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John Turner

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A mourning cloak butterfly. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

By John L. Turner

John Turner

Strolling up a slight incline on a trail pockmarked with pebbles the oak forest fell steeply away to my right. The warm spring air on this day in late April was most pleasant and welcome and I paused for a moment to bask in the warmth of a circle of sunlight reaching the ground through a small break in the tree canopy, happy winter was in the rear view mirror. 

Numerous Flowering Dogwood trees were in blossom in the forest, adding a splash of white and pink to the understory, their flowers reminding me of a grouping of water lilies floating fifteen feet in the air, although they were at eye level because of the falling slope. 

And suddenly movement — a butterfly is sailing toward me down the trail, turns in a half circle and lands in a foot square patch of sunlight with wings open, facing away so that its dark wings have the best angle to absorb the warmth the shaft of sunlight offered. A mourning cloak, a butterfly with a three inch wingspan, has joined my morning, an identification I make easily and instantly due to its highly distinctive coloration, which is unlike any other butterfly in eastern North America. 

The mourning cloak, so named because its dark brown body with a pale yellow band along the outer wing margin is reminiscent of the attire once worn during funerals and other somber occasions, is a stunningly beautiful insect. 

The derivation of the scientific name is a different story; Nymphalis antiopa relates to arcane Greek mythology. The brown of the body and wings is rich walnut in color and toward the wing edge numerous purplish-blue oval dots are patterned within a narrow band of black, this band adjacent to the aforementioned yellow band at the wing margin. Dark flecking is sprinkled throughout the yellow. Four small yellow wedges are positioned along the leading edge of the wings. Two prominent dark colored antennae project from the butterfly’s head, forming a classic letter vee.

The underside of the wings are as drab as the upper wings are showy. This adaptation helps the mourning cloak blend in on tree bark or leaf litter if it falls to the ground and plays dead, as it sometimes does to avoid predation. If it decides instead to flee it can erupt fast, emitting an unusual clicking sound (which I’ve never heard) which reportedly disturbs birds.  

The mourning cloak is typically the first butterfly to emerge in the spring because it overwinters as an adult; no need for springtime pupation and metamorphosis as with other butterflies. Adults spend the winter in surprising fashion — hibernating beneath flaking tree bark, in tree cavities and in the cracks of larger rocks. They are able to survive the winter because they have “antifreeze” in their blood and cells — sugar compounds (glycerols) which lower the temperature at which the insect would freeze. Once it emerges it rapidly shivers its flight muscles helping the butterfly to warm up. Its dense hairlike bristles help to hold the muscle-generated heat inside.  

Another surprise in a butterfly with several surprises is that, once it emerges, it doesn’t depend upon, or much utilize flowers and their sugary nectar, although the species will occasionally visit them. Rather, they depend upon tree sap, the moisture and sugar in fallen fruits, the sweet exudate of aphids, mud puddles, even animal dung. Due to the fact this butterfly came out of pupation last summer means it is — as far as insects go — a long lived insect, having a lifespan as much as ten to twelve months. 

Not surprising, given its ability to survive frigid temperatures, the mourning cloak is found in temperate and cold regions all across North America, Europe and Asia. In England it’s known as the ‘Camberwell Beauty’; the species was first discovered in England at Camberwell in 1748 and the discoverer, Moses Harris, suggested the name. It also ranges south and is known from Central and South America.   

If the mourning cloak mates, egg laying takes place with the eggs laid on one of a wide range of host plants including  various willows, aspen, birch, hackberry, elm, hawthorn, cottonwood, poplar and mulberry, among others. The eggs are laid in long clusters along the stem near its tip and they are as beautiful as they are geometrically distinctive; they remind me a little of the dome of the U.S. Capitol. I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped reading here and “Google image” the eggs. It’s worth the effort. 

At first, when small, the caterpillars stay together but after going through growth stages known as instars they separate. A mature caterpillar is black with eight orange dots and is heavily spined which, if touched, can irritate the skin. The pupa, the case in which the miracle of metamorphosis occurs, is also spined. On Long Island the butterflies emerge in early to mid-summer and will, if the weather grows hot, aestivate (kind of like hibernation in the summer). Another emergence can occur in the fall.  

As with so many elements of the natural world, butterflies unfortunately are declining in abundance and mourning cloaks are no exception. In a recently published study  measuring population trends of North American butterfly species, the mourning cloak has declined by about 22% over the past quarter century. This alarming decline appears due to a combination of continued widespread pesticide use, climate change, and habitat loss. 

How can you help this iconic harbinger of spring? By foregoing the use of pesticides, leaving on your property standing dead and dying trees with their sheltered protective cavities and sloughing bark, and supporting organizations devoted to butterfly conservation such as the Xerces Society.  

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

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A Column Promoting a More Earth-Friendly Lifestyle

By John L. Turner

John Turner

I did a double take while reading the following sentence — “It is estimated that each year over one billion pounds of clothes and textiles are disposed of in landfills in New York State,” a fact according to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. That’s a billion with a B! 

Another fact: Each and every American throws away about 68 pounds of clothing each year. And the environmental impacts don’t end there: once in landfill, textile manufacture waste takes 80 to 1000 years to break down, generating about 1.2 billion tons of CO2 annually, polluting waterways and soil systems, and contributing to the growing climate change problem.  

There are ways to lessen these impacts from clothing. An obvious idea is to bring your lightly used but no longer wanted clothes to one of the local thrift stores or give them away to members of the community by posting them on sites like Stony Brook Freecycle for pickup. Similarly, you can donate unwanted clothing by depositing them at drop-off bins. Some local charities like the Salvation Army, Big Brother Big Sister, and Goodwill also accept clothing items. Also recyclable are no longer wanted linens like sheets, bedspreads, and pillow cases.

When it comes to denim, the website bluejeansgogreen.org provides information on how you can recycle no longer wanted denim jeans by bringing them to a local retailer or through the mail.  

Another great option is to participate in the Town of Brookhaven’s “Dress for Success” program. Lightly worn, nearly-new professional attire can be donated, thereby helping women gain a professional wardrobe, a requirement in some professions. The Dress for Success office number is 631-451-9127.

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

 

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An example of a vernal pool. Photo by John Turner
An Eastern tiger salamander, a NY State Endangered Species. Photo by John Turner
An example of a vernal pool. Photo by John Turner
An example of a vernal pool. Photo by John Turner
A female marbled salamander, a vernal pool species, guarding her egg clutch. Photo by John Turner
An example of a vernal pool. Photo by John Turner

By John L. Turner

John Turner

They are quite easy to overlook. Most are small, some really small, the size of your living room. Or maybe no bigger than the size of the first floor of your house. They are typically dry by the time summer’s heat reaches full blast so if you’re not trained to look at a shallow depression of water stained leaves you may not know what you’re looking at — a dynamic ecosystem that when filled with water sustains scores of species. 

These habitats, just dimples in the landscape, are known as vernal pools, or as a key researcher from the Massachusetts-based Vernal Pool Association likes to call them, “wicked little puddles.” They are fascinating small-scale ecosystems filled with wonder and discovery. 

Vernal pools gain their name because generally they have their highest water levels in the spring, around the vernal equinox, due to the combination of seasonal rains and snow melt. Amphibians are the stars of the vernal pool show, taking advantage of these fishless environments allowing them to  breed successfully. Three of the more common Long Island amphibians utilizing these pools are Wood Frogs, Spring Peepers, and Spotted Salamanders.  

Beginning in the middle of March, unless it’s a harsh winter, these species emerge from their upland overwintering sites (under logs, in rodent holes, etc.) and migrate to the ponds to make the next generation. Visiting a pool on a spring night it is not unusual to hear the deafening peeps of the Peepers (living up to their name) and the vocalizations of wood frogs (a cross between the quack of a duck and the barking of a dog). 

Shine a flashlight on the water and you might see the tail swish of a beautiful yellow-dotted Spotted Salamander moving through the leaves lining the pond’s bottom. Or perhaps it will be cork-like creatures in the form of mating pairs of wood frogs  in amplexus — she releases dozens to more than a hundred eggs into the water quickly followed by the clasping male releasing a cloud of sperm. Soon, the gelatinous egg mass swells with water, forming fist size clusters, anchored to submerged stems and over the next couple of weeks the embryos develop, eventually hatching into tadpoles. 

Spotted Salamander egg masses look similar but in their case fertilization is internal with the female taking up sperm capsules (called spermatophores) which the male salamanders have deposited on the pool bottom. Spring peepers, a species of treefrog, don’t lay egg clusters like these other two species but rather deposit individual eggs. 

 Other amphibians known to use Long Island vernal pools include cousins to the Spotted Salamander: Marbled, Blue-spotted and Eastern Tiger Salamanders (a New York State endangered species), Red-spotted Newts, Fowler’s and Eastern Spadefoot Toads, Grey Treefrogs, and to a lesser extent American Bullfrogs, and Pickerel and Green Frogs.

Many other forms of life thrive in these “wicked little puddles.” One fascinating species are fairy shrimp, small krill-like crustaceans that swim about the water column “upside down” with females carrying egg clusters in their tail appendage. We have two species on Long Island, both of which are quite adept at surviving prolonged dry periods even when vernal pools remain dry for several consecutive years, such as during a drought. 

How does a fairy shrimp survive prolonged dry periods?  Their eggs are cyst like and can tolerate complete desiccation, extreme cold, harsh UV exposure, and other extreme environmental conditions and come out of it no worse for the wear  — they are the definition of tough!  The eggs are even known to travel through the digestive system of ducks (several species of waterfowl routinely feed on fairy shrimp), unscathed by the bird’s digestive acids and it is thought this pathway explains how shrimp colonize new pools. 

Many other types of invertebrates frequent vernal pools including quite a few types of water bugs and beetles, midges, mites, and mosquitoes, dragonflies and damselflies, worms, snails and clams, copepods, all tied together with amphibians and other vertebrates in a complex food web of  “eat and be eaten”.  

For many vernal pool inhabitants, including amphibians, there is a clock always ticking, as animals speed to complete stages of their life cycle before the pools dry up, certain death for tadpoles that have not yet completed metamorphosis. Some eggs hatch as quickly as a couple of days and tadpoles can undergo the miracle of metamorphosis in a few weeks. Some grow more rapidly by dining on the aforementioned fairy shrimp which is a plentiful source of protein in the pool.     

For these vernal pool frequenting amphibians to survive, it is not enough to protect just the pool and pool basin.  Wood Frogs, Spotted Salamanders and many other amphibians migrate from the pools once breeding is done to spend the rest of the year in adjacent upland habitats around the pools. “Around” is a relative term as it may involve distances of several hundred feet since some individuals travel far (a few individuals such as Tiger Salamanders and Wood Frogs have been documented moving more than a thousand feet from the pool). Thus, protecting upland habitats around vernal pools is vital. Protecting upland areas between pools is ideal!

In 2022 a coalition of environmental groups worked with the NYSDEC and the Governor’s office to amend the NYS Freshwater Wetlands Act, strengthening it in many ways including providing greater protection for vernal pools. This effort paid off as vernal pools are included as one of eleven new categories of “‘wetlands of unusual importance” which provides them protection. Good thing as countless of these tiny to small, but amphibian-essential, pools, which are sometimes dry, have been destroyed, having been filled in and leveled for development.  

 Through funding from the Long Island Community Foundation (as it was known at the time; now it’s the New York Community Trust), the Seatuck Environmental Association undertook, with many other individuals and organizations through the framework of  “Vernal Pool Working Group,” an island-wide effort to locate and characterize all of the vernal pools situated on Long Island. 

Now completed, this project has identified about  350 pools from Queens to the west and the Montauk peninsula to the east.  A second phase of the project included the publication of a Landowner’s Guide to Vernal Pool Management providing recommendations for public and private property owners to better manage and protect their vernal pools and the species that utilize them.

One recommendation is to leave branches in the pond that have fallen in as they often are used by salamanders and frogs for sites to anchor their egg masses. Another is if your house has a  basement with window wells to put covers over the wells to prevent amphibians from falling in. Several years ago I rescued a tiger salamander from a house in Ridge that had fallen into just such a well, where it ultimately would have perished if left alone. 

Vernal pools are fascinating places to explore — little microcosms of ecosystems.  They are truly “wicked little puddles,”  beautiful and fascinating places in which to connect and explore the natural world that surrounds us all. I hope you find time to visit one.

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

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A Column Promoting a More Earth-Friendly Lifestyle

By John L. Turner

John Turner

During their lives trees perform functions critical to the health of forests and its wildlife — providing oxygen to the atmosphere for the benefit of all animals including humans, preventing soil erosion and helping to enrich and aerate the soil, and producing food such as nuts, fruits, and seeds that nourish many species of wildlife. 

In death, trees continue to serve vital ecological functions; as the wood softens and the bark peels away from the trunk, the tree creates nesting and roosting habitat as bats and many insects and other invertebrates seek shelter under the bark as does one bird, the brown creeper, which builds it’s crescent shaped nest under large pieces of bark. Woodpeckers have an easier time excavating cavities in the trunk creating nesting habitat for themselves and more than 80 other species of North American birds. These cavities are used by many other wildlife including reptiles, amphibians, and, of course, many mammals like raccoons and flying squirrels. Condominiums in the tree canopy are available to many! 

As the wood softens further, breaking down from the elements of weather, fungus, bacteria and insects, the standing tree becomes a cafeteria too. Woodpeckers chip away the softened wood to feast on beetle grubs previously hidden beneath the surface and mammals feed on several types of shelf fungus that sprout from the trunk like the well known chicken-of-the-woods and hen-of-the-woods, two delicious mushrooms that humans like too!

Given all the benefits of dead trees, which collectively help to stabilize local ecosystems, the message is obvious — if you have dead trees on your property located out of harm’s way from structures such as your home, garden sheds, and the like, let the dead tree give life. If you do, you might be lucky enough to see a roosting screech owl or a flying squirrel gliding from one tree to another in the darkness

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

 

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Barn Owl. Pixabay photo

By John L. Turner

John Turner

I stepped out the back door into the clear and bracing evening air, under the inky black dome of the night sky pockmarked with the stars in the constellation of Orion and the luminous planetary dot of Venus to the southeast. Within a few seconds I hear a call: several deep hoots of a Great Horned Owl, repeated three more times in quick succession. It’s a sequence that one ornithologist characterizes as: “Who’s awake, me too!” While I couldn’t see it, I suspected the bird was hooting from a large white pine on the south side of the neighbor’s yard and its presence filled me with excitement as it always does when hearing or seeing an owl.   

Several species of owls, varying in abundance, seasonality, and habitat, can be found on Long Island; some  nest while a few don’t breed on Long Island but overwinter, while still others migrate through the island. In addition to the Great Horned Owl, they include the Screech Owl, the winter visiting Snowy and Short-eared Owls, and the uncommon Long-eared and Saw-whet Owls. Frequenting barns and other structures is the strikingly beautiful Barn Owl. A very rare winter visitor, having visited just a few times in the past century, is the stunning Great Grey Owl, associated with more northerly latitudes. Currently, ornithologists have documented 254 owl species globally. 

Snowy Owl. Pixabay photo

Perhaps the most coveted owl to lay your eyes on is the Snowy Owl, which possesses a  snowy white plumage in adult male birds. Adult females and immature birds of both sexes have black flaking. This species is an open country bird, preferring the windswept habitats of its breeding range — open dunes and heathland and, unlike most owl species, is active during the day.

The south shore barrier islands, including Jones Beach and Robert Moses State Parks, can be fruitful areas to look for this diurnal species. As for a search image, think a white paper bag situated atop a dune crest. Driving the stretch of Dune Road from Shinnecock Inlet west to Cupsogue County Park is also worthwhile.

Snowy Owls appear almost every winter in a still not fully understood response to prey abundance in the Arctic. It used to be thought the movement of the species southward was tightly correlated with a decrease in abundance of their prey, lemmings. The phenomenon is not that clear cut and scientists aren’t fully sure what drives their long and stressful southbound journeys. 

Short-eared Owl. Pixabay photo

The Short-eared Owl is another species associated with open country that’s active during the day.  Short-eared have an infinity for grasslands, meadows, and marshes. This species was once an uncommon breeding bird; it is now quite rare, if it still breeds here at all. The best bet to see this handsome species is as an overwintering bird probably at the former Grumman property in Calverton. The grassy margins of the formerly used runways support small mammals like mice and voles which the owl feeds on. Short-eared can also be occasionally viewed perched on telephone poles along Dune Road. 

Long-eared Owl. Pixabay photo

The closely related Long-eared Owl is uncommon on Long Island and if it breeds here at all it is in very low numbers. It is seen most often as an overwintering bird, typically perched in conifers or evergreens. One of my fonder memories involving this group of birds was seeing, many decades ago, several Long-eareds perched together in evergreen shrubs first found by fellow birders and friends Bob McGrath and Rich Gostic, on an estate property on the east side of the Nissequogue River. Based on the pellets and white wash it was clear the roost had been used for some time.  Unfortunately, the estate was developed in the 1980’s and the owl patch destroyed.

Barn Owl. Pixabay photo

In my youth I worked at the 133-acre Hoyt Farm Preserve in Commack. For many years a pair of Barn Owls nested in the old wooden tower that once provided water for the farm. A highlight for me and other staff was to periodically climb the metal rungs of the ladder to gain entry into the tower and band the young owls. During the banding process they would hiss loudly along with their parents, comically rocking their heads back and forth. Unfortunately, as the land around the preserve was developed, there apparently wasn’t enough habitat to sustain an ample prey base needed to sustain the pair of barn owls and their young, as they haven’t nested at the preserve in many decades. 

Northern Saw-Whet Owl. Pixabay photo

The Northern Saw-whet Owl is perhaps the least known of our native owl species. It is also the smallest, topping out at about eight inches from top of head to tail tip and tipping the scales at less than three ounces. (In contrast, the aforementioned Snowy Owl weighs about four pounds). The Saw-whet’s name derives from the fact its call sounds a bit like the sound made when whetting or sharpening a saw. This diminutive bird has a preference for tangles — vines and tightly growing pine branches — where it hides during the day. It has been recorded as breeding on Long Island although it is seen much more often during fall migration and as an overwintering bird. Want to see the definition of cuteness? Take a look at a photograph of a fledgling Saw-whet. Oh my!    

Both the Great Horned Owl and its diminutive cousin the Screech Owl are woodland birds. Both species have ‘horns’ which are really vertical feather tufts, as does the aforementioned Long-eared; they play no role in defense or hearing. 

Great Horned Owl. Pixabay photo

The Great Horned Owl is the earliest nesting bird and at the time this article appears adults will be incubating eggs, providing them with life-giving heat. Several years ago I was checking out a wooded Town of Brookhaven preserve in Holbrook when I saw what I thought was a white plastic bag partially hidden behind an oak tree. Coming around the tree I was startled to see not a bag but a wet Great Horned owl fledgling sitting amidst the damp leaves. I knew if there was one fledgling there were likely more and after some searching I found two other fledglings, one of which, perched on a fallen pine tree, was already growing into its adult plumage. An adult perched in a live upright pine tree nearby kept a steady eye on both me and her precocious babies. 

The Screech Owl is probably the most common and widespread owl species found here with breeding pairs likely inhabiting most  woodlots five to ten acres or larger. Like the Saw-whet, Screech Owls are cavity nesters, using holes excavated in trees by woodpeckers. Unlike almost all of the other eighteen North American owl species, the Screech owl is polymorphic, a fancy term meaning the species  has three color morphs or forms — a grey plumage form, a rufous colored one and a form intermediate (which I have never seen). Of the several dozen screech owls I’ve had the pleasure of seeing on Long Island, I’ve only seen the rufous morph although I’ve seen the grey form a few times in other places. 

Carl Safina with Alfie

The most well-known Screech Owl on Long Island undoubtedly is Alfie, made famous through Carl Safina’s wonderful book Alfie & Me, in which, in part, he describes the trials and tribulations of nursing a very sick Screech Owl fledgling back to health, assisting with her successful re-wilding, and watching her blossom into a devoted parent, raising, to date, 15 young in the woodlands in and adjacent to his Setauket residence. 

Screech owls are misnamed — rather, the ‘screech’ title belongs to the Barn Owl, which emits a haunting sounding hiss or screech when agitated or disturbed. Screech owl vocalizations, which I occasionally hear in my backyard and on the hikes around Long Island, aren’t screechy at all; indeed they are rather pleasant sounding — a two parted horse like whinny followed by a pulsing whistle. I encourage you to listen to a recording of its call. 

Barred Owl. Pixabay photo

A puzzle regarding the presence of owl species on Long Island is the dearth of Barred Owls. This species, well-known for its distinctive “Who-cooks-for-you?, Who-cooks-for-you-all?” call is very rarely heard or seen here. This is a bit surprising since the species is fairly common in areas north and west of the island such as southern Connecticut and northern and central New Jersey. Its scarcity might be due to the fact that it prefers large, extensive tracts of forested wetlands such as tupelo-red maple swamps and these areas on Long Island are rarely more than a couple dozen acres in size at most.    

Owls are well adapted to being “denizens of the dark.” They possess exceptional vision and hearing and have feathers that dampen or eliminate sound as they fly. Owls see quite well in the dark, an obvious necessity for a nocturnal lifestyle.

One reason is the size of their eyes. Great-horned Owls have large barrel-shaped eyes they cannot move, so to change its field of view an owl must turn its head. Another reason is due to the abundance of rod cells in their eyes which help them to detect light; they have about 50% more rods than we do. Lastly, owls have forward facing eyes enabling binocular vision, like us, which helps with depth perception, a key attribute when hunting prey that is small, mobile and fast. Their forward facing eyes is what imparts the ‘wise’ look unique to owls. 

Their hearing is remarkably acute as well due to the fact their ear openings are asymmetrically positioned on each side of the owl’s head. This allows for an owl to not only detect if a mouse is rustling to its left or right (the vertical plane) but whether it’s on the ground or in a bush a few feet off the ground (the horizontal plane). Experiments with Barn owls in totally dark situations proved this species can successfully capture prey using hearing alone.

Blakiston Fish Owl. Pixabay photo

The leading edge of an owl’s flight feathers is “fluted” which creates a soft edge that muffles sound, rather than a hard or straight edge like in a duck or seagull. This feature enables silent flight, a great advantage to a bird, gifting it the element of surprise. Interestingly, owl species like the Blakiston’s Fish Owl, the largest owl in the world, that feed on species that cannot detect the sound of an owl, like fish, lack the fluted edge. No need to evolve silent flight when your prey can’t hear you to begin with.

A good way to acquaint yourself with this remarkable and charismatic group of birds is to join a local Audubon chapter or Sweetbriar Nature Center on an organized nocturnal “owl prowl” or venture out to the Calverton Grasslands or Jones Beach to see one of the species active during the day. If you do and are lucky enough to hear or see an owl I bet you’ll be filled with excitement too!

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

 

 

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A Column Promoting a More Earth-Friendly Lifestyle

By John L. Turner

John Turner

Like other types of plastic such as milk cartons and apple cider containers, plastic film products are everywhere and have become a ubiquitous part of the lives of shoppers and consumers. What are some examples of these products?

Examples include the plastic bag your dry cleaning garments came in, cereal bags, shrink and bubble wrap, the bag your newspaper was delivered in, zip-top food storage bags (they need to be clean), the plastic bag your bread came in as well as the plastic film that covers bulk paper products like paper towels and toilet paper.    

The good news is that due to a provision in the New York State Environmental Conservation Law, many retailers, such as supermarkets and home improvement stores, are required to establish an in-store recycling program which typically involves the placement of a bin typically near the store’s entry for the placement of your plastic film products. 

One good thing about plastic wrap products is  they are easy to store — I cram all the plastic film material I’ve acquired into a plastic bag until it can hold no more and bring it with me to the store for disposal in the bin. Given this law, plastic film recycling is pretty painless so if you want to reduce your contribution to plastic pollution remember to bring your plastic film bag crammed with other plastic film materials to the store so it may be recycled!   

You should not put plastic film in your curbside recycling bin. The town doesn’t have the equipment to sort it from other recyclable materials.

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

 

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By John L. Turner

John Turner

Strolling on a mid-December day to pick up the morning paper at the base of the driveway, I passed by the bird bath and noticed the surface had a thin layer of ice capping a few inches of water underneath, an event about as surprising as the fact gravity held me to the ground as I fetched to get the newspaper. 

Except that a thought I had not had for a very long time suddenly flashed to mind, from something I read in a middle school Earth Science textbook, a thought about a concept that is remarkably consequential — if ice wasn’t lighter than water but rather denser, life might not have ever gotten a foothold on planet Earth or if it did, it might have happened later and in a much more limited fashion geographically speaking.   

As water cools it becomes denser so water closer to a freezing temperature, say 40 degrees Fahrenheit, is denser than at 80 degree water and 80 degree water is denser than water near its boiling point. The fact the colder water is, the denser it is, is true — but only to a point. Once water falls below 39.4 degrees Fahrenheit it reverses course density wise and becomes less dense as water molecules shift to form a lattice-like structure of spread out interconnected hexagons (six sided) once the water freezes; this lower density explains why ice is always on the surface and why ice cubes and icebergs float.    

If water lacked this chemical quirkiness (in one scientific account characterized as ‘anomalous physical behavior’) and ice was denser than water, when ice formed at the surface from contact with air below 32 degrees, it would sink to the bottom, soon freezing solid the entire water column from bottom to top and everything in between if it stayed cold long enough. 

All turtles, frogs, salamanders, and fish would be frozen along with the much smaller zooplankton that forms the base of the aquatic food chain located in temperate climates. Aquatic mammals such as beavers, muskrats, and otters would struggle mightily to survive. The same would be true for bays, harbors and the shallow portions of oceans, creating profound difficulties for the animals living in the colder portions of the marine realm. 

If ice was denser than water would life ever have evolved on Earth? If so, would it be in the countless forms we see today? Would there have been other evolutionary pathways than the traditionally understood fish to amphibian to reptile to bird and mammal route we have deciphered from genetic evidence and the fossil record? Would you or I  even exist to read and write this article, respectively? 

Fortunately, our world is one in which water behaves oddly, with ice always floating on water, forming a protective layer for the free swimming aquatic life beneath. No matter how cold and bone-chilling the temperature of the air, even in circumstances involving temperatures much below zero (as routinely happens in mountainous areas and the polar regions), the water beneath the ice remains a ‘balmy’ 33 degrees or slightly higher, allowing for life to persist. 

And ice isn’t the only form of frozen water that protects life. Snow does the same.  One foot of snow is enough to keep the soil near 32 degrees despite what the air temperature is above the snow. This insulative value is not surprising given the fact that about 90% of the volume of a freshly fallen blanket of snow is air! 

This allows for small mammals like voles and mice to remain active through the winter, hidden from predators beneath the snow, although a life free from predation is never a guarantee; a fact borne out on a few occasions when I’ve seen both red fox and coyote spring high into the air, arching their backs to gain momentum and focus, coming hard down on the snow with their front paws to punch through the crusty surface layer of snow in pursuit of a vole or mouse it heard below. 

I well remember watching a coyote in a wind-blown, snow-covered farm field in Ontario, north of Ottawa, about thirty winters ago repeatedly pouncing through the snow, eventually catching what looked like to be a meadow vole. 

Snow also enables animals hibernating beneath (called the subnivean zone) to use less energy and worry less about frostbite during this vulnerable time. Snow also protects plants from “frostbite” by preventing the soil from freezing and damaging small roots and rootlets. That’s why snow is referred to as the “poor man’s mulch”! The snow prevents a freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw  cycle which can  push or heave a plant from the soil causing root damage.

And a snow cover benefits human animals and their properties too, by safeguarding underground water lines from freezing since slightly below the snow-covered surface the temperature remains above the freezing point. This might not be true if very cold air can make prolonged contact against a ground that lacks the benefit of a snow blanket.     

Under certain conditions though, snow and ice can prove lethal to plants and animals. The weight of wet snow can break branches and occasionally break or topple trees, especially evergreens whose abundant needled leaves hold snow. Ice forming inside plant and animal cells can be lethal as microscopically small ice shards puncture cell walls. 

The wood frog, a native amphibian that breeds in vernal pools throughout Long Island (vernal pools will be the subject of a Nature Matters column in the Spring of 2025) actually freezes solid in the winter and is able to survive by pumping water out of its cells so they stay protected.  No wonder they are amusingly called ‘frogcicles’! 

If you want to see a wood frog thawing out after a long winter of being frozen but somehow still staying alive, I invite you to look at YouTube videos. 

So there you have it — ice and snow — two substances which can disrupt life in specific situations but lifegiving in a general sense. And since we’re still in the glow of the holiday season, let’s be forever thankful for the unique, life-permitting nature of water molecules. 

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

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A Column Promoting a More Earth-Friendly Lifestyle

By John L. Turner

John Turner

If you’re like most homeowners much of the mail you receive is unsolicited and of no interest, what we typically refer to as junk mail. Not surprisingly, much of it is never opened or read (about 44% according to one website) and gets tossed — hopefully in the recycling bin. Americans receive,  and dispose of, about 3 million tons of junk mail every year. Especially notorious are catalogs offering various products  — gifts, clothing, etc. — since they use much more paper than what is contained in a mere solicitation letter offering you a new product you don’t want.   

Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to reduce the amount of unwanted mail you receive such as services which eliminate or reduce the amount of unwanted mail you receive. Some charge a small fee to process your request. One such service highlighted by the United States Postal Service is: DMAchoice, Consumer Preferences, P.O. Box 900, Cos Cob, CT 06807. 

If you want to opt out of unsolicited credit card and insurance company offers, call toll free 1-888-567-8688 or visit optoutprescreen.com. Also, if you don’t want Valpak coupons go to valpak.com/remove-address to unsubscribe. Lastly, download the phone app PaperKarma that helps you to unsubscribe from unwanted mail.

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

 

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A Column Promoting a More Earth-Friendly Lifestyle

By John L. Turner

John Turner

If you are like most people you occasionally eat at a favorite restaurant. And like most people you probably don’t always finish your meal.

Well, it’s certainly consistent with the “Living Lightly” philosophy to take home the uneaten portion of your meal, but there’s a way to take “Living Lightly” even a step further — by bringing an empty food container with you in which to place your uneaten food.

You can easily nestle several food containers together and drop them into a pocketbook, a larger coat pocket, or a paper bag on your way out the door. 

Another benefit to this practice besides the health of the planet is the financial health of a small business because the more this idea takes hold, the more restaurants can save on supply costs which just might help to keep the prices down of those entrees (a portion of which you’ve just taken home!)

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

 

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Above, what Blydenburgh County Park could look like if the dam isn't put back ... this is West Brook in Bayard Cutting Arboretum several years after the dam failed and a beautiful stream valley with great biodiversity has emerged. Photo from John Turner

By John L. Turner

Due to the extensive development of Long Island, starting with European colonization nearly 400 years ago, virtually no species, natural area, or landscape has been untouched. Some of these “touches” have been minor, others moderate, while still others have been drastic or complete, like the virtual destruction of the Hempstead Plains, a once 40,000 square mile tallgrass prairie located in the middle of Nassau County. True too, for the timber wolf which was eradicated early in the Island’s settlement driven by a bounty paid during the 17th century for each dead wolf. 

There are few places where these impacts have been more extensive than with the more than 100 streams and rivers flowing outward from the center of Long Island to the salty waters that surround it. For centuries these streams were viewed as only having commercial value; modified by dams the streams became artificial ponds to supply water for cranberry bogs and for the harvest of ice. 

Mills were constructed in many places, taking advantage of the water funneled over constructed dams, to grind corn, saw wood or for fulling clothing fiber. Today, there are very few unobstructed streams on Long Island. (One of the few is Alewife Creek in Southampton which drains Big Fresh Pond, emptying into North Sea Harbor).  

The ‘brook’ in Stony Brook. Photo from John Turner

Obstruction is the reality at “Cutsgunsuck,” the Setalcott Indigenous Nation’s name for a “brook laden with stones,” a brook that we know today as Stony Brook. This “stone laden” brook, fed by freshwater oozing out of the Upper Glacial aquifer on its northward flow to the harbor, was drastically altered about 275 years ago, with the construction of the dam to funnel water for the Stony Brook Grist Mill so only a limited section of the original brook remains. Predictably, as with all dams, the water backed up behind the newly constructed dam, creating a pond in the process and drowning much of the stream and streamside environment — and its interwoven array of plants and animals  — that had evolved in place over many thousands of years. Same was the case with the dam in Blydenburgh County Park creating Stump Pond. 

Victims of these dams were the migratory fish, American Eel and Alewife, a species of river herring, that undoubtedly used Stony Brook and the upper reaches of the Nissequogue River centuries ago to spawn and develop. These fish, known as diadromous species,  live in two worlds — in the case of American eels spawning in the ocean (the Sargasso Sea), migrating inland to freshwater streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds to spend more than a decade growing and maturing before returning to the ocean. Alewife behave in the opposite fashion — coming inland to spawn with the adults and young leaving to develop in the ocean. 

Eels and river herring are important components of the coastal food chain, nourishing cormorants, wading birds, eagles, and ospreys while back in the sea, a host of predatory fish such as striped bass, bluefish, and tuna. Mammals that prey on these species include river otters, making a slow comeback on Long Island, and seals. The dams created insurmountable obstacles to the completion of their life cycle so for these fish and the other species that feed upon them two ecological threads were severed. 

The Northern Dusky Salamander found in the Stony Brook Mill Pond. Photo from John Turner

Other animals that prosper in cold and clear streams lost out too, seeing their habitat lost or substantially diminished.  Remarkably, one of them is a species hanging on in the truncated stream segment south of the now drained portion of the Stony Brook Mill Pond — the Northern Dusky Salamander, an amphibian discovered by someone helping wildlife in the pond after the dam failure; a species which has not been seen on Long Island in nearly a century and was presumed extirpated here!

The northern dusky is one of nine native salamander species that call Long Island home and some naturalists wonder if this population constitutes a new species since it’s been reproductively isolated from other populations of the species, the nearest being in Westchester county, for some 12,000 to 15,000 years.  DNA work is proposed to sort the genetics out.  

The same adverse ecological impacts occurred when the dam was constructed to operate a grist mill at Stump Pond within Blydenburgh County Park in Hauppauge (which had its dam blow out due to the same storm event in August) but on an even larger scale. The two streams feeding Stump Pond, that is two headwater sections of the Nissequogue River, one beginning in the Hauppauge Springs area near the Suffolk County Center on State Route 454, the other emanating further afield in the Village of the Branch, disappeared with the construction of the dam that created Stump Pond, flooding many dozens of acres of riparian habitat including the killing of dozens of Atlantic White Cedar, a rare wetland tree species.  

What if the dams at Stony Brook Mill Pond and Stump Pond are not reconstructed? What would this mean for the environmental setting there? Almost immediately wetland dependent plant species and wildlife would repopulate the stream and the adjacent low-lying floodplain and the wetland at West Brook in the Bayard Cutting Arboretum can provide insight. Here, the dam failed in 2019 draining an area about the size of the Stony Brook Mill Pond and naturalists have been studying the result ever since.

Migratory fish now have unimpeded access to the full length of the West Brook watershed. Plants have flourished, emerging from the seed bank that has laid dormant for many decades, awaiting just the right conditions to germinate. Within two years 108 native species of wetland-loving wildflowers began to fill in the mud banks on both sides of West Brook, including an extensive stand of cattails. These plants now support numerous insects including a number of pollinators. 

Underappreciated concerns from dams and dam failures are property damage and loss of human life. These concerns are very likely to grow as the frequency and severity of storm events increases due to climate disruption. 

For example, the National Centers for Environmental Information, part of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), keeps tallies of storms and for New York noted seven weather related disasters in the 1980’s causing $1 billion worth of property damage. By the 1990’s the total doubled to 14, the same number for the period of 2000 to 2009. 

For the 2010’s? Twenty-nine such events. And in 2023 alone there were seven, the same number you’ll remember for all of the 1980’s. With slightly different circumstances it is not difficult to envision several houses and the occupants within them, living downstream from the failed dams at both the Stony Brook Mill Pond and Blydenburgh County Park, being destroyed and killed, respectively.  

Then there’s the cost of maintaining dams and impoundments. The impoundments behind dams collect sediment which eventually have to be dredged, at considerable expense, or the pond becomes increasingly shallow and eventually disappears from the sediment load. And the warm, still waters in the impoundments are conducive to plant growth, especially by invasive species which often proliferate, eventually covering the entire water surface, compromising other recreational uses like boating and fishing.

For example, the Town of Brookhaven spent more than $4 million of taxpayer funds to combat Cabomba, a species of fanwort that’s a noxious weed, growing in the Upper Lake of the Carmans River (it wasn’t successful in eliminating the weed). 

Suffolk County spent several million dollars more to dredge the sediments from Canaan Lake in Patchogue and Nassau County officials have committed significant staff and equipment in an effort to eradicate Water Chestnut from Mary’s Lake in Massapequa. 

One last example is the state’s more-than-a-decade fight to control Ludwigia, also known as floating primrose-willow, an invasive species that’s proliferated an impoundment in the Peconic River. Multiply these fiscal impacts out to the more than 90 dams and impoundments on Long Island and pretty soon we’re talking real money. Fiscal conservatives like free-flowing conditions. 

For these aforementioned ecological, public safety, and fiscal reasons, the dam at Blydenburgh County Park should not be repaired. A channel, forking from the stream currently,  can be deepened to supply water to the mill wheel if the county ever makes the grist mill functioning again; it has laid dormant for nearly half-a-century. 

The good news is that an alternative vision to repairing the dam at Blydenburgh County Park has emerged that would, some believe, enhance a visitor’s experience: construct a bridge over the stream where the dam gave way so hikers can once again walk around the park and the former pond and add two pedestrian footbridges over the two streams that flow through the park, providing scenic and panoramic views of the stream valleys and diverse wetland meadows that will form. 

A slightly different vision can be advanced for the Stony Brook Mill Pond. Here, the Town of Brookhaven, other levels of government, and the Ward Melville Heritage Organization are moving to restore the dam, an understandable response to what the Mill Pond has meant to the local Three Village community — a landscape that’s loved and cherished. 

The challenge, then, is to determine if there is a way to rebuild the dam and restore the pond but create a richer ecological setting. Can this be done? A good first step would be to incorporate a fish ladder and eel passage that effectively allows for migratory fish to access the pond; the natural-looking rock ramp fish ladder in Grangebel Park in Riverhead and the eel passage further upstream on the Peconic River serve as useful models. Also, establishing a lower pond level through a lower elevation dam would increase stream and streamside habitat for the betterment of the rare salamander and other stream dwelling species. 

Two other actions that could improve conditions at the Mill Pond: 1) Soften the boundary along the eastern edge of the pond by removing the bulkheading encompassing much of the shoreline here, planting this transition area with native wetland plants and wildflowers, and 2) Better control road runoff  into the pond from Main Street. 

A recent conversation I had with someone who assisted in the effort to free stranded wildlife said she noticed an oil sheen on the surface of the remaining pooled water in the southeastern section of the pond where a drainage pipe empties into the pond from Main Street; a number of ducks were swimming around in this water.  On a recent visit, I noticed a few ducks preening and wondered if they weren’t ingesting toxic oil into their bodies in the process.   

If we embrace the alternative described above, a better experience can be had at Blydenburgh County Park and if we make these modifications, a better, more environmentally sound Stony Brook Mill Pond can emerge from the ruins, to once again be enjoyed and valued by the local community. Here, these elements would create enhanced wetland habitat for the betterment of many of our wildlife neighbors — fish, birds, and salamanders alike. And in no small measure, it would  allow for the landscape feature that gave the community its name —Stony Brook — to be enhanced and better protected. Indeed, we’d be putting a bit of the “brook” back in Stony Brook.

A resident of Setauket, author John L. Turner is a naturalist, conservation co-chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, and Conservation Policy Advocate for the Seatuck Environmental Association.

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