Volunteering in December 2016

I always enjoy volunteering at The Howard County Conservancy’s Natural Holiday Sale in early December. This year was no exception.

I got to Mt. Pleasant about an hour before the event started at 10 and kept the refreshment table stocked with cookies, water, and Russian Tea until about 1 when the next shift came on. I enjoyed the food in the kitchen for volunteers and vendors too: scones in the morning and then a scrumptious lunch of white chili, salad, chips…and cookies for dessert.

It was a cool but sunny day and the turnout was the highest ever at just under 500 people. The vendor with wreaths and larger arrangements sold out by 1 when I left. The event continued until 3. The critter construction with natural materials and glue guns was going strong the whole time. I took some pictures of some of the materials and sample constructions before the event got started…and then got too busy to do more. Next year maybe I’ll make a critter myself. The activity started years ago for children but now it is popular with people of all ages (although still mostly children).

I’d planned to hike a little after my shift but it was cold and I was tired. I hiked past the farm house where a squirrel was active in the leaves

Because I wanted to see Ranger (the barred owl) in his new enclosure. He seemed calm even with all the activity of people constructing the goat house in the enclosure next to him.

On the way to my car, I couldn’t resist a picture of the flower pot people – in their December garb.

Now – I’m in the holiday mood!

Mt Pleasant – October 2016

It was very damp – almost raining – last Saturday during my hike at The Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant Farm. I took a few pictures to document the day: black walnuts on the ground in various stages of ripeness,

Colorful dogwood and grass along the drive to the farmhouse….and a zoomed view of the grass.

But the biggest surprise of the hike was some chicken of the woods fungus growing high on a tree near the stream. I was leading a hike so I only took time to take one picture….and then went back again yesterday to take some more documentary pictures. The one below shows that the fungus is at least 10 feet above ground level (near the middle of the image below).

Zoomed in a little – it appears to be growing in a groove in the trunk…maybe a place where lightning damaged the tree. The tree may be standing deadwood since it had no leaves.

Zoomed some more – the groove where the fungus is growing has no bark.

I walked a little further to take some pictures from directly underneath. The underside of the fungus seemed to glow in the morning sunlight.

There were other things to see as well yesterday: the fork in the path down to the stream,

Water on horse nettle fruits and past-prime flowers (the water on the grass soaked through the tops of my hiking boots and got my feet wet!),

And the larger rocks deposited by the storms of last summer at the ‘beach’ area of the stream.

I hiked back to the nature center to get ready to hike with first graders. It was quite a change from last week’s fifth graders!

Fall Beginnings

This past weekend, I volunteered Fall Festival held at the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm. It was a misty day. As I drove to the event, I was using the windshield wipers and wondering how many people would show up --- but there were already quite a few people there when I arrived about 11:30 (I wasn’t the 1^st shift of volunteers). I was early enough to take a short hike through the meadow to try out my new camera. I held it so the lens would not get misted…and experimented. One of the first pictures I took was of a cabbage white butterfly that was perched on a flower; I didn’t see it move at all and it had droplets of water on its antennae!

There were lots of spider webs that were made visible by the mist. I didn’t see the spider on this one so maybe they don’t like a web full of water droplets! The sheer number of webs in the meadow – on plant stems, in the grass – was quite large and it occurred to me that they are probably always there but just not as visible when things are dry.

Do you see the bug underneath this thistle flower – using it as an umbrella?

The break in the stone wall allows the paths to connect. I like the area because the rocks are covered with lots of lichen and moss.

The bridge was warped by the storm water surge from the same event that almost destroyed Ellicot City last summer. You can tell that the water was moving under this bridge (left to right)! Before the storm the bridge was straight.

I hiked back to the Nature Center where I was volunteering in the Children’s Crafts area. They made owls with glued on google eyes and stamped feathers (using celery stalks as stamps). There were over 70 children over a 2-hour period!

Only two children make owls with outstretched wings…and one of those was a younger child that decided that using a finger on the stamp pads was more fun that the celery.

And a good time was had by all….

Mt. Pleasant – September 2016

Earlier this month I posted some images of ‘minutes in the meadow’ at Mt. Pleasant – but fall is such a great time around the Howard County Conservancy place that I more to share from other times I was at Mt. Pleasant. The black walnuts are still green but beginning to turn. Their out hull will be oozing black before too long.

The pine trees have their cones – like decorations.

The horse nettles are still blooming

But there are fruits that are forming as well.

The chicory is still blooming too

And hoverflies abound.

But the big showy plant of September is the goldenrod – it is a sweep of yellow in the meadow –

Tall and lush --- providing food for the butterflies. The monarchs need it for their migration southward.

In our area – the fall usually peaks in mid to late October. We have had some leaves falling already – not pretty ones; the early leaf fall has been from dry weather in late summer. We are getting some rain this week but it may to too late to give us a brilliant fall. October will tell.

Minutes in the Meadow

It’s the time of year that schools start again – and I’m more of that with the classes for Howard County Conservancy volunteers. I got to Mt Pleasant a little early for one of them to give myself time to spend a few minutes in the meadow. I didn’t have time to go very far but there were plenty of subjects for photography. The dew was still evident on the flowers. Chicory flowers always seem a darker blue before they completely open. I had not notices the little fibers on the calyx before; they catch dew.

Sometimes the chaos of an unfurling flower is what catches my eye. This one was so low to the grown that I almost missed it.

And then I saw some movement in the mass of meadow plants and, with some difficulty, managed to find it and zoomed in enough to figure out what it was. A grasshopper or a Queen Anne’s Lace fruit cluster!

I glanced down near the edge of the path and saw what looked like thorn on a blade of grass. I backed up enough for the zoom on the camera to focus on it. Another grasshopper! I ended up zooming out to get the antennae in the picture. They were very long!

I was pleased to see so much in such a short period of time and in a relatively small area of the meadow.

6th Graders at Storm Water Engineering

Last week I volunteered during a 6^th grade field trip to Belmont Manor and Historic Park. It was the last of the Middle School spring field trips there. The field trips activity were a mixture of history, technology, and science. My station for one of the day was about storm water engineering. The majority of the students realized that Belmont is on a hill and that the rain water would run downhill to the Patapsco River into Baltimore Harbor then to the Chesapeake Bay and then the Atlantic Ocean. Each team of 4-5 students was given a paint tray with a mound of earth at the high end of the tray as a model for what happens to storm water. They could add sticks, stones, and dry grass in any way they wanted to slow the flow of the water when it ‘rained’ (via a watering jug) on the soil. After 10 minutes of engineering by all the teams, the teams did a short description to the whole group and then the ‘rain’ came as everyone watched.

A surprising number of teams did not think to cover the soil at the top of the tray. It ‘eroded’ when the rain came down and often resulted in fast water runoff and the water was muddy too.

Some of the teams did cover the soil and used rocks and sticks to hold grass in place both over the soil and rocks; the grass turned out to be very absorbent. The water took a long time to get through to the bottom of the paint tray….and was generally clear.

As I watched the teams decide what they were going to do, implement their design, present their design, and then test it, I was intrigued by the ‘light bulb’ moments of learning that were visibly occurring all along the process.

As I walked back to my car after the last field trip – I took a picture of the bald cypress down near the pond – the tall grasses waving in the misty day…. feeling happy to have been a part of the field trips for middle schoolers at Belmont.

Mt. Pleasant Farm – April 2016

The Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm is bursting with spring scenes this month.

The pear tree in the orchard was blooming profusely at the beginning of the month;

Most of the blooms were gone within a week.

The apple trees in the orchard were just beginning to bloom when the pear tree was mostly done.

The wood frog’s eggs had hatched and the tadpoles were numerous in the Honors Garden pool.

The trees were just getting new leaves but it was enough to almost hide the farmhouse in this view from the meadow.

Montjoy Barn has more color around it – more than the old red doors.

The nesting box in the meadow is a choice place for both blue birds

And tree swallows. They had a tussle as I was walking up the path and the bluebirds were in possession as I continued my hike.

We’ll have to wait until almost May for some of the trees near the farmhouse to get their leaves.

Learning Log – March 2016

March was a huge month for classes...both online and traditional classroom/field work.

The 6 modules of Coursera’s Big History were a whirl wind discussion beginning with the Big Bang to the present and then initiating the importance of our understanding Big History as we contemplate our actions into the future. This is unlike any history course I’ve taken before in that it integrates a lot of disciplines rather than the traditional view of history. In Big History - wars and memorization of dates are way down on the scale of importance. Instead thinking about increases in complexity and energy flows are the drivers of change….and human history is in the context of the universe rather than insular to our species. I still have some references from the course to read/view but I was so fascinated by the material that I did all the lectures in March!

I finished 9 of the 11 modules of Coursera’s Soul Beliefs: Causes and Consequences Unit 2: Belief Systems. This is a continuation of Unit 1 which I finished in February. This part of the course is delving more into neuroscience and psychology. I’ve enjoyed it.

The Howard County Conservancy provided volunteer naturalist training for the spring field trips that will beginning in April for pre-school through middle school students. There was quite a range of topics: rocks, history of the places where we hike, insects, habitats, watersheds, literacy, seasons, and Bioblitz. In each of the 7 sessions, there was a classroom segment and then a hike to demonstrate the types of things we would do with the students. We looked at macroinvertebrates in the stream, learned to use iNaturalist, explored the hiking routes in detail, and sometimes pretended we were students. The first field trip is next Monday….so we’ll see how prepared we all are very soon!

Then there were all kinds of experiential learning going on – here are my top three for March:

Observing the effect of the combination of pine bark beetles, tree age, salt mist, and big storms at Chincoteague

Noting the large number of Tundra Swans at Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge and Snow Geese at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

Seeing two organisms I knew about from books and pictures but had not seen in the wild: the hemlock woolly anelgid (see previous post here) and a wood duck (more images coming in an upcoming post).

Field Trip Training

I attended all the training sessions this month for the spring field trip volunteers by the Howard County Conservancy. The field trips for elementary and middle school students will start soon even though this year the weather has been warm enough they could have started earlier than mis-April. Some of the training sessions were the same as last spring – but I learn something a little extra each time…and I enjoy the short spring hikes that are incorporated into the training. Things change so fast along the paths in spring that there is always something new to notice.

Once the field trips start – the challenge will be to focus on the hiking groups and guiding their discoveries. Every hike is different. Sometimes it works to stay totally on topic…other times there is something along the trail that captures everyone’s attention so we just celebrate the serendipity. Last spring several of my groups just stood for several minutes and watched tree swallows building a nest in blue bird box! I was impressed with how quiet the second graders could be when their interest was focused. Will the same happen this spring? I hope so.

I have a little break for a week and then the flurry of spring field trips start. It will be over by mid-June (even with snow days delaying the end of the school year). It's a great volunteer gig!

Mt Pleasant Farm – March 2016

There are signs of spring at the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm but the trees still look very bare. Earlier in the month I posted about the Wood Frogs in the Honors Garden pool. Last week, the frogs (and their loud clacking) were gone, but the tadpoles were beginning to hatch. They were easiest to see on the rocks. They are algae eaters and the little pool has plenty for them to eat. Notice that there is also a tiny snail just above the water line.

The moss growing on the parts of the rocks above the water looks very green right now. Soon there will be a lot more tadpoles in the water below since there is a large egg mass that has not hatched near this rock.

I took advantages of the absence of leaves to capture a stump that is usually hidden by brush. It has shelf fungus

And wood pecker holes

And lots of moss growing on it.

It is near the spot where skunk cabbage grows (previous post is here).

The streams are gurgling (and the paths are usually muddy) this time of year.

The farmhouse is visible from the meadow with the deciduous trees still bare.

I stood photographing a mockingbird for several minutes. At first I thought the breeze was ruffling the neck feathers but then I realized that the neck moves a lot as the bird creates his sounds (mockingbirds have quite a repertoire).

Squirrels are still finding last season’s nuts – and eating them noisily. I would not have noticed this squirrel without that noisy munching.

The maple ‘tree within a tree’ is still one of my favorite stops along the stone wall. Theorizing about why it is that way….and looking for snake skin sheds which seem to be there frequently…are always a hit with hiking groups.

These shelf fungi caught my eye – like little steps up the large branch.

Last season’s dogbane still holds some of its seeds in the meadow.

So even at the end of winter – beginning of spring, there is a lot to see here. It is a calm before the riot of growth that comes in April and May.

Mt. Pleasant in January

I took a walk with a ‘Winter Wellness’ group at the Howard County Conservancy’s Mt. Pleasant Farm early this month…on a very cold day. I didn’t take very many pictures because it was more important to walk quickly enough to keep warm. I liked the patterns the ice made along the edges of the Davis Branch – the contrasting colors of fallen leaves, the lighter rocks and pebbles…and a surprising amount of green.

The day warmed into the 30s and as I was leaving I saw a lone turkey vulture soring overhead. The bird circled over me several times and I finally managed a focused image.

As a walked back to my car I noticed how lonely the picnic area was without the large number of students that often picnic there after field trips in the spring and fall.