Comments on: Cotton candy for blackbirds

By: Get out and look! « the Marvelous in nature

Get out and look! « the Marvelous in nature — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:52:25 +0000

[...] experiment she’d begun back in the winter. She had read my post back in the winter about the cattail caterpillar, the lavae of a moth that makes cattail heads go all fluffy during the winter. She had also noticed [...]

By: Susannah

Susannah — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:48:37 +0000

It’s been a long time. But I’ve confirmed the identity of the cattail caterpillars I found. The post on it is here.

By: themarvelousinnature

themarvelousinnature — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:54:35 +0000

Glad you enjoyed it, Shelley! I was fascinated to discover this as well. It’s amazing that you can live someplace your whole life (mine’s admittedly not that long yet, but still..) and still find new things to learn about it.

By: Shelley

Shelley — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:23:54 +0000

This is fascinating. I live in a very swampy area of Ontario, and see blackbirds on the cattails all the time…I never realized what they were looking for.

Thank you for the educaitonal segment of my day!

By: When Fancy is Turning « Voice of the Turtle

When Fancy is Turning « Voice of the Turtle — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:51:23 +0000

[...] Blackbirds, for example, are returning to the still-frozen ponds. (And now, thanks to the March 12 and March 24 entries of The Marvellous in Nature, I know what they’re [...]

By: themarvelousinnature

themarvelousinnature — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:13:07 +0000

Thanks Mary - hope you find the book as interesting as I did!

By: Modulator

Modulator — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:18:41 +0000

Friday Ark #182

We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….? Visit all the …

By: mary

mary — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:30:50 +0000

I’m impressed with your investigative technique. Good Job!

Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity - I could use this reference. I’ll check it out.

Thanks!

By: themarvelousinnature

themarvelousinnature — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:05:52 +0000

Hugh and Susannah, from what I understand based on my reading, there are actually a few species of critter that have close associations with cattail, so one of these guys might be out your way. Another moth is Henry’s Marsh Moth (Simyra henrici/Simyra insularis), which ranges coast to coast. Its young are also called Cattail Caterpillars, but I’m not sure if they might eat leaves instead.

Hugh, I actually don’t know if the species is introduced or not, but I know that there’s many moth species that are found naturally on both continents. A British mothing friend of mine regularly refers to British guides and is familiar with many species also from there. Of course, there’s probably also a lot of species that came to North America with shipments of various stuff!

And thanks for the compliments, Beth! Good luck to everyone, hope your cattail heads contain more than mine did!

By: Susannah

Susannah — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:22:27 +0000

Wow! Next time, I’m bringing my cattail fluff home, rather than looking it over and leaving it behind.

I wonder what I’ll find on this side of the continent. The Shy Cosmet doesn’t occur here, but we have Red-wing blackbirds in all the marshes, on the cattails. So we may have our own local variety of cattail fluff bugs.