Homer Lake Wetland Blog

Common Watersnake at the Homer Lake Wetland, May 26, 2021 As I make my way along the edge of the wetland pond, there is a familiar undulating motion in the emergent vegetation ahead of me. Then a pause. I shift my position for a better vantage point and I see a familiar pattern of beige and dark brown. I've disturbed a common watersnake  (Nerodia sipedon) in the midst of its search for breakfast. After I've had a look, it speeds off through the vegetation, often disappearing underwater not to be seen again that day. Common Misunderstanding 1 : "Any snake you see in the water must be a water moccasin (or cottonmouth -- two different names for the same snake, Agkistrodon piscivoris)."  Not true: there are numerous species of aquatic snakes (and in fact all snakes can swim when needed). In many places and certainly here in Central Illinois, the common watersnake is by far the most common snake you will see in the water in an aquatic environment. We do have wat...

Male Spangled Skimmer at the Homer Lake Wetland, June 14, 2021 First, I apologize to those who thought they were going to be reading about a much-anticipated sequel to a movie about a superhero in glittery tights. Spangled skimmers (Libellula cyanea) are not superheroes per se, but like all dragonflies, they are cool in their own rights. In my fifth year of documenting dragonfly diversity at the Champaign County Forest Preserves, last year on June 12th I saw  at the Homer Lake Wetland  two spangled skimmers . That was a new county record for Champaign County. Those two were the only ones I saw last year. This year on June 14th I was excited to see a half dozen male spangled skimmers hanging out at the wetland, guarding territories in hopes that the females would be stopping by. A first conclusion would be that the two I saw last year, a male and a female, met up at some point and successfully produced a new generation at the wetland. However, bear in m...

  Water is Back — same spot as the picture in yesterday’s post (facing the opposite direction) Overnight there was about 3/4 inch of rain in the Homer area and the very same path through the wetland I posted a picture of yesterday showing only deep footprints in thick mud is now again covered in water. Amazing what a good rain will do, and good news for the many tadpoles yet to transform into frogs... Also apparently good news for the toad population. After many weeks— probably a month or more of silence of the toads, American toads were calling again late this afternoon apparently quite encouraged by the additional rainfall. The gray treefrogs were also calling loudly from the trees surrounding the wetland. I haven’t heard from them in a quite a while either. I am wondering since these two species come special to the wetland just to breed and otherwise live away from it, if they are especially encouraged to sing when there is a good rain? I will try to keep my eyes open for new to...

Gray Treefrog Tadpole, Homer Lake Wetland, June 17, 2021 Let me just get this out of the way and say, "Wow! I don't recall ever coming across such beautiful tadpoles before!" This is an eastern gray treefrog tadpole (Hyla versicolor). The only way to know that it's an eastern gray tree frog and not a Cope's gray treefrog is by the calls that the frogs make (or by chromosomal differences, which I'm not equipped to look at!)  I've only ever heard the eastern gray treefrogs at the wetland.  This guy, and others I saw yesterday were similarly sized, was about 38mm (about an inch and a half) in length. That's not bad considering that the first I heard gray treefrogs calling near the wetland this year was April 9th, and those were from the trees surrounding the wetland. The first I noted hearing the eastern gray treefrogs calling from the water's edge was on April 30th.  Gray treefrog eggs are said to be from 4mm to 8mm in diameter, so 38mm in leng...

  Walking through the wetland Tuesday morning (6/15) a little before 8am I was surprised to find three meadowhawks still early in the process of emerging as dragonflies (the process is known as "eclosion" or "eclosure") since normally this seems to take place in earlier morning hours.  I grabbed my tripod and began capturing some of the process. The first emerging dragonfly I began videoing sadly met an unfortunate end. After about an hour of videoing I saw that it was making no progress and turned my camera on the dragonfly above. Later in reviewing the video of the first dragonfly, the one that failed to emerge, I saw that it started well but then was attacked by ants which apparently effectively neutralized it and it died in process! The video above has a happier ending. It is a 29 second video showing a series of 5 second excerpts taken over the course of a little more than two and half hours. This captures the gradual development of its coloration as the exosk...

Shed Exoskeleton of a Six-Spotted Fishing Spider Dangling in the Breeze, June 15, 2021 You may recall the six-spotted fishing spider  (and to any who were trying to forget, my apologies). Spiders, like other arachnids and like crustaceans and insects, have exoskeletons which support and protect their bodies and to which their muscles attach. Once an exoskeleton has hardened, however, it does not allow for growth, so all of these creatures (in addition to reptiles who run into the same limitations with scales) have to shed their exoskeletons periodically in order to grow larger. Because the process of shedding and then the period of time while the new exoskeleton is hardening leaves them quite vulnerable, I'm guessing that the fishing spiders do this at night. When I walk through the wetland in the early morning hours, I often see these shed spider exoskeletons attached to wetland plants. Spiders, of course, have the luxury of attaching themselves to the plants with t...

Adult Water Mite, Homer Lake Wetland April 22, 2021 Although the title says "the water mite," there are actually something like 5000 species of water mites (out of at least 48,000 species of mites worldwide). It may be comforting to know though that only about 1500 of the aquatic species live in North America. Or perhaps not. In the photo above you can see a water mite on the underside of the leaf toward the top right. If you think it looks like a spider, you're right. Mites, like ticks by the way, are arachnids as are spiders. The most notable similarities are the two-part bodies (as opposed to three parts in insects) and eight legs (as opposed to six in insects, though apparently while in their larval stage, mites also have six... just to keep things interesting). Mites survive the drying of the wetland and winter in the egg stage of life. When the wetland is wet again, the eggs hatch and they undergo multiple life stages... and livelihoods. In one of those life stages,...

Newly Emerged Meadowhawk, June 8, 2021, 5:02am Dragonflies lead a double life. The majority of a dragonfly's life is spent underwater as a voracious predator developing to the point where it is ready to come out of the water and emerge as the wonder of the air that we are more familiar with. Meadowhawks are emerging now at the wetland pond. The aquatic naiads crawl out on plant stems in the very early morning hours, secure their grip on the plant, their exoskeleton splits open in the back and out comes the dragonfly that has been forming inside.  This is incredible. We are all familiar with the process of complete metamorphosis as demonstrated by caterpillars turning into butterflies or moths.  They pass through an inactive phase in cocoon or chrysalis during which their bodies are totally remade. Amazing. However, in the case of dragonflies, which undergo "incomplete metamorphosis," there is no inactive phase. When the time comes while they are still livin...

Green Frog at the Homer Lake Wetland, June 4, 2021 Green frogs (Lithobates clamitans) have been calling at the wetland for several weeks now, at least as early as May 1st when I recorded the " Sunset Symphony 2 " video. Green frogs can be heard in that video sounding off sporadically with a sound rather like the plucking of a banjo string or, as I often think, the plucking of a rubber band stretched across a cigar box. These guys look rather like bullfrogs but if you recall that bullfrogs do not have dorsolateral folds  you can see the difference. Green frogs have the fold of skin that runs from behind the eye back at least to the hind legs in addition to the fold of skin that bullfrogs have that wraps around the tympanum ("eardrum"). Another thing that green frogs and bullfrogs have in common is the fact that their tadpoles take two seasons to grow into frog status so they can leave the water. This means that any breeding of either of these two species in the wetla...

Some of the Spring Peeper Metamorphs at the Homer Lake Wetland, June 4, 2021 You may recall that the Spring Peepers were among the first frogs calling at the wetland as early as March 3rd or sooner (see the post on spring peepers if you missed it). It's not too surprising then that they are also among the first froglets (or "metamorphs") to emerge from the pond. Today the vegetation around the edges of the water was teeming with spring peeper metamorphs, approximately one centimeter or half an inch in length-- about a third of their full adult size. As can be seen in some of the photos above, some still have remnants of their tadpole tails yet to be absorbed into their bodies. Nevertheless they have graduated to living on land, breathing air and hopping away when I get too close. The transformation from tadpole to frog, while something we may take for granted, is actually pretty amazing. It's not just physical changes that take place, as extensive as those are, but a...