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.