The
purpose of this feature is to give scout leaders, educators and naturalists an
idea of some of the natural events coming up each month. We will try to
cover a variety of natural events ranging from sky events to calling periods of
amphibians, bird and mammal watching tips, prominent wildflowers and
anything else that comes to mind. We will also note prominent
constellations appearing over the eastern horizon at mid-evening each month for
our area for those who would like to learn the constellations. If you have
suggestions for other types of natural information you would like to see added
to this calendar, let us know!
Though we link book references to nationwide sources, we encourage you to
support your local book store whenever possible.
Notes From April 2022
Although spring officially begins around March 20th, it seems to come
slowly to the top of Lookout Mountain. Several weeks go by after the first green leaves
appear on the trees at the base of the mountain before the trees at my
house in Cloudland begin leafing out. When I drive to Chattanooga, I take
Highway 193, which runs northeast along the valley on the south side of
the mountain. Each day the bright green foliage appears a little higher on
the mountain, contrasting with the somber gray-browns of the leafless
trees higher up. When I drive back up the mountain, I make a note of which
bend in the road that the leaves end. It's amazing just how narrow the
transition zone is and how it takes its time climbing the mountain.
Like the sunrise, it comes "a ribbon at a time."
I start seeing neotropical migrants appear around the middle of March. I
usually see swallows first, then a few of the "early" birds like
Black-throated Green Warblers, Common Yellowthroats, Yellow-throated
Warblers, Black-and-White Warblers and Blue-gray Gnatcatchers. But the
migration seems to pick up speed when the leaves on the oaks and hickories
in my yard begin unfolding.
This year that happened around April 20th. April 24th was a beautiful morning and I spotted a Cape
May Warbler about 35 feet up in one of my oaks. It appeared to me to match
the description of a first spring male, based on the lower contrast and
color of the cheek patch, the diminished white wing panel and the spotting
on the crown. It was beautiful against the light green catkins and
new leaves of the oak.
Cape May Warbler, April 24th, Sony A1 camera and 600 f/4
lens
The
Cape May Warbler is one of many species first described by the Alexander
Wilson. His nine-volume "American Ornithology" was published between 1808
and 1914 and preceded the work of John James Audubon. Wilson often named
his newly described birds after the places where he found them. His
description of the Cape May Warbler was from a specimen collected in Cape
May County, New Jersey. Just in the warbler family alone Wilson also chose
the names for the Connecticut Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, Tennessee Warbler
and the Nashville Warbler. In turn, he was honored in the names of
Wilson's Phalarope, Wilson's Plover, Wilson's Snipe and Wilson's Warbler.
The species name for the Cape May Warbler is Dendroica tigrina. Tigrina is
Latin for tiger, a reference to the streaking on the breast and back of the males. This
bird is headed to its breeding grounds in the boreal forests to the north.
Another bird described and named by Wilson was the Red-winged Starling. It
is now known as the Red-winged Blackbird. It's a common resident, and just
about any small pond or wetland rings with their calls this time of year.
The more moderately attired female is shown on the right. I encountered
the male on the left on April 24th at one of the four ponds on the
property. He seemed to be in a heated discussion with another male about
the exact location of a property line.
Male Red-winged Blackbird,
April 21st, Sony A1 camera and Sony 600 f/4 lens
Female Red-winged Blackbird, April 14th, 2019, Nikon
D5600 camera and Nikon 200-500mm Lens at 500mm f5.6
The following description of the courtship display of the male is from
Arthur Cleveland Bent's, Life Histories of
North American Blackbirds, Orioles, Tanagers, and Allies. This
description is by Charles Townsend (1920); "The adult Red-winged Blackbird
when absorbed in feeding is a plain blackbird with a pale yellow stripe on
his shoulder or one with a narrow band of red...when, however, his love
passions are excited he spreads his tail, slightly opens his wings, puffs
out his body feathers, and sings his "quonk-quer-ee..." Now when he puffs
out his body feathers he especially puffs out, erects and otherwise
displays to the best advantage the gorgeous scarlet epaulettes."
The males diligently defend their territories. When I used to jog I would
often have a male chase me the full length of their territory.
Sky Events for May 2022
Total Lunar Eclipse montage showing the shape of Earth's shadow.
January 21st, 2019,
Televue 85 Apochromatic Refractor and Nikon D750 camera.
A total lunar eclipse begins on the evening of May 15.
The full eclipse will be visible from our area. Lunar
eclipses are quite eerie and beautiful. As is also true for solar eclipses,
don't judge what the full eclipse will be like when you are viewing the partial
phases in the evening hours of May 15th. Totality is definitely worth
staying up late. The Moon first enters Earth's shadow around 10:28pm EDT
(9:28pm CDT). The total phase of the eclipse will begin around 11:29pm EDT
(10:29pm CDT). Mid-totality occurs around 12:12am EDT (11:12pm CDT) and
totality will end around 12:54am EDT (11:54pm CDT). At totality you will see the moon illuminated by all of
the sunsets around the Earth! The Moon will be a deep copper-red color.
Bring a pair of binoculars if you have them. They will bring out the color
in the moon. A telescope is not really necessary. After totality,
the Moon exits the umbra at 1:56am EDT (12:56am CDT) on the 16th.
The Eta Aquariid meteor shower peak occurs in the early morning hours of
May 6th.
Best viewing should be around 4am EDT. The radiant is in Aquarius and you
should look toward the eastern horizon.
Evening Sky:
Saturn
Tethys and Dione, June 11th, 2016, 20 Inch Newtonian Reflector and
ZWO Camera. South is up to match the view in an inverting
telescope.
Comet PanSTARRS (C/2021O3) is now at
about 9th magnitude, not are not as bright as first predicted. For
a finder chart go
here.
Mercury is still visible in the evening
sky after sunset. It will get closer to the horizon over the
following week, and will then slip into the twilight glow. On May
2nd look for it about 45 minutes after sunset between the thin
crescent Moon and the Pleiades. Binoculars and a flat western
horizon will help.
Morning Sky:
Saturn
rises about 3 hours and 20 minutes before the Sun at the beginning
of the month in Capricornus. The best views in a telescope are
usually around dawn. Saturn is stunning in just about any size
telescope.
Mars
rises about 2-1/2 hours before the Sun at the beginning of the
month in Aquarius. The red planet is still quite far away and
won't reveal much detail in a telescope.
Jupiter
will Venus
will start off the month side by side in the morning sky. Look for
them about 45 minutes before sunrise. They will only be about a
half a degree apart! It should be a great show. Jupiter will then
start rising before Venus in the early morning sky.
Constellations:
NGC 4565 May 6th, 2016,
12.5 inch F/6 Newtonian Telescope and SBIG ST2000XCM camera. Total exposure time
5 hours. Note the cluster of distant red-shifted galaxies in
the upper right-hand corner.
T
he views below show the
sky looking east at 10:45pm EDT on May 7th. The first view shows the sky
with the constellation outlined and names depicted. Star and planet names
are in green. Constellation names are in blue. The second view
shows the same scene without labels.
With the peaking of the spring bird migration comes
the rising of the bright blue-white star Vega in the early evening. Vega is the brightest star in Lyra, the Lyre, and it shines like a diamond
in a small telescope. As the season progresses and
Hercules rises higher in the sky, look for the globular cluster
Messier
13 (M13), which appears like a small fuzzy patch of light about 1/3 of the
distance from Eta to Zeta Hercules (see illustration below). A cluster of
stars about 21,000 light years away, M13 can be made out with the naked
eye in a dark country sky when the constellation is high in the sky.
Binoculars will help pick it out. The great Virgo cluster of galaxies is
in a favorable position now, including NGC 4565 pictured above. In
really clear skies at the Holly Flats Campground near Tellico, I was able
to spot it with a 22 power Bushnell spotting scope using averted vision.
May 7th, 10:45pm EST, Looking East
May 7th, 10:45pm EST, Looking East
On Learning the
Constellations:
We
advise learning a few constellations each month, and then following them through
the seasons. Once you associate a particular constellation coming over the
eastern horizon at a certain time of year, you may start thinking about it like
an old friend, looking forward to its arrival each season. The stars in
the evening scene above, for instance, will always be in the same place relative
to the horizon at the same time and date each May. Of course, the planets
do move slowly through the constellations, but with practice you will learn to
identify them from their appearance. In particular, learn the brightest
stars (Like Vega in the above scene looking east), for they will
guide you to the fainter stars. Once you can locate the more prominent
constellations, you can "branch out" to other constellations around them.
It may take you a little while to get a sense of scale, to translate what you
see on the computer screen or what you see on the page of a book to what you see
in the sky. Look for patterns, like the stars that make up the constellation
Hercules.
The earth's rotation
causes the constellations to appear to move across the sky just as the sun and
the moon appear to do. If you go outside earlier than the time shown on
the charts, the constellations will be lower to the eastern horizon. If
you observe later, they will have climbed higher.
As each season
progresses, the earth's motion around the sun causes the constellations to
appear a little farther towards the west each night for any given time of night.
If you want to see where the constellations in the above figures will be on June
7th at 10:45pm EDT, you can stay up till 12:45am EDT on May 8th and get a
preview. The westward motion of the constellations is equivalent to two
hours per month.
A good book to learn the constellations is
Patterns in the Sky, by Hewitt-White.
For sky watching tips, an inexpensive good guide is
Secrets of Stargazing, by Becky Ramotowski.
A good general reference book on astronomy is the Peterson
Field Guide,
A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets, by Pasachoff. The book retails for around $14.00.
The Virtual
Moon Atlas is a terrific way to learn the
surface features of the Moon. And it's free software. You can
download the Virtual Moon Atlas here.
Apps:
The Sky Safari 6 basic version is free and a great aid for
the beginning stargazer. We really love the
Sky Safari 6 Pro. Both are available for iOS and
Android operating systems. There are three versions. The Pro is
simply the best astronomy app we've ever seen.
The description of the Pro version reads, "includes over 100 million stars, 3 million galaxies
down to 18th magnitude, and 750,000 solar system objects; including every comet
and asteroid ever discovered."
You may also want to try the very beautiful app
Sky Guide.
Though not as data intensive as Sky Safari, Sky Guide goes all out
to show the sheer beauty of the night sky.
A
nother
great app is the Photographer's
Ephemeris. Great for finding sunrise, moonrise, sunset and
moonset times and the precise place on the horizon that the event will
occur. Invaluable not only for planning photographs, but also nice
to plan an outing to watch the full moon rise. Available for both
androids and iOS operating systems.
Amphibians:
Bird-Voiced Treefrog
By
the end of May all of Tennessee's frogs and toads are either calling or have
already reached their peak calling period and are being heard less. The treefrogs are the last of our frogs and toads to start calling.
Cope's Gray Treefrog and
Gray Treefrogs start giving isolated calls as
early as late February, and by the end of this month listen also for
Bird-Voiced Treefrogs,
Green Treefrogs and
Barking Treefrogs. In May
Fowler's Toads call frequently, so listen for
their "crying baby" call.
Eastern Cricket Frogs and
Southern Cricket Frogs are hitting their
stride as well. Listen for a sound like two stones being tapped
together. I have heard eight or more species of frogs calling on some May evenings, so
it's a great time to listen.
Upland Chorus Frogs and
Spring Peepers continue to call.
Listen for their calls to increase in pitch and quicken with the rising
temperatures.
Nature Notes Archives: Nature Notes
was a page we published in 2001 and 2002 containing our observations about
everything from the northern lights display of November 2001 to frog and
salamander egg masses.
Night scenes prepared with The
Sky Professional from Software Bisque
