Experiencing Adkins' Habitats in Silence

"Experiencing Adkins' Habitats in Silence" is a project conducted by a team of participants in the Maryland Master Naturalist program currently underway at the Arboretum. The team observes each of these ecosystems monthly and records their experiences. This post comprises their observations for March.

Lowland Forest (the Stream) 

by Tony Pascal

The stream meanders through the woodlands, a small replica of many streams I have known. It looks a little like the Battenkill of southern Vermont, or the Hoosic in southwestern Massachusetts. The small riffles, after passing over a fallen oak, the long stretches of quiet pools, sandy bottom, undercut banks, mosses, and the moving grass. Beautiful in miniature.

I see my first fish in the stream. It appears to be a couple of fathead minnows. I know they are not thinking about breeding, because the water temperature has to be at least 55 degrees, and after that, they can breed as much as five times in a season. They don’t grow much over 2-3 inches. They eat mosquito larvae, which is a good thing, and they in turn become food for a variety of larger fish in the Tuckahoe, just 100 yards downstream. 

The water temp now is still in the low 40s. Some water striders are cruising, short bursts of movement across the surface. Their long legs are proportioned over their bodies to allow them to ride the surface of the water. I see two of them, together, one on top of the other. It’s warm enough for them to think about making baby striders. She takes him for a romantic ride on the glassy surface. There are a few challengers approaching him, but this male spider is not going anywhere. This is not a quick courtship. He will not leave her for the entire reproductive season. The raccoon has been here, probably last night, washing himself, and having a cool drink.

I decide to name the stream, presumptuous perhaps, but it needs a name. To me, it will be the Little Sally. I don’t know any particular Sallys, so this is something else. I have five wonderful women in my life: a wife, three daughters, and a granddaughter. I have often used the name “Sally” as a term of endearment, first with my wife, of almost a half-century of love and friendship, and even to my four-year-old granddaughter. “How are you doing today, Sally?”

Until next time, Little Sally, flow clean, and bestow upon your visitors your characteristic quiet beauty, and energy for your living creatures.

Wetlands

by Anna Harding

Stratocumulus clouds create a gray scrim over the skeletal tree crowns. The day is mild at 45 degrees, and it is windy. Small patches of blue and a hazy disk of sun filtering through give the day some windows of brightness.

American crows caw their presence and compete with the whining roar of the wind that tosses the tall tulip trees into circular frenzy. Occasional brittle beech leaves are torn from their branches and signal the time of new buds soon to come. The edge of the vernal pool that is in my observation area is littered with the detritus and decay of leaves that have been caught in this watery lowland. Bare tree branches are reflected in the riffled standing water, and a singular water strider, perhaps only ¼” long, skates erratically on the surface of the pond.

The skunk cabbage I photographed last month is beginning to wither; and yet nearby, a whole new stand of skunk cabbage, bright green and vigorous, is emerging from the shallow water. Tiny buds are filling out, American hollies wave their skimpy branches, saplings bend and curve, and the club moss is vibrant, green, and lush. Husks from tulip tree flowers are blown down from on high as the tree prepares to replace them with this year’s flowers. Leaves, dry and desiccated, are stirred by the wind and blown across the land into the pools.

The air smells like spring, the colors are tuning up, and the land feels ready to express the upcoming season.

Meadow

by Cindy Beemiller

The winter sky above the meadow has eased. The chilly wind isn't as cold, making everything seem so much warmer than it was a month ago. Last month the grasses were crisp and swayed with a harsh crunch. Today they sway gently, making a soft brush across each stalk. The path is greener. I kneel on my mat to look at the grass and around the still brown clumps of grass. Ah! Flowers, bright white tiny buds protected by the clumps of grass. I would have missed the petite buds if I had not gotten down to meet the warmth of the earth. I look for a long time, afraid if I look away they will be gone.

I straighten up to take a look around. The surrounding trees are still bare. The sky is blue, not that brilliant winter blue, but rather a warmer, playful light blue. Spring is coming. Honk! No, the geese are coming. I look north only to realize the noise is bouncing off the trees. I look south to see a huge boomerang of birds high in the sky. They are forming a large V with several offshoots of smaller Vs. They try and try. Once across the meadow, the calamity suddenly gets louder. The birds turn left as if someone sneezed and blown them west. I chuckle and look back to the brilliant flowers below. The meadow has opened up to show the big and the small.

Upland Forest 

by Wendy Jacobs

It is 9 a.m. and 38 degrees, partly sunny. The steady March winds sway only the tall treetops here, but the rusty-colored beech leaves rustle incessantly. What a difference in a month! There are a number of animal tracks on the nearby trail, regular bird calls, and the hollow, workmanlike knocking of a red-bellied woodpecker downhill and across the stream. Mossy banks along the trailside have freshened up with new spring-green color.

On a small, fallen branch, a rotting knothole of about half a square inch glows green. My jeweler's loupe at 40X reveals a cushy salon inside. No, it's more like a tiny forest, with each strand of moss an evergreen, droplets of sticky dew stretched across the tiny trees, a pillow of soft brown rot, and a feathery gray ground beneath. No visible inhabitants, but it looks warm and inviting for something tiny to overwinter and feed.

Arboretum architect Lake/Flato named one of the world’s top 10 most innovative companies in architecture

Lake/Flato, the award-winning architect for Adkins Arboretum’s Arboretum Center project, has earned another accolade. Fast Company, a leading business magazine, named the San Antonio, Texas, based firm to its World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Businesses in Architecture. “Our annual guide to the state of innovation in our economy features the businesses whose innovations are having the greatest impacts across their industries and our culture as a whole,” notes Fast Company on its innovation list webpage.

Lake/Flato placed tenth on the list for its designs of the new Texan landscape. “The group has created structures with an aesthetic unique to Austin (the Hotel San Jose) and west Texas (the Thunderbird Motel, which played a crucial role in establishing Marfa, Texas, as a destination for creative folk). The recently launched Porch House project, a collection of high-end, modular, and LEED-certified dwellings, is one of the first appealing examples of pre-fab housing,” the magazine wrote.

The contemporary design of the new Arboretum Center embraces the balance between design and sustainability, linking the Arboretum’s role as an educational center to both its cultural and its natural environment—the 400-acre Arboretum site.

Follow the innovation conversation at TWITTER#FCMOSTINNOVATIVE.

by Kate Rattie

Director of Advancement and Planning

Busman's Holiday

When I suggested we take the family to Tuckahoe State Park’s tire playground last weekend, I had ulterior motives: an additional five minutes’ drive would bring us to the Arboretum’s Funshine Garden, which was in dire need of attention prior to spring planting. My husband graciously agreed to stop by the Funshine Garden first and lend a hand.

Within seconds of disembarking, the children—my three plus a family friend—were off to visit the goats. Gabe and I set to work pruning and weeding, the sun warm on our backs as we bent over the beds. Soon the children returned to dig in the sand, pick mint, and scrutinize the vole holes that crisscrossed the beds. Countless treasures were discovered: a grubby plastic dragonfly left from last year’s summer camp, slug eggs beneath a tree stump stool, and a piece of polished blue glass that had worked loose from a stepping stone.

Paths beckoned. Our garden work over, we entered the forest for a walk along the Tuckahoe Creekside path. I don’t normally walk this far with my young students and was intrigued by the new wood duck boxes near the creek. My husband and I watched from a bench as the kids teetered across a fallen tree, taking bets on who would fall in first. Spring peepers sang from the trees.

Finished with her gymnastic adventures, our youngest begged for a visit to Paw Paw Playground. We carried her on our shoulders as the older children ran ahead to gather charcoal “war paint” from the fire pit. I made a mental note to contact a local Boy Scout for wigwam repairs, and we watched an early butterfly alight on the woodland path in search of minerals.

When we finally made our way back to the car, the day was growing late. It was time to return the spare child to her home. I waited for the inevitable whine of missed opportunities as we drove past the tire park. But for once, all was quiet in the peanut gallery.

by Jenny Houghton, Youth Program Coordinator

               

Run for fun on April 6

Walking the paths at Adkins Arboretum is always a treat—as a docent, I have walked them easily a hundred times. But running the paths? That I had never done. Okay, maybe once when trying to escape a particularly hungry swarm of deer flies, but that was a quick sprint to a golf cart. The annual Arbor Day Run last year turned out to be a fun day, in beautiful weather, with a great bunch of runners and staff, but it wasn't all a walk in the park, at least for me.

Carol Jelich (#4) and Michelle Lawrence (#5) running
the Adkins Arboretum Arbor Day Run in 2012.

I have two distinct memories—the first is of the Family Fun Run, where the little kids get to make a mad dash for a finish line. One of the contestants had been walking for all of 2 years I estimate, training hard for this event I am sure, but along the way he tripped and fell, popped right up and kept going with nary a tear, and was very happy to get his finisher's award medal. The other memory is of partnership and accomplishment. My fellow docent and 5K partner had a great race day, while I was plagued by tremendous tendon pain in my lower legs. I alternated planning my escape by following a less used path, and trying to catch up with Carol—the 5K master that day. 

At one point, the course took us by the Visitor’s Center and the crowd of supporters (and my last chance at escape...I had left my car keys with a friend there). Hearing all the cheers and clapping made all the difference in the world—I decided to keep chasing Carol, to try mightily to ignore the pain and finish (which we all did). I will never forget Jenny Houghton, the race coordinator, running up to me at the end and giving me one of the finisher medals reserved for the kids—that medal to this day hangs in a place of honor.

Awesome race swag – an oak tree sapling and
'tree'mendous race medal from Arbor Day Run 2012.

This year's Arbor Day 5K and Family Fun Run is on my schedule, and I am looking forward to the day. I hope you join us—it really is a fun run. Until then, I will be jogging and stretching my legs so this year's event is a 'walk' in the park.

by Michelle Dolan Lawrence

**Click here to register for the 2013 Arbor Day Run.**

A new view

The Arboretum Visitor's Center's beloved wetland bridge has had a face lift. Work began in mid-December to replace the degraded pressure treated decking (installed in 1984 with a projected lifespan of 15 years) with Trex, a recycled plastic and wood product that simulates real wood. The new decking has a life expectancy of 40 years and none of the bad impacts of toxic preservatives. George Johnson, a Queen Anne's County native and owner of Big Island Ventures, who knows the waterways of these parts having made his livelihood building piers, was responsible for the deck's restoration.

Once the new deck was installed, Maryland Fabricators of Millington began screwing 20-foot panels of metal railings to the deck. The railings are designed to protect even the tiniest of visitors from making a miscalculation and slipping through the railings, but at the same time they are almost transparent when compared to the clunky wood railings they replace. For those who are familiar with crossing the bridge to reach the Visitor's Center, you may step onto the bridge and be taken aback by the open view provided by the new railings. The first morning I stepped onto the bridge after the new railings were placed, it felt dangerous to be surrounded by this new experience, this new wide open view.

On Friday, Big Island Ventures completed the work by adding a wood cap to the metal railing, as if to finish the beautiful package with a bow.

The bridge restoration is part of The Campaign to Build a Green Legacy, a capital campaign underway to enhance the Arboretum grounds and expand the Visitor's Center. For additional information about the Arboretum's expansion plans, contact Kate Rattie, Director of Advancement and Planning, at krattie@adkinsarboretum.org or 410.634.2847, ext. 33.
 

Come for a bridge walk! Spring peepers will soon be serenading you.

by Ellie Altman
Executive Director

A very cool experience

I am a little sad because the Arboretum's Beginning Drawing class has come to an end. After five Mondays spent with Lee D'Zmura and about a dozen classmates learning how to draw, I must now practice these new skills on my own. I'll just have to encourage myself by remembering how we sketched our way through each lesson, looking over each other's shoulders and marveling at the different ways everyone drew the same objects.

Michelle's light-handed shading created beautiful soft edges on her clay pot, Nancy's way of capturing the light bouncing off the skin of her apple, the perfect shadows of Walter's cylinder, all inspired me to look more carefully at the world around me. This class changed the way I see everything. A leaf lying on the driveway draws me in to observe its position, depth, and reflection of light. Wow...did I just say that? On a Sunday drive, I recall the images we created on paper with telephone poles and roads "converging" at a point. So, no more Mondays classes for now, but I'll sing up for Lee's Nature Journaling with Spring Ephemerals class in April. Very cool!

by Meg Gallagher

Advancement Assistant 

iNaturalist: New tools to link local experience with global community of science and nature lovers

by Matt Muir

Signs of spring are here, but the weather sure doesn't feel like it! I was at the Arboretum on March 1 and hurried into the forest to seek cover from the bitterly cold wind. Immediately on the Upland Trail, I was greeted with a sound I haven’t heard in months: frogs! Tens of frogs were visible, floating on the surface of a vernal pool, and a huge smile spread across my face at this unexpected but unmistakable sign of spring. I took several photos, but I’m not an amphibian expert and none of the frogs were close enough for me to immediately know what species I was looking at. Previously, these photos would have been buried among the thousands of other photos on my hard drive, unidentified and inaccessible to everyone but me.

Now, however, I share my observations on a website called iNaturalist.org, a public online forum where my local experience can be cross-checked by a community of fellow enthusiasts and global experts. (Brief interlude: I’m giving a free talk and training on iNaturalist on Sunday, March 10, at Adkins Arboretum, and I hope you’ll join me.) Conceptually similar to eBird, iNaturalist users can keep a list of all forms of biodiversity that they see and where they see it. You can check which species occurs where (screenshot below of the species that occur in Maryland – in order of observation frequency), browse photos and Wikipedia descriptions, and filter the iNaturalist database by location (e.g., all the observations that have occurred in Caroline County) and/or species group (e.g., all the dragonfly observations in Caroline County). Once the identification is confirmed (more on that below), the observations are available globally for science, including two major players: the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

I think the richest experience available through iNaturalist is the community and ongoing conversation between amateur naturalists and professional experts. The community helps confirm my identifications (essentially, crowdsourcing data quality control), suggests new identifications when I’m unsure of (or mistaken about) what I saw, and converts my photos into publicly available data for science and conservation. Not only can I keep track of my own observations, but I can peruse thousands of other people’s sightings, submitted in real time from Akron to Afghanistan.

So, what happened to that early spring frog that I photographed and posted to iNaturalist?  Eleven minutes after I posted the observation, a Vermont naturalist confirmed my tentative identification of a wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus), and an hour later, a DC-based naturalist reported seeing a wood frog the day before in a stream. I checked the frog species that are expected to occur in the county based on range data (screenshot above), looked at the entire continental distribution of wood frogs (screenshot below) and provided a link to a fantastic calendar of frog calls that I found by the Maryland Amphibian and Reptile Atlas. All signs point to wood frog, my first 2013 amphibian! Again, I hope you will be able to join me to learn more about iNaturalist at Adkins Arboretum on Sunday, March 10, and to consider a new tool that links your local experience in nature to a global community of enthusiasts and experts.

Matt Muir is a wildlife biologist and has recorded 1578 species on iNaturalist (and counting!). He can be reached at muirmatthewj@gmail.com.

Early birds

March 20 may be the official start of spring, but some early birds are already gearing up for egg-laying season. Bluebirds are among the first to build neat, cup-like nests of fine grass and pine needles for their powder-blue eggs. Different species of birds build different types of nests: for example, house sparrow nests are a jumble of odds and ends (I can relate), made up of coarse grass, cloth, white feathers, and twigs. Their speckled eggs are creamy, white, or gray. Black-capped chickadees build downy nests of soft plant fibers, moss, and fur where they will lay white eggs with brown speckles.

Children can help birds gather nest materials by hanging colored yarn, ribbon, or even hair cuttings from low tree branches. It's always fun to spy a personalized nest in the backyard. Children can also try to build their own nests from grass and twigs; doing so provides instant insight into why robins line their nests with sticky mud.

For a different spin on Easter egg dyeing, mix up a batch of natural hues. Onion skins produce a lovely orange, and pomegranate juice a purple-scarlet hue. Click here for directions on how to brew natural dyes.

What to do when your child finds a baby bird on the ground? Make sure the family dog (or cat) is safely inside, and then let nature be. Mother birds are likely nearby and will continue to care for fallen fledglings.

Chocolate bird nests are an annual spring treat for the Arboretum's preschoolers. To make your own, mix two cups of either unsweetened shredded wheat cereal or chow mein noodles with one cup of melted butterscotch chips and one cup of melted chocolate chips. Let children shape the gooey mixture into nests (plastic gloves advised!) and fill cooled nests with a few malted eggs.

And finally, since birds and worms go hand in hand, be sure to hand your child a shovel on the next warm day. There's nothing like a little worm digging to get one in the spring spirit. 

Registration is now open for Adkins Arboretum's spring preschool and homeschool classes, as well as for summer nature camps. Click here for more information.

by Jenny Houghton

Youth Program Coordinator