Newsletters

March 2015 - Environmental Update, Green Frog, Autumn Olive

WELCOME TO GREEN FUTURES!
MARCH, 2015 

“I doubt that most people with short-term thinking love the natural world enough to save it.”

- E. O. Wilson

 

 

 

“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed. We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.”

- Wallace Stegner

 

 

ITEMS OF ENVIRONMENTAL INTEREST RECEIVED THIS MONTH

Keeping with our first item last month on wilderness and John Muir, here's an article from Wilderness Watch blog on big conservation groups that betray wilderness. https://wildernesswatch.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/so-called-conservation-groups-betray-wilderness/

 

 

From Toxics Action Center a “retirement” card for Vermont Yankee. No longer will Vermont Yankee be thermally polluting the Connecticut River and leaking tritium and cesium-137.

https://toxicsaction.webaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=9680

 

 

Right next door we have Pilgrim in Plymouth. Thousands of people live within 50 miles of that old facility ...including us. Get the latest on Pilgrim here: 

http://www.pilgrimcoalition.org/  And, check out the Capedownwinders here:

http://capedownwinders.org/news/reactors/pilgrim/  Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/capedownwinders

You do have your potassium iodide tablets ...don't you?

 

 

Burning our forests is not Alternative Energy. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/obama-climate-plan-threatens-us-forests-114718.html#.VOu8APnF9hn

Read response to Obama Administrations plan here.http://www.caryinstitute.org/sites/default/files/public/downloads/2015_ltr_carbon_biomass.pdf

 

 

 

Local Environmental Action Conference 2015 brought to you by Toxics Action Center and Mass Climate Action Network at Northeastern University's Curry Student Center, 346 Huntington, Ave., Boston, MA, March 15, Sunday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

For info bess@toxicsaction.org or 617-747-4362.

 

 

Free Urban Tree Planting Workshop, March 19, Thursday, 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., in the Hearing Room, Fall River City Hall, 1 Government Center, Fall River, MA. Refreshments will be served. For info. jbuchanan@umext.umass.edu or 413-345-4300.

 

 

Climate change and increasing carbon. See you in court. http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-climate-crusade/

 

 

The Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow is supporting 5 bills in the Massachusetts legislature including legislation to protect children and families and workers from exposure to dangerous chemicals. For info go to their website, here: http://www.healthytomorrow.org/ or emailesaunders@cleanwater.org or 617-338-8131 X203

 

 

 

BIORESERVE FAUNA OF THE MONTH – Green Frog (Rana  (Lithobates) clamitans)

Frequently seen and frequently heard the ubiquitous green frog could be the most common frog in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve(SMB). This green amphibian is a medium sized frog, smaller than the bullfrog, larger than the wood frog, 

 

Green frogs average 3 inches in length measured from nose to end of body, not counting the legs. Males can easily be told from females by their larger tympanum (ear) twice the diameter of the eye and less than eye diameter in females. Male also have yellow throats, females have white throats.

 

Like their name says, green frogs are green  ...some more than others. The others have varying amounts of brown. Some may be green with a brownish or bronze cast. Usually even in brown colored green frogs the area around the eyes and mouth is green. A very few may be colored blue-green.  

 

Green frogs look like miniature versions of the bullfrog except the green frog has dorsolateral folds that extend down the back (see photo, below). Bullfrogs lack these folds and have completely smooth backs. 

 

Green frogs spend most of their time sitting in the water or on shore at the waters edge. They inhabit lakes, ponds, brooks, forest waterholes and permanent water in open swamps and marshes. 

 

Adults are mostly sedentary except when some prey item comes along or when a predator forces them to seek protection by jumping to deep water. Most of the time they reside on a few square feet of territory which they defend from other frogs. Young adults, newly transformed from their tadpole stage, are more adventuresome and will travel overland on rainy nights seeking ponds and wetland areas where they can claim a territory of their own. Unfortunately, on rainy nights, many of these emigrating frogs end up squashed on roads and in parking lots.                     

 

During winter green frogs hibernate under water in mud holes and in masses of aquatic vegetation usually near moving currents which bring oxygenated water needed by the hibernating frog. The frog cannot use its lungs under water but can absorb oxygen through its skin. 

 

In the spring green frogs are one of the last frog species to emerge from hibernation. Unlike the wood frog which can often be heard calling from ice-rimmed pools in early March, our green frogs wait until mid-May when sunny spring weather has warmed area ponds prompting them to  emerge from their hibernacula. Males generally emerge first and immediately set up a territory and begin calling to attract females and also to alert other males that this territory is taken. 

 

The spring breeding call of the green frog is often described as the sound made by plucking a single banjo string. This same “twang” sound is made, outside the breeding season, when a green frog is startled and leaps away into the water or when simply disturbed by someone walking by the pond shore.

 

In June receptive females travel about checking out each calling male before they finally make their pick. The mating position (amplexus) involves the male frog climbing atop the female and tightly grasping the female with his forelegs just behind her forelegs. As the female releases her eggs into the water the male releases sperm fertilizing the eggs. Embryonic development within the egg is rapid if the water is warm. The eggs may hatch as soon as three days after they were laid. If water temperatures are low the eggs may take one to two weeks to hatch.

 

Green frog tadpoles are pale green above and white below. Unlike their carnivorous parents, opportunistic feeders eating any insect or other creature they can overpower and cram into their mouth, green frog tadpoles feed on algae and other green aquatic plants. If well fed, as summer wanes, they will grow legs, their tails will shrink and lungs will develop as gills are lost. With metamorphoses complete, now looking like miniature adults, they will set off to find a territory of their own. Late hatched tadpoles or tadpoles without sufficient fat reserves to complete their froggy transformation before winter may remain in the pond until the following summer. 

 

Both adult and tadpole green frogs are eagerly hunted by many other species. Their bullfrog cousins will gladly swallow them. As any freshwater bass fisherman knows, live frogs and artificial frog lures attract both largemouth and smallmouth bass.

 

Egrets, herons, kingfishers, ducks, bitterns, grebes, coots, rails, loons, hawks and owls enjoy green frogs and/or their tadpoles. On water and land minks, muskrats, otters, raccoons, opossums, weasels, foxes, coyotes, fishers and skunks will not pass up a green frog dinner. Green frogs must also be on high alert for foraging snapping turtles, water snakes, ribbon snakes, garter snakes and ring neck snakes. Tadpoles are hunted by musk, spotted and painted turtles. 

Although bullfrogs with their larger legs are the ones most sought after by human frog hunters green frogs are also tasty ...tastes like chicken ...and frequently part of the frog-giggers catch.

As if all those frog eating predators aren't enough to deal with, green frogs are also susceptible to chytridiomycosis, a fungal skin disease believed responsible for a worldwide decline in frog populations. Fortunately, in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve, our green frogs appear to still be abundant. 

When walking by a pond this June be sure to listen for the banjo “twang” of the resident green frogs.

 

 

BIORESERVE FLORA OF THE MONTH – Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata)

An alien and invasive shrub ...but with some good qualities.

Autumn olive is a large deciduous shrub, growing 15 to 20 feet in height, originally from eastern Asia. Due to its nitrogen fixing qualities it was widely planted in the United States to rehabilitate degraded agricultural and forest land.

Although “leggy” it was a popular ornamental shrub back in the 1950s. Also, during that time period, it was often planted along the new interstate highway system to control erosion as a soil stabilizer. Many state wildlife departments and hunting organizations also planted autumn olive as a food plant for wildlife and for habitat enhancement. 

Once autumn olive became fully established in North America it was discovered that autumn olive had a dark side. What many nurseries advertised as the “miracle shrub” was found to be somewhat of an exaggeration. It was discovered that autumn olive outcompetes and displaces native plant species and interferes with natural plant succession. If not controlled autumn olive soon forms dense, impenetrable thickets. 

Autumn olive is easily identified, even at a considerable distance, by its silvery-gray leaves. The alternately spaced leaves are elliptical in shape with smooth, wavy edges. The upper surface of the 2 to 3 inch leaves is gray-green and the underside is silver. 

The major stems and branches are gray-green and the twigs are silvery-gray. Some twigs growing laterally from a branch take the form of sharp thorns.

Autumn olive blooms in late April to early May. The tiny, tubular yellowish-white flowers grow from the leaf axils and are very fragrant. If walking downwind from a flowering autumn olive one can often smell the sweet aroma before the shrub comes into sight.

Once pollinated the fruit forms, called a drupe (a fruit with a central stone containing a seed), and is green in color. By late September and October the fruit has grown to about ¼ inch in diameter and ripens to yellow and then red with silvery dots.

Autumn olive bears fruit abundantly. When fully ripe the fruit is edible, although very tart. The fruit can be used to make sauce, jams and jellies, pies and fruit leather. It is very high in vitamin C and the antioxidant lycopene.

In the fall, locally, in southeastern Massachusetts and neighboring Rhode Island, it is common to see people of Portuguese ancestry gathering autumn olive fruits. They call the fruit “Portuguese currants.”  

Some folks call the autumn olive “Russian olive.” That is incorrect. Russian olive, in our area, is not nearly as common as autumn olive. It belongs to the same genus, Elaeagnus, but is a different species, angustifolia. Like the autumn olive the Russian olive is an alien shrub species; however, it is not invasive ...at least not yet ...in New England. We have not found Russian olive in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve.

To help in separating the Russian olive from the autumn olive the Russian olive has narrow, elliptical (willow-like) leaves. Much narrower than autumn olive. Leaves of the Russian olive are silvery above as well as below. Fruit is larger than the fruit of autumn olive and oval. Also, the Russian olive fruits are yellow, dry and mealy unlike the juicy, red fruit of the autumn olive.

Fight the invasion ...eat more autumn olive!

 

 

SPRING ARRIVES WITH MARCH – In fits and starts in our neck of the woods here in southeastern New England

 

 

We do get a spring, but not much of a spring here along the damp, raw and windy North Atlantic. Travel a hundred miles west to the Berkshire foothills and in spring the forested hillsides and hollows are filled with spring ephemerals.

Although the weather may be unpredictable around here, we can find a few green shoots poking through the warming soil. If out walking in the woods watch for blooming pussy willow, skunk cabbage and spicebush. If walking old pasture edge and abandoned farmland you might also find hardy crocuses, snowdrops, coltsfoot, chickweed and grape hyacinth blossoming on sunny March days.

 

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