All in Wildlife Watching
The spring bird migration is underway, and warblers are heading north from their wintering grounds in the southern United States, Central America and South America. There are more than 100 warbler species in the world, and more than 50 of them can be found right here in North America.
If you have milkweed plants in your garden for the benefit of monarch butterflies, good job! Monarchs need milkweed as a host plant where they can lay their eggs. Monarch caterpillars feed exclusively on milkweed plants, including their close milkweed relatives.
Most people in the United States are very familiar with the American robin. This bird can be found from coast to coast and in every state in the contiguous USA, and they breed as far north as Alaska and some of the extreme northern fringes of Canada.
When it comes to butterflies that are fast “on-the-wing”, skippers are near always near the top of the list. These speedsters tend to fly in an erratic, darting motion that can really make a person dizzy if you try to follow them.
Yellow-rumped warblers are fairly large when compared to other warblers, since they have a wingspan of up to nine inches. But, of course, they are small when compared to many other birds.
Salamanders are not creatures that most people see every day. In fact, I would bet that most people rarely see salamanders – and many people never see a salamander in their entire lives. But salamanders are very cool and quite interesting.
Of the many species of ducks in the USA, the blue-winged teal is one of the favorites of many people. They are quite beautiful and the males are very distinctive-looking. Males have heavily speckled flanks and chest, and their head is dark gray with a broad white stripe between their eye and their jet-black bill.
Although some of our most recognizable butterflies are brightly colored, most moths tend to be a muted brown or gray color. One exception is the Southern Emerald moth. This interesting little moth is a fairly bright green color, and green is a color that is somewhat unexpected when talking about moths (or butterflies).
Visitors to our Gulf coast states, like Florida, Texas and Louisiana – just to name a few – are certainly familiar with the brown pelican. Many brown pelicans are year-round residents along the salty shores of these states, but these pelicans also live along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as well.
Anyone who digs around in the dirt or leaf litter – or who has lifted a rotting log to see what is under it – has probably seen one or more species of millipedes. Millipedes are those creepy, crawly, many-legged creatures that usually scurry away as soon as you uncover them.
Song Sparrows are one of many “little brown birds” that can be found throughout most of North America, but they can be fairly easy to identify once you know what to look for. Like most sparrows, they are small and mostly brown in color.
One of the small lizards native to the southeastern United States is the Green Anole. This lizard prefers to live in and around trees, although it is often seen scurrying along the ground in search of insects to eat.
