Eastern Towhees are here in the mountains of central Virginia year round. Their diet is primarily insects, seeds and berries and during the summer they tend, of course, to eat more insects. True bugs, beetles, ants, caterpillars, moths, millipedes, spiders and snails are all on the menu. But there’s something special to me, which I share with them. Those blueberries. This fellow is watching over them. Watching how they are growing. Watching and waiting for them to ripen. Just like I am. I wholeheartedly enjoy sharing the blueberries with the birds. For me, the berries mean pies, pancakes, muffins. For them it means breakfast, lunch and dinner. Glad to share.
Hosta (Hosta) can be a beautiful addition to your garden if you don’t have it already. Hostas are herbaceous perennial plants that are native to China, Japan, Korea and the Russian Far East. They produce attractive clumps of leaves each summer which are topped with blooms that are either white or lavender. But a word of warning. The Hosta is a plant that I’ll avoid. The fact that the plants are not native is one strike against them. I find a need to encourage fauna that are attracted to native plants. But the big factor that negates any chance these plants have — they are like candy to deer. Rabbits, slugs and snails also eat the leaves and roots. Rhizomes are eaten by voles but deer are really something that I don’t want to encourage. Without a doubt.
A large sparrow with a long tail. The Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) fills the edges of the woods here with their beautiful song of “Drink your teeeeaa” all day long. For me, a constant companion.
Here in Virginia these Towhees have haunting red eyes but in Florida and northern Georgia they will have light straw colored eyes.
The Eastern Towhee is a bird that is here year-round, scavenging in the undergrowth for whatever it can find. Insects, spiders, snails, berries, millipedes, all could be on the menu.
If your bird feeders are close to the understory of the woods you might be fortunate to find a Towhee under those feeders scratching about for sunflower seeds or mealworms. If they feel safe.
Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum). Quite the handsome bird. It makes me think of a Roadrunner with its very long tail and long curved bill. They’re here during their breeding season but are year round in the deeper Southeast. The feeders here at my cabin don’t tempt them, not even the suet, but they love my blueberries. Down in Florida at my Mom’s feeders they are constantly eating the suet at her feeders. Omnivores, Brown Thrashers eat insects, berries, seeds and nuts, earthworms, snails, and an occasional lizard or frog.
Egg mass of Red-spotted Newt, resembling a wad of cotton
I have an adult Red-spotted Newt, Notophthalmus viridescens, in my small pond. Doing research, and learning about this newt has been a fun journey.
A type of salamander, they start out their life in a pond, marsh, stream or small lake, as an egg mass that resembles a big wad of cotton, attached to a piece of underwater vegetation.
Egg mass of Red-spotted Newt
The Red-spotted Newt,lays her eggs, one at a time, and the eggs, often numbering a few hundred, will hatch in a month or two, depending on the water temperature. When the eggs hatch they become larvae with feathery gills and a coloring much like the adult Red-spotted Newt.
Juvenile stage of the Red-spotted Newt, land based, Red Eft
The larvae live in their watery environment for 2 to 5 months eating aquatic insects and small snails.
At the end of summer, larvae will leave the water, shedding their gills, developing sac-like lungs, and begin another stage in their lives, as Red Efts, remarkably beautiful orange beings with brighter orange spots, surrounded with black circles.
I enjoy finding Red Efts, while I’m out in the woods. They are slow moving critters, appearing to be willing models for my photography.
They spend as many as 4 years as terrestrial creatures. During this stage the Red Efts will hibernate during the winter under a log or rock. During the summer in dry weather they may seek shelter under those same logs or rocks to keep their skin moist, coming out during rainy weather.
An adult Red-spotted Newt in his underwater world
For the next couple years, the Red Eft will become darker, and develop a longer, blade-like tail. He will find a body of water to enter, where he will live for the rest of his life as an aquatic adult. In this stage he will eat insects, frog and fish eggs, crustaceans, and worms.
Notice the long tail of the adult Red-spotted Newt in my pond
Red-spotted Newts can live to be 12 to 15 years old. Quite a long life for a critter so small, generally growing as an adult to 5 inches long.
It took me a few years, first to find that I had a newt in my pond. And then to have the information click in my brain, to realize that this newt, and the Red Eft, and all the cottony masses of eggs were all the same species.
There have been many, many snails this summer. I suppose their number is not unusual. I not only see occupied shells with their slow moving residents, but also abandoned shells bleached white, standing out against the dark soil looking like a mushroom, or a piece of quartz waiting to be found. I have a collection of those bleached shells sitting under my computer monitor reminding me of the natural world that is just outside my door. All sizes, ranging from 1.125 to a tiny .5 inch. Sixteen of them, looking up at me in their swirled arrangement.
Abandoned Land Snail Shell
Tiny Teeth
These snails eat all sorts of things — fruit, leaves, bark, algae, limestone. Wow! Imagine that, they eat limestone! They manage to eat these things with their “radula”, which is a rasplike structure with tiny teeth that is used for scraping food particles off a surface. In West Virginia Wildlife Magazine it says, “If you place a land snail gently on your hand it may “taste” your skin, a harmless sensation that feels like a cat’s licking.” I don’t think I’ll try that! I’ll just watch, and take photographs!
