Monthly Snake Cover-Board Check -- August 2011

Eastern Garter Snake basking on Osmunda Ferns.
photo by James Fischer

(l to r) Madeline Bove, Twan Leenders, and Becca Solnit peeling
through the Snake Cover-Board Pile at Apple Hill Lower Field.
photo by James Fischer

Twan Leenders, CT Audubon Society Conservation Biologist, joined us yesterday to see our Snake Cover-board Monitoring program.  It was great having Twan because he offered us all kinds of advice about how can improve and modify the program.   It also gave us an opportunity to show him unique parts of the property that we conserve.  We encountered 3 species: 8 Eastern Garter Snakes, 3 Northern Redbelly Snake, and 1 Eastern Milk Snake.  We check all of the 12 cover-board piles on the property between 12:30 p.m. through 15:10 p.m. EST.  Madeline Bove, Ryan Gannon, and Becca Solnit were also present, which begins to explain why this session was so efficient, because we had so many hands and eyes present that searching for the snakes.

Introducing More of Our Summer Volunteers

Ryan Gannon

Ryan is a senior this year at Litchfield High School and has helped the program in a variety of capacities.  Ryan helped us with last year's Crayfish Survey and continues to help us with this project again this year, as well as with several other projects.  Ryan has turned into an ace crayfish rustler and is able to call out a field identification standing in shoulder deep water.  When he is not helping us, you will commonly see him running on White Memorial's trails training for the various cross country races that he runs in the area.

Madeline Bove

Madeline is a self-starter who is helping White Memorial Museum as well as the Research Program.  Although Madeline is fairly new to volunteering for White Memorial, she has been around attending the Education Programs.  She is great with multitasking.  Madeline can ring up a purchase at the cash register, run outside to capture Cerceris Wasps, and be back at the museum answering visitors questions, while smiling and asking if there is anything else she can do.  We look forward to having Madeline around because she brings a great deal of energy and enthusiasm with her.  She loves school, especially science courses, and is a sophomore at Litchfield High School.

Amanda Downey

Amanda attends the Agriculture Education Program at Region #7 High School, in Winsted, CT.  Amanda has was showing off her skills and abilities while we were bushwhacking through the Five Ponds area on the The White Memorial Foundation Property.  She was following the GPS to locate the salt-laden stakes used for the Porcupine Survey.  Amanda was climbing up cliffs and traversing every valley while focusing her attention to find the next stake.  Amanda was a real trooper and demonstrated that she has true grit.  We are looking forward to having her around White Memorial.

Amphibian Cover-Board Experiment Monthly Check -- July 2011

Wall Flower
A Grey Treefrog trying to blend into exterior of White Memorial's Green Barn.
photo by James Fischer

Becca Solnit and Ryan Gannon helped check amphibian cover-boards examining the differences of detection rates between soft and hard wood types.  We encountered 28 Redback Salamanders, 11 Red Efts, and 1 Spotted Salamander under the softwood boards.  A total of 20 Redback Salamanders, 17 Red Efts, and 1 Two-lined Salamander were observed under the hardwood boards.  We have a total of 132 stations examining the boards in a pairwise comparison, of which 45 (34%) stations had amphibians.  The weather was mild with temperatures in the mid 70's to low 80's (degrees Fahrenheit) and complete cloud cover.  Although the ambient relative humidity was high, the leaf litter and humus was fairly dry, which may explain why there were so few stations with amphibians today.

Monthly Snake Cover-Board Check

On Wednesday June 29 and July 6, Jamie, fellow volunteer Ryan Gannon, and I conducted the monthly survey of the 12 snake cover-boards that are set up around the property. The snake cover-boards are piles of 30 to 40 boards, which are loosely stacked so they are about 6 inches high and 4 feet long. The boards are made of both soft and hard woods, and the variability of these piles creates lots of fun nooks and crannies for snakes to explore as they find different climate conditions to lie in.

On the 29th, we started off checking the cover-boards in Litchfield, including 2 sets along North Shore Road, and piles in fields behind Harris Rd., Windmill Hill, and Cedar Pond. While we did have the opportunity to do lots of good vegetation management, we found no snakes that morning. Perhaps, we hypothesized, snakes aren’t exactly early risers. Maybe it had something to do with the weather conditions—just above 70˚F, 50% cloud cover, and a light breeze from the northwest. Or maybe all of the snakes in Litchfield have decided that Morris is a much nicer town to live in. Whatever the reason, our afternoon survey of the remaining cover-boards along Alain White Road, and Apple and Laurel Hill, was much more successful.

We found our first snakes of the day in the lower field on Apple Hill.  We found 2 juvenile gartersnakes and 1 juvenile ring-neck snake in this pile of cover-boards. The cover-boards in the upper field on Apple Hill yielded 1 adult gartersnake. Our remaining finds that afternoon included 1 adult gartersnake and 1 juvenile northern watersnake in the Alain White Rd. field as well as 2 adult garter snakes back at Ongley Pond.

Ring-neck snake

Northern watersnake

Yesterday, we realized that we had forgotten to check the cover-board pile at the Laurel Hill field, so headed over at about 11am.  This pile turned out to be the big winner with 1 adult gartersnake, 3 adult red-bellied snakes and 1 red eft.

Red-bellied snake

Red-bellied snake's red belly