Why do dark skies matter? Why is it important to be able to go outside, look up at the night sky, and see some of the 200 billion stars in our galaxy?
Not only does light pollution degrade the quality of our night skies, but it is harmful to many of the wildlife species that inhabit the lowcountry and beyond. Click below to watch a short video about light pollution and its effects. For more information about the importance of dark skies, visit the GLOBE at night website: http://www.globeatnight.org/
I realize a few of you guys have heard this before but...I just love this story!
-tony
What could be taking Marshall so long, I thought? It had been a good twenty minutes since I had sent my son to gather eggs from the chicken house. As Ben (my younger son) and I set out across the yard to see what the holdup was, we noticed Marshall come out of the coop wrestling a very large snake. Now I realize some parents might have needed therapy after such a traumatic event, but I was positively thrilled.
My boys and I had removed many non-venomous snakes from the chicken pen together and spent hours capturing snakes in the field, but this was Marshall's first solo capture. He knew the rat snake he extracted from the shed was a non venomous species but he also knew it was capable of biting pretty hard. I don't want to get all sentimental or anything, but it looked as though my baby was really growing up. Marshall's snake had the telltale signs of ingested chicken eggs running the length of its swollen body. As Marshall struggled with his catch, we watched in fascination as the large snake regurgitated chicken eggs one-by-one on to the ground in front of us. Some of the eggs were intact and others broken and runny. I guess some people might have been repulsed at the scene but to us this was quality father son bonding.
The rat snake is one of the biggest snakes in Southeast with some individuals exceeding seven feet in length. Although they reach impressive sizes, these snakes pose no serious threat to people. They vary in color and pattern throughout their range. Adults maybe dark grey or black with only traces of a lighter pattern (inland) or yellowish and heavily striped (like we have on the coast).
Rat snakes are powerful constrictors, suffocating rats, birds, squirrels, and even young rabbits and swallowing them whole. They are also particularly fond of bird eggs. Since they are adept climbers they often venture up the sides of barns and houses and into the tree canopy. Rat snakes are at home in wetlands and can be occasionally be seen swimming on ponds, rivers and even in the salt marsh.
Baby rat snakes are about 10 inches long and boldly patterned at hatching, but they lose those markings over the next several years as they mature. Individuals have been known to live more than 25 years in captivity. Although they are large, look a bit foreboding and steal an occasional egg from the Mills chicken coop, rat snakes are important members of the ecosystem. They help control populations of mice, rats, and squirrels and on a slow summer day in the country, what could be better than watching a rat snake throw up chicken eggs on the front lawn :)
I sat on the edge of the jon boat balancing myself as I donned fins and a mask preparing to snorkel after my elusive quarry. The setting was in a slow deep bend of the Savannah River on a sunny April Saturday. The plan was to capture a couple of softshell turtles that were basking on a log downriver. I would float with the current with just my head exposed and at the last moment, porpoise out of the water onto the unwary individuals. Since this technique had not been particularly effective in the past, I disguised my head and face with branches and Spanish moss to make my approach even more "stealthy." It took some time to convince my buddy William that this idea had merit but he eventually agreed to drop me off and then bring the boat down to pick me up after I snagged the turtles. I slipped quietly out of the boat and floated toward the turtles being especially careful not to disrupt the smooth water around me or dislodge my camouflage headgear.
Some of our state's wildlife species are pretty good at staying hidden, so you could easily spend your entire life here hunting, fishing or otherwise engaged in outdoor activities and never encounter certain creatures. The unusual-looking softshell turtle is one such beast. Although they are common residents of local streams and rivers and they get as big as trash can lids, they are rarely seen. Their flattened, streamlined bodies and flexible shells prompt the names "pancake" or "flapjack" turtles. Their huge oval, soft shells are masterfully camouflaged to match the bottoms of rivers, streams or lakes. A long neck and odd-looking snorkel nose allows them to breathe without surfacing.
Softshell turtles can also absorb oxygen from the water through vessels in the lining of their throats and other body parts, allowing them to remain under water for hours. The habit of burrowing under the sand or mud on the bottom of the wetland with just the head or snout exposed allows them to stay hidden. This technique facilitates the capture of crayfish, fish and other small animals by firing their long necks out from under the sand and grabbing prey. Softshells are powerful swimmers and are difficult for most predators to capture.
During the summer, softshells lay 10-30 eggs in neatly excavated holes in sandy areas near the water. They may even lay their eggs in a nearby alligator nest. Raccoons, foxes, skunks and other predators commonly prey on softshell nests so many eggs never have a chance to incubate. If the eggs survive, brightly patterned hatchlings emerge two to three months later. These little guys must remain hidden as much as possible because newly hatched turtles are an ideal size for predators. It may take ten years or more for softshells to reach adult size. Even as adults they fall prey to alligators, otters or other predators. A surprising number are killed on highways presumably as they cross roads to find suitable nesting sites. People occasionally catch snapping turtles, softshells and other species for the dinner table. I have even heard a couple of guys remark that a softshell turtle has seven kinds of meat. Now I am no culinary expert but try as I might, I cannot think of seven different kinds of meat, much less that many contained in one animal. I have never actually eaten a softshell turtle or plan to, so I won't say for sure but maybe they taste like pancakes.
Seven kinds of meat didn't cross my mind even once as I floated toward the turtles basking downstream. And to be sure, the turtles resting on a log in front of me did not whet my appetite in the least. By the time I got to within a hundred feet of the reptiles, three out of four had slipped off the logs and into the murky depths. As I drew closer the last animal cocked its head slightly and blasted off the perch and into the water leaving me empty handed and looking really silly in my cryptic attire (turtles 4, Tony 0).
I am generally not one to "anthropomorphize" animals but this experience from a few years ago really got me thinking.
It did not require too much prodding from my friend Randy to convince me to help collect some desert lizards from one of his field sites in the southwest. The animals would be captured, the tip of the tail retained for genetic research and then released unharmed. This is my kind of field work; chasing and noosing fleet-footed lizards and benefiting the scientific community in the process. As we drove up to the first field site near the Arizona California border, Randy spotted a chuckwalla on a rocky hillside. Chuckwallas are large, handsome lizards that can often be seen basking on rocky hillsides in the morning sun. If disturbed, they usually race under rocks and wedge themselves into a crevice, inflating their bodies like balloons. This practice makes it very difficult for coyotes and other predators to extricate and eat them.
This chuckwalla was perched on a ledge with his head raised and his body alert. He appeared ready to blast under cover if needed but he did not move as we walked up the hill toward him. When we got within a few yards, I reached out with the long bamboo pole and placed the soft nylon noose over the lizard's head being careful not to lose my footing on the rocks. I pulled back snuggly with the pole, lifting the lizard into the air and off the ledge. I swung him over to Randy where he could be removed from the noose and processed. The animal was a magnificent male almost two feet long with a thick black body and red tail. Since he was a vibrantly colored specimen, we bagged him so I could photograph him later.
We spent the rest of the day collecting lizard tail tips from other localities and ultimately decided we had all we needed for the research. I spent a few minutes getting some pictures of the chuckwalla that we had bagged earlier. Even though we were 40 miles from where we had collected the lizard, I considered releasing him there since it was good chuckwalla habitat. After deliberating for a few minutes we hopped in the truck and drove the extra hour to take him back to his rocky outcrop. As I walked up the hillside for the release, I noticed another animal sitting on the ledge where we had collected the male. As I got closer, I realized that it was a female with very different coloration and patterning. I was amazed that the animal did not bolt under a rock even as walked to within twenty feet of her. I opened the bag, placed the little male on the ground and he crawled off. Now here is the really cool part. As he climbed up the hill, the female raced down to meet him. The lizards touched snouts and walked over the rocks and into a crevice together. I know what you are probably thinking. It was hot, the desert can make you see strange things, but I promise this is how I remember it.
On the drive back to Mesa, I had a horrifying thought. What if I had not taken that lizard back to his hillside? Was the female I encountered his mate, sibling or parent? I realized that lizards have specific microhabitats that are just as important to them as our homes are to us. Moving an animal out of its home range can have terrible consequences and even potentially lead to its death. This experience taught me the valuable lesson that any animal released back into the wild should be returned to its original site of capture whenever possible.
On a recent field trip (Monday), our master naturalist class was treated to something really neat. We flipped a log in a low swampy area and discovered a female marbled salamander (Ambystoma opacum) underneath. Upon closer inspection we realized that she was guarding a pile of silvery spheres (a small clutch of eggs). Female marbled salamanders lay 80 to 120 eggs under logs or in clumps of vegetation in wetland areas that are likely to flood. They will brood these eggs and even protect them from small predators like insects and other amphibians. When the fall and winter rains fill these nesting sites, the eggs hatch (within a few hours) and the larvae begin to grow and develop. After 3-8 months, the larvae metamorphose into solid dark gray salamanders and start their lives on land. They will develop the bold marbled patterns they are named for over the next few months. Males have a lighter-colored pattern than females. Adult marbled salamanders may live in the woods around the wetland and return to the same pond to breed and lay eggs.
Marbled salamanders are very handsome little beasts with striking patterns of light gray bands on a dark ground color. These chubby little guys are rarely more than five inches long from head to tail tip. They feed on small invertebrates including earthworms and a variety of insects. They have been known to live as long as ten years in the wild.
These salamanders are common residents of Carolina bays, river floodplains and other wetlands in the lowcountry. Like other amphibians, they require wetlands and a surrounding buffer of woods to carry out their lives. Some colleagues of mine have collected and released as many as twelve thousand salamanders from a single wetland about the size of a large residential yard in one day.
Many of our wetlands in the lowcountry have been destroyed or heavily altered to the point where amphibians cannot use them. Many of the wetlands that remain intact have been converted into fishing ponds making them unsuitable for most species. As you can imagine many types of fish feed on amphibians and their eggs. Proper study of the amphibian communities and the wetlands they live in will help us to understand the role that salamanders, frogs and toads play in the ecology of our area. Check out the picture taken by Jean Gilbert (a member of our current master naturalist class).
