hidden under tree roots. During the active warmer months, they may hide in the deep crevices of tree bark. They are usually found in moist environments.

Gray Tree Frog with Suction Cup Toes
Photo: Brad Sylvester, all rights reserved

During a rain, they may move from place to place without fear of drying out. That's why they're most often seen on rainy evenings. The Gray Tree Frog shown in these photos was found right next to my front door on the siding of my house during a light rain when I came home after dark in early August.

The tree frog calls out by inflating its throat like a big bubble and using the released air to create a surprisingly loud trilling sound. 

Gray Tree Frog tadpoles mostly eat plant matter and detritus in the water. Once they leave the water as adults, they are insectivores. They'll eat most small insects that can be swallowed in one gulp such as ants, crickets, beetles, flies, and even small moths.

The Gray Tree Frog measures 1-2 inches long as an adult. They have a distinctly bumpy skin unlike some of the smoother frog species.

Taxonomy of the Gray Tree Frog

KingdomAnimalia

PhylumChordata

ClassAmphibia

OrderAnura

FamilyHylidae

GenusDryophytes

SpeciesDryophytes versicolor

Hairy Woodpecker (Leuconotopicus villosus) vs. Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) Identification

Hairy Woodpeckers and Downy Woodpeckers are common visitors in my yard, in New England, and throughout much of the United States. They are found as far north as Alaska and Canada and south to Central America. They primarily live in forests. They have also adapted to suburban areas as well as long as there is an abundance of trees around. like most woodpeckers, the hairy Woodpecker eats insects that it finds in the back or digs out of the wood of trees. They are also attracted to suet feeders and bird feeders containing nuts or peanuts. 

Size Difference between Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers

The Hairy Woodpecker is often seen in the same areas as the similar Downy Woodpecker. They can be difficult to tell apart at first glance. If you see them side by side, the Hairy Woodpecker is larger, measuring as much as 10 inches long to the tip of the tail. The Downy Woodpecker, on the hand, only reaches about 6.75" long. 

Beak Length Difference between Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers

The bill of the Hairy Woodpecker is also quite a bit longer than the shorter bill of the Downy Woodpecker. If the beak of the hairy Woodpecker is just about the same length as its head, while the Downy Woodpecker's beak is less than half the length of its head. In the video of the Hairy Woodpecker below, taken in my yard, you can see the length of the beak compared to the length of the head. This is perhaps an easier way to identify whether the bird is a Hairy or Downy Woodpecker when you don't have both together to compare overall size. 

Hairy Woodpecker searching for food in a birch tree.

Pecking Rhythm Difference Between Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers

Notice the rhythm and speed of the pecking in the video as well. The hairy Woodpecker tends to have a slower "drumbeat" than the Downy Woodpecker. This can be difficult to determine if you only have one of these two pecking and can't compare them directly, but the Downy Woodpecker's pecking is often so fast that you can't even count the individual beats. 

Both of these two woodpecker species are black and white with a white stripe down the middle of their back. In both species, if you see a red patch on the back of the head, then you know that it's a male bird.

Woodpecker Diet

While both are largely insectivores, they will eat nuts and other foods high in fats. They search out calorie dense foods like suet, peanut butter, or nuts when visiting backyard bird feeders. They use their sharp pointed toes to cling to vertical surfaces and will even hang upside down in order to reach food sources.  They use their tails to brace themselves against that surface to give them leverage to peck forcefully into the wood and bark of a tree.

Taxonomy of Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers

You will notice from the title of this post that these two woodpeckers are not only different species, but also different genera. Despite their very similar appearance and behaviors, they are not that closely related. You have to go all the way back to Family classification find common lineage.

Hairy Woodpecker

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Aves

Order: Piciformes

Family Picidae

Genus: leuconotopicus

Species: Leuconotpicus villosus

Downy Woodpecker

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Aves

Order: Piciformes

Family Picidae

Genus: Dryobates

Species: Dryobates pubescens

Sharp-shinned Hawk

Birds are fascinating. They are actually dinosaurs, part of the Dromaeosaur family. Of course, they have evolved and changed since the classic age of dinosaurs to become the many different birds we all know, but they are still true dinosaurs. One such dinosaur that I saw in my yard on April 18, 2022, is the Sharp-shinned Hawk. Unfortunately, I did not have time to get a picture. 

The Sharp-shinned Hawk looks much like a Cooper's hawk, but smaller. Both of these two hawks have incredible agility in flight. They can weave through the forest, among and around trees and shrubs at high speed. They have this adaptation to help them hunt. Their diet mainly consists of songbirds. The sharp-shinned hawk uses its speed and agility to chase down and catch songbirds. They will sometimes sit overlooking backyard birdfeeders waiting for a meal to fly in. 

The Cooper's hawk similarly eats other birds, but because it is larger than the Sharp-shinned hawk it can catch larger prey. In fact, several years ago I was hiking on the mountain near my house when I found a Cooper's Hawk eating a Sharp-shinned Hawk!

Taxonomy of the Sharp-shinned Hawk

Kingdom: Animalia

Phyllum: Chordata

Class: Aves

Order: Accipitriformes

Family: Accipitridae

Genus: Accipiter

Species: Accipiter striatus

Habitat of the Sharp-shinned Hawk

Variations of the Sharp-shinned hawk can be found through North and South America and the Caribbean. Those in the colder northern climates typically migrate south for the winter.

Reproduction of the Accipiter striatus

The Sharp-shinned haws lays as many as eight eggs or as few as three in a hidden nests. The eggs are about 1.5" long. They take about 30 days to hatch. After hatching the baby birds stay in the nest, protected by the mother for about 3 weeks, give our take a few days. During this time the father will continue hunting and bringing meat back to the nest. Once the babies leave the nest, they will stay nearby and still call for food from the parents, who continue to feed and protect them for about another four weeks.

Staus of the Accipiter striatus Population

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species says the Sharp-shinned Hawk is a species of Least Concern and has a growing population. Although numbers dropped in the 1960's and 1970's, they are rebounding with new environmental protections such as banning the widespread use of harmful pesticides.

Paper Wasp Nest Construction

This photo shows a paper wasp nest that has been torn open, most likely by some animal looking to eat the larvae and wasps inside. One of the most interesting things about this particular view, esssentially a cross section of the nest, is that it shows the multiple layers of construction with air spaces in between each layer. This is a very effective mean of insulation to help keep heat in the central region of the nest. Heat would be generated their by the metabolic activity of the wasps and would keep the center and especially the queen, from freezing during the cold New England winters. While I can't tell who made this nest, it was certainly a wasp of some type. Remember all hornets are wasps, but not all wasps are hornets. While we don't know the exact species, we do know how wasps make nests like this one. It is made out of paper, but the wasps also make the paper itself. They chew bits of wood and mix it with saliva to form a pulp which dries to the papery material you see here. Wasps often build their nests in old sheds or near human houses because there is often wood readyily found near the homes of people. While these types of nests are often build under the shelter of a shed roof or eaves, they can also be built on a tree branch or in a shrub. Some species, notably yellow-jackets, build them in the ground accessed by a small hole in the ground that leads down to the nest. Wasps, then, are capable of making wood-pulp paper and applying it bit by bit to around the edges to form a large pattern that eventually turns into an enclosed, multi-layer ball- shaped hive- almost as if it were being 3D printed.

We're Back- Thanks to Two New Sponsors!

 After a long hiatus, What Lives in my Yard is back! Thanks to two new sponsors, we will once again be making regular posts highlighting the wild (and domestic) animals that live in out forested yard in New Hampshire, USA. We'd like to thank www.MySylvanGardens.com who grows and sells a wide variety of houseplants from Cactus to jungle tropicals and everything in between. We'd also like to thank www.EpiphyllumsOnline.com -a premiere source for Epiphyllums, also known as Orchid Cactus plants, a true cactus that has adapted to life in the tropical forest and offers huge colorful flowers! Please check out both of these sponsors to make their support and our continued operation permanent!

Photo is copyrighted by EpiphyllumsOnline. Used with permission, all rights reserved

Starting this week, we'll once again be adding new creatures to our master list and spotlight pages. We've just received about 10 inches of fresh powdery snow so our first new addition will focus on those creatures active in this kind of weather. 

We are delighted to be back. We hope you'll be as happy with our new posts as you were with our old ones. We've amassed hundreds of thousands of page views and the site continues to draw new visitors despite having been inactive for several years. Thank you!

I Brought 1000's of Invasive Insects to Live in my Yard

We have just introduced a colony of invasive insects to our yard. While we ordinarily think of invasive species as harmful, there are actually many beneficial species that were not native to North America. Among these are honeybees.

Italian Honeybees, Apis mellifera lingustica
Photo by Brad Sylvester, may be used only with a link back
to whatlivesinmyyard.blogspot.com

That's right. There were no honeybees in North America before they were intentionally brought to Virginia around 1622. Incidentally, that's a year before the first of my ancestors (Edward Hilton, Dover, NH) reached North America, but let's stick to the topic of honeybees. Today there are many species and sub-species of honeybees in North America. All brought over either intentionally or unintentionally to help pollinate crops and to provide honey. The climate and biosphere were so suitable to the honeybee that they spread throughout the continent.


So accepted are honeybees that most think of them as native to our nation. When the population of this invasive species began plummeting in recent decades, there were widespread cries of alarm. Plainly, not all invasive species are harmful.


We purchased a three pound package of bees which included a mated queen bee. We introduced them into a hive and within 24 hours, we can already see that they are building combs on the starter frames that we placed inside the hive. The combs that the bees build are used for several purposes. Of course, we all know about honeycombs which are combs used by the bees to store honey. The queen bee will lay her eggs in combs as well. Not honey combs, but brood combs. Once the eggs are laid in the combs, they hatch into larvae. Larvae are fed and cared for by the worker bees until they pupate and emerge as adult bees. It takes about 21 days from the time the egg is laid until an adult bee emerges.


The main reason that bees make honey is because that is what they eat during the winter when fresh nectar is not available. They store it in the honey combs and then use it as food during the winter months. That means that if we take all the honey out of the hive, the colony will starve to death. So we need to be careful to leave an adequate supply of honey for the bees at the end of the season.


In the lower section of the hive, the queen will lay her eggs. At some point, moving upward from the bottom, there is a brood/honey dividing line with honey storage above and brood combs below. This divide makes it possible for the bee-keeper to remove honeycombs without disturbing the next generations of worker bees.


Quick Facts About Honeybees:



How do honeybees survive the winter? During the winter, honeybees will stay in the hive tucked into empty comb cells clustered around the center of the hive. Although they are cold-blooded like all insects, they group together to try to conserve what heat is available. They don't truly hibernate and may come out of the hive on particularly warm days. Even in the dead of winter, a knock on the side of the hive will result in a buzzing from within as the bees react to the noise.

What do honeybees eat? Honeybees eat nectar from flowers when it is available and honey during the months when flowers are not available. They also need water to drink and will sometimes be seen visiting birdbaths or a pet's water dish during the summer if other sources of fresh water are not available.

Why do honeybees swarm? Honeybees swarm when a hive gets too crowded and a second queen emerges from the hive. This is the natural way for honeybees to create new hives and reproduce. When a hive swarms, about half the bees will leave with the new young queen and the remainder will stay with the old queen. This leaves two small hives that will gradually build up their populations again. Beekeepers often discourage swarming because a depleted hive will produce less honey because it has fewer worker bees collecting nectar.

Are worker bees boys or girls? Everyone knows the queen bee is female, but few know that the worker bees are also female. Drones are males. The queen bee mates during the swarming flight, the drones that mate with her die, and the queen remains fertile for the rest of her life. The hive is ruled by the females and not just the queen. At the end of the summer as the weather turns colder, the female worker bees will drag the larger drones out of the hive to die. Because the drones are so much larger, they'd use up too much of the stored food during the winter.

What is colony collapse? Colony Collapse Disorder is the name given to the rapid disappearance of the majority of the worker bee population of a hive. Without worker bees, the entire hive dies. In recent years, colony collapse has become widespread vastly reducing the number of honeybees throughout the country. It affects both wild honeybees and those in domesticated hives. It is well documented that Colony Collapse Disorder is caused primarily by pesticides that contain nicotinoid compounds. Because these pesticides are commonly used on corn, and beekeepers feed their bees high fructose corn syrup (which carries the pesticide from the corn plant), beekeepers can lose their entire stock of hives in a single season. Wild bees pick up the pesticide directly from the flowers of treated crops. The link between pesticides and Colony Collapse Disorder was unknown for years, but is widely accepted now due to convincing evidence such as this 2012 Harvard Study.



Taxonomy of Honey Bees

Honeybee Hive with syrup feeder
Photo by Brad Sylvester, may be used only with a link back
to whatlivesinmyyard.blogspot.com

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Hymenoptera

Family: Apidae

Genus: Apis

Species: Apis mellifera

Subspecies (for Italian Honeybees): Apis mellifera lingustica