Dichotomous key (II) - opposite (and sub-opposite)

Decussate opposite branching - each pair offset 90deg in sugar maple (Acer saccharum).

This post is mostly a reiteration and expansion of some of the notes from the previous post on branching patterns. There are relatively few trees/shrubs that have opposite branches. If we have an opposite or subopposite species we can use the mnemonic MAD Capped Bucking Horse. Usually it's just MAD Cap Horse, but since we're using shrubs here too, I called it a MAD Capped Bucking Horse.

Maple
Ash
Dogwood
Caprifoliaceae
Buckthorn
Horse chestnut

Boxelder (Acer negundo) with branches offset at about 90degrees

Both alternate and opposite branches can have the nodes arranged around the stem in another pattern. The first, and far more common, is called decussate. Decussate branches have nodes at right angles to the pair above and/or below. By alternating placement, the tree maximizes the amount of light each branch receives.

Winged euonymus (Euonymus alatus) branch tending towards distichous branching

Distichous branches, on the other hand, run in two parallel lines up the branch. We don't have any distichous opposite branched trees in Vermont. It's a common growth pattern in understory trees that tend to arc out and flatten at the top, like musclewood or hophornbeam, in order to maximize access to sunlight. If you're growing vertically it doesn't make a whole lot of sense as this would shade out the leaves/branches below.



If you're growing mostly vertical, it makes sense to be decussate (branches offset 90deg), but for branches that flatten out, reaching to the sides of the bole, or trunk, for sunlight, a distichous pattern makes a whole lot of sense. While out today I noticed that the lowest branches on sugar maples are showed a functional distichous pattern. That is, for the most part, they had cut off growth of branches that grew along a vertical plane. I noticed on white ash that I looked at afterwards that the branches were mostly following this pattern, and in places where the vertical branches were still growing, the one away from the sun tended to be significantly longer. That way it could still harness sunlight while not shading out leaves adjacent to it.




Here in Vermont, we only find pronounced sub-opposite branching in buckthorns (common buckthorn, as shown above, and glossy buckthorn shown on the previous post). The faster a twig grows, the more offset are its paired buds. This can even be seen in species other than buckthorns. Once I started looking I noticed this on ash, though the distance they're offset was at most negligible. Glossy buckthorn appears primarily alternate. 

Fishers!

What: With the winter pretty sloggy and crummy, I thought I'd replace some of my time out wandering with my game cam. Part of the inspiration to put it back up again was a road kill coyote carcass my friend skinned. Yard and I placed the carcass out near Centennial Woods to see if we might get a video of the gray fox I'd been tracking earlier in the winter (haven't seen tracks from it in a few weeks). With the warm weather we were hopeful. While we didn't get the fox, we did get an even better surprise! A few weeks ago, there was some banter on Front Porch Forum about fisher sightings. This is from March 8:

This morning at around 5:45 I saw a cat-sized critter that had a snout and puffy tail run by between the Centennial apartments and cohousing townhouses. It was a little too dark to see color clearly, though I could see that the fur was at least somewhat dark. At first I thought fox, but then thought fisher. Has anyone else seen one lately?

Someone sent a follow up response on March 9:

I too saw a fisher late last week - running through the woods between Latham Court & Thibault Parkway, headed in Colchester Ave. direction. Same time frame - just before dawn. Kitty owners be aware - keep your lovebugs indoors at night! These guys don't fool around. 

While I've seen fishers and tracked them throughout the area, I was skeptical since I hadn't seen any sign this winter of fishers in/around Centennial Woods. I looked for tracks following the second posting and only saw the regular raccoon, possum, house cat, and domestic dogs. Sam spotted a woodchuck out in our yard around the 15th, so it could have been a sleepy whistlepig checking the weather (woodchuck comes from the Cree word, wuchek, which means, you guessed it, fisher; apparently early whites couldn't tell the difference between the two animals and confused the term).

Not that my video confirms that my neighbors saw a fisher, but it certainly indicates that this is possible. The fisher in the video is most likely a male (males are significantly larger than females, almost twice as big). Males also have much larger home ranges than females (up to ~7 miles in winter, but in Burlington this could be smaller with the abundance of squirrels, particularly red squirrels in and around Centennial Woods), so their spotty presence may be due to patrolling their territory.

We also captured squirrels interacting with the carcass, which was pretty interesting to watch.

Beavers in winter

What: On our wander, I wanted to show Clay the new beaver pond. Clay and I have been exploring the various iterations of beaver ponds in Centennial for about 5 years now and he hadn't seen the new neighbors since they moved in sometime around the beginning of October.

Ecological notes: For the 4th year in a row, beavers adopted Centennial Woods in the middle of fall, which is a rather late start as far as beavers go. Typically beavers have their winter homes already staked out and built up by the end of summer. In a new area without previous beaver structures, they'll first dam up the river and live in a burrow in the bank while raising water levels high enough to where they can build a lodge in the newly formed pond. They won't start caching (storing for later) food to last them through the winter until sometime in the fall when the trees have stored more sugars in the bark. To be doing all of this in the late fall is quite the herculean effort.

Three years ago a family moved in after Hurricane Irene, made it through the winter and left in the spring. This repeated the past two years as well, and not to disappoint, beavers moved back in this fall around the beginning of October.

I've been away the last month and went to check in on them as soon as I got back. The pond is open thanks to the recent rains and warmer weather and their dam is active and in good shape. No lodge, so they must be nesting in a bank, but haven't found that spot yet.

Where: Centennial Woods, upstream for Fox Meadow by Centennial Field.

Butternut Bud says hello

Butternut twig

It's been a while since I've posted and I've wanted to get back in the habit for a while. My friend, Clay, was in town visiting and we took advantage of the delightful snow for a winter wander. I brought my camera along and took a few pictures of the beaver pond that I'll post in the next few days.

Commas and cloaks

Adult Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma)

What: It's been a busy couple of weeks wrapping up my semester at CCV and starting to wrap up at Crow's Path for the Spring. Today I did find a cormorant skull, that I'll post photos of in a few days. In the meantime, enjoy these photos of an eastern comma and a mourning cloak. They're among our first butterflies to emerge in the spring. Now with the prolonged warm weather and appearance of more and more flowers (how about all that celandine along the bike path, marigold along mucky drainages, and gorgeous and subtle green flowers of striped maple?) there are many more adult butterflies and moths appearing.

Overwintered adult mourning cloak (Nymphalis antiopa)

Ecological notes: While out in Centennial Woods a couple of weeks ago I was watching a couple dozen or so mourning cloaks flitting around. Occasionally they'd come into another's territory and they'd spiral whimsically up into the sky together. It was elegant and graceful and then the awkward comma would get all huffy and jump into the mix. At first it seemed confused, like it didn't know that the mourning cloaks weren't possible mates. But then it seemed more like it was getting angry that the mourning cloaks were in its breeding area and was just trying to chase them away. The tiny drama was endearing in that condescending, anthropomorphic kind of way.

Both species breed in the spring, and this is the only time of year this territorial behavior is observed. Apparently my theory of defending breeding areas has largely been dispelled in recent years according to a local entomologist, but it seemed the easiest and most obvious explanation. More appealing than, "the commas get confused and can't tell the mourning cloaks from a female comma").

Where: Centennial Woods

The three hares - May 1

What: The month of green! I had meant to get this up a couple of days ago, but didn't have a chance. The snow has melted and our woods and lawns now have a greenish tint to them! So exciting. The powerlines still seem a bit drab, but there's lots of fiddleheads from cinnamon, interrupted, and sensitive fern coming up in the area and the sumac buds are bursting (they're the straight sticks in the foreground). Phragmites (the light brown reeds along the brook) shoots are erupting.

Phenology notes from previous month:

• Osprey nesting
• Woodcocks "peent"ing
• Spring ephemerals coming up (e.g. bloodroot, hepatica, spring beauty)
• Grass greening
• First dandelions coming up
• Spring migrants arrive in droves, big flush still to come
• Colder species of amphibians singing in full force (toads, treefrogs, bullfrogs still to make their full debut)
• First leaves appearing in understory
• Maples starting to leaf out
• Sapsuckers returning, as second flush of sap starts flow (as non-maple species start to get sap flowing)
• Woodchucks are out and about
• First warm nights
• First 70 degree weather
• Fireflies out and about, not mating yet
• Shorts and t-shirts abound!
• Snow and ice has all melted
• Dawn chorus is louder and louder (starting around 5am with robins then chickadees then cardinals then song sparrows, at least near my house).

The Three Hares (April 2013)

What: Quite a few things have changed in the woods since last month (see list below), but don't show up so much in the video. And it's been a year since I started posting (141 posts so far). Last March was significantly different than this year, with that crazy 80 degree weather that gave us a head start on everything. This time last year most of the shrubs had tiny leaves on them and my yard was carpeted with Scilla (see archived posts from last March here).

Phenology notes from this previous month: 

• Winooski River is navigable again
• Great Blue Herons back
• First amphibian movement of year
• Killdeer and lots of ducks in water
• Beaver (retention) pond burst, ice broke after pond drained
• Scilla (or Siberian squill) is coming up
• Daylilies and hasta coming up
• Scarlet cup fungus fruited
• Flying insects (blow flies on coyote carcass)
• Dawn chorus is starting (robins first to sing at around 6am followed by cardinals)
• Geese flying over head en masse
• Ravens with nesting material, chickadees investigating nest box, woodpeckers drumming
• Buds swelling on maples, flower buds about to open
• Ground thawed (no earthworms yet though)
• Maple sap is buddy

Other notes: Also, in the biggest news in 20 years, Jurassic Park is being released again - in 3D!!

Of shrews and owls

What: On Saturday Nathan and I went for a wander in Centennial Woods. We were exploring the lower stretches of Centennial Brook in Fox Marsh when we heard some crows making a ruckus to our East. We decided to track down the birds and see what the fuss was all about. Turns out the crows were harassing a barred owl that seemed more interested in napping than paying attention to the crows. After about 15 minutes the crows left the owl at peace. It was interesting to watch the owl over then next 45 minutes or so because any time a crow flew nearby it would caw, just to remind the owl they knew it was there. We walked back to my house to get better binoculars and my camera and the owl was still there by the time we got back. I snapped a couple of pictures of the owl perched near the top of an old white pine.

Short-tailed shrew skull found in barred owl pellet

Ecological notes: I've found a few owl pellets recently, (coincidentally?) all at the base of old white pines. The last one I pried apart was on the small end of pellets, but still had one vole and one shrew skull in it. The shrew skull was beautiful - I've always been drawn to the purple on the enamel of the teeth (as in rodents, the color is due to an iron pigment). Rodents have iron pigments on their incisors and softer exposed dentine (our dentine is hidden beneath our enamel) to maintain a sharp chisel edge. Anemic rats have been found to lack the pigmentation on their incisors! Older scientific articles speculated that the coloration could have been used as a signal (making the teeth visible when the animal grins aggressively). I doubt that, as white is equally visible. In shrews, it could signal health (redder teeth means more virility, as red feathers indicate virility in male cardinals, flamingos, etc).

Challenge: Find its eyes (or ears)!

I'd put more money on it being an architectural thing, increasing the strength of the teeth. Shrews are insectivores (in the order Insectivora, along with moles, neither of which are related to rodents; rodents, in fact, are closer to humans than shrews; shrews are closer to elephants than rodents like voles). Their diet consists primarily of arthropods (those six-legged bugs), which have hard shells. If you ate nothing but crab and had to chew through their shells with your teeth you could imagine your teeth would wear down pretty quickly. Reinforced teeth help their teeth last longer, though most shrews don't live past a year. Mira also found a short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda) in Centennial Woods last week, which would be about the 6th this winter that showed no outward sign of any trauma.

Right front of short-tailed shrew

Rear feet of short-tailed shrew

Some observations we made about the shrew:

• They have super short hair that rubs well both forward and back (possibly for entering unknown tunnels in search of prey)
• They have large ear openings, but the external ear itself is super small
• Their eyes are all but absent
• Their whiskers are very prominent up the snout
• The snout seemed to have the same reddish purple color that the teeth have
• Their claws were exceptionally long

Where: Centennial Woods

Other notes: Almost exactly a year ago I spotted a barred owl in the same spot in the same way. I had actually followed the crows to a nearby spot where they were mobbing a red-tailed hawk.

At the end of every trail...

What: Brian came downstairs yipping about a red fox in the parking lot. A minute later Meryl came down equally excited. We threw on our shoes and headed out into the beautiful snow. We picked up the tracks circling along the edge of cedars then along the powerline substation by UVM Facilities office and Centennial Field. In the photo below the fox demonstrates a near perfect direct register trot. In this gait the animal's rear foot lands exactly where the front foot landed. The 3rd, 5th, and 7th prints appear wider where the animal slips from the direct register just slightly. The front foot, which is larger (as with all canines) and appears under the imprint of the rear foot, is offset to the right, where the fox was probably looking to the right (up the road to East Ave).

We came to a very very small crack in the fence that it had scooted under. Weirdest thing is to think how that little opening got there, as it seemed deliberate. Could the foxes have worked up the fence over time? It'd be tough for even a human to bend that fence. The fence is other wise in perfect shape and it's on the side that doesn't have any traffic so it's hard to imagine it accidentally getting formed. Regardless, it makes for a nice escape hatch (as when being pursued by a pair of humans).

On the east end of the substation, there's another gap in the fence that the fox slithered through before making its way down the rocks towards the dumpster. See if you can spot the fox in the image below. Brian and I watched the fox for a bit tugging away at the ground before slowly stalking up on it. 

As we got closer, it looked like it was trying to get under the plow. When we got about 35' away we scared the fox off and were able to investigate what it was investigating. We found a dead squirrel tangled in a pile of trash (smelled really really bad). The fox ran around the fence and hid under the building you can see in the above image.

Where: UVM Facilities/Centennial Field

Other notes: As we approached another fox of equal size got spooked and headed over to the south where the mulch piles are. The weirdest thing was that the fox was white. Or rather, it seemed like a darker colored fox that had its coat covered in snow. Brian and I were both covered in snow after being out about 30 minutes, so not unlikely, but still seemed weird - albino foxes in CW?

Wind crusts and all that snow

What: I went for a walk with Jon yesterday and while there was certainly a lot of snow on the ground, almost all of the snow in the trees had come down. I started thinking about all of the other ways I might observe wind. I was at Rock Point Friday night and by Saturday morning the winds had picked up and cleared out the thin layer of slush in Little Eagle Bay (what we call Mink Bay) and replaced it with stacks of ice plates. The winds picked up all day and by the afternoon they were stinging our noses. Because of the cold, the snow was "dry". But the wind had dried the snow right up, and sure enough it slid right off of railings, my car, and anything else it was perched unto.

The dryness of the snow meant that by late morning almost all the snow had come down off the deciduous trees and conifers that weren't sheltered by other conifers. I tried to capture the grace of snow clouds drifting whimsically through the woods but couldn't quite get it. I think it needed video.

Deep wells had formed at the base of most of the larger trees indicating sustained unidirectional winds that had carved gullies where eddy currents downwind of the trees. The trees all had gullies on the south sides, and sure enough our winds were out of the north.

Jon commented on the lack of scale with snow. I think topography is one of the easier things to confuse my sense of scale. Looking at ripples in the sandy basin of a river I can easily imagine running across sand dunes. Looking down at a snowy aster poking up through the snow I was immediately transported out onto the vast open tundra.

Ecological notes: Crusts on the top of snow form in three ways. 1) Sun crusts (aka spring crusts) form when the sun melts surface snow, which then refreezes. 2) Freezing rain: supercooled rain falls and freezes when it hits the snow surface, forming a solid crust (other surface water processes could be included here), and 3) wind crusts, which form as wind breaks up flakes and packs them together.

Hemlock, the patient one

What: Even with the leaves off the trees and sounds (particularly I-89) filtering through the woods with reckless abandon, there's still a peacefulness to the movements of the woods in winter. While walking across the Winooski Bridge I admired the slow undulating flaps of a Cooper's hawk above and the odd oscillations of the water bubbling back and forth off the ice as it came to a halt in front of the dam. The hawk flitted gracefully to the west, cut a quiet line through dense air and alighted on a distant smoke stack.

There's an equal grace and peacefulness to the slow bending of a hemlock - what I call the Winter Tree - under the sway of the wind. Among the conifers, hemlock stands out to me as such a delicate and deeply cold tree. The rich green of the foliage feels more like the shadow of a leaf, like the tree was born in winter only to endure summer each year.

The branch above is about 2 3/4" across

Enduring the summer means slooooow growth. I was out harvesting wood for coasters, and I found a giant old hemlock that had come down across Wool Pullery Brook in South Burlington. I cut the branch from the trees in the photos at the top (about 35' from the trunk) right at the base where it came off of the tree (if the tree were still standing the branch would have been about 25' up). Hemlocks are about the most shade tolerant species, and a single hemlock needle can live for up to 40 years (in part because it can deal with as little as 10% light and still photosynthesize enough for the plant to keep it around; for contrast, white pines are far less tolerant of shade and lose about half their needles each year).

I guess I shouldn't have been, but I was surprised at how ancient the branch was given its size. It was too hard to count the rings by eye so I sanded and finished the "cookie", photographed it, then ramped up the contrast. Each arrow represents 10 years of growth. The rings were extremely tight, and there's a distinct boundary between the heartwood and sapwood (sapwood is the lighter section of rings on the outside). The branch was much less resinous farther out, indicating that the distinction was largely due to the tree needing extra support in holding up that branch for 106 years.

Where: Hemlocks grow at extremes - there are hemlock swamps and there are steep rocky hemlock slopes. It can grow in the shadiest of places, less than about 10% light. This tree was growing along Wool Pullery Brook in Centennial Woods.

The Three Hares

What: Welcome to a new series of posts I'm calling "The Three Hares". On the first of each month I'll be posting a 15 second video of the same spot. My sister and I went out to Centennial Woods yesterday to scout out a place to film. It was a little daunting because in ten years from now I want to reflect back and be happy with my choice. I wanted the spot to be open and have water flowing through it. I wound up choosing two perspectives in case the sumacs in the above video block out the perspective. Enjoy!

Where: The confluence of Centennial and Wool Pullery Brooks.  

Other notes: The Three Hares name is a riff on Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit (also "White Rabbit") - a superstition that started in the early 1900s. Supposedly, saying the phrase (or some iteration of it) before anything else on the first of the month brings good luck. The iconic three hares motif (a depiction of three hares chasing each other in a circle, each sharing an ear with the other two rabbits) may be the inspiration for the superstition. The three hares motif is an ancient Chinese symbol, with the first known etching dating to the 6th century. Most of the ancient examples are along the Silk Road, and there's speculation that the motif was brought to Europe by merchant traders in the 15th century. The symbol is featured in prominent places in a number of churches in England.

Rabbits are often seen as a symbol of good fortune, and I can imagine a little English child sitting in church learning about all the ways she'd done wrong, sinning and such, and felt like she needed a little bit of good luck on a dreary winter day. Perhaps she'd imagine follow a most curious white beast down its rabbit hole. Much like the Easter bunny brought tidings of spring, warmth, love, rejuvenation, the rabbit of her imagination would bring her hope, happiness, and warmth. Since she couldn't get a rabbit's foot to wear as an amulet, she and her younger brother came up with a little ceremony to ward of bad spirits for the whole of the month. It offered risk and adventure - what if they forgot - would they be cursed? - and also made all those odd symbols around the church make a little more sense, at least in their own little way. So some creative license, but why not. Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit.

Beavers in the Retention Pond (Part VI)

What: 7Days just published an article about the beaver situation. Thanks to all the people that have gotten in touch with me about ways in which they can help. I was called a "renegade" by one staff at UVM Grounds, which was unfortunate to be labeled a renegade for making public what's happening on public land. Though, I suppose I'd be in alright company. In Thoreau's Civil Disobedience he writes, "But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it." So for all the people that have gotten in touch with me (from around the country too!!) asking how they might get involved, I encourage you to speak up, to let folks at UVM know what you want to see happen, whether you agree with me, them, both, or none of us. Simply let your voice be heard.

I'd start by reaching out to me, Enrique Corredera, who is the director for UVM communications, and Sal Chiarelli, Director of Physical Plant. You can also write letters to the editor to comment on the 7Days article. As Alicia said in the article, this isn't a case about good vs bad. There are cases to be made for many different solutions, so it's important to be strong, but open minded in this; as were Afrika Bambaataa's renegades of funk.

As mentioned in the article the three initial conibear traps were removed by someone walking into an unmarked, retention pond with a gate wide open. In response UVM started locking the gate and put up no trespassing signs to secure the new traps the hired trapper set on the berm between the upper pond and lower pond (I've seen deer on several occasions in the retention pond, though even with gates locked the deer could walk in through one of the other large holes in the fence). So accessing the pond would now be a legal violation (I think this statute covers the possible repercussions, though there may be others as I don't know the legal system).

Last year NPR's Fresh Air had a special celebrating 100 years of Woody Guthrie. They talked about a verse often edited out of "This Land is Your Land":

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

Other notes: I'd also like to expand on Katie Flagg's use of the word tame in her article. To me that word is less like the domesticated use of it (like kitty-pets in Erin Hunter's Warriors series), and more like the meaning Antoine de Saint-Exupery describes so poetically in his book The Little Prince:

"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean-- 'tame'?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."
"'To establish ties'?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."
"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower... I think that she has tamed me..."

Beavers in the retention pond (Part V)

What: I've just finished editing and touching up my students' entries to the Natural History Dictionary. Took a lot longer than I hoped, but it's certainly worth it. Definitely a work in progress, but I think it's shaping up to be something really really helpful and fascinating!!

So last Friday the kill traps went back up. UVM has killed at least one of the beavers so far, and another one went missing since last Thursday (with finishing up grading I haven't been able to spend as much time out there, so there very well could still be three left, but I was only been able to see/hear 2 last night; all the time spent grading means that this footage is all old). I'm not universally opposed to trapping, I just think in this case it's being done irresponsibly (ecologically and in terms of the community perspective), in a short-sighted way, and as a result of prior ineptitude.

UVM Grounds won't respond to my questions about the process involved or why it's so imperative to kill them - an unfortunate lack of transparency - so I'll speculate based on personal observation and what I've heard second hand. From what I gather the beavers have to go because part of the requirement for managing the retention pond (built as a mitigation for paving the parking lot next to the Centennial Field) includes monitoring and managing for both water quality and water height. Apparently they have to check these every month to meet legal obligations. Water height is an easy one, but I would assume they're either not doing it regularly or doing it poorly as the beavers have been there for 4.5 out of the last 7 months (a 2 month stretch from June to late July, and again from late September until now). Most of that time the water has been about 4' higher than normal.

As for pollution, I don't know how beavers being there would make any difference or what kind of pollution they'd be measuring (biological or chemical). It's not like any of the vegetation is doing any biofiltering of anything this time of year. And the volume of water flowing out should be the same as if the water were 5' lower. Beavers don't really carry rabies and there's never been a rodent-to-human infection, not that that should be a concern (if it was they'd probably want to do something about the raccoon population.

Beaver scat! A rare site! Basically it's just saw dust. This is from Mill Pond 

Humans are far more likely to carry giardia than beavers (beaver fever's a misnomer - most birds and mammals can carry the parasite, and people get giardia when they go camping usually not because they drink contaminated water but because their hygiene goes down the tubes). A study in the northeast found that muskrats had a prevalence of for trophozoites (the stage where the parasites is actually parasitizing, rather than just being transferred from beast to beast) of 96%!!! while for beavers it was less than 15%. There are two muskrats living in the lodge with the beavers and were here well before the beavers established their home and will be here well after (they don't share the same resource depletion strategy as beavers). It seems unreasonable that they'd be testing for Giardia sp., however, and I'm sure there's another reason why the beavers need to go. I'd love to know...

Where: Retention pond under powerlines in Centennial Woods

The amazing capacity of beech to stump sprout. Look at all those latent buds! 

Wild hive!!

What: Conner Roberts, a student in my CCV class Natural History of Vermont, found a wild hive of bees in our last class. We weren't sure at first if it was active, but putting my ear up to the hole you could definitely hear a buzz coming from inside!! When I took Zac out to see the hive he knocked and you could hear a furious buzz emanate from the hive.

I wish I could age the honeycomb based on color and texture so we could estimate how long the cavity had been inhabited by bees. Zac and I assumed that it was at least a couple of seasons old as the comb at the bottom (image below to right) was super dark and dense. The comb hanging down (image on left) seems like it's from this most recent season.

Ecological notes: A lot of folks ask me what bees do in the winter. They are such excellent pollinators because they need to collect and store enough nectar to sustain a population of a few thousand during the winter. The nectar is fanned and evaporated down into honey, then capped and store to be eaten during the long winter. The honey fulls their little bodies as they huddle and shiver to maintain the hive at a temperature of around 80 degrees! By staying active, they generate heat (much like running around or doing jumping jacks to stay warm on a cold day.

Pulp at base of pine (about 1/2" thick,
mix of pulp, seeds, and bee carcasses!

Where: Centennial Woods, old (maybe 150 year old) white pine tree that died about 15 years ago in the 1998 Ice Storm. The scar was created much longer ago and there had been enough time for carpenter ants to invade the tree, hollow much of it out, and then abandon their nest. I'll post more on the 1998 ice storm sometime this winter.

Other notes: Zac brought up the idea of search image. This is the second wild hive I've found, and they share quite a few features. Here's what we noticed that might help us cue in to future sites for a wild hive

• Near an open field (about 20' back from edge)
• Within 100' of flowing water 
• In a hollow white pine
• White pine had several pileated holes in it (both were hollowed out by carpenter ants)
• Lots of pulp at base of tree
• Opening to hive elongated vertically, one hive was about 5" tall, this one was closer to 15"

Beavers in the Retention Pond (Part IV)

I'd love to not be posting exclusively on beavers, but they've been on my mind an awful lot these last couple of months. Other stuff is still happening (like a wild hive of honey bees a student of mine found nestled in an old white pine), so more to come on that later.

Other notes: Following up on my Monday post, the second reason that I'm upset by the way the "beaver problem" was handled is that it shows a lack of transparency and input from public voice. It's not surprising that Centennial Woods holds a dear spot in many people's hearts. Every time the University or City proposes some other development in or around CW, it just galvanizes the residents and students that love it. We want to have a say in the shaping and management of CW, to make sure that the emotional connection, and personal experience of the woods holds weight in how the land gets managed and stewarded. The decision (and lack of public input) doesn't appear to take this in to consideration; it doesn't even show a huge consideration for or knowledge of the ecology of that area. Even if Fish & Wildlife said that the beavers could be trapped and not moved, that doesn't mean that that's the other only option. I see two sets of options.

The first in relation to the beavers:
1. Trap all the beavers
2. Relocate the beavers
3. Do nothing
4. Wait until spring to see if beavers leave on their own, and then return to questions 1-3

The second set of options is what to do after the beavers are gone
1. Install beaver baffles around the outflow pipes
2. Cut down trees around pond to remove habitat
3. Do nothing

I'd prefer options 4 and 1. Again, people love this area and want input. Much like CW, few animals are as charismatic as a beaver is. These beavers in particular had become small-time celebrities - so when FWS says "yeah, go ahead and trap them" their comment is on one hand practical and on the otherhand completely ignorant of the context of this specific case - how embedded in the education of many students and hearts of community members these beavers were.

Two of the boys I mentor, one 7 the other 9, came out to Centennial Brook with me last year to meet the parents of one pair of these beavers. When I told the older boy the beavers had moved back in to Centennial Woods, he gathered up a group of his friends and brought them out to meet these beavers. While out visiting the beavers, Sam (the TA for my Natural History of Centennial Woods class) ran into them and they exchanged stories and watched three beavers making last minute preparations for winter, caching beech, cherry, and birch saplings near their lodge. The following day the boy brought his mom and grandma to the pond to meet Melvin and the other two beavers. I got to follow up with them and exchange more stories. Almost every time I go to the pond I meet up with someone down there and we share stories. The beavers have become an anchor for those of us who are connected to Centennial Woods.

It would be amazing if management decisions as sensitive as this were based not on relative ease, but took time and weighed multiple options with multiple voices. It might take more time, but it would empower community members and students to share their voice and make sure that management decisions reflect the needs, desires, and heart of the community that they effect. It'd be great if making "the right decision" included more that just a dialog about how to maintain the functionality of the outflow pipe. How wonderful if the list of consultants contacted for this decision included people deeply connected to the land, who knew this land not from a distance, but hold its stories in their hearts.

Brains!!

What: While out at the retention pond in Centennial Woods the other day I spotted a most gruesome scene. Actually, within a little more than a square foot there were three cool finds. See if you can spot them (or at least what I thought was cool) in the photo above.

1. Golf ball. I've seen staff from UVM Grounds on numerous occasions hitting golf balls down into the retention pond. I picked up about a dozen yesterday. Most of them are driving range balls, but occasionally a nicer Titleist ball will show up.

2. Deer scat. A neighbor tipped me off a couple years ago that in the winter, deer in the area often spent their mornings grazing on the north side of the retention pond. That slope has great southern exposure and gets warmer before the other areas - it also has a lot of ground cover. I was surprised, however, to find a few fresh piles of deer scat in the ponded area. I haven't seen their tracks within the fence in the past few years.

3. De-brained short-tailed shrew (Blarina brevicauda). Easily the coolest find was a de-brained short-tailed shrews. Much like grizzlies that eat salmon heads during the salmon runs, in times of plenty members of the weasel family (Mustelidae) will consume only the most delectable parts of their prey. And apparently for weasels that's the brain. According to Mark Elbroch, chipmunks will also eat the brains of mice and leave the rest, which was news to me as I didn't know that chipmunks would eat prey that large.

Shrews are toxic to most mammals (they secrete a venom in their saliva that helps incapacitate larger prey). A mammalogist friend got bit by one a few years back and his arm went numb - imagine the effects on a green frog! I have found two half digested shrews thrown up by red foxes. Here the mink ate it's brains and so didn't have to worry about poisonous saliva. I assumed mink (Mustela vison) and not one of the other smaller weasels (long- and short-tailed weasels) as there were tracks about 15' away in a little stream. Mink also prefer aquatic habitats.

It was a pretty neat find and the second mink kill in that spot in the last couple of weeks.

Where: Centennial Woods

Other notes: Miraculously the fourth beaver (well now the third since UVM killed one of them) showed up again. While out the other night I could see two of them and heard a third making a low grunting noise. All three of them, at about the same time, started making that noise. It reminded me of when my chickens make a really uncomfortable clucking sound when our backyard woodchuck comes around. It's not a sign of imminent danger, but a signal that another presence is in the area - I wondered if the beavers were grunting at the fox that I've seen tracks from in the last week.

Beavers in the retention pond (Part III)

Please consider subscribing to follow the tumultuous and tenuous existence of an urban beaver (and other tales from the urban wilds). To follow this blog, enter your email in box to the right. Thanks!

Beaver clearing trail for a beech sapling

What: Centennial Woods feels a bit emptier today. On Friday afternoon I got the very sad news that UVM was kill trapping the beavers that many of us have come to know so well.

What I know so far is that they have killed one of the three beavers, the one we called Melvin, using conibear traps. There are three conibear traps set up on well-worn trails running between the upper and lower reservoirs of the retention pond. Conibear traps are incredibly effective at killing animals. While they can be baited, these aren't. UVM hasn't locked or closed the gate to the detention pond in over a year and with regularity I find mink, gray fox, raccoon, red fox, deer, domestic dog, and domestic cat tracks in the pond (this morning fresh raccoon and red fox tracks on the wet snow inside the gate). While the traps weren't baited when I checked them, they're located in access points the beavers use with regularity. Trappers place traps where their quarry go. And where their quarry go so do their predators - or anything curious about their scent. This is why Conibear traps also kill so many beagles and other domestic dogs that investigate the one place around a beaver pond where a beaver leaves its scent on the ground (you can find lots of depressing articles on beagles found dead in these types of traps).

Sam and I spooked the beaver while

coming down to check the game cam

Rose Leland told me on Friday that this was the best course of action and that everyone they had talked to recommended this. I find this problematic for two main reasons. I'll post my first here, and the second in a couple of days. First, it's irresponsible management. The beavers had obviously moved in during the summer, immediately backing up the outflow pipe, felling several large beech trees that landed on the fence, and built a visible lodge. All of this is easily visible from UVM's Ground's office and the spot where UVM Grounds employees hit golf balls down into Centennial Woods. They clearly could have seen the effects the beavers were having.

If the beavers were indeed a problem, UVM could have done something at that time to a) beaver-proof the fence around the retention pond, and/or b) transplanted the beavers. The beavers did move out of the pond sometime during the late summer (perhaps UVM did transplant the beavers). But because the habitat and access to it still existed, it would only be reasonable to assume that beavers would return, which they did in late September. Again the signs of their presence was obvious. UVM's negligence in dealing with this until December (almost 10 weeks later), meant that options were severely limited as it's now too late in the season to transplant them. But even the assumption that killing them is the only way to deal with them (if you believe dealing with them is even necessary) is false as beavers have been known to adopt other beavers in their home territory. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the initial pair of beavers adopted the second pair after UVM destroyed their habitat at the other retention pond. An assumption on my part, but due to last year's long growing season and tame winter, beavers this year should be better off and have larger caches. They would, therefore, be more likely to adopt other beavers. Had UVM responded sooner we wouldn't be mourning the loss of a beaver that had touched the lives of so many.

Beavers in the retention pond (part II)

What: I went back and set the game cam up further back from the fence. It doesn't quite capture them crawling under the fence (I put it too far back), but it does give a pretty good sense of how curious and observant they are. They definitely, in both this video and the previous one, noticed the game cam and spent time to investigate it.

Ecological notes: The three or four beavers that live in the pond are two pairs. The second pair moved in about 4 weeks ago when UVM Facilities destroyed the habitat surrounding the other constructed retention pond by the Sheraton. With no food the beavers headed down stream, found this pond and took up residency with them.

I think that two of the beavers were siblings (one from each pair). And I think that they're probably also the same beavers that were living here last spring. Sam and I have both been watching the beavers in the spring, and it took time to earn their trust (where they wouldn't slap their tails at us). I would assume that this beaver remembered me (and the trust it had for me), which is why it only took a couple times to have it come right back up to me.

Where: Retention pond in Centennial Woods.

Beavers in the retention pond (Part I)

What: Sam and I went out last Tuesday afternoon (11/27) to set up the game cam. They've got a number of trails that run under the fence around the retention pond that they've used so we decided to stash some aspen on the uphill side of the fence and put the game cam facing the water on the downhill side so we could get video of them dragging the branches back to the water.

We got about 70 videos starting at 4:30pm and ending around 4:30am. The beavers used the path about every 30-45 minutes or so for the whole 12 hours. The video is a compilation of the three beavers making foraging trips from the retention pond to the beech stand (we caught about a dozen trips on camera). The photo to the right is of our second set up to get shots of the beavers crawling under the fence. The game cam is attached to the beech log in the foreground.

Ecological notes: There were 4 beavers in the pond three weeks ago, but we've only seen 3 at a time in the past couple of weeks. Their cache seems to be primarily beech, with some red maple, white ash, elm, white birch, and witch hazel in the mix. They've also been eating heaps of staghorn sumac, scant black cherry saplings, and an occasional glossy buckthorn. Stay tuned, as there are more videos to come (with all the warm weather, the pond should stay thawed for at least another week or so and they'll be out and about)!!

Where: Retention Pond under powerlines in Centennial Woods