Federation Blog

Driving up Muddy Creek Road this morning, stopped, waiting for the light at 214 to turn green, I noticed a healthy stand of trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) in bloom.  Its bright orange flowers are showy are hard to miss, but looking a little more closely, I saw two hummingbirds (I think they were ruby-throated (Archilochus colubris)) flitting in and out of the blossoms, sipping their nectar.

It's rare enough to see one hummingbird, but to see two together is quite a treat.  If you've got trumpet vine growing up a nearby trellis or tree, keep your eyes peeled and you may spy one of these little marvels yourself.

 

 

It's rare that you'll hear me touting the virtues of invasive plants.  Very rare. But during this time of year, I'm willing to make one exception.  In late June or early July, the wineberries (Rubus phoenicolasius) are out in full force, and if you can find them when they're ripe, they're an exquisite, locally-grown, organic (most likely) treat.

Whether popping them in your mouth by the handful, or putting them on top of an ice cream sundae, these deep red berries are sweet relief in the dog days of summer. As a rule, the darker the berries, the riper (and sweeter) they are.  

Wineberry bushes are often found at the edge of disturbed forests, or along road edges where they haven't been completely shaded out.   A visit to one of our local parks late last week confirmed that now is the time to go out and start harvesting if you're a fan of these juicy treats.

Eating the berries yourself has the added environmental benefit of keeping those seed-laden morsels from wildlife who have helped to spread the invasive plant far and wide through their droppings.

 Disclaimer: Before you eat any wild fruits or berries, please make sure that you have properly identified them.   It is possible to get sick (or worse) from eating poisonous plant parts.

On this day the water column was vertically well-mixed. Notice that the temperature of the water column is becoming warmer and the salinity is increasing. Therefore, we should be seeing the wonderful sea nettles soon.---Diana

 

 

Anyone who has spent time doing historical or genealogical research recognizes that there's "low hanging fruit", information which is relatively easy to come by, "high hanging fruit", more difficult to discern elements, and pieces of information which, when compared against all the other facts, just don't make sense.  For the most part, the "What's In a Name" entries presented here to date have been relatively low hanging fruit.  The rest, by and large, appear to be more difficult to verify.  One name, however, has given me fits from the start: the so-called "Tarnans Branch."   The waterbody itself currently runs basically from the southwest to the northest, just above Route 50, and eventually tying into the North River drainage that feeds the uppermost reaches of the river (see below from the 1993 USGS map).    

 Despite considerable searching and investigation, the name "Tarnan" or "Tarnans" didn't turn anything up.  But the name "Tarman" did appear a few times, and finally, looking closely at the 1878 Martenet map, a "Mrs. Tarman" shows up as a landowner on what is today known as Maccubbins Cove, between Gingerville Creek and Broad Creek (see below).

 Then, member John Koontz brought in an 1928 Anne Arundel soils map (see below).  Imagine my surprise to see what is today called "North River" listed as "Tarmans Branch."   Unfortunately, I haven't been able to turn up additional details on the Tarman family, but I now believe that the current name "Tarnans" is a result of a transcription error or miscopying at some point in the past and that the proper name for the waterway is, in fact, "Tarman's Branch."

Earlier today, out taking photos for a grant application, I spied a monstrous snapping turtle paddling just below the surface.  Its carapace was probably about  12-14" wide.  Did you know that a female snapping turtle generally has to reach about 19 years of age before it starts nesting and laying eggs? That's one of the reason it's so important that we prevent the harvest of these creatures by commercial watermen.

 Later, the turtle, or one of its cohorts, came up for a bask on a log.  You can see how large it is in comparison the the painted turtle in the foreground.

 The trip also including sitings of a brown water snake, green frogs, a school of sunfish, a kingfisher, and a great blue heron, as well as an upset red-winged blackbird.

Just today, it was released that the Bay's health improved from a C- in 2008 to a C in 2009 by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES).  Let's disregard for the moment that a "C" in this system represents between 40 and 59% attainment (whereas in most schools, a "C" represents between 70 and 79% attainment), and simply look at one portion of the score. 

In 2008, the "Lower Western Shore" of the Chesapeake Bay, which is comprised of the Magothy, Severn, South, West, and Rhode Rivers scored a miserable F (between 0-19% attainment).  In 2009, the Lower Western Shore apparently "improved" to a D-.  Certainly we didn't see that on the South River.   On the indicators UMCES looked at: water clarity, chlorophyll a, dissolved oxygen, and aquatic grasses (SAV), scores were lower or equally poor from 2008 to 2009.  But how about the other rivers?

The Magothy dropped from an overall score of 30% attainment in 2008 to 28% in 2009.  Both the Severn and Magothy saw declines in aquatic grasses in 2009 (Neither the South, nor the Rhode, nor the West had any grasses to decline from).  The Severn didn't release a report card on 2009 data, so it's difficult to determine any change outside of aquatic grasses.  The West and Rhode Rivers both saw considerably poorer water clarity in 2009 as compared with 2008, slightly better dissolved oxygen in the West River (but worse in the Rhode), and somewhat better nutrients in both rivers.    Both the West and Rhode scored miserably on chlorophyll a and aquatic grasses.

So, taken as a whole, we saw global declines on the Magothy and South,  SAV declines (at least) on the Severn, and a very mixed bag of increases and decreases on the West and Rhode Rivers.  And this is improvement? 

This past Saturday, over 40 volunteers helped to plant the Hillsmere Bioretention and Sand Seepage Wetland project at the corner of Great Lake Dr and Phipps Ln in Hillsmere.  It was a gorgeous day to get out and plant project that was several months in the making.  Below are before and after photos of the portion of the project that was converted from a dry "detention" basin to a regenerative stormwater conveyance.

Thanks so much to our volunteers and our funders for the project: the Chesapeake Bay Trust, Unity Gardens, the Anne Arundel Watershed Stewards Academy, and the Hillsmere Shores Improvement Association.

Just last week the contractor broke ground for a sizable bioretention and sand seepage wetland project in the Hillsmere community that will help treat runoff before it gets into Lake Hillsmere.  The project is funded by the Chesapeake Bay Trust, Unity Gardens, the Anne Arundel Watershed Stewards Academy, and the South River Federation.

 One of the first steps in constructing a bioretention project or rain garden is to over-excavate the site in preparation for a well-draining medium of sand, wood chips, and compost.  

 Once the basin has been excavated, it is backfilled with the planting/rain garden mix.  Below, we were able to work within the footprint of an existing dry detention area and convert it into a seepage wetland with relatively little earth moving.

 This project will be planted on May 15th.  If you'd like to help, please contact the Federation office at 410-224-3802 to RSVP.

Just as the trees and shrubs in the watershed have exploded in green in the past couple of weeks, the river's ephemeral sub-aquatic vegetation (SAV) has begun to spring forth.  The photo below from member John Koontz was taken on Flat Creek and shows the first sprouts of horned pondweed taking hold in the bottom of the creek.   Unfortunately, because the horned pondweed gives way when the water warms up in June, it is not counted on annual surveys of SAV.  Nevertheless, we always appreciate updates from people using the river if they happen to seen any SAV present.

I think it's important that before people get too wrapped up in the media hype about a crab population explosion that we have a good understanding of exactly how crab populations in the Chesapeake are measured.  Each winter since 1988, MD DNR and other natural resource organizations have conducted a winter dredge survey where they sample 1500 sites bay-wide by dredging crabs up from the bottom and measuring their sex and the maturity of females.

 In 2009, the density (number of crabs per square kilometer) of young crabs (<2.4" across) was basically equal to 2008.  The density of harvestable crabs (>2.4" across) was greater than 2008 and better than any year since 1996.   The density of large males (>5" across) was considerably greater than 2008 and better than it had been since 2003.  The density of females capable of spawning was significantly greater than 2008, and better than it has been since the early 1990s.   The density of all crabs was better than 2008 and as high as it has been since 2005.  

None of this is a particular surprise, least of all the huge growth in spawning females, given the fact that the Bay states have finally gotten somewhat serious about restricting the harvest of female crabs.

It's important to keep in mind though, that DNR also does a summer trawl for crabs in six river systems in Maryland.   Interestingly, at the end of the summer of 2009,  young crab numbers were up quite a bit higher than they had been in 2008 (which wasn't reflected in the dredge survey).  And, the numbers for mid-size and mature crabs were very similar to 2008 (which also wasn't borne out by the survey).

I'm hopeful that the blue crab is coming back, and I certainly hope that neither Maryland or Virginia will loosen regulations on the harvest of crabs -  the population can swing very dramatically from year-to-year - but I also think we need to watch the 2010 trawl and winter survey data very carefully before we presumptively declare success.