Another Day in the Park

     This morning I joined the Tidewater Master Naturalist at First Landing State Park for monthly trail maintenance. We trimmed overhanging branches and trip-hazard vines, plus we also installed signs designating our adopted trails. Other than cleaning up after the clueless and careless, it was a fairly easy day, and I always enjoy a visit to this unique ecosystem.

     During the middle of our duties we paused and headed to the beach to witness something special. A rehabilitated loggerhead turtle was released back into the sea. This particular loggerhead goes by the name of St. Louis, and he was found further west in Ocean View, underweight and with two fishhooks stuck in his flesh. Though the crowd was considerable, it did not seem to deter St. Louis from making his reentry a quick one.

     While we are still on the subject of sea turtles, I want to encourage all of you to tell your friends and family never to release balloons into the air. Even if you live hundreds of miles inland, in one of the landlocked states, balloons can still find their way to the sea. Deflated and floating on the surface of the water, they can look a lot like something a turtle might want to eat, only to have it get stuck in the turtle's digestive tract. That concludes this station's public service announcement.

Trolling the Waters

     On Saturday I joined the Tidewater Master Naturalists on an expedition out of the small seaside town of Wachapreague, on Virginia's beautiful Eastern Shore.  Two able bodied seamen from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) led our group in search of various organisms that make their home in the mud, water and sand behind the Shore's protective barrier islands, in this case Cedar Island.  Nets or dredges would be thrown overboard and brought up again for us to examine the contents, while the two gentlemen from VIMS would explain what we were looking at.  We also explored some of the vast flats exposed by the low tide.  I am no stranger to these waters. My family has lived near them and fished from them for generations, but on this trip I was able to match a little science with the familiar.

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     Our day on the water included a long lunch break on Cedar Island, which was named for its once thriving forest of eastern red cedars (Juniperus virginiana). The island is only accessible by boat, and when I was young my extended family would gather there each summer to play in the surf, share a meal and enjoy a casual reunion. For some of those years, my uncle would rent a cottage on the island, making the reunion a little more comfortable for those who appreciated such things. Today the forest is gone, all that is left of the cottage are pilings sticking out of the Atlantic, and after Hurricane Sandy, about 1800' of the southern end of the island has disappeared. Although barrier islands are by their nature dynamic everchanging places, I think the changes I have seen in my lifetime on Cedar Island are due to something else.

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     About three years ago the trawler Laura J was heading south, down the coast, when all of its systems failed before running aground on Cedar Island. The 5-man crew was rescued and brought to a hotel in Wachapreague for the night. The next morning the crew was gone, and the trawler has remained there since. No one has managed to salvage it, but the swallows now have a waterfront home with a fine view.

     If you want to see the all of photos from my Saturday on the water, you can click here for my Flickr set.

Hoffler Creek

     As I mentioned a few posts back, I am participating in the Virginia Master Naturalist training program, which includes classroom time, but also includes field trips.  One of these was a trip to Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve in Portsmouth, Va. This place was once a waterfront farm owned by the Ballard family. Since the mid 1800's the family made a comfortable life for themselves raising fruits and vegetables to send north by steamer to hungry cities further up the Eastern Seaboard.  This was long before the days of tomatoes from Florida, grapes from Chile or lettuce from California, and when those realities came into being, the family sold the land to the Virginia Dept. of Transportation.  Good topsoil was pushed aside so the clean sand underneath could be mined to use in building local highways, creating a deep pit in the process that soon filled with water. Once the highways were finished, VDOT put the property up for sale, and several developers salivated over its prime waterfront location, but a group of local residents thought of something better. VDOT offered the property to the city of Portsmouth for $1, but the city refused. Of all the cities that make up Hampton Roads, Portsmouth is the poorest, and much of the land within its boundaries is federally owned and generates no tax revenue. So they were not warm to idea of yet another unproductive parcel.  But never underestimate the power of a small group of determined citizens.

     Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve is about 140 acres of forest and tidal marsh centered on Lake Ballard.  There are miles of trails through several different habitats; a couple of blinds where close to 200 different bird species can be seen; there is a visitor center and a kayak dock. This is so much better than yet another vinyl-clad village.

Cercis canadensis (Eastern Redbud)

Gelsemium sempervirens (Carolina Jessamine) 

On they day we were there oaks unfolded for the season.

Aesculus pavia (Red Buckeye)

 

     The old Ballard mansion is no longer there, but many of the family's plants are still around, and while some have lived a life of good behavior, others have taken far to well to their Virginia home.  Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinensis), Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis), Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), English ivy (Hedera helix) and Vinca minor are all doing their best to choke out Hoffler Creek's natives.

Camellia japonica

Hyacinthoides hispanica (Spanish Bluebells)

Lunaria annua (Money Plant) is listed as naturalized, or invasive depending on what you source you read.

 

Oxalis crassipes (Pink Wood Sorrel)

Even given its invasiveness and python-like grip, there is no denying wisteria's beauty.

     When the Ballard family left Hoffler Creek, the marked graves of their ancestors were moved to a nearby church, but the unmarked graves of their slaves remain. The site of the old cemetery is covered in Vinca minor, a plant long associated with graveyards. Our tour leader said that vinca was thought to help keep the world of the living and the dead separate from each other.

 

     I say this with no basis in fact, but I feel that Portsmouth probably has the area's most disconnected-from-nature population, particularly its children.  So Hoffler Creek and its extensive education and outreach programs are an essential city service.  Quite the bargain for a buck!

(You can see the complete set of my Hoffler Creek photos here.)