An Overwhelming Weekend

It was such a busy weekend that it could be a challenge to remember with any detail the earlier hikes (some time over the weekend someone found a green frog, but I can’t remember who or when), but there was definitely a unifying feeling I noticed Saturday morning - spring means such a profusion of exciting signs of life it is hard to know what to focus on. There are wildflowers coming up, flowers on the trees, amphibians in the marsh, birds singing and flying overhead. There were a notable number of people enjoying it all too - the overnight groups I was working with, people out to walk their dogs, to take pictures, to get directions to Mt. Cuba’s wildflower celebration. There was even a memorial service, a sad occasion to be sure, and not for anyone I knew, but you have to trust that whoever it was would appreciate the beauty of a spring weekend and family and friends being out in it to remember. Then Sunday afternoon I worked a three-year-old’s birthday party, and those together remind me of the fullness of humans’ lives too - death and loss, birthdays and celebration, tension with others when running behind, joy with them on a pleasant walk through the woods. (The highlight of my weekend was the walk on which we saw very little, other than every patch of stinging nettle that Skylar seemed uncannily drawn to--Mimi brought the boys out Sunday afternoon and we went for a hike after I was done working.)

25 April

The weekend ended with a hike with my family in the warm spring sunshine, but it started with a rainy night that made us doubt we’d be able to get in a hike at all. With a group of 14 girl scouts, we allowed ourselves to do a leisurely nocturnal animals presentation, figuring the rain was going to shorten or prevent the outdoor portion of the evening. The group had wanted to learn about bats too, so we added in some information on them and shared the skeleton and preserved free-tail bat. Mostly, we answered the kids’ questions, not worrying about cutting them off to keep the time moving. And these girls were asking good, relevant questions, engaged and interested.

When we finished, the rain had slowed to just a drizzle, so we got to take the kids down to the marsh after all. My fellow teacher-naturalist Jessica got the best reaction I have yet heard when she had the kids “turn on their night vision” - having everyone gently close their eyes for 30 seconds to allow the pupil to expand and gather more light. When they opened their eyes afterwards, nearly all the girls said “wow.”

The spring peepers were calling, although not as many of them as there have been, and we heard some pickerel frogs as well. We didn’t see as much as we have on some hikes, but the toad tadpoles have become reliable crowd-pleasers. All weekend I only saw a few wood frog tadpoles. I had heard from other staff at DNS that they’re having a bad year and people are worried. There seems to be more water flowing through the marsh this year since it has been so wet, and the frogs’ tadpoles may be getting swept into areas that aren’t as conducive for them. Or maybe where they’re just harder to see - we can all hope.

As we left the marsh, we spotted a salamander or a newt we couldn’t identify - mostly a nondescript tan without any pattern and possibly a reddish tail - but catching sight of an animal is always fun, even when you don’t know exactly which it is.

26 April

I was back the next morning to take the girls on their morning hike, and the rain had completely moved on. It was a nice hike, a bit quick, but the group continued to enjoy themselves. The marsh impressed the kids again by how different it looked in the daylight, and they gleefully checked out the toad and wood frog tadpoles and especially the snails that were all over the plants near the boardwalk. I was enjoying all the birds out during the morning - the red-winged blackbirds, crows, woodpeckers and swallows - but the group was definitely focused on what was nearby that they could engage with. It was a funny disconnect, and I could indulge it a bit since I was bringing up the rear for the hike. The kids did get excited about the mallard ducks we surprised on first entering the marsh, though. They disappeared down to the Red Clay fairly soon after we arrived, but not until after everyone got to see them. The morning hike wrapped up without much more excitement, The kids learned about skunk cabbage and realized they had not seen the raccoon scat we passed the night before.

The program for this group was geology, which meant a bit more hiking after an introduction in the auditorium. Geology is not a subject for which I have a natural affinity, but it was neat to look at the land through such a different lens and try, somewhat unsuccessfully, to imagine the Earth on such a wildly different time scale. The kids took to the rock hunting with as much eagerness and energy as trying to catch tadpoles or snails, bringing rock after rock over to be identified, breaking them apart, exploring the flooded land where the Red Clay dumped up to four feet of gravel and stone when it flooded during one of the hurricanes within the past decade or so. On the hike from the floodplain to the hillside on Treetop Trail, Sheila pointed out stinging nettle, noting that the plant that often grows nearby and provides a salve, jewelweed, has yet to push up through the soil so it’s a bad time of year to get into it.

27 April

Sunday morning started with a good hike around the marsh with a new group, confirming stinging nettle for an adult leader concerned because some of the girls got into it last year, answering the adults’ questions about mayapple. (Conveniently, the adults the day before had also been curious about mayapple, and I had asked Sheila for a few good facts to share after everyone had gone.) The kids were interested in the animal sign. I took advantage of the pileated woodpecker evidence we saw on our naturalist certification hike at the beginning of March, which gave the kids something they could guess that was also impressive. Also from the mammal walk almost two months ago, I shared the difference between walnuts eaten by grey squirrels and those eaten by red squirrels. The kids enjoyed passing the shells around and finding examples of each for us. I may have made the biggest impression on them, though, when I brought out the pocket field guide to try to identify what had to have been the third or fourth bit of scat we had found on the trail.

The program for this group was EcoHike, so we decided to look for life in a meadow, a forest and a stream. My group started in the meadow and I was worried at first because the meadow has no real tall grass to speak of yet. My demonstration sweep of the area that will be tall grass netted one fly I didn’t recognize, which is another worry for me in these meadow programs since I haven’t done too many of them yet, but I realized it just provides an opportunity to share with kids how they can use a field guide and look for animals on their own. (By the time the kids were done their own sweeping we had identified it as a flower fly.) The kids found a couple grasshoppers and lots of gnats, but they also caught a crane fly, which worked well for the program since there is always a good chance of catching crane fly larva in the stream.

It was hard to get the kids to put the nets down and move on to the forest - this group was hard to get to move on ever, really, and while it made staying on schedule hard, it was actually a great problem to have, children having fun hunting bugs. While explaining searching under rocks and logs in the woods, we saw a bald eagle soar overhead, which was certainly a highlight of the weekend. The kids had some success amidst the trees too, finding millipedes, beetles, isopods and earthworms.

Even the hike out to the stream was productive for this group as they saw a turkey vulture and a woodpecker, who really got everyone’s attention, and one of the adults caught a toad on the trail. We didn’t have as much time at the stream as we would usually take, but it still ended up a success, with not just the mayfly and stonefly larva I’ve become used to seeing, but also a damselfly larva. One girl even caught a very small crayfish, which was probably my favorite find in the creek. We didn’t catch a cranefly larva, but the other group had left out one they had caught, along with a salamander, so I could still share with the kids how that overgrown mosquito-looking insect from the meadow starts its life.

The birthday party that closed out my long weekend at Ashland was notable mostly for how different the crowd was - family and friends rather than an organized group, and the kids were mostly young, probably 2 to just 6 or 7. It changed the dynamic of the program - presenting native animals - but in a really fun way - these kids got excited just to see the animals. They touched some, we put some down, we fed some, and every bit of it was magic for the group. Nothing like seeing how children react to something to remind you that wonder and awe really are the most appropriate emotions to much of what we see every day.

Toads, and fleeting glimpses of a bat and a great blue heron

12 April Ashland

Walking up the trail to the visitor center Saturday evening, I could hear the marsh had changed over the week, with the trills of toads now the overwhelming first impression.  The toads were calling well before sundown, and when I got down into the marsh at dusk, I would find many other changes as well. Or what seemed like big changes - I imagine it all sounds rather small from outside this regular, tightly focused attention I am giving this piece of land and water, but that’s interesting too - paying attention to a small area has made it immeasurably bigger for me.

It turned out the spring peepers had not relinquished the marsh entirely but were waiting for night to be nearer. When we set out on our hike, they had joined the toads and were, in fact, the easier to pick out, their calls being so distinctive. We made our way down towards the marsh, and just after I had told the group to point out things that looked interesting, one of the girls asked about the skunk cabbage. They were an older group, from the Eastern Shore, and I was surprised to find I could still surprise a couple of them with the plant. But it is always fun to share why it got its name. I forgot to mention that you could eat the leaves of the plant, which would have been good for even more fun, grossed-out laughter, but they seemed to enjoy just knowing about the plant.

When we got into the marsh, I tried to show them the wood frog eggs that have become a staple on these trips, but they were gone. Later, two of the girl scouts caught impossibly small tadpoles. They must have needed children’s eyes to be seen. Quite exciting to see them on their way.

While the wood frog tadpoles were hard to find and see, the toads, it turned out, where anything but. Towards the end of the boardwalk probably a dozen were moving around the water, some in amplexus, some males pushing other males off of females, generally unconcerned by us. I think we also heard a pickerel frog out at that end, and they should be next, but I’m not positive.

Before leaving the marsh we also happened to see a bat and a great blue heron fly past, two unusual and exciting sights. I had seen the heron before, also flying along the Red Clay Creek, which makes me wonder if it lives in the area.

Great blue herons, the largest heron on the continent, do live inland around marshes and riverbends, and in addition to fish, they eat frogs, salamanders and other things they would be likely to find in the area. They are crepuscular, feeding most actively in morning and at dusk, hunting alone with their sharp bill, primarily by sight and swallowing prey whole. Although they are solitary when active, they often breed in colonies and sleep in groups of more than 100 birds during the day.

Heron eggs are food for crows and ravens, and the birds, especially when young, are eaten by raccoons, eagles, red-tailed hawks, and, in other areas, bears. Nearly 70 percent of great blue herons die before they are a year old, although those who survive then live an average of 15 years.

They are beautiful birds to see wading in the water, and majestic in flight, their long wings, necks, legs outstretched.

From the marsh we started into the woods, and just as the night was starting to feel more dark than light and we were talking about listening for animals, we heard a rustling just off the path. I turned my flashlight on the noise and found - a toad. It really was a night for the toads, and we could hear them making their way from the forests to the water in a couple places.

The rest of the night hike was fairly uneventful. We heard plenty but didn’t see anything else, but I did have a chance to try a new teaching tool I learned that afternoon from Sheila, who coordinates the group programs at Ashland and was leading the other hike. I stopped the group under some hemlocks she had suggested and showed them a series of construction paper squares to see if they could tell the color. With the nearly full moon, they did better at this than one would hope with this activity, but it still gave us an opportunity to talk about the trade-off nocturnal animals make between rods and cones in their eyes - they have more rods than we do and can therefore see better in lower light, but fewer cones, which distinguish color. In the darkness, there is less ability to distinguish color, so those structures in the eye are much diminished.

We ended with a nice hike up Hawk Watch Hill and talked about owls and the universe until the other group arrived for astronomy. I held my own on owls and admitted I don’t understand the universe when they asked about that. But it was exciting too that two of the girls were birdwatchers and knew quite a bit about owls already. Talking about how they live and hunt at night became more of a conversation and kept us occupied almost up until it was time for astronomy.

A Good Weekend for Night Hikes

Last weekend was a good one at Ashland, with the frogs out in force and a couple of good groups out for hikes.

4 April

Friday night we had a small group of cub scouts to take around, and with the spring peepers calling constantly these days (they had begun sporadically when I arrived in late afternoon), we headed straight for the marsh to start the night hike. As we have been doing lately, we spent a fair amount of time in the marsh, and things were ever so slightly different than the last night I’d been through, which also seems to happen consistently. The peepers overwhelmingly command attention in the night marsh, and their chorus really is impressive, even though we never did manage to see any, despite hearing that there had to be some just a few feet off the boardwalk. But we shared the wood frog eggs and the newts that gathered near them to eat, explaining the ecological connection that the eggs provide food for the newts.

Both Friday and Saturday night, a couple of kids and parents expressed surprise that the parent frogs don’t defend the eggs, which surprised me, since I take it for granted - they just lay tons of eggs and enough young survive. While those joining us learned amphibians follow a very different reproductive strategy than mammals, it was a bit revelatory for me too, in that it showed a common blind spot, people assuming other animals are like them in basic and important ways. It shows a need to develop ecological knowledge among more people, of course, but I think it’s more interesting that it reveals a certain empathy people have for other animals. They were honestly surprised, and some a bit upset or disappointed, that frogs don’t care for their young. It shows an assumption of kinship they were making with the frogs, which is remarkable, when you think about it, because frogs are wildly different than people.

After the wood frog eggs we started to make our way out of the marsh, slowly, still hoping to catch sight of a peeper. While we did not manage that, we did hear as we left the trill of an Eastern American Toad (Anaxyrus americanus), which took all of us aback. (I didn’t manage to study my frog calls until Saturday, so I wasn’t certain what it was at the time.) Toad was my guess, but I was frankly surprised at the length of time the trill went on, making me wonder if it might not be another kind of animal entirely. Whereas most of the frogs we’re likely to find at Ashland perform short calls in series, the trill just goes on and on. It was fun to hear something new, and another sign that the weather is warming and spring progressing. Since the wood frogs came out a couple of weeks ago, I have been thinking of time at Ashland in terms of which frogs are out, and toads are the third species to emerge.

These toads are adaptable and can survive in proximity with humans, making them a (relatively) commonly seen nocturnal animal. They need a semi-permanent body of water in the area for breeding but are otherwise found across most of the continent, with the exception of the southernmost states. They have shorter hind legs than frogs and warts on their skin, but their coloring can vary considerably.

5 April

We did not hear a toad Saturday night, but it was still a very successful hike. It was a larger group and we had an additional teacher naturalist, so we split the group into three. We each headed in a slightly different direction, and as a result we were able to take smaller groups out than is often the case. I had seven girl scouts and three of their mothers, and they were a wonderfully quiet group while we were hiking. We heard and talked about the peepers right away, and stopped once we were a bit away from the building to “turn on our night vision,” a trick that worked with this group, who were probably first- and second-graders. Sometimes just getting kids (and adults!) comfortable with walking in the dark feels like a success, showing them that they can trust their eyes and do okay without street lights and pavement.

As we headed down into the woods by the Red Clay Creek, everyone was quiet, and we managed to hear something move to our left, between us and the creek. I turned my flashlight on in the direction of the sound, not expecting much, but we saw two eyes shining back at us, a white-tailed deer looking straight at us. Three deer bounded away across the trail a bit further ahead, and I felt gratitude for the luck - the kids were excited and anything more on this hike would feel like a bonus.

We had one more exciting find when we took the time at the edge of the marsh to crouch down and stare at some near shore grasses where there just had to be spring peepers singing. We had shown the group a pair of peepers that had been caught for the Frog Festival that morning, partially so they would know what the animals making the noise looked like, and partially because we’ve all realized how hard it is to see them actually in the marsh. But with the small group, perhaps inclined to believe it worth waiting from our experience with the deer, we were able to spend enough time looking at the grasses to finally see one of the frogs calling, mostly just the pulsing of its vocal sac, but that counts as a win given how incredibly small and well-camouflaged they are.

Spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) are related to tree frogs, in the family Hylidae, although they are actually thought to prefer the ground and leaf litter. Still, they have noticeable discs on their toes, reminiscent of tree frogs. Their scientific name alludes to the cross that can be seen on their backs. Even the biggest spring peepers don’t quite grow to an inch long and weigh just five grams. They eat small insects, with younger peepers feeding primarily in the early morning and late afternoon while adults feed mostly in late afternoon and early evening.

M. Jolly-Van Bodegraven

2 April Ashland, Hockessin, Delaware

Spring is training season at Ashland, and like the naturalist certification field trip, attending training is fun because we get the time to explore and learn without the added elements of managing a group of kids, working to keep them engaged and always thinking of what needs to happen next. Tonight we had training for naturalists who work with overnight groups, and after an overview of procedures in the lodge, the general consensus was we had spent enough time inside and we’d go to the nature center by way of the marsh to look around a bit before the next lecture review.

We actually started at the small pond up near the nature center, where wood frogs are reliably found. The only difficulty with the pond is it is usually well-covered by duck weed or other aquatic plants, but that’s probably why the frogs feel comfortable using it, too. We found a couple egg masses at the end of a stick in the water, some more around the edges, and we saw a few frogs under the water. But they were keeping quiet and hidden with such a group around. The spring peepers were setting up a notable chorus down in the marsh, so we headed down to search for more frogs. Although not nearly as loud as they can get. the spring peepers still impressed a couple of the teacher-naturalists who were less familiar with them, which was fun, and thanks to the patience of the group, we did get to see some at the base of the marsh grasses. They are really tiny frogs and seem to stay hidden in the grasses, so they’re not easy to find, and once you do, it can be hard to explain to others were to look. But the challenge just makes it that much more fun to find them.

The evening was running late, but the group was in no real hurry to get back to the indoor training, despite a general feeling we should. So we decided to just go see one more thing, a dozen or so wood frog egg masses some of us had seen in the marsh previously - this was the group the kids had gotten excited about last weekend. There were even more than the kids had seen, and the trip to look at them taught me a few new things. There are always a few new things to learn. While looking at the mass, and appreciating how conveniently it’s located for showing groups, one of the teacher-naturalists noticed red spotted newts eating the eggs. The reason it is often possible to find these animals around the same time as the wood frogs is because they find the eggs such an attractive food source. It also helps explain why the frogs have to lay these masses of hundreds, even thousands, of eggs. I also learned wood frogs are among the fastest frogs to mature. In addition to being the first to emerge in the spring - possible because they can actually freeze solid if the weather turns cold again, then thaw when it warms with no ill effects - wood frogs develop quickly. Eggs hatch within a few weeks, and they only spend three or four weeks as tadpoles.

Amphibians, and especially frogs, are a reliable highlight at Ashland, and many of the programs for children focus on them. We were also all pointed towards an online resource at the training for making sure we all know the various calls of the different species. It is hosted by the USGS here.

M. Jolly-Van Bodegraven
2014

29 March     Ashland, Hockessin, Delaware

Things we learned on the mammals field trip of the naturalist certification series proved helpful with the first group I led a week later. It was about a dozen kids from about 3 to 12 and three adults. We took the same route we had for the night hike the evening before, down the steps and across the picnic area to walk around and into the marsh. We stopped to look over the marsh at the bench by the driveway and talk about what was different from the night before. Rather than the wood frogs and occasional spring peeper we had heard, the sounds in the morning were songbirds, a woodpecker and a red-winged blackbird. Although I thought we might see the blackbird - one used to sit out in the open above the marsh often last year - I never did find it, but one of the kids spotted the woodpecker almost immediately, and when we started down the trail, we came to a place where everyone could see it. I asked the kids why woodpeckers peck trees like that, and one of them knew they are looking for food. I could add that they also sometimes use the sound to communicate, advertising their presence to other woodpeckers. But I think without a doubt the best thing about the bird was that the kids got to see it, and one of them found it first. There is an element of excitement and competence that comes with finding a bird in the trees since they are often difficult to see, and it got the kids engaged in the walk early.

I made a mental note to point out the pileated woodpecker evidence on the trail when we got further along, but by the time we got over there, I had completely forgotten. Though not far, the time in-between was full as the kids found more to ask about - the blooms of skunk cabbage, some white fur on the side of the trail

When we actually neared the evidence of the pileated woodpecker, the kids’ attention was grabbed by the snow drops. Powerful little flowers, pretty on their own but eye-catching and cheering in their groups standing out against the still brown landscape of early spring. A couple of the kids actually named the snow drops as their favorite encounter of the day.

Seeing in the daylight the downed tree that had been sawed up to clear the path but otherwise untouched gave us an opportunity to talk about how even dead trees are a vital part of a natural habitat and support plant and animal life. Then we started on the boardwalk and into the marsh proper. The kids remembered the wood frog egg mass from the night before - one of them had checked it before I even turned my attention from them to the water and discovered it was now three or four times as big, which caused some excitement and seemed to make real for them what we had been telling them about the frogs the night before.

I pointed out the muskrat tunnels and browse we had seen the week before to the kids, but they were more curious about the sheen on the surface of the water. I remembered enough to tell them that while it looked like pollution, a wetland plant also exudes a kind of oil and that is what we were seeing, although I could not remember which plant, why or any other details. Something else to study before the next trip. Every time I’m out I find something else, or several somethings, that I want to learn more about before working with the next group. This is frustrating, because I want to be able to give these kids all the information they’re asking about, but more than that, it’s exciting, because it just underscores that there is always more to learn. I’ll never be able to answer every question, anyway, and if the kids leave with some new knowledge and a lot of enthusiasm to go back out and explore other wetlands, woods, fields or any natural area, that is really the result I’m hoping for.

The marsh gave us enough to explore that we actually stopped the morning hike there, taking them back to the lodge for breakfast. The program for the morning was an EcoHike anyway, so we had more opportunities to explore the woods and stream coming up.

When I collected the group for the EcoHike, the rain had picked up, which worried me a bit because they complained as it was just starting down in the marsh. But they got over it quickly and dove right in to the activities. We hiked up hawk watch hill to start. I thought it would give me an opportunity to point out the different kinds of habitat at Ashland before we hiked down hill to explore the stream. I thought it might also use some of their considerable energy to head straight up the hill, but it didn’t seem to slow them down much. I pointed out the meadows, the forests, talked about the stream and the floodplain and encouraged them to watch for different birds where we were than we had seen or heard in the marsh. They hadn’t really settled into the hike yet, though, and the highlight of the hilltop was probably just one young man opening his arms and saying, “when I see this, it just makes me happy.”

From there we walked down the driveway from the lodge to the meadow at the bottom and on to Indian Rill, where we would do the stream ecology part of the EcoHike. This always seems to get kids’ attention, although a few of them were frustrated by not having any luck with netting. But others caught a number of different larvae and even a fish, which I was much less prepared to identify than the larvae. We found mayflies and a cranefly larva, so we could talk about the water quality at Ashland being good, with the fish serving as further evidence. And while I had made an effort to get the dichotomous key in the hands of the older boys in the group because they seemed genuinely interested and I thought having them help identify things could engage all the kids, we had true need for the chart to identify an alderfly larva, which I had not come across before.

We moved on from the stream to the forest, and although the kids were starting to get tired and unhappy about the persistent rain, most of them enjoyed turning over rocks and logs looking for forest insects. We turned up centipedes, millipedes, wood roaches, and an isopod, which gave me a chance to share with the kids that while pill bugs seem utterly commonplace to us, there are actually dozens of species and some live in water. It’s a small thing and probably made little impression on them, but I remember being deeply impressed by that fact. I had never given much thought to the ubiquitous little white bugs, until I found one in the stream and had to reconsider my assumptions about the animals.

I had been happy, and a bit relieved, to catch a salamander early on in our search in the woods, figuring this was likely to be the highlight of the activity, and I saved it to show around at the end. The kids were more concerned with getting out of the rain, though, and I can’t blame them. Still, salamanders are fascinating animals, and the Eastern United States has the greatest diversity of species in the world. They are amphibians, and like frogs and toads, some live entirely in the water, other mostly on land. They can regrow lost tails and limbs, and vary from 2 to 40 inches in length, depending on the species. The salamanders to be found at Ashland tend toward the smaller end of the scale.