BIRD BANDING RESULTS FOR

HILTON POND NORTH DURING CURRENT PERIOD

1-10 August 2025

The table below shows birds banded during the Current Period (Columns 1 & 2), each species' Yearly Tally (Column 3), and a Grand Total for each (Column 4) since banding commenced locally in March 2024. Any new species for the current year are in RED.

All photos, videos, maps, charts, text, and original drawings © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

SIPHONAPTERA

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,

And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.

And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;

While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.

— Augustus De Morgan, 1872

We appreciate De Morgan's piece above not only for masterful phrasing but for biological accuracy: As he states, parasites of many creatures have parasites, and often those parasites have parasites of their own, "and so on." We were reminded of this concept and his poem this week as we operated a "light trap" to observe moths at Hilton Pond North. Plenty of these winged night-flying lepidopterans landed on a big white sheet illuminated by a UV device, but we were especially pleased one evening to find a colorful beetle clinging to the cloth (see top photo).

BALLAD OF THE BURYING BEETLE

Beneath the Moon, with gentle grace,

She-beetle scouts this wooded place.

The whiff of death: A rodent. Still.

Corpse stirs her heart; it fits the bill.

She calls her mate with scented plume,

“I’ve found the perfect crypt of doom!”

Together there, they dig and toil,

To tuck dead mouse beneath the soil.

They strip it clean, they treat it well,

Secretions that suppress the smell.

Then eggs are laid, the feast begins,

Their larvae chew through meat and skins.

Parental care? Oh, yes, they get it!

Kids are fed—they won't forget it!

Some mites ride in—a gruesome crew,

To clean the beetles' table, too.

So raise a glass (or sniff the breeze),

To sexton beetles, under trees.

For 'though their job is grim and gritty,

They keep our woods all neat and pretty.

— Bill Hilton Jr., August 2025

We recognized the inch-long insect as a Roundneck Sexton Beetle, Nicrophorus orbicollis, a striking member of the Silphidae—also known as Burying Beetles. It was easily recognized by its glossy black body marked with two broad orange-red bands on the elytra (wing covers), plus a distinctively rounded pronotum (a plate that cover covers the thorax and gives this beetle its common name.) Its clubbed antennae, tipped with orange, are well adapted for detecting the scent of decay as the beetle locates small animal carcasses such as birds or rodents.

It was exciting enough to observe TWO Burying Beetles during recent mothing operations at Hilton Pond North, but icing on the cake came when we enlarged our photo of the Roundneck Sexton Beetle (top of page) and discovered it was not alone. Yes, clinging to the insect's elytra and pronotum were three hitchhikers, tiny ovoid mites (photo just above) coming along for the ride. Most likely from genus Poecilochirus, the mites were engaging in "phoresy," during which they used the beetle purely for free transportation. (We should point out mites were also present on the Blistered Carrion Beetle! See its photo.)

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

This species plays an important ecological role by recycling nutrients and disposing of dead animals. A mated pair of Roundneck Sexton Beetles works together (above) to bury a carcass, first stripping away fur or feathers and treating the body with antibacterial secretions to preserve it. (NOTE: A "sexton" is an official responsible for filling the church graveyard, so sexton beetles are "nature's undertakers.")

What sets N. orbicollis apart from most insects—and even some other burying beetles—is highly developed parental care. Adults remain with the buried carcass, lay eggs, and feed their larvae by regurgitating partially digested flesh. Although larvae might feed on a carcass independently, they develop faster and more successfully under care of their parents. This level of attention is quite rare and makes N. orbicollis valuable for studying social behavior and evolution.

Native to eastern North America, this beetle is most active late spring through early fall. It prefers forested areas and open fields with loose soil suitable for burying carrion. Besides contributing to decomposition, Roundneck Sexton Beetles help control fly populations by outcompeting fly larvae for corpse food and by secreting compounds that suppress maggot development.

Phoretic mites hitch rides to the same fresh carcasses the beetles seek; upon arrival they depart their taxi service and feed on eggs and larvae of flies likewise attracted by the smell of death. This behavior actually benefits the beetle, as mites reduce competition for the carcass by limiting the number of fly maggots that develop on the beetles' food store (above).

This relationship is  considered mutualistic, where both species benefit. Phoretic mites gain access to energy sources while beetles derive a cleaner, less competitive environment for their developing larvae. However, if mite populations become too dense on a beetle they hinder its movement, plus mites are known to feed on beetle eggs—shifting the whole complex relationship toward parasitism.

After mites reproduce on the corpse their offspring eventually mount adult beetles for a first big  ride in pursuit of fresh carcasses. Some mites have co-evolved tightly with specific beetle hosts, showing signs of co-speciation. Nonetheless, multiple mite species may occur on a single beetle, sometimes resulting in antagonistic interactions among them.

Incidentally, each mite has eight legs, making it a member of Arachnida—the same class as spiders, scorpions, ticks, and harvestmen. (Mites and ticks, however, share their own arachnid subclass: Acari.)

And so, after sharing with you all this info about Burying Beetles and Phoretic Mites, it seems appropriate we offer our own Ogden Nash-ish poem about these fascinating creatures, to wit:

All photos, videos, maps, charts, text, and original drawings © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

When you put out 4:1 sugar water for Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, you're also putting out sugar water for House Finches and Downy Woodpeckers and Common Eastern Bumblebees and Yellowjackets and anything else that just happens to like sweet stuff—including Silvery Checkerspot butterflies (above right). We shouldn't try to legislate who visits, and there's plenty to go around for all. (Just be sure to use a moat to keep ants away. And if you have Black Bears or Raccoons you might want to bring in those feeders like we do nightly here at Hilton Pond North!)

Amazingly, a few nights after encountering Nicrophorus orbicollis at our moth trap we captured a SECOND burying beetle (above); it was a somewhat smaller but similarly colored Blistered Carrion Beetle, N. pustulatus. This species bears fewer orange markings and has elytra with a bumpy, pustule-like texture that gives the appearance of being "blistered." This insect's lifestyle is quite similar to that of Roundneck Sexton Beetle except its larvae can forage on a buried carcass on their own without being fed by parents.

NOTE: "Burying," "Carrion," and "Sexton" are used in names for various true Burying Beetles, all of which are in genus Nicrophorus. Burying Beetles are also Carrion Beetles (iFamily Silphidae), but not all silphids are Burying Beetles.

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

A quick check of iNaturalist reveals two additional sexton beetles reported from Ashe County NC: Tomentose Burying Beetle, N. tomentosus (above left), and Boreal Burying Beetle, N. defodiens. Sources indicate there may be even more unreported species, suggesting the county's cool, expansive 3,000'-plus elevation forests offer prime habitat for a  complex of sexton beetles competing for carrion. Remarkably, some populations of N. pustulatus sidestep direct competition with congeners through an extraordinary evolutionary shift: Instead of using just freshly dead critters, they and their larvae uniquely exploit live eggs of Eastern Rat Snakes, becoming parasitoids that eat and kill the reptile's host egg!

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

If you live in North Carolina's mountains or travel the Blue Ridge Parkway you may have noticed—even in late July—healthy trees with foliage already turning yellow or brown. These likely are Yellow Buckeyes, Aesculus flava, whose compound leaves with five leaflets tell us autumn is already on the way. Each year, Yellow Buckeyes undergo "early senescence," when flow of water to the main leaf petiole is cut off, strangling leaflets. Green chlorophyll quickly dies, revealing yellow xanthophyll pigment that likewise degrades, yielding to brown before the leaf falls dead to the forest floor. Here at Hilton Pond North and elsewhere, Yellow Buckeyes shut down their leaves well before other canopy trees. It’s a natural adaptation, possibly avoiding late-summer drought stress or leaf diseases that increase as the season progresses. (This tree species is also prone to powdery mildew and fungal leaf blotch; the latter can cause brown margins and patches on still-green leaves, as shown above.) By September, Yellow Buckeyes in the Blue Ridge are essentially bare while maples, oaks, and hickories remain vibrant green.

Click on the video snippet below (sound on!) and look closely to see what you can find. There is, obviously, a Wild Turkey hen parading past, but that's not all . . . .

. . . . Although it might be hard to spot with a cell phone—our image-heavy Web pages are best viewed on your iPad or another tablet—look closely at the vegetation behind the big bird. There’s something quite small tottering along after her: A brand-new poult, likely hatched just a few days previous and trying hard to keep up with a Mama Hen encouraging her youngster with tuck, tuck sounds.

This trail cam video from Hilton Pond North on 5 August shows an extremely late hatch date for our region. Here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Wild Turkey courtship begins in late February, followed by laying of up to 10–14 eggs, typically starting mid-April. The hen lays one egg per day, and incubation begins only after the clutch is complete—usually late April—with all eggs hatching synchronously 28–31 days later in early June.

The tiny poult in our video is more than five weeks behind this typical schedule. It likely represents a second (or even third) nesting attempt after an earlier failure—perhaps due to predation, weather, or some unknown factor. Another possibility: This late-season chick was produced by a young, inexperienced hen making a tardy first nesting attempt.

All photos, videos, maps, charts, and text © Hilton Pond North

All photos, videos, maps, charts, text, and original drawings © Hilton Pond North

NEWLY BANDED BIRDS

AT HILTON POND NORTH

1-10 August 2025