Arums (Araceae) – LIFE IN THE LOWER SUSQUEHANNA RIVER WATERSHED

January 26, 2024January 26, 2024

The Fog of a January Thaw

As week-old snow and ice slowly disappears from the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed landscape, we ventured out to see what might be lurking in the dense clouds of fog that for more than two days now have accompanied a mid-winter warm spell.

York Haven Dam Powerhouse — After freezing to a slushy consistency earlier this week, the Susquehanna is already beginning to thaw. Below the York Haven Dam at Conewago Falls, the water is open and ice-free.

Mallards and a pair of American Wigeon on a frozen lake. — On frozen man-made lakes and ponds, geese and ducks like these Mallards and American Wigeon are presently concentrated around small pockets of open water.

American Robin in a Callery pear — During the past ten days, American Robin numbers have exploded throughout the lower Susquehanna valley. The majority of these birds may be a mix of both those coming south to escape the late onset of wintry conditions to our north and those inching north into our region as early spring migrants.

American Robin — The January thaw has melted the snow from lawns and fields to provide thousands of visiting robins with a chance to forage for earthworms.

Cooper's Hawk — A visit by this young Cooper’s Hawk to the susquehannnawildlife.net headquarters garden sent songbirds scrambling…

…but did nothing to unnerve our resident Eastern Gray Squirrels,…

But earlier in the week, when heavy snow cover in the rural areas surrounding our urbanized neighborhood made it difficult for rodent-eating raptors to find food, we received brief visits from both a Red-tailed Hawk…

…and this young Red-shouldered Hawk, an uncommon bird of prey most often found in wet woods and other lowlands.

Red-shouldered Hawk in flight. — Unimpressed, each of our visiting buteos remained for just a few minutes before moving on in search of more favorable hunting grounds and prey.

Early Successional Growth — As snow melted and exposed bare ground in fields of early successional growth, we encountered…

…a flock of White-crowned Sparrows, most in first-winter plumage…

…and at least a dozen American Tree Sparrows. During the twentieth century, these handsome songbirds were regular winter visitors to the lower Susquehanna region. During recent decades, they’ve become increasingly more difficult to find. Currently, moderate numbers appear to be arriving to escape harsher weather to our north.

Adult Male Northern Harrier — What could be more appropriate on a foggy, gray evening than finding a “gray ghost” (adult male Northern Harrier) patrolling the fields in search of mice and voles.

If scenes of a January thaw begin to awaken your hopes and aspirations for all things spring, then you’ll appreciate this pair of closing photographs…

Pileated Woodpecker in Silver Maple — The maroon-red flower buds of Silver Maples are beginning to swell. And woodpeckers including Pileated Woodpeckers are beginning to drum, a timber-pounding behavior they use to establish breeding territories in habitats with suitable sites for cavity nesting.

In wet soil surrounding spring seeps and streams, Skunk Cabbage is rising through the leaf litter to herald the coming of a new season. Spring must surely be just around the corner.

December 30, 2023December 31, 2023

Want Healthy Floodplains and Streams? Want Clean Water? Then Make Room for the Beaver

I’m worried about the beaver. Here’s why.

Imagine a network of brooks and rivulets meandering through a mosaic of shrubby, sometimes boggy, marshland, purifying water and absorbing high volumes of flow during storm events. This was a typical low-gradient stream in the valleys of the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed in the days prior to the arrival of the trans-Atlantic human migrant. Then, a frenzy of trapping, tree chopping, mill building, and stream channelization accompanied the east to west waves of settlement across the region. The first casualty: the indispensable lowlands manager, the North American Beaver (Castor canadensis).

Beaver Traps — Nineteenth-century beaver traps on display in the collection of the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. Soon after their arrival, Trans-Atlantic migrants (Europeans) established trade ties to the trans-Beringia migrants (“Indians”) already living in the lower Susquehanna valley and recruited them to cull the then-abundant North American Beavers. By the early 1700s, beaver populations (as well as numbers of other “game” animals) were seriously depleted, prompting the Conoy, the last of the trans-Beringia migrants to reside on the lower Susquehanna, to disperse. The traps pictured here are samples of the types which were subsequently used by the European settlers to eventually extirpate the North American Beaver from the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed during the 1800s.

Without the widespread presence of beavers, stream ecology quickly collapsed. Pristine waterways were all at once gone, as were many of their floral and faunal inhabitants. It was a streams-to-sewers saga completed in just one generation. So, if we really want to restore our creeks and rivers, maybe we need to give the North American Beaver some space and respect. After all, we as a species have yet to build an environmentally friendly dam and have yet to fully restore a wetland to its natural state. The beaver is nature’s irreplaceable silt deposition engineer and could be called the 007 of wetland construction—doomed upon discovery, it must do its work without being noticed, but nobody does it better.

North American Beaver diorama on display in the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. Beavers were reintroduced to the Susquehanna watershed during the second half of the twentieth century.

A beaver dam on a small stream in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed. — A beaver dam and pond on a small stream in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed.

Floodplain Wetlands Managed by North American Beavers — Beaver dams not only create ponds, they also maintain shallow water levels in adjacent areas of the floodplain creating highly-functional wetlands that grow the native plants used by the beaver for food. These ecosystems absorb nutrients and sediments. Prior to the arrival of humans, they created some of the only openings in the vast forests and maintained essential habitat for hundreds of species of plants as well as animals including fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds. Without the beaver, many of these species could not, and in their absence did not, exist here.

The beaver lodge provides shelter from the elements and predators for a family of North American Beavers. — Their newly constructed lodge provides shelter from the elements and from predators for a family of North American Beavers.

Sandhill Cranes Visit a Beaver-managed Floodplain in the lower Susquehanna valley — Floodplains managed by North American Beavers can provide opportunities for the recovery of the uncommon, rare, and extirpated species that once inhabited the network of streamside wetlands that stretched for hundreds of miles along the waterways of the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed.

A wintering Great Blue Heron is attracted to a beaver pond by the abundance of fish in the rivulets that meander through its attached wetlands.

Sora Rail in Beaver Pond — Beaver Ponds and their attached wetlands provide nesting habitat for uncommon birds like this Sora rail.

Wood Duck feeding on Lesser Duckweed in Beaver Pond — Lesser Duckweed grows in abundance in beaver ponds and Wood Ducks are particularly fond of it during their nesting cycle.

Sandhill Cranes feeding among Woolgrass in a Beaver Pond — Beaver dams maintain areas of wet soil along the margins of the pond where plants like Woolgrass sequester nutrients and contain runoff while providing habitat for animals ranging in size from tiny insects to these rare visitors, a pair of Sandhill Cranes (Antigone canadensis).

Sandhill Cranes feeding among Woolgrass in a floodplain maintained by North American Beavers.

Few landowners are receptive to the arrival of North American Beavers as guests or neighbors. This is indeed unfortunate. Upon discovery, beavers, like wolves, coyotes, sharks, spiders, snakes, and so many other animals, evoke an irrational negative response from the majority of people. This too is quite unfortunate, and foolish.

North American Beavers spend their lives and construct their dams, ponds, and lodges exclusively within floodplains—lands that are going to flood. Their existence should create no conflict with the day to day business of human beings. But humans can’t resist encroachment into beaver territory. Because they lack any basic understanding of floodplain function, people look at these indispensable lowlands as something that must be eliminated in the name of progress. They’ll fill them with soil, stone, rock, asphalt, concrete, and all kinds of debris. You name it, they’ll dump it. It’s an ill-fated effort to eliminate these vital areas and the high waters that occasionally inundate them. Having the audacity to believe that the threat of flooding has been mitigated, buildings and poorly engineered roads and bridges are constructed in these “reclaimed lands”. Much of the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed has now been subjected to over three hundred years-worth of these “improvements” within spaces that are and will remain—floodplains. Face it folks, they’re going to flood, no matter what we do to try to stop it. And as a matter of fact, the more junk we put into them, the more we displace flood waters into areas that otherwise would not have been impacted! It’s absolute madness.

By now we should know that floodplains are going to flood. And by now we should know that the impacts of flooding are costly where poor municipal planning and negligent civil engineering have been the norm for decades and decades. So aren’t we tired of hearing the endless squawking that goes on every time we get more than an inch of rain? Imagine the difference it would make if we backed out and turned over just one quarter or, better yet, one half of the mileage along streams in the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed to North American Beavers. No more mowing, plowing, grazing, dumping, paving, spraying, or building—just leave it to the beavers. Think of the improvements they would make to floodplain function, water quality, and much-needed wildlife habitat. Could you do it? Could you overcome the typical emotional response to beavers arriving on your property and instead of issuing a death warrant, welcome them as the talented engineers they are? I’ll bet you could.

December 25, 2023

Photo of the Day

Green Frog on Christmas — It’s been a green Christmas at susquehannawildlife.net headquarters. Among thick growth of Lesser Duckweed and other aquatic plants in the garden ponds, the Green Frogs and their tadpoles remain active. The water’s open…still no ice here.

September 11, 2023September 12, 2023

A Visit to a Beaver Pond

To pass the afternoon, we sat quietly along the edge of a pond created recently by North American Beavers (Castor canadensis). They first constructed their dam on this small stream about five years ago. Since then, a flourishing wetland has become established. Have a look.

A beaver lodge. — The beaver lodge was built among shrubs growing in shallow water in the middle of the pond.

Woolgrass in a beaver pond. — Woolgrass (Scirpus cyperinus) is a bulrush that thrives as an emergent and as a terrestrial plant in moist soils bordering the pond.

A male Common Whitetail dragonfly keeping watch over his territory.

A Twelve-spotted Skimmer perched on Soft Rush.

A Blue Dasher dragonfly seizing a Fall Field Cricket (Gryllus pennsylvanicus).

A Spicebush Swallowtail visiting Cardinal Flower. — A Spicebush Swallowtail visiting a Cardinal Flower.

A Green Heron looking for small fish, crayfish, frogs, and tadpoles.

A Green Heron stalks potential prey. — The Green Heron stalking potential prey.

A Wood Duck feeding on Lesser Duckweed. — A Wood Duck feeding on the tiny floating plant known as Lesser Duckweed (Lemna minor).

A Least Sandpiper feeding along the muddy edge of a beaver pond. — A Least Sandpiper poking at small invertebrates along the muddy edge of the beaver pond.

A Solitary Sandpiper testing the waters for proper feeding depth.

A Pectoral Sandpiper searches for its next morsel of sustenance.

A Sora rail in a beaver pond. — The Sora (Porzana carolina) is a seldom seen rail of marshlands including those created by North American Beavers. Common Cattails, sedges, and rushes provide these chicken-shaped wetland birds with nesting and loafing cover.

Isn’t that amazing? North American Beavers build and maintain what human engineers struggle to master—dams and ponds that reduce pollution, allow fish passage, and support self-sustaining ecosystems. Want to clean up the streams and floodplains of your local watershed? Let the beavers do the job!

March 23, 2021August 15, 2022

Forest vs. Woodlot

Let’s take a quiet stroll through the forest to have a look around. The spring awakening is underway and it’s a marvelous thing to behold. You may think it a bit odd, but during this walk we’re not going to spend all of our time gazing up into the trees. Instead, we’re going to investigate the happenings at ground level—life on the forest floor.

Rotting logs and leaf litter create the moisture retaining detritus in which mesic forest plants grow and thrive. Note the presence of mosses and a vernal pool in this damp section of forest.

The earliest green leaves in the forest are often those of the Skunk Cabbage (Simplocarpus foetidus). This member of the arum family gets a head start by growing in the warm waters of a spring seep or in a stream-fed wetland. Like many native wildflowers of the forest, Skunk Cabbage takes advantage of early-springtime sun to flower and grow prior to the time in late April when deciduous trees grow foliage and cast shade beneath their canopy.

Among the bark of dead and downed trees, the Mourning Cloak butterfly (Nymphalis antiopa) hibernates for the winter. It emerges to alight on sun-drenched surfaces in late winter and early spring.

Another hibernating forest butterfly that emerges on sunny early-spring days is the Eastern Comma (Polygonia comma), also known as the Hop Merchant.

In a small forest brook, a water strider (Gerridae) chases its shadow using the surface tension of the water to provide buoyancy. Forests are essential for the protection of headwaters areas where our streams get their start.

Often flooded only in the springtime, fish-free pools of water known as vernal ponds are essential breeding habitat for many forest-dwelling amphibians. Unfortunately, these ephemeral wetland sites often fall prey to collecting, dumping, filling, and vandalism by motorized and non-motorized off-roaders, sometimes resulting in the elimination of the populations of frogs, toads, and salamanders that use them.

Wood Frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus) emerge from hiding places among downed timber and leaf litter to journey to a nearby vernal pond where they begin calling still more Wood Frogs to the breeding site.

Wood Frog eggs must hatch and tadpoles must transform into terrestrial frogs before the pond dries up in the summertime. It’s a risky means of reproduction, but it effectively evades the enormous appetites of fish.

When the egg laying is complete, adult Wood Frogs return to the forest and are seldom seen during the rest of the year.

In early spring, Painted Turtles emerge from hideouts in larger forest pools, particularly those in wooded swamps, to bask in sunny locations.

Dead standing trees, often called snags, are essential habitats for many species of forest wildlife. There is an entire biological process, a micro-ecosystem, involved in the decay of a dead tree. It includes fungi, bacteria, and various invertebrate animals that reduce wood into the detritus that nourishes and hydrates new forest growth.

Birds like this Red-headed Woodpecker feed on insects found in large snags and nest almost exclusively in them. Many species of wildlife rely on dead trees, both standing and fallen, during all or part of their lives.

There certainly is more to a forest than the living trees. If you’re hiking through a grove of timber getting snared in a maze of prickly Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora) and seeing little else but maybe a wild ungulate or two, then you’re in a has-been forest. Logging, firewood collection, fragmentation, and other man-made disturbances inside and near forests take a collective toll on their composition, eventually turning them to mere woodlots. Go enjoy the forests of the lower Susquehanna valley while you still can. And remember to do it gently; we’re losing quality as well as quantity right now—so tread softly.