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.