The Near Wreck of the Turtle:

Quote

With many apologies to Gordon Lightfoot… And some of you who could definitely write this better 
 Dorothy Boorse June 12, 2019
  
 The legend lives on from the administration on down
 About the turtle named Dora 
  
 She walked from the mud, wandered through the reeds, 
 And became a famous  explorer
  
 Chrysemys picta her name, Painted turtle the same
 She’d been basking and sunning all day
  
 'Til suddenly an unstoppable urge 
 Said, “eggs! I just need to lay!”
  
Found in the middle of a parking lot road. Not a good place for a turtle.

“I’ll cross this strip, dig a hole in the ground,
Lay those cream eggs in a nest
 
Walk back to the pond, and lay on a log
To take a much-needed rest”
 
After walking ten feet, as slow as could be
A car drove too close for comfort
 
Driver hopped out, picked her up and could see
Her withdrawing both head and foot

Painted had her head and legs out initially but tried to hide when she was picked up. She is completely safe to hold. Snapping turtles are the one species you want to be extra cautious with. Put a stick in their mouth and when they snap on it, carry them over to safety. Do not drag them and never pick up a turtle by its tail. If a snapper is larger, you might want to have help and to put a shirt or canvas bag over their head.

So Painted was moved in the direction she wished
The best idea for safety
 
And that is the tale of a reptile slow
Who is not well adapted to roadways.
 
Driving around, be cautious and care
To save painted turtles from squashing
 
It’s dangerous indeed, with a wish and a prayer,
To attempt such a dangerous crossing.

One half of a journey is over- Painted can lay eggs here before turning back. If you are trying to save turtles, move them in the direction they are headed.

Timeline of environment, political change, in MA

Massachusetts History Timeline

10,000 BC

Pleistocene

Glaciers retreating, megafauna roaming.

1400s AD
(1498) English explorer, John Cabot, sailed along Massachusetts coast

1500s- cod wars in Grand and Georges Banks

1600s

(1602) Bartholomew Gosnold explored coast; named Cape Cod due to codfish found in bay

(1604) Samuel de Champlain mapped coast

(1607) Three ships arrived from England with 104 men and boys; settlers named river James after the king; established Jamestown settlement

(1614) Capt. John Smith mapped coast

1617–1619, smallpox killed 90% of the Native Americans in the region

(1620) Mayflower arrived at Cape Cod; Pilgrims established settlement named Plymouth

(1621) Pilgrims signed treaty with Wampanoag Indians; celebrated first Thanksgiving

1623 Gloucester, Massachusetts, settled by the Dorchester Company

(1628) John Endicott established settlement at Salem an estimated 20,000 migrants between 1628 and 1642, arrived in Boston and Salem in the Massachusetts Bay colony

(1629) Massachusetts Bay Company chartered

(1630) Boston founded; later named capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, towns of Ipswich, Watertown, Hull, Dorchester, Roxbury also established.  Others settled between 1622 and 1641): Weymouth, Gloucester, Charlestown, Salem, Saugus, Cambridge, Hingham, Concord, Cambridge, Newbury, Dedham, Rowley, Salisbury, Sudbury, Haverill

1630) 12 ships of puritans come from England to Salem (700-800 people) then dispersed

(1632) Boston officially capital of colony

1634) already complaints of pollution on Boston Harbor!

(1634) Boston Common first public park in U.S.

(1635) Roger Williams banished from Massachusetts due to religious disputes

1636) Harvard College established

1636 all of the New England colonies went to war with the Pequot of southeastern Connecticut, practically wiping them out

 

(1639) First Post Office in U. S. established in Boston at Richard Fairbanks’ tavern; Mather School, first free public school founded

 

(1640) colony suffered its first economic depression, began to export beef

 

(1641) Massachusetts became the first state in the North American colonies to make slavery legal.

 

(1643) New England Confederation formed to oppose Indian and Dutch attacks

 

(1644), Boston merchants began to engage in the Triangle Trade: slaves from Africa,, sold in West Indies, cane sugar brought back to Massachusetts to make molasses and rum

 

1600s generally Fishing was important in coastal towns like Marblehead. Great quantities of cod were exported to the slave colonies in the West Indies.

  (1645)  the General Court ordered rural towns to increase sheep production. Sheep provided meat and especially wool for the local cloth industry, and reduced the expense of imports of British cloth.

(1646) first ironworks in America was established at Saugus in 1646

(1648) Massachusetts Bay Colony tried and executed an accused witch for the first time. 

(1659 -1661), four Quakers were put to death by the Puritans.  King Charles II intervened.

(1664, 1676)- Britain sends two groups over to rule. Rebuffed by colonists.

(1675-1676) King Phillip’s War between Indians and settlers, devastating. 40% of Wampanaug still alive were killed, many towns burned.(1676)Boston reached 4,000 inhabitants

(1685-1686) Massachusetts charter annulled, King of England upset with colonists, sends English governor over,

(1686) Oxford, first non-Puritan town established; Dominion of New England established

(1689) mob kicks out british governor

(1691) Massachusetts granted new charter, became royal colony with Maine and Plymouth; more restrictive about religious laws.

(1692)witchcraft trials held in Salem

(1689–97) The colony fought alongside British regulars in a series of French and Indian Wars . First was  King William’s War (1689–97)

1700s

Expansion, colonial skills,  wars.

Early to mid 1700s:

Britain had policy- Salutary neglect- officials allowed the colonies in America more freedom from trade regulations , hoping  England could later tax them.

 

 

  • (1716)First lighthouse in America, “The Boston Light” built in Boston Harbor
  • (1713-1745) Great building expansion Old State House in 1713, Old North Church in 1723, Old South Meetinghouse in 1729 and Faneuil Hall in 1742.

 

(1730) Boston had over 13,000 residents.

(1750) Boston had 15,000 residents.

 

(1754)

French and Indian War in the singular is used in the United States specifically for the warfare of 1754–63,

 

(mid 1700s) Wolves killed,

 

(1763) by King George III, after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years’ War, forbade all settlement west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, which was delineated as an Indian Reserve.

 

(1765 )Stamp Act , other acts, attempted to reap money from colonies

 

Colonists got very angry and this contributed to the Revolution

(1776)- Declaration of Independence

 

(1780) Slavery made illegal in the state constitution, first state to  outlaw it

 

(1783) Treaty of Paris ended the American Revolutionary War.

 

http://historyofmassachusetts.org/history-of-the-massachusetts-bay-colony/

 

1800s:

Economic Growth, political change, distant wars, literature, Boston infrastructure, Medicine and science,  new immigrants

 

Industrial revolution

Economy in Massachusetts changed  from an agricultural economy to a manufacturing economy

 

(1810)   The first woolen mill established in Uxbridge, MA- just making yarn

 

(1813), the first successful integrated textile mill in North America built in  Waltham

 

(1812 ) War of 1812 was the result of British interference in North American trade.

War caused New Englanders to increase local manufacturing which sped up industrialization in the region

 

mid 1800s: factories around Boston producing textiles and shoes, and factories around Springfield producing precision manufacturing tools and paper

 

1830s-Civil war: New England Renaissance: MA center of literary revolution including Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, as well as authors Walt Whitman and Herman Melville, among many others.

 

1836, Mary Lyon opened Mount Holyoke College, the first women’s college in America.

 

1840s-1850s: millions of Irish Catholics immigrate to escape the Great Famine

 

 

(1861-1865) Civil war:  150,000 men, including first official African American regiment in US, women as nurses, and manufactured supplies all from Massachusetts

 

1880s Immigration of Germans, British, Irish, and Scandinavians  continues until about 1880s

 

(1884)  raw sewage collected in Boston on Moon Island in the harbor, and discharged  500 feet off shore, with the ebbing tide

 

(1889-1904) Boston  built one of the finest regional sewerage systems in the country, still discharging raw sewage  into ocean

 

Post Civil War – 1900 : Gilded Age

 

 

(1892): Sierra Club founded by John Muir

  1. MA creates Indian Affairs commission

 

 

 

1900s:

 

pollution , over exploitation come home to roost

 

1952  Boston began to treat the sewage it poured daily into Boston Harbor, oddly separating sludge from effluent and then dumping both in the harbor

Boston Harbor:

1972 Clean Water Act, and updated Federal Water Pollution Control Act –

requiring all publicly owned treatment works that dump sewage into waters of the United States install both primary and secondary treatment equipment by July, 1976

The harbor 1970s -2000

1976-  Boston finished Harbor study, Metropolitan District Commission (MDC)  is in charge

1977: Congress amended law to allow cities to get waivers. Boston applied for a waiver.

It was denied by EPA

Boston Harbor group did nothing

1982-83 : 3 lawsuits

  1. Quincy sued Boston over pollution of Quincy Bay, failing to obey laws about water
  2. EPA sued over breaking water protection laws
  3. Conservation law foundation sued to force harbor clean-up

1983- agreement to do cleanup

1984 nothing happened

1984- Quincy goes to court again

Judge orders new organization to be made, Mass Water Resource Authority

1985 EPA  sues to get a schedule of improvements enforced

 

(1988) the continuous pollution of Boston Harbor had earned it the infamous label of “America’s Dirtiest Harbor.”

(1989) Boston Harbor Project begins (3.8Billion, 10 year proj.) (They stalled from 1972-1989)

1991: Metropolitan Sewerage System finally stops dumping 400,000-500,000 gallons of sludge into the harbor.

1996: Governor Weld jumps in to Charles River

1992 the Canadian Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans,  declared a moratorium on the Northern Cod fishery off of Newfoundland, Cod were at 1% of historic levels

  1. MA creates Indian Affairs commission

1993 effort to revive  Massachusett language

1994 President Clinton signs executive order 12898 on Environmental Justice “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.”

EJ defined by EPA as

“The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. Fair treatment means that no group of people, including racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic group should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and policies.”

https://www.boem.gov/Environmental-Stewardship/Environmental-Assessment/12898/index.aspx

2000s

Boston Harbor

2000: Deer Island Sewage Treatment Plant , fully functional,

2000, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority ended the daily discharge of millions of gallons of largely untreated sewage into Boston Harbor (from combined swage systems).

2011 Boston Harbor beaches clean enough to swim

(2010) 37,000 Native Americans belong to tribes, in mA

(2013) The New England Fishery Management Council cut the catch limit on Gulf of Maine cod by 77 percent

(2014) Gulf of Maine  Cod had dwindled to as little as 3 % of what it would take to sustain a healthy population. The  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration banned virtually all cod fishing throughout the region.

The People’s Climate March Sept 21, 2014

I marched a week ago with 310,000 people in NYC , to send a message to the world that climate change is real and needs our attention. I believe this to be true because I have scientific training, attend scientific conferences, read papers on climate, and read reports by climate change researchers. I care about it because I am a Christian. I love the natural world, the art work of God. I love my neighbor, I love the creator.  Caring about giant changes in the world wrought by human action has to be a part of this love.

Next to me was a group of scientists. Coming from all over, they did not all know each other before the march.  They wore lab coats, and little stickers that said “Science Stands”.  I walked and talked with a biologist from Texas.  One of the organizers was a microbiologist from NYC.  They were marching not only about climate, but about science  and science education itself.   I could have easily chosen to walk with them and I was thrilled that the organizers put scientists and faith communities together in the same section.  In my life, these communities do not need to be at odds.

The group I was walking with included Christian college students, people from the Christian Reformed Church, staff from Young Evangelicals for Climate Action. John and Barbara Elwood (of the blog BelovedPlanet).   Ahead of me was a group from Harvard’s Divinity School.  Far to the front, a friend of mine was walking with a group of investors.  The crowd was so large that she had marched, and was on her bus on the way back to Washington, D.C. before I finished walking.  I have never been in a group so large. It was energizing and humbling to be a part of such an action.

Climate change, and other environmental degradations, are the outworking of excess, cumulative impacts of all of our actions, and unintended consequences of things we sometimes did for good reason.   This reality- that it is no one person, and no one action we have to change, makes it more difficult to solve.  Nonetheless, pretending that it isn’t really happening will not help us. People often ask me for a list of things they can do. I often resist giving such a list, in part because I don’t think most of the change we need now will be because individuals change their light bulbs. It will be because of corporate actions,  large scale impacts which will both come out of the many small behaviors of individuals but will also change those behaviors.  It will involve changes to the way governments and large corporations do business.

I do not know the impact of the Sept 21 Climate March. I do know we tried to send a signal to the UN , the world, and to leaders of the US that this matters and needs attention now.  I know it sent a signal to me, myself, to work on the things I am able to, and yell about the things we need to do together.

Here, Now a Pilgrimage of the Small

I am writing this blog because I am so compelled by the wonder of nature around me.   Many of my favorite books are about people living extraordinary lives of observation. Annie Dillard spent a year in the Wilderness writing A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Thoreau escaped to Walden to live in a cabin. Henry Beston lived in a shack on the beach described in  in The Outermost House, braving the fierce howling winds of winter. One of my new favorites, Elizabeth Tova Bailey wrote The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, while on a sickbed. In Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey escapes civilization to  the red canyons and shimmering air of the hot southwest. Some writers like Julie Zwickefoose who wrote  A year in Eden live on farms, or in wild places.  They have pets, and move slowly, and write of homemade bread and jam. Birds flock to their feeders and they know them all.

Well, world- I live here, not there, now, not the past or future. I live  on a third of an acre on a busy street, here where the salt from the winter plows kills the edge of my grass. I’m here in a place of privilege- a larger lot than many in the heart of cities will ever find, and yet an infinitesimal plot compared to the great unreached farms of Australia where cattle wander in search of water, small compared to the wild reaches of Appalachia, small compared to the national park where I would want to go- to have a year if I were such  a pilgrim. How vast are the reaches I would hike, how closely I would watch the creeks, how cold and warm and tired and boundlessly energetic I would be were I to take a year to go and be.

The call of my real life, my two sons, my spouse, one pet and two jobs, holds me here with ties I have chosen and love. And so my pilgrimage is broken into a mosaic- a glimpse of the transcendent her and there, the windows into truth and beauty are flashes in the everyday. Heart stopping joy and the crazy fun of curiosity, the morbid fascination of the odd, all here- where I am. And I share it with you now, in the hopes we will travel together, for I suffer an overwhelming love of the fierce and wild, the real, the live and dead, the complex and messy world-  that threatens to undo me.

Moth of the Moon

Recently, a friend pointed out a creature clinging quietly on the bricks on the side of the fitness center at work.  Although it was the middle of a summer day, the creature was a normally nocturnal Luna moth (Actias luna). This species was named because of its moon-like spots by the father of biological classification, Carolus Linnaeus himself, in 1758.  The wings of Luna moths are pale green to bluish green with maroon or yellow rims, and with long tails swooping off the ends of the hind pair of wings. Both pairs of large wings have eyespots shaped a little like moons, that can be used to frighten predators.   The hind-wing tails can also be used to confuse the echolocation of bats  that swoop in to snag a moth out of the air and eat it.

This moth was photographed in an evening on a screen door. The friend sent the picture to me to find out what it might be. You can see the underside of the moth. You can also see that the wings are ragged, possibly from flying past vegetation or escaping predators.

 

This moth was about 5 ft off of the ground (about 1.5 meters) resting on a brick wall at about 11:30 AM. The hind wings are tucked under the forewings but the tails are very striking and you can see the maroon on the leading edge of the forewings. Sometimes that color goes around most of the wing edges.

Orienting Luna Moths in the Natural World

Insects are part of the kingdom Animalia, itself a part of the eukaryotes. The Eukaryote domain is a group of kingdoms whose members all have a membrane around a nucleus in their cells. Insects are the class in the phylum Arthropoda (“jointed foot”) which also includes other animals with exoskeletons such as lobsters and spiders. Phyla are subdivisions of kingdoms. Within the animal kingdom, insects are the class with the highest number of known species (about 900,000). In fact, insects account for more than half of all named eukaryotic species. Moths and butterflies are in an order of insects called the Lepidoptera (meaning “scale wing”). To give perspective, ants, wasps and bees are in a different insect order, the Hymenoptera (“membrane wing”) , and flies are in yet another order, the Diptera (“two-wing”). If you have ever accidentally brushed a moth or butterfly or seen one dead on the ground, you may have seen tiny powder-like scales coming off of the wings.  This is the reason for the name of the group.

Inside the order Lepidoptera, the Luna moths are members of a family of large moths called the ”Saturniidae”,  named after Saturnia, an alternative name for Juno, the Roman Queen of the Gods. There are 2,300 species in the Saturniidae but only 68 of these species live in North America. The species Actias luna, which I was seeing sitting on the red brick wall, is only found in North America. You might think that 2,300 is a large number of species to be in a family, but realize that there are 70,000 known species of weevils, a family in the beetle (Coleoptera or “case-wing”) order.  For an insect family, Saturniidae isn’t very large.

Luna moths are in a subfamily of the saturniids referred to as the Giant Silkworm Moths. (The silkworm used to make silk is not actually in this family and is not native to North America but some of the Giant Silkworm Moths do make a small amount of silk).

How do Luna Moths Live?

With a wingspan of about 4.5 inches (around 11 centimeters), Lunas are one of the largest moths in North America. Some other saturniids are even larger.  Luna moth caterpillars also get large large right before they form a pupa, and can eat a wide variety of plant leaves.

Two other large moths in the same subfamily are the Cecropia silkmoth (Hyalophora cecropia) and the Polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus). Like the Luna moth, these two are large, nocturnal, and have caterpillars that feed on leaves of trees. They all find mates by coming out in the summer night, moving toward light, and using pheromones, or chemical attractants.  Insects use pheromones as chemical signals for an array of activities including finding food, escaping predation and finding mates. Antennae of saturniids, especially males, are brushy and featherlike and are among the most sensitive chemical receptors to be found. Some moths have 60,000 receptors and can detect a single molecule of pheromone that has wafted from a mile away!  Female Luna moths will release their pheromones and wait. Males will swim upwind until they find the source, often near midnight.  Then pairs of Luna moths join,  remain connected and mate for up to 24 hours.  Later the female will  lay several hundred eggs in small batches on vegetation. These eggs will hatch in a bout a week, and the caterpillars will be munching away on the leaves where they hatch.

Even More to Know!

There is a great deal more to say about the Luna moth and its relatives but I’ll just stick with a few more surprising features:

*Luna moth caterpillars hatch and grow quickly, molting several times and growing each time before forming a cocoon and inside it, the thin pupal covering.

* Luna moth caterpillars can rear up, spew a distasteful substance and make a clicking noise with their mouths to scare off predators

*Like other moths, Luna moths have a pupal stage when their body undergoes a dramatic metamorphosis.  During that stage, the moth absorbs its entire digestive system and forms reproductive structures.  As adults, Luna moths have tiny or absent mouths and never eat. They reproduce and die within about a week.  Not all moths do this.

* Sometimes Luna moths have multiple generations in a summer.  Later generations are colored slightly differently. As climate change occurs, multiple generations are occurring more northerly.

*Overall, large moths, including the Saturniidae, have declined in New England over the last 50 years.  Luna moths, fortunately, appear to be holding steady, although they are not common.

NATIONAL MOTH WEEK!!! July 21-29, 2018

July 21-29 is National Moth Week! Who knew?  You can be a part of something big by collecting data and submitting it to groups that want to know what moths are out there. Collecting information for scientists to use is a part of citizen science.  In fact, moth week occurs in countries all over the world as well.

Believe it or not, looking for moths is called mothing.  It is usually done at night.

If there is enough interest, I will try to arrange a local mothing event.  You could also organize one! Get your family out on the lawn and use one of the fun techniques described here:

http://www.mothscount.org/uploads/How_to_start%20_mothing.pdf

 

Thanks to my friend for pointing out a delightful and amazing Luna moth. I hope you all get to see one as well some enchanted evening in the last week of July! 

 

 

 

 

If you are interested:

Here is some information on National Moth Week

http://nationalmothweek.org/

 

Several of these moths  can be seen if you navigate from here: https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/taxonomy/Saturniidae.

 

Here is an interesting but somewhat technical paper about large-bodied moth declines in New England

http://nationalmothweek.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Moth-Decline.pdf

more on insects:

https://www.si.edu/spotlight/buginfo/bugnos

 

Is That Turtle Stuck?

One recent Sunday morning before church, I was surprised by a call on the house phone. “Dr. B?” someone asked.  “This is N, from environmental science. I’m here with A.  We are walking out near Gull pond. I’m sorry to bother you, but we found a turtle.  We think it might be stuck. The turtle is on a gravel hill and its moving its legs and not going forward. Should we help it move?”

I explained that it was very unlikely that the turtle was stuck. Turtles have been going over  gravel bumps for a long time. I asked if it looked like the turtle was digging. They could not tell.   I asked what the shell looked like. Together we could not get much farther over the phone although I had a pretty good idea what was going on.

I asked the students to take some pictures and send me some pictures.  Later in the afternoon, I got to look at the photos.  As I suspected, the turtle was fine. It was a female digging a hole to lay eggs. She would then go back to her pond home and the eggs, covered with sand and gravel, will develop over a period of 75 to 95 days. When they hatch from the leathery shells,  the baby turtles will push their way through the dust and dirt to the surface and walk by instinct to the pond as well. Around here, that often means crossing a road.  Watch for the mamas on the way to lay eggs, and the babies on the way back!

From the students’ descriptions, I thought it was most likely a snapping turtle. However, it did not have some of the ridges some snappers have and I wasn’t certain from just hearing about it. Nonetheless, when I saw the stout head and gripping jaws, and powerful digging legs, I knew it was the common snapping turtle, Chelydra serpentina.

How else might I have figured this out? Well, there are only ten (actually , eleven, but we’ll come to that) species of turtles in Massachusetts (and up to five sea turtle species that could -potentially- be seen  in the waters near Cape Cod).  Of the ten land/pond/wetland species,  most are quite rare.  Blanding’s Turtle, the Bog Turtle, the Eastern Box Turtle, the Diamond-backed Terrapin, the Northern Red-bellied  Cooter, and the Wood Turtle are all so rare that it is illegal to kill, harass, collect or possess them.   If you get into herpetology enough and can find one of these and recognize it, take a picture and tell the Massachusetts National Heritage and Endangered Species Program.

Then there are the Spotted Turtle (which has spots, not surprisingly) and the Eastern Musk Turtle, (which lets out a terrible odor when frightened). Neither of these look like our turtle and neither are very common in this area or big enough to to be this mama.

There are three species left:

The Painted turtle is quite common, but it is small, has a very smooth shell and distinctive yellow lines and spots on its head.

Aha- Now we come to the reason some lists say ten and some say eleven species of turtles in Massachusetts: the Red-eared Slider is quite common in this area but it is not a native to the northeast. Instead, it has been released here and many other parts of the world by people who got tired of their pets and released them into the wild where they bred. Releasing pets is actually a very bad idea. (Similar releasing of the African Clawed frog caused the spread of a deadly fungus across North America that wiped out members of many other frog species.) For the purpose of our question- the Red Eared Slider is also too smooth, too small, and has red spots on its head.

The only one left is the rugged snapper. Built like a tank, and sometimes irascible, snapping turtles have long life spans and get very large.  The oldest recorded was one hundred years old, in Canada, and the largest can be 19 inches (almost half a meter) long.  Females don’t even reach reproductive age until 15-20 years old!  Snapping Turtles are omnivores, eating plants as well as fish, frogs, snakes, birds, insects, and smaller turtles as well as scavenging.   When turtle soup was a more common food, the turtle in the soup was usually Snapping Turtle.

photo credit: Nathan Lookwhy

Back to our lovely , hopeful mama turtle. Should all go well, and predators such as  raccoons or weasels not find and eat the eggs,  those babies will hatch. Whether they become male or female will depend on the temperature at which they incubate.  The higher temperatures produce more females.  You can imagine that warming temperatures are changing turtle sex ratios. In fact, among sea turtles some, like the Green Sea Turtle in Australian waters, are 99% female. Hopefully, here in the temperate forest, we will still see a mixture of sexes in the babies that hatch.

Just a few more tidbits about Snapping Turtles:

  • You cannot pick them up by the tail safely. That’s an old wives tale. They are very likely to be injured.  You can break the tail or even part of the back.
  • unless they are small or you are very experienced, it is probably better not to pick up a Snapping Turtle.  There are all sorts of videos on You tube claiming to know how but since some of them show people picking up turtles by the tail- you can’t necessarily trust the. If a Snapping Turtle is medium or large and in danger- try to nudge it in the direction it was going with a stick.
  • Like all turtles,  the shell of a Snapping Turtle has two parts- the top carapace and the bottom plastron. The carapace is made from about 50 bones fused together- the ribs and vertebrae. So in spite of many cartoons to the contrary, turtles cannot leave their shells!
  • Turtles have a territory and if you move them elsewhere they won’t know what to do and they will try to return home, even if that is dangerous.
  • In general, enjoy seeing them and then let them be.

Thanks for learning a little about Snapping Turtles with me! Here are some resources:

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/australia-green-sea-turtles-turning-female-climate-change-raine-island-sex-temperature/

https://massherpatlas.org/amphibians_reptiles/turtles/snapping_turtle/index.html

https://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/reptiles-amphibians/turtles/turtle-species-in-massachusetts

a Flock of Doves, an Eagle Claw, a Wild Columbine

May 15, 2016 Wild Columbines

May 15, 2016 Wild Columbines

May 2016 Wild Columbine near the native plant garden

May 2016 Wild Columbine near the native plant garden

Long before the term “Columbine” was shorthand for a terrible disaster, it meant a town, it meant the sweetheart of Harlequin in pantomime, and it was the name of a flower. Right now, wild columbines (Aquilegia canadensis), are sprinkled about our local rocky outcroppings, their bright red and yellow flowers nodding. These spectacular flowers are worth a closer look. The 60 or 70 species of columbines are in the genus Aquilegia, whose name comes from the Latin for eagle, because the petals of this oddly shaped flower looked to observers like an eagle’s claw.

Photo by Sage Ross https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquilegia_canadensis#/media/File:Wild_Columbine.jpg

Photo by Sage Ross
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquilegia_canadensis#/media/File:Wild_Columbine.jpg

The sepals, another part of the flower, look like wings next to the recurved spurs of the petals. The flower itself hangs upside down. To people in the Middle Ages, these jutting wings made the flower look like a group of doves rising upward, and thus the common name, columbine, comes from the Medieval Latin columbīna (herba) dovelike (plant).

These flocks of doves, these eagle talons, provide nectar for their long-tongued pollinators such as hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees. Such pollinators desperately need food sources, and the columbine are a perfect supplier.

Native Americans used various parts of the columbine to treat ailments as diverse as heart disease, bladder problems, headaches and kidney problems. Seeds were ground to make a love charm.

Wild columbines are flowering now and will later produce seeds from August until October, but they are perennials and will overwinter as well.The flowers of the wild columbine, join the tulip poplars, azaleas, and other local showy spring plants to bring sparks of color to this spring festival.

Enjoy!

 

What’s That Foam on Trees?

Foam at the base of a pine tree near Frost Hall, courtesy of Kate McMillan and Abby Stroven

Foam at the base of a pine tree near Frost Hall, courtesy of Kate McMillan and Abby Stroven

Walking in the woods at Appleton Farms (Ipswich) with a class recently, I was soaked by seemingly unending rain. Our hardy group was out looking at vernal pools when several students asked me about foam at the bottom of several tree trunks. We saw that trickles of foam were coming down the trunks and piling at the base. What was the cause?

Then two staff members saw the same thing on campus and sent me a picture. I did not have an immediate answer for the cause of the foam, but I knew that sometimes foam forms in nature, and that it was not necessarily a problem. But just to be sure, I did some digging around.

Guess what? Foam forms on the trunks of trees in heavy rains because of chemical interactions similar to those that occur when you make soap. That is, it’s like a simple soap made in nature. On pine trees, foam forms because some of the chemicals found in pine sap are soap-like. On other trees, sometimes foam is formed from a chemical process that is created by the combination of air pollutants and plant materials. The air pollutants land on trees during dry periods and build up. During rains, they interact chemically, forming a soap and run down the trunks, foaming as it hits bumps in the bark. A similar process occurs on roads when rain occurs after a dry spell, leaving small pockets of foam by the edges of the road.

Sometimes, however, there is more foam than just the small amounts we saw this week. Foam can appear to pour out of a specific place in the trunk of a tree and down to the base. This is a sign of a bacterial disease called slime flux (also called foamy canker, alcoholic flux, or wetwood) . Trees that are stressed, especially by drought, can be weakened. Bacteria can get into damaged areas of the tree. Through wounds such as breaks in the bark. The bacteria break down tree tissue and produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. The gasses force themselves out of the wood, making a bubbling foam of sap and producing a wet area on the trunk. Sometimes insects such as bees come to feed on the alcohol mixture. If you wound a tree in your yard by hitting it with a lawn mower or weed whacker, the same problem can arise.

For more information on foam on trees see this

http://vtstateparks.blogspot.com/2012/05/whats-with-foam-i-saw-on-trees.html

and this:

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Plant-Diseases-715/white-foam-Oak-Tree.htm

What About Those Acorns?

x IMG_1131 acorns small to large

Acorns from small to large of the Willow Oak, Quercus phellos (very small, at center), the Southern Red Oak, Quercus falcata, the White Oak, Quercus alba, and the Scarlet Oak, Quercus coccinea, from southern Greenville County, SC, USA, scale bar at upper right is 1.00 cm Photo by David Hill, published under Creative Commons https://www.flickr.com/photos/dehill/7891890620/

My aging dog sits by my side in the evening and together we listen to the plunk of acorns on the roof. I can tell he is getting older; years ago every acorn was accompanied by shock and vigorous barking protestations. But while he is barking less, this year has involved a lot of acorns sounds. Acorns cover the ground. People come up to me and ask, “What’s with the acorns?”

The ninety species of oaks in North America all produce seeds called acorns, which were once an important part of the diet of Native Americans. They had to be soaked and dried and ground into flour. While we don’t eat them today, acorns are a big part of our world and a part of the diet of seed predators such as squirrels.

And here’s the scoop. Yes, there are more acorns this year than most years. It’s a plot by the oaks.

Periodically, the region’s oak trees have a year when they put out many more acorns than usual. Such a year is a called a mast year, and it is important to maintaining the trees. Most years, the oaks put out acorns but most of the acorns are eaten by squirrels and chipmunks, some end up in the bottom of pond, paved over in roadways, or like the parable- falling on some other type of barren ground. Very few even germinate, much less survive the other dangers they need to escape to reach adulthood.

Then along comes the mast year. The oaks put tremendous energy into making more acorns than usual; a large oak will produce 10,000 acorns in a mast year. This synchronous high production means that the animals that eat acorns are unlikely to eat them all, an effect called predator satiation. More oaks germinate, more grow, and a little cohort of the year grow up together.

This phenomena of seed production is intriguing because the natural selection that pushes oaks to produce more offspring in some years acts on all of the population at once. It would not work if they simply made more acorns all the time, or one tree had a single unexpected year of high production by itself. They all have to do it together and it has to be periodic.

Mast years occur in other plants as well. In some ecosystems a mast year combined with a fire that has cleared out habitat will produce a lot of seedlings, more than mast year by itself. White pine forests have been found to work this way.

The most famous mast events in the world are those associated with bamboo. Bamboo is a broad term for about a 1,000 species in the same subfamily of grasses. Some species native to Northern India have a reproductive cycle in which they bloom and put out masses of seeds every 48 years, and then die. This event, called Mautam, produces enormous amounts of food for rats and results in a “rat flood” and unfortunately, a local famine for humans.

Fortunately for us, a mast year in the mixed forests of New England is unlikely to dramatically increase stored product pests and cause us to be over run with rodents. Squirrels and chipmunks are likely to thrive this year, however, and most of us will enjoy them. My dog, immune to the acorns, may bark at the squirrels they attract. Then another year, the numbers of acorns and of squirrels and chipmunks will fall again.

Several people have asked me what triggers a mast year. Scientists do not know. We do know it is not simply the weather such as precipitation or temperature patterns. Neither does a mast year predict the winter conditions likely to come. So for now we will just enjoy the mystery.

Turtle Babies by MacDonald Hall! Sept 2, 2015

 

These young’uns emerged from a flower bed in front of McDonald Hall today. There were about 10 of them, and they started walking in different directions. They are baby snapping turtles, laid there by a mother snapping turtle weeks ago, probably in June. In Massachusetts all but three species of turtles are protected and cannot be collected in the wild. Snapping turtles are not protected, but like all turtles, have a long life span and do better if simply left alone. Because of their slow movement and long life spans, turtles have not fared well in the rapidly changing world of the last couple of centuries.

Generally, when turtles are wandering, they have an instinct telling them where to go. It they are in the road, move them out of danger in the direction they are going. It is OK to move hatchlings toward water, but realize that for many young animals wandering or breaking their way out of shells, and other difficult tasks can be important in their development.  In any case, if they look like they are going down a storm drain, into traffic, or into some other dire strait, feel free to move them to the edge of a water body and leave them near some type of cover like leaves. Adult snapping turtles, in contrast,  bite (seriously). So if you ever need to move one, let it chomp on a sick and move it without getting your hands close, or put it in a box.

But anyway, what should you do if you find them? In general, leave wild animals alone to do their thing. But it’s a scary world out there, so Don’t step on them and PLEASE DON’T DRIVE ON THEM.

Interesting Biology Tidbit: Turtles are interesting because in many species, sex ratio is determined not by genes but by the temperature the baby experiences while developing in the egg. This is a very primitive trait, older than the determination of sex by sex chromosomes. As climate warms, turtles experience a shift in sex ratio, moving to more males.  Conservation biologists are trying to figure out ways to help turtles survive in changing circumstances.