Tag: photo

The Dolly Sods tract in West Virginia is special to a lot of naturalists and other fans of the outdoors. Geologically, it’s on the eastern edge of the Appalachian Plateau province, where the Ridge and Valley province gives way to it. At an elevation of about 4000 feet, it’s just west of the eastern Continental Divide, hence part of the Ohio River watershed. The nutrient-poor, poorly drained soils support plant communities of sphagnum glades, blueberry heath barrens, and grassy balds—and that means some animal specialities can be found, too. Part of the Monongahela National Forest, parts of the area received wilderness designation in 1975. Since so many others have written about it, I was overdue for my first visit to the place.

The local spruce is Picea rubens. The tall, isolated trees here show the effect of growing in an environment where the wind is always blowing from the west: there’s no foliage on that side of the tree. I found cones only at the tops of trees; fortunately, this stunted example along the Rocky Ridge Trail has matured at only six feet in height, so that I could get a snap of the cones from eye level.

Any hike when you get to walk through a big patch of Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia) in bloom is a good hike.

I saw a few small blueberries coming into ripeness; heard (and briefly saw) Black-throated Green Warbler (Dendroica virens) (actually, what I saw mght have been a Townsend’s); found lots of a cinquefoil that Wikipedia identifies as Three-toothed Cinquefoil (Sibbaldiopsis tridentata). As I walked on, I saw more laurel, more blueberries, more cinquefoil—a typical pattern of lower diversity under these extreme conditions.

The most common butterfly that I saw is dependent on blueberries. This Pink-edged Sulphur (Colias interior) found my gear an irresistible place to hang out for a while. And perhaps to spread some hormones about; I suspect this is a female, because a more strongly patterned male was pestering her.

The Bear Rocks Trail is the “oh, let’s do the longer 10 mile loop” trail. Well-marked, a fun little stream to cross. The saddle you drop into before rising to meet the Raven Ridge Trail feels like walking into Brigadoon.

Even a boardwalk over the wetter patches. This trail leaves you wondering about what all the fuss is about following trails in this wilderness, and about the quality of the Forest Service’s maps.

The Rocky Ridge Trail, on the west side of the tract, isn’t so clearly marked, at least not officially. The informal cairns (not quite to Boy Scout standards) keep you on the path.

The Dobbin Grade Trail, a repurposed railroad grade, is the “dear lord, let’s just get home, OK?” trail. Poorly marked; after normal rains, there are substantial patches that are nothing but bog. Mind you, the guidebooks warn about this. The problem is that there’s nowhere for rain runoff to go, turning the sphagnum into a spongey gumbo. The trick I learned (too late) is this: if it looks wet, use your stick to find rock under it. If you don’t, you go in the goop over your boots.

And I had my opportunity to reroute my return over the Raven Ridge Trail. But I can be stubborn sometimes.

I suspect that the Forest Service is trying to exercise benign neglect on this useful trail that connects to many others. I think they would like to discourage hikers from using the track, since trail users are forced off trail and into the veg whenever a wet spot appears, disrupting the life of the bog.

A longer walk than I originally planned, seduced as I was by the easy going on the Bear Rocks Trail. There is some climbing, but I didn’t track the elevation change. 7:45 for 10.8 miles, with a generous lunch break and birding from time to time. Overreached myself a little bit, as I had nothing left in the tank for the last mile or two, and I dropped plans of further hiking for the next day.

Note for next time: I used a chain motel back in Woodstock, Va. as my base camp for this trip. It’s a 2-plus-hour drive from Woodstock to the wilderness. Next time, I’d like to try one of the smart-looking cottages along route 55 in Petersburg, rented by the Smoke Hole Resort. From there, route 28/7 and the Forest Service roads into the wilderness is just five minutes away.

Update: There’s an orphaned article by Andy Hiltz about the area that has some useful information.

Update (8 May 2024): Andy Hiltz’s article, archived.

Sunday was a near-perfect day for a field trip to the Parkers Creek section of the American Chestnut Land Trust property in Calvert County on the western shore of the bay, led by Stephanie Mason. Chesapeake Bay’s not really visible from trails on this property, but you can sense it from the end of the Turkey Spur Trail.

We had the place nearly to ourselves. For a Coastal Plain site, the walking is remarkably hilly.

It was a middling day for birds. We watched a Green Heron stalking its lunch on Parkers Creek; had good looks at Prothonotary Warbler, Scarlet Tanager, and Northern Parula; heard Ovenbird (frequently), Wood Thrush, Hooded Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, White-eyed Vireo.

At the lunch break, a skink mistook Ethan’s trousers for an extension of the log he was sitting on.

Some nice butterflies: Spicebush Swallowtail, several Zebra Swallowtails, and two Vanessa species, an American Lady and numerous Red Admirals.

Some good flowering plants to look at: the place is covered with Virginia Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum). Stephanie explained an concept that I hadn’t latched onto before, the difference between a determinate inflorescence (the plant decides how many florets to make and it’s done) and an indeterminate inflorescence (flower ’til you drop, like we saw with Mysotis).

And some great ferns. The image of Ebony Spleenwort (Asplenium platyneuron) at the left is an attempt to show the dark brown rachis. New York Fern (Thelypteris noveboracensis), at the right, tapers to a point at both ends, like a New Yorker burning his candle. Hay-scented Fern is the other species in our area that forms large clonal colonies like New York Fern.

Stephanie made the call on this Netted Chain Fern (Woodwardia areolata), which is very similar in appearance to Senstive Fern. I need to learn to look for fertile fronds when I’m looking at ferns.

Two trips to the park not to check nest boxes (though we did check a couple), but rather to assist Kat, who is surveying crayfish activity. We went 0-18 on the smokestack traps, but negative data is still data. And the reptiles and amphibians provided some alternative entertainment.

She has been using submerged basket traps like this one, baited with an opened can of sardines. But she was interested in finding other species, ones that don’t spend all their time in the water.

This weekend’s project was to trap crayfish in their burrows. The plan was to use a bit of fine mesh, attached with string to a bit of dowelling. Insert the mesh into the burrow, wait overnight, and pull up a critter in the morning. Unfortunately, this morning we found no crayfish entangled in the mesh. Instead, we found a couple of our traps pulled completely into a burrow and out another entrance. And one trap went missing altogether. Maybe one day it will turn up incorporated into an Osprey’s nest.

Meanwhile, songbirds are actively nesting. Great-crested Flycatchers and Red-eyed Vireos were audible; a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher is nesting in full view of the boardwalk, at the first wide spot. And Prothonotary Warblers (Protonotaria citrea) are active! Nests (probably dummies) are being constructed to the right of the trail, just after the fork and before it enters the wetland.

The beavers continue to work on dams at the upper end of the wetland. The past month’s dry conditions have dropped the downstream water level; the gauge reads only 0.28 m.

On this morning’s nest box walk, we noticed a big patch of freshwater snails in the shallows off the boardwalk on the way to the observation tower, snails that we hadn’t seen even last week. I blasted the contrast in this image so that the snails are visible through the murky water.

Unfortunately, they appear to be Chinese Mystery Snails (Cipangopaludina chinensis), an invasive that is often introduced by aquarium dumping. This large snail species features an operculum, a trap door that the snail can close up to ward off drought and predators. Notice that there’s no snail sticking out of the shell in the image at the right.

Recent posts like this one from Brendan Fitzgerald suggest that this pesty algae-eating mollusk is a recent arrival in Virginia.

Some people consider the best way to deal with these intruders it to eat them.

Both of the new boxes that we mounted in mid-February are home to clutches of Hooded Merganser eggs. The crew of wildlife photographers were very grateful for the activity at new box #10, which is quite visible from the boardwalk. They tried to convince us to set up even more boxes, in racks condo-style; we politely thanked them for the suggestion.

Downstream of the observation tower along Barnyard Run, it still looks pretty brown, although the flush of maple flowers is apparent in the treetops. At the water level, duckweed is starting to green up.

I stuck around until the afternoon to join a different volunteer team, this one organized to whack away at some of the invasive alien Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) and Asiatic Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) that threatened to make a play for a sunny clearing. We worked in a section along the pond trail in the northwest section of the park, not accessible from the boardwalk trails but rather from the hike-bike trail with its trailhead on South Kings Highway.

We cleaned up vines in the vicinity of a stately Osage-orange (Maclura pomifera). I spent a good chunk of my time working over a patch of bittersweet that was more tenacious than Audrey II, all the while leaving the native Poison Ivy and Virginia Grape alone.

Monitoring season began this morning, and we were rewarded with 4 Hooded Merganser eggs in box #13, while another merg was stationed in the entrance hole to brand-new box #4 (which we installed just two weekends ago!). She sat there for a couple of minutes, so we didn’t approach that box.

Two articles of new construction are visible in the image: the new weather-resistant, recycled-materials boardwalk, and the beaver dam. Our castorine friends have enlarged the pond around the first observation area, where the boardwalk enters the wetland. The gradient between the water levels I judge to be about 20 cm.

Per the Friends newsletter, the latest word on (man-made) dam construction for the wetland restoration project calls for ground-breaking in summer/fall of next year. The Park Authority has contracted with Wetland Studies and Solutions, Inc. to provide final designs, acquire permits, and oversee construction.

Repair work has begun on reach 6 of the Glade, to fix 2010’s restoration work that was undone by the flood of September 2011. There’s some heavy gear scattered about. Nevertheless, 17 species of our mid-Atlantic winter suburbans were represented on my mid-day count. Mostly cloudy, but with the sun overhead, viewing conditions seemed to be both too dark and too glaring. No real surprises on the bird list, though the briefly heard starling was a little unusual for this patch.

I was taken aback by the stumps of half a dozen large trees that were sacrificed, but perhaps the undercut stream bank that you can see here is the explanation. Stream restoration is a little like sausage-making.

A little farther upstream, near the footbridge, a Smooth Alder (Alnus serrulata) was proudly displaying its male catkins.

M.K., Steve, and I got a head start on nesting season by installing two new boxes along Barnyard Run near its outlet into the main wetland. Steve, whom I haven’t worked with before, turns out to be a dab hand at steering the runabout ATV (which we used to carry our gear) down the trails and across the brush and Smilax.

From a ladder, I worked the tubular, double-handled mallet (we all call it “the pounder,” but there must be a more precise name for it) in order to seat the support pole in the mud. I stayed up there while Steve redrilled one of the mounting holes in the back of the box.

It’s still plenty wintry at the park, as a passing snow shower reminded us. But the new boxes are nice and dry, and ready for this year’s ducks. About ten days ago, M.K. watched a group of about 20 Hooded Mergansers going through pair formation behaviors.