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).

Warm water and drainages

Green frog tadpole in pool at base of outflow pipe

What: Last fall the DOT put in a culvert running under I-89 about a quarter mile north of the Patchen Road bridge. They put a bunch of monkton quartzite boulders down to control flow below the culvert. The culvert is actually two pipes, one of which has a significantly slower flow. I was absent mindedly staring into the water watching detritus float whimsically downstream when a flash of movement caught my attention. It took a while for it to move again and when it did I was really surprised at spotting a tadpole!

Ecological notes: Green frogs, bullfrogs, and mink frogs (mink frogs are only found in the northeast kingdom) all have tadpoles that will overwinter. These little guys are green frog tadpoles. There were also some unknown (at least to me) species of fish. One that I was watching had its head pointed straight down into the muck (for more on what that muck was, you can visit one of my favorite websites).

Where: I-89 & Patchen Rd in South Burlington

Unknown fish species enjoying the relatively warm water (probably ~50 degrees) 

Other notes: Ground water temperature is roughly the same as the average annual temperature of that area. Here in Burlington it's roughly 45oF. So if you're a fish and the air is 27, it makes a lot of sense to huddle at springs and culverts where ground water meets the surface.

Ostrich & cinnamon fern fiddleheads, false hellebore popping up

What: I noticed a few very young patches of ostrich fern fiddleheads, Matteuccia struthiopteris (pictured first) coming up along Wool Pullery Brook. Cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) ** This was mislabled by me and is actually interrupted fern. IF has sporangia on the fronds - see first image - while CF has separate fertile fronds. Also, CF has a more orange color while IF is whiter ** was also coming up (second photo); I'm not sure, but I believe that the two small fiddleheads at the base of the much taller ones are the fertile fronds - I'll have to go back to double check. It's been extremely dry here the past couple of weeks and the water table is much lower than I'd expect in April. But the 80degree weather has pushed a lot of plants up and the aspen leaves in particular are a beautiful lime green. Also mixed in with the ostrich fern was false hellebore (Veratrum viride), in the lily family, trillium family, or Melanthiaceae.

Ecological notes: I don't know exactly what the chemical that causes it is, but the false hellebore smelled a lot like Italian herb bread crumbs. My theory on the strong smell (e.g. skunk cabbage) and toxicity (e.g. blue cohosh) of many spring ephemerals is as a defense against all those half-starved animals that made it through the winter and are looking for the first green vegetables. Might not be a big deal for larger mammals like us or deer, but the ptaquiloside in bracken fern, glycosides in marsh marigold, or caulophyllosaponin in blue cohosh, but to mice, squirrels, insects and other leaf eaters they would be toxic. There might be a strong selective pressure for early plants to equip themselves disproportionately to fend off hungry mouths.

Where: The ostrich fern seemed to be slightly higher up from the river than the false hellebore, maybe slightly dryer here. The hellebore seems to prefer slightly shadier spots as there are plenty of other stretches of the brook that are similar in other ways except exposure. The patch photographed has been around for at least 4 years, but it's downstream from the most recent beaver pond so the hydrology of the bank hasn't really changed in that time.

Wood frog eggs (revisited)

What: Wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) eggs in a small side pond along Wool Pullery Brook. 

Ecological notes: Our cold weather the other night left a thin sheet of ice. The eggs above the water line froze and collapsed the next day when the weather warmed up. You can see this on the photo on the right. The other eggs seem to still be fine, though haven't shown much sign of development since I first spotted them (March 23rd).

Where: This little pond exists because the beavers dammed up the brook downstream raising the water table and flooding this little depression. If the beavers raise their dam just a couple of inches the pond will be connected to the brook and the fish might make quick work of the tadpoles.

Other notes: Wood frog eggs usually hatch between 10 and 30 days after deposition so we're still on schedule. The eggs are white below and black above. No algae has developed on the eggs yet (again probably because it's been so cold).