Page 16 – Virginia Outdoors Foundation

The Preserve’s Spring Spotlight Species: Spotted Salamander

With the warmer, wet weather recently, there is no shortage of activity happening in the Preserve as more plant and animal species begin to emerge. Amphibians, in particular, are more visible and vocal as they search for true love. We will be focusing on the lifecycle and behavior of the spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) for this week’s #sciencesaturday species. The word “amphibian” means two lives (Amphi = both; bios = life, in Greek). These native salamanders are cold-blooded, have smooth and slimy skin, and live a transitory double life moving from water to dry land as they mature.

Their life cycle begins as an egg underwater. Females lay between 2-4 clutches of eggs, each containing up to 250 eggs, in vernal pools, wetlands, or slow moving bodies of water. These eggs, which look like pearls or tapioca balls, are further protected by an additional layer of semi-transparent gel or film to prevent the eggs from drying out. The eggs also contain single-celled green algae, which consume the carbon dioxide produced by the embryos and turns it into oxygen. The eggs hatch after 20-60 days.

Survival to the larval stage is very low, with less than 15% of the hundreds of eggs successfully hatching to beat the odds of predation and desiccation. As larva, spotted salamanders hatch with two front legs and external feathery gills. They will eat any small aquatic invertebrates that share their pool, including other salamander larva if they are overcrowded. Once they undergo the final stage of metamorphosis and develop lungs and four strong legs after two to four months, the juveniles are ready to leave the water. They transition from the aquatic habitat into a terrestrial ecosystem, finding a home under rocks and logs on the forest floor, often less than 100 meters from their pool. A fossorial species and active after dark, they only emerge from underground to breed or hunt. They prefer eating small insects, using their sight and smell, catching prey with their sticky tongue.

Adults can grow up to 10 inches long and have a row of yellow or orange spots along their stout blue-black body. These markings warn predators that spotted salamanders are poisonous and can release a foul-tasting toxin from glands on their backs and tails. After two to seven years, juveniles reach sexual maturity.

They join the annual migration back to the very same home pools they hatched from (if possible) at night during the first warm rains of late winter. Males will arrive first, and deposit spermatophores packets along the bottom, which the slower moving and larger females will take up into their reproductive tracts to fertilize their eggs. Once the females lay their eggs, they head back to their burrow (following the exact same route they used to arrive) and abandon the eggs, providing no more maternal care. Adults can live up to 30 years in the wild!

Because salamanders, like most other amphibians, breathe and absorb water through their very thin skin, it is important to be very careful around them. They are incredibly sensitive to any type of pollutants or chemicals in the water, but especially ones we have on our hands like sunscreen or hand sanitizer. Spotted salamanders can dry out quickly if handled improperly or their homes are frequently disturbed. Please be mindful that intentional physical interaction with wildlife while at the Preserve must be under the watchful expertise and supervision of a staff member. When you are out hiking by yourself or with friends, take a picture of the amphibians your find and upload it to our iNaturalist project!

Phillips Farm, Loudoun County

Teaching environmental studies online in a pandemic was not the way Dr. Miriam Westervelt imagined wrapping up her lifetime career as a science educator.

“During COVID I was training teachers—virtually—how to get kids outside—virtually,” she says. “When the pandemic melted into the current school year, I decided to retire. It was time.”

But Westervelt’s work as a teacher wasn’t done yet. She found herself thinking about COVID-safe ways to get kids outside and in nature during lockdown.

The farm is an official monarch butterfly waystation.

She didn’t have to think much farther than her backyard. Her community, the village of Waterford, is a National Historic Landmark surrounded by historic farmland. One farm in particular, Phillips Farm, gave her an idea. Westervelt approached the Waterford Foundation, which owns and manages the property, and offered to start a youth naturalist program based there.

It was an easy sell, says Stephanie Thompson, the Waterford Foundation’s executive director. The nonprofit manages the property for a host of public programming and protected it with an open-space easement to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation in 2003. “It’s an incredible natural and historic resource for the community,” she says. “It’s the reason the village of Waterford was built in the first place.”

Students help monitor the 11 Eastern bluebird nesting boxes on the trail.

The working farm with apiary and hay fields contains a nature trail along Catoctin Creek. The trail is open to the public year-round during daylight hours. With partners such as local farmers and the Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy, Foundation volunteers have mapped the natural and cultural history of the trail, placing markers that highlight 15 significant sites interpreted in a color brochure available on their website. Naturally eroding streambanks host northern rough-winged swallows; a milkweed meadow has been designated an official monarch waystation; and 11 boxes are available for nesting Eastern bluebirds.

This past fall, the farm trail became Westervelt’s outdoor classroom when she retooled a program she had created for Loudoun County Public Schools—the Peterson Young Naturalist Program—and offered it to the kids who live in Waterford. The program was named in honor of Westervelt’s stepfather, the renowned naturalist and illustrator Roger Tory Peterson, who authored Peterson’s Guide to the Birds and other acclaimed naturalist field guides. His work inspired Westervelt’s nature-journaling curriculum, which guides students as they “go outside and observe nature over time,” Westervelt explains. “They record what they see, using good observation skills and good drawing skills. At the end of the school year, they submit their nature journals to us: each school gets an award for the best journal at the Loudon Wildlife Conservancy annual meeting.”

Benefits of the sound mapping activity include greater observational skills and a deeper connection with the natural landscape.

One journaling activity is sound mapping, in which students sit quietly, listen, and map themselves in relation to what they hear.

The pandemic-era version of the course has ten pre-K-12 students gathering on one Monday a month for an asynchronous distance-learning school day at the trail. In addition to nature journaling, students are engaged in Phillips Farm ongoing citizen science programs that monitor the health of wildlife populations and their habitats. These include participating in programs such as Frog Watch for amphibians, Monarch Watch for butterflies, Virginia Bluebird Society’s Eastern bluebird nest box program, water quality monitoring of Catoctin Creek, and serving as litter-warriors in the annual Keep Loudoun Beautiful program.

Students get closer to some wood frogs in Catoctin Creek.

Westervelt and Thompson plan to open the program to more students once pandemic restrictions are lifted. In the meantime, Westervelt isn’t showing signs of slowing down. “It’s just what I’ve always done, now I have more time to do it, and the urgency of preparing students to become good environmental decision-makers is becoming even more acute” she says. “This year they’ve started talking about summer school, so if they want to keep going, I’ll keep going with them.”

The Waterford Foundation welcomes volunteers to care for Phillips Farm and share its resources with the public. Contact oldschool@waterfordfoundation.org to get involved.

Parents of children who are interested in participating in the Peterson Young Naturalist program after pandemic restrictions are lifted can contact Stephanie Thompson at sthompson@waterfordfoundation.org.

The Preserve’s Spring Spotlight Species: Skunk Cabbage

Today is the Spring Equinox and I am so excited to move forward into warmer weather and increased wildlife activity out at the Preserve! This #sciencesaturday, we imitate the seasonal transition, shifting from our winter species to the Preserve’s spring spotlight species. Have you taken any pictures while hiking out at the Preserve of past spotlight species? Don’t forget to upload them to the Bull Run Mountains Natural Area Preserve iNaturalist project.

Our introductory species, eastern skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus), is the first flowering plant at the Preserve. The plants are ephemeral, meaning once the leaves die at the end of summer the plants become dormant until it returns the following spring. Its flowers emerge from the ground in early spring before the leaves. The flowers are made up of two parts: a spathe and a spadix. The spathe, a modified hood-like leaf, surrounds the spadix, a cylindric structure that contains tiny flowers packed together.

Skunk cabbage will attract more than your visual senses with its bright mottled appearance. As its name suggests, this plant is also very recognizable by its smell. When its large cabbage-like leaves are broken or disturbed, it releases a pungent odor that is similar to rotting flesh, or the business end of a skunk. This harmless scent is an excellent way to attract unaware pollinators – flies, ants, and beetles. Skunk cabbage tricks them by mimicking the scent of a their preferred food. The bugs that crawl into the plant get a bonus beyond the animal carcass zombie aroma: a heated home!

If you follow our social media, you may have seen a recent post about another special characteristic of this unique plant. It is one of a few that can regulate its temperature and generate heat through thermogenesis. Using cyanide-free cellular respiration, the plant releases stored energy from its roots that keeps it toasty at up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit – hot enough to melt any ice or snowfall during winter. That heat may also spread the smell of the flowers farther, enticing pollinators to visit. Once the pollen is released during warmer weather, heat production is no longer necessary.

After pollination, the flowers produce a dark purple/black fruit which ripens once the rest of the plant is dormant. This fruit also carries a distinctive smell as it matures, just like the flowers and leaves. The small, hard seeds are spread during animal consumption or heavy rains.

Eastern skunk cabbage grows in nearly any North American east coast soil that remains wet, such as along forest flood plains, creek banks, and wetlands. Each year the plant’s roots contract, pulling it deeper into the earth. These extensive vertical roots can grow over five feet long, making it almost impossible to dig up. If undisturbed, a single plant can live for several decades! To find this harbinger of spring, explore the eastern Fern Hollow loop. Comment below which you used first in locating this incredible plant: either sight or smell.

Making History Our-Story: A Virtual Presentation on the Preserve’s Cultural History Project

Earlier this month, Cultural History Interpreter, Barinaale Dube, and I had the pleasure of presenting the Preserve’s work on our ongoing Cultural History Project to Prince William County’s RELIC Room.

Our presentation, titled “Making History Our-Story: An Ongoing Cultural Case Study from an Open-Air Museum” discussed the efforts we have embarked upon to present an inclusive and equitable history of the Preserve’s diversely peopled past, and a few case studies that have surfaced from our research.

You can view a recording of our presentation by clicking the button below.

The Ruth E. Lloyd Information Center (RELIC) is a collection devoted to genealogy and local history, focusing on Virginia and Prince William County. If you are interested in learning more about RELIC and the programs they offer, please visit their site here.

The Preserve’s Winter Spotlight Species: Orchids Among Us

Happy #sciencesaturday! For a change of pace, you will learn about not one, but three different native woodland orchids that are out and about at the Preserve this winter. Each of these orchids has a permanent relationship with mycorrhizal fungus. Young orchids rely on the fungus to receive energy as their access to sunlight is limited during the summer, providing nutrients and moisture in return. This sweet partnership where both help the other thrive is important since over 50% of the native North American orchids are listed as threatened or endangered. Finding each of them will be a challenging mission, should you choose to accept it, best suited for those with a keen eye and fierce determination. Remember, celebrate successful sightings by posting your pictures of these three orchids to the Bull Run Mountains Natural Area Preserve iNaturalist project.

The first winter spotlight orchid species is actually the first species I learned to identify when I joined the team at the Preserve! The crane-fly orchid (Tipularia discolor) appears to be a common green leaf surrounded by brown fallen neighbors. Without it’s blooming flowers to draw the gaze, it could easily blend in to all the rest of the sparsely scattered greenery. But perspective is something to be investigated when outside, and I encourage you to seek ways to continually challenge your own. For this species in particular – turn the leaf upside down. Most of the crane-fly orchids will have a beautiful purple underside! As purple is not a common winter color, it makes identification much easier and more memorable.

You’ll find these orchids either growing as single pointy oval-shaped leaves, or in clusters as it clones during winter, connected by a system of rounded underground roots called corms. Before the orchid blooms in late spring/early summer, the distinctive leaf withers away. This is another species that has a relationship with moths, and depends on them for pollination (remember witch hazel from last week?). The pollen actually sticks to the moth’s compound eyes, as opposed to its legs or abdomen, as it moves between flowers.

While most reptiles are less active during the cold weather, the second orchid pictured above – downy rattlesnake plantain orchid (Goodyera pubescens) remains busy, maximizing its sunlight energy consumption to store until summer. It is easy to distinguish with its dark green rosette leaves and pale vein pattern that looks similar to snakeskin. This beautiful plant was actually named Wildflower of the Year in 2016! Our previous #sciencesaturday winter spotlight species, witch hazel, was also recognized and won the title in 2002. I personally struggled for weeks to find this second orchid species on my hikes near any of the trail edges, as white-tailed deer and other browsers enjoy nibbling on this green.

Last is the putty-root orchid (Aplectrum hyemale). Its long single-pleated leaf has white parallel veins on top, and thicker ones underneath. It is named putty root because the sticky substance formed when its roots were ground was used to mend broken pottery. Its other nickname is the “Adam and Eve orchid” because its corms (rounded roots) are paired: one with a leaf that expands until it produces a second, smaller bulb with no leaf. Extremely tolerant of the cold, putty-root orchids can actually continue to photosynthesize at temperatures above 2 degrees C! In spring, sweat bees are responsible for pollinating the new flowers.

All of these shade-tolerant wintergreen orchids are taking advantage of the dormant forest canopy, so their leaves receive more access to sunlight in the winter as the larger surrounding trees are bare. Check back in a few months to see what they look like with their blossoms! But until then, when you’re stopping for a water break or a quick snack on the trails this upcoming gorgeous weekend, check around you and carefully flip over some of the leaves nearby. There could always be something incredible underneath!

The Preserve: Reconstructing an African American Neighborhood

Professional Archeologist and Historian, Patrick O’Neill gave a presentation last month to Prince William County’s RELIC Room talking about “The Preserve: Reconstructing an African American Neighborhood.”

Patrick has been involved in the Bull Run Mountains area for the past twelve years, specifically conducting work on the Beverley-Chapman Mill site. For the past three years, Patrick has joined our Preserve team as our Volunteer Archaeologist, assisting with our Cultural History Project.

Patrick and Joe Villari, our Preserve Manager, were introduced through Patrick’s inquiries into historic land tracts that are now within the boundaries of our Preserve. His work has accelerated our discovery of our diversely peopled past, from providing historical insight to helping discover new cultural sites on the Preserve.

You can listen to his talk by clicking the button below, and learn about the work he has done to uncover the historical narratives within the Preserve’s Catlett’s Branch quarries.

Check back here, and on RELIC’s site, for a presentation given by Preserve Cultural History Interpreter Barinaale Dube and myself on our Cultural History Project as a whole, and some case studies surfacing from our research. Our virtual presentation, given through the RELIC Room, will be made available soon.

The Preserve’s Winter Spotlight Species: American Witch Hazel

Another #sciencesaturday upon us, and a new winter spotlight species to learn about. Did you know that not all flowers come out during spring, because I did not! American witch hazel, (Hamamelis virginiana) actually blooms during the early winter. The long, thin yellow blossoms are distinctive, (and look a little like yellow spiders) as seen in this picture from iNaturalist project leader, Michael Carr. But how does a blossoming tree in the cold of winter manage to be pollinated?

As temperatures drop, we are not the only ones shivering in the cold. Owlet moths, a species of Eupsilia known as sallows, also shiver, warming their body up by as much as 50 degrees! These moths are the ones responsible for pollinating the small tree.

Folk legend also states its forked branches were used as a divining rod: where one end would dip when near underground water sources. While I have not had a chance to test this folk hypothesis, the tree does like to grow near creek banks and other damp areas. Even though the gorgeous flowers are long since past, it is a winter spotlight species that you should add to your list to be looking for while out hiking at the Preserve this weekend!

Wildwood Park, City of Radford

Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot.

Those lyrics from Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” were included in a letter of protest by Radford University biology professor Charles Kugler to the City of Radford in 1998, when officials proposed building a bypass through Wildwood Park to divert truck traffic from downtown.

The 55-acre forested ridge and the stream valley below it had been the city’s first public park, inaugurated in 1929. The park provided hiking trails, a pavilion, a picnic area, a playground, and a stream-fed swimming pool. But when the city built Bisset Park—with more amenities and access to the New River—just on the other side of Main Street, the pool was filled and Wildwood fell into disuse.

As Dr. Kugler tells it, the prospect of the forested parcel becoming a trucking thru-way brought together city planners and outdoors enthusiasts to form Pathways for Radford. Pathways’ goal was to promote a network of bikeways, walkways and trails in the city, and their vision included Wildwood as the green jewel in the middle of a walkable and bikeable Radford.

Connelly’s Run flows through the property and into the New River.

Soon city officials were on board, and Pathways developed a plan for the park. At the same time, developers were approaching the city with proposals to build housing on the property. Only three of the five town council members needed to vote in favor, and the park would have become a subdivision.

To ensure that such a razor-thin margin wouldn’t endanger the park in the future, the conservation-minded council donated an open-space easement on Wildwood to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation in 2010.

Today, the park is not only a resource for hikers and bikers, but also serves as an outdoor classroom for Radford public schools, which are connected to the park through walkable paths, as are most of Radford’s neighborhoods.

The park’s variety of ecosystems means that students from nearby Radford University also utilize the park for biology fieldwork. Wildwood hosts a summer lecture series open to all (the series went online in 2020 because of COVID-19) with expert speakers from Radford, Virginia Tech and the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources.

Wildwood hosts a variety of native Virginia Wildflowers, particularly on its steeper, east-facing slopes, which are cooled by older trees.

Wildwood “ties into a network of parks all over the city,” says Ken Goodyear, director of Radford’s Parks and Recreation Department. “You can start off at the dog park, Sparky’s Run, pass three athletic fields, a boat ramp, and Bisset Park, where there are picnic shelters and playgrounds. Then if you keep walking, all of a sudden you’re in a nature park. You don’t even feel like you’re in a city anymore.”

Radford’s public relations director Jenni Wilder agrees. “We have the best of both worlds here. It’s been very important to our community, given the difficulties of the past year. For me personally it’s been such a blessing. I’ve taken my daughter there a lot just do she can run around, chase birds, throw rocks in the creek. Really it’s a gem in the center of the city.”

Steeper trails take hikers up the slopes of the property.

Plans continue to evolve for connecting more neighborhoods, as well as utilizing an old train trestle that crosses the New River to link the Radford park system to Hazel Hollow and Smith Farm in Pulaski County, which are also protected by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation.

Wildwood Park, then, could end up crowning a much larger network of hiking and biking connections, bringing an economic boost to the region as well. “We are the only site in the New River Valley with the potential for a bridge to connect trails along both sides of the river,” Kugler states. “That unique and beautiful feature would attract people to vacation, to bike and hike—and shop, dine, and stay in motels—in the New River Valley.”

VOF seeks grant proposals for public open space projects

The Virginia Outdoors Foundation is making $1.13 million available from its Preservation Trust Fund (PTF) and Get Outdoors (GO) programs for grants that connect more Virginians to public open space.

Of the total, $780,000 is reserved for PTF projects. PTF grants may be used to acquire land, easements, rights of way, lease agreements, or other interests in real estate that result in significant public access. The real estate interest must either be acquired by a local government or conveyed to VOF to be eligible for funding, and protection must meet the requirements of Virginia’s Open-Space Land Act.

The remaining $350,000 is reserved for GO projects. GO grants prioritize projects in communities that have been inadequately served, overlooked, or marginalized by unfair zoning, housing, and land-use practices or other systemic discrimination. The grants may be used to fund infrastructure, studies, planning, and capacity building to enable safe use of, or access to, public open space, as well as for acquisition. Individual projects may receive no more than $25,000. The minimum grant amount is $500.

The application deadline for both grant programs is 11:59 p.m. EST, April 16, 2021. The application forms, eligibility requirements, and other materials may be found online at https://vof.org/ptf and https://vof.org/go. VOF encourages potential applicants to contact staff prior to applying to discuss eligibility and seek guidance on producing a successful application. Contact grants@vof.org or (434) 282-7054 with questions or for information on how to apply.

Slippery but Successful Sweetheart Hikes

Thank you to the brave souls who ventured out with us on the first round of chilly Sweetheart Hikes at the Preserve these past two weekends! How incredible was it to be talking about the evidence and presence of yellow-bellied sapsuckers from their sapwells when we see one just moments later? It just goes to show that you should always keep your eyes and ears open during a winter walk. Even though we were slipping and sliding along the icy or muddy trails, we learned about several love stories of the wildlife and people who call or called this ever-changing landscape home. At the bottom of this post is the first self-guided hike packet for you to follow this trail on your own to relive your memories (if you attended) or make new ones.

Following up one of our discussions from the vernal pool (frozen puddle pictured above), I wanted to clarify a biological fact. Not all of the salamanders in our area rely on vernal, or temporary/seasonal pools for their reproduction! Some, such as the eastern red-backed, are woodland salamanders that will lay their eggs on land! After they hatch, they do not have an aquatic larval stage. Instead, they immediately look like miniature versions of their parents.

On our most recent Sweetheart Hike this weekend, we misidentified a type of squishy dark fungus growing on our American beech trees (Fagus grandifolia), which we thought looked like the Black Plague. This is not a chaga mushroom (Inonotus obliquus), which usually grows on birch tree bark in colder climates. The mold we saw stems from a dynamic relationship with a very small bug.

The beech blight aphid (Grylloprociphilus imbricator) makes its home on beech tree branches and leaves. These tiny insects appear as a lint cloud or fresh snow during April to November. The beech blight aphids feeds on sap, making a huge amount of waste. The excessive amounts of poo create a sticky substance, called “honeydew”. This is what attracts sooty mold fungus (Scorias spongiosa), which feeds on the honeydew, not the tree, sometimes growing as large as a football! The aphids and resulting sooty mold do not threaten the survival of a healthy tree, but still looks ominous when you see it in the dangling above your head in the forest.

Did you know aphids have dance skills? When the colony is disturbed, they wave their abdomens in the air as a warning to predators. Check out this video to watch their moves!

Sweetheart Hike participants also had questions about the geology of the Preserve after an introduction to the life of Hampton Cole, who owned 16 acres within, what is now, the Preserve in the mid-1800s. We learned a lot of quarrying happened within the mountains in the past, due to the nature of our rock formations. A majority of the Preserve is composed of quartzite rock. This quartzite you find is everywhere (anyone who has hiked here can probably complain about the ample amount of rock that you can trip over on our trails), and seems to be in very angular, geometric shapes – almost like long rectangular building stones. Because of this, these rocks made excellent building materials, and were used to construct most of the structures within and around the Bull Run Mountains (note, the Beverley-Chapman Mill is constructed entirely of Bull Run Mountains quartzite stone)!

View this blog post by Dr. Callan Bentley, a geologist who has done quite a bit of research into our local rock formations, for more information on the geologic history of Thoroughfare Gap. This is just one of the many ways that the deep time of the mountains has influenced how our landscape has been interacted with.

Did you miss out on these staff led hikes and are regretting it? Fear not – we have just the solution for you! Our outreach assistant and Sweetheart Hike architect has created a self-guided version. Whether you are a family with younger kids, an individual who prefers solitary hiking, or even a virtual visitor from out of town, this packet will lead you well. It includes a highlighted map of the trail route and a few of the species and stories we stopped to discuss. Hopefully your own private session will be a different kind of winter wonderland! Let us know in the comments down below if you and/or your loved ones make use of it or you think of any other love stories we should include.