MD: Expectations Fulfilled! Swan Harbor County Park and Sandy Point State Park

Finally, spring!  The ice is off the wetlands and the willows are greening around the edges. Tufts of sedge and spikes of reed emerge from the flooded edges. The spring peepers are calling day and night. The slow-to-release winter gave us a strange inter-spring this year, a sputtering on and off of warm days punctuated with cold blasts and heavy rains that teased and prodded a full warmth to finally arrive. And things have been coming out!

Northern Watersnake in the wetlands at Swan Harbor Farm, Havre de Grace, MD.

I've been working pretty steadily on my dissertation these past few weekends, so not a lot of time to do my favorite long walks, but I've collected enough lunch walk pictures to stash into this post to show just how exciting spring's arrival has been.  This past week all of our spring's expectations have been fulfilled!

Eastern Painted Turtle, Swan Harbor Farm.

I always make sure to have my camera and backpack in the car no matter where I am. Even on long days when driving to and from meetings can takes hours out of my day, I try to stop for a lunch walk. I've had a two nice days out with my son and saw some things I wouldn't have seen on my work circuit. It's been an adventure capturing a few shots here and there to document the past two weeks.

Muskrat, king of the wetlands at Swan Harbor Farm.

At work at Swan Harbor Farm, the beautiful restored wetlands under the care and management of our local Ducks Unlimited chapter has been jumping with cool things to see and hear. Rails, warblers, snakes, muskrats, turtles, and all the birders coming out to enjoy it! With my office window open now, I can hear the spring peepers voices carry all the way across the fields. It's been hard ti concentrate on my reports, emails, writing assignments, and phone calls!

A birder & nature photographer enters the blind at Swan Harbor Farm.

Yellow warbler in the DU wetlands.

A broody Mallard hen prepares a nest near the DU blind.

Red-tailed Hawk.

Gashey's Creek will soon ripple with yellow perch. Swan Harbor Farm.

Spring Beauties, Swan Harbor Farm

Trout Lily, Swan Harbor Farm.

My son and I ventured over to Susquehannock State Park across the river in Lancaster County to check the overlooks. We took the Rhododendron Trail, the most difficult (black diamond!) trail in the park to enter a remote creek valley. While hiking the rocky trail down we heard two Louisiana Waterthrush calling out. We were able to watch one of them calling from mid-height - so beautiful.

Louisiana Waterthrush calling from the creek. Photo by George Eppig.

Bloodroot. Susquehannock State Park, Lancaster County, PA.

Zebra Swallowtail, Susquehannock SP.

Brown Orb Weaver, Susquehannock SP.

We also spent a day on the Greenway Trail that connects Conowingo Dam's Fisherman's Park to Susquehannah State Park in Harford County, MD. We could see great blue heron on their nests on the islands out in the rushing river.  Bald eagles were everywhere, as were osprey. We got a nice look at a pileated woodpecker and enjoyed the antics of tree swallows and fishing cormorants.

Bald Eagle enjoys a fresh-caught gizzard shad along the Greenway Trail, Conowingo Dam.

Tree Swallows chat with each other at Fisherman's Park, Conowingo Dam.

After a morning meeting in Annapolis, MD, today I took a quick lunch break and walk at Sandy Point State Park. A big storm was bearing down but I jogged out to the marsh and captured a few spring migrants with my camera before the rains came. The water out on the bay was whipped up to a frenzy as the gusts ripped through.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher hunkering in the wind at Sandy Point State Park, MD.

Female Red-Winged Blackbird in the rainy marsh at SPSP.

After a winter of drab ochre it was nice to see this Goldfinch in his breeding colors, SPSP.

Blue Grosbeak, SPSP.

A pleasant but quick walk out to the little marsh before the storm hit at Sandy Point.

So spring is here - at long last! (Even though I've turned the heat back on today at home.) I hope to spend some full days out and about these next few weeks as I catch up on my writing and begin to take my 'play days' away from the desk.  It's been fun though capturing spring as it comes on, day by day, hour by hour. A shot here and there add up to a nice progression of this season's happy appearances!

MD: Winter Walk in the Deep Freeze - Swan Harbor Farm County Park

Thousands of Canada geese have been gathering on our fields to forage in the snow.

Snow-covered fields, ice-covered Chesapeake! We may be well past this winter's meteorological mid-point but this is the deep cold  heart of the season. Arctic winds have been sweeping down into the Mid-Atlantic for the last week with wind chills of -10 to -25'F not uncommon. I took a long walk on one of our balmier twenty-degree days this week to check things out.  Winter walks are the healthiest thing I know to do when winter blahs, colds or illness, or just plain boredom sets in.

Looking southeast across the Chesapeake Bay.

My first stop was to look over the high-cut cliffs out at the water. The upper third of the Bay is now frozen over. Had this been a two hundred years ago the ice harvest would be in full swing with ice thickened to ten inches or more. Even up into the 1960s the ice harvest was a hugely social event with hundreds of townsfolk skating, riding, fishing, and partying on the great white Chesapeake. Blocks of ice were pulled off the cutting yards by horse sled, stored in ice houses covered in straw to keep for summer deliveries in town. Now no one harvests ice this way so there's far less excitement (in fact, there's  far more complaining - which bothers me to no end!), and winter is more of an inconvenience than an opportunity. For many people it's an excuse to stay inside and do next to nothing except complain about the cold.

Subnivian zone.

The great fields that in summer held soybeans, wheat, corn, or alfalfa are blowing with snow. Ice dust whirled like sun devils into the dry air and temporarily blinded me. When it settled I could see thousands of Canada Geese snuggled down, grazing in place, poking through the snow around them, pulling up rootlets, grass, and straw.  At my feet the snow poked up in little mounds as a vole or mouse tunneled through the subnivian zone. Life below the snow is active nearly twenty-four seven, except perhaps in the most severe cold of the predawn hours. Unlike with a lot of humans in winter, this is not a period of inactivity for animals. Few creatures actually hibernate in the Mid-Atlantic. Think of it as of a series of intense naps with active periods of foraging and hunting.

Young Holly, bright and green.

There is a real difference between inactivity (which can affect health negatively - especially for us!) and rest (a restoration of health). Hard winter days can be a good time to observe the difference between inactivity and rest in both nature and people! I still cannot understand how people shutter themselves inside on winter days and do nothing for weeks, if not months. Bernd Heinrich writes about activity level differences in winter animal behavior and explains the  serious health consequences of the human sedentary lifestyle in comparison, resulting for many of us in a shortened life. Doing nothing or very little for long periods of time leads to pre-diabetic resistance, bone mass loss, muscle weakness, and less nutrient absorption in the human gut. Why not a walk everyday?

It's nearly four o'clock and the sun is still high!

I find winter activities among my favorites - snowshoeing, hiking, hunting, birding, and paddling where there's open water. No bugs, less crowds, clean fresh cold air good for the lungs, and always interesting things to see. In a recent PBS program I learned about how cold air was an effective treatment for TB patients - and I can relate - having had asthma all my life with the only real relief coming from being active outdoors in cold seasons. I've come to really love winter because it has literally saved my life.

White-tail Deer crossing.

The whole farm is criss-crossed in deer trails. So many deer! When I entered the woods I disturbed a whole herd that had laid down in the snowy brush. I looked hard for our resident coyote -  his straight loping track, but couldn't find him in the woods. He's been hanging around the muskrat ponds more than the woods lately. Plenty to eat there as the muskrats breed all winter long. I will never understand why people hate coyote so much. They are helping with our over-population of deer, for which the grain farmer is thankful.

Canada goose belly imprint and take-off trail.

Now and then I'll find the carcass of a Canada Goose  that a coyote has carried off to the edge of the field and torn into. I guess some people find that disagreeable but ask the grain farmer what a huge foraging flock of geese will do to a freshly planted field and how having that wild dog around to keep the geese from settling in for too long protects his crop. Once on a winter hike I saw the coyote trotting along the woods edge along the back field and for a second we locked eyes. He stood and looked at me and me at him and that was that. I didn't go running off all "Annie Get Your Gun!" A minute later a huge flock of geese lifted from the far corner of the field where he had gone.

Towhee sunning in the brush.

Winter is a time of constant hunting and foraging for most mammals and birds. It should be a time of activity for us too, but I don't know many people who make the effort to get out and be active when it's cold, which is too bad because it didn't used to be this way. Heinrich states that one in three Americans over fifty are completely sedentary and this lifestyle is having disastrous implications for our health. We're not evolved for inactivity. Like animals in winter, we're meant to be constantly active. We're adapted - like the coyote - to be endurance hunters and gatherers. Instead, we decry the viciousness of the wild hunter while sitting for hours and hours on our sofas in front of computers and TV's killing ourselves.

Thousands of Tundra Swans on the Bay ice.

My hike this day ended back where I had started - at the water's edge. The sounds of ice crunching and grinding ice floes and the hoots and toots of thousands of tundra swans, staging in anticipating of spring's journey north fills the air with a happy noise. The sun was still high late in the afternoon when I started back. Just before I got back to the office I heard a shout, "Peggy! Peggy!" The one other person I know who would be out here today came trotting up to me waving his cellphone. "Look!" John had just seen and photographed a rough-legged hawk on a telephone pole on his walk after work. A very handsome bird, indeed!

Notes:

Bernd Heinrich's Winter World" The Ingenuity of Animal Survival (2003) is one of my favorites to read in the deep heart of winter. I am always in awe of the tremendous vitality of winter life he explores in this book. 

The Forgotten Plague (The American Experience) describes the history of TB in the U.S. and how cold weather treatments aided in providing patient comfort, even if the cold couldn't cure it. This is a touching film that explains through the living memory of survivors how the cure was finally found through the discovery of a bacteria and its treatment with a simple vaccine. The Adirondacks figure prominently in this story!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/plague/player/

MD: Doing Push-Ups on the Pond - Swan Harbor Farm County Park

Wetlands in June.

Checking on our resident muskrats today I found the wetlands stark and devoid of anything green but the muskrats were nonetheless very busy! Were it not for the 'rats cruising under the ice to open leads and breathing holes, the whole pond might have been solid. But there they were - kerplopping down as I approached. Muskrats are active all year and do not hibernate, nor do they store food like beavers do. Instead they are active, mostly at night, foraging for plant roots and tubers in the mud below.

Wetlands at the end of January.

The lodges, called push-ups, are high, conical, and piled thickly with cattail stalks, much higher than they were in summer! Inside, well above the water line, their winter rooms are snug and warm. They add more material almost every day so that the lodges appear to be rising from the pond as winter continues.

A lead or water trail is kept ice-free by foraging 'rats.

I am always impressed by animal builders.Their resourcefulness and manipulation of materials could teach us a thing or two about efficiency and design! The muskrats here are also aware of potential predators - we have a coyote who hunts around the pond. Leads are kept open like moats around the push-ups. Few lodges are close to the bank.

Cattail is food and shelter material.

MD: Deep Freeze and Fun on the Bay -Youth Winter Bird Count at Swan Harbor County Park

This has been a very cold week at the Head of the Bay in Havre de Grace, Maryland. But that didn't stop the kids from coming out to Swan Harbor for a winter bird count with the Harford Bird Club, a chapter of the Maryland Ornithological Society. The clear skies and brisk arctic winds promised a challenge for the kids but they were eager to go! Volunteer group leaders, some of Harford County's best birders, rallied their bundled and layered charges in the classroom at Swan Harbor and off they went!

The ice hasn't started to pile yet, but note the ice mirage across the Bay as if it was stacking up!

Kenzey's group, led by Dr. Dennis Kirkwood, worked their way around the farm and followed the road to the Bay. The winds were fierce but the birds were out! They quickly gathered up species and numbers. At the approach to the long fishing pier a small open water patch in the ice provided good looks at a pied billed grebe and a American coot foursome. Canada geese, canvasbacks,  hooded mergansers, and a pair of bald eagles were counted out at the end - brrrr! But no one complained as binoculars went up and down, kids lined up at the spotting scope, and the tally was checked off. We even saw an ice mirage!

Dr. Kirkwood helps Kenzey get a life bird!

Seasonal bird counts are great traditions in birding history. There are counts for backyards, Christmas, Sea Watches, fall hawk migration, nesting surveys. But the youth counts are special. This is the next generation of citizen scientists, researchers, conservationists, and wildlife advocates. Most state and local birding societies have youth events and even youth groups. This is outdoor mentoring at its best.

Kenzey bundled and layered!

Here in the Mid-Atlantic winter is a great time to be a birder! It seems all of the feathered arctic shows up at our doorstep blanketing our fields and marshes in geese, swans, and ducks. Atlantic inlets and open water Bay channels fill up with diving ducks, coots, mergansers, loons, and enormous rafts of waterfowl. Snowy and short-eared owls invade the vast intertidal zones along our biggest rivers. Hawks, falcons, and eagles of all shapes, sizes, and ages work the wild beaches, woods, and fields and gather at Conowingo in huge numbers at the open water there to scavenge and hunt fish. The excitement of winter is infectious among birders, especially the kids! One little girl who snuggled up against my granddaughter as they waited to see the bald eagle pair through the scope said "This is the best thing I've done all winter! I LOVE this!"

Checking open water - or leads - for rafting ducks and geese

The most important part of any count is tallying and sharing the data.  All the groups returned to the classroom to warm up with hot chocolate and homemade oatmeal cookies while leaders prepared to take the day's totals. Groups reported in from the wetlands, the ponds, the road, the woods, and the Bay. Kids read from clipboards as grown-ups did the math and entered the count with Cornell's E-Bird data entry software. The global map projected on the wall 'blipped' as submissions poured in from all over the world and the kids were excited to see our own bright green bubble of accomplishment light up for Swan Harbor Farm. Our winter count was complete! Cheers and applause!

Taking the final tally while warming up with hot chocolate!

I often hear people complain about the cold and the winter season. But I have to celebrate the parents who brought their kids out on this day, when some would have questioned their 'parenting skills' by exposing children to such weather. These parents, some having never participated in a birding event, not only brought their kids bundled and layered for a morning in the arctic wind, but went out themselves! It is too easy to say 'oh it's too cold' and park ourselves in front of a computer or TV, believing we've made the safer choice to stay inside. But in the long run, this is teaching kids to take the easy-out with avoidance and apathy (and the complaining that comes with it). 

Winter landscapes inspire us to observe and appreciate the persistence of life.

As they say - and as I know to be true - inactivity, especially in winter, leads to long-term behavior and health issues. We are now witnessing the emergence of a younger generation that will not live as long as their grandparents because of poor eating and lifestyle habits. We need to step up, as parents and grandparents and outdoor mentors to encourage kids to embrace winter as a great time to venture out. Winter is a great teacher that offers greater awards for the effort. I'm so happy that these parents brought their kids out and that the kids are now hooked and looking forward to more birding fun!

Frozen bubbles locked in ice on the edge of the Bay.

Live in the Mid-Atlantic? There's lots to do with your state and local birding groups and some groups have youth groups - like the Dunlins (my granddaughter's group) with the DOS.

Harford Bird Club was the sponsor of today's youth bird count: http://www.harfordbirdclub.org/
Maryland Ornithological Society http://www.mdbirds.org/
Pennsylvania Audubon http://pa.audubon.org/
Delaware Ornithological Society http://www.dosbirds.org/
New Jersey Audubon http://www.njaudubon.org/