Is this the nursery rhyme you were thinking of?
https://www.lyricsondemand.com/miscellaneouslyrics/childsongslyrics/teninabedlyrics.html
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My sister-in-law and her husband are on another envy-inspiring trip this month.
They gave me permission to share this one they spotted while driving about. The White Storks apparently build a lot of nests on power transmission towers, but I had no idea how many per tower! This one looked especially crowded. There must be some serious worries and plans to control this buildup before it becomes a major maintenance challenge.
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Oilbirds can echolocate. Theyāre basically bats, eating insects, hunt at night, preform echolocation and nest in caves.
Nectar feeding insects can sense flowerās electrical fields, and use it to tell whether the flower has already been visited.
Nematodes use electricity to fly (sort of)
Ze Franks video for those who need to know what Iām talking about : True Facts: Electric Nematodes and Flying Spiders
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This was a surprise to me (posted in the iSpot forum):
Rheas: The Invasive Giants Reshaping Europeās Farmland (Documentary, 2021)
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When you look at the phylogenetic tree of all eukaryotic life it really shows how close animals and fungi are. The red circle is where the two groups diverge.
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That Arisaema triphyllum (aka Jack in the pulpit) plants are dioecious and they tend to change sex as they get larger (aka Jill in the pulpit!).
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Beavers have even more of a positive impact on their environment than previously suspected.
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So Iāve been interested in vermicomposting, which is using worms to convert organic waste to a soil enrichment in place of or in addition to other composting methods. The worm castings (worm poop) is the final product, and should provide good, all natural, slow release fertilizer.
However, I donāt like the idea of using non native species for anything. Why risk being the cause of the next invasive species? So I did a quick google for worms native to Indiana and of course I find that pretty much all worms are non native. It seems like European night crawlers arenāt so bad, and are the ones that actually provide the soil benefits that we usually think worms do, like soil aeration and creating the nutrient filled castings, but there are loads of destructive invasives.
The current big ones from my limited research are Hammerhead and Asian Jumping worms. They rapidly reproduce, deplete the top soil of organic matter, and their castings are devoid of useable nutrients. Itās like they were made to destroy our native ecology.
How do you fight invasive worms? I guess just burn the whole surface of the Earth and start over?
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Have you considered Black Soldier Flies?
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This would be all indoors. Ideally in a heated garage if I can ever get one built, but might have to start in the house. So It has to be something that will be contained easily.
Iāve read that if done properly, there should be little or no smell, so I think it would be a reasonable idea. I just donāt want to be responsible for spreading invasive species in the process.
We do not have fully enclosed garages per se here and we certainly do not have heating systems, so I am afraid I have zero advice @mikeschinlaub .
But in a similar query I remember someone recommended contacting an extension service or university as a resource. Is there one with a program near you?
I donāt know. Iām continuing to do research when I have time, and Iām not focusing on all the other things on my mind, or working on other stuff.
But this is starting to diverge a bit much from the thread topic.
To bring it back on topic, this week I learned that most worms in the U.S. are non native. Most native species were killed off in the last ice age.
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Yes! Beavers are among my favorite ecological engineers. Many know of Smokey Bear - mascot of the U.S. Forest Serviceās wildfire prevention campaign - but I think Smokey Beaver should get a little more credit.
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Today I learned about winter crane flies. They are really cool and I didnāt know they existed until today when I saw a bunch of them in the woods. I was wondering what they ate but learned that they donāt eat anything as adults because they donāt have functioning mouth parts. As larvae, they eat decaying organic matter. I thought it was a mosquito at first and was so confused! Theyāre so cute!
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If they donāt eat as adults, then how long do they live after metamorphosing (I think thatās the right word) from a larva? Do they just change form for a quick mating and then die?
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Yep! I think I read their lifespan is just a week or two and they use the energy that they gained as larvae. As adults their main goal is to mate and reproduce.
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This week, I finally figured out the differences between each genus of goatsucker here in the US. Iām still not great with them, but they finally look different to me at least!
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Squirrels will eat baby birds. I read about this in āThe Inner Life of Animalsā by Peter Wohlleben
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