Day 11: Carl and the Beavers

Last night was an exciting excursion with my advisory from graduate school, Carl Brett. Carl is visiting to give a talk this week for our Evolutionary Studies seminar on Monday night. I picked Carl up at the airport in Albany and we grabbed a bite at Denny's before we headed back to New Paltz. When we got home I gave Carl a pair of my old boots and we headed out to the pond. We looked for fish a bit and we found a number of bigger and smaller crappie. After a few yards we spotted another fish but this one was a nice pickerel. It was about a foot long or a bit more and I got some good pictures of it. It seems it was sleeping in the shallow water in some longer pond grass. I touched it with a stick and it didn't move so I moved into grab it and it darted away as fast as could be.

From here Carl and I continued around the pond to the outlet and the out to Black Creek. We didn't see any frogs or toads but we did hear a number of peepers across the creek. I am figuring it has been a bit cold for the last week or so and when it starts to warm up again I'm hoping they will come back. Carl was quite interested in the potential of seeing some of the beavers that live out in the creek so I suggested we continue down stream to see the beaver lodge that I had seen from my kayak last fall. This is a bit farther than I'd gone along the stream before and it was worth the slog through the mud.

We saw a number of what I call the beaver canals that head into the wooded edges from the

main creek. We saw lots of nice beaver footprints and heaps of beaver-chewed sticks. Eventually we came right up to the lodge and, boy, it's a big one! The lodge is about 10-15' in diameter and at least 4'high above the creek. There is a deep inlet along the north edge of the lodge that we dipped a stick into and it went down at least 5' before it touched the bottom. Carl and I inspected the lodge and it was very well built and quite strong. As we continued downstream we saw a number of trees the beavers had tried to eat a while back and the trees' bark had grown over the beaver scars.

Finally, we got down to where the abandoned road crossed over Black Creek. It seems my road, South Riverside Road, used to connect with Ose Road to the east and the concrete bridge is still

there along with some slumped macadam paving. I have always like to walk down abandoned roads as I like to imagine what the world would look like if one day we were just all gone, sort of a Postman situation (one of my favorite Kevin Costner movies, yes I know it's just Water World on land, but I still like it...Tom Petty has a sweet cameo). We walked down to the bridge which is still in pretty good shape and then back towards my place. Turns out there is a very nice stone wall in the woods along what looks like an old driveway into our little complex. All in all this was a fun night and it was great to have Carl along, he is a good spotter of wildlife and knows heaps of stuff. Again, if anybody else ever wants to come along for a walk, just let me know.

Day 10: Long Island, a mouse and some scat

Again, sorry for the delay in writing, I was down on Long Island this week for a conference and didn't have much of a chance to write/get out and see stuff. This is not totally true, however. On the way down, I spotted a number (>5) woodchucks along the NYS Thruway. It seemed to me that as I went south they woodchucks got redder and redder in color, ranging from a dark brown up in Ulster Co. to a nice reddish-chestnut color down in Rockland Co. I also had the distinct pleasure of visiting a colleague of mine who teaches Geology at Hofstra University. He very kindly invited me over to his house and the family has a nice little pond/waterfall set-up with three turtles (two Red Eared Sliders and a Chicken Turtle, a southern species they got from the Herpetologist on campus), a number of koi, Sunfish, and Largemouth Bass, and some Green Frogs. After some fun games with the kids and a wonderful dinner, I got to meet the pet Corn Snake, Ella, and the pet Guinea Pig as well. My friend then took me back to the hotel where I fell asleep by 10:30pm; the earliest I've gone to bed in months.

Last night Toph (see Day 5) and I visited another colleague of mine from New Paltz and searched for stuff in the woods behind her house. Supposedly there had been a stream down behind her house a few days ago and she had heard some frogs down here, but it seems that it had dried up by the time Toph and I got there. Immediately upon exiting the car, we saw a White Tailed Deer run across the road and down into my friend's neighbor's yard. We eventually made our way down into the woods and found a number of dark, almost black colored slugs crawling in the now mostly dry stream-bed. Additionally, we found another terrestrial flatworm, these guys seem to be EVERYWHERE in our area. Finally, we made our way back up to the house and perhaps the best thing we saw all night was Tex the Cat. Tex has a nice little Tuxedo-like coat and was quite interested in why two random guys were under his porch at 12:30am on a Wednesday night...obviously Tex doesn't know me very well yet.

Tonight I went out by the pond at my place again and I was rewarded with some new sights and sounds. First off I saw a couple of biggish Sunfish in about 1' of water along the edge of the pond.

While I was watching them something darted past my peripheral vision and I turned to find a cute brown-gray mouse with dark little eyes running into the grass. I followed the mouse around a bit and snapped several good pictures. At one point the mouse ran right into the water and swam for a few feet along the edge of the shore, too cute! It was also a bit of a windy night and the big Willow tree next to our pond was making some nice creaking noises. Tonight was a great night to listen to the wind in the reeds/trees/grass... very soothing and a good lesson in being quiet to hear everything you can. Oh, and I saw what I think was a little Box Turtle near the outlet of the pond.

Eventually I made my way out to the main stream and found some fresh evidence of beavers along the banks. There were lots of gnawed twigs and branches along with some nice little 'canals' off of the main stream the beavers are making to access the trees that lie some distance away from the stream. Beavers are known to enter and exit the stream at the same spot each time and often dig little lateral canals to ease bringing tasty branches back to their dens. Finally, I spotted some nice scat along a log going down into the creek. After trying to figure out just what animal had happened by here, I have come to the conclusion from the picture that there were probably 3 animals here, at least one was a Raccoon, another was probably either another Raccoon or a Skunk maybe, and the third was maybe a Mink. I am totally not sure of this but I'm trying to do my best here. In closing I would like to thank the student who asked me in the hallway today if I was going to post something new on my blog soon, it's nice to know someone reads this stuff!

Above: Top Left-Beaver sticks; Top Righ-Beaver canal; Bottom Left-Scat; Bottom Right-Mouse

Day 9: Night Hike up Overlook

I have been rather remiss with this the last couple of night, but there's a pretty good reason. Saturday night I went for a night hike up Overlook Mt. just outside of Woodstock, the same hill I hiked a week or so ago during the day. This hike is a lot different during the night, just as fun, but different. I got to the trail head at about 10:30pm and found out that I only had the smallest of headlamps with me, one that clipped onto my hat consisting of one LED. Since this light didn't put out too much light I figured I would try and do the hike in the dark, and let me tell you it was pretty dark, no clouds to diffuse city lights to the east and no moon either. The trail up the hill is as wide as a single-lane road so the going was relatively easy and I could see the sky over the trail and there was very little chance of tree limbs poking me in the eyes.

It was a BEAUTIFUL night for a hike and I'd tried to invite some friends along but no one was up for it. This was a bit of a downer at first, but in the end it was quite nice to take a walk like this on my own for a number of reasons...quiet contemplation, self-awareness, no need to talk, time to do what I wanted, etc. I set off at a pretty good clip for an entirely uphill walk and made

only two real rest-stops, each of about 2-5 minutes. Today I read that these are the perfect length of stops to take on a hike as you loose about 70% of the lactic acid built up in your muscles in the first 5 minutes of your rest. The first big stop I made was when I reached the abandoned hotel near the top of the mountain, about 2 miles from the trail head. I took several pictures of the outside of the hotel here, but I didn't go inside. Going inside the hotel can be a bit dicey at night and since I didn't have anyone with me I decided against it.

From the hotel I made my way around the side and continued on up the trail to the Fire Tower, about 0.5 miles farther on. This part of the hike is fun as you can see the lights of the Hudson Valley off to the east. I made it up to the Fire Tower, which is 60' tall and in quite nice shape, at about 11:50 pm. I have never been here during the day when the top of the tower is open, but you can still climb up the stairs to just below the observation platform. I went up the tower and the view was excellent as it was a totally clear night. I could see all the way from Albany to the north down to Newburg in the south with Catskill, Saugerties, and Kingston right out in front. It was a bit windy but I managed to take a number of pictures of the city lights in the valley below.

Eventually I climbed down and decided to take some pictures of the stars that were absolutely beautiful. I had brought my tripod for my camera and set the exposure to 15 seconds, the limit

of my camera. I got some nice pictures of the Big Dipper as well as several other stars. At this point I had been up here for about a half an hour and decided it was time to start my trek down the mountain. I decided that I would not make any stops on the way down and I am happy to say I did just that. I always think this is a longer walk down than it is up the hill on this hike, which is normally not the case. I believe this is because the trail is quite twisty and at nearly every turn after about halfway down I think I'm going to get to the car. In any event I did make it down and got to the car at about 1:10 am or so. All in all this was a great hike and I highly suggest it to anyone, be it during the day or night...in best case, do both.

Finally, the reasons I haven't written in the last day or two are the following: Saturday night I was just too shot to write when I got back around 2 am. Additionally, I have since then developed a rather nasty case of poison ivy from crawling around by the creek in shorts and I haven't gone out in the last two nights. I just didn't feel up to writing since I hadn't been out and I decided not to write until I finished this post about the Overlook hike.

Day 8: Bats, Mice, and Worms

Today was quite a day. We had a very interesting all-faculty meeting at school today where we discussed some contentious issues and a quorum was called leading to the end of the meeting. After this I took a number of scouts from the local troop caving up in Kingston. In the cave we saw only one bat, but luckily it didn't seem to have the White Nose Syndrome that has infected so many of our local bats. It was a mighty fun trip and the boys seemed to have quite a good time. While I was driving home from school tonight a mouse ran in front of my car, it made it all the way across the road, it was pretty cute.

Tonight was a might colder than yesterday and a bit blustery as well. Walking outside at night for a week should have prepared me better for tonight's walk, but when the wind was blowing strong at times it was a bit unnerving, probably b/c I couldn't hear as well as I'd liked I believe. As with last night, I made my way out to the main stream of Black Creek but I didn't see as much wildlife as last night. The peepers were still out in strength, almost more them it seemed than last night, but the toads were noticeably missing from the chorus. Also, the Pickerel Frogs were out, but their call was slower and longer than last night when it was warm. The water had risen a few inches after the thunder storm we'd had last night so it was a bit harder going to get to the stream.

As it was colder than last night, I decided to call it an early night, but not before I stopped along the pond inlet-stream to check the shallows and the bank. I don't think I've ever seen so many worms in one spot! There were at least 50 worms in a square foot of stream bank. They were all quite small, but still that was a lot of worms. It made me think about how many worms there would be in the yard burrowing through the soil. I can now see why Darwin spent the last years of his life studying these amazing creatures. Just to try and contemplate the massive amount of organic matter that passes through these animals is beyond imagining. Along with the earthworms on the bank there was another of those great terrestrial flatworms. This one was bigger than the one I'd seen the other night. After a full week of taking night walks I have to say the only downside is that I have a number of bug-bites and perhaps a small case of Poison Ivy. I'd say that is well worth the opportunities I have had this last week.

Day 7: Snapping Turtles and Toads

Tonight is probably the last night of warm weather here for a while so I spent a little extra

time out and went a bit farther afield than normal, making my way out to the main channel of Black Creek. As with most nights, I started at the pond and looked along the shore while I went. I heard a few frogs and saw a bunch of mayfly larvae and an adult mayfly as well. I was extra excited to see a medium-sized turtle swimming down into the mud near the pond's outlet; I really like turtles. At this point I decided to go out and see if I could find some of the toads I was hearing.

Toads have a quite different sound from frogs. Frogs have a repeating croak with 'rests' in between whereas toads have a sustained, trilling note. It took me a bit to get out to the edge of

the stream, hopping from tuft to tuft of grass and walking on fallen logs to see if I could find any toads. I had to be quiet for a while to get the toads to start singing again, it took about 10 minutes or so. I also found that the frogs and toads would swim over to my light after a while. It was quite cute to see the frogs and toads swim across the stream right up to the end of the log on which I was standing. The toads were fun to watch when they were singing. They inflate their neck into a big skin-balloon and trill away.

While watching the toads I saw something moving in the water off in the periphery of my vision moving in the water. At first I thought it was a lily-pad underwater but almost immediately I saw that it was a rather sizable snapping turtle. I think it had either come over to my light or had come over following the frogs/toads that had swum over to me. In any event, it made me catch

my breath as it was only a few feet away. It actually swam a bit closer towards the light/frogs/toads. Now, I have heard that snapping turtle will not bother swimmers underwater but I wasn't sure about it snapping at me while I stood on a log. I realize this was probably totally unfounded, but the fear was still there. Anyway, at this point a toad floated/swam down right in front of the snapper and it started to slowly pursue this tasty treat. As sorry as I felt for that toad, I have to admit I was pretty excited about the chance to see a snapper eat a toad. Luckily for the toad, it happened to see the turtle just at the last minute and swam away rather fast. It was about now that I started to see some flashes of lightening off to the southwest and I figured it was time to head back. I walked back past the pond and saw a nice Pickerel Frog and some interesting amphibian eggs. It was a GREAT night. I love turtles and I got to see two different types along with a bunch of frogs and toads. This is turning out to be a really fun pass-time and I HIGHLY suggest it to people. Again, if anyone wants to come along they are more than welcome!

Day 6: A bird in the hand and noisy worms

Today was an interesting day animal-wise. First off, I will start with an event that happened while I was in the Geology Department this afternoon. One of the professors came by and told me there was a bird trapped in the computer lab. I ran down to see and sure enough, there it was, a little black Starling. I went down to the janitor's closet and got a step-ladder, and climbed up to the ledge where the bird was sitting. After a few minutes of chasing the bird from one end of the ledge to the other, climbing down and moving the ladder each time, I eventually corralled the bird behind one of the shades from where I was able to grab it. Before I let it out one of the little windows out in the hall, I snapped a picture of the bird in my hand. The whole incident ended on a rather funny note as when I let the bird go out the window, it took off and flew straight away from the building not stopping to rest in a tree or anything...it flew until I couldn't see it anymore at all. I guess it wanted to get as far away from the Wooster Science Building as fas as it could.

Tonight when I got home I again grabbed my camera, net, and headlamp and trudged down to the pond to see what I could see. The water had gone down a bit more and some of the leaves that were previously underwater were now lining the shore. There was a distinct smell coming from these leaves; it smelled like fall. While walking down to the pond I saw some rather large rodent swimming in the pond. I stopped fast for fear it was a beaver and would slap its tail, but either it was a muskrat or it was a rather tame beaver. I found a few fish along the edge of the pond as well as a rather large dead one a few feet from the shore. Not sure what killed it. It definitely wasn't one I had caught in my net b/c I'd never caught one that big. I also heard a number of Pickerel Frogs calling and realized that it's call goes both up and down in tone, that clears that one up.

From here I decided I would walk around in the unmowed portion of the lawn. At first I noticed a number of little reflections down in the grass and figured they were from dew on the blades of grass, but then some of them started to move as I shown my light on them. Turns out most of them were spider eyes from a number of different types of spiders. Now, as I was crouching down in the grass looking at the spiders I started to hear a large number of small noises that were coming from the grass made by blades of grass and dry leaves passing by one another. At first I thought all these noises were coming from the spiders walking around, but it wasn't for

another 15 minutes or so that I figured out exactly what was making the sounds.

At this point I saw a little flash of reflectance down in the grass and I crouched down to move some leaves away to see what it was. As I had my hand down in the grass something happened that almost made me shout...a tiny little cricket frog or peeper jumped right onto my hand. I tell you what, that little fellow startled the wind right out of me! From here I walked over towards the main stream of Black Creek to see if I could find any tree toads. I was looking around and happed to see some reflecting dots rather high (~30') up in a tree nearby. After I sneaked closer up to the tree I realized

it was a rather large Raccoon. He was awake and was looking right at me as I moved around the long for the next 10 minutes or so. I was still in the grass and I kept hearing the little shuffling noises coming from the grass and I have to admit that it was really quite loud. It was at this point that I finally actually found out what was making the noises...it was earthworms! I never thought worms could make such a racket and I was quite surprised.

The last bit of experience tonight took place out by the inlet stream to our pond. Here I found

what I believe are two species of frogs: a large Mink Frog and a female Green Frog. The Green Frog I can ID as being female due to the special mottled markings on her lower sides. Along the stream I also saw a number of small snails and some more neat

spiders. I will check with my spider book up at school and come up with a list of what I think they were and edit the post later. In any event, one of the spider was a big one, maybe a Wolf Spider I think. This was a pretty fun night to be out and about my yard as it was quite warm and I got to see not only the pond life but the animals of the tall grass as well.

Day 5: Adventures around the 'Gunk

Tonight I went for a walk around the large pond on the SUNY New Paltz campus, know locally as 'The Gunk', with a my student Chris 'Toph' Gahn. The pond is named in honor of the mountain range near campus called the 'Gunks, which is short for Shawangunks. Toph and I both had cameras and I brought along my dip net. We must have looked quite the pair walking across campus at 10:45pm.

When we got to the pond it wasn't more than 2 minutes that we found the first of 5 large Bull

Frogs. These frogs ranged from quite large to medium sized. We found them all the way around the pond and it seems this is the most common amphibian in the 'Gunk. While we were walking around the pond we noticed a large swimming animal in the pond and tracked it to a pile of rocks under some bushes. This animal turned out to be a large muskrat and we didn't see it again tonight. Finally, there were a number of ducks on the pond at different times while we were there. We continued down south past the pond and walked along towards the alumni soccer fields and followed an outlet stream from another small pond. Along this stream we found what I believe is a type of Green Frog, though I may be wrong, but this is my best bet.

After we walked around the soccer field looking in the ditch around the perimeter, we walked

back over towards the Wooster Science Building. When we arrived at my car parked outside of the building, we stopped for a while and chatted a bit. After we had been there a few minutes I spotted a large insect flying around a light pole 30 yards or so away. Toph and I walked over and just then the insect hit the pole and flew down to the ground. At this point we both took a number of good pictures and when I got back I identified it as a Giant Water Bug. This is one of the biggest 'bugs' in the US and is a member of the Order Hemiptera. It is locally known in some places as a 'Toe Biter' and from some stuff on the 'net I guess it can deliver a rather painful bite. A fun night and nice to know what lives in the large pond on campus. As a final note, it was great to have Toph along for the walk tonight and people are welcome to come along any time, just let me know.

Day 4: More fun stuff from the pond by my place

Tonight was an extra fun night out at the pond. After a thrilling Evolutionary Studies seminar tonight and then a trip to the brew pub (awesome root beer made on premises), I got home and just couldn't pass up another crawl around the pond in my yard. The water was down about a foot from Friday, but I still found many neat animals to examine. I started poking around near a big rock just next to shore and right next to the rock was the largest fish (~10") I saw tonight. I believe it was a pickerel as it had a fusiform body with spots along the flanks and pickerel-like head. I ran up to my car and grabbed my dip-net and tried to scoop it up, but no luck. It was there and the next instant it was gone...super fast.

I moved on down the pond and saw a number of little fish sitting on little depressions they had scoured a few cm. down into the gravel on the bottom. I scooped one or two of these guys up and I believe they are year-old black crappie (Pomoxis negromaculatus) about 2-3" long. From what I read on the net, the females lay up to 60k eggs and the males sit on the nests to protect the babies.

While I was watching the small crappie I heard an interesting frog call from around the other side of the pond and carefully stalked over to right behind the frog. The sound was much like a loud cat purr that lasted for a few seconds and ended at a different pitch then when it started, higher I think. I caught the maker of this sound and it turned out to be a Pickerel Frog (Rana palustris). This frog is often confused with the Northern Leopard Frog in our area but it is more of a brown color overall and has yellow coloring under the legs.

From here I followed the inlet stream to our pond that connect with Black Creek and noted a number of fly larvae in the water. Heaps of tiny guys that I think were mosquito larvae and then some bigger black ones that a BMI site on the web tells me is a mayfly larva (Ephemerella) of some species. I nabbed a nice picture in which you can see the tri-forked tail and the gills extended out along the body.

Perhaps the coolest creature I spotted tonight was a terrestrial flatworm that I identified as Bipalium adventitium. Turns out this species is known from across the country and a fellow at SUNY Cortland has been doing some studies on these guys. I have seen one of these only once before crawling on some rocks on a rainy day up by Catskill. You can easily see that it has a flattened head and a dark line running down the back; it was about 2" long. It is also a lighter, caramel color quite different than normal reddish-brown earthworms. All in all a high-diversity night at the pond.

List of things seen today: Woodchuck, millipede, black beetle, earthworms, flatworm, crappie (many), pickerel frog, pickerel (?), water-boatman bug, mayfly larvae, mosquito larvae (?), crows, wasp, really sweet white and brown kitty who purrs a lot named Mr. Peanut (as I write this she is licking my arm).

Day 3: Some more salamanders and some ferns

Today started with Easter service at my folks church up in Howe's Cave. It was a beautiful service with readings and hymns and mom playing the organ. After lunch and a trip or two to Walmart I made my way back south to New Paltz. I stopped back by the vernal pool just west of Kingston again and caught some more aquatic newts and amphibian eggs. While there I saw a female mallard duck in the pool up at one end. At the end of the day I put these and the stuff I had collected on Friday in a tank I brought back from home. They seemed happy enough in their new home.

This evening I went for a walk at Shaupeneak Preserve in the Marlboro Mountains east and a little north of New Paltz. This park is part of the Scenic Hudson preserves and is a beautiful wooded area with a glacially-scoured pond. No, it wasn't exactly a night-walk but I did end a dusk and the peepers were going strong when I got in the car. I hiked the Blue and Orange trails, a bit over 2 miles in total. The Blue trail follows the perimeter of the pond and the Orange trail is mainly a mountain bike trail through the woods with about 200-300' of topographic relief. There is another trail with nice views of the Hudson as well in the preserve. Last summer was rather wet in the first half and I took some nice pictures of some interesting fungi here. This time I was able to see some nice ferns, moss, and geese on the pond. As far as ferns go, I got some pictures of Christmas Ferns, Polypody, and what I think was a Spinulose Woodfern. I have been trying to learn my ferns for the past year or so and this is a nice place to practice identifications. I also saw got pictures of some nice tree lichen. As far as animals go (besides the noisy geese), I saw several squirrels, both red and gray, chipmunks, and 3 sizable whitetail deer. Pictures of the ferns below: Christmas Fern, Polypody, Spinulose Woodfern (?)

Finally, as I am sort of 'making this up as I go along', I have decided to finish each entry with a list of things I saw during the day. Here's today's list (Animals only): Red Tail Hawk (2), Gray Squirrel (4-5), Red Squirrel, Chipmunk (2), Whitetail Deer (3), Minnows, Aquatic Newts (5-6), Frogs, water beetles, peepers, Mosquito's, female Mallard Duck, male Wood Duck.

Day 2: Flies, salamanders, peepers, and electric ducks

As today is my mom's birthday, I thought I'd surprise her with a visit and deliver her birthday card in person, stay over night, and go to Easter service with mom and dad tomorrow. My folks live in a small town called Middleburgh, about 1.5 hours northwest of New Paltz. It worked out great, mom didn't know I was coming and it was a total surprise. Turns out mom and dad were having a work-day around the house so I helped with cleaning the gutters and pressure-washing the house. I have always helped out with stuff like this and it is usually pretty fun...who doesn't like playing with what is in essence a giant gas-powered water gun?

Dad and I took turns washing the house as the machine is pretty powerful and your arm gets tired after a while holding the gun up and aiming it around. While it was dad's turn I usually sat down on the lawn and watched. One time while I was doing this I lay down and propped myself up on my elbows and happened to notice that there were a large number of small ephemeroptera (mayflies) flying a few feet off of the lawn; my parents' house is just across the street from a river. The flies were about 1cm long (about size 10-12 hooks if you tied imitations) and had dusky-gray wings. I told my dad, who is an avid fly-fisherman and expert fly-tier, and he told me they were most likely what fisherman call a Quill Gordon (Epeorus pleuralis). This fly is named after the famous fisherman Theodore Gordon and the quill part of the name comes from the fact that the body of the fly is composed of a stripped feather quill. These are usually some of the first mayflies to hatch in our area and it was nice to see that even though the river was high, nature was still carrying on her usual course.

When we finished washing the house we took mom out for dinner with some friends to a nice place over in Cobleskill. We returned home around 8pm or so and I decided I'd go for a walk out in the fields behind the house. I had planned when I left home this morning to bring my boots, camera, and headlamp so this time I was a bit more prepared. About a 15 minute walk out from the house is a little slough that never freezes and represents an old channel of the creek. I was always fascinated by this spot while I was growing up and I would imagine that the indians who lived here would camp around this spot as it always had clear water. Anyway, the peepers were amazing out here and I got to see some other neat things as well.

First thing that happened was I flushed some ducks. There have always been ducks here as long as I can remember. Now, the REALLY COOL thing that I SWEAR happened tonight was this: When the ducks took off I looked where the sound was, saw a black spot against the sky and there were little static-electric sparks. I'm guessing this was because the feathers of the duck were rubbing past one another, but, WOW this was really neat to see sparking ducks flying away!

Next I blundered my way through some of the brush and squatted next to the water. After a bit I decided it didn't look that deep and, having my boots, I figured I was all set to wade around a bit and see what I could find. Needless to say the bottom was quite mucky and I sank nearly to the top of my boot. While this was happening I spotted something moving in the water and it turned out to be a big spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum). It was about 6" long with a black body and two rows of yellow spots running down the back. These are relatively common in forested areas and need ponds to reproduce. I got some pretty good pictures of the salamander.

I made my way across the slough and followed the sound of some peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) and was able to spot the little fellows. I nabbed some ok pics and then found a biggish toad (Bufo americanus) crawling through some brush and what I think was a Green Frog (Rana clamitans melanota) sitting in the water. Eventually I went in over my boot for a second and my left foot was squishy the rest of the night. I wandered around a bit more and eventually came upon some peepers out in the open, i.e.: not hiding under grass, and was able to get some more pictures and even a short video. These little guys are SO cute when the inflate their 'necks' and go peep peep peep! It was nice to go back over my old haunts and I was psyched to see the salamander and the sparking ducks. Two nice night-hikes down, many more good ones to follow I hope.

Day 1: Today I caught some newts and I touched a sleeping fish

First, the albeit necessary intro: I have wanted to do this for a while, but hadn't yet thought of the best topic about which I wanted to blog...I didn't want it to be lame, at least not what I thought was lame, so I waited until tonight to start when inspiration hit. Of all of the many resolutions I have tried to keep throughout my life, the one I have been most successful at is trying to hone my observational skills to a high level. Am I the best, no, but I do try to get better at it each day. And not just seeing, but hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, empathizing, etc. Little kids are great observers, mainly, I believe, because they are not rushed, they take their time. Everybody says grownups need to be more like kids, but if there is any one way in which this is perhaps most true, I think, it is not to rush through life trying to keep to a schedule all the time (maybe this is why I'm usually late for stuff). Thinking of all of this has made me further resolved to be less rushed and to stop and observe more. Phase one of this plan is for me to take more night walks (I'll explain this more later). Where is all of this going? (I PROMISE this will not be a rambling blog all the time!) I believe that the topic I can do the most justice to in a blog is a summary of my (hopefully!) daily observations...we'll see how long this lasts. So, without further ado, my first blog entry about what I observed today:

Today was a great day, it started off well and ended well. Bright and sunny when I got up, clear and starry when I went inside. I left my apartment around 11am or so and talked with a very amiable fellow who was working with his son on a much needed regrading the gravel in our driveway. He was seemed extra interested in what I was going to do for the day and happy to share his plans with me as well. Although I suppose I am like most people in that I usually feel awkward talking with random people I don't know, this interaction was a pleasant surprise, I need to do this more often. I went into school, had what amounted to 1.5 lunches with several colleagues...I went to the Student Union Building twice, but the second time all I had was some more Pepsi. The second time was better, partly b/c I got to see some turtles.

I LOVE TURTLES! Turtles have always been one of my favorite animals and I had a pet snapping turtle when I was a kid; his name was Tommy. I found him (I think it was a him, never really knew) when he'd just hatched, he was only the size of a quarter. Anyway, outside of the Student Union Building on campus is a pond that has a sizable turtle population and I always like to look at them when I go for lunch, they make me happy =). Today they were sitting on several rocks and I think I counted about 11 of them in total. I don't know exactly what type(s) of turtles I saw today, but I plan to try and get a better view of them in the coming weeks. They were about 6-9" in diameter with dark, flattish shells.

After lunch I met up with one of my students and we drove up to Woodstock to meet another friend of mine to hike up Overlook Mt. Overlook is a nice hike with spectacular views of the Hudson Valley and the Catskills. Trail-wise it is super easy as you are walking for the most part along an old carriage road, however it is all up hill for about 2 miles and some parts are kind of steep going. On the way up we saw some nice Middle Devonian terrestrial sediments with great cross-bedded sandstones interbedded with red/green mudstones...remnants of the once mighty Catskill Delta deposited in front of the Acadian Mountains that lay to (what was then) the south some 385 million years ago. (I don't want this entry to turn into a geology lesson so I'll leave it at that...) There are two extra cool things about Overlook Mt.: 1) There is the skeleton of an abandoned hotel/mountain house near the top. It was a poured concrete building so it is still in very stable condition and it is really neat to poke around. 2) There is a refurbished 60' fire tower at the top with GREAT panoramic views of the main body of the Catskill Mountains to the west and the Hudson Valley to the east. I have taken the Geology Club up here twice on night hikes and the stars/lights are just gorgeous. Today we went beyond where I had been before, never having reached the top of the hill in daylight, out to the scenic views north of the fire tower, well worth the short walk. An added perk of doing the walk this early in the season was that there were no leaves on the trees, so it provided a different experience from a summer hike.

After we got back down, my student Brian and I headed back to New Paltz, but I made a short detour. I asked Brian if he would mind if we stopped to look at a vernal pool along a side road I knew about. I had been to this spot 3 years before around this time of year on a geology field trip with students and had noticed a number of neat amphibian eggs along with frogs and salamanders. Brian and I first walked down hill a bit to look at the rock exposures (some cool ball and pillow soft-sediment deformational structures) and then we went back to look at the pool, which is really a glorified ditch. Anyway, as before there were lots of frogs and heaps of frog/salamander egg bunches. Last time I was there I had seen a large number of aquatic newts (Notophthalmus viridescens) and I hoped we would see some tonight. It took us a while, but eventually we spotted some of them. It was after 7pm at this point so it was getting dark and the dusky green backs of the newts did not stand out too well against the leaf covered bottom of the pool. Brian got so he was quite good at spotting them after a very little bit. I eventually took of my hiking boots and waded into the pool and caught two of them which we put in a snapple bottle we found in the woods to bring home. We also took some egg clusters in an old Dr. Pepper two-liter I had in my car, having cut the top off and taped it back on after the eggs were inside. Brian was a real sport and held the bottle all the way back to school. My hope is to raise these little guys in an aquarium for my Historical Geology class so we can have them around when I get to amphibians in lab. Yesterday I started some Triops (notostracan branchiopods) to look at next week in the second part of the Arthropod lab. The eggs we collected were of two types, clear, jelly-like blobs about 2/3-1cm in diameter with little black spots inside and some others that were mostly an opaque white color with little black squiggles. I think the white ones might be already hatched eggs from what I could find about amphibian eggs on the web, we'll see what happens in the next few weeks. It was great to wade around in a little pool and catch salamanders again...but I really need to get a little insect/minnow net to keep in my car.

Besides turtles another thing I really like is the sound of peepers. When I eventually got home the peepers were in full swing. I just couldn't go inside for the night so I ran in, fed the cat, grabbed a flashlight (all my headlamps are at school) and walked down to the pond. As soon as I got down to the pond a beaver smacked it's tail on the water. Normally the beavers don't come into our pond, but each spring when the water is high they swim in and eat the bark off the little trees along the shore. Beavers make me laugh...not sure why, but they do. I walked out towards Black Creek that is connected to our little pond and couldn't make it too far b/c the water is quite high right now. I did, however, flush some sort of heron I think, as a bird took off making this terrible (and somewhat scary) loud cawing sound. A bit later another beaver out in the main creek slapped it's tail. I turned off my light (normally I don't like to use a light but it was a dark night and there were lots of little limbs right at eye-level) and just stood there by the edge of the water listening for about 15 minutes to the chorus of peepers; boy was it great! After about two minutes a peeper stared croaking about 5 or so feet from me, it was such a cute little sound, quite different from those in the cacophonous din of the entire group, and it was nice to hear this one alone and compare it to the rest. It was here that I got the idea for this blog and I will definitely be going for more nightly walks now. Eventually the other beaver from the pond went right by me, slapping it's tail a ways beyond when I shone my light at it.

I walked back to the pond and decided to look at the shallow areas near the shore. Immediately I saw some neat water beetles that swam along the top in random little circles. As I changed the angle of my light I was able to see some little fish in the shallows...mostly little blue-gills I think. I tried to catch some of them in the first spot with my hands, but to no avail. I walked a little farther on along the edge of the pond and saw some cool spiders (2-3 different kinds) making webs while 'skating' along the surface of the water but not breaking through. I eventually found some more fish down near the rushes near the other end of the pond and here I was actually able to touch a couple of the fish. It was really interesting to watch the fish sleeping and they were so tiny, only a couple of inches long. All in all it was a great first night-walk and I can't wait to do this again.

Well, that's about all for this first post. I realize that it is a bit long but it was a busy day. Hopefully you're not totally bored by what I think was some really great stuff I got to see today and you'll stop back to read more. I promise shorter posts in the future.