Animals and Plants of the Finger Lakes

The Wild Turkey

Thanksgiving Dinner or Courageous American Icon? The Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is surely the most American of birds. Both a totem animal and a major source of protein for many native North Americans, it gave the Europeans a foothold in the New World and has become synonymous with Thanksgiving.

No less a luminary than Benjamin Franklin praised its courage – much greater, he thought, than that of the Bald Eagle.  The natural history of the turkey is intimately intertwined with human history.  The subspecies found in the eastern United States (M. g. silvestris) was hunted by native tribes, who used fire to create the patchwork of mature forest, young forest, and meadows that turkeys prefer.  Another subspecies, now assumed extinct, was domesticated in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica; a third was domesticated in the Southwest.

When this newfangled bird was brought back to England, it was called a “turkie,” perhaps in reference to its supposed “Eastern” origins. (In many European languages – including, ironically, Turkish – the word for “turkey” is related to the word for “India.”)  About a century after this domesticated fowl was brought to Spain by the conquistadors, it was brought back to America by the Pilgrims.

The Wild Turkey has certain biological quirks that allow it to live closely with humans but which sometimes bring it into conflict with people.  It does not defend a home territory against others of its own kind; rather, it lives in relatively large flocks organized by a strict pecking order.  Furthermore, it seems to readily accept people into this order, assigning each human a “gender” and a place in the hierarchy.  A turkey may therefore behave submissively, aggressively, or even seductively toward people, depending on how they are perceived.

Turkey aggression can be rather frightening: a male, known as a “tom” or “gobbler,” can be up to 25 pounds and four feet long and, as Ben Franklin noted, seems to have no fear.  Gobblers acclimated to people may behave quite differently than those in the wild.  Although birds in the rural Finger Lakes seem to be a pretty docile bunch, it is prudent to minimize human-turkey conflicts by never giving the birds access to food (including spilled birdseed) and making sure that you and your neighbors always assert your dominance.

Turkeys have contributed greatly to human welfare, though the reverse has not always been true.  The five subspecies of Wild Turkey originally ranged over most of what is now the continental United States, but their populations were devastated by overhunting and the wholesale conversion of forest into farmland; they disappeared from New York by the 1840s.  However, the tide began to turn in the early 20th century, when many farms in the Northeast were abandoned and reverted to forest.

Around 1948, a population crossed into western New York.  In 1959, some of those birds were trapped and released in other parts of the state.  Today, there are estimated to be ten times as many Wild Turkeys in New York as there once were in the entire country.

Paradoxically, the same changes that brought the Wild Turkey back are also contributing to a recent decline in its numbers.  Turkeys spend most of the year in hardwood forests, where they feed on acorns, seeds, fruits, roots, grasses, and invertebrates.  However, since the turkey nest is little more than a hole scratched in the ground and the poults have no defenses against predators, hens prefer to lay their eggs and raise their young in areas with dense ground cover; adults often use the same areas to hide from predators, including hunters.  As the forests of the Northeast mature, they contain ever fewer hiding places.  The recent cold, rainy springs have also been hard on turkeys.  Poults sometimes succumb to the weather; additionally, when they are wet, they emit an odor that makes it easier for predators to find them.

The turkey gets an undeservedly bad rap.  In common parlance, “turkey” means “a fool” or “a failure.” It’s true that the barnyard turkey is rather awkward and self-important, but its indigenous cousin is a very different bird.  It is well-known to hunters as a worthy adversary, swift, elusive, and crafty.  It is also surprisingly beautiful, with iridescent feathers and a head covered with fantastic crenellations of bright-colored flesh.  We should give thanks for Ben Franklin’s “true original Native of America,” without which we would not be where we are today.

This story by Jacqueline Stuhmiller first appeared in our newsletter, The Land Steward, as part of the Closer Look series about plants and animals of the Finger Lakes region.

Animals and Plants of the Finger Lakes

Handle with Care: Snapping Turtles!

With its long, spiny tail, muscular legs, long claws, and low, flattened carapace, the common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) looks ponderous and primitive, rather like an iguana trying to hide beneath a snow saucer.

Although not nearly as daunting as its much larger southern cousin, the alligator snapping turtle, it’s no slouch, either: it can reach 35-45 pounds, with a shell over a foot long; exceptional individuals may grow even larger.

The snapping turtle appears prehistoric because it is.  The genus Chelyridae evolved in North America 90 million years ago, and modern specimens look very little different from their ancestors.  While giant marine reptiles swam in the shallow sea that covered much of North America and the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops squared off on land, chelydrids hunkered down in the mud.

They survived the meteor impact 65 million years ago that killed the dinosaurs and have weathered countless natural and man-made disasters.  These tough reptiles can eat almost anything and live almost anywhere, including polluted bodies of water with low oxygen levels, and even sewer systems.  Although they are the official state reptile of New York, they are found everywhere from southern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, from the east coast to the Rockies.

The snapper’s scientific name means “snake-like turtle,” a reference to its very long, agile neck, which it can whip out with unnerving speed to grab prey items or warn off would-be predators.  Apart from its rather unpredictable business end, however, the animal is very sedentary.  It prefers to spend its days hidden by mud and algae at the bottom of shallow, still or slow-moving, bodies of water.  Every now and then, it will lift its long neck to the surface to take a sip of air.  When it needs to get around, it usually walks or bounces along the bottom rather than swimming.

The majority of its diet is made up of plants and slow-moving fish, but it will also eat carrion, invertebrates, amphibians, and anything else that happens to float by.  Its reputation for taking game fish or waterfowl is undeserved, however; although it will snatch a duckling if it gets the chance, in general, it is simply too slow to catch healthy, fast-moving animals.

In the water, the snapping turtle is surprisingly unsnappish and will flee rather than retaliate, even when stepped on.  However, it is usually cantankerous on land, perhaps because it feels vulnerable: unlike many other turtles, it cannot pull its head and legs into its shell.  Snappers are most likely to be ashore in the summer; between late May and early July, the females search for nest sites, and animals of both sexes sometimes bask on sun-warmed asphalt.  The jury is out as to whether a snapping turtle can actually snap off a finger, but it can undoubtedly do a lot of damage with its sharp beak.  If you find one on land, it is wisest to leave it alone.  If you must pick it up, hold its back end firmly, keeping your hands as far away from the head as possible; never pick one up by its tail.

Snappers live a very long time, mature very late, and lay a relatively small number of eggs per year.  This strategy helps the species survive an unpredictable environment in which harsh weather and heavy predation kill almost all turtles before they reach breeding age.  Unfortunately, it also means that populations can be devastated by the loss of adult animals.  Many turtles, especially females looking for nest sites, are struck and killed by cars.  In addition, the demand for turtle meat has increased in recent years and in some areas of the country — though not yet in the Finger Lakes — populations of snapping turtles have dropped precipitously; once again, gravid females are the most vulnerable because they are the most mobile.  The turtles have the last laugh, however: since they are at the top of the food chain and live a long time in nutrient-rich waters, their flesh is often heavily contaminated with toxins.

The populations of many other native turtles are in steep decline, but snappers generally seem to be holding their own.  If the past is any guide, they’ll probably still be here long after we’re gone.

This story by Jacqueline Stuhmiller first appeared in our newsletter, The Land Steward, as part of the Closer Look series about plants and animals of the Finger Lakes region.

Animals and Plants of the Finger Lakes

The Honey Bee: Our Friend in Danger

In 2006, American beekeepers began noticing that their charges were mysteriously disappearing from one hive after another.

The losses didn’t stop the next year, or the next, and although the catastrophic declines have recently abated a bit, no one knows why the bees are dying or how to save them.  Experts have warned that colony collapse disorder (CCD), as the phenomenon has been dubbed, could imperil our food production systems: a full one-third of the agricultural crops in the U. S. are pollinated by bees.

The little insect that shoulders most of this responsibility is the European honey bee (Apis mellifera). This relatively sleek, orange-and-black-striped, highly social animal is what we usually think of as a “bee,” and it produces the fragrant honeys and beeswax found in our markets.  Like most Americans, the European honey bee is a naturalized species, having arrived on this continent with the first European colonists.

Humans have lived side-by-side with honey bees for a very long time and have bred them for certain desirable characteristics.  However, a bee can never be entirely domesticated.  The apiarist can encourage his bees to stay in a man-made hive, but there is nothing to prevent them from swarming, the process by which a colony splits in two; if swarming bees are not coaxed into a new hive, they will find another cavity –– a hollow tree, an empty barn –– in which to nest.  In addition, the close proximity of domesticated and feral bee populations means that there is always some gene flow back and forth. There are over a hundred native bee species in the Finger Lakes, but they do not live in large colonies or produce significant amounts of either honey or wax.

Exotic species can have disruptive or even devastating impacts on native ecosystems, but honey bees do not seem to negatively affect native pollinators; if anything, the presence of so many additional bees has increased the reproductive capacities of many plants.  Plants fiercely compete for attention by producing colorful, nectar-filled flowers; their success, however, is always limited by the number of pollinators available to take the bait.  Although small fields surrounded by natural areas may be serviced entirely by native insects, modern large-scale farming often involves growing vast fields of single-species crops in landscapes that cannot support large populations of wild pollinators.  Consequently, hives are trucked around the country on a regular schedule in order to pollinate crops as they come into bloom.

The hard-working, peripatetic insects that ensure our food supply are particularly susceptible to the recent bee plague.  CCD seems to be caused not by a single factor but by a perfect storm of stressors that weaken a colony past the tipping point: fungal, bacterial, and viral pathogens; pesticides; stresses associated with migratory beekeeping; malnutrition (a particular problem for bees that feed on monocultures); and parasites.  In particular, the Asian mite Varroa destructor is very often associated with colony collapse.  Because beekeepers control mite infestations, bees never get a chance to evolve resistance to the parasites.  In addition, colonies are crowded into apiaries, combs and broods are regularly transferred between colonies, and bees are discouraged from swarming, all of which favor the spread of mites.

If Varroa mites have wreaked havoc on beekeepers’ hives, they have had an even more devastating effect on feral honey bees: some experts estimate that there are almost no wild-living colonies left in the U.S. However, in at least one place in New York, feral bees are doing surprisingly well.  In Cornell’s Arnot Forest, Schuyler County, the bees are going about their business as they have for the last four hundred years.  In fact, the forest contains at least as many feral honey bee nests today as it did thirty years ago, despite the fact that the bees are as heavily infested with mites as are their hive-dwelling cousins.  The reasons for their success are still unclear.  The bees may have developed biological resistance or behaviors that reduce mite populations, such as more frequent grooming.  Perhaps the mites’ strategies have evolved, as well, and they are learning to live more peacefully with their hosts.  Then, too, perhaps swarming acts as a natural sort of mite control: feral bees are free to swarm whenever they please, and each swarm reduces the mite population in the original colony.  Much more research remains to be done on this subject, but it is comforting to realize that at least part of the solution to the bee die-off that threatens our national agricultural security just might be found in the wild spaces of upstate New York.

This story by Jacqueline Stuhmiller first appeared in our newsletter, The Land Steward, as part of the Closer Look series about plants and animals of the Finger Lakes region.

Animals and Plants of the Finger Lakes

Winter for Black-capped Chickadees

On the harshest winter mornings, when the air is so cold and dry that it freezes the inside of your nostrils with every breath, the silence of the snow seems almost too loud to bear.

If you listen hard, one of the first things you’re likely to hear are thin, squeaking calls announcing the presence of a flock of Black-capped Chickadees (Poecile atricapillus).  How does this bird, so tiny that it could hide in your cupped hand, survive the subzero temperatures and fierce winter winds of the Finger Lakes?  The answer: just barely.

Most birds escape cold weather by migrating to the tropics, but these journeys are dangerous and energy-intensive.  The chickadee instead lives here year-round, a strategy that is not without its own perils.  The calculus of winter is harsh: in order to stay alive, an animal must either produce a lot more heat or lose a lot less of it.  However, food is hard to find in the winter and there are only a few daylight hours available for foraging.

In addition, birds have higher metabolisms than we do, and a chickadee’s normal temperature is a feverish 108 °F.  To make things even worse, the smaller an animal’s body, the greater its surface-area-to-volume-ratio, and the more quickly it loses heat to the air.  These unforgiving laws of physics and biology mean that the diminutive chickadee lives right on the energetic edge in winter.  An unusually cold night or a badly-timed snowstorm can mean the difference between death and life.

Luckily, the chickadee has a number of physiological and behavioral adaptations that help it survive.  It arises before dawn in order to forage in the half-light and its bold, inquisitive nature seems to give it an edge when it comes to finding food.  It is omnivorous and adaptable, able to take advantage of almost any source of nutrition: insects, arthropods, seeds, berries, and even fat and meat from carrion (or suet from feeders).  These gregarious birds often feed with other species because more eyes can find more food as well as spot more predators.  Chickadees are nothing if not industrious; they cache food items in the autumn for later use, and they squirrel away whatever they can steal from backyard feeders during the winter.  It takes a lot of memory to recall the locations of all of those hidey-holes, year after year – chickadees can live for a decade or more – and their tiny brains literally fill up after one season.  In order to compensate for a limited amount of storage space, the neurons associated with last year’s caches die off each autumn and new ones grow afresh.

The other part of the winter-survival equation is minimizing heat loss.  On sunny days, the chickadee may turn its darker back and wings to the sun.  Fat is an excellent insulator, but the chickadee depletes most of its reserves every night just to stay alive.  Therefore, its greatest defense against cold is its feathers, which increase in number by twenty-five percent after the autumn molt and are remarkably dense for the bird’s size.  Down feathers, with their fluffy, disorganized structure, trap a layer of insulating warm air next to the skin; the outer feathers, with their interlocking barbs and oily coatings, create a shield against water and wind.  By fluffing its feathers, the chickadee can increase its insulation and reduce its surface-area-to-volume ratio as long as the weather is neither too windy nor too wet.  The eye and beak are poorly insulated, so a bird may close its eyes or tuck its head under its wing.  Birds’ feet and legs seem to be insensible to cold surfaces, partly because they are covered with thick scales and partly because blood flow to these extremities is greatly reduced in cold weather.  This is possible because a bird’s legs are twigs of bone and sinew, tissues with low metabolic demands; they are controlled like a pair of chopsticks by muscles that are close to the body.  In a pinch, the bird may stand on one leg and tuck the other under its breast feathers, or huddle over both feet.

The chickadee stays warm all day by exercising and shivering, but when night falls, it must find shelter.  Small, enclosed areas like tree cavities are best, but sometimes, any spot that blocks the wind will have to do.  When the temperature drops very low and survival is precarious, the chickadee slips into a state of controlled hypothermia called torpor in which its body temperature falls by about twenty degrees.

Before dawn, the chickadee will emerge from torpor, warming itself to normal body temperature by shivering.  With its feathers askew after a long night of squashing itself into a crevice, it will rejoin its mates for yet another day of life on the very edge.

This story by Jacqueline Stuhmiller first appeared in our newsletter, The Land Steward, as part of the Closer Look series about plants and animals of the Finger Lakes region.

Animals and Plants of the Finger Lakes

Teasel: Our Prickly Relationship

Today, the town of Skaneateles is known for its quaint main street and its clear lake.  In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, however, it had a very different claim to fame.

It was the center of the U. S. teasel industry.

Teasels (Dipsacus spp.) are a prodigiously spiny Old World genus of flowering plant that can grow six or more feet high.  On first glance, the teasel might be confused with the thistle, another tall, prickly non-native often found growing in sunny, disturbed areas.  However, the teasel is easily identifiable by its unusually large (up to 4” long), oval flowerheads.  Tiny flowers, ranging in hue from white to purple, initially open in a band around the middle of the inflorescence; as the first blossoms fade, the flowers directly above and below them come into bloom, creating two bands of color that travel in opposite directions.  The seedheads often remain through the winter, creating starkly elegant patterns against the snow.

The teasel’s common name comes from an Old English word, tæsan, meaning “to pull [apart].”  (It is the same root of our word “to tease”; composure frays under constant vexation, just as fiber does.)  The bristly seedhead of the teasel has been used since time immemorial to card wool.  In nineteenth-century woolen mills, teasel heads were used to brush the woven fabric (a process known as “raising the nap”) in order to create a soft, uniform surface.  They are superior for this purpose — wire brushes often damage the fibers — but they wear out quickly, so that they must constantly be replaced.  In the 1830s, an enterprising apothecary named Dr. James Snook realized that Skaneateles had the perfect climate and soil composition to grow this useful crop.  He imported the European cultivated variety (D. sativus), and soon Skaneateles teasels were not only consumed domestically but also exported to Europe.  The industrial use of teasels was eventually phased out in the mid-twentieth century when foreign competition forced the U. S. woolen industry to cut costs wherever it could.

The plant that was once the pride and joy of Skaneateles has become a thorn in the side of much of the U. S. and southern Canada.  It has long since naturalized in many areas and forms intensely prickly and hardy monocultures that crowd out native vegetation.  Cultivated teasel is now possibly extinct in the Finger Lakes, having been supplanted by two wild strains: the common teasel (“wild,” “fuller’s,” or “Indian” teasel, and confusingly identified as both D. fullonum and D. sylvestris) and the cut-leaved teasel (D. laciniatus).  These plants were probably introduced to the continent by early settlers, and their seeds may also have been accidentally mixed with those bound for Skaneateles fields.

Once teasels become established in an area, they are hard to eradicate.  Their basal leaves shade the ground so that nothing else can grow and their long, thick taproots make the plant resistant to both drought and physical removal.  They can tolerate soil salinity (in the Finger Lakes, a side effect of salting roads in winter), and their seeds are not damaged by water; as a consequence, they have spread rapidly along both highways and waterways.  Remarkably, this endlessly adaptable plant also appears to be partially carnivorous.  The genus name Dipsacus is derived from the Greek for “thirst,” a reference to the cup-like leaf bases that fill with rainwater.  These phytotelmata, as such tiny pools are known, may be designed to discourage aphids from climbing the stem.  They often contain the bodies of unfortunate invertebrates, which the teasel seems to be able to digest, though the mechanism by which it does so is not yet known.  A rich diet of insects greatly increases seed production, all the more impressive when one realizes that a single plant can produce over two thousand seeds.

Teasels are hard to eradicate from the landscape, not merely because of their astonishing ability to use every resource at their disposal, but also because many people find them both useful and beautiful. Their handsome flower and seedheads attract both birds and insects, and their popularity in floral arrangements has made them a common cemetery weed.  The seedheads are sometimes used to make toys and decorations, and are still considered to be superior tools for cloth finishing.  D. fullonum can even be used to create both blue and yellow dyes.  Various parts of the plant are used in folk medicines; legend has it that the water from the leaf bases makes a very effective beauty treatment.  Despite its noxiousness, it’s impossible not to find the teasel rather endearing: like the settlers who introduced it, it is hardy, a bit odd, and wonderfully stubborn — a very American weed, in its own way.

This story by Jacqueline Stuhmiller first appeared in our newsletter, The Land Steward, as part of the Closer Look series about plants and animals of the Finger Lakes region.

Animals and Plants of the Finger Lakes

The Prickly Porcupine

You probably won’t see them, though you may detect signs of their presence.

Anything containing sodium and left outside overnight may be destroyed by gnawing teeth: wood siding, painted signs, truck undercarriages.  You may notice “witch trees” whose branches are stunted and twisted from years of browsing.  You might even come across the animal’s distinctive wavy track in the snow, created by a waddling gait and a heavy, dragging tail, or smell its turpentiney urine.  And if you look up while walking through the woods in the winter or early spring, you might catch a glimpse of the porcupine itself doggedly feeding on bark or buds, looking for all the world like a squirrel nest on the move.

The porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) is the second-largest North American rodent, surpassed in size only by the beaver; it may be up to two feet long, not including the tail.  Unlike its sleek cousin, it looks permanently disheveled, as if it’s just been rudely awakened from sleep.  Nevertheless, it is exquisitely adapted to a life high above the forest floor.  Its extremely thick fur offers excellent insulation against harsh winter temperatures.  Its feet have a single footpad covered with pebbled skin much like the surface of a basketball, as well as very long, curved claws that hook into even the tiniest crevices.  On the underside of its tail are short, backward-pointing bristles that act as crampons.  Since they spend most of their lives pressed against trees, porcupines have no quills on the belly, and no external genitalia.

In contrast to the social and proverbially energetic beaver, the porcupine is nocturnal, solitary, and does everything, including reproducing, very, very slowly.  Native Americans revered the animal because it so often saved them in times of famine; it is so confident in its quills, and so slow, that it can be easily clubbed to death.  Today, the porcupine’s worst enemy is the automobile.  Many are killed each spring on highways where they congregate in order to feed on road salt.  Coyotes, mountain lions, and owls have been known to eat porcupines, but their only specialized predator is the fisher.  This weasel-like animal attacks the porcupine’s head repeatedly until it is wounded and disoriented, then flips it on its back.

The porcupine’s warning system, like the skunk’s, uses black and white, the colors most easily seen by nocturnal predators.  A black stripe runs down the length of its tail and white quills bristle from the sides; the quills contain a fluorescent pigment that makes them seem even brighter.  If an animal ignores this message, the porcupine will chatter its teeth, release a warning odor, erect its quills in all directions, and swing its tail like a mace.  The quills, which can be up to four inches long, are coated with tiny barbs; under an electron microscope, they look like the fringed trunks of palm trees.  On impact, the quills loosen from the porcupine’s skin and lodge in the attacker’s flesh, and muscle movements gradually draw them inward.  A predator may be killed by a quill that pierces a vital organ or makes it impossible to eat, but it will probably not die from infection.  Quills are coated with grease that facilitates penetration but also has antiseptic properties.  This adaptation is designed not to spare the porcupine’s predators but to protect itself.  Porcupines live dangerously, venturing out onto slender branches in order to feed; they often fall from great heights and impale themselves on their own quills.

Official maps show that porcupines are present in every corner of upstate New York, but in fact they seem to be uncommon in the Finger Lakes.  They are found regularly in the Southern Tier, including the Land Trust’s Parker, Plymouth Woods, and Steege Hill preserves, in the Connecticut Hill area, and they have recently been spotted in the town of Danby, Tompkins County.  However, there are many areas of what would seem to be prime porcupine territory that are apparently unoccupied.  Perhaps habitat fragmentation is partly to blame; the porcupine will not readily venture into open areas in order to cross from one forest block to the next.  In addition, the arrival of two new species may make life even more tenuous for the porcupine.  The fisher is making a comeback in the region, and the woolly adelgid, an invasive insect, is wreaking havoc on the hemlocks that provide food and shelter for porcupines in the winter.  The sight of a porcupine high in the trees, never common even at the best of times, may become even rarer.

This story by Jacqueline Stuhmiller first appeared in our newsletter, The Land Steward, as part of the Closer Look series.

Animals and Plants of the Finger Lakes

The Elusive Spotted Salamander

The spotted salamander, Ambystoma maculatum, is a secretive denizen of eastern U.S. and southern Canadian woodlands.

Although its looks are arresting — two rows of bright yellow spots on a dark body as long as your hand — it is all but invisible most of the year.  Like all so-called “mole salamanders,” spotted salamanders spend most of their time underground in burrows that they find or dig themselves.

However, for a very short window of time in the spring, this reclusive animal comes out of hiding.  Small depressions in the ground, dry or covered with snow for most of the year, fill with spring rains and form vernal pools.  These ephemeral wetlands can’t support hungry fish, so they are perfect breeding ponds for species like mole salamanders, wood frogs, and fairy shrimp.

Responding to some signal — perhaps the temperature, or the flooding of their burrows, or even the sound of raindrops on the surface — on the first warm nights of spring, the spotted salamanders start to emerge and begin a synchronized migration toward the vernal pools of their birth, sometimes passing by perfectly good breeding ponds on the way.

How do they know where to go?  Scientists can’t say for certain, but Kraig Adler, Cornell Professor of Biology, offers a guess: “They probably use odors and the Earth’s magnetic field to orient, as do newts.”

The salamanders stay at their natal pools only long enough to mate and lay their eggs before returning home.  The larvae remain in the ponds for several months, feeding on tiny invertebrates, until they trade their gills for lungs and grow legs that allow them to follow their parents on land.  By this time, the vernal pools have dried up, reverting back to unobtrusive hollows in the forest floor.  It may take more than five years before a juvenile reaches sexual maturity, but spotted salamanders can live more than thirty years.

The population of spotted salamanders in Tompkins County is healthy, thanks to good conservation practices.  However, in other parts of the state, their status is precarious enough that they are listed as a “Special Concern Species” by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.  One threat that these animals face is the destruction of their breeding ponds.  Since vernal pools are shallow and dry most of the year, they are often filled in or built over by homeowners and developers.

Another problem is water pollution, to which salamanders are exquisitely sensitive.  Heavy metals and pesticides are deadly, but acid rain and snow are bigger threats in the northeast.  Salamander eggs and larvae either die or develop abnormally if the pH of their ponds is too low.  The Adirondacks in particular have been deeply affected by pollution: some lakes and ponds there have become so acidic that they cannot support normal aquatic ecosystems.

Perhaps the most obvious, and in some ways the most easily addressed, threat to salamanders is automobile traffic.  A heavily used road that cuts across a migration path can decimate a salamander population, and the amphibians are small enough to escape the notice of all but the most eagle-eyed motorist.  Since neither human roads nor salamander migrations can be easily re-routed, one way to prevent a conflict of interests is to build road underpasses (sometimes called “toad tunnels”) or modify already existing culverts.  The Cornell Plantations took the latter approach, building an animal directional fence that shepherds migrating amphibians into a culvert beneath Ringwood Road in Ithaca. Nancy Ostman, the Plantations Natural Areas Program Director, reports that although the toad tunnel has been quite successful, “there are still a cluster of deaths off of the end of the fence.  Some animals will go the wrong way even if it is out of the way.”  The Plantations also manages ponds near the Cornell golf course that are used by breeding amphibians.  Because debris from road and golf course maintenance tends to collect in these ponds, the Plantations staff regularly dredges their perimeters, thereby ensuring that the water is deep enough for the amphibians to breed and the young to survive.

This spring, look — and drive! — carefully, and if you’re lucky, you might catch a glimpse of the slow, inexorable vernal march of the spotted salamander.

This story by Jacqueline Stuhmiller first appeared in our newsletter, The Land Steward, as part of the Closer Look series.

Animals and Plants of the Finger Lakes

Damsels and Dragons

Meena Haribal, a chemist at Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, lugged the ancient office laptop down to the visitor’s area to show me her photos of her favorite animals:  dragonflies and damselflies (Order Odonata).

“They are fascinating creatures,” she told me. “They have interesting behaviors, and they are beautiful to look at.  Everything about them I like.” As she showed me her detailed photos, I wasn’t sure if I unreservedly agreed with her assessment.  They are indeed beautiful from a respectful distance.  But some of her remarkable close-ups did not depict my idea of beauty.

My reservations might have been even more apt 300 million years ago, when oxygen levels were 70 percent higher, when most insects were bigger, and Odonata, in particular, had a wingspread of two feet or more.  Their larvae, 16 inches long, attacked anything they could catch and would have made stream and pond wading extremely unpleasant.

Of the approximately 7,000 species of Odonata, 110 have been recorded in Tompkins County, according to Fred Sibley, a retired Yale ornithologist, who currently lives in the county and studies dragonflies.

One simple way to distinguish these Odonata families: Damselflies are smaller than dragonflies and rest with wings folded back upon their abdomen; dragonflies and their even larger cousins, the darners, rest with wings outspread.

Haribal has observed 70 of these species.  “The green darners come first to the region,” she said.  “I spotted the first one outside my office window in the ornithology lab a few days ago [mid-April].” Aurora damselflies also arrive early in the Finger Lakes.  They are gone by June or July.  Canada darners, with blue–green stripes, are common patrollers of pond shores.

Fred Sibley spoke about another of our local species, the gray petal-tail found in Watkins Glen and Robert Treman State Park.  “They’re similar to those in the dinosaur age,” he said.  “They’re very large and tame.  They’ll often land on a hiker’s head or shirt.  They’re in their northern edge of range here.”

The early life of the dragonfly is biologically intricate, composed of many stages.  It progresses from a nearly microscopic egg laid in water to a formidable bottom-dwelling nymph, hunting mosquito larvae, smaller nymphs, tadpoles, and even small minnows.  It catches prey with a lightning-fast snap of its toothed lower lip.  In turn, the nymph is also prey to other water predators, especially fish.

If the nymph survives throughout its complex larval stages in the water, it eventually climbs out onto a plant or on shore, emerging as a vulnerable, soft fly — land-bound for a few hours until its wings and body harden.  At this point, it is easy prey for birds, frogs or other dragonflies.  From egg to adulthood, dragonfly mortality rates could be as high as 90 percent.

Those that survive seek mates.  Dragonflies have unique mating habits.  When a male is ready to mate, he transfers sperm from his lower abdomen to a storage spot closer to his thorax.  When a female of the same species comes nearby, the male uses the tip of its tail to lock onto an analogous “keyhole” structure on the head of the female.  Then the female curves her tail up to receive the sperm from the storage area.

Many species mate in flight; others alight on perches.  The males of several species continue to clasp onto the female until she has laid her eggs to prevent competing males from mating with her.  Males of some other species release the female but stay close by to chase away any competitors.

As adults, dragonflies are carnivorous, eating every type of insect they can manage to catch.  Haribal reported that while once holding a damselfly in her hand, a dragonfly swooped down to eat it.  In turn, Odonata are eaten by many bird species, especially flycatchers.  Sibley noted that the American kestrel migration coincides with the green darner migration because the kestrels depend on them for food.

Still, we know little about dragonfly migration.  Our knowledge of Odonata is in its earliest stages. “Interest in dragonflies has blossomed in the last ten years,” Sibley said.  “Before that, it dragged 100 years behind birds.  If you want to see a parallel, look at bird books from the turn of the last century.”

Although dragonflies and damselflies are everywhere and easy to find on a sunny summer day, they often go unnoticed.  If you want to observe Odonata, bring boots, binoculars, maybe insect repellent, and a guidebook to your favorite pond, stream or field, and just enjoy these remarkable insects.

This story by Margot Brinn first appeared in our newsletter, The Land Steward, as part of the Closer Look series.

Animals and Plants of the Finger Lakes

Keeping Bald Eagles in Sight

On a Sunday morning in late January, Paul Lattimore of Auburn stood on his lawn looking through a pair of binoculars at a large raft of winter ducks on the north end of Owasco Lake.

Suddenly, the ducks spooked, and a hundred or so took to the sky.

“I panned my binoculars south and saw a bald eagle had grabbed a mallard,” Lattimore said.  “The eagle was fighting to get airborne and the mallard was in its talons.”

Grasping the flapping duck, the eagle flew along the shoreline over Lattimore’s house.  The duck shook itself loose and fell in the water.  The eagle made a pass, the duck dove, and after circling twice, the eagle flew off.

“I’ve lived on the lake since I was a child, some 40 years,” Lattimore added.  “That’s the first time I’ve seen an eagle on the lake.”

The chances of sighting a bald eagle are indeed going up.  After plummeting to endangered species status by the early 1960s, their numbers are now climbing in New York state and elsewhere.  In the 1950s and 1960s, widespread use of the pesticide DDT contaminated water sources the bald eagles depended upon. Although this large bird, with a wingspan of six to seven feet, may feed on waterfowl and small mammals, its primary prey is fish, whose fatty tissues are known to accumulate chemicals.  A diet of DDT-laden fish made the birds’ eggshells fragile, and most bald eagle chicks died before they hatched. Ironically, this great country almost lost sight of its national symbol completely.  By 1970, only one nesting pair remained in the state.

The country banned DDT in 1972.  In 1976, the New York State Bald Eagle Restoration Project began reestablishing breeding birds in the state.  Between 1976 and 1988, young bald eagles were moved, mostly from Alaska, and hand-reared to independence.  Almost 200 were released in New York state. Ten breeding pairs had nests by 1989, and the project ended with its goal attained.

The birds prefer areas with few people, near large lakes, swamps, marshes, and along rivers where there is open water for them to fish.  In New York state, most nests can be found in the southern Catskill region along the Delaware River and to the north between the Hudson and St. Lawrence rivers.  Last year’s count of 84 potential breeding pairs marked a high point since restoration began, according to the 2004 New York State Bald Eagle Report.  The state’s annual survey occurs during the first few weeks of January.  In 2004, the 363 total bald eagle sightings added up to another record.

Bill Ostrander, of the Chemung Valley Audubon Society, acknowledges that even around the Finger Lakes region sightings have increased in the last three or four years.  Growing up in Elmira, he saw a stray bird once in his teens.  During this year’s annual survey, Ostrander spotted two bald eagles near Elmira.  He also glimpsed a golden eagle, an extremely rare bird for the area, especially in winter.  The golden eagle was perched in the Land Trust’s Steege Hill preserve, west of Elmira.

The N.Y. Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) considers human presence and loss of key habitat as the eagle’s biggest threat.  Identifying and protecting key habitats will be essential for future populations to succeed, the bald eagle report cautions.  If anecdotal evidence is any indication, Ostrander provided more proof of the bald eagle’s well-being during a trip to the Montezuma Wetlands Complex at the north end of Cayuga Lake last September.

“I observed 16 bald eagles in one day,” he marveled.

While it’s glorious to see bald eagles in person, the DEC warns that the birds have excellent eyesight and are easily disturbed.  Steering clear of nests is crucial for keeping them around.  Still, a careful glimpse, like the one Paul Lattimore was privileged to in January, can leave a lasting impression.

“Seeing that bird in action will be in my mind forever,” Lattimore said.  “It’s a hopeful sign to me that the eagles are now possible in the area.”

This story by Krishna Ramanujan first appeared in our newsletter, The Land Steward, as part of the Closer Look series.

Animals and Plants of the Finger Lakes

Saw-Whet Owls Sound Off

One cold, still evening in winter some years ago, as I was closing up the hen house, a soft, repetitive tooting came down from the wooded hillside.

I might easily have failed to notice it, if field guides had not prepared me; now I recognized in this faintly audible disturbance the distant voice of the littlest owl in eastern North America, the Northern Saw-whet Owl.

Nightly thereafter I whistled the simple call, hoping for a look at the three-ounce raptor.  My imitations were thin, but owls have excellent hearing: excited respondents soon appeared on nearby branches, or swooped very close, their shadows darting over the moonlit snow.  A really satisfying view eluded me, though, until the following winter, when a Saw-whet flew in to perch on a sumac twig within arm’s reach, tooting quizzically in the last glow from the western sky.

In time it became clear that Saw-whet Owls wintered annually here.  Concealing themselves in dense conifers by day, active only at night, these pint-sized mousers are normally silent except at the onset of breeding season, and probably go undetected in many locations.  The unusual midwinter calling that attracted my attention subsided after several years, but my whistle still elicits responses, and moonlight often reveals a curious little owl whose noiseless flight conveys nothing at all to my ears.

Saw-whet Owls breed from southern Alaska to Nova Scotia, hence the scientific name Aegolius acadicus, the ‘Acadian owl’.  Breeding extends southward in the Appalachians to the Great Smoky Mountains. Typical habitat is fairly mature coniferous or mixed forest with openings, often near water.  Nesting birds are quiet, and their nest-holes are seldom discovered.  Some Saw-whets reside year-round in breeding areas; others engage in seasonal movements of an unclear nature.  In New York, many Saw-whets are found each spring and fall roosting in conifer groves along the shores of Lake Ontario and Long Island.

Between 1980 and 1985, volunteers surveying for the first Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State found Saw-whets chiefly in the Adirondacks.  In the Finger Lakes region, reports of possible or probable breeding were scarce, and breeding was confirmed in just one location.  Fieldwork for the second atlas, which began in 2000, promises to augment our picture of the regional breeding distribution of this very inconspicuous species.

In my neighborhood, a lush coniferous swamp amply furnished with appropriable woodpecker holes offered possible breeding habitat for Saw-whet Owls.  One bright July afternoon in my third year of wading there, preoccupied with Brown Creepers, Northern Waterthrushes and other swamp birds, I ducked into a shrub-willow thicket and came face-to-face with Saw-whet fledglings, for an unforgettably close look at a bird that had captivated me since that winter evening by the hen house years earlier.

Nocturnal birds exert a compelling fascination over the susceptible.  Unobtrusive to the point of inscrutability, the little Saw-whet Owl worked on my imagination like a remembered view of the night sky through a large telescope, intensifying awareness of the depth of nature, in which so many things pass unobserved.  Friends say I’m very lucky to have Saw-whets return year after year, but on reflection it seems likely they were here long before I knew it.  The luck may lie less in their continuing presence than in the way I came to be informed of it.

This story by Geo Kloppel first appeared in our newsletter, The Land Steward, as part of the Closer Look series about plants and animals of the Finger Lakes region.