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Mountain Lake Resort-Always worthy of a Visit

©Marlene A. Condon

February 2, 2018

Mountain Lake Lodge, built of native sandstone, is especially lovely as the sun is setting. Its reflection in a small pond surrounded by natural vegetation that attracts wildlife serves to remind us that man and nature can coexist. Photo: Marlene A. Condon.

As a student at Virginia Tech, I found visits to nearby Mountain Lake—one of only two natural lakes in the state of Virginia—enchanting. Walking along the trail on the east side of the large freshwater lake required hiking through a rhododendron “hell” that was spectacular when in spring bloom. (A rhododendron hell refers to an area of these plants growing so close together that they are “hell” to get through if a pathway has not already been cleared for you!)

Today, more than 40 years later, the fantastical rhododendrons remain, but sadly, the lake, once covering about 50 acres, is now a ghost of its former self. Although somewhat variable in size throughout its history, the lake seriously suffered from the statewide, long-term drought of 2002, and it has never recovered.

Geologists cannot definitively cite the reason for its continued difficulty in refilling. However, many researchers have studied Mountain Lake, and they are certain about some things. Dr. Chester F. Watts (“Skip”) of Radford University told me that geophysical studies indicate that the lake originally formed as the result of a landslide that clogged a narrow gap in a ridge. The random jumbles of rock blocks created a dam that backed water up into a meadow.

Unfortunately, the disordered rock dam contains spaces in between the rocks. Those openings sometimes allow water to pass through, while at other times they clog with silt that holds water in. Additionally, some deep holes, which leak, lie along the lake floor. Thus over the past four thousand or more years, Mountain Lake has fluctuated in size, depending upon the state of both the dam and the holes.

Jeanne M. Roningen (U.S. Army Corp of Engineers) and Thomas J. Burbey (Virginia Tech) discussed the hydrogeologic factors that influence lake-level changes in a research paper in the 2012 Hydrogeology Journal (20: 1149-1167). They say that historical data suggest that either significant precipitation or artificial intervention to mitigate seepage would be required for lake-level recovery in the near future.

The reduction in lake size has resulted in the loss of over one million dollars per year for the Mountain Lake Conservancy, the non-profit organization founded to manage and protect the resort and the 2600 acres of land surrounding it. (NASL ML FldTrp printed.pdf) Should this drop in income continue, it could perhaps result in the future closing of the Lodge and thus public access to this wonderful property, which would be tragic.

My husband and I visited in August when the Lodge offered a solar eclipse package. We were disheartened to see that only a small pond existed in the deep bowl at the northern end of the lakebed. Yet even without its namesake lake, this resort is still remarkably special.

First, the drive into the mountains of southwestern Virginia is just spectacular. If you have never traveled to this area, you have missed what is perhaps the most beautiful section of our state. The extraordinary views astound me every time I visit, and I feel I could never see it enough!

Arriving at the lodge, you know you have reached your destination because the resort spreads out before you, nestled within the confines of forested mountain slopes. It is the perfect place to escape the woes of the world and experience true serenity, if you so desire. (Of course, to accomplish this state of mind, you should disconnect from your electronic devices, although WiFi is available.)

What makes Mountain Lake especially unique to me is the natural beauty of the grounds in the resort area itself. The aesthetics of today’s populace typically tend towards totally manicured settings that appear, to my eyes at least, as artificial landscapes totally devoid of a connection to reality. But the grounds at Mountain Lake, while ordered and neat, contain natural areas within the grounds themselves that maintain our connection to nature, which is precisely as it should be.

You can hike the many trails running throughout the property, or just observe the variety of plants that have filled the lakebed. They attract numerous kinds of butterflies and other insects (such as dragonflies), and the birds that feed upon them. Early-morning risers can view bats flying around the lodge after a night of feeding.

Spring is a great time to see such migratory birds as thrushes, tanagers, and warblers. During spring and summer, the Lodge maintains hummingbird feeders that host more than a dozen Ruby-throats. Comfortable benches in the shade allow you to relax while the tiny birds constantly chase each other around. And American Goldfinches, in their luminous yellow plumage, seem to be everywhere.

If you enjoy history or just historical buildings, you can find both here. The current lodge dates from 1936. However, visitors started coming to Mountain Lake in the mid-1800s, and many of the original cabins where they stayed still exist today.

For a sense of former times at the resort, you can study the old photographs that line the bedroom hallways of the lodge. In addition to seeing people boating upon the lake, you can see what would now be antique cars and people on horseback, and folks cutting ice blocks from the lake to preserve food during the warmer months of the year.

I see these pictures as a chance to see history in the making.

Over the past decade, the Conservancy has begun to develop recreational activities, such as zip-lines and water slides, for their guests. It saddens me to see those kinds of offerings that people can find elsewhere, as if the lodge minus its namesake lake has nothing special going for it.

But Mountain Lake is an exceptional place, with or without its famous lake! The lakebed has rarely been accessible, as it is now, for walking and exploring. At this time in its history, folks have a chance to view geological features normally underwater, and there have been unexpected surprises.

In 2008 when the lake had dried to almost nothing, Tim Dalton of Ripplemead and his son, Chris, discovered the remains of Samuel Ira “Si” Felder who had drowned there in July of 1921. In 2010, when his great-niece came to Mountain Lake to gather his belongings, she commented that she could “see why he and [his wife] would have come down here. It’s a beautiful place.”

The Mountain Lake Resort is enchanting and may very well cast its spell over you, drawing you back repeatedly to experience its lovely charms.

Blue Ridge Naturalist: Mountain Lake Resort—Always Worthy of A Visit

Have You Thanked a Sapsucker Today?

©Marlene A. Condon

March 2, 2018

A regularly occurring winter visitor to Virginia is the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, a funny-sounding name to non-birders. But its eponymous name informs us that this northern bird sucks sap.

By making shallow wells on trunks and branches that fill with sap, the sapsucker obtains sugar—a source of carbohydrates that provides energy for the sapsucker and many other animals, such as squirrels, other species of birds, and insects (on warmish winter days) that come to also feed upon it.

Sadly, this species gets a bad rap. People accuse it of seriously injuring or killing trees and shrubs when it makes its sap wells. But this enduring suggestion is utter nonsense.

Because my interest in history is practically equal to my interest in nature, I have been on many estate tours on which I have noticed huge (i.e., old) trees covered in recent and decades-old sap wells. It should go without saying that those trees would not still be alive if sapsucker wells were detrimental to them. The reality is that sapsuckers do no more harm to your plants than do people who install taps into Sugar Maple trees so they can make maple syrup.

The indigenous peoples of the Lake States, southeastern Canada, New England, and the Appalachian Mountains knew and used maple syrup long before the arrival of European settlers. No authenticated information has been handed down explaining how they learned that maple sap could be a food source, but I have absolutely no doubt that nature led the way.

It is not at all unlikely that someone observed a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker making sap wells, just as I have done numerous times while eating my second breakfast (my first is when it’s still dark out) that consists of oatmeal sweetened with pure maple syrup. The person noticed how popular the sap was with a variety of animals, decided to taste it, and voila! A discovery for the ages.

The migration behavior of the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker fits perfectly with my suggestion that this bird played a major role in the origination of maple syrup. These birds start to head north from Virginia by March, and few remain by April. They know when to get “home” for the spring thaw and the rising maple sap!

The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker is an eastern bird with closely related western relatives, one of which is the Red-naped Sapsucker. At one time, scientists considered these two birds to be the same species, even though they have differing field marks and their ranges do not overlap much at all.

On the morning of November 9, 2017, I heard a bird making a “crying” sound (as I described it in my notes) that was very similar to that of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, except that it was not quite right. The sound had a sad quality to it, as if something were amiss.

Finding the bird in my Autumn Olive just southeast of my house, I was very surprised to see that it was a sapsucker with an obvious red spot on the back of its head (called the “nape”). It was a Red-naped Sapsucker! This was quite an exciting find because this species breeds in the Rocky Mountain region north to British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, and would not normally be here.

However, at the time of my initial sighting, I had no idea just how rare a visitor this bird was in the East. After announcing its presence in my yard on the Virginia bird-listing Internet site, a birder wrote to tell me that this species had only ever been recorded in this half of the country a few times, and that was around Canton, Ohio. Thus, a Red-naped Sapsucker would be a first for the state of Virginia!

The bird’s most telling feature was the red on the back of the head, but it also had much less black on the breast than a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, which seems to be very typical of Red-naped Sapsuckers. I discovered this difference by looking at many, many photos online and in books, but surprisingly, I never found mention of it in the literature.

“My” bird was a male because its throat was fully red (the female’s throat is white and red), but it was obviously not an adult because it still showed areas of brownish mottled coloration where an adult male would have more of a white-and-black contrast to its appearance. It showed some adult coloration because the immature Red-naped Sapsucker starts attaining its adult plumage by November of its first year, unlike the immature Yellow-bellied that attains its adult plumage by the following spring.

The bird visited my yard at least 10 times between its first appearance in November and its last in early December, exhibiting interesting behavior that, along with its brownish plumage, corroborated that it was a young bird.

The first few times it was here, it made plaintive sounds—as you would expect from a young bird—as it followed adult Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers around the yard. A couple of times it even landed right next to an adult, a male one time and a female the next, which is not typical adult behavior. Additionally, adult birds would not tolerate this closeness from another adult bird, but would put up with it briefly—as they did—from a young one.

I’ll probably never see a Red-naped Sapsucker in my yard again, and it is highly unlikely anyone in Virginia will ever find one of these birds here. However, it is not hard to spot Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers from fall through early spring, and if you love pure maple syrup as I do, you just might want to quietly thank these birds for the role their species very likely played in bringing you this marvelous natural product!

Blue Ridge Naturalist: Have You Thanked A Sapsucker Today?

On the Cutting Edge

©Marlene A. Condon

December 8, 2017

ARTICLE FEB2018 -DEER-EATEN YUCCA--IMG_8871adjust — The ragged edges of fibrous yucca leaves (Yucca filamentosa) in the author’s yard bear testament to the desperation of deer during the winter of 2013-14. Photo: Marlene Condon.

In October of 2017, a new study asserting the shocking loss of 75% of the total biomass of flying insects in some German nature preserves caught the attention of many news outlets. Various scientists were quoted as they pointed out the seriousness of this newfound result for our own food supply and that of wildlife.

Faithful followers of my writing know that the loss of insects is not news to me. In fact, because I regularly bring new information about our environment directly to my readers (thank you for your interest) long before the scientific community is aware of it, you can rest assured that you are on the cutting edge of what is happening “out there.”

For many years I have been writing about the perilous loss of insects in the United States based upon my personal observations—and people have insisted I did not know what I was talking about.

In 2014, for example, I wrote in a column that I was very concerned about insect collecting “because there exist far fewer insects in the world today than 50 years ago.” I also wrote that, “There’s been such a huge loss of insect populations that I am not at all surprised that so many species of insect-feeding animals are dying out. And I am extremely concerned about the future of mankind in this insect-depleted world.”

Within one day of that column appearing a scientist replied that my “subjective assessment” of insect populations was “flawed” because I had based it upon years of paying attention to the numbers of insects splattered upon car windshields and flying around lights at night. Scientists often conflate personal observations of the natural world with a lack of objectivity, as if personal observations made in a lab setting somehow automatically guarantees impartiality on the part of the researcher.

He went on to bluntly state that “trillions of insects thrive here”, inferring that the insects of North America were flourishing and I was way off the mark. But as I’ve always known and written, the best way to learn about nature is by unobtrusively observing it. When a plethora of insects around lights at night goes to almost none over the decades, only one conclusion is possible.

My way of doing science means that I obtain factual information without needing to injure, kill, or disturb wildlife in any way, whereas the 27-year-long German study killed millions of insects (adding insult to injury) in order to “document” that insects were disappearing. Unfortunately, scientists simply do not grasp the irony of harming the very wildlife they are trying to understand, and they refuse to believe that simple, unbiased observations can be trusted to yield accurate information.

Back in the 1990s, I noticed that a sentinel crow waited for me to put out birdseed on cold winter mornings. The moment I appeared, the crow would fly off silently, and then I would hear cawing in the distance. Within a few minutes, several crows would arrive to take my seeds.

I sent a report to an ornithological publication about the obvious intelligence of crows placing a sentinel to watch for me so that it could then alert other crows to the location of a food source, but the scientists at the helm did not seem to believe what I had written.

Shortly thereafter I attended a meeting at which I met an ornithologist. I told him about my crow experience, which he seemed to believe, but he told me that birds don’t recognize individual humans. He thought I should not try to suggest that the crow actually recognized me as an individual.

I did not believe I was wrong about the crow being able to identify me. As I later wrote in one of my newspaper columns, “Although I came out every morning, I did not always show up at the same time. Thus the only way for the crows to take advantage of my generosity was to post a sentry that could alert the others at whatever hour I made an appearance.”

It should be noted that the crow did not wait for me to distribute seeds. It left the moment it saw me, something it did not do if my husband went outside to leave for work before I had gone out to spread seeds.

So-o-o-o, I was not the least bit surprised when, almost two decades later, scientists “discovered” (rather like Columbus discovering America even though native peoples had lived here for many thousands of years) that crows could recognize individual human faces.

Although I try to share my discoveries, scientists can be a skeptical lot. Non-scientists can be just as cynical. When a neighbor suggested a few months ago that deer were overpopulated, I told him that was not currently the case. He and another neighbor treated my statement as utter nonsense. After all, people still see deer around, and if their plants get eaten, they are especially prone to believing there are too many of these animals.

What they don’t realize is that they cannot determine relative population levels without having paid very close attention over time. In my case, I had documented deer starving a few years back during two successive years of bitterly cold February months, and I had noticed that they were seen less the rest of that year. The next two years of hunter-generated numbers of deer taken during hunting season were way down, fully in agreement with what I had already ascertained.

There was more evidence, too. For many years, ticks were so numerous that it was almost impossible to go outside without getting them on you. And when you looked at deer with binoculars, they were covered with these deer-dependent arthropods.

But my husband and I, despite spending just as much time as ever in the yard where we’d always gotten ticks, found very few on us the past two summers, and the deer we saw carried few, if any, ticks—both situations independently confirming my assertion.

Perhaps the most convincing proof is that Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) and American Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis)—plants especially favored by deer—have been untouched, or touched very little, by deer in recent years. In the past, if these species were unprotected (uncaged), they would have been killed by the overabundance of deer feeding upon them.

People wouldn’t doubt me if they realized that the natural world is an open book just waiting to be read by anyone seriously interested in it. You do not need an advanced degree.

When you observe nature without interfering with it, document carefully what you see, and then employ logic to understand it, you can rest assured that the knowledge you’ve gained is absolutely reliable.

Blue Ridge Naturalist: On the Cutting Edge

Birdbrained

marlene condon cardinal — September 8, 2017

A Northern Cardinal has it all—beauty and brains! (Photo: Marlene A. Condon)

It is almost time for birds from farther north to return to Virginia for the winter. If you are thinking about feeding birds, I want to share the most delightful experience I may have ever had participating in this activity.

Because I have had rheumatoid arthritis for decades, it has finally taken a toll on my hands, making just about anything I do with them terribly painful. As a result, I had to relinquish my role last year as the principal provider of birdseed to my winter visitors. My husband kindly took over for me, although he did alter the protocols.

Whereas I would put some seed on the ground late in the afternoon to make sure all ground-feeding birds were well fed before “going to bed” for the long winter night, he decided that meant too many squirrels were taking the seed. So-o-o, he decided to make the last feeding of the day much later, after the sun had gotten well below the Blue Ridge Mountains just a few miles to our west.

By that time of day, with the light beginning to fade, the only birds usually still active were White-throated Sparrows, Northern Cardinals, and Mourning Doves. Occasionally a lone Dark-eyed Junco would remain, but most of its fellow juncos would have already disappeared for the night.

Often one or more Eastern Cottontail Rabbits would join the birds, and quite surprisingly, a couple of Gray Squirrels would risk staying out much later than their usual bedtime to take advantage of the handouts.

My spouse stuck strictly to his schedule, and after many weeks, the most amazing thing happened. By mid-winter, those birds had learned not only the schedule he kept for feeding them, but also the sound (the unlocking and/or opening of the kitchen door into our carport) that announced he was about to provide them with their food!

My husband had been throwing seeds into the shrubs by the north side of our driveway that offered a measure of protection from predators, such as owls just becoming active at this time of day. He would also throw some seeds into the driveway.

I would watch from my office window from just before he opened the kitchen door to the time he returned to the carport. I was the lucky recipient of a perfectly endearing show.

The minute the door opened, every bird poking around in the plants in the front yard would fly to the shrubs. Many even came out of the brush piles I keep around the yard for them to sleep in or to escape predators or bad weather. It was just an amazing thing to see dozens of sparrows and a cardinal here and there quickly crossing the yard to enter the shrub area where they could await the “birdseed man.”

If the squirrels and bunnies were already in the driveway, they too would take their places inside the shrubbery, albeit on the ground. Remarkably, however, with each passing day, the rabbits got bolder and instead began to just wait for my husband in the driveway!

Just as Pavlov’s dogs learned to associate the sound of a bell with food and thus salivated more in anticipation of eating, our wild critters had learned to associate the sound of our kitchen door with the arrival of food and reacted accordingly.

Some birds, usually a male cardinal and several White-throats, would already be perched in the shrubs, facing the carport, when I first looked out. Mourning Doves would also be waiting patiently, either milling around in the driveway or lying down on their bellies there.

The fact that birds would be facing the carport only in the evening demonstrated that they could tell what time of day they could expect my husband to come out of the house. And, of course, the birds poking around in my gardens and perching in the brush piles probably knew approximately when supper was to be served and were simply killing time in the locations that suited them.

The birds grew ever bolder. At first, those in the bushes would perch close to the driveway and then get scared as my husband threw seeds into the shrubbery. Many of them would originally fly far off and quite possibly did not return.

But, after a while, the birds would simply move up higher into the trees as soon as they heard the kitchen door, where they could wait and watch as my husband approached. They had realized that they would not have seeds bouncing off them if they were higher off the ground, so eventually, many birds would simply wait high up in the first place for his evening appearance.

As he walked back to the carport, the avian creatures would all fly down into the shrubs, and after several moments, a jumble of birds would pour out of the shrubbery as they literally ran out into the driveway. There were always at least five dozen White-throats, five male and four female cardinals, and usually a minimum of six doves. It was the most incredible sight to behold. I couldn’t help but giggle to myself as I watched.

My husband would usually watch the boisterous gathering from the carport. He especially marveled at the White-throated Sparrow chatter that seemed loud enough to get the attention of the whole neighborhood.

The term “birdbrain” refers to a person who is stupid or scatterbrained, yet these birds had shown themselves to be every bit as capable of learning as any mammal—the animals with the largest brains and thus for years thought to be more intelligent than birds, reptiles, amphibians, or fish. Perhaps we need to redefine the word “birdbrained.”

Blue Ridge Naturalist: Birdbrained

Little frogs, sure signs of spring, need attention

By Marlene A. Condon

From the Bay Journal, March 4, 2014.

IMG_1690.jpgtrim_1 — A Wood Frog blending in with dead leaves. Photo by Marlene A. Condon.

One late-February day as I was jogging early in the morning, I heard what sounded like distant Canada geese off to my left. I searched the sky but saw nothing.

Then I realized that the “honking” was actually coming from beside the road. I put my exercise regimen on hold and walked to the edge of the road to look down the embankment where the sounds were coming from. I had finally found my first wood frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus).

I had seen photos of these amphibians in field guides and knew that they should exist where I live.

As you might guess from the name, wood frogs inhabit woods, and woods make up most of my area.

I had wanted very much to see these frogs because they looked so attractive in field guides. A wood frog has a dark facial mask with a light stripe along its upper jaw, both of which contrast with its brown body. But wood frogs are not easy to find.

The easiest time to catch a glimpse of these animals is late winter to early spring, when they migrate from their overwintering sites to shallow pools or ponds where they will breed. They often begin to move during the last few days of February, especially if it is rainy and somewhat warm. The rest of the year they are silent and difficult to see against the background of dried leaves on the forest floor that they call home.

If you really want to confirm that spring is on the way, look for the earliest-appearing cold-tolerant amphibians (frogs, toads, salamanders) of late winter. These hardy little creatures offer the first clue that warm weather is coming, long before American robins that so often —and erroneously, as some robins may be in the area all winter — get credit for this prediction.

One does not need to rise as early in the morning as I do to notice the emergence of amphibians from winter hibernation. Any relatively warm wet evening from now until well into spring should reward those who look with the sight of these diminutive animals.

They emerge in great numbers during the hours of darkness and all of them head to ponds or short-lived (“ephemeral”) pools of water to breed.

Unfortunately, many amphibian species are losing ground in our modern world, both figuratively and literally.

Hundreds of amphibians need to cross roads to get to their breeding grounds. Sad to say, many, many of them get run over by cars and trucks as folks drive quickly along the roads, usually completely unaware that they are squishing animals underneath their tires.

(Anyone who gets up early and walks the roads before crows and other scavengers have a chance to clean up the carcasses will be astonished, and perhaps saddened, by the numbers of mashed amphibians.)

Those that do survive the road crossings often find it difficult to successfully reproduce because wetlands are disappearing.

Humans frequently find wet areas to be a nuisance, even if pieces of property are only wet in the spring and dry the rest of the year. They drain and fill in such areas, not realizing that they are wiping out the breeding grounds for many wildlife species.

And, perhaps, that is the problem.

Birds and mammals are much more noticeable because they are bigger and they visit open spaces where humans see them. Amphibians, on the other hand, are usually out of sight, hiding under decaying logs and branches or resting underneath stones or leaves. For humans, out of sight usually means out of mind.

Therefore, I hope you will take a late-winter or early-spring walk and become familiar with these inhabitants of the natural world that are somewhat hidden from our view most of the time.

I also hope you will drive more slowly on rainy nights and be alert for the presence of frogs, toads, and salamanders making their way to a very important appointment—a date with a female of the same species so they can reproduce.

The male frogs and toads (salamanders tend to be silent) that one can hear calling at this time of year are advertising from suitable breeding grounds for mates. The females arrive, eggs are laid, and within days, the adults have left. Soon the eggs hatch and frog and toad tadpoles and salamander larvae emerge.

Although it may seem surprising that any animal would want to attempt to reproduce while ice may still be on the ground and in areas that are sometimes only temporarily suitable, this early mating frenzy allows the amphibians a measure of protection from predation—most aquatic predators will still be hibernating.

Pay attention, and you may get to witness an amphibian migration!

Marlene A. Condon, author of The Nature-friendly Garden, believes saving the natural world begins in one’s own back yard. Distributed by Bay Journal News Service.

In your garden nurture a treasure trove of life

Marlene A. Condon, June 17, 2014

http://www.bayjournal.com/article/in_your_garden_nurture_a_treasure_trove_of_life

IMG_4132_1 — A Milkweed Beetle on a Common Milkweed inflorescence. Photo by Marlene A. Condon.

One day, my mother-in-law was strolling around the yard with me when we came to a large milkweed plant in the middle of what little lawn I have. She asked me, with much surprise, “Are you keeping this?”

I didn’t know whether it was the placement of the plant (coming up in the grass) or whether it was the type of plant (a “weed” to most folks) that made her think I shouldn’t want the milkweed there, but it didn’t matter. I knew that particular milkweed held a tiny treasure that I was delighted to have in my yard. I would never consider destroying such a valuable plant!

A minuscule (less than 4 mm long) monarch caterpillar was eating its way toward adulthood on that 4-foot-tall plant. It belonged to the last generation of the season and would fly to Mexico before freezing weather set in. I felt proud that my milkweed was helping to sustain the population of this tropical butterfly that can’t survive the winter in our area.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is an early-summer flowering plant that comes up in dry fields and along roadsides, usually growing 3–5 feet tall. While the overall impression you might have of these plants from a distance is one of coarseness, a closer look reveals beautiful, goblet-shaped, pink flowers that perfume the air with a wonderful scent.

The blooms hold lots of nectar, which is especially alluring to bees and butterflies. Silver-spotted skippers, great spangled fritillaries, zebra swallowtails, American ladies, tiger swallowtails, Eastern tailed blues, and spicebush swallowtails are some of the butterfly species that you might see visiting.

You may even spot an unfamiliar species that you have not seen in your yard before. On June 18, 1999, I saw my first-ever variegated fritillary nectaring at common milkweed. This lovely butterfly spent the afternoon feeding in my milkweed patch before moving on. And, of course, milkweed will bring in the monarch butterfly whose caterpillar can eat only milkweed plants to survive.

The monarch has suffered very serious declines over the last several years, with 2013 being catastrophic. The clearing of the Mexican fir forests where these insects overwinter, in combination with the continued displacement of “weedy” habitat in this country, have made their prospects dim.

Gardeners can help save this disappearing species by growing milkweeds, especially the widespread common milkweed. These plants come up in spring, just in time for northward-migrating monarchs to lay eggs on them.

It should take about 13 days for the eggs to hatch, but that may vary, depending upon the weather. The teeny-tiny, colorful caterpillars are striped in black, yellow and white.

But monarchs are not the only interesting insects to be found on common milkweed. Orange-and-black insects known as large milkweed bugs may appear by the time that the green seedpods have begun to form. Or you may see small milkweed bugs that are red and black. Both insects pierce the pods to suck the juices from the developing seeds inside.

After you have seen milkweed bugs mating, you can keep an eye on the seed pods where the immature ones will appear. They will stay there for quite some time, which means you can check every day or so to watch them develop.

I usually see one or more adult large milkweed bugs with their nymphs (the immature milkweed bugs) until well into fall. The adults appear to be watching over the young ones, which is extremely unusual behavior in the insect world.

An interesting phenomenon associated with the common milkweed is that many of the creatures feeding on these plants are orange, including a species of aphid. A few organisms are red—the color which is closest to orange on the color spectrum.

Milkweed sap contains alkaloids that make monarchs that feed upon it somewhat poisonous to predators.

The fertilization process in common milkweed is so complex that very few flowers ever get fertilized. From each cluster of up to 75 blooms, only two seed pods will normally develop.

I highly recommend that you grow common milkweed. Then perhaps a monarch laying eggs will alert you to the plants emerging from the ground and soon, you too, could be able to enjoy seeing “tiny treasures.”

Distributed by Bay Journal News Service.

“Pests” are powerful allies in effort for healthy waters

By Marlene A. Condon. Text from article that appeared in the Bay Journal on July 14, 2015

http://www.bayjournal.com/article/pests_are_powerful_allies_in_effort_for_healthy_waters

IMG_2890trim_1 — The immature form of the Japanese Beetle is a grub that consumes (recycles) dead plant roots.

Soil constitutes the foundation that supports plant and animal life on Earth. Consisting of broken-down rock and the remains of organisms that once existed, it brings forth new life and takes back the old.

Soil is worth more than its weight in gold, yet humans tend to treat it as if it has little value and as if its loss is neither important nor consequential.

As a result, we don’t give much thought to soil erosion during rain storms, even though it can be quite visible.

In Charlottesville, Va., for example, the Rivanna River that runs smack through the city appears red during and after every rain storm. That obvious red coloring represents clay soil leaving the area, and it’s a serious problem for the local backyards and farmlands from which it came, as well as for the Chesapeake Bay to which it flows.

The loss of soil and nutrients negatively affects the landscape by reducing its productivity. When runoff from throughout the watershed reaches the Chesapeake Bay, it causes the die-off of underwater grasses that are needed by water-dwelling organisms to survive.

Excess nutrients cause algal blooms that cloud the water and starve it of oxygen while suspended soil blocks sunlight necessary to plants. Without access to sunlight, grasses can’t photosynthesize, or make food—and they die.

The loss of these plants affects the survivability of animals, such as young striped bass (Morone saxatilis) and blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus)—two economically important Bay species—that are dependent on underwater grasses for shelter from predation.

The grasses also oxygenate water, which benefits most aquatic animal life. And, well-established areas of grasses reduce erosion along shorelines during storms that roil the water.

There’s a simple, common-sense solution to help save the Chesapeake Bay as well as our yards and farmland from the movement of sediment: We should save the pests!

When burrowing animals, such as moles, voles, mice, ground hogs, chipmunks, ants, termites, grubs and cicadas—animals usually thought of as pests—make openings at the surface of the ground, and tunnels or burrows underground, they create air spaces into which rainwater can quickly disappear.

By accepting these critters and allowing them to coexist with us, we and the Bay receive immediate assistance limiting water run-off that carries away our priceless soil.

As an added bonus, plants are naturally irrigated and groundwater supplies are naturally recharged. But there’s more: Every single one of these “pests” plays a vital role in keeping the environment functioning properly.

Consider moles and grubs, which people love to hate. Moles are disliked because of the upraised tunnels they make when traveling through the soil to eat soil-dwelling creatures, such as grubs.

People don’t want mole tunnels in their yards because lawnmowers scalp the upraised earth and their feet sink into it as they walk. But we should feel grateful instead of aggravated.

First of all, tunnels provides natural aeration in a yard so the homeowner doesn’t need to pay for man-made aeration services to allow air to reach the roots of their plants.

Second, the mole that made the tunnel is announcing that there’s an overpopulation of soil creatures and that it’s going to reduce their populations—free of charge—before they cause problems for healthy plants.

Take, for example, grubs. The function of a grub is to recycle dead plant roots so they don’t sit there forever taking up precious space that could instead be used by a living plant. But if someone doesn’t allow the mole to do its job of limiting the numbers of grubs, these beetle larvae will become overpopulated.

When that happens, the grubs will eventually run out of their preferred food—dead plant roots—and start eating what’s left—the roots of healthy plants—to survive.

Therefore, the root cause of people’s dislike of both grubs and moles can be traced to their intolerance of mole tunnels. Yet these tunnels can be easily fixed by simply tamping them down. During the next rain, water will seep into the air spaces of the squished tunnel and it’ll be difficult to tell it had ever been there.

Your acceptance of a mole will have helped your yard and the Chesapeake Bay.

Robins & blossoms & snakes, oh my! A natural garden has room for all

By Marlene A. Condon. Text from article that appeared in the Bay Journal, July 19, 2016

http://www.bayjournal.com/article/robins_blossoms_snakes_oh_my_a_natural_garden_has_room_for_all

yellow-collard scape mothIMG_4880trim_1 — A Yellow-collard Scape Moth (left) and a Pennsylvania Leatherwing Soldier Beetle (right) feeding at a goldenrod. Photo by Marlene A. Condon

Providing habitat for numerous species of wildlife is a critically important to keep the environment functioning properly. And, it’s absolutely crucial to our well-being. Without the variety of services provided by wildlife, the environment simply cannot work as it should.

For example, without recyclers — such as slugs, snails, earwigs, flies, opossums — organic matter, which includes leaves, dried plant stems, animal droppings or dead animals, wouldn’t be broken down and returned to the soil for the benefit of plants.

If plants can’t access the nutrients locked up in organic matter, they run out of food and won’t be able to grow. Then animals, including humans, that depend on plant life won’t have food or survive.

It should be every person’s responsibility to help maintain the health of our environment by creating a nature wonderland that can provide homes for a great variety of species.

Unfortunately, many people prefer to garden only for particular species, such as birds or butterflies. But you can’t pick and choose without harming the very animals you want to help.

Let’s say that you put up shelves and/or boxes in the yard to make housing available for the kinds of birds that will make use of these structures to reproduce. But then a Black Rat Snake climbs into the structure and eats the eggs or chicks.

If you’re like many folks, you’d get angry and kill the snake (although this is illegal in some states). You’d think that the serpent was “bad.”

But the snake isn’t bad. If it didn’t help to limit bird populations, the birds would crowd and eat themselves out of house and home, bringing disease and starvation upon themselves.

For example, a pair of Carolina wrens can nest three times from spring to fall, averaging four chicks per brood. If the two adults, along with all 12 of their chicks, were to survive the season, your yard population would go from two Carolina Wrens to 14, which is an increase in population by a factor of seven. If year after year, all of the adult wrens mated and they and all of their chicks were to survive, each year your yard population of wrens would increase by a factor of seven.

In just 10 years, you would have produced — on your property alone — 565 million Carolina wrens. And don’t forget all of the other bird species that are nesting on your property and elsewhere!

There’s simply not enough space and food available for all organisms to survive to adulthood, which is why predators are so vital to the proper functioning of the environment. We must recognize that even those animals that we have a special fondness for do need to be kept limited in number. This truism applies to every kind of animal — including humans —because the Earth is limited in space and resources.

But this doesn’t mean you turn your birds into sitting ducks. If a snake gets into a structure much too often (I’ve found that, on average, you should expect this to occur only about once every three years) it tells you there’s something wrong with that location and you need to move the structure.

You needn’t feel stupid for having placed the structure in that location. After all, the birds didn’t recognize there would be a problem, either.

The guidelines for creating a nature-friendly garden are simple.

Minimize the lawn because it doesn’t provide much food, shelter or nesting sites for animals. Instead, grow a variety of plants of differing heights: herbaceous flowers and grasses, vines, shrubs and trees to create vertical structure.

To decide what kinds of plants to grow, walk around your neighborhood and local parks. Bring a small notepad and pen and watch for animal activity among plants.

Write down the kinds of plants being visited by any kind of wildlife, especially insects. Insects provide an important clue to how valuable a plant is. If they are visiting blooms, the flowers must be providing nectar and/or pollen, a necessary food source for numerous kinds of creatures, from bees to hummingbirds. The insects themselves are a valuable food source for spiders, lizards and birds.

Bring a camera to photograph plants you’re not familiar with so you can try to identify them later.

Note whether each plant is located in sun or shade and whether it’s growing in dry or damp soil. The plants you choose to grow must be those for which you can provide the proper environment.

Opinion/Letter: Nature should be natural, not chemical

Dec 14, 2015

The Dec. 1 gardening column by Mary Stickley-Godinez (“Gardening: Chemical warfare common in nature,” The Daily Progress online, Nov. 30) perpetuates the mistaken beliefs that humankind must constantly fight nature and that nature fights itself.

These notions — which every horticulture student learns and that virtually all garden writers, extension agents and nursery workers relay to the public — are wrong.

The horticultural industry is based upon experiences out of context. The difficulties encountered inside a greenhouse, or in an equally unnatural setting such as the monocultures created by farmers, occur precisely because these environments are artificial constructs out of sync with the natural laws governing nature.

The columnist’s comment that it’s “war out there” originates from the nonsense put forth by scientists who themselves work in an artificial environment of Petri dishes instead of the real world. Allelopathy — the concept that some plant species can hinder or prevent germination or growth of others by releasing chemicals into their environment — is dogma very much akin to that regarding “germs.”

Because scientists now possess the means to count the huge number of microorganisms that exist on surfaces that we touch, health hazards are suddenly deemed to be everywhere, when in fact, the effect of these organisms upon us is minimal. The preponderance of experiential evidence should tell us the truth, but people prefer to ignore facts in order to bash the natural world.

The concept of allelopathy, easily disproved by direct observation of the natural world over time, begs the question: If plants are capable of fighting their own wars, why do humans need to step in with yet more chemicals?

Truth be told, in gardens that support predators to prevent plant-feeding critters from overpopulating, the plants — which, by the way, exist to feed animals — do not need to chemically defend themselves.

Folks should learn to live in agreement with nature by growing a nature-friendly garden. It doesn’t require chemical warfare by plants or people.

Marlene A. Condon

http://www.dailyprogress.com/opinion/opinion-letter-nature-should-be-natural-not-chemical/article_0b647e06-a25a-11e5-b5ed-87b903a33a66.html

If you break it, you pay for it

Commentary from The Baltimore Sun

Marlene Condon

August 21, 2014

Some years ago, a colleague told me how, when he was a boy, he would vacation each summer with his parents in Ocean City. He and his mom always looked forward to crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Annapolis, where the sea breezes carried the very essence of this estuary — the smells associated with the vast array of organisms that live and die along the shoreline or in the saltwater.

But by the 1980s, Rick noticed that the air surrounding the bridge no longer brought to mind visions of the beach with its myriad periwinkles, sea stars, crabs, shorebirds and seaweed. The tell-tale aura of the sea had disappeared, and the family’s much anticipated arrival at the bridge had lost its magic.

The “magic” died because the bay was dying. And as the bay’s health declined, so did the once-bustling fishing industry that employed numerous workers, on and off the water. Only a remnant of what was once a thriving economy exists today.

The bay workers did not lose their jobs due to technological innovation, as happened when Henry Ford invented the assembly-line production of cars, thereby putting carriage and harness makers out of business.

No, these people lost their livelihoods because of the apathy and inaction of their fellow Americans upstream. Despite decades of media attention and scientific literature that rang again and again the alarm bell, society responded with a virtual yawn. The result has been devastating to the folks who have lived, worked, played and died in concert with the bay.

It’s not yet too late to restore the bay to health; the natural world has a remarkable ability to rebound as long as the needed variety of organisms still exists.

But people need to own up to their obligation to help the bay instead of railing against the “rain tax,” the derisive name given to fees that are supposed to be used to address deteriorating storm water infrastructure that local politicians have long neglected.

However, paying fees and pointing fingers at farms, factories and waste-water treatment plants — easy-to-identify and certainly undeniable sources of bay pollution — is not enough. We must also restrict pollutants that originate in our own backyards and end up in the Chesapeake Bay: chemicals (fertilizers and pesticides), soil and small-engine exhaust (from lawn mowers and weed trimmers).

The big problem is the American obsession with lawns around homes and businesses: Lawn and turf grass together are now considered the largest crop grown within the 64,000-square-mile Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Although seen as natural and water-absorbing, lawns actually function much as pavement does. The soil, compacted by lawn mowers, allows little penetration of water. Indeed, that is the reason lawn-care companies offer aeration services — they know lawns require man-made holes punched into the ground in order for water to penetrate the soil.

With ever increasing development in the bay watershed, there has been ever increasing lawn acreage. These green swards should be greatly minimized with encouragement from government. Homeowners and business owners who create nature-friendly (and thus bay-friendly) landscapes — lawn mostly replaced by flowers, shrubs, and trees — should be given reduced property tax rates.

Streams through properties should be required by law to be protected by natural vegetation. Current regulations often allow lawn to be grown right up to the stream edges.

And lastly, wildlife should be encouraged to live among us so that the environment can function as it’s supposed to do. People must learn to live in agreement with nature; living without it is not an option.

Unfortunately, most of the measures that have been taken over the past 50 years to address bay problems have involved trying to repair the bay itself (i.e., fix what was broken), rather than addressing the ongoing sources of the problems (i.e., the impaired state of the waterways flowing in).

Millions of dollars and much time and energy have been spent, for example, on growing a diverse assemblage of underwater plants and rearing oysters, as if these plants and animals could just be placed into a degraded system and survive. Needless to say, such efforts can only meet with minimal success.

It’s time for all citizens to recognize and take responsibility for their personal decisions in and around their homes and businesses that do, indeed, affect the Chesapeake Bay and those who live along its shores.

As signs in the fine-china shop declare, “If you break it, you pay for it.”

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-chesapeake-bay-20140821-story.html