6000 BC

This is not what you think it is.

Nope, it is not a fossil cucumber. It is made of rock though. It is an ancient tool, a pestle. It is approximately 8000 years old. How cool is that. I'm holding a piece of technology that another human was using 8000 years ago.

It was fashioned by Native Americans living somewhere along the Rancocas Creek not from where I live now (our property abuts the South Branch of the Creek).

This week I purchased a new skillet. And just tonight I put the old one in the trash. In the year 10017, will a future archeologist be marveling over that bit of ancient technology (Just look at the primitive non-stick surface!)? My trash, her treasure?

🍳🍳🍳🍳🍳🍳🍳🍳🍳🍳

This past Wednesday we went to hear a talk about the Rancocas Creek. It has quite a fascinating history. Did you know that there were once boats powered by horses, team boats they were called, that traveled from Philadelphia to Mt Holly? I had not.

The presentation was part of an effort to get the Rancocas Creek a National Water Trail designation by the US Department of the Interior. The presenters, of which there were three, included two faculty members from Stockton University, both of whom felt the Creek should easily qualify for the National Water Trail Designation, one of the criteria for which is to have historical significance. And the driving force behind the effort, a fellow by the name of John Anderson.

Which brings us back to the fossil cucumber. People have been living along the Rancocas Creek for at least 8000 years. And that is quite a bit of history.

Evert Trail Storm Troopers

I was a storm trooper for a day. This past Tuesday to be exact.

The Evert Memorial Trail Preserve is approximately one mile from my house as the land-speeder flies. And about three miles by road. As noted in this post, my company gives us each five paid volunteer days.  So when the call went out for volunteers for a day of trail maintenance I signed up.

Our job was to walk the trail and clear it of any growth or debris that may have accumulated over the winter. There were troopers with chain saws, for trees fallen across the trail. Troopers with high powered weed whackers with circular saw blades to cut back the greenbrier growing up between the boards. And troopers with gas powered hedge clippers to trim back the brush.

I was given a hand saw. The one shown next to the chainsaw below.

If you look closely at the boardwalk in the first image above, you'll see chicken wire covering part of it. And further down a part with no chicken wire. The latter part is very slippery. And even knowing that I slipped and fell.

Twice.

I'm ok.

Maybe they were right not to give me a power tool.

I did ok with with the hand saw.

Ok, I only cut smaller overhanging dead trees and branches. This guy cut the log above.

Although I did get it started.

The "storm" in "storm troopers" comes from the thunder storms we worked between.

If you look closely at the water on the lower left above you'll see ripples from the rain drops. It was raining pretty much the entire time we were there.

As the preserve was so close to my house and I was without a car that morning (one was in the shop, and Patty had the other) I had planned to walk over. But when it was time to go the first downpour, complete with thunder and lightning, commenced. Not the best conditions for a three mile hike. So I called one of the fellow troopers and got a ride. The thunder storm was intermittent. The rain, not so much.

The trail system is quite nice. Much of it through wetlands. What we did was only the first part of the maintenance work. And we were able to do in one day that in prior years taken one or two people three weeks.

The next step is to repair and upgrade the boardwalks. Remember the boardwalk without chicken wire that took me down twice? It seems the problem is that the area occasionally floods, covering sections of the boardwalk, and rusting away the wire. In talking with one of the leaders I learned that they have a grant to address this by raising the problematic sections of the boardwalk.  But before that can be done, the debris needs to be removed. And thus the storm troopers. And the power tools.

And one handsaw.

~~~~~~~~~~

While walking the trails and looking for things to saw I spent some time looking about.

The combination of the rain and the soft light made the greens really stand out.

But not everything was green. This plant is a mystery. Even one of the best Pinelands plant uber-geeks couldn't identify it. This will require further investigation. The working hypothesis is this is the remains of cinnamon fern.

The only disappointing part of the day was the really week beer they served. I think the brewery was called "deer park" or some such. You can see my friend Russell holding a bottle in the image above.

A nice little preserve practically in my back yard. Somewhere I expect to visit on a regular basis.

~~~~~~~~~~

Post title taken from Bill Scullion's thank you email to the folks that participated in the trail clean up effort. Bill is a Land Steward with the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, the owners of the preserve. And the guy that used to spend three weeks doing this by himself.

Squirrels

Here we have two ground squirrels, Eastern Gray Squirrel and Eastern Chipmunk.

Both hoovering up bird seed.

So why is one a lovable little critter and the other a tree rat?

Location, Location, Location

A poor choice for this Eastern Chipmunk.

In yet another sign that spring is upon us, chipmunks have become active about the yard.

Now, it is true that chipmunks will wake up and wander out during winter if the temperatures get high enough. And we did see a few about in February. But they now appear awake for good.

This poor individual is peaking out from behind the algae mats coating the waterfall in our fish pond. Said waterfall is still shutdown for the winter. However, water will soon be following down these green coated rocks.

And chippy will need some new digs.

Buried Treasure

In the previous post you may have noticed the purple object in the "second front" image. Below is another image of that object.

It is a small aquaria which was a temporary holding tank for the object in the image below.

While de-turfing the area I dug this cocoon up. It was not more than two inches below the surface. Patty suggested we put it in the aquaria, cover it with dirt, and then but it in the ground as shown in the images, to closely mimic the conditions as it was found. We didn't know what it was, so by having it in the tank we would see it once it emerged.

At the same time, I emailed images to some friends who are month and insect aficionados in the hope that they could identify the species which produced this cocoon. I was not disappointed.

It is the little tail at the right end of the cocoon which gives it away.

It is an Imperial Moth, like the two shown below (both images were taken in our yard).

The image above is a male and that below a female.

As we've identified the month to be there was no longer any need to keep the cocoon in the tank. So it has been returned to the ground close to where I found it.

Imperial Moths are active from May to July. Hopefully we see this one fluttering around our yard.

Mini-Meadow Expansion

With the success of the mini-meadow project last year, ...

... we've decide to expand the gardens in the front yard.

Another battle in our War on Lawn.

The battle engaged ...

These two images above show two views of the opening salvo. The strip between the existing mini-meadow and the driveway is being converted from lawn to garden. The turf removal is almost complete, and in the second image there are even a few sedum plants waiting to be put in the ground.

The battle won ...

It was a relatively quick endeavor, with minimal resistance. The three sedums have been planted, and the strip has been mulched with salt hay.

The war rages on ...

In the image above we can see that Patty has opened another front, weeding an area around the tree at the entrance to the driveway.

And in addition to the engagement Patty has commenced ...

... I've opened a second front to further expand the mini-meadow.

Our eventual goal is the complete elimination of mow-able lawn in the front yard. The tricky bit will be the septic mound. But we've got some ideas ...

🌳🌱🌿🍀🎋💐🌷🎄🌾🥀

Of course we'll need plants to fill in these spaces, and hold back the advancing lawn. So if any of our plant friends wish to join the battle and provide ammunition in the form of native plants the armory is open! 🙂

Bird Boxen

In my recent Snow Birds post, there were images of Eastern Bluebird and Carolina Wren couples. The pairing up of which made me think that despite the snow spring was nigh.

It also made Patty overly optimistic that we could get bluebirds to nest in our yard. Which of course resulted in work for me.

🙂

Now our yard is a Certified Wildlife Habitat. Which means that the previous owners filled out a form on the interwebs, sent in some money, and received a sign. Which is now prominently displayed just off our deck. Of course they did meet the requirements for certification.

And if you've been following this blog you know that we do even more to maintain the yard as a haven for wildlife.

So it is not out of the question that bluebirds will take advantage of the two nest boxes I installed in the days immediately after that snow storm. And as there is no snow anywhere in these images you can correctly conclude that it wasn't all that much of a storm.

The nest box above is in our side yard and the one below our front yard. Hopefully, there is enough open space that, which along with the ready food supply, will entice the bluebirds to call one or both of these boxes home.

There is a much better chance that the wrens will nest here, in the lovely box that I've hung just outside our living room window. Patty did see them checking it out. Our fingers are crossed.

Now, did you notice the metal ring on the wren box? I put it there to keep squirrels and other critters from trying to enlarge the hole. The bluebird boxen have wooden hole protectors and thus needed no such modification.

And did you notice the colors on that metal ring?

Of course I did. Another fine example of thin film interference.

Physics is fun!

Not for You!

Damn squirrels!

Almost as bad as the deer.

The stump, which we believe was the launch pad, has been relocated.

The squirrels are still here.

T207 Revisited

Back in November of 2010 I took this picture:

And I blogged about it here.

If you look closely you'll see the bird is wearing a collar, and said collar reads "T207".

My friend Rosanne photographed T207 this year on March 15th.

Image courtesy Rosanne Bornholdt

That's a span of seven years. Pretty cool don't you think?

It gets better.

Greg Prelich runs the Birdquiz.net website, which includes a blog. And in her research about T207 Rosanne found this blog post: The continuing sage of Tundra Swan T207, where you will learn that T207 was banded in 2006 north of Nuiqsut, Alaska, and was first sighted in Whitesbog in 2008. And since in Whitesbog and vicinity every year since except 2009 and 2012.

And that is very very cool.

Tree in a Truck

As advertised. A tree in a truck

More specifically, a tree growing in and through a truck.

And no, not in a Piney yard.

🔨🔧🛠🔨🔧🛠🔨🔧🛠🔨

The company which employs me gives each of its employees five charity volunteer days a year. And I used one of those days, along with fourteen colleagues, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity. We were finishing a house in Cinnaminson, New Jersey. I spent the day moving things around and laying floor. And this truck was in the yard next door. Alas, these neighbors were not friendly, so I couldn't get a better shot.

More Walking

The March meeting of the Burlington County Natural Sciences Club featured Jennifer Bulava, Lead Park Naturalist for the Burlington County Parks System, presenting on the Best of Burlington County Parks. It was an interesting and fun talk, and Jennifer was an enthusiastic speaker.

One of the parks she spoke about was Long Bridge Park, which we had never visited. Until this past Sunday that is, when Patty and I went for a winter stroll.

After a visit to the (heated!) restrooms, we started off down the boardwalk at the start of the trail.

It was chilly! But once we got in amongst the trees and out of the wind it wasn't so bad.

No, not these little trees, but rather the more substantial ones further down the trail.

We first passed through a stand of birch trees. Which brought back memories of my boy scout days, when the paper like bark was prized for kindling.

But only the bark that had fallen off, never taken from a live tree. That would be bad.

The trails, there are several through the park, had us wandering through a variety of upland and lowland habitats.

We enjoyed the stark winter beauty. And could see the potential for spring migration.

The Rancocas Creek forms the northern boundary of the park. And there were surprisingly few waterfowl on the creek. A few Mallards and Canada Geese were all we saw.

And this was certainly not the kind of duck we were looking for.

I count over twenty bits of trash in this picture. The area also seems to be a basketball graveyard, as I counted half a dozen floating amongst the other debris. I wonder where the court is?

We passed a couple of bird blinds, but it is too early in the season as the birds have not yet migrated back to these parts. We'll just have to come back.

But there are plenty of deer, way too many, with footprints throughout the park. Not a good sign for the health of the forest.

Nor the creatures that call it home.

It is another nice nearby park. We will definitely be return visitors.

🚶🚶🚶🚶🚶🚶🚶🚶🚶🚶

1000 Mile Challenge update. As of this writing I have walked 266.75 miles this year. Which puts me 42.75 miles ahead of schedule. Not bad if I do say so myself.

More Doodles

Timberdoodles that is.

On my way out to gather the mail yesterday afternoon I spooked up two American Woodcock, toward the street end of our driveway. "Cool", I thought, seeing woodcock during the day.

Later when Patty got home she thought she might try to relocate them. And she did, finding the bird in the image below.

See it? I did and didn't at the same time. I saw the lump that is the bird but did not recognize it as a woodcock (it is at the base of the tree, behind the snow line, centered in the frame). Our friend Lori, who had never seen a woodcock, came over when Patty texted we had one in view. I centered it in Patty's spotting scope. And it still took two turns at the scope before before the image crystalized for Lori.

Another image of the same bird, a bit closer.

I took these images after Lori left as I did not want to scare off the bird. And as I crept closer and closer, the bird remained perfectly still. Relying on its evolutionarily engineered camouflaged to keep it hidden.

Can you see it now? The image below was the closest I got because I was distracted ...

... by this much closer bird, that I saw moving ever so slightly, out of the corner of my eye.

It wasn't moving away but rather just moving up and down in place. A behavior that doesn't really make sense to me. If not moving away, why move at all?

In the two images you can see that it has turned slightly to get a better look at me (note the position of the bill). I maneuvered, slowly, to get a side view. And was rewarded with the image below.

After I took these shots I backed away slowly, to leave the bird in peace. And it settled down in to the leaves.

And I flushed a third woodcock which took off through the trees behind me.

🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦

I took these images late afternoon Friday. Later in the evening we saw and heard at least four and maybe five or six woodcock foraging and displaying. On Saturday while out and about in the yard just after lunch time, Patty and I encountered four timberdoodles. Very, very cool.