Snapping Turtle Rescue

The snapping turtle rested between the rails of the north bound Amtrak line that rims the Hudson River. If she stayed there, she would be fine, that is, a train would simply sail over her. It must have taken some determination for her to get over the railing—that is the biological willpower of a snapper who wants to lay eggs. But she now looked weary, as if she might not have the resources to get back out. If she loitered on the rails—she’d end up squashed.  Another turtle just twenty feet away, lay with its shell caved in, head severed.

Picking up snapping turtles has never been my specialty. I’ve saved many wandering across the road, and though I’ve prodded and coaxed with ranging success, I’ve never perfected my snapping turtle rescue technique. A few weeks ago an enormous turtle lumbered her way up a back country road. Another car had already stopped. I joined the two women as we debated best methods. Two men joined us and they searched their car for a bucket while their dog peered out of the window. Soon a mother and her son appeared from down the hill with a net. “We have them all the time in our yard,” she said. “They fall in our pool.” The net was a great tool—with a simple scoop, the turtle was up and deposited over the guardrail.

But Christina and I—searching for early morning birds—had no net with us there by the train tracks.

Christina suggested picking it up by its tail. That is the most frequent method of snapper removal, “but hold it away from your legs,” one friend warned.

“I’ve heard that isn’t good for the turtle,” I offered, while also worrying that the long neck of the turtle would swing around and snap her.

 “Getting killed isn’t much better,” she pointed out, too wise for a 21-year-old.

“I’ve heard you can get them to latch onto a stick and move them that way.” We offered a stick to the turtle who seemed dumbstruck with our idea. She didn’t snap.

We then did what all turtle rescuers do: we stared at the turtle. We took photographs.

“Isn’t it great to photograph something that isn’t moving?” Christina joked. We spend a lot of time together trying to find birds, then snap fleeting photos. This was a treat. We were able to analyze the turtle’s steady yellow eyes that held a bit of contempt for the world and for us in particular. There were little barbells on her chin, like fangs, and all of her skin was droopy. The claws on the front feet impressed me. Unlike other turtles that shrink into their shells when frightened, the snapper can’t retract its enormous head and legs. It remains vulnerable to the world. Or, thought of another way, ready to attack the world.

While we loitered there, I hoped a train would not come swooshing by. I don’t like walking the tracks (and, it’s not legal), but sometimes I do to get to those special spots on the edge of the North or South Tivoli Bay. The tracks have severed both of these bays from the main body of the Hudson River, and they exist as their own special places.  The gravel that covers dark soil bordering the rails is a favorite for nesting snapping turtles. On this morning walk, we stumbled upon twelve turtles, all dinner-plate sized digging in the soil or enroute to do so. We also saw dozens of nests, dug up, the eggs shredded and curling white against black soil. Near them we could see the soft, small prints of raccoons. It’s a rough life for a turtle. If you add Amtrak to the expected predators—that seemed too much. We had to save this turtle.

We both found flat boards. From one side, Christina pried under the turtle and I did the same on the other side. Balancing, we lifted in unison while the turtle let off a musky pee. We stepped the turtle down the gravel embankment and into the shrubs lining the North Tivoli Bay. For the moment, the turtle was safe.

Praying Mantis Spring

This winter this blog has hibernated, as have I. Friends, colleagues,  and people I meet in line at the grocery store, form a chorus: this winter was the worst; this winter was bad. This winter was a sag behind the eyes, a pull to exhaustion.  We need some sun and warmth generated energy. As one friend posted to Facebook: spring, I’m done with the foreplay. We’re ready for growth, for change, rebirth.

 And it’s happening or it’s here, what we wished for:  spring peepers are peeping, the daffodils are out, the forsythia is in bloom. On a walk this week I spied three garter snakes. On a paddle last week there were painted turtles sunning on logs. Every day I add a new bird to my spring list, in that way that birders do, noting the first of the year (FOY). Yesterday a Virginia Rail sounded from the swamp at Buttercup and a Broad Winged Hawk soared near Stissing Mountain. But perhaps the greatest emergence this week: my praying mantis hatched.

Friends immediately questioned the “my” of the praying mantis. So here’s the story. Last fall, Christina, one of my wonderful Bard students, found three mantis sacks (ootheca, the scientists call them and I like the word) in a field that was to be mowed. She gave them to me to keep in my refrigerator through the winter. Six weeks ago she texted it was time to take them out. I placed them in a brown back, sealed it and waited. About two weeks ago I started checking every morning for any stirring. And then on Wednesday evening I entered my living room and I sensed life beyond the two cats who greeted me at the door. I opened one bag and there they were, barely the length of a fingernail. Mantis limbs at birth are as thin as sewing thread and the eyes a polka dot. But the parts are all there, the long limbs and bent forelimbs ready to fold into prayer. Christina brought over a friend and we  marveled and exclaimed and took baby pictures before releasing the creatures into the night (before they ate each other).

The next morning I examined the egg sack; more mantids were emerging into the world. By the end of the day the little insects were gone, eaten or fled or on their way toward praying mantis adulthood, to lay more sacks in the fall.

Now I am off to listen for more stirrings, more beginnings. I’ll be writing more soon.

Snow Goose

As I approached the South Tivoli Bay, I heard a dramatic squawk. Two enormous birds looped and circled around each other. It took a moment for me to realize what I was looking at: an Immature Bald Eagle chasing a Great Blue Heron. It seemed like a case of teenaged miscalculation. The Heron dropped into the reeds and vanished. The eagle flew off.

Thrilled by the show, I continued snowshoeing south, following the path that meanders near the edge of the South Tivoli Bay. The Bay is wide and shallow, often freezing up before the rest of the river. Snow covered the ground and the temperatures hovered near freezing. I could see that the Bay had a thin coat of ice, gleaming in the high noon sun. There are three underpasses that lead to the Hudson River and near those underpasses stood open water. There had to be ducks nearby.

Goose bedraggled; photo by Bard student Christina BaalI arrived at a jut of land affectionately referred to as Buttocks Island. I walked out through the crevice of the island and peered south. A flock of Ring-Billed Gulls stood on the thin sheet of ice. Soon, the heron joined them, standing tall next to its shorter compatriots. I spotted the eagle in a far tree on the end of Cruger Island, perched near a mature eagle, it’s white head visible without my binoculars. The immature eagle flew over, swooping low over the gulls. They all took to the air, while the heron stood, refusing to engage in another chase.

I loitered for a while, scoping the Common Mergansers floating in the open water near the underpass. Beyond the underpass I could see the far shore of the river, the hamlet of Glasco and the Catskills, lumpy blue, in the background. It was a perfect blue-sky day, the sort of day that demands time outside.

I poked around the south side of Buttock’s Island, hoping without much hope, to see a Snow Goose there. Just after Hurricane Sandy swept through, the Goose arrived. It looked pretty bedraggled, white feathers all askew. When thousands of Snow Geese migrated through the valley this fall it did not pick up and join its cousins. I assumed it was too injured to fly. Despite this, the bird had made it through December, with frequent visits from Bard College students, eager to see a special bird. Through the fall I had grown fond of the bird, thought of it as my goose, and had resisted an urge to feed it.

The bird wasn’t there, of course. I refused to get sentimental. This was just nature taking her course. A fox or a coyote could have made it a good meal.

I continued on my way, taking the narrow path that rolls over hillocks and hugs the South Tivoli Bay. The views through the trees were long, out to patches of open water where Black Ducks floated. As I approached the mouth of the Sawkill, I heard the cackle of the Kingfisher that had been there all summer and fall. And then, to my amazement, there was my goose, idling in the open water! It shoved further out as I approached, full of admiration for its will to live.

 

New Year's Mountains

View from the summit of Giant LedgeNear the summit of Wittenberg Mountain, the wind howling through my wool hat, I heard the chickadees. I looked over into the Spruce trees and there were the bright little birds, tilting their black caps at me, as if to get a better look at this person on snowshoes, trudging her way through the snow. My appreciation for the Chickadee soared. Here they were, just over 3,500 in such cold, singing away. My toes were cold, my ears burned, my fingers were numb. I didn’t feel like singing.

It was January 1, and we were five, ringing in the New Year by heading for the summit of Wittenberg. Wittenberg is 3,780 feet and is neighbors to Cornell and Slide in the Burroughs Range of the Catskills. The guidebook describes the climb up Wittenberg as “extremely difficult.” I had been up the mountain before, but on a spring day. And, I was feeling fresh that day. On this New Year’s hike I started out with sore legs; the day before, I had hiked up Giant Ledge and Panther with my friend Max.

Max duck-taping his snowshoesMax and I had left late on the 31st, after spending some time duck-taping his snowshoes, and stopping for sandwiches. The sun was high, a crystal blue-sky day. The trail had been broken, though we still wore snowshoes. In several sections, the trail had been blown over and we tromped down the fresh powder as we passed black cherry trees and then moved through hemlock forests.

This was Max’s first Catskill hike and I wanted to take him up something with great views (not the case with every Catskill peak). We were not disappointed. The scan east toward the Hudson, to Overlook, Roundtop and Plateau was magnificent. After easily summiting Giant Ledge, we headed on to Panther, and returned to the car by three in the afternoon happy. On our walk I had seen exactly two birds: two Hairy Woodpeckers and a few Chickadees out in the sunshine. It was the perfect close to a not so perfect year.

I try not to place too much pressure on the New Year, but like many I have hopes that something might change. I don’t hope for anything too farfetched like world peace or finding love or not ever hearing the words fiscal cliff again. I keep it small: that I’ll write with more focus or become a better birder. When you spend a day hiking up a mountain, you are not writing. And a mountain in winter, you are not birding. I ignored this, hoping for the sheer high of a day outside, of sweating then freezing, of standing above the world and looking down.

Sun rising, from WittenbergOur group gathered at the trail at 8, Woodland Valley still dark.  I only knew one of my companions, Connie, who has hiked every peak in the Catskills dozens of times. She’s a sort of godmother of the mountains, leading people to summits they need to complete all 35 peaks above 3,500 feet. Three others on this hike “needed” both Wittenberg and Cornell. I didn’t need anything but a hike. Before we left I said, “if anyone out front flushes a Ruffed Grouse, let me know.” One companion, who I did not know, said, “I hate grouse.” I looked at her in surprise. How was that possible? “I would like them dead,” she said. I hoped she was joking but her expression said otherwise. “To eat, of course,” she added.

Puzzled, I turned and headed down the trail, which was mercifully broken.  Two hundred yards from the trailhead, the Ruffed Grouse flushed from the cover of a downed tree. The flurry of flapping wings delighted me. My first bird of the year.

I try not to place too much pressure on the first bird of the year. But I have come to see them as an omen. A good bird makes me feel lucky, and the hope is that luck will follow me into the New Year. (How we delude ourselves!) I had heard a Carolina Wren singing as I waited for others in the parking lot off of route 28 at 7 in the morning. But the first bird I saw was this Ruffed Grouse. And here’s one cool thing about a Ruffed Grouse: in winter they grow projections off the side of their toes. This creates mini-snowshoes for the bird. We would both be snowshoeing on this long day.

From the summit of WittenbergThe wind howled as we neared the summit. Such different weather from the previous clear sunny day! Near the summit, there are a series of steep climbs, moments where you need both hands and feet to get over rocks. These rocks were iced and snowed over making the ascent trickier than usual. We spotted each other and pulled each other over ledges until we were at the summit. There, we marveled at the view down onto the vast Ashokan Reservoir, which is part of New York City’s water supply. But we couldn’t stand and admire long in the cold and wind. We huddled behind a few trees and gulped water and sandwiches. Two in our party continued on toward Cornell while the rest of us headed downhill. Down to our cars, to our lives, to the end of a special day, which is really just like any day.