Great White by Frank Marsden Winter bird photo by Frank Marsden Clouded Underwing Moth
 

The Otter's Tale Newsletter

The following articles are selections from our quarterly newsletter: "The Otter's Tale". The entire newsletter is available at the Estuary Center and is mailed to current members of the OPCA.

Research Season Dreamin’

by Kriste Garman, Park Manager

If you’re one of the millions of people who dread the coming of winter with its long nights and cold days and brown landscapes, we have a carrot for you. When settling down for a long winter’s nap, visions of citizen science should be dancing in your head. Rather than a white Christmas, dream of warm, green, field research days.

Citizen science—the participation by volunteers in the conduct of a scientific research or monitoring project—is alive and well at the Anita Leight Estuary Center, and provides opportunities for people of all ages, and even families, to be outdoors rubbing elbows with “wild things”.

Research and monitoring is the number one priority at the Estuary Center, and the thing that sets us apart from the average nature center. Here, Harford County partners with the Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve to promote research, education, and stewardship of estuaries, with research taking top billing. By participating in research projects, visitors experience life-long, locked-in learning about estuaries by touching, testing, tracking, counting, identifying and documenting the soil, water, plants and animals first hand.

Volunteers can participate in not one, not two, but, at last count, 10 different research and monitoring projects. If you are interested in reptiles and amphibians, or “herps”, there are two studies that target them— turtle telemetry and MARA, the Maryland Amphibian and Reptile Atlas. You can home in on box turtles and track their movements using transmitter, antenna, and receiver, or you can widen your horizon and search an area of the Research Reserve for any and all species of snakes, frogs, lizards, and salamanders.

If birds are your thing, you can assist in the bluebird nest box study, checking nest boxes around the Center for nesting activity and documenting nest type, bird species, egg counts, and nesting success. Or, if you combine an interest in birds with some canoeing ability (and a love for early rising—very early), you can help in the secretive marsh bird survey, identifying species and counting numbers of marsh birds such as rails, bitterns, and herons by their calls.

If your favorite stomping ground is the woods, you can join a naturalist any second Saturday morning of the year to search out and collect deer droppings along set transects to monitor the white tailed deer populations of the Reserve. If on the other hand, you adore spending time on the water and in the marsh, do we have projects for you!

Take the research motor boat to five sampling sites on the Bush River and Otter Point Creek to monitor submerged aquatic vegetation, using what looks like mini oyster tongs and a floating grate. Or, board one of two boats to monitor fish populations in the Bush River at four sample sites, doing paired samplings by seine net and by trawl net. Be ready to learn to identify lots of fish species and count every fish pulled up in the nets!

Abandon the motors and pick up a paddle to canoe to specific sites to conduct water quality tests and collect samples. If you long for a close-up experience with the marsh, paddle to set points and don waders to walk (slowly and carefully!) a transect, and identify and count the emergent vegetation species. If you enjoy paddling and playing in the mud, assist with placement and collection of sediment collection tiles at HaHa Branch as part of a short term sedimentation study.

If you dive into even one of these research and monitoring projects, you will learn more about estuaries in a season than many people learn in a lifetime. Consider this an invitation to dream away your winter doldrums. Dream about sunshine sparkling on the water, fish flashing in a net, marsh plants blooming, a canoe slicing quietly through the water—all experiences available to you and your family through citizen science programs at the Estuary Center. Fill out a volunteer application to get started making your winter dreams a reality.

MARA and the Box Turtle Update

by Donald McKnight, Park Naturalist

2011 completes our 9th year of box turtle research, and our first year of surveying herps for MARA (the Maryland Amphibian and Reptile Atlas). We have gotten some very exciting results and would like to express our gratitude to all of the volunteers that make these projects possible. Both of these research endeavors are almost entirely volunteer run, and the vast majority of our data comes from volunteers’ efforts.

So far, we have located and marked 137 Eastern Box Turtles (72 males, 42 females, 21 juveniles, and two that could not be sexed). Twenty of these turtles were found in 2011. Sixty-eight of these 137 turtles have been recaptured at least once, and many of them have been recaptured several times. This year, we recaptured one turtle which has not been seen since 2003 (the first year of the program), and two turtles which had not been seen since 2004 (one of them was turtle #2, e.g. the second turtle that we marked)! Finding turtles after a long gap like that is a good sign, because it indicates that turtles are surviving in our park, even if we aren’t recapturing them frequently. We have also recaptured several adult turtles that were juveniles when they were first located. This is another good sign, because it indicates that turtles that hatch in the park are reaching adulthood (there is generally a very high mortality rate for juvenile Box Turtles). Finally, we are continuing to find very young turtles (we found a two-year old in 2011). This is another great sign, because it indicates that turtles are still nesting in our park. Overall, the indications are that we have a healthy turtle population at the Center.

In addition to collecting population data, we are continuing to track turtles using radio telemetry. Currently, we have eight turtles with transmitters attached to them, and we have tracked 13 turtles in past years. Volunteers get assigned to each of these turtles and track them as they move through the park. While our sample size is currently too small for extremely accurate results, our preliminary data suggests that we may be able to publish several papers in future years.

In 2011, twenty-five species of herps (reptiles and amphibians) were located in our park and Bosely and reported to MARA, and several of these finds are quite exciting. We located both Rough Green Snakes and Eastern Worm Snakes. Both of these have been found here in the past, but no other site in Harford County reported either of these species in 2011. Perhaps most excitingly, we found a Northern Slimy Salamander and a Northern Two-lined Salamander. This is the first time that we have found either of these species on our property. We also found two Fowler’s Toads, which have not been seen here for several years. Finally, we located both Mud Turtles and Spotted Turtles. We thought that these two were probably here, but we had not previously confirmed their presence, despite many attempts to locate them in 2008. Overall, we had an excellent year of surveying, and found some really cool critters! Many thanks to all the volunteers who helped with these projects!

Children in the Winter Garden

by Coreen Weilminster, CBNERR-MD Education Coordinator

As winter winds blow and snowflakes flurry past our windows, gardens can still be a wonder. Winter is a terrific time for exploration, learning and creativity in the garden. As a gardener and mother of two young girls, I look forward to those short, quiet days spent together in contemplation, awe and speculation. If you have a garden and young children (or grandchildren), here are some ways to enjoy both, together:

A Winter Walk in the Garden - A walk in the garden in winter offers the opportunity to study seeds, berries, and other adaptations that plants use to help them overwinter. Often a walk in the winter garden provides evidence of wildlife: tracks that tell a story, holes dug into the snow and earth by paws and claws, or hulled out acorn shells on a snowy stump. These glimpses that animals are still active in such harsh conditions invoke awe and wonder. Children can think about which wildlife visit the garden in winter, and for what reason. You may have discussions about which critters we miss in the winter, like the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, leading to a talk about migration and speculations about where they might be during the cold months.

Trim the Tree for WildlifeBirds in the Garden – Winter is the best time to feed the birds. Children enjoy making their own bird feeders. Some easy, fun bird feeders include pinecones smeared with peanut butter and rolled in birdseed; small mesh bags of beef suet; hollowed-out orange halves filled with bird seed; dried sunflower heads, small ears of corn and bouquets of wheat and other grains.

Compost – If you don’t already have one, a compost bin is a great project for kids in the winter garden. I send my girls to the compost bin every few days with coffee grounds, egg shells, apple cores and other compostable leavings from my kitchen. As they empty the kitchen compost bucket they can see how the contents of the compost bin change over time. Even in winter the worms are working.

Planning – Probably one of the best garden activities for children in winter is laying the plans for the upcoming growing season. Pouring over seed catalogs, making lists, and researching intriguing plants can be fun for both you and your little one. Looking at the catalogs’ colorful photos of flowers and vegetables can melt even the most cantankerous case of cabin fever and make tetchy tweens nostalgic for summer. My favorites are Seeds of Change, (www.seedsofchange.org), Burpee (www.burpee.com), White Flower Farm (www.whiteflowerfarm.com), and Smith & Hawkin (www.smithandhawkin.com)

But with so much to drool over how do you decide what to plant? Here is where your parental guidance comes in handy. Is your child an animal lover? Consider a wildlife habitat garden. Do they like to help in the kitchen? Perhaps they’ll be most interested in a vegetable or herb garden. Maybe you have a habitual flower picker (like my girls). Plan a perennial garden full of colorful, fragrant flowering plants, mixed with annuals. Or is your little one enthralled with insects? Then you need a butterfly garden!

There are many types of themed gardens for children: Sensory gardens, alphabet gardens, pizza gardens, cultural heritage gardens, dye gardens, rainbow gardens, even moon gardens. Whatever garden you and your child decide to plant, make sure they are part of the planning process. Ask what other features the garden should have. Will it have paths, hiding spaces, trellises, statues or sculptures? Help them make a map of your yard or existing garden, being careful to consider how much sun the yard gets. Steering them in the right direction makes the planning process both realistic and more exciting.

When planning your garden I also highly recommend the following books by Sharon Lovejoy: Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots; Trowel & Error; and Sunflower Houses: A Book for Children and Their Grown-Ups. Other books I turn to for inspiration are Dig, Plant, Grow by Felder Rushing; the Kids Can Press Jumbo Book of Gardening, by Karyn Morris; and Walking the World in Wonder: A Children’s Herbal, by Ellen Evert Hopman.

Lastly, take the time to read to your children about gardening. There is wonderful children’s literature on gardening. You can bet that curling up with your child on cold winter nights with a good book about gardens plants the seeds for sweet dreams. My girls especially enjoy Rosie’s Posies, by Marcy Dunn Ramsey; How Groundhog’s Garden Grew, by Lynne Cherry; and The Gardener, by Sarah Stewart, to name a few.

Barbara Winkler writes “Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle…a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream.” Engage your children in gardening this winter. Teach them what miracle lies under winter’s cloak.

 

HOURS OF OPERATION

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Friday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Sunday, 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m.

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Anita C. Leight Estuary Center / 700 Otter Point Road, Abingdon MD 21009 / 410-612-1688