PrincetonNatureNotes on TV: An Interview on Storyline about Periodical Cicadas

I was delighted to be interviewed by Princeton TV for their weekly Storyline series. They call this segment about cicadas "The Great Awakening." Patricia Trenchak hosts the series, and George McCollough did the filming/editing.

In addition to the Storyline series, a scroll down the screen at PrincetonTV.org brings up Donna Liu's video called "Princeton's Water Story," which tells where Princeton's drinking water comes from; a League of Women Voters video of a primary candidates' forum--useful for prepping to vote this coming Tuesday--a Riverwatch series that gives an update on the decline in the population of red knots--an amazing bird that migrates from patagonian Argentina up to the arctic each year, with a very important stopoff for refueling in NJ--and other timely matters. 

Storyline The Great Awakening from Princeton TV on Vimeo.

17 Year Cicadas Rise to the Occasion

It's a good thing the lawnmower refused to start on Monday, because on Tuesday morning, carrying our aging dog down the patio steps to the backyard, I saw that the 17 year cicadas had emerged overnight, and had used the long grass stems as a perch upon which to molt. 

They clung to the stems motionless, their new exoskeletons hardening, their wings drying in the morning sun. Were those brand new red eyes looking at me, or at everything all at once? Beside them was the empty shell of their former selves--the nymphs that had lived the past 17 years underground in patient immaturity, chowing down on tree roots. 

The night before, my daughter had heard the rustlings of leaves as she sat on the front steps. As dusk turned to dark, the million Magicicada march to adulthood had begun.

The immature nymphs had been preparing for this moment for some time, plotting their upward mobility, each having dug a tunnel to the surface. We had encountered them for weeks prior, slicing through their tunnels while digging holes, exposing their excavations while moving wood. I imagined them all stationed some distance down their tunnels, facing up, sensing the temperature of the air above them and the ground around them, ready to respond with fascinating unanimity to a cue only they could feel. 

I decided to bone up on them. What was wikipedia like 17 years ago? That which once was ridiculed, like "made in Japan" or "made in China," has become the information equivalent of what Deep Blue became in chess. Miraculously, it has evolved into a remarkably accurate and thorough source of information, encyclopedic, as it 'twere. I was sure people would find a way to mess it up. But no. Great to be wrong sometimes. Could this capacity to filter out the worst inclinations of humanity be applied to other areas of the internet?

Scrolling down through the wikipedia page on "periodical" cicadas, my simplistic assumption that 17 year cicadas emerge everywhere in the same year was blown out of the water. There are many different "broods" in the U.S., each with a different timing. In any given year, there's a brood of 17 or 13 year cicadas emerging somewhere. Virginia has seven different broods. New Jersey has three. Princeton's cicadas are part of the "great eastern brood," which extends from New York down to Georgia and out to Illinois. Is it called great because the brood extends over such a large geographic area, or simply because Princeton is included? We don't know. 

One thing the wikipedia entry doesn't explain is why I would have documented a considerable emergence of periodical cicadas in Princeton in May of 2017. The closest emergence in the wikipedia chart for that year was in North Carolina.

Can we eat them? I love this short article in the Smithsonian, which gives tips for gathering and cooking. I didn't take it personally when the article states that "Females are preferable for their protein-filled abdomens, while males offer little substance." The author of the article, someone named Twilight, must have enjoyed crafting sentences like "Marinating live bugs in Worcestershire sauce also helps weed out guys." It got me to wondering if I, too, would collapse if slow-cooked in vinegar, while the ladies all around me grew more tender by the minute.

One thing's for sure, this will be the most photographed generation of 17 year cicadas ever. For the next month or two, while their bus-with-wings bodies fill the air outside, they'll also be zipping around in posts, texts and tweets.

There's lots to read about why their periodicity (13 or 17 years) is in prime numbers. And why kill so much time underground before emerging en masse? It certainly makes it hard for predators like cicada killer wasps to expand their numbers sufficiently to take advantage of the sudden abundance of prey. Kill time or be killed--that's the logic.

And very interesting to read that moles do well the year prior to the emergence, as the cicada nymphs grow in size in preparation for their coming out party. Might the many moles feasting on growing cicada nymphs underground have had something to do with all the digging up of lawns by foxes, skunks, and raccoons reported last fall?

Trees are going to take a hit, as the female cicadas start cutting into twigs to lay their eggs. I remember seeing twigs littering the ground seventeen years ago, leaves still green, particularly under oaks. And I remember wondering what kind of world those cicadas would find when they next emerged, given the radical changes in climate we've set in motion. Thus far, not so much change in New Jersey. We've been lucky so far. I worry, though, as the mass combustion continues, and our deceptively shallow atmosphere fills with the invisible, transformative gases--the exhalations of an economy at odds with the nature we depend upon. More personally, it didn't even occur to me, seventeen years ago, to wonder if I'd be around for the next emergence. Now, that distant rendezvous is harder to take for granted. Cicadas aren't the only species playing a numbers game. It would feel better, this personal passing of years, if we weren't taking many of the glories of nature down with us. Whatever Happened to Forever is a one minute play I wrote that deals with this, at 8:49 in this video. 

This awareness of future endings stirred me to live this moment in cicada history more intensely. Eating dinner on the patio, I became aware of a prickly sensation on my legs. Normally, I would have brushed them off. Instead, wishing to experience their emergence fully, I let them climb. People have given me various nicknames over the years--"plantas", "the plant man"--and it's starting to look like even the insect world thinks I'm a tree. 

At one point, around the time I was polishing off my last shish kabob, I had six of them climbing the mountain of me. They had trouble with my hair, with most falling off before reaching the deceptive summit of my knee. But one was successful in making a nearly full ascent, climbing up to my shoulder, then ascending my neck and cheek. Only my sideburn and hairline proved unsurmountable, at which point it fell off, only to begin the climb again. 

After dark, I went out back to have another look at the lawn. A few more had climbed the grassblades. As they emerged from their shells, they showed two black spots just above the eyes, like dark eyebrows. But the unmowed lawn proved not to be the really big show.

Things really got interesting when I happened to look among the perennials. This purple coneflower looked like a Christmas tree with cicada ornaments, in all phases of metamorphosis. 

There's a bit of acrobatics to their molting. They do a slowmo backflip out of the shell, then bend up and grab their old skin, clinging to the shell of their former selves as they pull the rest of their abdomen out to hang free. Then it's a matter of unfolding and slowly expanding the wings, which look like little nubbins at first. 

A lot can go wrong in this stage. Some had wings that didn't grow out right, with one or the other being shorter and misshapened. 

When you google the cicadas as food, a study comes up warning that cicadas can accumulate a lot of things during their 17 years of underground munching, one of them being mercury. I don't know if it's a big concern. Many of our foods have traces of mercury. But it's worth wondering whether deformations in cicadas during molting is increasing as we continue to dig chemicals out of the earth and spread them around.

Another cicada had the bad luck to attract one of the slugs that was also seen climbing up foliage last night.

Many were having trouble finding a good place to climb. One even hitchhiked into my room and tried to climb into this blog post.

By morning, the cicada ornaments on the purple coneflower "tree" had darkened. Their wings and exoskeletons will slowly harden over the next few days. Though the coming din may grow tiring, it's still pleasurable to read that the adult males gather in something akin to a men's choir to sing to the females. Examples of nature's abundance, more rare now, are stunning to behold. We're in the midst of one now. 

A Bee Tree in Herrontown Woods

 On April 12, I received an email from Jenny Ludmer saying she'd found a bee tree in Herrontown Woods. Jenny does a lot of good work locally at Sustainable Princeton, and she and her daughter have also helped out at our Princeton Botanical Art Garden, creating an educational display of wildlife bones on the rootball of an upturned tree. A bee tree, she explained, is a tree in which honeybees have a nest. This one is in 

an old tree just a few paces from the Green trail (about halfway from the Red and Yellow trails). The entrance to the honey bee nest is about 40 feet up in the tree and facing away from the trail.

She felt it safe to disclose the location, since it's so high up. My ambivalence about disclosing the location came from a post I had written last year around this time about having witnessed a swarm of honeybees in that same area of the preserve. I was told that the day after I posted, someone wearing a bee suit had come to Herrontown Woods and made off with the swarm! That was not exactly my intention.

With Jenny's email came some great photos showing bees already active in the nest. I'll quote extensively from her email, and then add a few things I've learned since.

I first discovered that honey bees live in trees about a year ago when I spotted a swarm in that very spot. Knowing that swarms never travel too far from the hive, I wondered how it got to the middle of Herrontown Woods. After reading several of Thomas Seeley's books and taking a class from Michael Thiele of Apis Arborea, I learned that not only do honey bees live in forest trees, they thrive in them. 

Yes, across the country, honey bees are suffering. Mites and numerous other calamities plague honey bees and make beekeeping a costly and depressing endeavor. Wild honey bees, on the other hand, are doing things just as nature intended. Instead of living low to the ground in thin-walled hive boxes, wild honey bees are nestled high in big trees, surrounded by thick trunk walls which protect them from temperature extremes. Unlike in traditional smooth hive boxes, honey bees cover the rough interior of the tree cavity with propolis, a sticky anti-fungal and antibacterial substance which helps create a healthier microenvironment for the bees. Furthermore, while traditional beekeepers maximize the size of their hives in an effort to harvest extreme amounts of honey, wild honey bees actively limit the size of their nest to about 40 liters and swarm frequently to spawn new generations and help prevent any large infestations of mites. Perhaps more importantly, no beekeeper decides the genetic line of these wild bees and there's no moving them around the country as farmers see fit. Nature and evolution ensure that the healthiest bees thrive precisely in the location where they were born.

So while traditional beekeepers claim the only way to keep honey bees alive is to medicate and artificially feed them, nature has a different story to tell. I hope all beekeepers get to learn from Thomas Seeley and Michael Thiele. 

Jenny's email led me to learn more about what honeybees experience in the early spring. In her photo here of the nest opening, you can see a bee exiting. The red flowers in the photo are red maple, whose flowers--early and abundant--are an important source of sustenance for bees.

Through a beautiful description of early spring activity in a bee hive, I quickly gained an appreciation for how risky early spring is for honeybees, and how important early sources of nectar are as the bees use their last winter stores to up the temperature of the hive, raise new young, and take "cleansing flights" as the weather warms. Even when flowers like maple are available, stormy spring weather may keep the bees from foraging.

That got me taking a closer look at early flowers, like this pussy willow in the Herrontown Woods botanical garden. Didn't see any honeybees, but this fly looked different from your usual fly. 

There's a progression of native spring ephemerals in the forest, beginning around the first week of April. This bloodroot is being visited by a bee, likely a native bee. (Honeybees were introduced from Europe in colonial times.)

In some areas we still have patches of wood anemone, 

and the spicebush are numerous, though their flowers last only a few days.

Hepaticas are very rarely seen. 

The far more numerous spring beauties would be worth taking a close look at for visits from honeybees.

One of Jenny's photos is of a honeybee taking a drink amidst the leaf litter on the forest floor. 

Here is a description of one of Thomas Seeley's books. Thanks to Jenny for letting us know about one of Herrontown Woods' hidden denizens.

Honeybee Democracy--a book

Honeybees make decisions collectively — and democratically. Every year, faced with the life-or-death problem of choosing and traveling to a new home, honeybees stake everything on a process that includes collective fact-finding, vigorous debate, and consensus building. In fact, as world-renowned animal behaviorist Thomas Seeley reveals, these incredible insects have much to teach us when it comes to collective wisdom and effective decision making. 

Diggings in the Lawn

Earlier in the fall my friend Gail reported that her backyard was getting torn up this year--something that had never happened before. One interesting  clue as to why this was happening now and not before was the death of three ash trees just across the fenceline in the neighbor's yard. This year, multiple experiences have made clear for me the dramatic impact active trees have on soil moisture. Trails at Herrontown Woods dried up as soon as the trees and shrubs leafed out and began drawing moisture from the ground. The death of many ash trees in Princeton is changing soil conditions, allowing sun to warm the ground and water from rains to remain in the soil longer. The dead tree roots are also a food source for underground organisms. 

I claim no expertise on which animal is doing the damage, nor on how to stop them. Here's an organic approach. The internet puts the blame mostly on raccoons and foxes, as they search for grubs and earthworms. Both have upped their game in Princeton in recent years. That, along with heavier rains, warmer weather, and the loss of trees could be leading to more digging. Skunks also dig, but are more precise in their digging, making smaller holes that limit damage to the lawn. The photo below is from another homeowner's lawn near my house. This damage was noticed only a couple weeks ago, late in the fall. 

A Monarch Butterfly Status Report

Around mid-summer, I begin wondering how the monarchs are doing. Last summer, in 2019, they were more numerous than usual in the Princeton area, and as I googled for news of their numbers in 2020, it was with the expectation that their population was on the upswing. Surprisingly, their overwintering numbers in the mountains west of Mexico City were down dramatically. The count comes out in March, just before they begin their journey north, and was down by half compared to the winter of 2018/19. 

The low count this past winter was due in part to less than favorable migration weather last fall. Warm weather in the north delayed migration southward, and a drought in Texas left little nectar for the monarchs as they funneled through Texas on their way to Mexico. From Princeton, that flight is about 2500 miles, powered by the liquid sunlight of nectar.

This summer, I saw one every few days. Here's a male visiting Joe Pye Weed in our backyard. 

You can tell it's a male by those two spots on the back wings. 

The monarch has a delicate look, but a powerful flight. A single beating of the wings sends it rocketing forward at unexpected speed. 

One of summer's finest moments can be spent watching a monarch navigate a garden. In our backyard, masses of variously sized wildflowers form a kind of mountain range with peaks and valleys that the monarch masterfully navigates just above. Turning on a dime, coasting, darting this way and that, the monarch's flight can seem like whimsy, or an incredibly efficient and complete survey of a garden. 

Sometimes a monarch visits every section of our garden without landing, then heads off. What was it looking for? A mate? A milkweed to lay eggs on? Clearly not nectar that other more predictable insects are busy feasting upon. Oftentimes, the monarch's motivations are an enigma.

One time this summer, I witnessed a monarch whose intent was very clear. In the "Veblen Circle" of wildflowers at the botanical garden we're creating next to the parking lot at Herrontown Woods, there's a mix of purple and common milkweeds in sufficient numbers to satisfy a monarch caterpillar's voracious appetite. Yet until this summer, I had never seen a female monarch land on one.

August 7, however, a monarch came along and perched on the side of a leaf, then bent its abdomen around and under to lay an egg on the underside. All I had was an iPhone to record the moment, and didn't dare get close enough for a good photo, lest the monarch be distracted from its mission.

Though we can witness, appreciate, and take small steps to support any monarchs that come along, our capacity to influence their destiny is limited. As Monarch Watch Director Chip Taylor explains on his highly detailed blog, "High numbers in the northeast do not translate to high overwintering numbers." In other words, we can support monarchs by planting milkweed and other wildflowers, but their fate is largely being determined by weather and land management playing out elsewhere.

A 2019 New Yorker article with a less than auspicious title, "The Vanishing Flights of the Monarch Butterfly," quotes Chip Taylor describing how a banner year in 2018 was largely due to the favorable weather the monarchs experienced at various stages in their migration. With humanity still on its climate-radicalizing fossil fuel treadmill, and massive misuse of herbicides killing milkweed in farm country, the cards are increasingly stacked against monarchs getting lucky with the weather. The "inland hurricane" that swept through Iowa in August seemed an example of the increasing extremes the monarchs face.

Still, there is the delicate, improbable power of their flight, and the promise of an egg. Nature is incredibly resilient if given a chance. There are raingardens to plant and milkweed to propagate. Common and purple milkweeds spread underground, making it easy to dig one up and start a new planting that will soon expand on its own. So much tears at the foundations of our world. Let the odds be what they may, to care and to act defines who we are. 

The best source I've found thus far for updates on monarch status, and potential for participating in a larger effort, is the Journey North website:

https://journeynorth.org/monarchs

Spotted Lanternfly in Princeton

Most people by now have heard of the spotted lanternfly, an insect native to China, Vietnam and parts of India that somehow showed up in eastern Pennsylvania in 2014. A leaf hopper with distinctive markings and colorful wings, it spread rapidly as it sucked the juices out of grape vines, orchards, and trees like Ailanthus, black walnut, maple and red oak.

Two years ago, local papers reported a sighting of spotted lanternfly in northeastern Princeton. Last year, the summer of 2019, a couple friends reported seeing it in Princeton--Mimi found a few in her backyard in western Princeton; Scott saw some in Herrontown Woods near the parking lot. 

For me, it didn't become real until I encountered this curiously tilted nymph on a butternut tree leaf near Veblen House in Herrontown Woods in early July. A Penn State Extension post describes the insect's colorful development from egg to nymph to the winged adults that emerge in late July.

For some reason, I had avoided writing about the spotted lanternfly. Maybe I was maxed out on the world's problems, and didn't really want to delve into the prospect of yet another introduced insect wreaking environmental havoc. 

Unlike the Emerald ash borer, which has gone largely unseen as it skeletonizes our vistas, quietly killing every untreated ash tree in Princeton, 

the spotted lanternfly sounded poised to make a highly visible and messy invasion. The PA Dept. of Agriculture published a pdf with graphic photos showing mildewed foliage and tree trunks covered with the adult insects. And because plant juice is very dilute, the sucking insects need to move a lot of juice through their bodies to get the nutrition they need. That means that both nymphs and adults expel large amounts of "honeydew", which drops down from the trees and vines, and coats foliage on the ground with sugary liquid, promoting the growth of mold. Their egg cases look like mud, affixed to trees or cars or most anything. It sounded like our habitat restorations and garden beautifications would be reduced to a tattered, moldy mess.

Below are compiled some research and experiences with spotted lanternfly this past weekend at Herrontown Woods. 

Ailanthus--the Spotted Lanternfly's favorite food

Turns out that the spotted lanternfly has a strong preference for sucking the juices of Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima). Native to China, Ailanthus is fairly common in Princeton and can be invasive, forming clones and sprouting aggressively from its roots if cut down. A stand of Ailanthus can be used for trapping the spotted lanternfly. Penn State extension offers tips for homeowners on this. 

At the Herrontown Woods botanical garden, next to the parking lot, we have an Ailanthus growing, and sure enough, some adult lanternflies were found clinging to its bark.

Looking up, the Ailanthus leaves appear to be getting eaten, though the lanternflies are said only to suck from the trunk and the stems, not the thinner tissue of the leaves themselves. 

In a sense, the preference for Ailanthus is good news. An invasive tree is being attacked by a newly introduced insect from a similar region of the world. But the tree is also helping the insect expand its numbers through the summer, and toxic compounds in Ailanthus, when ingested by the lanternfly, may confer some protection from predators.

The lanternfly's honeydew is causing sooty mold to grow on the plants underneath the tree.  The NJ Dept. of Agriculture info sheet reports that the sap dripping from "weeping wounds" on tree trunks can attract stinging insects. 

Probably the best thing to do is to take down the Ailanthus, using techniques described here.

More advice for homeowners

There's an enjoyable and clever article on various tactics on the MercerMe site. For instance, the adults are very quick to jump if you try to squash them. The article says their reflexes slow down with persistent efforts, however. Will test that next time. 

Utilizing more finesse is a trap a Pennsylvania teenager came up with after watching the lanternflies climbing the trunks of trees. She ringed the tree with tin foil to channel the ascending insects into a bag, where they would die within 24 hours. Another thorough read for homeowners is at this link, including a test to see if chickens would eat them. They didn't,

but something is clearly eating them, as these wings at Herrontown Woods show. 

Longterm prognosis

Will the spotted lanternfly prove to be a longterm calamity, like the Emerald ash borer, or fade into the background as a passing problem? Will it be a lasting plague for vineyards and apple orchards? An article reports that few lanternflies were seen this year in the area of Pennsylvania where it was first discovered five years prior.  Local Princeton arborist Bob Wells is quoted in the Town Topics as saying that though vineyards and apple growers have reason for concern, for homeowners the insect "won't be much of a threat at all." I inquired on a listserve that includes land managers in Pennsylvania who have had the insect around for several years now, and got mixed responses. One observed reduced numbers one year, then a rebound the next. 

It can be hard to know if you have spotted lanternfly in your trees. My friend LisaB, who lives near Herrontown Woods, had a couple black oaks fall near her property in late July, and was surprised to find numerous SLF nymphs on the leaves that until then had been elevated 70 feet above the ground. She had seen none in her yard up to that point. Her photos show the last nymph stage (red), 

  

and a beautifully captured example of what a newly formed adult looks like. Documented in past posts on this blog, insects like cicadas, butterflies, and apparently spotted lanternflies as well, must hang down as they unfurl their new wings. If the wings brush up against any obstruction, they can easily become misshapened. 

Update, Aug. 6: Walking through Quarry Park, closer to downtown, I noticed some Ailanthus trees near Spruce Circle,  looked up at the leaves above, and saw them there as well, a few scattered adults sucking juice from the rachis of the compound leaves. Will the spotted lanternfly be background or foreground, a quiet addition or serious pest? Time will tell. 

In the meantime, it looks like removing Ailanthus trees would be the most straightforward way to limit this new arrival's numbers and impact.

Reporting: I tried reporting the Herrontown Woods and Quarry Park sightings. The email address bounced, and the telephone number is always busy. It may be that the state doesn't want to hear about sightings in counties where the insect is already present, or maybe it's so widespread by now that the information isn't helpful.

Does milkweed kill lanternflies?

On the leaves of common milkweed growing near our Ailanthus tree, I found several lanternflies belly up or immobilized, leading to speculation that the insects sucked juices from the milkweed and died from the toxins therein. Apparently, as an introduced species, they have yet to evolve an aversion to the plant.

Redbud Leaffolders and Orchids--Herrontown Woods in July

While the woods seems to slumber, July brings another wave of flowers at the Herrontown Woods botanical garden and the Veblen House grounds. Whether the number of flowers constitutes a wave or a ripple, the photography that is standing in lieu of an actual nature walk during COVID times captures something of the feel of walking the pathways.

I have seldom seen Culvers Root growing in the wild, but it is a native with a beautiful form to its flowers. You can see the flowers beginning to open at the bottom of a spike, commencing a slow progression upward that serves the pollinators well.

The mountain mint donated to us is thriving, its strong minty flavor protecting it from the deer.

Shrubby St. Johns Wort blooms for a long stretch in the summer, living up to its latin name, Hypericum prolificum. The deer leave it alone as well.

We human deer are letting a few pokeweeds grow to maturity. It has an annual stem growing from a perennial root, and can become too numerous if left unchecked. A previous post mentions the intentional or unintentional use of its berries as a dye, and an interesting tree-like relative it has down in Argentina, called the ombu.

Not sure what this soporific bumble bee was doing on a velvety leaf of wooly mullein, a dramatic nonnative weed I associate with rail lines in the midwest, but which shows up here and there in Princeton.

The drought prompted the installation of a gutter and cistern next to the roof of the kiosk at the Herrontown Woods parking lot. One rain keeps us in water for weeks, as we walk around the gardens, giving new plantings a much needed drink.

Insects have been taking advantage of the many kinds of native plants we're growing--more than 100 species thus far. Meadow rue, for instance, is a seldom encountered wildflower in Princeton, discouraged by shade and the appetites of deer. But in the botanical garden, we can grow it in a protected, sunny setting. On May 10th this year, one of the tall meadow rues was found "donating" its foliage to caterpillars of the Meadow Rue Owlet moth, Calyptra canadensis. Thus a protected setting for seldom seen plants provides habitat for specialized insect species that otherwise have slim pickings in Princeton.

Another giving was discovered a couple days ago, on a redbud tree, some of whose leaves were folded up and turning brown.

Strands of silk tether the leaves, making protective chambers within the wrappings.

Opening one up, like a clamshell, reveals some energetic caterpillars busy chowing down and leaving dark trails of frass in their wake.

The speedy caterpillars are larvae of the leaf folder moth, with the provocative latin name Fascista cercerisella. Readers will be relieved to know that the insect is not a fascist. Originally, the word meant "bundle", as in a bundle of sticks, which can be extended to bundles of people who are part of a political movement. A fascicle means a bundle of leaves or flowers, while the Fascista caterpillar bundles itself up in a folded over leaf. The "cerce" in cercerisella likely comes from the insect's preference for laying its eggs on redbud trees, Cercis canadensis.

Up the trail at Veblen House, a patch of wineberries is going uneaten. As we've been clearing the invasive growth on the Veblen House grounds, a neighbor lamented that we had removed her favorite patch of wineberries, whose fruit are one of the small rewards for those who persevere through the muggy heat of a Princeton summer. Responding to neighborhood input, we've kept a few patches of wineberries.

Few will notice that the green fringed orchids at Veblen House are in full bloom. We've caged some to protect them from the deer. Below is an enchanting closeup of the flowers, giving the impression of wood sprites.