Some of the birds mentioned at the beginning of this video
Vocabulary
- Preening – a behavior in birds involving the cleaning and aligning of feathers by running the beak along them.
- Moraine -a glacially formed accumulation of rocks. They occur when a glacier stays in one place for an extended period of time and drops rocks.
- Tide pool – an isolated body of seawater found in an intertidal zone. If active, every tide brings fresh water in and then drains out. They often exist as isolated pools only at low tide.
Fun Facts
On this walk, Ranger Russ encountered a tent caterpillar colony, with a hunter wasp apparently trying to sting through the tent. Here are some fun facts about tent caterpillars!
- A female moth will deposit 150-250 eggs in a single mass, often on the south side of a cherry tree branch. Once the caterpillars hatch, the siblings will stay together as they feed and grow.
- The caterpillars work together to build their tent, with each caterpillar spinning silk to contribute to its construction. This tent serves as a home base of sorts for the caterpillars and affords some protection from predators.
- Tent caterpillar infestations are cyclical, with some years being worse than others. Although these caterpillars do a lot of damage, the trees can usually recover.
- Tent caterpillars use chemical markers, or pheromones, to communicate with each other. In this way, siblings can let one another know if they have found a particularly good branch with a lot of leaves to feed on.
- A hunter wasp will lay its eggs on a caterpillar, and then bury it. The caterpillar will serve as food for the newly hatched eggs.
