The Bog in Summer-the Cliff Notes

There has been so little time to blog this summer that I think I shall resort to a Cliff Note presentation, at least for this first return to writing. I know I have explained several times that we are soon to move to Texas, which is a trial enough in itself, but we also had a home in Buffalo to prepare for rental, a house full of deceased relatives possessions to be sorted through and now, the added twist of a daughter in Baltimore who has just had foot surgery and can’t use it at all for three months. Consequently, time to stroll the bog and then write about it has been a tad limited. Well, the strolling happened through much of the summer, it’s the writing about it that suffered. So what do you say to covering a few quick topics here, then, going in more depth later? Agreed? Agreed.

My sanity, such as it is, is tethered to this daily walk, so even when life is booked with things to do from 6 am to 10pm I still manage to get that needed walk in, and early enough, usually between 5am and 6am to catch wildlife doing some of its wild things. Here then are the highlights of what I had the privilege to see over the past months.

-A snapping turtle laying her eggs. I think the only other time I saw a turtle laying its eggs was one of those fabulous encounters on a trip to Hawaii with a sea turtle that had hauled out leaving tractor trailer marks in the sand and commenced laying her over 100 eggs, an unforgettable sight. But here, in my own little bog, on a June day, I came across a large female snapping turtle that had climbed out of the containment pond, up its steep sandy cliff, and, of all places, was laying her eggs, not on the flat surface, but on this sheer drop off at the top! One questions her choice. Clearly though, she had dug into the cliff side and was getting the job done.


Because I was with my dog, who had gone right by her, sometimes he misses the most obvious things, I couldn’t stay to watch her complete the task, for they can lay up to 80 eggs and that would take some time. But now I knew where the nest was and could mark it, which I did. It also meant that now I could fret over her choice for, about a week later, we had some torrential rains that eroded the cliff right where her progeny were. However I saw no sign of washed-out eggs, nor in the ensuing weeks have I seen any sign of predation. I placed large rocks and some blocks of wood like a dam at the top of the cliff hoping to ward off any more washouts. The chance of my actually getting to see a wee snapper hatch out and tumble down to the pond is extremely slim at best. They probably wouldn’t hatch until September for gestation in the snappers is between 60-90 days depending on the weather, which has been pretty warm. Will I still be here walking the bog is the question. Well, we shall just have to wait and see.

By the way, as an aside, no need to play the “Jaws” music if you see a snapper in the pond. They are really docile in the water, but when on land, where they are far more vulnerable, they can be aggressive. In spring and early summer it is common to see one crossing a road, generally en route to her nesting site, and our advice is always, if it is safe, lend her a hand by stopping traffic, but not by picking her up and helping her cross. They weigh more than you would want to lift anyways. If they feel threatened, they can treat you to a display of their famous crushing jaws that can snap a broom handle. Another cool thing about snappers that I have only seen in pictures is that their tongue has a worm like appendage at the end, leading to fatal mistakes by fish that see a tasty dinner than become one themselves.

All right, clearly I don’t have the hang of the abbreviated Cliff Note approach I promised in the beginning. I am in Baltimore tending to my post operative, now non-walking daughter, so free time will be easier to find. Shall we then proceed catching you up day by day with what I saw? Seems a plan. And I did have some fortuitous sightings, so let me clog the blogwaves with my tales once again. Until then, enjoy the summer day spread before you. Pat

The Wild Women of Wednesday Whale Watch

The sands of time are running out on my days at the Cape and I had to be sure I could get at least one more whale watch in before I have to go to more landlocked, whaleless, terrain. And so, bless my walking ladies, who are always game for adventure, they were willing to switch up our usual morning walk to a sunset whale watch out of Provincetown this past Wednesday.

And so, a grand day was planned. One of our members has a summer cottage right across from the bluffs of a Wellfleet beach and she invited us to break our journey there. Then on to the sunset whale watch on what was forecasted to be a lovely night, where the sun would set in one direction and the nearly full moon rise in the other. What could be more perfect?

Well, it was spectacularly beautiful at Pat’s cottage, a home that has been in the family for generations, surrounded by twisted Pitch Pines and the ground covered with Bearberry, Sweet fern and the rare Broom Crowberry. There are only four species in the Crowberry family and they aren’t related to anyone else, but Wellfleet is a place where it does flourish and her yard seems a Crowberry sanctuary. The path across the road takes you to headlands, which open up to a breathtaking view of ocean expanse. And on a clear blue day the ocean reflects a myriad of blues. Gorgeous and it is why these beaches of the National Seashore often make a top ten list of the worlds most beautiful beaches - a propitious beginning.

Next, on to Provincetown and our 5:30 boat departure. Amazingly, some of my ladies have never been on a whale watch though they have lived here most of their lives. So, I was praying this would be the unforgettable experience that it generally is. And again, even if the whales didn’t show in numbers, there would be the beauty of sunset and moonrise to make up for it.

But this is New England, what the weatherman forecasts and what actually happens are often two distinctly different things. No sooner had we left the harbor when, spreading from the land, came a “big, black cloud all heavy with rain”, first covering Provincetown, then overtaking us. Ah well, no matter, I had taken my usual stance right out on the prow of the boat. Perhaps this would just be a passing shower.

It takes about an hour to reach Stellwagon’s Bank where the whales are and en route we saw more Wilson’s Storm Petrels than I had ever seen before. They are a pigeon sized bird, black with a white rump and they seem to dance about on the water. Why they do that I don’t know, but they are pelagic meaning you only see them when you are out to sea, so it is always a treat. Lots of Shearwaters, both Greater and Sooty playing chicken with the waves, they zoom over the water inches from the white caps. So, with a gray/black sky, and rain pelting you at whatever zippy speed the boat was going and the air alive with birds it was pretty cool even without whales yet.

We were spotting whales off in the distance, and Connie, a first timer, was the first to see a breach off in the distance. But what you really hope for, feel cheated if you don’t get, are whales right by the boat, exhaling in your face, breaching within reach. And yeah God, we got pretty close to that. A mother and calf came right along side us and when the mother did her deep dive, the calf stayed at the surface which they often do for they aren’t so good at diving yet. But what was so cool, was how interested in us it was. Three times it did a spy hop where they come straight up out of the water to have a look around. To have the whale that we were watching watch us back was pretty memorable.

We saw a number of mother calf pairs, always good news, but the ultimate 5 star attraction of this trip was when two adult humpbacks breached simultaneously, right off our starboard side. Incredible! I have seen a lot of breaches, but never two erupting from the water side by side, and then arching away from each other so the splash was a mirror image of each other. Sea World couldn’t have trained anything more perfect. They also threw there flukes in unison when they went into a deep dive, and then one started flipper flapping where they slap the water with that long, white, flexible, pectoral fin. It must have done it 8 or 9 times in a row. If those two were trying out for whale Olympics I think they made the team! One of the ships crew who had been on 800 trips said he had never seen, and I add, will probably never again see, such a thing happen!

Wow, so soaked though we were, this was worth it. Coming back with lightning flashing around, driving the hour back to Green Briar with rain still pelting down and roads turning into rivers, was worth it. Trying to get the ladies safely to their doors in pitch dark down narrow trails was worth it. It all was worth it. It always is. I know I have quoted this before, from a song by Michael Card call the Job Trilogy but it is so apt,
“Can you take Leviathan home as a pet? If you merely touched him you’d never forget.”
And so we won’t. Thanks wild women of Wednesday for giving me a great excuse to go. And from now on, I don’t think I will even bother to check the weather!

Wild Suburbia

A few weeks ago we took another trip to our home in Buffalo to finalize work on the house and the yard before the new renters moved in. I am always lamenting that one day my home will be in suburbia and away from the wilder setting of the Cape, however, perhaps I should not despair, for of course, there is a good deal of wildlife that has made the switch to suburbia also.

While my husband tends to the interior work, I have the joy of working the outside. 10 hours of working the outside, for one thing renters do not do, is weed and here the soil is rich enough to grow thistles with trunks the size of Sequoias. And our “grass”, which is probably 10% grass and 90% clover, birds foot trefoil, wild strawberry, Creeping Charlie, etc. was way overgrown, at least by the neighbors standard of 1” perfectly, perfect Scott's cover lawns.

But here is where the cool part of intersecting with nature came in. As soon as I fired up the lawn mower and started cutting, a pair of barn swallows showed up, and like a scene from a Disney movie swooped and flew right along with me as I went back and forth.
Did I have some sort of bird charm working? Did they mistake me for Cinderella in need of a gown for the ball? No, they were simply opportunistic birds. As I passed back and forth over this conglomerate of plants, I was scaring up moths and other flying insects that were instantly snatched up by the swallows. Amazing how they nailed them 90% of the time. And for the most part the moths never saw it coming. And yet, one or two moths, either by coincidence or perhaps picking up a SOS pheromone from the others who had met a sad fate, flew in a straight line, unusual for moths, straight ahead and out of the yard and they were the ones that made it. Also might have been a coincidence but interesting all the same. It’s a large yard, so I would run out of gas, and the swallows would disappear, only to return the second I fired it up again. How cool is that! So even though it took me close to 2 hours to finish the mowing, I was entertained throughout.

We also do a lot of trimming of bushes etc. when we go and when we first got there I thought, what untrained gardener decided to prune the Hostas? Whoever it was they did a horrible job, and who prunes Hostas anyway? Ah…deer prune Hostas without much thought as to what the final job will look like, so out the kitchen window now is a row of normal Hostas and a row of chewed up ones. Deer browse is recognizable by the fact that they leave a ragged looking bite for they only have front teeth on their bottom jaw.

When we got back home we got an email from our old renters saying their son would miss seeing the deer with the injured leg that would come and dine at the window. Ah, helping the handicap, guess he can help himself and we shall just have to hope the new renters are as empathetic.

Here on the Cape, as you know, the dog and I head out for an off-leash walk around a bog each day, or now that it is summer, go over to swim at the nearby pond, where, floating on my back, I can watch osprey and swallows and dragonflies do their hunting. In Buffalo it is, of course, a leash walk and probably that is the single most dreaded thing for me about living there. Not the harsh winters, I like snow, but a dog that must be on a leash. Still, by then he will be old and perhaps a slow stroll will suit him. But again, it wasn’t as without excitement as I thought. Each morning, we headed out at dawn, and each morning in the small patch of woods that remain at the end of the street, we encountered a trio of deer, and each morning I about had my arm yanked out of the socket by a dog delirious to join the chase. Beside the deer, in the entrance to the woods there must have been 9 separate woodchuck holes. They were all pretty close together, so either this is the woodchuck version of a trophy home, or a family that normally would spread out, have been forced to live village style, taking a cue from prairie dogs perhaps! This whole area was farmland not that long ago, and so all these species were present and seem now to be managing to remain, thanks to a supply of Hosta and grass and, I imagine, vegetable gardens nearby.

So, perhaps my dread of a lifeless suburbia is unfounded. Besides, after frying for a few years in Texas, I am sure moving to Buffalo will seem like moving to the Rain Forest by comparison. And as I hate the heat, I have also decided I will gladly go garden there each June when the renters move out. For that matter, next year I anticipate it will take me about three months to complete the weeding! Yes, suburbia may not be so bad after all!

The Blogs that are Clogging my Brain

Consider this “Previews of Coming Attractions”. I know I have explained my situation before; programs everyday, a house to prepare to rent in Buffalo, 500 miles from here, and my own house, now on the market, with realtors coming through tomorrow. Yet my daily walks with my dog continue and daily there is glory to be seen but how frustrating to have no time to get it down in print. So this will be a preview of what I hope to write about if the dust ever settles in my life. IF it settles.

“Learning to sing”- I imagine your yard is as full of nesting birds as mine, perhaps where you live the birds are already into a second brood. I still have trouble sleeping, but the delight of that is that I know exactly who the first birds to tune up are. In my yard, that would be the Song Sparrow.
And here is what you can listen for; songbirds, like the Song Sparrow, learn to sing through imitation of their elders and it takes place in the first few months of their lives. Lately, I have been entertained at 4:30 am by what I believe are the early attempts of a young Song Sparrow to get the hang of its theme song. It is still incomplete by a few notes, picture Beethoven’s Fifth with only “ta da da” rather than “ta da da dah”. The complete refrain will come in time, but it lets me know that right now, out my window is a young sparrow newly fledged.

If you have any White Throated Sparrows in your neighborhood, listen for their voice lessons.

As adults their song will sound like “Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody” or at least that is the way New Englanders hear it, Peabody was a formidable family in the area throughout our early years. But my young one says “Old Sam Pea” then repeats, “Old Sam Peabod”, then tries again. Ah, such perseverance, and again the complete tune will come in time.

Another topic we will attempt to deal with is finding pictures of the zooid form of sea stars, crabs etc. I had a lot of tide pool programs to do this spring and I always wish I had some way to show the children the “baby pictures”, as it were, of the animals they are finding. As much as a caterpillar looks nothing like a butterfly, neither does a zooid crab look anything like the crab it will become.
So, sometime this summer let’s try to write about that, a “Who’s Who” in the zooplankton world.

And, don’t let me forget to write a word or two about the Marvels of Mummichogs: one of the hardiest fish anywhere, the first fish to blast into space, the one that I am about to go do a program on today.

How does that song about Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin go?

“Help me if you can I’ve got to get
Back to the House At Pooh Corner by one
You’d be surprised there’s so much to be done
Count all the bees in the hive
Chase all the clouds from the sky”

It feels representative of life these days-so much to be done. But I wish you all well, and my hopes are for slightly more time in July for us to share our sightings and musings together. Of course, at some point we need to go to Texas to look for our house, for, what if the shocking possibility that someone may buy our house, comes to pass? Maybe I would really get a chance to study “in the field” for I would be living in one!

Until then, enjoy the teaming life around you, summer is here, officially and nature is on full display. Now, excuse me while I go “chase a few clouds from the sky”.

By Way of Explanation

Just consider me the missing blogger. Between the recent trips, a busier spring work schedule, computer trouble, preparing a house for rent in Buffalo and anticipating a move to Texas, I just haven’t had time to comment on the arrival of birds, or flowers or all things spring like here on the Cape. And I miss doing that. But time is what it is, a limited commodity, so I apologize for not getting to this.

My original goal had been to share the sights and sounds of my walk around the bog through a Cape Cod year, and I guess I did achieve that. I often think if anyone wonders what’s happening in May on the Cape, well its fairly similar to last May on the Cape so one can access those entries. What I should start to chronicle is how one resets ones mind from nature in New England to the natural world of the southwest deserts. I have bought all the books, Birds of Texas, Reptiles of the Southwest etc, but haven’t gotten around to really studying them. Mainly because denial is the state I seem to most enjoy. The housing market being what it is, with luck I will get to stay on the Cape a little longer even if my husband does need to start his job by mid-August.

A quick run down on what my walks have featured each day for the last few weeks is watching the leaves unfold under a rather constant cold and gray sky. We have been unseasonably chilly, and “misty, moisty” has been a pretty constant condition here. I keep placing seeds in the ground that are either just rotting away or considered home delivery to the insects that might be eating them. I feel for the nesting birds that have had to keep eggs and chicks warm through chilly damp days and search for insects that would rather hunker low than fly about. Bee’s aren’t exactly buzzing about in hordes due to the cold and yet, and yet, leaves unfurl into their many varied shades of green, moss sends up its spore capsules, and the forest floor is littered with Starflowers and Canada mayflower.

In my neck of the woods it is pretty much still stealth mode for crows and blue jays. No garrulous cawing or jay chatter, just silent trips and sideways glances as they head to their nests. Chickadee’s are flitting in and out of their respective nest holes and only come to the feeders at dusk for a recharge of their own batteries. I always wonder if they switch their diet to insects more once they are gathering them for the nestlings. “One for me, one for my chick”, etc.

The bog also has seen the return of every type of Flycatcher from the early Phoebes to the Great Crested and the pugnacious Kingbirds. If you want to know where anyone’s nest is, just watch the birds come out and go on the attack of any crow or hawk that happens to fly by. The days of the “duck du jour” on the bog have ended and no, that mallard never did return to the nest that was right beside the trail but probably found a more suitable place and although I watched the eggs thinking this is an easy meal for someone, no one seemed to have them on their meal plan, so they remain to this day.

I had the good fortune to see my resident box turtle sauntering down my trail, large as life, and another winter weathered. I was on my way to work so didn’t get to stop and watch how it would negotiate all the fallen trees along the path but detours are probably part of its daily life. I think they might amaze us all with what they can get up and over. So the regulars are back in place, spring or the feeling of spring may end up being a day or two event before summer is upon us, but as my future life will involve tons of unrelenting heat I am not complaining about cool temperatures.

Again, know that I miss these “walks” that we share, but will get to them when I can, and at some point will have to reinvent this as “New England Naturalist goes West” and we can learn together about the resilience of life in a drought stricken state But not just yet. No, not just yet.

P.S. In my usual technologically backward way, I can't seem to get my pictures to save or come up with this new laptop I am using, bear with me, I will eventually when there is more time, get the hang of it! Pat

The Blustery Month of May

I remember a song from “Camelot” that rhapsodized on the “lusty” month of May, but here on the Cape, at least for the last week, it has been the “blustery” month of May. A storm is spinning off the coast and seems content to sit there, so we have been treated to temperatures in the 40’s and 50’s accompanied with sheets of mist, rain and more mist. Walking the bog it looked more like a winter snowstorm than a spring shower and I, wrapped in winter scarves and gloves, could have been contemplating Christmas shopping instead of wondering how to get a frog in such weather.

More challenging than frogs however, was the need to find fiddler crabs for a salt marsh program. My co-worker and friend Andrea is a magnet for all things wild, so following her lead, we went out to the marsh at low tide. The wind was blowing like a gale and I thought “fat chance” of finding any. You wouldn’t catch me at the entrance of my burrow in such weather, not when I could go deeper in the peat and get out of the storm. Incredibly though, searching along the ditch edge on hands and knees, we actually came up with the dozen “volunteers” we needed. Think if it as crab community service. They all get returned to their home ditch as soon as the class is over. But they are part of a lesson on the energy cycle of the marsh, and they are so, so fetching that you hate not be able to show them to the students.

There are some 97 different species of Fiddler crabs but the one we find in our marsh is an East Coast fiddler, Uca Pugnax, a small rectangular crab no more than 1.5-2” long but grand to behold all the same.
The male is said to have “extreme chiliped asymmetry” which, in simpler terms, means he has one claw that is a lot larger than the other and it is this large claw that gives it its name.

Now, the “extreme chiliped” is all for the purpose of attracting the ladies, and for defending its territory. I knew the male waved the claw around to impress the women, but what I didn’t know was that by doing so it makes a sound that is music to the lady fiddler’s ears. If she is impressed with this display she will follow him down into his tunnel, and well, you can guess the rest.
I also read that he can stamp the sediment with his walking legs, all 8 of them and also attract the ladies attention that way. Either way, it is all for show, for the fiddler can neither eat with that claw, nor dig out his extensive tunnel with it. And for even more irony, the larger the claw, well the more ladies maybe, but the harder it is to get through his own tunnel or to forage for food. You can see where Nature puts her priorities!

Plus, I love this, I also read that the female will sometimes attach her tunnel to his, but because of the size of that large claw it is a one-way street. She can enter his tunnel if she wishes but he could not pursue her into hers. The liberated crustacean world!

As far as male fighting, they do wave claws at each other and do a bit of arm wrestling but not a “to the death” sort of duel. A male can lose his claw that way, but he can also chose to snap it off, if say a gull or some other predator is about to lift off with him. Better to lose your one “lucky claw” and live another day, than go down someone’s gullet altogether. Plus, with the next molt, the opposite claw will become the larger one. So when I find a fiddler if it has a left claw rather than right, I assume it has either been vanquished in battle at some point or has had a near death experience with some predator.

The females have two small claws- all the better to feed yourself quickly with.
The Fiddlers diet is detritus, making them detritivores, a fun word to say on any occasion. Detritus being small decaying organisms found in the marsh mud. They eat the mud but are able to filter the good from the bad, in a way, like earthworms do. And like earthworms, whose digging aerates the soil, the tunnels of fiddlers that can be a foot or so deep, help aerate the peat. The tunnels provide them protection from predators and when the tide is high they plug the entrance with mud and wait out the return of low tide, which is their preferred feeding time.

Not to be missed either are their stalked eyes.
They can be held straight up, or lay down flat along their shell for those tight squeezes in the tunnel. Very cute to see them “boing” up or flatten down. All together, this is one amusing crab. Worthy of the wild weather we had to face to get them. Hmm, but not having done the class myself, I am not sure if any of this magic was lost on the kids in the classroom. But when they come out for their field lesson, we will have a chance to convince them once again how grand these crabs are and see how proficient they can be at catching them. But that lesson is a good three weeks away, lets hope by then the winds will have died down and the temperatures risen to a more seasonable degree. Being New England though, that isn’t a given.

Becoming a Spring Tradition

I am quite sure I wrote about this same topic last year, at this same time, which I suppose qualifies it as its own kind of spring tradition- The Quest for Copepods.
Those microscopic crustaceans that are a “must have” for a pond program we do using a Micro projector and invariably take hours to find. This even though they are said to be coating the world in multiple billions. In fresh water, salt water, frozen water, for crying out loud. Just never in our particular pond. Well that’s not true. They are there, clogging the waterways when you don’t need them, but try and produce a half dozen for a class and I can guarantee they will be MIA.

If you were reading this last year, I do believe I filled you in on the life and times of the Cyclops variety of copepod. The one I am after, a hunter itself, looks for things even smaller to ingest. And what I really hope to find is a female with her “saddle bags” of eggs attached right above her abdomen like two grape clusters.

Now there are some 400 kinds of Cyclops species but I will settle for any one of them. The name refers to the one eye they seem to have right in the middle of their “head”, cephlathorax actually. Their jerky movement when swimming is what gives them away. Of course then; actually catching one in my pipette remains a challenge. However, hours later, a wee little group of them was finally found and I will just hold my breath that none of them “do themselves a harm” overnight in their container.

As I probably said last year too, the Daphnia are really the darlings of the show, what with their transparent bodies and a brood patch that 9 times out of 10 is full and looking as though birth were imminent-which it often is.
Life on the bottom of the food chain means you have better be a stellar reproducer, if you intend to stand the test of time-and they are. One source claims every 10 days, a new brood can be brought forth from spring through to the fall while another claimed it could happen in as few as three days. Let’s be conservative and believe 10. With each brood being between 8 –24 individuals, that creates a lot of daphnia to the delight of all those fish fry and damselfly nymphs that eat them. Also to scientific researchers who like to see the effect something has on an organism’s offspring. No need to wait forever with daphnia. I read they do research on the effect of alcohol and caffeine, which sounds too much like a Far Side cartoon to be fact, but if you believe everything you read in Wickipedia, then perhaps they do.

No doubt I told you they reproduce by parthenogenesis, but in the spirit of tradition let’s tell you again! It means they leave the dating picture out of things, their offspring are true clones of mom. And are all female themselves, leading to more cloned females when they reproduce. Again, if you are being gobbled up at a dizzying rate by other pond dwellers there is no time to find that special someone, so nature allows for this method. However, as fall comes on, and the need for eggs that may over winter occurs, the female will amazingly give birth to some males,
(how does that happen?!) and then the mated offspring will have a thicker shell that can last through the winter and as another benefit, it will get a shot at some different chromosomes; always a good thing for variety sake.

Today plenty of daphnia were on hand. Tomorrow I will cross my fingers for a birth in the class. Under the microscope, which is somehow always unforgettable. One minute a brooding mom, next a screen swimming with little mom look-a-likes. By the way, the Cyclops larva looks nothing like the adult but most molt a few times to get that classic Cyclops look. Looks more like a splatted crab than a copepod.


Well perhaps you have heard this all before. But I realize now, it has become a spring tradition so why not include it? The path I walk through the woods is every day more carpeted by Canada Mayflower, also a tradition. The swans are chasing the geese off the pond at work with great flapping and honking and swan like hysteria, another tradition. The Oriole has returned to its trees, right on time, as the early cherries begin to bloom and Catbirds are mimicking and mumbling in my front bush again. May your spring traditions be taking place like clockwork wherever you are. Noted and appreciated, from hunting copepods to hanging out the hummingbird feeder the season is fully upon us. Now let us enjoy!