Posts Tagged ‘Salt Marsh’

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Red Fox: Wildlife on the Edge

Monday, October 20th, 2008

As humans expand development and invade the few remaining slices of natural habitat in coastal New England, wild creatures are increasingly forced to survive on the edge of civilization, spilling over into once wild, now “domesticated” lands.  For smaller, secretive and non-aggressive animals such as turtles and rabbits and squirrels and chipmunks, we tolerate their presence so long as they don’t get in the way of our cars or lawn movers, or dare to scavenge in our gardens and garbage.  For the larger, more predatory critters, their very existence in our midst poses a threat to our manicured and domesticated lives.  “Coyotes and foxes and snakes, oh my.  Hide your pets, guard your children; the wilderness is coming to a backyard near you!”

Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) on West Island Sun Deck

We must admit that Turtle Journal loves foxes like prodigal children.  Back fifteen years or so, a wily female fox “learned” how to hunt diamondback terrapins in Wellfleet Bay and developed quite a taste for them.  She killed over a hundred of these threatened turtles and fed them to her kits.  We worried that she might pass along this skill to her offspring, but luckily, the skill passed with her.  So, now we can love foxes without reservation.

As the Turtle Journal team drove to West Island on Saturday, hugging the shoreline along Balsam Street heading for the south point, we spotted a beautiful red fox lazing on the side of the road, relaxing like a puppy dog and savoring the long rays of late afternoon sunshine.  We slowed to a crawl to get cameras ready, but impatient weekenders in the car behind us seemed oblivious to the fox, swerved around us and tore down the street to get to the beach for sightseeing.  Go figure. 

Greater New Bedford Area with West Island on the Lower Right

West Island lies on the western coast of Buzzards Bay in Fairhaven and within the Great New Bedford area.  The middle of the island is largely pristine woodlands with dense cottage development along the western shore.  The north, south and east coasts of West Island are covered with sometimes sandy, often rocky beaches with a scattering of salt marshes throughout.  Terrapins were documented on West Island a couple of decades ago, but no sign of their presence has been observed for the last five years of intense search.

The fox bolted across the street toward cottages along the beach.  Sue jumped out with the camera, while Don ran interference with an upset resident.  “You’re not going to do anything to it, are you?  That’s MY fox; I’m taking care of it.  You’re not going to take it, are you?  It lives in my yard and I’m taking care of it.”  While Sue shot footage, Don spoke to the woman about the dangers to the animal and to her family, too, of trying to domesticate a wild fox in such a highly trafficked and developed location. 

Red Fox Relaxing on Sun Deck of Closed Summer Cottage

Sue noted that the fox approached her repeatedly as she photographed it.  At first she thought it might be rabid, but on reflection, it may simply have lost its instinctive fear of humans from being “cared for.”  Not a useful survival trait for a wild fox.  You can see how the animal has made itself at home on the sun-drenched decking of a seaside cottage closed for the season.

Red Fox Returning to Her Litter with a Mouthful (Two Chipmunks)

We had a similar experience in South Wellfleet this spring.  A couple of female foxes raised their kits on the decks of closed cottages abutting the salt marsh of Lieutenant Island.  Not always looking in the best of condition, one of the females learned the skill of hunting chipmunks, an extremely plentiful food supply among the cottages of the Outer Cape.  Once summer residents return in June, though, life becomes more problematic for these wild foxes reared so close to human development.

Sippican Harbor Red Fox Foraging in Salt Marsh at Sunset

In 2005 we observed red fox in Marion Village along Sippican Harbor.  The one pictured above was hunting at twilight along the salt marsh surrounding Tabor Academy’s marine science center.  We spotted fox that summer and early fall romping through the Tabor campus, but haven’t seen any since then.

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Last Hatchling?

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

October 8th is late … very late in the season for diamondback terrapin hatchlings to emerge in the Great White North.  Yet, this morning as we walked along a dirt road between salt marsh on the south and rolling dunes to the north, we spotted a fresh set of hatchling tracks slaloming across the white sand.  The tracks began atop one dune, slipped down slope and then climbed up the next dune immediately adjacent to the roadway.  We began to follow the track with camera in hand.

Click Here to View Video in High Quality

Following the Tracks of a Diamondback Terrapin Hatchling

The previous video retraces the tracks in 45 seconds but the hatchling would have taken more than 45 minutes to create them.  We found this perfect little terrapin resting under a clump of beach grass.  It sported an extremely sharp egg tooth and a slight yolk sac remnant.

Last 2008 Hatchling Sports Sharp Egg Tooth

It seemed a bit lethargic in the cool weather, but warmed a bit as it basked on the sun baked sand.  Still, after we moved it across the roadway to reduce the chance of an unfortunate accident with vehicular traffic, the terrapin held its position for several minutes before taking a deep breath and venturing into hiding within the nursery marsh.

Click Here to View Video in High Quality

Release into the Wild Elicits a Deep Yawn

If this hatchling proves the last of the year, as is most likely, it certainly wrote a wonderful punctuation mark on the 2008 field season.

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Fox Island Marsh Conservation Area Welcomes Endangered Babies

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

The Fox Island Marsh Conservation Area lies in South Wellfleet and, along with its neighbor the Pilgrim Spring Woodlands Conservation Area, comprises 68 acres of woods and 100 acres of salt marsh.  An exquisite parcel of these conservation lands is the Whale Bone Point Trail (see Google image below) described as the jewel in the crown for its unmatched overlook views of the Fox Island Marsh and Blackfish Creek.  These lands are owned by the Town of Wellfleet and the Wellfleet Conservation Trust.

Whale Bone Point

This last week the Fox Island Conservation Area witnessed the arrival of babies from two Massachusetts protected species: diamondback terrapins (threatened) and Eastern box turtles (species of special concern).  While the Whale Bone Point area had been assessed as box turtle habitat and the point has been documented as a terrapin nesting site, these are the very first babies of both species that have actually been discovered on the land as they were being born.   The conservationists, environmentalists and naturalists who worked to protect this precious habitat deserve two thumbs up, one for each of these listed species.

One of Four Eastern Box Turtle Hatchlings

Last week a resident abutting the Whale Bone Point area discovered four Eastern box turtle hatchlings in a nest in her mulched landscaping.  That story was reported below under Eastern Box Turtle Hatchlings.  These adorable babies were a bit disoriented, one might even say “grumpy,” at being so uncerimoniously disturbed from their post-natal snooze, and they were a little dehydrated, too.  So, after a few days of turtle R&R, the foursome was released into the protected woodlands of Whale Bone Point near their nest site.

Release of Eastern Box Turtle Hatchlings

After releasing these box turtle hatchlings on Friday, we trekked down to the tip of Whale Bone Point where we had documented diamondback terrapin nesting since 2000 based on depredated nests and discarded egg shells.  We discovered three emergence holes within about 12 inches of each other that contained the remnants of escaped hatchlings, undeveloped eggs and some eggs that had been destroyed by root and insect predation.  In the middle nest, tucked under the lip and cradled in roots that had drained moisture from the nest and had contorted the embryos inside their egg shells within their nose-like grip, three pipped and cracked eggs remained.  One had not survived the attack, but two others were alive, albeit distorted, severely dehydrated and frozen in a trance-like stupor.  The clip below documents our removal of one of these hatchlings from its egg cocoon; the babies were so weak that they couldn’t free themselves from the dried egg shell and dig themselves out of the nest.

Rescue of Terrapin Hatchling Trapped by Roots and Dehydration

You can see from the clip above how undersized these hatchlings are.  The image below gives you a good sense of their actual size.

Undersized Terrapin Hatchlings

The good news:  Terrapins (and most turtles, actually) are Timex critters.  “They take a licking and keep on ticking.”  Turtles are extremely resilient.  Given a little TLC, even the most hapless turtle can be given a head-start toward survival.  These two babies just need a few days of care before they, too, will join their siblings in the nursery salt marsh abutting the Fox Island Marsh Conservation Area.  And in about eight years … Mark your calendar for June 15th, 2016 … they may be returning to Whale Bone Point to deposit their own nest of hatchlings.  And so the cycle goes on.  Save one turtle and your action ripples through the ages.  Precisely like the “Time Machine” that Nature truly is.

Two Terrapin Hatchlings Released at Whale Bone Point

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For Some Hatchling, Nursery Lies in the Uplands

Thursday, September 11th, 2008
 
One surprise we discovered over the last few years is that diamondback terrapin hatchlings employ a variety of strategies to survive their most vulnerable first year.  We had all expected that like sea turtles, terrapin hatchlings scramble from their nests in a beeline for the safety of the thick, rich, robust nursery salt marsh habitat ringing Wellfleet’s most productive nesting sites.  The first indications that we may have been hasty in this assumption were hatchlings we found in May and June each year heading DOWN HILL from the uplands toward the salt marsh.  The first few observations were dismissed as late emerging hatchlings that had overwintered in their natal nests since we had documented a few nests in May and June that had hatched in the fall, but where some hatchlings had remained until the next spring.  However, once we spotted yearlings heading down slope from the uplands to the marsh this rationalization collapsed.
 
Dr. Barbara Brennessel of Wheaton College conducted experiments tracking headstarted hatchlings released in their natal habitat in the Wellfleet Bay system.  They were equipped with a transmitter for RDF (radio direction finding) tracking.  Although much larger than a normal hatchling due to overwinter feeding, a number of these turtles headed into the salt marsh, behaving precisely as we would have expected a baby terrapin to act.  They hid out in the thick Spartina patens, feeding on whatever small critters they could discover in this rich marsh system.  However, some number of these headstarts went upland into the vegetated banks abutting sandy nesting areas and the salt marsh.  Since these animals were not “pristine” hatchlings, we asterisked their “aberrant behavior.”
 
But once we began to track baby hatchlings emerging from natural nests on treks upland, we realized that putting all the data together, many hatchlings race into the robust Spartina patens of the Wellfleet salt marsh system, lots of hatchlings dash under the rimming wrack line between sandy nesting banks and the salt marsh, and still others scale the banks and dunes to explore the vegetative uplands above the most productive nesting sites.  These terrapins employ a richer, more complex strategy that offers multiple opportunities for survival of hatchlings in a very raw and unpredictable climate at the northernmost edge of their range.
 
This week we watched the emergence of a nest at Turtle Point.  Ten live hatchlings left the nest and we followed them with a long-distance telephoto lens to determine how this group might behave once they had tunneled out of the nest.  You may recall earlier reporting of tracking hatchlings into the wrack line and others into the Spartina patens (see Tracking Terrapin Hatchlings, http://www.turtlejournal.com/?p=225)
 
The first hatchling set out on a solo trek and headed immediately into the vegetation above the nesting bank.
 
 
Solo Hatchlings Climbs into Upland Vegetation
 
Three others seemed to wait for this scout to complete its scramble, and then they too scaled the bank to disappear into upland vegetation. 

Three More Hatchlings Scramble Upslope

The last batch of six hatchlings followed suit, with the final two in this pair offering quite a tag team performance.
 
 
Final Six Head Upland, Too
 
Finally, once they had fully dispersed into the uplands, we attempted to find them again.  Truth be told, even though we had followed their movements in detail with a long distance telephoto lens, we could only locate four of the ten hatchlings because they were so well camouflaged within the groundcover vegetation.
 
 
Hatchlings Camouflaged in Upland Bearberry Vegetation
 

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Tracking Terrapin Hatchlings

Friday, September 5th, 2008

Where do hatchlings go once they flee the nest? Using various methods of inference and observation, we have determined that some hatchlings race to the wrack line for safety, others scramble further into the salt marsh grasses and still others opt to remain upland for at least the first winter of their “hidden” years.

Terrapin Hatchling Track Heads Down Turtle Pass Dune

Let’s follow some clues, some tracks and some hatchlings to test these hypotheses.  The high dune of Turtle Pass seems the place to start as we discover a hatchling track descending from an emergence nest atop the dune and heading seaward.

Tracks Assume Colorful Tints as Sun Dances Behind Clouds

Down we go along the shifting slope that morphs in shape and color as shadows dance through the contours of the dune.

Close-Up with Tail Mark Bisecting Track

Let’s experience the descent as though we were a newborn hatchling on its first ski run down the slopes.

Follow Tracks to Hatchling Buried in Salt Marsh Wrack

So, our first experiment leads to the discovery of a hatchling burrowed into the landward edge of the wrack line, buried under last winter’s deposit of salt hay.

But our day isn’t over as we encounter another set of hatchlings scaling the bearberry covered banks off 5th Avenue and passing through an exquisite clump of sea lavender en route to safety.

Terrapin Hatchling Scrambles to Reach Salt Marsh

These little critters eschew the wrack line, which to them seems like a clear cut jungle of logs, and head directly into the thick matting of Spartina patens in the salt marsh system separating east and west sections of Lieutenant Island.

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