Walking the Berkshires

Climate Data Point

We are now in the second week of November here in our corner of New England, and spring ephemeral wildflowers are breaking out of dormancy before the ground freezes.   There are trillium, wild leeks and jack in the pulpit shoots nudging up from the ground in the warm, wet weather we have been experiencing this Fall.  The deep freeze that we are due with the onset of Winter will kill them back, at the cost of some of their stored energy reserves.  Some adult plants may not survive, which for slow growing leeks and trillium means a number of years before they are replaced with mature specimens.  I will monitor these patches and see how they respond.

It is a small data point, and means little in isolation.  Repeated stresses like this would be more worrisome.

Scary Ladybug in the LJ This Week

Just in time for Hallowe'en: the invasion of the harlequin ladybug!  Readable here with free subscription.

"These are not the sweet, friendly red-and-black ladybugs of childhood memory, the benign foe of aphids, the farmer’s friend. They are an alien species with rusty orange shells, once intentionally released as a biological control for crop and landscape pests and now here to stay.

And they want to come into your home. "

NN in the LJ

Last week's Lakeville Journal carried my Nature Notes column on our National Bird, readable here with free registration .  Fair use excerpt:

Bald eagles, wild turkeys, beaver, bear and moose, once driven from Connecticut,  have made promising and even dramatic returns.  Today we live alongside each other — not always easily — but whether encountered in midstream or in our very backyards, these species are evidence of extraordinary resilience and adaptation.  

Not every plant or animal is able to make such adjustments, and habitat destruction remains the single greatest cause of biodiversity loss worldwide. Still, the landscape of northwest Connecticut retains a wild and scenic character, where coyotes howl and eagles soar despite centuries of settlement.  

It is not difficult to imagine a time when even western mountain lions will venture a furtive paw in the Litchfield Hills as they gradually track eastward. Whether we would accommodate the presence of a top predator of their caliber in our neighborhood is an open question, but it is certainly something to ponder. And it certainly makes my heart glad to see eagles here.

Eagle Eye

Photo credit: Litchfield Greenprint / Wendy Carlson

This is what my drive to work looks like to the bald eagle I saw today.

The bird was down in the shadows next to the river, and later I got to watch it flying out low over the water to a chorus of angry crows.

Last Week in the LJ

I meditated on the fringed gentian in last week's Nature Notes article in the Lakeville Journal, readable here

with free registration.

...Fall blooming plants fill a fascinating evolutionary niche. They eschew competing for pollinators throughout most of the growing season, serving as welcome nectar sources for migrating butterflies and other species when other wildflowers have gone to seed.   A number of asters, including some of the showiest, also bloom in late summer and into the fall, as do the various goldenrods.

The gentian, though, standing singly or in isolated patches, is nearer to earth than the swaying asters and nodding goldenrod. Poets note its lonely solitude, a lovely sentinel at the ragged end of summer. Victorians invested great meaning in flowers, with the gentian a symbol of enduring hope in the face of certain mortality...

Forests on the Skids

The Hartford Courant ran this front page story today about the beleaguered state of the forestry sector of Connecticut's economy.  The fact that Connecticut still has a forestry sector to its economy was probably news to most of the paper's readership, let alone one that is valued at $500 million annually. 

The article is quite good, as far as it goes, but despite its prominent column inches it really only scratches the surface of what is going on in our woodlands and with the market for forest products in southern New England.  The part that really got me howling was the idea of our depressed oak market as a fashion victim:

"[I]n 2006, just as inventories peaked, global preferences for wood suddenly changed.  Designers, furniture makers and home builders started shifting from the rich, dark grains of New England oak toward lighter, more subtle grains such as birch and maple. At the same time, world markets were flooded with inexpensive exports, such as Russian birch and bamboo and cork laminates from Latin America and China."

Actually, these are not isolated factors that just happened to coincide.  All that cheap wood is - surprise - "lighter and more subtle grained", a market-based cause and effect.  Although if there really is an Oscar de la Renta of the forest products industry, I want to meet that person.  This could also explain why plaid is hot again this season.

Southern New England has been shipping whole logs out of the region for decades rather than milling them locally.  In the last couple of years, the renewed market for firewood has been the one bright spot in an otherwise depressed hardwood market.  There are sawmills in our area that are idle because firewood sells better than lumber.  There are fewer and fewer people making a living in the state from forestry every year - much less than from farming, even with 58% of the surface area of Connecticut covered in trees.  Needless to say, there is not a strong constituency to save family forests and small forestry operations the way there is for local agriculture.

The development value of the land far outweighs its timber value.  The economic incentive for growing old, high quality trees is gone if there is no market for veneer quality wood, and so what forestry does occur will be on shorter rotations.  The biological value of such woodlands will also be diminished, which is why the state of forestry should matter to conservationists in the state of Connecticut.

Shifting Seasons

This last day of August feels like someone pulled the switch and sent us abruptly into Autumn.  The sky is overcast and the air is almost too cool for short sleeves.  It is easy to believe that we could get our first frost by Labor Day, while in other years  I can often stretch another several weeks out of the garden. The nodding sunflowers and straggling tomato vines have the look of the end of the growing season to them, though maybe the cooler weather will drive back the clouds of mosquitoes so that I can confirm what is left of the harvest.  Thanks to the incredibly wet and buggy weather this summer, the lawn has certainly gone to seed and I'd like to get at least one more cutting done before the leaves start to fall.

The bright yellow bus that took my 1st and 4th graders to their first day back at school this morning looked as freshly scrubbed as they were today in their new clothes.  The trees are still that deep shade of summer green, but late season asters and goldenrods grow in profusion in the woodlands and along roadsides.  A restless humming bird visited the cardinal flowers and white turtleheads in my wildflower garden over the weekend.  

There are signs on every side that the seasons have cycled another quarter turn, and perhaps I feel them more acutely for having been driven inside for most of the summer by cool wet weather and profusions of insects.  We never did use the patio table, or watch the fireflies after dinner from our chairs in the the backyard.  I am looking forward, then, to the onset of crisp Autumn days with crackling leaves underfoot and nary a cloud or a biting pest to be seen.  Just as well that summer left before school began.

Sages

Elias and I went to one of my favorite places yesterday, where the air rushes through the hemlocks and moss drips from overhanging stone.  Sages Ravine cleaves the eastern face of the Taconic Plateau along the Connecticut and Massachusetts border - there are old monuments here perched on the steep hillside delineating these territories - and unlike the other celebrated waterfalls of our region it gets very few visitors on a hot summer day.  Part of the reason may be that there is no sign marking the trail and no obvious place to park besides a worn pull off hard by the bridge that spans the stream as it makes its final plunge to the lowlands.  The old spur trail from here to the AT is obscured by dead fall.  This leaves it a special spot that locals know about: our own piece of primal wilderness.

The main attraction of Sages, besides the noticeably cooler air temperature on a sweltering day, are the dark pools and increasingly spectacular cataracts that descend the ravine.  The rocks are slick and treacherous, and one is always mindful that others have taken falls here from which they never recover.  The water is bracingly chill even in August, and the sunlight filters down in dappled splashes and broad shadows like the flanks of the wild brook trout.  There are great boles of fallen trees that snowmelt and floodwater pile up and push down the gorge from pool to pool.  It is a place of wild fascination, where in low water the stream dives beneath its bed and under hill until it emerges in a torrent from the rocky bank downstream. 

Elias is six, goat-footed, but still willing to hold my steadying hand.  We made out way through the laurels and the chestnut saplings to the first of the plunge pools, but I encouraged him that we would visit each in turn after first reaching the greatest of the waterfalls.  This part of Sages actually has one final pool above these falls, but it is wise not to try and reach it for the climb is perilous and the water dark and deep.  We stopped at the foot of this great cataract, the water still high for this time in August, and waded over the mound of alluvial stones pushed up at the edge of the water.  It was quickly over his head, but not the place to practice his newly acquired dog paddle.  We tried out each pool in succession, finding one that was broad and deep enough for both of us within our own comfort zones.  In a few minutes we were refreshed and ready for towels and the short walk back to our car.

I used to come to Sages alone, after work, and for a time before we had children Viv and I would drop into the cool of the trees for a dip on a humid afternoon.  Now my children are of an age and maturity where it is possible to share this place with them as well, to learn how to be in a wilderness of wary wonder.   

Bog Turtle Disease Alert

The federally Threatened bog turtle faces a new threat in the northern portion of its contiguous range.  On August 5th, the USFWS issued an advisory bulletin that an unusually high number of dead and apparently diseased bog turtles have been reported from four states, including New York and Massachusetts.  I received the alert by email from a colleague and the full bulletin is reposted here. 

"...The number of bog turtles found dead in their wetland habitat (2 to 4 dead turtles in each of four wetlands in NY and MA) exceeds that which is typically reported.

In some cases, dead bog turtles have been found entirely intact, with no obvious cause of death.
On several live bog turtles, a grayish or whitish substance and/or discoloration has been
documented on the skin of the head, neck and limbs, as well as on the claws. In some cases,
these appear as skin lesions. Scute sloughing and loss of claws and toes has also been observed.
Based on data collected at a Massachusetts site, the symptoms appear to worsen over time.
At this time, the causative agent(s) of the observed symptoms has not been identified..."

This is extremely troubling news.  When I was with The Nature Conservancy, bog turtle conservation in Massachusetts, Connecticut and part of Eastern New York was a major focus of my work.  The bog turtle is at the extreme northern extrent of its contiguous range in Massachusett.  The USFWS Recovery Plan for the bog turtle's northern population identies just three bog turtle sites in the Commonwealth, but two of them are considered good sites and are under conservation management.  I am intimately familiar with both of these, and know that if one has lost 2-4 adults to a new threat the viability of what would otherwise be considered a strong and vital population is in grave peril.   Past research indicates that the loss of just one breeding adult a year at these sites would be enough to tip the balance toward extirpation.

The 2001 rare species recovery plan records what was known at that time about the threat posted to wild bog turtle populations by disease (my emphasis added):

    "...At present, there are no substantiated reports of disease affecting a wild population of bog turtles, although at one site in Columbia County, New York (J. L. Behler, pers. comm) the number of dead turtles is cause for concern; eight dead bog turtles were collected during three visits to the site in 1988 and 1989 ( A. breisch, in Mt. 2000).  A sick turtle removed from that population and held for several years in captivity tested positive for upper respiratory distress syndrome (URDS) upon necropy (J. L. Behler, pers. comm.).  Although this could indicate a health problem within that communication, it is also possible that the turtle contracted this disease while in captivity.  Disease issues have the potential to become a much larger threat to wild bog turtle populations as they are subjected to more handling by researchers or if manipulation of turtle populations is undertaken through the deliberate release into the wild of bog turtles from other areas, zoological collections, or those seized by law enforcement activities.  It should be noted that thorough health screening of wild-caught bog turtles has not been a standard practice of researchers, although it may be warranted (Smith in iitt. 2001)..."

I do not know for certain whether all four sites where increased mortality and apparent disease have been observed coincide with those where there has been more handling by researchers, but it is highly likely at least at the first site where such observations were made, because very few people besides researchers even know where the turtles are or would know to report what they had observed to the proper authorities.  In the Massachusetts case, only researchers have legal access to the sites.

There is additional publically available data concerning the possibly diseased bog turtle site in new York mentioned in 2001 rare species recovery plan.  Beacham's Guide to the Endangered Species of North America (2000) identifies the respiratory disease at that site as Mycoplasma:

"...Of additional concern is the recent (1997) discovery of Mycoplasma (the bacterium that adversely affects the desert tortoise) at a bog turtle site in New York. This disease has the potential to cause significant declines in bog turtle populations. The site where Mycoplasma has been discovered has been identified as one of the best remaining New York sites and lies in a valley with additional, extant sites leading to the possibility of spread of the disease through a significant portion of the remaining bog turtle range in New York State..."

The USFWS disease alert makes no mention of Mycoplasma and instead describes different symptoms.  That is what is most alarming about this new threat.  An unknown and highly lethal pathogen will take time to analyze, let alone isolate causes and develop a meaningful response. Bog turtles do not have any time.  their populations are too small.

Consider that in 2006, a new disease affecting little brown bats in New York was first described for science. Three years later,  white nose syndrome is causing up to 90-100% mortality in bat caves from the White Mountains of New Hampsive to sw Virginia.  It has affected between 500,000 and 1,000,000 bats of several different species.  There is still no absolute cause for this disease, nor a cure.  One theory is that human activity may have been an initial vector for the spread of the fungus.

I suspect that the reason this new turtle disease has not yet been reported in Connecticut is that no researcher has been to our few remaining (and much poorer quality) bog turtle sites to check. There has not been a live turtle reported from a couple of these places in years.  I am aware that several years ago, one Connecticut turtle was found by a passerby and taken to a public beach where it was spotted by a knowledgable person and ultimately returned to the site where it belonged.  My understanding is that this turtle was later found dead.

This leaves open a difficult question.  Should researchers visit other bog turtle sites to determine whether they, too, have evidence of increased mortality and apparant disease?  Or should they refrain from doing so, given the potential that their activity could be contaminating clean sites?   The felt soles of waders are known sources of introducing the microscopic alga  Didymosphenia geminata or "Rock Snot" to trout streams.  Unless soaked for at least 40 minutes in hot water at least 113° F (45° C) - or for 30 minutes with a 5% solution of dishwashing detergent - what keeps a researcher dry may be killing the very things they care for.

Hogweed Hiding in Plain Sight

I saw one of America's Most Wanted while driving to work today. It was unmistakable, though I had to stop the car to be sure.  There by the roadside growing halfway down the embankment but still high above the guardrail, were the enormous stalk, leaves and flowers of Heracleum mantegazzianum: the notorious Giant hogweed.

I must have driven passed this plant all growing season without noticing it, which might seem remarkable for a species that can grow a dozen feet high or more.  This one was about 5' above the roadgrade, and about the same amount of plant downslope in a tangle of poison ivy that discourgaed closer inspection.  The thing that cause my eye were the massive inflorescences: huge platters of flowers that looked a bit like Queen Anne's Lace on steroids.  If it had not been in bloom, it might have escaped detection.

That's the challenge with new incursions by invasive / exotic species.  There is often a delay between the time when they take hold in a new place and when they are observed and recognized for what they are.  The mantra of invasive species control is early detection and rapid respponse, because for many of these organisms it becomes exponentially more difficult to eradicate or contrain them with the passage of time.

Heracleum mantegazzianium has been around for a long time.  It was introduced horticulturally, as so many of these species were before their invasive attributes were recognized, with the first record of its planting back in 1917.  The shady, moist areas in which it particularly thrives have not been especially overrun with Hogweed run amok, at least in where it is just gaining a toehold, but the plant I observed clearly had escaped from cultivation.  There is a known population of the plants in Cornwall Bridge, Connecticut, a mile or so from where this one was observed, and utility wires above probably provided the perch for the bird which was the vector for the spread of their seed.

Hogweed, however, has one additional attribute which has made it a top priority for State and Federal noxious weed eradication efforts.  The plant contains the toxin furocoumarin, which can make skin highly photosensitive, causing weeping blisters and permanent scarring.  Contact with the eyes can cause blindness.  For these reasons, authorites consider a threat to public health.

The plant superficially resembles cow parsnip and Queen Anne's Lace, but its size at maturity is a dead giveaway, especially when in bloom.  I did my part for early detection and reported this finding, along with photographs and detailed information about its location, to Donna Ellis of the Connectticut Invasive Plant Working Group; Elizabeth Corrigan, who is responsible for coordinating rapid response efforts for this plant in our region elizabethcorrigan@yahoo.com; and Les Mehrhoff at the Invasive Plant Atlas of New England.  It turns out that Corrigan drove by the same site on the same day and by her account "nearly drove off the road" when she saw the plant. 

It is fortunate that I have lots of connections in the New England Invasive Species world, and that we have the chance to get this plant before all those seeds rain down.  Who knows where else it may be lurking, unnoticed, out there in the wild?