Tag: The Naturalist

The Naturalist

THE NATURALIST

A Few Magical Moments

Sighting a hawk as white as snow

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

Several years ago, on a crisp December morning, I found myself traveling down the dusty backroads of Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge under a brilliant blue sky. I had a few hours to kill before a planned meeting at the nearby Outer Banks History Center and thought a drive through the refuge might yield a sighting of a black bear or a river otter — and if I was really lucky, perhaps an endangered red wolf.

About a mile into my drive, I noticed a large white bird lift off the ground from the middle of a freshly plowed field and fly toward some tall pine trees several hundred yards out in front of my car. Based on its size and stiff-winged flight, I could tell it was some sort of bird of prey, but with its unusual white coloration, I could not readily make out the species. Perhaps, I thought, it was a snowy owl, a spectacular resident of Arctic climes, that occasionally ventures south to North Carolina during winter months.

As I pulled my car up to the pine trees, I was stunned to see something much rarer than a snowy owl. Off to the side of the dirt road, sitting on a branch of a tall loblolly, was a white red-tailed hawk. Its luminous feathers contrasted sharply with the golden needles of the pine and the intense Carolina blue sky. In eastern North America, adult red-tailed hawks typically possess brown backs and white bellies and chests lined by dark streaks. Their tail is brick red, hence the name. The hawk in the pine was anything but typical. It was stunning. In the bright morning light, the pale hawk gave off a surreal, almost otherworldly glow.

Red-tailed hawks are notoriously skittish, and I figured the bird would fly away when I lowered my car window and pointed a large telephoto lens at it. To my surprise, the hawk remained focused on the field from whence it flew and paid me little attention. As I fumbled with my camera settings, adjusting the aperture and shutter speed, the hawk glanced occasionally in my direction. Still, the bird held its position and continued to stare out into the field.

Unusually white animals have captured human imagination for time immemorial and are frequently viewed as omens of good fortune. Among certain Native American cultures, a white buffalo represents hope and harmony among all people and are considered the most sacred of animals. In Thailand, some believe that white elephants contain the souls of people who have crossed over into the spirit world. In Celtic and English folklore, white deer are frequently endowed with supernatural powers and magical abilities. Exceptionally white animals have even permeated popular culture — none more so than Captain Ahab’s great nemesis, the white sperm whale Moby Dick.

Studying the details of the pale red-tailed hawk more closely through my telephoto lens, I realized the bird was not completely white. Numerous light brown feathers were scattered about its wings and head. Zooming in on the hawk’s eye on the back of my camera’s LCD, I noticed its black pupil, a feature that told me that the bird was not an albino. True albino birds lack any pigment in their feathers and have pink eyes. Genetic mutations that cause abnormally white feathers in birds are numerous and are not well understood. Without a thorough analysis of its blood, the condition causing the unusual white coloration of the hawk would remain unknown.

After nearly 15 minutes of me taking photos, something finally caught the hawk’s attentive gaze. With a crouch and a quick spread of its wings, the raptor launched off the pine and flew low over the ground to the far side of the field. Like some ghostly apparition, the white red-tail disappeared over the distant trees and was gone.

All I have to prove this magical encounter actually happened are a few pixels stored on a hard drive and the pale image etched permanently into my memory bank. To this day, the hawk remains one of the most spectacular and beautiful birds I have ever encountered.

The Naturalist

THE NATURALIST

The Butterfly of Death

Encountering the black witch moth

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

“Todd, you’re going to want to see this!” shouts Maurice Cullen from his backyard. “And bring your camera!”

I can tell by the urgency in his voice that Maurice has found something pretty cool. For the past hour, beneath the light of an August moon, I have been standing in his neighbor’s yard trying to photograph sphinx moths nectaring on flowers, and I already have my camera in hand. I race over to his backyard gate, open it, circle the swimming pool and approach Maurice, who is standing in the far corner of the yard, next to a wooden fence.

“Check this out,” he says pointing the narrow beam of a flashlight up into a Chinese privet tree. There, in the center of a large branch overhanging the fence, is an immense brown-colored moth, with sharply pointed wings.

“It’s a black witch,” says Maurice excitedly. “Take some pics before it flies away!”

Fumbling with the controls of my camera and adjusting my flash power, I frame the moth in my viewfinder. Its long proboscis is buried deep within a steady stream of sap leaking from a small crack in the tree’s bark. The sap, a natural sugary concoction that entices all manner of insects the same way blood in ocean water attracts sharks, has been leaking from various cracks along the tree’s trunk and limbs all summer, drawing in such winged wonders as red-spotted purple butterflies and giant cicada killer wasps.

Snapping off a few frames of the witch, I note the distinctive comma-shaped marks on its forewings and a prominent white line running across its hindwings, a telltale field mark identifying this particular moth as a female. Measured from wingtip to wingtip, black witch moths are the largest insects in North America, with some having wing spans that surpass 7 inches. The one that Maurice and I are staring at is somewhat smaller, with a wingspan of “only” 6 inches or so. With such large wings, the moth resembles a bat in flight.

An hour earlier, I had seen a large moth streak across the neighbor’s yard in the fading twilight and had brushed it off as a more common silkmoth, possibly a Polyphemus moth. It was likely the black witch making a beeline for the sap well on the privet tree.

Black witch moths are found throughout the Neotropics, from the Caribbean down to Brazil. The moths are powerful migrators and frequently reach the southern United States and points farther north. Historically, they were rarely observed as far north as Virginia, where we are currently standing. Now that most people have powerful cameras buried within their phones and loaded with a plethora of citizen-science apps, like Inaturalist, black witch moths are being reported more frequently throughout the continental United States. Still, Maurice, at 66 years of age and a lifelong butterfly and moth watcher, has never seen one alive in the state. It’s a cause for celebration, albeit a cautious celebration, as few animals harbor as many myths and superstitions as the black witch moth.

In Colombia, legend states that sorceresses who have died and failed to enter the gates of heaven have been cast back to Earth in the form of black witch moths. In Mexico, the black witch moth is known as the Mariposa de la Muerte, the butterfly of death. It is believed that if one flies into someone’s home, that person will soon perish. In other parts of Mexico, people say that if a black witch moth flies over your head, you will soon lose your hair — a fate some view as worse than death. In Jamaica, the black witch moth is called a Duppy Bat, and is believed to be a lost soul. In other parts of the Caribbean, the moth is thought to be an actual witch in disguise, and to see one means someone has cast an evil spell on you.

Continuing to take photos, I stop briefly to review the images on my camera’s LCD. Glancing back up to the tree limb, the black witch moth is no longer there, having disappeared into the inky black sky like some ghostly apparition. “Ahhh, man, that’s disappointing,” sighs Maurice, who wanted more time to ogle the winged marvel. I laugh nervously, hoping that the moth has not exited the yard by flying over my head.

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Instead, I choose to think about the more cheerful legends surrounding the black witch moth. One in particular stands out above all others. In the Bahamas, folklore calls black witch moths Money Bats. Locals believe that if you are fortunate enough to see one, prosperity will soon follow.

Perhaps tonight on the way home from Maurice’s, I’ll stop at the local gas station and buy a Powerball ticket.

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2025 Department The Naturalist

The Naturalist

THE NATURALIST

Beautifully Common

Being exceptionally ordinary

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

When I was 11 years old, my parents gave me a book titled The World’s Whales. Published by the Smithsonian Institution, it was the first coffee table book to illustrate all the world’s cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) in a single volume. The spectacular photos and life-like paintings nestled within the high-gloss pages instantly captured my imagination. Throughout my high school and college years, I frequently thumbed through its pages, dreaming of one day becoming a marine biologist and making a list of all the whales and dolphins I most wanted to see in the wild.

Like many nature-obsessed kids who grew up reading about dinosaurs or watching Jacques Cousteau, I was fascinated by the strangest, most colorful, most dangerous, and the largest members of the animal kingdom. My list of whales and dolphins that I most wanted to see reflected those superlatives. The immense blue whale, the largest animal ever to inhabit Earth, was near the top of the list. The oddly shaped sperm whale, of Moby Dick fame, with its box-shaped head housing the largest brain in the animal kingdom, was on there, too. As was the aptly named hourglass dolphin of sub-Antarctic waters. The Southern right whale dolphin, a striking black and white animal that completely lacks a dorsal fin, so unlike any other oceanic dolphin, also caught my attention. But the absolute pinnacle of my list was the killer whale, a supremely intelligent apex predator that eats everything from seals to great white sharks.

Fast forward 40 years, and that book still occupies prime real estate in my library. Recently, I pulled it down and flipped through its pages, reflecting on nearly three decades of work on the ocean. In that time, I have been fortunate enough to check off each and every whale and dolphin from my list. It has been a remarkable run that has produced many amazing memories.

I found those blue whales off the coast of California, rolling on their sides and throwing open their cavernous mouths as they swallowed thousands of gallons of water and krill with a single gulp. Due south of Louisiana, in a deep-sea trench known as the Mississippi Canyon, I saw my first sperm whales. Off the rugged coast of Kaikoura, New Zealand, I observed a huge group of 500 Southern right whale dolphins, leaping from tall ocean swells within sight of snow-capped mountains. In Antarctica, I watched enthralled as hourglass dolphins played at the bow of our research vessel. And as for killer whales, I have seen them in oceans around the world, including spotting a small group off my home state of North Carolina in 2014.

Looking back through the book, I paused at the account about common dolphins. For the life of me, I can’t understand why those dolphins failed to capture my childhood imagination. Common dolphins feature prominently in Greek and Roman societies, even appearing on their coins. Aristotle and Pliny the Elder were enthralled by common dolphins and wrote about them frequently in ancient texts. The common dolphin was, in fact, the first species of dolphin to be scientifically described. I think that my youthful lack of enthusiasm for the species stemmed from their name, common dolphin. It wasn’t superlative enough, not like the killer whale.

So many of us tend to ignore the common. It’s human nature to place value on the biggest, strongest, prettiest, weirdest, and especially, the rarest. As a budding naturalist, I ignored the animals and plants that I routinely saw day after day. But as is so often the case, time and experience have a way of changing one’s perspective. As I have aged, I have learned to appreciate the everyday nature that surrounds me, especially the common things, like the grey squirrel in the front yard or the bluebird perched on the powerline.

Common dolphins are aptly named. Scientists estimate their global population to be over 6 million, making them the most abundant dolphin swimming in the world’s oceans. Recently, off the coast of California, I encountered a group of common dolphins that stretched as far as the eye could see. The sea frothed white as thousands of dolphins leapt from the water all at once. It was a truly breathtaking experience. Marveling at the bright yellow hourglass-shaped patterns on their sides, I realized how wrong I was to overlook these animals in my youth. They are uncommonly beautiful.

2025 Department The Naturalist

The Naturalist

THE NATURALIST

The Bass of Summers Past

Largemouths, farm ponds and my old man

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

There’s a shallow pond in Eagle Springs where memories run deep. On most summer weekends of my youth, Dad and I would venture out on its clear waters to try and catch a few fish.

Surrounded by a canopy of tall pines and dogwoods, the pond is a picture-perfect postcard of serenity. I still recall the low hum of the electric trolling motor on our old aluminum jon boat as we plied the still waters with Zebco 33 reels in hand. Here and there, turtles would poke their heads above the flat surface. Bluebirds sang from nearby perches. If we were lucky, we might spot a green heron skulking along the shoreline, or a red-tailed hawk soaring overhead.

The cooler would be packed full of Pepsis, Lance crackers and a Little Debbie or two — just enough unhealthy goodness to get us through the afternoon. Dad would attach a Beetle Spin to his line with hopes of catching some of the saucer-sized bluegills that frequented the pond’s deeper waters. My lure of choice was an old standby: a black plastic worm with a weedless hook threaded inside.

While I loved catching bluegills on my lightweight 8-lb. test line, I was after the much bigger largemouth bass that had been stocked in the pond years before. Dad’s high school classmate, whose house overlooked the pond, had caught numerous lunkers there over the years, including one that tipped the scales at nearly 10 pounds. I had youthful aspirations of catching not only a larger bass, but one that would rival the world record 22-pound, 4-ounce fish caught down in Georgia in 1932 by a poor farmer named George Perry — a record that stands to this day.

Largemouth bass are uniquely American, indigenous only to the North American continent, though they have been introduced into waters around the world, from Japan to Australia and Cuba to Brazil. According to the recently published book A Guide to North Carolina’s Freshwater Fishes, largemouth bass are native to every river drainage in the state, except for the New River. Over the years, they have been stocked into nearly every golf course pond, farm pond and manmade lake across the state.

In 1802, French naturalist and politician Comte de Lacépéde bestowed the scientific name Micropterus salmoides upon the largemouth bass, mistakenly believing that the fish was a type of trout or salmon. Ichthyologists today recognize that the largemouth bass is actually a type of sunfish, closely related to bluegills. Despite the misnomer, the Latin name of the largemouth remains.

In the years following its formal description, largemouth bass were considered inferior fish by hoity-toity “sportsmen” of the era, most of whom preferred casting lines toward more upper-class finned quarry like trout. The winds started to change when James Henshall wrote The Book of Black Bass in 1881, an immensely popular tome that espoused, for the first time, that the largemouth bass was a worthy gamefish. Soon thereafter, President Theodore Roosevelt was championing fishing for largemouths.

Today, largemouth bass are instantly recognizable by most of the general public. Fishing for them adds billions of dollars to the economy each year, more so than other gamefish. To gauge just how popular the fish has become, simply walk into any Walmart from California to Florida and count the aisles that are stocked to the brim with rods, reels and countless lures dedicated to largemouth bass fishing. It seems that nearly every week, a largemouth fishing tournament is broadcast on some sporting channel. There are Bass Proshops in virtually every large city up and down the East Coast. Country music songs are even written about them.

I never did catch my record bass. The largest one I ever pulled from that Eagle Springs farm pond weighed no more than 4 pounds, though, depending on the social situation, I might exaggerate a little.

As I have aged, largemouth bass represent so much more than just a trophy. I have come to realize that they were a gateway fish to a lifetime of curiosity about the natural world. And, like so many who have spent time casting a line with their fathers, I have also come to realize those moments are finite and I will never get them back. Every cast, every tug of the line, every sunset I spent with my old man on that pond was precious.

A bass, however, wasn’t the biggest thing I hooked at that Eagle Springs pond. Dad and I laugh about it still, though it wasn’t all that funny at the time. I was 12 years old, give or take, and as always Dad and I would make our fishing trips into a friendly competition, judged by who caught the most fish, as well as the largest.

On this particular Saturday morning, we had just pushed off from shore in our old jon boat. I had a special Rebel Minnow topwater lure, recently purchased from a local bait and tackle shop, tied to my line. The lure, as the name suggests, mimics a tiny baitfish, and possessed a pair of barbed treble hooks at either end, near the head and tail. Dad was steering the boat toward a distant cove. In my eagerness to catch the first fish, I stared out onto the open water and immediately slung my rod far back over my shoulder. I belatedly heard Dad shout “No!” as I quickly followed through with my cast.

For a brief instant, there was a hard pull on the line, and then it suddenly snapped. Puzzled, I turned back toward Dad. To my horror, I saw the Rebel Minnow dangling down between my father’s eyes and resting on the bridge of his nose, a pair of hooks deeply embedded in his forehead. A droplet of blood trickled down over his brow and onto his shirt.

Panicked, I muttered a few choice words and apologized profusely over and over. Dad simply pointed the boat back toward shore. We got out of the water and walked up toward his old Ford pickup parked nearby. Despite me not having a driver’s license and barely being tall enough to reach the gas pedal, Dad handed me the keys and told me to drive over to his friend’s house on the opposite side of the pond.

At the time my father still smoked cigarettes — Marlboro Reds — and he calmly reached into the glove compartment, pulled one out, and lit it. Dad said no words at all. He simply took a few long drags off the cigarette as the fishing lure continued to dangle from his head, occasionally bouncing up and down with each pothole in the dirt road.

In what seemed like an eternity, but in actuality was just a few minutes, I pulled up to his friend’s house. Dad got out and rang the doorbell. I will never forget how all the color drained from his friend’s face when he saw that fishing lure stuck in Dad’s head. He quickly loaded Dad into his car and rushed him straight to the hospital. After a local anesthetic, a couple of stitches and a tetanus shot, Dad was as good as new. No scars at all. Well, at least physically.

Before leaving for the emergency room, Dad insisted I stay at the pond and continue fishing until they got back. I asked him what I should do while he was gone.

“Practice, son,” Dad responded. “Practice.”

2025 Department The Naturalist

The Naturalist

THE NATURALIST

Birdies, Eagles and Fox Squirrels, Oh My!

High-class habitat for our largest tree squirrel

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

I was out of the country last June when the U.S. Open rolled into town. With limited internet access, I was unable to follow the championship’s progress. It was only when I returned home in July that I learned Bryson DeChambeau had won.

Not being on any social media platforms, I also missed some of the viral videos posted during the Open — by professional golfers and spectators alike — of the Sandhills’ unique fox squirrels. Judging by the number of stories produced by various media outlets, it seems like the visitors from out of town were not familiar with our local bushy-tailed rodents. Professional golfer Min Woo Lee’s video of a curious fox squirrel approaching his caddie in the middle of a fairway on the famed No. 2 course drew over 300,000 views and was even mentioned by Golf Digest magazine. “Hello Pinehurst. What is this animal?” Lee asks in the video. “Is it a skunk, or a raccoon, or a squirrel?”

It’s easy to understand his confusion. After all, Lee hails from Australia, a continent that is packed full of animal oddities — the platypus and the bilby (Google it, they are adorable) to name two — but has no native squirrels. Nada. Zilch. So it’s easy to imagine Lee’s initial reaction upon seeing an animal with white ears, a white nose, black face and a long bushy tail for the first time. Nearly the size of a housecat, fox squirrels are the largest tree squirrel in North America.

When the inquisitive squirrel approached Lee, he quickly held his club at arm’s length and exclaimed, “Back up brother! Back up!”

Tee it up on any of the local golf courses and chances are you will see a fox squirrel at some point during your round. They are as much a part of the Sandhills landscape as pine trees and blue skies.

Though North Carolina never has listed the species as endangered or threatened, fox squirrels have always been considered uncommon. Throughout the southeastern United States, fox squirrels are strongly associated with the longleaf pine tree. Their large body size gives them a competitive advantage over their smaller cousins, the highly adaptable grey squirrel, enabling them to rip open the large, calorie-rich pine cones of the longleaf. Vast longleaf forests once stretched from southern Virginia down to Florida and along the Gulf Coast to east Texas. Today, over 90 percent of those forests have disappeared, having been converted into everything from agricultural fields to housing developments. The resulting loss of longleaf caused severe population declines to animals that depended on that ecosystem for survival, fox squirrels included.

When I was growing up in Moore County, you would occasionally encounter a fox squirrel here or there. You might spy one sprinting across a backroad around West End or shredding a pine cone on the grounds of Sandhills Community College. We even had them visit our yard periodically in Eagle Springs. But if you really wanted to guarantee seeing one, all you had to do was head to the links.

Throughout my teenage years, my father and I played golf most weekends, wherever we could get a late afternoon tee time (he worked most weekend mornings) and the best rates. No matter where we played, Seven Lakes, Whispering Pines, Foxfire, Deercroft or Pinebluff, I would see fox squirrels. They were always the highlight of my day — well, except for the time I holed that 120-yard shot from the fairway for an eagle at Hyland Golf Club (it was Hyland Hills then), still my all-time best golfing experience. Even on our family vacations to North Myrtle Beach, I would occasionally see fox squirrels loping across golf courses with their distinctive bounding gait.

Fox squirrels are denizens of open forest canopies that are free of dense underbrush, which historically in a longleaf pine ecosystem was the result of frequent fire. Golf courses mimic those old-timey pine forests, in a roundabout way, with their park-like landscapes and abundance of food and nesting trees favored by the multi-hued squirrels. A number of scientific studies have even shown that golf courses may hold the key to survival for fox squirrels in parts of the Southeast, especially in urban areas.

As an example, I recently found myself at Innisbrook Golf Resort, just north of Tampa, Florida, visiting family and friends. The property’s four golf courses are surrounded by a sea of humanity, in the form of never-ending strip malls, hotels and restaurants. Yet, fox squirrels were thriving in surprisingly high numbers along the manicured fairways bordered by huge pines and oaks. I even saw one sneaky squirrel steal a granola bar from the golf cart of an unsuspecting golfer who was up on the green putting for birdie.

As photography started to become an integral part of my career, one of the first subjects I set out to photograph were fox squirrels. Late Pinehurst resident and golf aficionado Parker Hall was kind enough to help my endeavors, arranging access to the Country Club of North Carolina and providing me with a golf cart to lug around my heavy gear. Over the course of two winter afternoons, I was able to greatly expand my fox squirrel portfolio. Up until that point, I had never seen so many fox squirrels in such a small area.

My last golf course fox squirrel encounter happened over the Christmas holidays. I was visiting my folks for a few days and found myself driving north along Hoffman Road near Foxfire Village. Late one morning on a straight stretch bordering one of the golf club’s fairways, a solid black fox squirrel, with bright white paws and ears, stepped out onto the asphalt. I came to a complete stop, allowing the beautiful mammal to pass safely across the highway into a patch of nearby pines. Watching its long, flowing black tail disappear into the forest, I was reminded of a life lesson instilled in me at a young age: Always be respectful of the locals.

2025 Department The Naturalist

The Naturalist

THE NATURALIST

Sunny with a Chance of Murmurations

The amazing spectacle of blackbird flocks in eastern North Carolina

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

A cold, frosty morning gives way to bright blue skies over rural Tyrell County. Vast agricultural fields, interspersed here and there with patches of dense forest, border the dusty backroad. This region, just west of Lake Phelps, North Carolina’s second largest natural lake, is the winter home to an incredible wildlife spectacle.

The road continues straight as an arrow for miles and miles, providing clear, unobstructed views across freshly plowed fields. Far up ahead, above the edge of an immense soybean field, I spy what looks like a plume of black smoke rising up from the ground high into the Carolina blue sky. As I drive closer, the plume morphs into a pulsating cloud that suddenly splits in half, as if cut by an invisible ax, only to rejoin a few seconds later. The cloud rapidly changes shape again, this time looking like a massive black beachball dancing above the horizon. A few seconds later, it transforms into a thin-waisted hourglass. Then, a tornado-like funnel.

I pull off the shoulder of the road and hop out of the car with a pair of binoculars in hand. The amorphous cloud soon reveals its true identity: an immense flock of blackbirds twisting and turning together in perfectly coordinated movements. Scientists describe such behavior as a murmuration. I describe it as jaw-dropping.

Soon, the flock passes directly overhead. The birds’ high-pitched chirps, combined with the sound of thousands of wings flapping together in unison, is almost deafening. For nearly a full minute, the flock flies by uninterrupted and settles into a row of leafless trees on the opposite side of the road. There, they perch and begin to preen their feathers. The bare branches of the trees look as if they are draped in thousands of black Christmas ornaments.

The pause in the aerial acrobatics allows me the opportunity to examine the flock in more detail. Staring through my binos, I note that the vast majority are red-winged blackbirds, a beautiful species in which the males sport jet-black bodies and bright red shoulder patches that glow like campfire embers under the afternoon sun. Scattered here and there among the blackbirds are hundreds of common grackles and brown-headed cowbirds.

Before long, the birds take off from the trees, cross back over the road and land in the middle of the field, where they begin to forage for an afternoon snack. This is the moment I have been waiting for. I pull out my tripod from the back of the car, and grab my camera and telephoto lens.

More and more birds settle down into the field. Soon the ground looks like it is covered by a living black carpet. Experience has taught me that this many birds together in one place will not go unnoticed for long. Hungry eyes will be watching this all-you-can eat buffet.

As if on cue, the arching flight of a northern harrier appears over an irrigation ditch running along the far side of the field. With rapid wingbeats, the hawk suddenly dives toward the ground, near the edge of the flock. Instantly, thousands and thousands of birds launch simultaneously into the air, arching high above the horizon. A new murmuration has formed.

It rolls across the field like a giant black tidal wave. I marvel how each individual bird can instantly change direction to match its closest neighbor. Essentially, a murmuration acts as a single giant superorganism. Scientists have applied all sorts of fancy logarithms and computer modeling to help explain the mechanics of murmurations. Despite their best efforts, the intricacies of such vast coordinated movements of birds remain something of a mystery.

However, one fact is clear. A whirling mass of blackbirds can easily confuse a predator like the northern harrier. And if by chance a predator is successful in procuring a meal, the odds against one particular bird being the victim, out of tens of thousands, is small. There is safety in numbers.

Murmurations in coastal Carolina are often due to the presence of an aerial predator. Over the years, I have witnessed peregrine falcons, merlins, Cooper’s hawks, sharp-shinned hawks and northern harriers all pursuing the vast flocks of blackbirds. Once, I watched a northern harrier successfully knock a red-winged blackbird to the ground. As it stood over the bird, picking feathers off its breast, a bald eagle suddenly swooped in and chased the harrier away, claiming the blackbird as its own prize.

On this occasion, the northern harrier is less successful. As the murmuration suddenly pivots, the harrier falls behind.

Continuing to careen and pirouette across the sky, the avian ballet moves farther away and disappears across the far side of the field, leaving me standing alone. All that remains are a few feathers scattered here and there on the ground, the only clues left behind by one of nature’s most amazing shows.

2025 Department The Naturalist

Naturalist

The Fly in Wasp’s Clothing

The best costumes are made by Mother Nature

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

Staring through a macro lens at the critter resting in the center of my photo tent, I have to constantly remind myself that I am not going to get stung. With large eyes and striking black and yellow markings, it looks for all the world like a wasp — a yellowjacket, to be more precise. Only when it rubs its forelimbs over its eyes does it begin to reveal its true identity. It is a rarely observed type of hover fly and a perfect doppelganger for the venomous wasp.

The day before, Floyd Williams, a retired ranger from Merchants Millpond State Park with a keen naturalist’s eye, captured the fly in his yard in Gates County. Well aware of my interest in unusual animals, he phoned to inform me of his prize, the Sphecomyia vittata. Not being well-versed in the scientific names of flies, a quick Google search revealed a much more manageable common name, the long-horned yellowjacket fly.

Like most people, I have never given flies much thought, other than when I am trying to shoo one out the car window or when I slap a deer fly taking a nibble from the back of my neck. Aside from politicians, and perhaps the Duke men’s basketball team, flies are among the most detested of all living things.

Yet for all the public apathy, flies are vital components of a healthy ecosystem. Need something to break down that pile of dog poop in the backyard? There’s a fly for that. Need something to pollinate those bright flowers in the garden? There’s a fly for that. How about ridding insect pests that raid those same gardens? You guessed it. There’s a fly for that. Sporting an infinite array of shapes and sizes, flies provide a wealth of underappreciated environmental services.

As I fiddle with my exposure, the hover fly begins to slowly walk across the floor of the photo tent. Reaching inside, I gently prod the fly with a toothpick, in an effort to move it to the center of the tent, back into camera range. Upon feeling the nudge to its abdomen, the fly suddenly lets out a sharp and unexpected buzz. I marvel. Not only does this fly look like a yellowjacket, it sounds like one too! The buzz only adds to the illusion. As far as mimics go, this one takes the top prize.

Flies of every kind are eaten by a plethora of animals. Spiders, birds, lizards, small mammals, even wasps relish a juicy fly. If one is going to fly about out in the open, during daylight hours, as hover flies (aka flower flies) do, it pays to look like something unappetizing, or better yet, dangerous.

Defenseless organisms that masquerade as dangerous ones employ an evolutionary survival strategy that biologists refer to as Batesian mimicry. Named for the Victorian naturalist Henry Walter Bates, who spent years trouncing around the forests of the Amazon and first discovered the natural phenomenon, this form of mimicry is surprisingly common. Most of the 6,300 or so species of hover flies found around the world bear a striking resemblance to wasps and bees.

Finishing up my session, I take the photo tent outside and open the side panel. With the toothpick, I gently nudge the wings of the hover fly, coaxing it to take off. In a flash, the fly zips out of the photo tent and lands a few yards away on the purple flowers of a backyard butterfly bush, perhaps needing a refreshing sip of nectar after its glamour shots. A five-lined skink, lounging on the railing of our deck, next to the flowers, pays it no mind. Nor does a cardinal singing nearby.

Later, scrolling through the photos on my computer screen, I find myself full of childlike wonder, once again marveling at the extraordinary resemblance of the hover fly to a yellowjacket. Even zooming in on the details of the legs, antennae and body, I find it difficult to establish that it is indeed a fly.

The optical illusion serves to drive home an important lesson: One need not travel to some distant or remote tropical jungle to discover remarkable wonders in nature. The wild right outside the front door is just as full of extraordinary creatures, if one only stops and takes the time to look. PS

Naturalist and photographer Todd Pusser grew up in Eagle Springs. He works to document the extraordinary diversity of life both near and far. His images can be found at www.ToddPusser.com.

2023 Department The Naturalist

Naturalist

Something in the Water

Diving with sand tiger sharks off the North Carolina coast

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

For nearly five minutes, I have been hovering motionlessly off the bow of the Hyde, some 60 feet below the ocean’s surface, staring out into the smoky, blue-gray water. Built in 1945 during the final days of World War II, the Hyde was one of the few ocean dredges outfitted with bullet-resistant steel and large guns. Once it was decommissioned, the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries intentionally sunk the ship 18 miles off the coast of Wilmington in 1988 to provide recreational opportunities for fisherman and scuba divers. The Hyde now rests upright on a vast, flat, sandy bottom and is a haven for marine life.

Exhaling into my regulator, I spy a large, dark shape, near the edge of my vision, approaching through a dense school of baitfish. On it swims, ever closer, revealing more of its distinctive features. I note the golden-brown sheen of its skin, sprinkled here and there with black spots. An arched back tapers from a wide dorsal fin down to a narrow snout. On the underside of that snout is a mouth filled with large exposed recurved teeth; an imposing maul that makes the species extremely popular attractions in zoos and aquariums.

Raising my camera up to my face mask, I frame the sand tiger shark in my viewfinder and press the shutter. The shark, 8 feet long, swims closer still, mouth slightly agape. Finally, an arm’s length away, the sand tiger veers to my right and swims slowly by, completely ignoring me. With a few gentle thrusts of its tail, the shark disappears into the blue.

Since the dawn of civilization, humans have been fascinated by sharks. Their likeness features on Phoenician pottery dating back to 3,000 B.C. Aristotle wrote about them, as did Pliny the Elder, of ancient Rome. Many cultures even viewed sharks as deities. However, fascination soon gave way to fear. A vase, discovered in 725 B.C. in Ischia, Italy, depicts a shark-like fish attacking a man. The fear of being eaten alive has persisted through the centuries, eventually culminating in the 1975 movie Jaws. So strong is this fear, it is without parallel, even in a world filled with nuclear weapons and mass shootings.

Sharks have been in existence for a very long time, swimming ocean waters some 200 million years before the dinosaurs walked the Earth. Over 540 species of sharks are currently recognized by scientists. With each passing year, new species are continually being described.

In his 2003 book Sharks, Rays, and Skates of the Carolinas, the late marine biologist Frank Schwartz of the University of North Carolina Marine Sciences Institute, in Morehead City, documented 56 species of sharks swimming our state’s waters. Of the sand tiger shark, he wrote, “Common year-round in the Carolinas, especially July-November in shallow shelf waters.” Their presence in the shallow waters off North Carolina has made the state a mecca for recreational scuba divers and underwater photographers. Believe it or not, people willing to pay good money, flock here from all over the world for the chance to swim with these predators in the wild. North Carolina is one of just a handful of spots anywhere on the planet where divers can safely observe large sharks in their natural environment without the need for metal cages or the use of bait in the water.

Despite their docile demeanor, sand tiger sharks, like all large predators, are capable of inflicting a serious bite, and should be treated with respect. Consider, as well, an interesting tidbit about their unusual reproductive biology. Female sand tiger sharks possess two uteri. Within each of these uteri, the largest embryo consumes all its siblings and any unfertilized eggs that the female produces. Talk about sibling rivalry. With no competition for food, the embryos grow to a large size for the duration of their mother’s 10-month pregnancy. Born headfirst, the pair are over a meter in length (among the largest of all sharks at birth) and come equipped with a mouth of fully functional teeth.

With air running low in my scuba tank, I swim over to the anchor line and begin my slow ascent toward the dive boat drifting overhead. Glancing down, I count at least 20 large sand tigers circling the Hyde, a testament that the moratorium on fishing for large shark species within United States waters is working. Due to the fact that female sand tiger sharks only give birth to two pups at a time, every three years, the species is especially vulnerable to overfishing.

Off to my side, a sand tiger shark, high up in the water column, turns and slowly heads in my direction. The shark casts a curious eye as it swims by just a few feet away. This time, instead of raising my camera, I stop my ascent, and simply watch, fully enjoying the moment. PS

Naturalist and photographer Todd Pusser grew up in Eagle Springs. He works to document the extraordinary diversity of life both near and far. His images can be found at www.ToddPusser.com.

2023 Department The Naturalist

Naturalist

The Lords of the Rings

Innovation among dolphins in a salt marsh

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

Tucked back in a western Florida salt marsh, far from the open ocean, a trio of bottlenose dolphins swim slowly through shallow waters searching for fish among a labyrinth of small, muddy islands covered in needlerush and a bright blue sky. Herons and pelicans, sensing an opportunity, patiently follow along, hopping from one mud bank to another as the dolphins continue their hunt through waters stained the color of a vanilla latte.

All of a sudden, one dolphin raises its tail high out of the water and brings it down forcibly, creating a massive splash and an audible “thwack” that can be heard throughout the expansive marsh. The predators have found their prey.

In water just a few feet deep, the dolphin starts to swim rapidly in a circle, vigorously pumping its tail up and down, stirring up the muddy bottom, creating a perfectly oval mud ring. The other dolphins swim over and the trio lift their heads out of the water along the edge of the mud ring, open their mouths, and wait.

A school of mullet, trapped inside the rapidly closing mud ring, starts to panic. Not wanting to swim through a wall of mud, the fish opt instead to leap out of the water, over the edge of the mud ring — right into the mouths of the waiting dolphins.

It’s all over in the blink of an eye. Each dolphin, having successfully caught a fish, lowers their head back into the murky water and continues hunting the narrow channels of the salt marsh. Before the morning is over, they will repeat this behavior dozens of times until fully satiated.

Bottlenose dolphins are renowned for their intelligence and adaptability. After humans and a few primates, they have the largest brain-to-body ratio of any living animal. Incredibly social, they have perfected innovative hunting techniques to maximize efficiency in capturing prey, no matter the environment.

In the Bahamas, bottlenose dolphins swim along shallow waters, using echolocation to scan sandy bottoms for buried flounder and razorfish. When prey is located, a dolphin will stick its head into the loose sand and push water out of its mouth to flush the fish from hiding. In tidal marshes along the South Carolina coast, bottlenose dolphins intentionally throw their bodies completely out of the water up onto mud flats, chasing fish they have trapped against the shoreline. In the deep waters surrounding Cocos Island, bottlenose dolphins work as a team to corral schools of baitfish into tight balls against the ocean’s surface, which prevents their prey from escaping. Off North Carolina, bottlenose dolphins have learned to follow shrimp boats, who regularly toss their unwanted bycatch overboard, providing easy meals for the hungry predators.

All of these distinctive feeding strategies reveal rich, sophisticated cultures, shaped by a level of intelligence and creativity not often seen in the animal kingdom, and are passed down from generation to generation.

The bottlenose dolphins that use the mud ring feeding technique do so only along the shores of Florida and nowhere else in the world. The behavior, first described from the shallow waters of the Everglades and the Florida Keys, has since been observed at various spots along the state’s west coast up into the Panhandle.

I first witnessed mud ring feeding back in the early 1990s when I traveled down to Florida to complete my open water scuba certification with a class from the University of North Carolina. Since that time, whenever I travel to the coastal waters of the Sunshine State, I keep a sharp eye out for these cunning predators.

The last time I was fortunate enough to observe mud ring feeding, it involved a group of four dolphins, one of which was a small calf. I was first alerted to their presence by a pair of brown pelicans rapidly diving headfirst into the water along the edge of an immense marsh. The ungainly birds would surface, take wing, fly a few yards, and then dive again into the murky water. It took a minute or two before I saw the telltale grey, shark-like fins of the dolphins out in front of the pelicans.

Knowing immediately what the dolphins were up to, I grabbed my binoculars and settled into the seat on my aluminum jonboat to enjoy the show. Right on cue, the lead dolphin smacked its tail onto the surface of the water and began to swim in a tight circle, stirring up the mud in the process.

The pelicans, seeing the dolphin complete the circle, swoop in just as the other dolphins swim over and lift their heads from the water. Dozens of mullet suddenly burst forth from the surface of the water inside the mud ring, like an erupting volcano. A-free-for-all ensues, as both mammals and birds lunge from side to side trying to catch the leaping fish.

The dolphin calf, too young for solid food just yet, does not lift its head out of the water. It simply stays close to Mom, intently watching her every move. There is no doubt that this is an important teachable moment for the youngster. I can’t help but marvel at how their complex social lives so closely mirror our own.

The dolphins regroup and swim around a sharp bend in the marsh, quietly disappearing into the murky green waters, searching for the next school of fish. PS

Naturalist and photographer Todd Pusser grew up in Eagle Springs. He works to document the extraordinary diversity of life both near and far. His images can be found at www.ToddPusser.com.

2022 Department The Naturalist

The Naturalist

Of Golden Mice and Men

And the quest to see all the world’s mammals

Story and Photographs by Todd Pusser

“I have something here,” Jon Hall proclaims with an obvious air of excitement. “Can you see it?”

Nearby, another voice responds. “Yeah, I see it,” remarks Charles Foley, “but I can’t tell if it is a mouse or a bird.”

Despite standing just a few feet away, I cannot see either man, much less a tiny critter, in the deep dark of the moonless night. Both men have traveled hundreds of miles just for this opportunity and I dare not move for fear of spooking their quarry.

I hear the rustle of leaves as Jon slowly repositions himself, angling for a better view. Raising a high-tech thermal imaging scope to his eye, Jon focuses his attention on a dense thicket of briers a few yards in front of him.

The scope, as its name suggests, is able to detect heat emitted from a target, such as a warm-blooded mammal or bird, and generates an image allowing the viewer to see in the dark. Long used by the military to detect enemy soldiers on the battlefield, the technology has become more widely available in recent years and is now regularly used by police, search and rescue units, hunters, and in this case, mammal watchers.

“It is a mouse!” Jon’s voice rises an octave.

Charles, standing to my right, moves closer to Jon with his own thermal scope in hand. “Ah, but what kind of mouse?” he asks.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Jon responds. Taking his eye from the thermal scope, he raises a pair of binoculars and a flashlight with his spare hand. Bright light suddenly floods the forest, illuminating the thick tangle of vegetation, temporarily stunning the rodent who freezes in place. Staring through the binoculars, Jon proclaims, “It’s a golden mouse!”

From my vantage point, I raise my own pair of binoculars to my eyes, but all I can see is a hind leg and tail of the small mouse through the dense vegetation. I am unable to see enough detail to determine exactly what type of mouse it is. Charles, too, only catches a glimpse of the animal before it darts out of sight.

I should pause here. Perhaps by now, you might be wondering why three grown men would be standing in the middle of a brier-laden Carolina forest in the dead of night, each with thousands of dollars worth of specialized equipment in hand, trying to spot a mouse. A mouse, for Pete’s sake?

Ahhh, but not just any mouse. With a prehensile tail built for a semi-arboreal lifestyle, the enigmatic rodent is the only member of its genus. Active mainly at night and rarely observed in the wild, its lustrous golden-brown coat has captured the imagination of naturalists for generations. Famed 19th century painter John James Audubon was so enamored with the golden mouse that he once remarked, “In symmetry of form and brightness of color, this is the prettiest species of Mus (mouse) inhabiting our country.”

More importantly for Jon and Charles, who have dedicated their lives to seeing every one of the approximately 6,500 species of mammal on the planet, it was a mouse neither had observed alive in the wild.

Jon, currently based in New York, works as a statistician for the United Nations measuring the happiness and well-being of human populations. In his spare time, he maintains the internet’s premiere mammal watching website (www.mammalwatching.com). Much like more familiar bird-watching websites, Jon’s webpage regularly provides updates on interesting sightings and trip reports of mammal encounters from Borneo to Mexico. It was through the website that Charles (a researcher who has studied elephants in Tanzania for three decades) came to know Jon. The two men travel frequently together and currently host a podcast dedicated to the ever-growing pastime of mammal watching.

Last fall, I reached out to the men suggesting that they interview a friend of mine who has seen most of the world’s species of whales and dolphins. Through our conversations, I casually mentioned that they should come and visit me in North Carolina and perhaps I could show them a red wolf, the world’s rarest canid. With interest thoroughly piqued, Jon asked about other potential mammal species in the area, and that is how the subject of the golden mouse came up.

I confessed to not knowing much about golden mice, so I started asking around my social network of nature nerds and biologists if they knew of anyone who has encountered the species in the Carolina wilds. Before long, I was directed to Floyd and Signa Williams, two retired state park rangers, who had seen and photographed the mice on their rural Gates County property in years past.

Readily agreeing to help, Floyd and Signa soon located a dozen golden mice nests along the edge of a beaver swamp behind their house. The nests, unlike those of other mouse species in the state, are spherical in shape, much like a small soccer ball, and constructed of leaves, small twigs, and bark. On their property, the nests were located between one and eight feet off the ground in dense tangles of greenbriers and holly trees.

L-r: Jon Hall, Charles Foley, Floyd & Signa Williams

After the brief encounter with the mouse in the brier thicket, we struck out finding any more the rest of the night, despite using the high-tech thermal scopes. Somewhat disappointed, we left Floyd and Signa for the evening and returned to our Airbnb rental over an hour and a half away.

The next morning, Signa texted to inform us we had caught a pair of golden mice in some of the Sherman Live Traps that we had placed along the edge of the swamp the day before. Ecstatic, we raced the 70 miles back to their house.

On our way, Jon mentioned that a golden mouse is worth seeing up close. Peering into the aluminum trap, I could see what all the fuss was about. A golden mouse is an exquisite small mammal with large, curious eyes and a luxuriant golden pelage, unlike the muted greys of more familiar mice found inside homes and gardens. Simply put, the small, golden fluff ball staring back at me was the most beautiful mouse I had ever seen.

I placed the mouse inside a large photo tent where we spent the better part of an hour taking photographs and admiring its cuteness. All the while, the mouse remained surprisingly calm and docile. After its glamour shots, we returned the mouse, unharmed and no worse for the wear, back where we found it.

A round of high fives and congratulations ensued. For Jon, it was his 1,999th species, an extraordinary accomplishment and a testimony to his lifelong obsession.

Despite having traveled the world and seeing many of its most charismatic mammals — everything from snow leopards in Asia, gorillas in Africa, and jaguars in Brazil — both Jon and Charles were all smiles and completely over the moon with their golden mouse encounter here in rural North Carolina.

I admire that about them. PS

Naturalist and photographer Todd Pusser grew up in Eagle Springs. He works to document the extraordinary diversity of life both near and far. His images can be found at www.ToddPusser.com.

2022 Department The Naturalist