Wash Zone where mole crabs can be seen

I remember when I first “met” them.  I was on the beach at Cape Cod with my family when I was 8 or 10.  Chasing the waves, the waves chasing us, and digging in the sand, ah, the beach as a youngster.  I picked up a scoopful of sand in my two cupped hands, then, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh” accompanied by a frenzied dance flinging the sand hither and yon.

“What’s the matter?” my dad asked, as he and my older brother came to my rescue.

“There’s something in there,” I managed to eek out, “in the sand.  It scritched me.”

Well, that got my brother on the case right away and he scooped up sand of his own. “There’s nothing in here.  What a girly-girl you are.”

“There is too!  That sand,” I said, indicating the place where waves were washing in and receding.

He scooped up sand from the wash zone, and boy did he jump too.  I don’t think he emitted the girly shriek that I did, but he was startled nonetheless.  Very satisfying for a little sister to see.  I don’t remember if it was he or Dad that finally held onto a handful of sand with “scritchy somethings” in it, but we finally revealed the culprit.

In his hand was a little mole crab that was digging down, down, down into the sand as it does after a receding wave.  Only thing was, it hit a hand instead, and boy did that tickle.  Now that we knew, it was fun to catch them.

Mole crab at Cape Cod

Now, some 40 years later, walking barefoot along the wash zone on Cape Cod near Falmouth, Massachusetts, I experience them again.  No screaming this time.  I catch a glimpse of hundreds of them scoot ocean-ward in each receding wave before disappearing into the sand.  This time the naturalist in me wants to examine these curious little creatures and learn a bit more about them.  I scoop up a handful of sand and present it to my husband. “Wanna see a mole crab?”

I dig down into my handful of sand, snatch it out and rinse it off in the next wave. “Wow, that’s cool,” my husband said.  I’m not sure if he remarked about my magic trick of pulling a crab out of a handful of sand or the little creature itself.

My "scritchy" friend, the mole crab

The thing is about an inch long, and is oval and domed; a light gray color, very much like the sand it lives in, making it wonderfully camouflaged.  We see the feathery antennae the mole crab uses to catch plankton and small detritus the waves bring.  Its appendages get tucked in neatly to make it quite hydrodynamic.  Good thing, as the tide recedes, it has to go along too, so it scoots or gets rolled by an outgoing wave and quickly buries itself before the wave disappears so it is not dinner to a shorebird. It can bury itself completely in about a second and a half, hind end first.

These mole crabs I met are Emerita talpoida the mole crab found on the Eastern US coast.  The west coast has Emerita analoga, the Gulf Coast Emerita benedicti and other coasts around the world have different species, but all belong to the genus Emerita.

So, on your next trip to the shoreline, dig in, and don’t scream.  The small crabs are not only fun to experience but remarkable in that they live in such a small and harsh habitat as the wash zone.

A list of plants that attract:

Native Bees:

Pollen-covered bee; Photo thanks to Tom Sullivan of Pollinators Welcome

*   Aster
*    Black-eyed Susan
*   Currant
*   Elder
*    Goldenrod
*    Huckleberry
*    Joe-pye weed
*    Lupine
*    Penstemon
*    Purple coneflower
*    Rhododendron
*    Sage
*    Snowberry
*    Stonecrop
*    Sunflower
*    Willow

Female Ruby-throated hummingbird at Thistle

Hummingbirds:

*    Red Columbine
*    Trumpet Vine
*    Orange Spotted Jewelweed
*    Canada Lily
*    Cardinal Flower
*    Trumpet Honeysuckle
*    Mountain Rosebay
*    Bee Balm
*    Indian Pink
*    Salvia

Butterflies:

Monarch Butterfly on Common Milkweed; photo by Ann & Rob Simpson

*    Coreopsis
*    Coneflowers
*    Phlox (many varieties)  
*    Bee Balm
*    Sedums
*    Liatris  
*    Butterfly Weed
*    Yarrow
*    Queen Anne’s Lace
*    Cosmos
*    Lantana
*    Nasturtium
*    Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia)
*    Zinnia
*    Verbena Bonariensis
*    Beauty Bush (Kolkwitzia amabilis)
*    Butterfly Bush
*    Privet
*    Lilac
*    Blueberry bushes
*    Bronze Fennel
*    Nettles
*    Thistle
*    Milkweed
*    Chives
*    Pussytoes
*    Daisy
*    Violet
*    Daisy fleabane
*    Common Valerian
*    Hawkweed
*    Cinquefoil
*    Black-eyed Susan
*    Joe-pye Weed
*    Clovers

Spring beauty

Is posies the
Where wonder I
Ris’ has grass the
Sprung has spring

This is the only poem I can recite backwards and forwards.  (Hint, now read it backwards.)  Gotta love spring.  Flowers blooming, birds singing, grass greening, buds bursting, all that.  There’s a lot that happens  this time of year.  It happened last year too, and the year before that.  Actually, spring has sprung for a very long time now.

Have you ever wondered if those chickadees are nesting the same time this year as they did 2 years ago?  Is the skunk cabbage pushing its way up through the snow the same time it did 10 years ago? Is that sugar maple flowering this year near the calendar date it did 40 years ago?  Naturalists like myself ask these curious questions as do scientists studying global warming trends.  This study of periodic happenings, especially as they occur in nature is called phenology.

I’ve spearheaded my Naturalists’ Club in a phenology study for the past 10 years.  Henry David Thoreau, in his meticulous note-taking way, documented springtime occurrences 150 years ago.  Some British naturalists have listed occurrences much longer ago than that.  When we note the blooming times for specific flower species this year, and compare it to when it flowered many years earlier, that’s where the intrigue begins.

Folks at Boston University did exactly that.  They compared their flower blooming times from 2004-2006 to that of Henry David Thoreau’s from 1852-1858.  Location, elevation, plants studied all being the same, these BU folks learned some pretty telling things:

•    The mean annual temperature rose 4°F (2.4°C) over this 150 year span.

Yellow wood sorrel, Wikipedia commons

•    Events like bird migration, amphibian mating, and flowering times are occurring earlier now than in the past.
•    Every plant studied blooms earlier now than in HD’s time, some a full week earlier.
•    Highbush blueberry now blooms 21 days earlier.
•    Yellow wood sorrel blooms 32 days earlier.
•    Some species’ blooming cycles are changing rapidly while others are not.

Even in my club’s meager 10 years of collecting phenology, from 2001 – 20010,  I saw a trend toward earlier blooming  for many plants, including:
•    Wild Blue Phlox
•    Bluets
•    Spicebush
•    Epimedium
•    Foam flower
•    forget-me-nots

I’m not going to get all scientific on you, but hey, things are happening and nature is responding.  Even us gardeners and wildflower lovers can see it. Is spring sprouting earlier these days where you are too?  Get in on the action and take notice.  Start a phenology of your own.  A simple chart of:

*Date
*Location
*Observation

is all you really need to get going.

The longer you keep track, the more valuable the information becomes.  Plus, it gets you outside and noticing the beauty of spring.  You can’t go wrong. In addition, you can add your data to that of many others on the National Phenology Network online.  Visit here to learn more.

Happy Spring.

lacewing; photo by Sonya Vickers

My friend was curious about looking closely at the compound eye of a lacewing.  She slowed him down by putting the dish he was in on a bed of snow.  With the aid of a handheld digital microscope she could get a pretty close look.

lacewing compound eyes; photo by Sonya Vickers

A compound eye is made of of a lot – could be thousands – of individual light sensors called ommatidia.  Each one, arranged on a spherical surface points in a slightly different direction, catching light from that specific angle.  The resulting image is a mosaic of light and dark spots.  Much like pixilation, the more ommatidia, the better resolution of the image.  Grasshoppers have comparatively few ommatidia, and their images are coarser grained as compared to a honeybee or dragonfly.  But, because a moving image is caught by many ommatidia in a sequence, a compound eye is great at detecting motion over a wide field of view. Some insects, like the honeybee have visual cells in the ommatidia that can detect certain colors. Bees and butterflies among others can see ultraviolet light too.  These abilities help them identify nectar-rich flowers for nutrition.

compound eye of a lacewing; photo by Sonya Vickers

Anyway, my friend and I were just fascinated with the reflective/refractive properties of our lacewing’s eyes.  A regular rainbow of color.  I hope you like gazing into his eye.

Stellar snowflake by Kenneth Libbrecht; photo thanks to Smithsonian Photography Initiative

I have plenty of good company this winter when I say I have mountains of snow outside my house.  Literally, mountains!  It has been difficult to go or do anything without considering the snow.  My love/hate relationship is determined on whether I’m going snowshoeing or driving.  In any case, I sat down and got to know snow intimately.

Why are snowflakes all 6-sided?

The molecular structure of any mineral dictates its crystalline form. Snowflakes are made of water vapor, H2O, where two hydrogen atoms are bonded to an oxygen atom.   Under the right conditions, these water vapor molecules bond together, aligning themselves into hexagonal groupings upon which more water vapor builds.

How are snowflakes formed?

“No two are exactly alike.”  Have you heard that saying about snowflakes?  Snowflakes form in a cloud, an environment of water vapor.  There are varying conditions of humidity and temperatures and air currents and even dirt and dusts particles throughout the cloud.  The hexagonal plate that every snowflake starts out as, tumbles through the cloud, attracting more water vapor that adds to each of the 6 arms or  perhaps melting a bit before growing again.  Since each snowflake encounters slightly different conditions in the cloud, vapor crystallization varies for each one, making it improbable that any two would be identical.

Why isn’t all snow in the form of flakes?

Temperature has everything to do with the form snow takes.  Really cold temperatures produce intricately branched flakes, a condition found typically in very high clouds.   Under warmer conditions, snowflakes grow more slowly and have a smoother, less branched look.  Mid and low level clouds therefore produce 6-sided needles and flat hexagons and other shapes.  Of course if snow melts and becomes rain as it descends to earth, we could have something completely different.    Sleet is frozen rain that falls as icy pellets.  Freezing rain is supercooled water droplets that forms ice upon impact. Graupel is light, fragile snowy pellets formed when supercooled water droplets condense onto snowflakes.

So, the next time it snows, don’t dismay.  Take a minute to closely examine the intricately formed flake on the sleeve of your jacket.  That snowflake has gone through a lot to get to you.

Winter wonderland

The white blanket muffles distant sounds. Serenity embraces me. This new 19 inches of snow creates a winter wonderland that I love to be a part of.

Dollops of snow on a young Eastern Hemlock

Eastern hemlock, white pine, mountain laurel and rhododendron sporting dollops of snow on evergreen leaves make for a white, green and brown landscape.  But wait, there’s splashes of orange here.   Not all deciduous trees stand stark naked.  There are misfits about.  Orange leaves still cling to branches of young beech.  What’s with this?

Marcescent beech in forest

I crumple a handful of lifeless American Beech (Fagus grandifolia)  leaves, but they don’t crumble into pieces.  They are dry, yet springy. This is one reason why resourceful early settlers collected these leaves and stuffed their mattresses with them.  I can see how they would be so much better than straw that would compress.

Marcescent oak tree

This retaining of dead leaves or other plant parts, is called marcescence.  I’ve found it on oaks (Quercus) and witch hazel (Hamamelis) too.  Why would a tree hang onto its leaves all through the winter?  A couple theories are bantered about.

Witch hazel

It’s primarily the young trees that clutch determinedly to their dead photosynthetic factories.  They are the ones whose branches are within reach of browsing deer and moose.  These large herbivores are seeking succulent buds and twigs for nourishment in the winter.  The dry parchment-like, leaves perhaps act as unpalatable deterrents and help the young trees retain their branches.

Perhaps too, water retention or temperature control may play a part.  Evolutionarily speaking, perhaps the beech and oaks have not yet mastered being deciduous yet.  Maybe these youngsters retain some fragment of a time when losing leaves for the dry part of the year had not yet become a necessity, and it is advantageous for them to retain leaves when young.

Marcescent beech leaves

Fact is, nobody really knows the reason for marcescence.  We do know how it occurs.  The abscission layer, separating a leaf and its twig, is formed in autumn. This shuts the leaf off from its supplies, causing it to drop.  The abscission layer is not fully formed with marcescent leaves.  Why, isn’t known.  I just know it is nice to have a mystery afoot to keep curiosity alive on a winter hike through the woods.

black capped chickadee at feeder, courtesy harpercollege.edu

What’s the pecking order?

Black-capped chickadees are common visitors to northern bird feeders. In the winter, they form loose flocks of 4 to12 individuals and cover a territory of 24 acres or more.  This winter flock has a distinct social order.  
Try this:
Try to determine who has more social standing.  If a chickadee is at the feeder and another arrives, what happens?   Does the newcomer alight nearby and move in only after the first has departed? The newcomer has less social standing in this case.  Or does the newcomer swoop in and displace the other at the feeder? This newcomer is ranked higher in the social order of the flock.

Red-breasted nuthatch hiding seed in red oak bark

Where did it Go?

Chickadees, nuthatches and titmice all cache seeds under bark or in lichen for later retrieval.  
Try this:
Watch a bird after it has picked a seed from your feeder.  Does it eat the seed right away?  Does it take the seed and cache it somewhere?  How many hiding places can you identify?  What kinds of trees to they tuck the seeds into?

White-breasted Nuthatch at feeder, courtesy Wikipedia

Male or  Female?

White-breasted nuthatches join foraging flocks of chickadees and titmice in winter as they can watch out for predators and find food more effectively together.  Nuthatches get their name from their habit of taking acorns and other seeds and wedging them into tree bark crevices to hold them while they hammer or “hatch” the nutmeat out. They also store seeds under bark for later consumption.  
Try this:
If a white-breasted nuthatch moves in on another that is feeding, does the first move away or stand its ground?  If it moves away, chances are it is a female, as males tend to displace them at feeding stations.

Train Birds to Come to You

Black capped Chickadee, courtesy Stephen Switzer, www.fasttrackphoto.com

Do you have a leftover scarecrow from Halloween?  If you have some straw and some old clothes, it may be worth your while to make one.   Perhaps just laying a mitten on the railing will do.  Experiment with “your” birds.
Try this:
Take the scarecrow and set it on a chair or bench by your feeder with sunflower seeds, or pieces of nutmeat from peanuts, walnuts, cashews or pecans in its mitten or on the hat.  After a few days, curious (and hungry) titmice and chickadees will soon get used to it and come pick the food right off.  When the birds have no fear of the stranger anymore and realize it is a ready source of food, remove the scarecrow and replace it with yourself.  Put the shirt, hat and mittens on and sit quietly with food in your hand right where the scarecrow sat.  Soon, birds will be coming over to eat from your hand.

Naturalists' Club members scouting for birds

Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count

For a more intense winter bird activity, get involved in the Christmas Bird Count.  This bird census organized by the Audubon Society helps us keep track of bird populations and therefore influence conservation efforts.  For some spirited competition grab your binoculars, bird guides, and fellow birders, leave the comfort of your home and chock up as many birds as you can within a 15-mile radius in a 24-hour period.  Dates are from December 14th through January 5th, so the census period has already begun.  Go here http://birds.audubon.org/christmas-bird-count for more information.

Make up your own winter birding activities and let me know your winter bird games.  There is so much fun to be had right outside that window.

Sources:
AllAboutBirds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology
Audubon Society

Striped and Black Oil Sunflower Seeds

Sunflower Seed; black oil and striped

Grosbeaks, Nuthatches, Tufted titmouse, Chickadee, Cardinal Goldfinch, House finch, Purple finch, Mourning dove, Pine siskin, Junco, Woodpeckers

Safflower seeds

Safflower seed

Cardinal, Chickadee, Grosbeaks, Mourning dove, Native sparrows, Tufted titmouse, Purple finch
Fortunately, some of our less desired species such as house sparrow, European starling, and squirrel don’t like safflower seed, but recently, some have acquired a taste for it.

White Millet seed

White Proso Millet

This small seed is a favorite for ground feeding birds such as Mourning Dove, Native American sparrows, Quail,  Towhee, Junco, Cardinal, Indigo bunting.  Unfortunately, it is also enjoyed by the Cowbird, Blackbirds and House sparrow.

Whole kernel corn

Corn, whole and cracked

Grouse, Pheasant, Turkey, Quai,l Cardinal, Grosbeaks, Crow, Raven, Jay, Dove, Ducks
Unfortunately corn is also eaten by house sparrows, cowbirds, starlings, geese, bears, raccoons, deer and more.  Corn can easily harbor aflatoxins, which are naturally occurring toxins produced by a fungus affecting a variety of crops.  It is harmful even in low doses.  Therefore, don’t let the corn get wet.  Put out only enough that can be eaten in a day in wet or humid conditions and rake up old corn.

Peanuts

Peanuts

Jay, Crow, Chickadee, Woodpeckers, Tufted Titmouse, Nuthatches
This high fat food is also a favorite of squirrels, bears, raccoons, and others that you don’t want to supplement with feed.  Keep peanuts dry as they also may contain aflatoxins and put out only that which can be eaten within the day.

Rapeseed

Rapeseed

Quails, Mourning dove, Goldfinch, House finch, Purple finch, Juncos

Nyjer seed

Niger or Nyjer ® (also incorrectly called thistle seed)

Goldfinch, House finch, Purple finch, Indigo bunting, Mourning Dove, Dark-eyed junco, Pine siskin

Suet

Suet

Chickadee, Nuthatches,  Tufted titmouse, Carolina wren, Woodpeckers

Mealworms

Waxworms  & Mealworms

A favorite of insect-eating birds such as:
Bluebirds, Flickers, Woodpeckers

Tangerine

Fruit

Baltimore Oriole, Eastern Bluebird

Do not provide

Red millet, Golden millet, or  Flax.  These are fillers.  None of our birds prefer them, and in fact discard them for more preferable seed.  If left on the ground they get moldy and harbor disease-producing organisms such as fungi and bacteria.

Get a new hobby by joining Project FeederWatch, a bird counting program through Cornell Lab of Ornithology.   Count birds that come to your feeder or water source November to April.  Novice to expert bird watchers can participate.  Its not too late to sign up.  Go to Project FeederWatch for more information and to sign up.

Sources:
National Bird-feeding  Society
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Tulip tree grove in the Fall

Go now.  Drive along Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park.  Seldom a better fall show than one experienced there.  Red maples, sugar maples, hickories, ashes, and more deciduous trees contribute to the collage of fall colors.  But in this park, the tulip trees have a unique story.

In a survey done in Shenandoah in 1940, there were no tulip tree groves to be found. By 1990, tulip trees covered sixteen percent of the park.

Tulip trees, or yellow poplars as they are sometimes called, grow in moist sites. They are tall straight trees that have whitish bark. In late spring they blossom with large orange and yellow tulip-shaped flowers. They are not tulips at all but actually part of the magnolia family. They are frequently found in uniform stands.  Because of their fast growth rate they shade out many other plants. Morel mushrooms and puttyroot orchid are some of the few understory life forms found in tulip tree groves.

Common Morel by Ann & Rob Simpson

Tulip trees are a “gap” species.   This means that they can sit in the understory of a forest and grow very slowly until they get more sunlight.  When an opportunity that allows enough sunlight to reach the forest floor occurs, they take advantage of it and speed up their growth rate.  Events that open up the forest floor to sunlight would include a tornado, storm, fire, or human activity like lumbering. Tulip trees are often found in old home sites, along forest edges or former orchards.

One tulip tree grove is found at mile marker 8 in the northern section of the park. In the fall, the filigreed canopy of bright yellow leaves attract an abundance of leaf watchers especially in the evening when the sunlight streams through and highlights the leaves like golden Christmas ornaments.

(by Ann and Rob Simpson, excerpted with modification, from Shenandoah NaturePod)

A Sampling of Fall's Splendor

Nothing eases the harsh reality of oncoming winter better than a beautiful fall color display.  This wonderful show of dazzling color travels from north to south at the rate of about 40 miles per day.  It may last a mere three weeks at any given location.  

Although environmental conditions do much to affect the brilliance of fall colors (see “What makes Autumn Leaves Turn Crispy Red” ), generally, any given species of tree often has a characteristic fall color.  That said, nothing in nature consistently conforms to rules. A given tree can itself be several colors at once. But in general, most of these deciduous species tend to turn these colors in the fall:  

Red:
Dogwood, Red Maple, Staghorn Sumac, Poison Sumac, Mountain Ash, Sassafras, Pin Oak, Scarlet Oak, Red Oak, Sweet Gum, Sourwood, Wild Cherry

Yellow:
Yellow Buckeye, Tamarack, Box Elder, Ash, Sugar Maple, Striped Maple, Black Maple, Black Locust, Tree of Heaven, Walnut, Hickory, Redbud, Willow, Tulip Tree, Magnolia, Sassafras, Witch Hazel, Chestnut Oak, Northern White Oak, Sycamore, Sweet Gum, American Chestnut,  Wild Cherry, Aspen, Basswood, Mulberry, American Beech ( more like copper color), Ironwood, Hop Hornbeam, Elm,  Birch, Alder, Catalpa, Cottonwood, Poplar,

Purple:
Persimmon, Black Gum,

Not every North American deciduous tree species is of course listed, but I tried to include the most common ones.  
If a tree species can be multiple colors, I didn’t choose – I just listed it under each color its leaves may “choose” to turn.  
I intentionally didn’t include the color “orange” which is a combination of yellow and red, so pretty much any tree in either category can certainly have elements of orange.
I also didn’t choose to include brown, which some leaves turn – some oaks for instance.  

I now invite you – nay challenge you – to go outside and find exceptions to these categories.  It’s a great fall family game.