Baby Snapping Turtle Update

Last October I posted about a baby snapping turtle I found in the water garden. Since I didn’t want to end up with a large snapper in the water garden, I took the baby out. It’s been living on my desk for the past year and seems to be thriving.

The egg tooth is gone from the end of its nose, although it’s kind of hard to tell because of a water droplet coming out of the left nostril. Some people have asked me why I’ve kept this turtle. The answer lies in part with Ohio law. I didn’t want the turtle in the water garden, but Ohio law states that a captured reptile or amphibian must be released near where it was found. My only release option, besides putting it back into the water garden, was to let it go in the yard. It was very cold when I found this guy and the nearest suitable habitat was a quarter of a mile away. I didn’t think it would survive a release of that kind and I didn’t want to just smash it beneath my boot heel, so I put it in an aquarium.

The yolk attachment area has healed nicely. So why didn’t I release the turtle when the weather warmed in the spring. Again, it had to do with Ohio law. If kept for more than 30 days, a wild caught reptile or amphibian cannot be released.

Using the photo I took last year, I positioned the turtle so the rear of its shell was exactly where it was before and then I framed the shot so the scale would be the same between the old and new shots. Shell length has gone from 1.1 inches to 1.8 inches in one year. You might wonder why I didn’t just give the turtle to someone else. Ohio law says that reptiles taken from the wild in Ohio may not be bought, offered for sale, traded, bartered, or given as a gift. It looks like the two of us are stuck with each other.

The head has become much more wedge shaped. Most of that is caused by the thickening of the neck. So you don’t think that Ohio law is designed just to make baby turtles stick to you like fly paper, I should point out that each rule is designed to protect the health and vitality of wild reptile and amphibian populations. Moving animals from one location to another is an easy way to spread disease organisms. In these days of mysterious declines of reptiles and amphibians, it’s important that people don’t become disease vectors. Animals kept in captivity are apt to become infected with disease, so it’s best that they don’t rejoin the wild population. The law is also designed to keep Ohio’s wild reptiles and amphibians from being taken for commercial purposes, such as the pet trade.

The little guys do a wonderful job of mimicking the adults. On land, the turtle acts as though its bulk is too great to move without being buoyed by water. If it had the brains for it, I might think this guy was trying for a little sympathy.

I took the turtle outside in a little carrier filled with water, so he could stay warm while I was setting up for the shots. When I brought him back in, the only thing on his mind was getting something to eat. I think that’s all he ever has on his mind.

He downed a few mealworms before returning to his normal home.

Field Evaluations

As I go around evaluating potential projects for the coming winter season, I check out recently completed projects to see if I achieved my desired goal. Usually I’m satisfied to some degree with what I see. My greatest lament always seems to be that I didn’t get more accomplished. I’m always certain that I could have squeezed in another day or two of work, but if I go back and review my notes I invariably find that I managed to use every hour not committed to my job and family or prohibited by bad weather. This is one of the fields I did maintenance on last year to remove encroaching woody vegetation.

After 25 years, this evolving prairie is looking great. When I began my work here, there wasn’t a lot of practical information on how a typical landowner would manage a large area of prairie. I was pretty much told that I would need to regularly burn the fields to maintain open grassland. As a private landowner and a workforce of one, I didn’t have the resources to safely burn these fields, so I set about to discover techniques that I could use to turn my fields into the best possible prairies. The fact that the photos show grassland instead of forest is evidence that it is possible to keep encroaching woody species under control.

By design, there are a few places where trees grow in the field. Diseases have eliminated Flowering Dogwoods from the woodlands, so I maintain areas of dogwoods in the fields. The small trees are spaced far enough apart to allow sunlight to maintain grassland right up next to the trunks.

Much of the prairie flora and fauna has close associations with oaks, so I have left several oak trees scattered throughout the grassland. However, most of the field is kept open and free of any vegetation taller than the grasses.

The fields won’t need any work for a few years, so I’ll be concentrating on improving the transition zone between the fields and the woodland. This is a prime area for the appearance of invasive species. Berry eating birds tend to use these edges as travel lanes or for escape cover, which results in a lot of seeds being dropped. Improving the edges for use by transition zone plant species will also make it easier to find and eliminate invasive species.

There are a few isolated spots in the field that I will still need to work on. This is where I cut and killed a large Autumn Olive last year. Getting rid of one big Autumn Olive invariably leaves you with many little Autumn Olives. Some of the new growth comes from surviving root growth from the old bush. Other sprouts are from seed dropped in the vicinity of the bush. It makes sense that birds spending a lot of time eating seeds in the bush will poop out a lot of seeds in that same area. The new seedlings are generally within the canopy area of the original bush and I’m wondering if my clearing efforts make the environment more suitable for germinating Autumn Olive seeds. I’ve never viewed any of my work with a feeling of completion, but I’m happy if I can see just a little progress each year.

Onosmodium Seeds

The drought has certainly stripped the color from the prairie landscape at Blue Jay Barrens. We’ve only had the one light frost, so I would normally expect to see masses of asters and the tall grass glowing a bright golden color. What I see is a total lack of flowers and the grass looking more like dirty straw. There is one plant, a favorite that I’ve talked about before, that is still showing green and adding interest to the prairie landscape. That plant is False Gromwell, Onosmodium molle var. hispidissimum.

These plants don’t even look like they’re aware of the ongoing drought. Maybe all those hairs do help minimize water loss from the leaves. The leaves are still full and green. The veins sit in deep furrows that add an interesting depth and texture to the leaf. I always enjoy looking at this plant.

Another plus is the bounty of seed produced. I’m increasingly discouraged by the number of plants that didn’t produce any viable seed this year. The Onosmodium produced a bountiful crop of showy seeds.

The seeds are like hard little nuts. I’ve known them to stay on the plant for the entire winter, so I’m not sure whether or not anything finds them edible. They’re extremely easy to germinate if planted shallowly in the fall. They need to experience the full effects of winter before breaking dormancy. Even if nothing eats the seeds, the foliage is favored by a wide variety of insect species.

Shape and texture of the seeds are a defining character is the genus. This species has a smooth surface covered by randomly spaced pits. The flared out collar is also an identifying trait. These seeds are such attractive little things that I can forgive their apparent inedibility.

Turtle Eggshells

This is the most common time of year for finding evidence of reptile egg clutches. I’m always happy to see these signs that reptiles are successfully reproducing at Blue Jay Barrens. The trick is to figure out what species laid the eggs.

The shells look the way they should after a successful hatching. I’m assuming the odor of the hatchlings or the recently vacated eggs is what caused a predator to dig out the nest. I hope some of the little ones avoided becoming a meal.

There are way too many eggs for this to have been a box turtle nest. The shell is smoother than the snake eggs I found last year, so this may not be a snake nest.

The hole was enlarged some by the nest raider, but it’s hard to see inside. I can see that the cavity extends out of sight to the right. I guess there’s only one thing left to do.

Since I’m right handed, I thought it best to send my left hand in to check things out. Sticking your hand down a blind hole isn’t the wisest of moves, but I figured the chances of getting my hand bitten off were about equal to finding a gold nugget in there. My hand emerged unscathed. I found a chamber about the right size for a medium sized clutch of snapping turtle eggs. There’s a pond about a half mile from here and that’s well within the range of a female snapping turtle looking for a place to lay her eggs. This is also around the right time for the eggs to be hatching.

I was being circled by crows the entire time I spent investigating the nest. I get checked out by crows all the time, but it’s unusual for them to remain hanging over me for any extended amount of time. I wonder if they could have recently made a meal of some of the young snappers and were checking out the possibility of another feast.

Fall Color

One of the best autumn features is the colorful wooded landscape. Blue Jay Barrens has had a miserable showing of color this year. The largest factor contributing to the poor color is the extended drought that is now well into its fourth month. In many respects conditions remind me more of November than October.

As leaves of the large maples and ashes lost their chlorophyll, they transitioned from green to light brown and fell early from the trees. This resulted in grayish patches of bare branched trees where normally would be a brilliant display of yellow and orange.

In order to enjoy the fall colors, I’ve had to reduce my sights to focus on the smaller displays. Staghorn Sumac always produces brilliant autumn colors. We’ve never had weather conditions of any kind that diminished the fall beauty of this plant.

Dwarf Sumac is almost as reliable as the Staghorn. The Dwarf Sumac has a wider variety of shades ranging from red to yellow. I find this to be the ideal blend of traditional October colors.

Some of the sapling sized trees fared well enough despite the drought to produce some colorful foliage. The little Sassafras came through with some reds and yellows, while the larger specimens shed brown leaves.

The few small Sugar Maples that produced any color still had a lot of brown in the leaves. I’m used to there being a soft bed of leathery maple leaves beneath the trees, but this year all the leaves are dry and crunchy.

There’s still a chance that the large oaks will produce some color in the woods, but they never display anything as attractive as the reds on these smaller specimens.

The Black Gums have turned a brilliant shade of red and the black discolorations almost look like a natural mottling. I have yet to find a mature Black Gum anywhere near Blue Jay Barrens. The plants I do find are all young specimens colonizing the old crop fields. I’m curious as to the location of the seed source for all of these young trees. Where ever the source, they are doing their part to make the fall transition a little less bleak.

Thicket Clearing

This is the time of year that I plan for the management work I’ll be doing this coming winter. For the past two years I’ve been removing invasives and other undesirable vegetation from this fence row. The remaining trees are all natives and you can now see through into the thicket in the next field.

The open field grasses and forbs are just beginning to move into the fence row area. Up until last winter invasives like Honeysuckle and Autumn Olive were so thick that very little ground cover existed. There are still many non-native and invasive species hidden down in the vegetation. It’ll take a couple more years of work before I’ll be able to say that the invasives are under control in this area.

Last year I was able to clear a strip between the fence row on the right and the thicket. That opened up the edge of the thicket enough that I could see what I had to deal with.

The thicket will be cleared enough to allow sunlight for the grassland plants, but I’ll still leave clumps of shrubs to provide a winter wildlife food source. The Dwarf Sumac, now showing their red autumn leaves, will be left. Those Tuliptrees that are beginning to over top the sumacs will be removed.

On the far side of the thicket is a clump of Virginia Pine that will be left as is. The thicket has always been an area of increased bird activity. There are always nests in the shrubs and there are always birds foraging here in the winter. The deciduous trees are recent additions that I’m afraid will decrease the vigor of the shrubs. The Wild Black Cherry, Tuliptree and Ash will all be removed. Tuliptree and Ash are pretty easy to deal with, but Cherry has a profusion of branches that take for ever to cut up into bundles that will compact down into a brush pile.

This thicket is one of only two areas that still contain fruit bearing Autumn Olive. By next year I hope to make the claim that Blue Jay Barrens is no longer producing Autumn Olive seed. Of course the seed will still be coming in from neighboring properties and it will probably take the rest of my lifetime to track down and eliminate all of the seedlings now present. Still, it will be nice to think that Blue Jay Barrens is no longer a cause of the spread of this noxious shrub.

First Frost

The temperature dropped to 30 degrees yesterday morning and I decided to slip out back to see if the whiteness on the grass was actually frost. As I went through the door, I saw some neat fog ribbons forming along the hillsides, so I decided to head up The Hill to see if I could get some good photos.

Along the way I verified the first frost of the season. Many people mark the first frost and it’s a safe topic of conversation in most crowds. Ask just anyone if they had frost and they’re more than willing to discuss the subject. If people paid the same attention to all common seasonal events in nature there’d be a lot more opportunities to initiate a conversation with someone you didn’t know. Can you imagine looking at some stranger in the grocery checkout line and saying, “Have the salamanders hit the breeding ponds out your way yet?” That’s enough about that. I’m almost to the top of The Hill.

The little bit of fog is giving us a true starburst sunrise.

As temperatures begin to change, ribbons of fog flow like a river. It looks as though the fog is trying to out run the rising sun in an attempt to continue its existence for a little while longer.

Fog untouched by the sun remains less concentrated. As the sun continued to rise, the rest of the band turned to a thin ribbon before dissipating completely.

The band of fog along the woods has almost completely disappeared. Just a final streamer left and enough haze to make it look as though my camera lens is dirty.

The Hill is at a lower elevation than the wooded ridge, so the sun has not yet reached this point. The formation and disappearance of the fog ribbons was completed in a matter of minutes. If I had been five minutes later I would have missed the whole thing. As I stood in the ice covered grass watching the last of the fog disappear, I just wished I had something more substantial on my feet than an old pair of worn out Chucks. I was correct in my original assumption that I didn’t have time to change into warmer footwear before running up The Hill, but that didn’t make my feet feel any better.