Newsletters

April 2013 - Brayton Point, Polypody, Snapping Turtle

WELCOME TO GREEN FUTURES !
APRIL, 2013

 

"I wake up in the morning asking myself what can I do today, how can I help the world today. I believe in what I do beyond a shadow of a doubt."

-Julia Butterfly Hill

 

“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.”

- Jerry Garcia

 

FINANCIALLY UNSUSTAINABLE – Bye, Bye Dominion

New owner found for Dominion’s mountain of dirty coal. As the American Lung Association says, “When you can’t breathe, nothing else matters.”

 

Brayton Point Station, the filthiest coal fired power plant in New England, was foolishly sited in an urban area on the shore of shallow and tiny …only 13 square miles …Mount Hope Bay.

With natural gas now cheaper than coal, owner Dominion decided to sell the facility. Here’s some background from our October 2012 newsletter: http://www.greenfutures.org/?content=BcJpry9szgknULLL

Dominion found a buyer, Energy Capital Partners a private equity firm based in Short Hills, New Jersey, and San Diego, California. You can read about it here: http://www.heraldnews.com/news/x2082711006/Somersets-Brayton-Point-power-station-sold-to-private-equity-firm And, also here: http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2013/03/14/is-there-value-in-old-coal-fired-power-plants/

The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) has released an independent analysis of the financial performance of Dominion’s Brayton Point power plant in Somerset. The report was composed by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Here is CLF’s announcement of the report, http://www.clf.org/blog/clean-energy-climate-change/dark-days-ahead-the-financial-future-of-brayton-point/

Is Somerset ready for the possible demise of Brayton Point? Are they meeting and planning for the inevitable coming change? Is the public involved?

Watch for email “action alerts” on possible upcoming community forums and actions.

 

BIORESERVE FLORA OF THE MONTH – Common Polypody (Polypodium virginianum)

Our common polypody is beautiful and beguiling. Here we are on a winter woodland walk when …suddenly …we spot bright evergreen leaves growing out of seemingly solid granite ledge. Such greenery against a backdrop of newly fallen snow seems totally out of place among the black, brown and gray tones of the still and somber winter woods.

Walking over to the base of the ledge we get a closer look at the shiny, lustrous fronds (leaves) of the polypody fern. With a little imagination this fern, growing in colonies from tiny fissures in the rock face, gives one the feeling of stepping back in time to the Jurassic Period when ferns were the dominant vegetation and dinosaurs tromped about the rocky landscape.

Henry David Thoreau, in his rambles about the Concord countryside in 1857, also felt such stirrings when he stopped to contemplate the polypody. Here is what he had to say:

The form of the polypody is strangely interesting; it is even outlandish. Some forms, though common in our midst, are thus perennially foreign as the growths of other latitudes; there being greater interval between us and their kind than usual.

We all feel the ferns to be further from us, essentially and sympathetically, than the phaenogamous plants, the roses and weeds, for instance. It needs no geology nor botany to assure us of that. We feel it, and told them of it first. The bare outline of the polypody thrills me strangely. It is a strange type which I cannot read. It only piques me.

Simple as it is, it is as strange as an Oriental character. It is quite independent of my race, and of the Indian, and all mankind. It is a fabulous, mythological form, such as prevailed when the earth and air and water were inhabited by those extinct fossil creatures that we find. It is contemporary with them, and affects as the sight of them.

Polypody’s fronds grow up to 12 inches long and three inches wide. The fronds are asymmetrically pinnately compound with deeply-cut, lanceolate leaf lobes on both sides of the frond’s central stalk. 

These ferns reproduce by releasing spores from round sori (spore bearing structures) on the underside of a frond). They shed their spores in autumn.

In the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve (SMB) this fern is the only common fern growing on ledges, cliff edges and large glacial-erratic boulders. Polypody clings to the thin soil found in rock crevices and depressions with numerous tough, wiry roots growing from long scaly rhizomes (horizontal extension of the frond stem).

The common polypody can be found from extreme southern Alaska east to Canada’s Northwest Territories and south to Saskatchewan. East from there to the Maritime Provinces, north to Newfoundland and Labrador. In the United States this polypody ranges from the Dakotas south to Arkansas, east to Georgia and north through New England to Quebec.

There are few understory evergreen plants in our New England winter woods. Along with prince’s pine, ground pine and the Hartford fern, common polypody was gathered commercially for Christmas wreaths and decorations during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Common Polypody growing from ledge.

 

Looking down at Polypody fern.

 

BIORESERVE FAUNA OF THE MONTH – Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina)

The common snapping turtle is the largest freshwater turtle found in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve (SMB). An average “snapper” weighs 10 to 15 pounds, but since they continue to grow in size throughout their life, and may live to be over 70 years old, some of these older individuals may weigh as much as 50 to 60 pounds. The largest wild common snapper weighed 76 pounds and was captured in Lake Rohunta in Orange, Massachusetts, back in 1996.

Young common snapping turtles have prominent keels along the top of their carapace (upper shell). With age the keels wear down and very old snappers have smooth shells.  Serrations line the back of the carapace and the long tail also has serrations, along the top side, extending down to the tail tip. Carapace color is brown to black. Green algae often covers the carapace. 

This turtle’s plastron (lower shell) is small and whitish-yellow in color. The head and neck, legs, feet and tail are covered in dark warty skin. Eyes are small and beady and claws long and sharp. Male and female snappers look alike with males being slightly larger.

The common snapping turtle was originally found from southeastern Saskatchewan east to Nova Scotia, Canada. In the United States their original range was from Maine to Florida, west to the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. Tough and hardy, and because of its value as food (turtle soup), common snappers have been transplanted widely and today may be found in many permanent water bodies from coast to coast and in many other countries too.

Correctly named, snapping turtles like to snap, although they are shy and retiring when encountered in the water. On the other hand, when disturbed at terrestrial nesting sites or just walking about on land, these large turtles are quick to stand their ground and lunge out with snapping jaws. Although devoid of teeth, the snapping turtles boney jaws are razor sharp. When disturbed these turtles also give off foul-smelling musk from glands at the rear of their shells.

Snapping turtles may be found in almost any aquatic habitat, from freshwater to brackish. They prefer the still waters of ponds, lakes and slow moving rivers. 

In the SMB snappers are active from April through October. During the remainder of the year they hibernate in underwater log and brush piles or muskrat lodges and bank dens. On mild, sunny winter days they sometimes awaken for short periods and can be seen, beneath the ice, walking along the pond bottom.

 Unlike other common pond turtles snappers do not climb out on rocks and floating tree limbs to bask on sunny days. They will, however, float just beneath the surface of the water, sometimes with their carapace slightly exposed, on warm and sunny afternoons. 

Snapping turtles mate throughout the spring, summer and fall. Males often engage in brawls, with much hissing and biting, over receptive females and by fall some males can be found with numerous lacerations and other injuries from these mating battles. 

In the SMB most female snappers lay their ten to three dozen eggs in late May and early June. This is the time of year when female snapping turtles may be encountered almost anywhere as they leave the water and wander about on land looking for the desired sandy soil in which to dig their nest and lay their eggs. 

Nest digging is usually started early in the morning, but may occur at any time of the day or night. The female starts her nest by digging a slanting tunnel by alternately using her hind feet. At around six inches in depth she scoops out a rounded chamber to receive her eggs. After a short rest she positions the base of her tail over the hole she has dug and deposits her eggs, one at a time, into the nest chamber. Once finished laying her eggs she carefully fills in the hole, again using her hind feet. She makes sure all the excavated dirt is used and makes every effort to leave the site as she found it so as to not arouse the curiosity of passing predators that might enjoy a meal of fresh eggs.

Resembling ping-pong balls …and they bounce too … snapping turtles eggs are round, not oval. Eggs laid in early June usually hatch by late summer early fall. Eggs laid later in the summer often overwinter in the nest chamber and hatch the following spring.

Many people think that snappers are strictly carnivorous. They are actually omnivores, eating a wide variety of animal and plant matter. Everything from pond lilies, duckweed and cattail roots to invertebrates, frogs, fish, birds, mammals and carrion. Snapping turtles actively hunt their prey as well as sit around and wait for something edible to drift by.

The oldest human fossils are around 50,000 years old. Our common snapping turtles’ ancestors lived way back during the Triassic Period, 250 million years ago. To us, the common snapper’s appearance hasn’t changed much over all that time. It is great that we still have such an interesting and ancient creature living among us.  

 

Why this turtle is called a “snapper.”

Snapping turtle looking for sandy area in which to dig her nest and lay her eggs.

Baby snapping turtles hatching.

 

BOREAS GO HOME – Please!

Boreas, the god of the north wind, refuses to acknowledge that spring is here and head back north. Apparently, Hades is also reluctant to allow Persephone to leave the Underworld.

So, although it may not “look” like spring outside …it is! The gods may be able to slow spring’s progression, but they are powerless to stop it.

Get outside and see what bits and pieces of spring you can find. For organized activities and events click on our Calendar.

 

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