Whitewater Interlobate Area

Catalpa Sphinx moths (Ceratomia catalpae) have reached peak activity across the region, with eleven sightings logged from mid-June through late July, ranging from Metamora and Richmond out to Oxford and Trotwood. These are among the largest moths in the eastern United States, and their caterpillars are strict specialists: without northern catalpa trees, there is no Catalpa Sphinx. By midsummer the larvae can build up enough to strip a catalpa bare, but the trees are adapted to it and typically push out a second flush of leaves within weeks.The singing insects, the katydids and crickets of the order Orthoptera, are also beginning to turn up. Single records of Common True Katydids, Two-spotted Tree Crickets, and Sword-bearing Coneheads have each been logged across the past eight days. Individually these are just presence records, but taken together they suggest the singers that mark the back half of summer are starting to emerge.

Two permitted dischargers on the East Fork Whitewater River are both in significant non-compliance with their Clean Water Act permits — and the wildlife drinking from that water downstream has no way of knowing it.RICHMOND WWTP, CITY OF and BELDEN WIRE & CABLE COMPANY have no penalties assessed yet. Meanwhile, iNaturalist observations from the downstream watershed over the past year show a steady parade of native mammals that routinely drink from or forage along riverbanks. White-tailed Deer, Common Raccoon, Virginia Opossum, Groundhog, Eastern Cottontail, and Striped Skunk have all been recorded within the corridor in recent months — the most recent as recently as July 19.Also observed in February: an Eastern Red Bat, a threatened species that drinks on the wing, skimming the water's surface during low passes over the river.Late July into August is peak thermal stress season for warm-water streams. Flow drops, temperatures climb, and whatever enters the river from those two discharge points becomes more concentrated. The mammals observed here don't stop drinking because a permit is out of compliance. That's the gap this data can't close on its own.

Over 25 moth species appeared at a late-June blacklight in the gorge — North American Luna Moth, Giant Leopard Moth, Sycamore Tussock Moth, and Painted Lichen Moth among them. The larvae of most of these species are specialists, feeding on native trees — sugar maples, oaks, sycamores — and that diversity of host plants reflects a canopy still intact and diverse.This glacial gorge sits as a forest refugium in a farmed landscape, and the moths are a measure of what it still holds. The presence of 25 species on a single night signals that the forest structure here — the variety of mature trees, the undisturbed understory — remains intact enough to support a full community of native lepidopterans.