From the Field - Crow's Nest Preserve

Barnyard benches

Early this morning before camp started Luke DiBerardinis delivered the benches he had built for the visitor center barnyard. I am especially excited because I have long anticipated having a place where visitors could sit and enjoy the barnyard garden and barn architecture.

I designed and installed the gardens with spaces for the benches in 2001, but I knew I couldn't build benches myself of the quality I wanted. And these oak benches are from hazard trees from here on the preserve, so they have a story.

I hope you'll stop in and enjoy this addition to the preserve.

Fallen Trees are Food

Last week's storm dropped a lot of branches and many trees in the woods. We did not have the major tree failures along the roads that many people suffered, but we had lots smaller stuff come down, and big trees here and there deep in the woods.

Within a week we are noticing heavy deer browse on these fresh green branches that are suddenly within reach of their mouths.

And in Pine Creek today we saw some of the fresh branches had apparently been chewed by beaver. The cambium under the bark of green twigs is more of a fall and winter food for beaver, but the fresh branches that fell into the stream were a bonus this summer.

We know that trees falling in the forest is part of a cycle of life and death, creating opportunities for some species at the expense of others. Deer and beavers were particularly quick and noticeable beneficiaries of the storm.

Summer Camp

I apologize, dear readers (both of you—hi mom!) for not updating this weblog recently. With a full day of camp followed by a part day of land management, there is no time left!

Here are some scenes from the first week of camp (we are now starting our third). The kids built some neat shelters in the woods. One evening while mowing after camp I found some preserve visitors enjoying the "porch" of one of them.

The planning and construction of the shelters was a cooperative effort. The kids had to reach consensus on what goes where, and then help each other moving materials, drilling holes and screwing boards together. On the last day of camp everything was disassembled for later groups.

As we explored the "five corners of Crow's Nest" we employed a haywagon to shorten travel times.

And we played in French Creek, explored one of its tributaries—Pine Creek—and also spent a couple hours at Mine Run, here looking for crayfish.

Blooming Now

This week we saw the first blooms of germander (Teucrium canadense) that I wrote about last July. And the monkey flower (Mimulus ringens) is also blooming in wet, sunny streamsides and roadside ditches.

Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) is also blooming now, the visual sign a bit helpful in avoiding it. It grows here mainly along the wet edges of Pine Creek, well away from our trails. Also known as "7-minute itch," it provokes a variably short-lived reaction. It's not a bad native plant, and has several herbal uses.

Blue vervain (Verbana hastata) has also started blooming in our wet meadows (see the July 26, 2005 entry).

And enchanter's-nightshade (Circaea lutetiana) has finished blooming and is forming its more distinctive hairy seed pods. As so often the case, the hyphen in the common name means a lot: this is not a true nightshade (Solenaceae) but is in the evening primrose family (Onagraceae). The bur-like seeds will invevitably become established on someone's trousers...

Cycles

I have been here long enough to observe a few cycles and trends. When I started here ten years ago, there were conspicuously few wild rabbits to be seen on the preserve. Today, for whatever reason, they are common.

Populations go in cycles. This year has been an especially good year for Japanese beetles. They have converted the Virginia creeper into a brown lacy outline of itself, and hit the sassafras hard. I compared notes with neighbors and other land managers, and they are experiencing the same.

I have seen more butterfly weed (Asclepia tuberosa) this year than ever before, and am thrilled that it is doing so well. It seems to be a slow-growing and difficult-to-establish plant, so it is great to see it just "show up."

And the fringed loostrife (Lysimachia ciliata) I wrote about recently is definitely a lot more common than I've ever seen before.

Of course some of the weedy invasive plants are also increasing, but that's a story for another day.

Declines are more difficult to detect; none specifically come to mind, though I'm sure they're going on.

Sharp eyes

Kids at camp see a lot of things I might otherwise miss. Witness this "brownish-gray Fishing Spider" (that's its real name)—Dolomedes tenebrosus—we saw while doing a stream walk on Pine Creek.

These spiders can be found away from water as well. This one has a very soft appearance; according to the Audubon Field Guide to Insects & Spiders, air clinging to body hair appears sufficient for the spider to breathe underwater for 30 minutes or more (p. 894). Given its size this one is a female (they can have a legspan over 3"). We think the front legs are folded under in this photo.

Why we host camp...

Each of the camp counselors comes from a different background, and we have been trying to communicate to the campers this year how we came to be involved at Crow's Nest camp: what motivates us to come to camp? What opportunities of our childhood do we hope to share?

I grew up across the street from a suburban elementary schoolyard. There was grass and few trees, and not much else in the way of nature. But we used our imaginations: the tree that fell became a spaceship as we climbed in its branches. We found the critters that lived there, red ants and neighborhood dogs.

We also played in a channelized stream several blocks away. It wasn't good for much more than skipping rocks, and in fact is downstream from a Superfund site. But a neighbor's parents drove us to a small park where we built dams in the stream and climbed well-worn trails. I know the parents were looking after us, but I don't remember them telling us what to do.

Later we explored an overgrown vacant lot in our neighborhood that had tunnels in the vegetation only a kid could penetrate. The lot is now a condominium development.

I don't remember what age I was when I did these things, and I don't remember how much I was supervised—though I'm sure I was more than I was aware. But I do know I had fun with my friends independent of adult plans, and I know I was given boundaries and expectations.

Later I joined the Boy Scouts, and went camping every month. Our troop was led by a wonderful scoutmaster, and I think I gained a lot from the years of his laid-back but informative leadership. He had undergone extensive leadership ("Wood-Badge") training so I know he was leading thoughtfully at all times. These years influenced my choice of career.

Crow's Nest Preserve is a wonderful place, and I feel privileged to live and work here. One of the things I enjoy most about the job is sharing the preserve with others. It gives me a chance to show off my work, but even more, share the awe of the nature that occurs around us all on its own.

Lately I have been a bit stressed about getting my land management work accomplished knowing that I wouldn't be able to get much of it done during the weeks of camp in July. (For example, I estimate that we have bewteen 25 and 50 times more mile-a-minute vine as we had five years ago—and yet I don't have 25 to 50 times more hours to control it!) But after a couple days at camp I am reminded how the program is worth the time and effort.

I hope the kids gain an appreciation for nature, but more than that I hope they have fun, and increasingly, an opportunity just to be kids outdoors, exploring.

As for the counselors, we're having fun too. It's 91 degrees outside, and we're playing in the ice-cold creek. We're going on hayrides, discovering new things about the preserve, and hanging out with some really cool kids. This is our ninth year of camp, so our early campers are now young adults. Most campers return for several years in a row, so it is great to seem them grow comfortable in nature at Crow's Nest.

Give me shelter

This year we are giving kids at camp the opportunity to build a shelter, a space of their own in the woods at Crow's Nest. People donated some wood and we found pallets, tarps, and rope. We divided the campers into three small groups; each is making their own hut. This photo is from the first day, where the kids are working out the collective decision-making: where, what, and how? By today, day two, they have built some pretty respectable shelters (photos forthcoming). Tomorrow perhaps they'll play in them, Thursday we'll visit the other groups and welcome them to ours, and Friday they'll take them down so we can do it again at next week's camp.

Summer Camp!

While exploring another section of the preserve today, the kids at camp found this rather surprised-looking box turtle. We're not sure why it looks surprised; we think the same kids found the same turtle in the same woods last year.

Here's a photo from last year: you decide.

Perhaps a good lesson in why you should return wildlife to where you found it? When we say "Let's leave it here for others to enjoy" we may mean ourselves in the future.

Exploring the woods

Summer camp has begun here, and among other things we are exploring the "five corners of Crow's Nest." Actually, with its irregular boundary shape, the preserve has something like 79 corners. But five captures a few of the special places on the preserve.

After reading Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (Algonquin, 2005), we decided to alter our summer programs a little to allow for more unstructured time in the woods. The counselors spread out and serve as a boundary, and the kids are turned loose to do whatever they want in each of these five different woods (so far, so good).

One of the kids pointed out to me this Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora). Elsewhere on the preserve these flowers point downward, forming that clay pipe shape that gives the plant its common name. This plant has no green leaves and therefore cannot photosynthesize its own energy from sunlight.

Here's where things get complicated: Peterson's guide (1968) put it in the wintergreen family (Pyrolaceae); the flora of Pennsylvania (2000) puts it in its own genus (Monotropaceae), and a Wikipedia entry suggests that it is now part of the Ericaceae—the heath family—same as azaleas, rhododendron, mountain laurels, and a lot more. These decisions are based on the technical features of the flowers, and occasionally DNA characteristics.

The Wikipedia entry describes succinctly how the plant survives: "Instead of generating energy from sunlight, it is parasitic, more specifically a myco-heterotroph. Its hosts are certain fungi that are mycorrhizal with trees, meaning it ultimately gets its energy from photosynthetic tree."

So it isn't taking energy directly from a tree, but from the fungi that are living in association with certain trees.