Homer Lake Wetland Blog

A Pair of Common Green Darners Laying Eggs on a Brilliant April Morning I have been missing my mark.  In the initial post in this blog I closed by saying, " It is this wonder [of the renewal of life in a wetland that is often completely dry multiple months out of the year] that I hope to capture in this blog." Yet somewhere between there and here I have strayed. Wonder is certainly a subjective experience and difficult to capture and convey; nevertheless, I sense that I've wandered off target at some point and want to aim more precisely at this essential objective. In his beautiful essay, " A Case for Wonder ," environmental science professor and author, Christopher Norment, argues that wonder is an essential and too often missing ingredient in our lives. Rather than divorce it from science he binds them inextricably together. At the same time he is uncompromising in making the case that wonder is more than science. I can only encourage you to read his essay, ev

Fragile Forktail Damselfly at the Wetland, 4/12/2021  Question 1: What's the difference between a dragonfly and a damselfly? This is a question that many people have. I created a brief video explaining the differences back in 2020, which you can view at  https://flic.kr/p/2jnAnbN . In brief though you can tell that the creature in the photo above is a damselfly because it folds its wings together above its back. Dragonflies never do this except when they have first emerged in their adult form (examples of this to follow later this season). Dragonflies at rest hold their wings straight out to the sides like airplane wings. In addition, damselflies are smaller and weaker fliers than the closely related but more robust dragonflies. Also, most dragonflies that are commonly encountered* have eyes that are so big they at least touch each other and most have eyes that meet in a long seam between them in the center of the head. As you can see in the photo above, damselflies have eyes that

  Turtles Sunning on the Only Log in the Wetland Pond, 4/14/2021 More Turtles As you can see in the photo above, the turtle population in the wetland has expanded since my first post on the painted turtle on March 25. I first saw the big turtle at the back of this photo on April 9th. The red marks at the side of her head, where her ears might be if she had external ears, make her easily identifiable as a red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans).  The three in the front of the photo you will recognize as painted turtles (Chrysemys picta), one of them probably being the one that appeared in the wetland on March 25. What about the second largest one just in front of the big red-eared slider? He is also a red-eared slider. Older sliders, and especially males, often darken with age and lose their distinctive markings becoming simply dark colored.  Compare the lack of markings on his shell with the vertical bars on the large female behind him as well. Recall from the earlier post (3/25)

American Bullfrog at the Homer Lake Wetland, 4/14/2021 Cue the theme music from Jaws. The American Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) is about the closest thing to a great white shark we are apt to find at the Homer Lake Wetland. I saw the first one of the season last week on April 14th. The American bullfrog is the largest frog in North America, growing up to 8" or so in length and up to a pound or more in weight, and will eat pretty much anything it can stuff into its huge mouth such as other frogs (including smaller bullfrogs), crustaceans, insects, fish and even birds, snakes, bats and small turtles! The bullfrog pictured above basically dared me to try anything as it watched me shooting underwater video nearby and then as I approached it for photos. Nerves of steel, it never flinched. I, however, was fairly confident I would not fit into its mouth. Besides the size, how do we know this is a bullfrog?  Remember the "dorsolateral folds" -- the ridge of skin running fr

Amphipod among Leopard Frog Eggs, 3/29/2021 The pinkish-tan creature in the photo above is an amphipod. Amphipods, like fairy shrimp , crayfish , seed shrimp (the very small creatures creating the snow globe effect in the leopard frog egg time-lapse video ) and isopods , are crustaceans. Like the seed shrimp, this guy showed up along with some leopard frog eggs I was photographing -- you always get more than you bargain for in the wetland.  Honestly, I had never heard of amphipods (or isopods, for that matter) and had to look him up. According to my research, most amphipods, commonly known as "scuds," are ocean dwellers (thousands of species!) but there are also a respectable number of species that live in freshwater.  Amphipods are detritivores, making their living on the dead plant and animal waste at the bottom of the wetland, but also possibly grazing a bit on algae. It's hard to know how the fellow above (and I don't actually know if that one is male or female) c

Pairs of American Toads surrounded by Toad Eggs, 4/6/2021 The photo above, taken on April 6th, was part of the mayhem of that day when the water in the area of the cattails was crowded with American toads -- males singing their hearts out and pushing each other around and pairs producing eggs such as in the photo above (if you haven't seen the video in the " American Toads Rule! " post, it gives an idea of the craziness of that day). Click to view the photo larger -- toad eggs show in the photo as long strings of green with little black dots lined up throughout. Estimates I’ve seen of eggs produced by a single female toad range from 2000 to 20,000. This, as you might imagine since the world is not totally overrun by American toads, is indicative of the rough life ahead for the offspring. They end up providing food for a lot of other creatures despite their defensive strategies and characteristics. The adult toad presence has been significantly subdued since April 6th.Thre

A Pair of Common Green Darners Ovipositing (Laying Eggs) in Tandem, 4/6/2021 Common Green Darners Now Reproducing Tuesday April 6 was the first day this year I observed female common green darners at the wetland, the males having arrived on March 22. The photo above shows a male (green and blue) holding onto a female as she lays eggs inside submerged plant stems. This is called the tandem position, like a tandem bicycle, and takes place before mating and in some species, as above, after mating while the male accompanies the female as she lays her eggs. This is one form of mate guarding behavior practiced by many dragonfly species. By keeping ahold of the female while she is laying eggs, the male assures that another male will not mate with her and in so doing displace his sperm.  As you can see in the photo below, he will continue to hold onto her as they fly to another location to deposit eggs. Mating is very competitive for many dragonfly species and tandem pairs like this are often 

A Pair of Blue-Winged Teals and a Sora, Homer Lake Wetland, 4/12/2021 Today was for the birds at the Homer Lake Wetland (though there is always a lot to see and I saw plenty of other things as well). For the first time today I saw a pair of blue-winged teals at the wetland. They were swimming along and foraging near the cattails as I was making my rounds around the pond and then took off. I thought I had probably seen the last of them, but shortly after they flew in again. I don't know if that means they really like the spot or if they're thinking of settling in. However, according to the Audubon field guide app on my phone, they do not usually breed in our area. The sora, visible in the photo above to the left of the two blue-winged teals and featured in the photo below, is a wading bird the really likes it in amongst the cattails. I briefly saw a sora at the wetland a week ago Saturday (4/3) so I'm wondering if it's the same one and if there might be a pair of them ne

Leopard Frog Eggs at the Homer Lake Wetland, 3/29/2021 As you can see in the photo above, leopard frogs lay their eggs in large masses. If you recall earlier posts in this blog, the spring peeper lays eggs singly and the boreal chorus frogs lay eggs in much smaller masses . These are probably northern leopard frog eggs as there was a pair of northern leopard frogs quite nearby, but it's beyond my expertise to differentiate the egg masses of different leopard frog species and as we know there are plains leopard frogs in the wetland as well. As with the boreal chorus frog egg development time-lapse video , I borrowed the eggs in the video below from the wetland with permission from the Forest Preserve District and returned all tadpoles and remaining unhatched eggs to the wetland where they came from, not far from the egg mass pictured above. The eggs were collected on Wednesday March 31. The time-lapse began about 6:00pm the same day and ended a little after noon on Saturday April 3

Plains Leopard Frog at the Homer Lake Wetland, 4/8/2021 We've already met the northern leopard frog, a new species record for Champaign County. If you were to go back to that post  and compare the photos, you might include that the two species could be distinguished by their colors, as the photo above shows a rather dark plains leopard frog vs. the very green northern leopard frog pictured there, but you'll see that the plains leopard frog in the video below is just as green as the northern leopard frogs in the earlier post. As it turns out, both species come in brown and green variations*, so color is of no use in distinguishing between them. One of the most useful visual distinctions for the plains leopard frog is the dorsolateral fold -- the flaps of raised skin that begin behind each eye and run to the back end of the frog. In the photo above if you follow that line back toward the frog's back leg you'll see that there is a break in it and where it continues after t

Giant Water Scavenger Beetle in Photo Tank, 4/7/2021 At one and a half inches long (up to 40mm), the giant water scavenger beetle (Hydrophilus triangularis) is the largest aquatic beetle in the United States. Yes, aquatic beetles. Beetles (insect order Coleoptera for those into that kind of thing) are the most diverse group of animals on the planet. By far. Numbers vary and are always changing as more species are identified, but the Scripps Institution of Oceanography as of April 2020 gave the numbers as 400,000 beetles species worldwide of which they considered 13,000 species to be aquatic (see link below). One powerful adaptation to the aquatic lifestyle you can see evidenced in the picture above is the ability to carry an air supply underwater trapped in small hairs along the underside of the body. The trapped air shows as silvery sections under the beetle. The blacker areas toward the rear of the beetle are areas it doesn't have hair to hold air. The areas of trapped air cover 

American Toads in Large Numbers, Homer Lake Wetland, 4/6/2021 American toads dominated the airwaves this afternoon, leaving no question who the pond belonged to today. The frogs that have been hanging out at the pond were still there but not very vocal this afternoon, and I even heard the beginnings of yet another species calling and saw still another species appearing, but not yet calling. Nevertheless, with their loud, prolonged trills and sheer numbers (five just in the photo above!), the American toads were ruling the afternoon.  Like the boreal chorus frogs, a couple of which were insistent in calling despite being overshadowed by the boisterous toads, and the spring peepers, American toads are visitors to the wetland. They come from the surrounding meadows and woodlands to breed and will again vanish back to where they came from. Today, though, was apparently a good day to meet up down at the pond. The video clip below focuses on one persistent fellow trilling for a mate, but you

Northern Leopard Frog at the Wetland, 3/31/2021 The handsome fellow pictured above is a northern leopard frog (Lithobates pipiens). I first heard these guys calling at the wetland on 3/25 this year. I knew they were leopard frog calls but there are multiple leopard frog species and I needed to review the calls and also wanted to check with some experts. I knew that what I was hearing were not the plains leopard frogs I've heard at the wetland in past years. There are different parts to the calls, but the most distinctive portion of the northern leopard frog call is a low prolonged snoring kind of sound. To my ears, it can also sound like the ominous creaking of a door being opened very slowly. You can hear this in the video below. It has now been confirmed by others that these are northern leopard frogs. What makes that of special interest is the fact that this is the first documented occurrence of northern leopard frogs in Champaign County.  There are records of plains leopard fro

Tonight I was at the wetland when the sun set. Although the frogs have been putting in overtime and calling during daylight hours over the past weeks, they've done so to varying degrees and in decreasing measure. In general, after sunset is the time to be there to hear them put on their best performances.  Over the past week or so, the spring peepers have been especially tentative during the daylight hours, to the point that I was beginning to think that perhaps their party was over and they had all returned to the woods. Once the sun went down tonight though, they proved me wrong. They were back in full form and once again the dominant voice. Nevertheless, the boreal chorus frogs were there as well as three species yet to be introduced in our blog. Each of these three species have begun calling just in the past week or so and each deserves a dedicated blog post to come, but allow me to introduce them briefly here in order of when I started hearing them over the past week: the nort