Category: In the Field

I took a short out-and-back nature hike with Bob Pickett and ANS in the watershed of the Furnace Branch of the Monocacy River in Frederick County, just over the Montgomery County line. Destinations on this walk are the remains of Maryland’s extractive industrial past: a mill (perhaps used to mill limestone), a lime kiln, and two sandstone quarries, which provided the stone for the aqueduct that carried the C&O Canal over the Monocacy at its confluence with the Potomac.

Trails are not marked nor maintained: this is a hunting reserve. But, as one of us (Ann) pointed out, hunting pressure on the deer population has allowed the redevelopment of a healthy understory. Setting out on the trail, we soon found a couple of huge Hackberry trees (Celtis occidentalis) and Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) fruit beginning to ripen. Numerous Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) and Acadian Flycatchers (Empidonax virescens) were heard, and one flycatcher, irritated at something, came out in the open. Alan found Spotted Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) in bloom and a clump of Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora).

After some stream hopping and bushwhacking, we arrived at the quarry sites. An impressive block of quartzite is exposed: sources call it the Sugarloaf Mountain Quartzite (and indeed that mountain is just to the northeast). In a stony patch, Alan spotted an orchid with pretty leaves: Rattlesnake Plantain (Goodyera pubescens) beginning to shoot up flower stalks. We heard, then after some patient looking, saw a Worm-eating Warbler (Helmitheros vermivora): not a great look, but good enough for #361.

Well, I had expected this to be the last post for nesting season, as boxes #2 and #6 had hatched out this trip, but Melina reports new eggs in boxes #67 and #68 along lower Barnyard Run—new since our last check before Memorial Day. We have records of nests hatching in July in past years. This might be one of those years, but it’s just as likely the eggs are “excuse-me” drops and will not turn into complete clutches.

On my way to box #2, just north of the boardwalk as you come out into the wetland, I found clumps of Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) in bloom. The flowers attracted a small group of Great Spangled Fritillaries (Speyeria cybele) who stopped for a nectar snack. The image at right doesn’t do justice to the bold coloring of this butterfly’s upperwings, but it does show the field marks on the under hindwing: silvered spots and the broad cream-colored band.

Lizardtail (Saururus cernuus) is emerging from the wet streamsides.

Activity along the north side of the main pond continues briskly, with all four boxes occupied. Box #6 is still a-building, with eight Wood Duck eggs not yet under incubation.

At the downstream end of Barnyard Run, beyond the beaver dam near the observation tower (at right in this image), box #61 has hatched out 17 of 18 Hooded Merganser eggs. Several more boxes are due to hatch late this month.

A few weeks ago I posted about crayfish chimneys, but that post lacked an image. Here’s one to rectify the situation.

Two species of vireos (Vireo griseus and V. olivaceus) were heard but not seen. At least one Green Heron (Butorides virescens) was spotted over the wetland, as well as (suprisingly exposed in the open) a Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus). A birder at the tower pointed out an American Bittern (Botaurus lentiginosus) to me. Chickadees have taken over one of Melina’s boxes intended for Prothonotary Warblers. Virgina Rails (Rallus limicola) were reported in the past week, but we didn’t detect them today.

The forest floor is lightly frosted with drifts of Spring Beauty. Melina found a Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus) foraging at the edge of the parking lot; the first Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas) made his appearance.

Ten boxes have active nests, plus one with one cold Wood Duck egg that appears to be a false start. Box #68 is due to hatch out this week.

When I was out with Dirk last week, we looked at crayfish chimneys. We’re always glad to see evidence of crayfish (our most common is Cambarus diogenes) in the wetland, because they are an indicator species: they can’t tolerate certain water contaminants. In turn, as detritivores, they recycle decaying organic matter into the food web. And the question came up: what’s with the chimneys? what purpose do they serve? Turns out that authorities are not quite sure. It may be simply that the crayfish needs to do something with the mud it has excavated as it burrows down to the water table, so it leaves it at the entrance.

Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica) is just starting to break through the leaf litter on the forest floor. Maples are heavy with blooms. The team spotted Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) and Red-headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) along lower Barnyard Run. Box #67 has become a dump nest, with 26 eggs by last count. New bird arrivals on the scene: Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) and Purple Martin (Progne subis) winging after insects over the pond; ants-at-a-picnic Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater) deeper in the woods than usual; and Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum) at the observation tower.

Adapted from my report to park staff and the nest box team:

A fast start to the season!

As of our third trip out, we have nesting activity in six boxes: #7, #13 (main pond), #77, #67, #61, and #68 (lower Barnyard Run). Three boxes are Hooded Merganser, two are Wood Duck, and one has 5 HM eggs and 2 WD eggs.

Alan and I cleaned out the squirrel drey from box #9 (and woke up a cranky squirrel, who promptly exited). We’ve been pulling trash from the run flowing into the main pond, but I think there is more to be found on the west bank. On the 14th, we spotted a Wood Duck pair standing on the boardwalk just beyond the observation tower.

Also on the 14th, Red-Winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) and Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe) made their first appearance. On the 21st, we watched an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) fishing over the main pond.

This past weekend threatened to burn me out on field work. A trip was rescheduled for Saturday, postponed by previous snows, and I put in some extra time towards my term project, also deferred due to weather.

Our final field trip for winter tree ID visited Glen Carlyn and Bluemont Parks along Four Mile Run (someone should put together a course on nothing but the natural history of the Four Mile Run watershed) and Theodore Roosevelt Island. Bluemont offers the county champion Chestnut Oak (Quercus montana); the slopes leading down from Harrison Street into Glen Carlyn feature Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia); and Roosevelt Island has Baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) on the marshy District side along with some magnificent American Elms (Ulmus americana) on the Virginia side. We took a lunch break at Teddy’s memorial. Elizabeth pointed out a trick for finding Black Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica): many of the trunks of mature trees have a sway about ten feet up, as if the tree is standing hip-cocked.

I picked up Leta and we hustled up to Little Bennett Regional Park in Clarksburg for a crepuscular show of American Woodcocks (Scolopax minor), on an outing led by Stephanie Mason. Beeent.

Sunday morning opened the work season at Huntley Meadows Park. Dave Lawlor and crew had already mounted three new boxes, including #80 here, so our job of filling and freshening with wood chips went fairly quickly. Melina and Larry found a Hooded Merganser nest already started; Alan and I evicted a squirrel from underused box #9.

We rarely see a pristine box, so I took snaps before and after the bedding went in.

Finally, an easy drive to Sky Meadows State Park to make some more IDs for my project. Mug shots of my two uncertain calls here: Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) on the left and Gray Birch (Betula populifolia) on the right.

Over the weekend I did some field work at Huntley Meadows for my tree ID class, and I previewed conditions for the upcoming nest box season. There are still substantial patches of slush on the trails and boardwalk, and lots of downed tree limbs. The fast-growing trees suffered the most damage from winter storms. Lots of chunks of Red Maples and Viriginia Pines were on the ground; I clipped twigs from snapped boughs of Sassafras albidum (thanks, Elizabeth!) and Black Gum (Nyssa sylvatica). The most spectacular wreck was the top half of an Eastern Redcedar that you see, permanently separated from its bottom half.

With much schedule shuffling as a result of the recent snow disruption, we finally got out for our second field trip for winter tree ID, to a couple of spots along Four Mile Run. Proving that you don’t need a pristine natural area to learn about the world, Elizabeth started us at the dog park at Shirlington Park, a long strip of ground along the north side of the stream pinched in by the light industrial area located just to the north.

We looked at natives and invasives: we keyed out an American Basswood (Tilia americana) still showing some shreds of the bracts and stalks of its fruits; we worked with a large River Birch (Betula nigra) with its scaly bark; and we found beyond the west end of the park a massive Eastern Cottonwood (Populus deltoides).

Among other trees, Elizabeth used a Black Cherry (Prunus serotina) with its “burnt cornflakes” bark for a field quiz. Her field quizzes are very effective teaching tools. We’re asked to identify a tree, by key or whatever means, to species by common and scientific name—but most importantly, we’re asked to mark three observed characteristics that led to the identification. So we’re led to a structured way of collecting information about a tree that may not yield its secrets readily. And if one of the trees is an easy ID, like an ailanthus with its brutishly heavy twigs, the rule of three keeps us looking. It might be that I go to the field guide with a known tree and then look back at it to find a bud or scar feature.

We moved on a little upstream to a smallish habitat that supports a magnolia association: American Fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus), Poison Sumac (Toxicodendron vernix), and Sweetbay ( Magnolia virginiana), with Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia) in an oak-heath community just up the slopes. The smooth-barked multistemmed Sweetbay in these parts retains a handful of green leaves over the winter. Farther northwest, at about mile marker 4.5 on the Four Mile Run Trail, Elizabeth showed us the Arlington County champion Green Ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica).

First, the large riverside tree that was described as American Linden is now identified by Elizabeth as Eastern Cottonwood (Populus deltoides). Second, classmate Patty has posted a set of images from the trip.

The weather was once again kind to us, this time for our first field trip in winter woody plant ID (trees mostly, and some shrubs). We worked a short bit of the towpath of the (still iced-over) C&O Canal and the B section of the Billy Goat Trail in the Carderock Recreation Area, on the Maryland side of the Potomac just outside of the Beltway. Elizabeth Rives is teaching the class, and she’s started us out with the opposite-branching trees. So we spent time with various maples, ashes, and Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) today. I found that ID’ing one particular dogwood that wasn’t showing many buds to be a particular stumbling block.

We also looked at a Bitternut Hickory (Carya cardiformis) example, with its strongly yellow buds; the many-synonymed Musclewood (Carpinus caroliniana); Eastern Hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), a shaggy-barked catkin-bearing member of the birch family; Hackberry (Celitis occidentalis) with a corky bark that isn’t spongy like an elm. One more opposite-branching shrub was Black Haw Virburnum (Vibirnum prunifolia). Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) is allelopathic, but colonies of PawPaw (Asimina triloba) can tolerate it as a neighbor; the walnuts we saw didn’t look very purplish in the bark to me. The easy-fun tree for everyone was the shrubby Bladdernut (Staphylea trifolia), with its seeds rattling around in capsules that look like a fat man’s pants.

We previewed the oaks, on which we will spend a lot more time later. Bonus tree for the trip was a huge American Linden (Tilia americana). Bonus birds for the trip were a couple of Bald Eagles making their way down the river, seen fairly easily from our lunch break spot up on the rocks.

Taking a couple of classes, plus a concerted effort to spend more time in the field and documenting it, means I have lots of field trip notes this year.

• Wolf Rock, Chimney Rock, Catoctin Mountain Park, Maryland
• Blue Ridge, Ridge and Valley Provinces, Maryland
• Piedmont and Coastal Plain Provinces, Virginia
• Hawksbill Mountain, Shenandoah NP, Virginia
• Seneca Creek Greenway (partial), Maryland
• Soldiers Delight Natural Environment Area, Maryland
• Maryland wetlands
• Prince William Forest Park, Virginia
• Fairfax Cross County Trail, Virginia, Occoquan, Lorton, and Pohick Creek sections
• Fort C.F. Smith Park, Arlington, Virginia
• Potomac Heritage Trail (partial), Virginia
• Huntley Meadows Park, Fairfax County, Virginia

2008’s list.

I turned in my research report on Catoctin Mountain Park for my geology class last week. Unfortunately, I chose an area to write about that doesn’t have a full geologic map at the 15-minute level in print, so my coverage of the geologic structures is a little thin. And I really didn’t have time to get out to a library to check what resources were available. But I like the snapshots that I was able to incorporate into the report.

Turkey Vultures were kettling above the toll road to Leesburg as I set out for Catoctin Mountain Park in Frederick County, Maryland on this unnaturally warm and sunny November day. Some hiking, some field work in support of the paper that I am writing about the park for my geology class.

From the visitors’ center, I followed the clockwise loop suggested by PATC trail guides. The trails in the park are not blazed, but are wide and generally easy to follow, even when covered with the hazard of the season, slippery leaf litter. The side trip to Cunningham Falls is perhaps not worth the bother: the way to the falls is popular and boardwalked.

Back on the main circuit, I climbed to the Blue Ridge Summit Overlook (600′ from my starting point), snapping images of the Catoctin metabasalt. Crossing back to the east, I entered the region of the Weverton quartzite, exposed as Wolf Rock (at left) and Chimney Rock. I found a nice small boulder of Weverton conglomerate, too. Mountaintop bird life was sparse: I was a little surprised to find no juncos. A raven quorked along the way; a nuthatch didn’t seem concerned; a Pileated Woodpecker was rattling the doorknobs of a pine tree.

A little pressed for time and daylight, I followed the guide’s backtrack route, getting back to the car in 3:50, covering about 7.5 miles. My notes say that I covered a 8.3-mile circuit in 1995 in 3:30. I guess those were someone else’s legs.