With the recent pleasant spring weather, I hope many of you have had some time to get outside with your binoculars for a few hours of quality birding! Migrant songbirds have been making their way back to Ohio from warmer, tropical regions for the past several weeks now. Turkey vultures are soaring, Canada geese are nesting and many songbirds can be heard calling as their nesting season gears up. Eastern phoebes, red-winged blackbirds, yellow-rumped warblers, brown thrashers, blue gray gnatcatchers, wood thrush, hooded warblers, and common yellowthroats are just a few of the migrants that...

Overwintered European elm flea weevils (Orchestes alni) are attacking emerging elm leaves in southwest Ohio.  A close examination will reveal weevils feeding and frolicking (mating) among the newly expanding leaves.  Adults produce small feeding holes and females produce additional damage by laying eggs into mid-rib veins and major lateral veins of the leaves.

As leaves expand, the feeding holes become larger and more apparent producing the characteristic "shothole" leaf damage associated with this weevil.  Damage caused by oviposition also becomes more noticeable with...

Early instar European pine sawfly (Neodiprion sertifer) larvae are now large enough to cause noticeable damage to their pine hosts which include Scotch, mugo, red, jack, Table mountain, and Swiss mountain pines.  White and Austrian pines are occasional hosts.  The larvae are grayish-green with bulbous shiny black head capsules; their color and small size make the difficult to see as they feed on the needles. 

All larval stages feed in colonies and practice the same feeding behavior.  They start by aligning themselves with their head at the tip of a needle and...

Overwintered calico scale (Eulecanium cerasorum) females are now "puffing-up" and pumping out impressive quantities of clear, sugary honeydew in southwest Ohio.  This is a non-native "soft scale" meaning that mature scales are protected by a soft shell.  The scale's common name comes from the starkly contrasting calico pattern of black-and-white markings on the hemispherical-shaped shells of mature females.  The mature females measure about 1/4" in diameter and their distinct markings make them easy to recognize, particularly on bark and branches that are blackened by sooty mold...

Non-native Invasive species issues are commanding a lot of natural resource professional's attention these days. Whether it concerns insects, diseases, plants, mammals or aquatic species there is something out there for everyone! One thing that is true across the board is that early detection is key to dealing more effectively with all of these.

As a group of Extension professionals were discussing our new Asian longhorned beetle infestation in 2011 we kept coming back to how do we get these things reported early when they are still on a relatively small scale. We were...