Killfawns to Be

Never heard of a killfawn? Well, simply put, what would a baby killdeer be? Certainly nothing other than a killfawn. One of the birds present in the gravel quarries of Marblehead are killdeer, and this mom was nesting right on the bare gravel, with only a few sprigs of spiked blazing star near her nest. Aren't those eggs precious?

They'll soon hatch, and the quarries of Marblehead will be filled with killfawns.

I'll be up on Ohio's north coast three more days this upcoming week, again censusing the Lakeside Daisy. I'm starting to see them everywhere I go, today, for example, in Huron County. But they're not Lakeside Daisies, they are only dandelions. That's what happens when the image of a plant gets burned into my brain.

Tom

Endangered Species Day- Lakeside Daisy

Have you seen Ohio's rarest wildflower? The Lakeside Daisy, Tetraneuris herbacea, a federally threatened species that we have right here in Ohio, has occupied quite a bit of my time lately. I'm part of a team that is censusing this rare wildflowers population in abandoned and active quarries in Marblehead, Ohio. I'll be heading up north early tomorrow morning once again. It is quite a plant, and if you can make it to Lakeside Daisy State Nature Preserve this weekend, it should still be blooming.

For more about endangered species day, visit the National Wildlife Federation.

Here are some pictures from yesterday's short field trip to Glacier Ridge Metropark. The first shot shows what I believe to be an Autumn Meadowhawk. According to Larry Rosche in his Dragonflies of Northeast Ohio, the adults of this species fly in late summer and autumn. He has been sending out e-mails to his bug buddy e-mail group about his intent to find one of these guys in December, which I believe would be an Ohio record. Here is my shot from yesterday at Glacier Ridge. Also, here is my very much zoomed in attempt at a late November bullfrog. This is Ohio's largest frog species, and there is actually a proposal to designate this species as Ohio's official state frog. We saw five yesterday in and around the created wetlands at Glacier Ridge.

Tom