It’s spring! At least I hope so. That means it is time to hit the trails. I love trail running, especially now when the prospect of getting muddy isn’t just a hope but a reality. I can’t think of any other sport I participate in that is better at bringing out the kid in me. Spring trail running provides the best excuse to get muddy, splash through streams, and scrabble over trees and rocks. Such fun!
Trail running also reminds me of how lucky I am to live here. Not only are there so many great trails to run, but there are lots of great trail running races. One of my favorites is Pfeiffer Nature Center’s Woods Walk and Trail Run. The 10 mile run is not too long and not too short and just the right level of CHALLENGE. I love the tough climbs, the perfect excuse for me to walk, the screaming descents, and the fantastic views, yet another great excuse to slow down or even stop. Honestly, Pfeiffer’s 10 mile course is a tough one. That’s why I love it andwhy so many other trail runners love it. Of course any trail run is a wonderful opportunity to talk with other trail runners, find out about upcoming trail races (check out the Eastern Grip Trail Running Series), and just have fun.
When I think Pfeiffer Nature Center’s Woods Walk & Trail Run, I think fun, food, and family. Just past the finish line there is a food tent with lots and lots of yummy food. In past years there have been massages for aching muscles and neat birds to look at.
So come run Pfeiffer. It’s June 1st, there are a variety of activities, both walks and runs. It’s a perfect way to spend the day with your family and friends.
We’ve been very fortunate to have visits in April from two western New York groups, GrowWNY and WGRZ-TV. Both groups focus on introducing outdoor experiences to their Buffalo and Western New York audiences. Please check out their trip reports.
They say April showers bring May flowers but this past Wednesday was certainly wild weather with thunder and lightning. Watching the storm left me wondering though, what exactly is going on up in those clouds that causes those flashing lights, thunderous booms and wild winds.
Most of you know that lightning is electricity but do you really know how it occurs? Believe it or not, most scientists can’t agree on how it occurs though they have a general understanding of the process. Basically storm clouds become charged during a storm, and the atoms separate with the positive nucleus moving to the upper portion of the clouds and the negative electrons falling to the lower portion of the clouds, creating an electric field through charge separation. The more separation that occurs the stronger the field becomes. The negative electrons in the lower cloud pushes the negative electrons near the ground deeper into the earth, allowing the earth to become positively charged. This is where a conductive path is made, because as you know, electricity likes to travel between the very conductive negative electrons to the positive ions.
The lower clouds, or negative electrons create step leaders reaching throughout the sky, or pathways through the clouds that a potential bolt might travel. They are created by unequal ionization and can flow in many different directions, with some never even reaching the ground. The ground creates positive streamers which pulls at the step leaders, creating our purplish glow during a bolt. When the two meet, electricity flows creating lightning hotter than the surface of the sun. The heat causes the white color of the bolt and causes the air to expand so quickly it’s compared to an explosion. This explosion causes waves radiating from the strike path and makes thunder.
Overall, this is a pretty interesting natural phenomena that occurs when nature attempts to neutralize changes in the air. And the fact that the process is not completely understood leaves a little wonder to it. But even knowing what I know now, I still think storms are an exciting, thrilling and beautiful part of our weather and I love to watch them. Hope you do too. Just always remember to watch safely.
Our guest Blogger is Rebekah Schimp. She is a dedicated and enthusiastic environmentalist and naturalist with a quick wit and a strong work ethic. She is volunteering with the nature center this spring before she heads off to great adventures out west to track and band migratory song birds. With a strong scientific and creative background she adds an interesting and knowledgeable views on any project.
For more information visit: science.howstuffworks.com or look for John Zavisa’s How Lightning Works.
I take essentially the same walk every day – one mile up the hill & back on my dirt road – often at the same hour. Some may find that boring, I find it fascinating to watch the little changes from day to day.
So it’s really noticeable when on Monday morning I hear nothing and on Tuesday morning the ponds at the top of the hill are LOUD with sounds of Spring Peepers & Wood Frogs. In the 5AM still I could hear the peep, peep, PEEP, peep, peep, PEEP from more than 100 yards away.
As I got closer the garbling of the Wood Frogs made itself well known. If I were to guess, I’d say that the Peepers were in the front pond, the Wood Frogs in the back pond.
Peepers and Wood Frogs are a joy to me. I don’t have the right kind of habitat for them on my property, although a few always set up housekeeping in the roadside ditch (poor choice), so I mostly get to hear them on my walks.
Then this morning, after some overnight rain, I was graced by glow worms — aka lightening bugs or fireflies. I think it’s quite early to see so many – I saw them in at least 20 spots on my morning walk, some with only 1 of these beetles, some with as many as 8 in a 3 foot radius.
Interestingly, when it started to rain pretty heavily before I got back to the house, those little guys all stopped showing their luminescence entirely. Apparently no point wasting their energy when the drops were heavy. I’m going to join the citizen science Firefly Watch again this year. It’s fun, easy, and adds to our knowledge about these interesting beetles. You can join, too!
Clearly it’s spring and every creature is thinking about love…or at least about reproduction.
Well today was a day that really made us feel like spring is truly on its way. The return of the morning bird songs from robins, red-wing blackbirds, even the movements of the geese tell us that spring coming along. But there are other clues as well. Living in the country, I’ve noticed my neighbors running the lines back and forth. And the lines would be running from tree to tree. That’s right, the time has come for sap to run; maple syrup season has arrived.
The weather has been perfect recently, with warm days and cold nights, the sap runs. By boring holes into the tree, usually sugar maples, sap is collected by buckets or hoses where it eventually makes its way to the sugar shack. Once there, the sap is boiled down, water evaporated, leaving thick sugary sweetness in its wake. A tree can produce around ten gallons per day, on a good day, which is important considering only a quarter of a gallon of syrup is made from five to thirteen gallons of sap.
Collecting sap was first attempted by the Native Americans and was later adopted by us. Now we have gone beyond boiling sap in pots over fires. We use a series of evaporators developed to boil down the sap into syrup. The syrup of the early season is usually lighter and sweeter, tasting less like maple and is called light amber. Generally the syrup gets darker as time goes on and tastes stronger of maple. The darker the syrup, the less pure it is considered and it’s downgraded to grade b. What’s funny is that most sellers prefer the darker syrup. However, dark or light,the syrup is always sweet and perfect way to remind yourself that spring is here.
Our guest Blogger is Rebekah Schimp. She is a dedicated and enthusiastic environmentalist and naturalist with a quick wit and a strong work ethic. She is volunteering with the nature center this spring before she heads off to great adventures out west to track and band migratory song birds. With a strong scientific and creative background she adds an interesting and knowledgeable views on any project.
I hereby declare today Birds On The Move Day. I just (4:00PM) went out with my dog to get the mail, and was extremely fortunate.
There in the trees at the bottom of my driveway was a small flock – I’d guess about 20 individuals, both male & female – of Red-winged Blackbirds. Personally, I’ve never seen more than a few of these lovelies at a time. These birds, so much more than the robin for me, are signs that spring is really here. Yes, it’s still cold, windy & snowy at my house, but the Red-winged Blackbirds give me hope.
Just 50 our so yards down the road I finally caught sight of two Northern Flickers. These woodpeckers have been in my neck of the woods with their familiar call – which sounds to me like qwer, qwer – for well over a week, but today was the first day they let me actually see them.
As planned, I walked only about 1/4 mile and turned around. When I got back to the bottom of my driveway, there in the trees where the Red-winged Blackbirds had been, was a similar number of American Robins. These weren’t the first Robins I’ve seen this year, but it was the most in one place. I turned up the driveway and there in the dogwood brush was another at least 20 Robins. That’s a lot of Robins in one place!
So I don’t care what anyone else thinks, for me today is Birds On The Move Day!
I’ve used images from the Cornell Ornithology lab & linked to their website. Go there to learn tons about these and thousands of other birds.
The prediction for this weekend is warm temperatures in the 50′s. It won’t be long before the vernal pools on our Lillibridge property swell with runoff from the old-growth forest and prepare to host a wide variety of salamanders for their annual mating ritual. A warm rainy night with temperatures about 45 degrees can trigger a mass migration of salamanders to the pools.
Vernal pools are fascinating ecosystems. The pools are created in our old-growth forest when large trees fall and the area displaced by the root section creates a natural depression. The depression fills with rain and snow melt creating these temporary (ephemeral) pools. These pools may dry up later in the year and consequently do not support fish and/or turtles, which are natural predators of salamanders. The pools are an ideal spot for salamanders to breed and occasionally support fairy shrimp, an important foodstuff of juvenile salamanders.
Vernal pools, being wet, also can host breeding mosquitoes. Consequently, over the years they have been the target of insect control efforts, being filled in or sprayed with insecticide as preventative measures to address the mosquito issue. Unfortunately this has resulted in the loss of valuable habitat for amphibians. Today, people are more aware of the importance of vernal pools. In the New England states there is a significant citizen science movement to identify, preserve, and monitor vernal pools. Locally, forest owners have been educated and encouraged to create man-made pools to increase biodiversity and create critical habitat for amphibians.
We are fortunate that the vernal pools on our Lillibridge property are naturally occurring and undisturbed. The property is host to an incredible 12 of 18 native salamander species. Each spring we anticipate the “big walk”, the night of the mass migration. The pool immediately behind the kiosk at Lillibridge has had Red-Spotted Newts, Spotted Salamanders, and Jefferson Salamanders. The later two are species of special concern in New York State.
The males and females arrive together at the pool of their birth, court, mate, and then deposit masses of eggs in the pool. In approximately six weeks, the eggs will hatch and the larvae will feed on aquatic invertebrates in the pool until they mature and leave the pool in summer, just about the time the pools dry up.
You can observe the salamanders in the pool and watch changes in the eggs. It is important not to disturb anything in or around the pool while this process occurs. In fact, look carefully where you step. It’s not uncommon to see salamanders en route to or from the pool visible on the forest floor and trail path. You may also spot tracks of raccoons, opossums, shrews, and other predators that feed on the salamanders.
Other amphibians identified on the Lillibridge property include: American Toad, Spring Peeper, Wood Frog, Green Frog, Gray Tree Frog, Red-Spotted Newt (aka Red Eft), Spotted Salamander, Jefferson Salamander, Northern Dusky Salamander, Mountain Dusky Salamander, Wehrle’s Salamander, Northern Slimy Salamander, Redback Salamander, Northern Two-Lined Salamander, Northern Red Salamander, Four-Toed Salamander, and Long-Tailed Salamander.
Visitors can explore the amphibians of Lillibridge in our annual program Awesome Amphibians, September 21, 2013 with volunteer naturalist Bill Shelp.
Roger Tory Peterson Institute will be offering a program on Vernal Pools March 14, 2013. Presented by their new executive director, Dr. Twan Leenders, a noted conservation biologist and researcher on amphibians, this should be a great presentation to expand your understanding of these important habitats. For details click here.
A brief trip south this past weekend to a place with no snow, plenty of sun, and warmer temperatures has put a pause to my enjoyment of winter. It is a bleary day here, ice thick on the river, blowing snow, and cold, cold, bitter cold yet again. One wonders if someone is holding Punxsutawney Phil accountable for this year prediction.
To lift spirits I am reflecting on my upcoming spring. Little pink flags line the trails around the cabin marking the various spring ephemerals I will photograph from the point their little green nubs emerge from the thawed ground to the final brown remains of their seedpods. The sugar maples have sap buckets on them and the change of their flow will direct my attention upward to the trees budding out on a schedule I have never closely followed but will track in my journal.
In addition, as if to remind me that I pay so little attention to the critters that I live alongside, the deck and path was littered with the tiniest of tracks. Nature literally at my doorstep! Sure, I have a vase full of twigs, dog-eared identification books, a pile of fossils to examine, but right now, I would like something dynamic and alive to ponder on these bleary days. Tracks!
Fresh snow, fresh tracks! Critters are going about their business even in these bitter still days. I have not mastered photographing tracks, so difficult against the white snow, so I have resorted to grabbing my field book and sketching what I see. I have been able to draw and identify some of my neighbors: the red fox, deer, flying squirrels, deer mice, grey squirrel, and porcupine. Some of the tracks are hard to identify and wind up in a pile marked “thankful it’s not coyote”. Like pulling a thread to unravel a sweater, finding and identifying the tracks has led to so many observations and “ah ha” moments.
Watching where the tracks lead is like following someone’s route to the grocery store, which aisles they shop, what they stopped to pick up. The red fox normally did not come to this part of the road. This summer, utility crews cleared the side of the road leaving brush piles, which now apparently house a large rodent population. There are abundant mice tracks, fox tracks showing where they leapt after small prey, and even marks from an owl capturing his dinner on the run. I am thankful the fox has found his way to the top of the road. He is doing a good job keeping the outside mice from becoming inside cabin mice!
The tracks are giving me not only a sense of what animals live here but also the range of their homestead and where they are hunting or foraging. I look anew at the plants of the woods seeing which ones have provided foodstuffs, shelter, and more. I am amazed at how one observation of a single set of tracks has reminded me to see the whole system that surrounds me. It is truly a “community of life” as David Haskell coins it in his book A Forest Unseen. He recommends a type of contemplative practice to connect with the natural environment around you. Although not skilled in this, what I have done on his guidance is peaceful and eye opening.
I live in a busy place. I take up the most amount of space and resources in this neighborhood but I am only one critter in the forested track that houses mostly unseen thousands. It reminds me that when I teach that it’s not just how to identify the track (or the tree, or the flower) but also the animal, and the animals relationships to others, and the animals relationship to us. I must make sure it relates to the big picture, show interconnectedness. It reminds me to be considerate to my neighbors as I plant this spring. I’d love to see forsythia along the bank but now I’m thinking elderberry and little bluestem. The grouse will appreciate it more year-round than I will for the few weeks it would have provided a rush of yellow.
Track hunting will be my bridge through the cold days to come. It will be the lively thread that will pull me into spring when it will be more difficult to “see” my neighbors. My hope is that by spring I will not only see the camp across the road but also can see the range of the fox, see the paths of the deer, see the trees the flying squirrels frequent, see better my world.
Here are some books that are helping me “see” nature at my doorstep…
The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature by David George Haskell www.theforestunseen.com and Mammal Tracks and Signs: A Guide to North American Species by Mark Elbrock.
I love the first snow! A fresh snowfall creates a new canvas to observe the details of the forest and field. A curled tendril of the fox grape leaps into view no longer obscured by the brown wash of late fall. Tracks identify dens that have been passed unnoticed a full season and now mark new spots to draw my attention in hopes of getting a glimpse of their makers.
I love the different textures and patterns of the dead and dormant plant life so noticeable now against the snow. So much so, that my parka pockets are usually packed with seed pods, leaves, twigs, and bones. Some of this bounty I’ve been able to use teaching about nature but most of it just fills boxes that I occasionally pull out and ponder.
Recently I found a different use for this dried collection I have amassed. On Thanksgiving we were visiting the US Botanic Gardens to enjoy some lush greenery and saw they had a display called “Seasons Greetings” in the exhibit hall. We wandered into an unexpected treasure of fantasy miniatures adorning a display of hobby trains. The entire set was created out of natural plant materials.
The display is the work of Paul Busse of Applied Imagination. He has been designing and installing these art installations for over 20 years at museums, botanical gardens, even local libraries. His materials are gathered from his surroundings in Kentucky, so many of the features should be recognizable to those of us who wander the northeast woods. Oak apple galls became fairy heads. Locust pods shrouded a woods woman as a skirt. Acorns lined a bridge as cobblestones. It was an absolutely incredible sight!
I knew I was hooked on his artful use of plant material when walking the other day a glimpse of a club moss strobilus poking through the snow became a trident for Poseidon. Why Poseidon? Haven’t a clue, but I think my mental catalog of dried goodies usually sorted by angiosperms, gymnosperms, nuts, drupes, berries, terminal buds, etc. is starting to be converted into an art supply list!
There are so many ways you can look at forest and field. As source for fuel, materials for building, a place for contemplation, a venue for exercise, a living learning lab. This winter, I think I’ll opt to channel Mr. Busse and view it as a source for inspiration and art!
My friend Kathy shared this the other day “The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine.” ~Henry David Thoreau True in his time and ours. We’ve reach the point where there are more leaves off the trees than on and this year that point was hastened by Hurricane Sandy.
Yesterday I watched my feet more than looked the trees in an effort to prevent a nasty fall on a very squishy trail. The further I walked the more removed I became from the city noise and began to focus on the forest. I started playing the “name that leaf” game, calling them off to myself as I stepped on and around them on the trail. Then I noticed most of the leaves on the ground were green. Hmmm…. I looked up at the trees to see why and I like to think I experienced that ah ha moment Thoreau captured in his beautiful quote.
The light was amazing! Like a digital diary, my brain said, yep, we’re on the backside of fall. And in a blink of an eye, I was a ten-year old hanging on every word Mrs. Anderson shared about the processes of fall as we hiked through the Allegheny National Forest. She read folktales, recited poetry, and gave us moments to just sit and observe. Very little kept me still as a kid, but laying in the forest and watching the light definitely did it. It was a wonderful moment one I get to relive each fall and one I hope you get out and experience before the snow flies.
Trail running also reminds me of how lucky I am to live here. Not only are there so many great trails to run, but there are lots of great trail running races. One of my favorites is Pfeiffer Nature Center’s Woods Walk and Trail Run. The 10 mile run is not too long and not too short and just the right level of CHALLENGE. I love the tough climbs, the perfect excuse for me to walk, the screaming descents, and the fantastic views, yet another great excuse to slow down or even stop. Honestly, Pfeiffer’s 10 mile course is a tough one. That’s why I love it andwhy so many other trail runners love it. Of course any trail run is a wonderful opportunity to talk with other trail runners, find out about upcoming trail races (check out the Eastern Grip Trail Running Series), and just have fun.
There in the trees at the bottom of my driveway was a small flock – I’d guess about 20 individuals, both male & female – of 
A brief trip south this past weekend to a place with no snow, plenty of sun, and warmer temperatures has put a pause to my enjoyment of winter. It is a bleary day here, ice thick on the river, blowing snow, and cold, cold, bitter cold yet again. One wonders if someone is holding Punxsutawney Phil accountable for this year prediction.
