OUT!! #26: Just a Pond?

As it starts to get warmer and sunnier, many of us start to look outside with growing anticipation. Summer is coming and soon there will be warm temperatures, buzzing cicadas, ice cream vans, swimming children, sweating grandparents, and millions of mosquitoes waiting to sample the populous for their yearly blood tax.

But as the days get warmer, only one thing's on my mind. Ponding. What's ponding you say? I learned the fine art of ponding as a first year counselor at Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary in Lincoln, MA and ever since then, it has stuck with me as the ideal nature exploration activity. Oh sure, you could go into the field and catch insects...you could even look for tracks and scat along the trails. But for up close and personal experiences, I would pick ponding any day! Simply put, ponding is the art of exploring the biodiversity of a pond with any tools at hand. Got some fish nets? Excellent! Got a sieve? Even better!

Yep, you heard me! Item number one on any ponders list is a sieve. They have finer holes than nets and are more rigid making for tougher mudders when you're trying to power through algae to test the waters for crayfish and other aquatic invertebrates.

Afraid to get your feet wet? Well it defeats the purpose of ponding if you don't get a little wet. But if you're adamant about staying dry, birding is another good way of taking nature into account. Water bodies of all sizes have some form of bird life inhabiting them from loons and diving ducks on reservoirs to Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) and Marsh Wrens (Cistothorus palustris) in cattail (Typha spp.) marshes to the gulls and terns of our coasts. Where ever there's water, you're bound to find a huge variety of bird life abounding just a few feet away.

Curious about the finned inhabitants of your local pond? Go fishing! It's one of the easiest ways to get in contact with members of a food web as well as seeing the variety of forms that fish have evolved into in order to survive. Using baitfish to catch Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides), one can notice that the bigger fish tend to take bigger meals and will attack a wide variety of lures. Catching sunfish off the nest can illuminate the tenacity of these disc-shaped fish as well as reveal their intriguing breeding style. Rather than spawn in riffles of a river like trout, sunfish (Largemouth Bass included) carve a nest out of the muddy bottom using their fins and tails as fans. After the females have laid their eggs in the nest, the males defend their clutch with amazing ferocity, attacking anything that seems like a threat including a fisherman's lure.

There are more ways to explore ponds and other waterways! Kayaking and canoeing put you right on the waters film where all the action takes place, while swimming and diving allow you to see the world as a fish sees it. One can also look for frogs in the shallows and try to catch them too or watch turtles basking on logs and rocks along the shore.

With so much to explore out in the pond, it's a wonder more people haven't tried it! So get out there and find somewhere wet to investigate. It needn't be a wilderness lake for it to be an amazing experience. Just so long as you have the spark of discovery and the curiosity to pursue it, the natural world will provide like a well thumbed book. It may be old, moth-eaten, and sometimes downright dirty, but it's often the best place to start.

Have a lovely week.

OUT!! #25: Herbarium

Recently in my quest to become the best naturalist ever (well that's not strictly true. I'm trying to learn other things natural that don't have feathers, fly, and possess the terminal velocity necessary to carry a coconut.), I've decided to start a herbarium. For those unfamiliar with the practice, it involved collecting, pressing, and preserving plant specimens for personal or scientific consumption. I'm making one so that I can sharpen my pressing skills (in case I get crafty and bedazzle a lampshade one of these days) and to increase my plant identification skills. Below, I've included a few photos of plants and wildflowers I've found so far.

Red Maple (Acer rubrum) buds sprouting in the late evening at Bombay Hook NWR. The flowers are bunched together

Lesser Celadine (Ranunculus ficaria) carpets the ground in many places. They are an alien species that originally comes from Europe and Asia.

Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) just starting to sprout in the moist woods on the SBMWA property. These pictures were taken along the Stony Brook Trails.

Magnolia spp. Probably a cultivar or some sort. Very pretty blooms that only last about a week unfortunately

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is another alien species that is familiar to most people as the nemesis weed. The weed that people despise to have upon their monotonous greenscapes.

Spring Beauty (Claytonia spp.) is a common springtime bloom to be found on the quiet lawns and field edges of New Jersey.

Onion Grass (Allium spp.) is also a common springtime plant that can be distinguished from regular lawn grass by their tubular structure, their tall green stems, and strong onion smell when crushed in hand.

Puffballs aren't plants, but they are cool to find. These spherical fungi can be poked or prodded slightly. When you do you will notice that "smoke" appears to billow out of them. These are spores and when released from the body of the fungi will settle nearby and sprout during the next growing season.

With such a variety out there, it makes one wonder what other amazing plants there are to find out in the woods and fields in the months to come. I can't wait to see what I can find.

OUT!! #24: Fishing Once More

It's amazing how one activity can make one calm down and reflect on the day. After work today, I fly-fished on the small pond near where I do my internship and it was lovely. While the wind played tricks with the fly line, I still managed to cast my line in looping arcs and swirls over the mud stained water below.

Despite only catching Bluegills (Lepomis macrochirus), having the ability to go fishing so close to "home" and being able to relax after a lovely spring day just makes it feel all worthwhile. They may not have been big ones, but they were pleasurable for the purpose they served.

A good time had by all. Well...maybe not the fish. Have a lovely week all!

OUT!! #23: Turtle Crossing

After my visit to Bombay Hook NWR in Delaware, I got to see Eastern Mud Turtles (Kinosternon subrubrum) for the first time ^_^.

Here's a sample of the photos I took during my afternoon there.

My guess is that they were migrating to breeding areas or maybe to better feeding areas. Very cool to see though. Sorry about not posting yesterday. I was really beat from two hours of driving, along with all the sun I got to experience after a long winter/spring's cold. When you've felt nothing but chills for a few weeks and then suddenly it's warm, it takes some adjustment. Hope you all have a lovely week. ^_^