Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Tree Fungus And Faux Flycatcher

I snuck out to a small nature preserve early one rainy morning .I wondered what are these orange things in the cedar trees?A closer inspection showed me that his must be some sort of orange spaghetti fungus? I don't know what it is but I plan to search for an answer after I post this.My biggest excitement of the morning. This is a bird I've only encountered a few times and only once before away from the shore. The first time I saw one it had me baffled because the call sounded like some sort of flycatcher to me but it is in fact, a White-eyed Vireo. In this grainy photo you can still see the white eye ring, some yellow on the sides/around the face, and wing bars. 

Things have slowed nearly to a halt as far as new inland species for me to see so this was a great addition. I'm still waiting on a few such as green heron but I will turn my attention to the shoreline next.

update: The fungus is called Cedar-apple rust. It doesn't harm the cedar trees but can cause deformed fruit on fruit trees.

3 comments:

Daniel E. Levenson said...

Great post and some really nice images - I actually just revived my own nature blog - www.newenglanfnaturenotes.bloogspot.com - and realized I had never thanked you for your thoughtful comments. Happy birding and botanizing !

Val Ewing said...

Awesome! When I worked at the Power Plant, we saw this rust and I was so curious about it so I did some research. Odd looking isn't it?

I've been enjoying all of the birds around our place. Everything's so bushy and green, it is hard to spot any of them!

sassastatus said...

Encountering a White-eyed Vireo away from the shore was a rare delight, its distinctive features captured in a grainy photo. Amidst the excitement, SAmenuPrice was also a topic of discussion.