It’s always such a pleasure to spend time in the woods at this time of the year. The weather is warming, the flowers are blooming, everything is turning green and growing, and the animal encounters are frequent and exciting!

On a recent expedition with Pleasant Gardens Elementary School in Marion, NC, we were able to explore a new greenway that has just been opened up to the public along the banks of the Catawba River in McDowell County. One of the first wild creatures we encountered were numerous Eastern Painted Turtles sunning themselves on floating logs in a temporary wetland pool adjacent to the river which was recently inundated by rising floodwaters caused by spring rains. Painted turtles easily live up to their name due to the many delicate stripes and other colorful markings on their heads, necks, and lower shell margins. Turtles, being cold-blooded reptiles, love to bask in the sun to warm their bodies but also need the beneficial rays of the sun for other reasons. A turtle’s shell is a bony expansion of their backbone and therefore is part of their skeletal structure. In order for a turtle’s shell to grow properly, they must manufacture vitamin D in their bodies which they get from the UVB rays of natural sunlight. Without the sun, a turtle’s shell can soften and cause a turtle, especially young turtles which are still growing, to sicken and die.

A little farther down the trail, we began to run into numbers of Fowler’s Toads moving about in the thick vegetation alongside the paved greenway path. The students were captivated by these interesting amphibians and we captured, observed, and then released several of them. Toads differ from many of their frog cousins by being much more terrestrial in their habitats but always returning to pools of water to lay their eggs. Their skin is also rougher and drier, with many small bumps or what many people refer to as warts. In fact, many people believe that if you pick up and handle a toad you will get warts! Of course this isn’t true. What looks like warts on a toad’s skin are actually tiny little glands which secrete a sticky, white fluid to deter animals that otherwise might try to make a meal of them. These secretions are actually a type of poison which is only released if a toad is attacked or handled extremely roughly. When a human picks up a toad, the worst thing that would normally happen is that a toad may suddenly expel a large amount of water from its body to help to frighten away an attacker. This is entirely harmless, but can easily take someone by surprise!

Many of the toads we met were males.  How can you tell the boys from the girls? If you pick up a toad and it makes any kind of sound – it’s a boy! Male toads often make bird-like squeaks and trills when handled. The females are voiceless. Also male toads call to attract mates in woodland pools where they arrive on rainy spring nights from the surrounding forest where they live most of the year. A male fowler’s toad has an unusual call that sounds a bit like the bleating of a goat or sheep. Waaaaaaaaah! Waaaaaaaaah! Waaaaaah! is a common sound during warm spring nights in toad country. Toads and frogs, just like birds, can be identified by their different mating calls.

A warm spring day is also a great time to explore around the water for aquatic creatures as well. We spotted a couple of Northern Water Snakes and some toad tadpoles in a small pool beneath a bridge on the trail. We also spent some time wading into the shallow water along the banks of the Catawba River to look for macroinvertebrates, small species of animals, particularly insects, which make their home among the rocks in the water during the first part of their lives, but later emerge as adults which live in the nearby woodlands, usually as flying insects. One macroinvertebrate we encountered in unbelievable numbers were tiny black aquatic freshwater snails which seemed to be scattered as a coating over almost every rock in the shallow water. We also encountered one of the largest dragonfly nymphs I had ever seen in the water there. Adult dragonflies are large flying insects known to just about everyone but many people are totally unaware that they begin their life underwater. The immature dragonfly is a mighty predator with an unusual and enormous folding mouthpart which it extends to grab various insects and other aquatic creatures as food. Watch a flying dragonfly closely sometime and if it is a female near the water, chances are that you will see it dip down to the water’s surface for just a brief second – as it  lays its eggs which then sink below the surface to begin the first stage of the dragonfly cycle of life.

Another interesting aquatic macroinvertebrate we captured was a helgrammite. These long, flattened, soft-bodied creatures have sharp pincers to use as a weapon or to procure food so they need to be handled with care. Fishermen love to catch them and use them as bait for trout, bass, and other gamefish. The adult stage of the helgrammite is known as a dobsonfly, a large flying insect with long, clear, membranous wings. The male dobsonfly has long, pincer-like mouthparts that overlap and resemble tusks but they are totally harmless and useless as a weapon. Dobsonflies sometimes turn up at porch lights at night during the late spring or summer months.

As you can see, there are lots of wild encounters to be had in the spring woods. So why not get out and take a walk in the woods this May and be sure to stop and take a close look at the natural world around you. You never know what you might discover.

Carlton S. Burke

Muddy Sneakers field Instructor

The woods have been a fantastic place to be so far this fall season with our Muddy Sneakers school groups. As usual, lots of enthusiastic children lead to all kinds of fun discoveries in the forest at this beautiful time of the year. As the seasons begin to change from the hot summer to the refreshing temperatures of fall, many animals are also on the move and our wildlife discoveries increase.

These animal sightings, both large and small, always excite the students. Recently at Bent Creek in  Pisgah National Forest, my group was treated to the sight of a big Northern Copperhead lying across the  trail on its way for a late morning stroll or should I say a late morning slither! Although most snakes we encounter in the woods are harmless non-venomous types, any time we see a venomous snake such as a copperhead, it provides a great learning opportunity to introduce the kids to an animal which is widely feared and often killed by uninformed hikers. This snake was a perfect “gentleman” or perhaps a “gentlewoman” (its difficult to tell without getting too close!) as it quietly lay stretched across the trail. We stopped and watched, learned, and marveled at such a beautiful, but much feared creature. Eventually, so as to continue our hike and for the safety of the snake, I had to gently lift it with a stick and place it to one side of the trail. Otherwise the next hikers to come along might not have greeted this reptile so respectfully.

Other notable discoveries have been large millipedes, which unlike a copperhead, can be safely picked up and admired at close range while the students learn about how these so called “thousand leggers” munch away on dead leaves and other forest debris, recycling them to produce the valuable topsoil which enriches the forest floor. On one expedition this fall at Bent Creek, a day after rains had saturated the ground after a long dry spell, I noticed a small 2 1/2 inch reddish-brown salamander perched a top of a clump of mushrooms attached to the base of a tree. After pointing out this amphibian and having a close-up view, one of the students spotted another one on the ground nearby, and then another student found one and then another, and another, until practically every student in the group was finding one or more of them in the leaves along the trail. We had suddenly stumbled across a rather notable number of salamanders known as Red Efts. Red Efts are a land stage of an aquatic salamander known as the Red-spotted Newt. As adults, red-spotted newts with their greenish backs and yellowish bellies, live in the shallow, still water of woodland ponds. It is here that they lay their eggs which hatch into small larval salamanders with external gills. After a few months of aquatic life, the larval salamanders lose their gills and leave the water to live for a few years on land. As they begin their terrestrial life in the forest, they turn a bright reddish-orange color which helps to frighten away predators which might otherwise eat these tiny amphibians whose skin actually contains poisons which are quite toxic to most animals. They are harmless to touch however, and these brightly colored salamanders never fail to excite our Muddy Sneakers children. Most of the ones we encountered were a dark reddish color, indicating that these red efts were probably nearing the end of their life on land and would soon be returning to the water as breeding adults and swapping their orange coats for a more camouflaging coat of green for their upcoming life in the water.

Very prevalent in the forest at this time of the year are also many types of spiders. Particularly noticeable are species of spiders known as orb weavers. These spiders are the ones which weave large webs with geometric designs between tree branches, and almost any other vertical objects. Many types of orb weavers are quite colorful including the Marbled Orb Weaver, which sports an abdomen with lots of orange or yellow markings. We recently saw one of these at Gorges State Park near Rosman. Down on the forest floor we also have been seeing many Grand-Daddy Longlegs, which are recognizable to almost every child and adult. It is interesting to note that may folks believe that Grand Daddy Longlegs are extremely poisonous but luckily lack fangs long enough to bite through the skin of humans. The truth however is that these long-legged creatures lack any venom or fangs of any sort and on top of that, they are not spiders at all! True spiders have venom, tiny “fangs”, and two body segments -  a head and an abdomen. Daddy long-legs only have one body segment and lack all the rest. They are sometimes referred to by the name Harvestmen because they are particularly numerous in autumn which is the season of harvest.

As our different groups depart into the forest each day, each group of students and their instructor are likely to encounter different animals than another group will. However one recent morning at Bent Creek, the entire expedition team was treated to the sight of a White-tail Deer doe and her yearling fawn sneaking away through the forest only a couple of hundred feet away from our school group as they got off the buses and were forming our ritual “Opening Circle”. What a way to begin the day!

So get out in the woods this autumn, keep your eyes open, be alert, and see for yourself what kinds of creatures you can discover. It’s a great time to be out meeting, greeting, enjoying and learning all about our wild neighbors.

Carlton Burke

Muddy Sneakers Field Instructor

The Muddy Sneakers Staff is kicking off another school year full of adventure and discoveries!  We recently spent the day in Bent Creek Experimental Forest getting better acquainted with the places we can (and cannot) explore with the kids.

Though we tried our best to be good students and brush up on concepts like air pressure and valley breezes, we also couldn’t help but be captivated by wildlife encounters throughout the day.  We saw skinks, great blue herons, ducks, and even found a cicada exoskeleton!  But the lepidopterans definitely stole the show today!  That’s right, butterflies seemed to be gathering around every turn, sucking up the last of Summer’s sweetness.  Sightings included the Saddleback Caterpillar with stinging hairs on it’s “horns”, Black Swallowtails, Red-spotted Purples, a rare Fritillary, and feeding frenzies of Tiger Swallowtails!

Butterflies are masters of camouflage and mimicry.  Often, the larvae or caterpillars are camouflaged to look like leaves, sticks, or even dung!  As adults, some species look almost identical such as the Red-spotted Purple and the Pipevine Swallowtail.  The Pipevine Swallowtail is toxic to birds whereas the Red-spotted Purple is perfectly tasty, but they look so similar that birds are likely to avoid them both so this copy-cat strategy of mimicking a toxic species provides protection for the Red-spotted purple!

We’re looking forward to sharing our discoveries with students this Fall, so stay tuned for more Muddy Sneakers adventures!