Native groundcovers

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Margaret Fisher, Plant NOVA Natives

Are you seeking a groundcover that is both beautiful and friendly to the ecosystem? Try looking beyond the old standbys to the new trend in gardening circles: native Virginia plants.

Bare ground in a garden is an invitation to weeds and erosion. The conventional landscaping solutions are either to pile on wood mulch or to plant an aggressive plant – such as English ivy, Japanese pachysandra, Vinca, spreading Liriope, or Yellow Archangel – then let it take over. The problem with those plants is that they take over more than just our gardens: they spread where they are not wanted by inexorably creeping along and by producing seeds that allow them to leap into our few remaining natural areas, where they crowd out the native plants and ruin the local ecosystem.

To prevent these unintended consequences, landscapers are now turning to plants that evolved locally, of which there are numerous examples that provide the “look” we are used to: a dense, low-growing monoculture for shade or part shade areas. Some are evergreen, others deciduous. A few have the additional feature of colorful spring flowers. Some can tolerate the bone-dry conditions under a tree; others prefer constant moisture. With the exception of Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea) and Common Violet (Viola sororia), none would be accused of being aggressive. Isn’t it nicer to have a beautiful groundcover that supports the ecosystem than to have a bare mulch garden? Details and photos can be found on the Plant NOVA Natives website.

2018 in review for Fairfax Master Naturalists

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Our year in numbers, courtesy of Michelle Prysby, Director, Virginia Master Naturalist Program

Heres’s the flyer

2018 infographic of FMN accomplishments

Picking up paw paws and putting them in…delicious desserts

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Bill Hafker

They’ve been called the American Custard Apple and the West Virginia banana, but Paw Paws  (Asimina trilob) are native to much of the eastern United States, typically growing in groups along streams and rivers. They have a large simple leaf and produce the largest fruit indigenous to the U.S. They also feature an unusual deep purple flower that gives off a fetid odor to attract beetles and carrion flies for pollination (the trees predate bees and butterflies as pollinators).

Paw paw trees. Photo: Bill Hafker

Fortunately, the fruit itself is very tasty to humans, too, and is the star ingredient in a dessert bread and pudding. Its flavor is often described as a cross between a banana and a mango. What follows is some useful lore for collecting paw paws and preparing these local treats.

When, where, and how to collect paw paws

In northern Virginia, paw paws ripen during late August and September. Because they spoil as quickly as they ripen, you will want to investigate their ripeness at the site from which you intend to collect them. Be sure that you have permission to collect them on the sites where you find them. Rules vary in the national, state, and county parks.

Collecting paw paws. Photo: Bill Hafker

Ripe paw paws will typically fall from the tree, and are best collected from the ground. Gently shaking a tree will also cause ripe fruit to fall to the ground. If you opt for fallen produce, check to make sure it is neither rotten nor full of scavenging ants. 

You can also buy them online at Integration Acres or Earthy Delights, and in some stores or farmers markets.

Cleaning paw paws and preparing the pulp 

Many recipes call for paw paw pulp in 1-cup units, so it is convenient to freeze it in one cup quantities that you can thaw and use as you wish. One cup of paw paw pulp equals approximately 3 medium mashed overripe bananas. 

To get started, remove the skin in any way that you find convenient (e.g., peel them with a knife or vegetable peeler, cut them open with a knife and scoop them with a spoon). Pulp adheres to the seeds, which are large enough to suck on, though you’ll want to avoid swallowing them. 

Using a spinner to process pulp off the seeds. Photo: Bill Hafker

It is time-consuming to prepare the pulp in bulk by trying to clean one paw paw at a time. I’ve found that the best way to process the pulp is to peel several fruits at one time and place them in the internal spinning part of a salad spinner that has been taken out of the rest of the spinner. Aggressively rubbing the fruit against the ribs of the spinner presses the pulp through the openings and into a bowl. You’ll want to make sure that you press the seeds firmly against the ribs to scrape off all of the pulp. When only relatively clean seeds remain, discard them and repeat the process with pulp-laden ones. 

Ready to bake?

Paw Paw Bread

You can replace bananas with paw paw pulp in your favorite banana bread recipe. Our family recipe calls for 1 cup of mashed paw paws, 1 cup of sugar, 1 egg, 1 ½ cups flour, ¼ cup melted butter, 1 tsp baking soda, and 1 tsp salt. You’ll want to mix all the ingredients until the batter is smooth, without over stirring. Pour the batter into a Teflon or buttered loaf pan. Bake 1 hour in a preheated oven at 325 degrees.

Paw Paw Pudding

This recipe from the New York Times is in the style of a bread pudding or English pudding (not Jello pudding).

Enjoy!

Your Camera as Eco-Warrior

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Photo (c) Barbara J. Saffir

Margaret Fisher

We are surrounded by the ecosystem, even in our urban/suburban areas, but most of us never notice it. If we do see a plant, an insect or a bird, we lack the background to recognize it. Our experience of life is becoming more and more virtual as we live in a world of technology. Paradoxically, that very technology is now making it easy to find and identify the small residents of our yards. Getting to know our fellow beings makes us more likely to value and protect them.

The tool you need for this experience is a camera, even a basic cell phone camera. If you take a photo of an insect and enlarge it on your screen, you will be in for some big surprises. What you took to be a drab brown bug may turn out to be a wildly colorful and patterned creature, living its life and paying attention to your doings, even while you were unaware of it. The same discoveries are there to be made about birds, frogs, and all our other neighbors.

Better yet, if you upload photos of wild plants and animals to the free iNaturalist website or app, the artificial intelligence will suggest possible identifications, and then two actual human beings will review them to make the final determination. All this data is automatically entered into a worldwide global biodiversity database that is populated by contributions from citizen scientists such as yourself. All your observations will be saved and labelled in one place for your amusement. You can even create a project that collates all the observations from one location, such as your homeowners association, park, school, or faith community. Once you get hooked, you may find yourself trying to document all the life in your neighborhood. Here is an example from Huntley Meadows Park.

From April 26-29, iNaturalist invites everyone to join City Nature Challenge 2019, in which metropolitan areas participate in a friendly competition to see who can make the most observations. Events will be held all around the region, but you can also just take your camera outside and start documenting on your own. All observations made during that four day period will count.

What will become clear to you as you do this is that the more native plants you have, the more butterflies, bees, birds, and other wildlife you will find. You will see how preserving natural resources even in our built-up areas is critical to the survival of wildlife, and how the landscaping in your own yard can contribute to or degrade biodiversity, depending on your landscaping choices.

Watch Plant NOVA Native’s lovely one-minute video about iNaturalist and City Nature Challenge.

Events, trainings, ID parties, and videos for City Nature Challenge

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Helpful video from Plant NOVA Natives:

Have you ever noticed that we are not alone in this world?

A calendar and map of local events courtesy of Capital Nature: Explore nature on your own and share what you find using iNaturalist  … or join others at an event.  All observations made from April 26 through April 29 will count!

Cheerily, cheer up: Colt Gregory on birding by ear

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It’s impossible to miss the robins outside the window right now, but even if you missed Colt Gregory’s “Introduction to Birding by Ear,” at the March 18 FMN chapter meeting, it’s not too late to start understanding birdsong.

An Arlington Regional Master Naturalist and lifelong birder, Mr. Gregory entertained the crowd with reasons to learn the songs of local birds: they hide, for one thing, and it’s easier to hear them than to see them. Listening and parsing their music requires focus, which is good discipline for our fragmented attention. And, well, it’s fun to impress people. There’s more to it, of course, and he’s graciously shared his slides as a resource.

You’ll find a sound suggestion for what not to do: don’t play recorded calls outside because it confuses the birds and annoys other birders. But you’ll mostly find excellent resources for developing your skills. Mr. Gregory particularly recommends the CD Birding By Ear: A Guide to Eastern Bird-Song Identification, narration by Richard K. Walton and Robert W. Lawson: “This is an excellent way to learn songs and calls. Using an interesting approach, the CD places birds in general groups like whistlers, sing-songers, mimics, name-sayers, and high-pitchers.”

Birding by Ear, by Colt Gregory, ARMN, March 18, 2019

Thank you to Kit Sheffield for arranging the presentation. If you are interested in sharing your skills with our members or community, please contact Mr. Sheffield at [email protected]

Environmental Impacts of Road Salt

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Article by Doug Britt, FMN and member, Reston Association’s Environmental Advisory Committee

Salt-based de-icing and anti-icing agents are routinely applied to roadways during and prior to winter storm events in Northern Virginia for the important purpose of maintaining public safety.  The primary agent used is sodium chloride (NaCl). The sodium, chloride, and other impurities in the salt eventually make their way into our environment through runoff from meltwater, as well as through splash and spray from vehicular traffic and wind. These processes can elevate sodium and chloride concentrations in the environment to harmful levels; although, sodium is not as prevalent a concern as chloride, owing to the greater solubility of the latter.

Road salt can contaminate drinking water resources, impair the ecology of lakes and streams, and harm local plants and animals. Salts also have negative impacts on infrastructure, vehicles, and other property. Corrosion from salts can increase the costs of maintenance, repair, and replacement of such infrastructure. Although there are a number of alternative de-icing agents available, sodium chloride as a brine solution appears to have the least negative environmental impact when considering the full life cycle of its production and application. Sodium chloride, nevertheless, can generate a host of environmental problems.

Water Quality Impacts

Contaminants from road salt enter water resources through storm drains, surface runoff, and infiltration into groundwater. In most parts of North America, chloride concentrations in freshwater surface waters are less than 120 mg/L. Chloride concentrations in Fairfax County surface waters have steadily increased for the past 25 years, consistent with the use of de-icing agents. Concentrations of chloride in surface waters are also correlated with the proportion of impervious surfaces in a watershed. Chloride also is seeping into groundwater throughout Northern Virginia where concentrations are steadily increasing with time. De-icing salts that seep into groundwater can be discharged as baseflow to local streams following a lag time of tens to hundreds of years.

Elevated chloride concentrations can lead to chemical stratification in lakes and ponds which impedes turnover and mixing of bottom and top waters – leading to oxygen deficiencies in deeper layers. High chloride levels are toxic to aquatic organisms such as fish and macroinvertebrates, and some aquatic plants. The presence of salt can also release toxic metals from the sediment. Various federal and Virginia state water quality standards and guidelines have been established to protect public health and the environment from the negative effects of sodium and chloride:

Soil Impacts

Through the process of cation exchange, the sodium ion replaces other soil cations such as calcium (Ca+), magnesium (Mg+), and potassium (K+) and changes soil permeability making soil more impervious, less stable, more acidic, and less fertile.

Pet Impacts

Ingestion of road salt directly (or from licking paws or drinking meltwater) can harm pet health in many ways, and in severe cases cause death. Salt exposure to a pet’s paws can also cause inflammation and sores that are slow to heal.

Wildlife Impacts

Birds may mistake salt crystals for seeds or grit. Consumption of even small quantities of salt can lead to death due to the extreme sensitivity of birds to salt. Some mammals (e.g., deer) are attracted to salt resulting in a higher risk for collisions with vehicles. Loss of salt sensitive vegetation can also impact wildlife habitat and create conditions favorable to non-native invasive species. Amphibians such as frogs, toads, and salamanders also are known to be sensitive to elevated salt levels given their very permeable skin, their physiological dependence on osmotic processes, and their early life stage in wetland habitats.

Roadside Vegetation Impacts

Impairment of roadside vegetation is often the most visible sign of salt damage to the environment. Salt impacts vegetation foliage via dehydration and can affect root health through osmotic stress. Salt also can disrupt nutrient uptake, seed germination, and plant development. Impacts to roadside vegetation can impair wildlife habitat, destroy buffer zones that capture and retain pollutants, and lower species diversity.

Infrastructure Impacts

Salt exposure impacts infrastructure, which can greatly increase required maintenance and replacement costs. Corrosion of roads, bridges, and sidewalks is a documented consequence of winter road activities, as is corrosion of vehicles. De-icing salts also can damage vehicle parking garages, which suffer the same corrosion damage as bridge decks. In addition to corrosion damage, de-icing agents can increase the frequency of freeze and thaw cycles that are deleterious to asphalt.

What is Being Done to Address this Issue Locally?

Recently The Izaack Walton League of America has initiated a Winter Salt Watch program, encouraging citizen scientists to monitor local streams before and after road salting activities. Several Reston residents, including myself, are now participating by monitoring Reston tributaries of Difficult Run (DR) and Sugarland Run (SR). As a baseline, I recorded chloride concentrations prior to the first 2019 winter storm at two of these sites. The results were 91 mg/L (SR) and 101 mg/L (DR), both being above average but within the normal range for North American streams. Chloride concentrations measured at these same locations subsequent to road salting associated with the first two snow/ice storms of 2019 exhibited more than a fourfold chloride increase (412 mg/L and 479 mg/L, respectively). Data from other Reston sampling sites are not yet available. If you would like to participate in the Winter Salt Watch program, you may do so directly through the Izaack Walton League of America (https://www.iwla.org/conservation/water/join-the-winter-salt-watch), or you may contact Will Peterson, Reston Association Watershed Manager ([email protected]). Reston Association and has been monitoring the water quality in Reston’s four lakes since 1997. Although chloride concentrations are not directly measured, conductivity values are recorded multiple times each year. Conductivity is a measure of the electrical conductance of water and is positively correlated with salinity. The conductivity of all four Reston lakes is much greater since 2015 than their historic values.

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VA DEQ) is currently developing a Salt Management Strategy (SaMS) planning process. The goal of the SaMS is to develop a comprehensive suite of management measures capable of achieving the chloride loads called for in the Accotink Creek chloride Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs). TMDLs are developed to determine the total amount of a pollutant that a waterbody can handle without resulting in the impaired status of that waterbody. Although the TMDL was specific to the Accotink Creek watershed, the SaMS is intended to be applicable to the Northern Virginia region, including Reston, since winter application of salt products occurs similarly across all of our region. The final SaMS product will be a report outlining a comprehensive strategy to successfully reduce the impacts of salt products applied to manage snow and ice while maintaining high standards of public safety.

In 2018, the VA DEQ completed a report entitled “Salt Management Strategy: Environmental Impacts and Potential Economic Costs and Benefits of Improved Management Practices in Northern Virginia.” A literature review conducted as part of that report suggested that by using Best Management Practices (BMPs) to optimize de-icing agents and their application methods, it is possible to reduce both the costs and the negative impacts of de-icing operations without jeopardizing public safety. Next steps in the development of the SaMS include identifying traditional and non-traditional BMPs to achieve the SaMS goal, developing a water quality monitoring program to evaluate implementation effectiveness over time, developing a comprehensive education and outreach campaign, and developing a mechanism to track BMPs and salt use through a stakeholder-driven participatory process. The final report is expected in early 2020.

Meanwhile as individuals and business owners we should be cognizant of the potential environmental impacts associated with the application of de-icing agents. This understanding may help us better balance the twin goals of protecting public safety while minimizing environmental damage.

References

• https://www.potomacriver.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ICP18-3_Bencala.pdf
• https://www.des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/water/wmb/was/salt-reduction-initiative/impacts.htm
• https://www.iwla.org/conservation/water/join-the-winter-salt-watch
• Fay, L., D. Veneziano, A. Muthumani, X. Shi, A. Kroon, C. Falero, M. Janson, and S. Petersen. 2015. Benefit-cost of various winter maintenance strategies. Minnesota Department of Transportation No. CR 13-03.
• Laite, K., 2017, Annual Environmental Monitoring Program Lakes Anne, Thoreau, Audubon and Newport, Bright Pond and Butler Pond, Aquatic Environment Consultants, Inc.

How to identify plants on iNaturalist

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Are you thinking about supporting the City Nature Challenge? Here’s a super easy-to-follow-video to learn how.

No need to say more–just watch.

Review of The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions, by Peter Brannen

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Reviewed by Tami Sheiffer

Studying mass extinction events from tens or hundreds of millions of years ago shows us that life on Earth is both precarious and resilient. In The Ends of the World, science writer Peter Brannen vividly describes the five past mass extinction events: End-Ordovician, Late Devonian, End-Permian, End-Triassic, and End-Cretaceous, and the lessons we can learn from them. This book offers something of interest to anyone interested in natural history, paleontology, geology, climatology, ecology, or evolution.

Brannen paints vivid pictures of life and destruction eons ago, interwoven with his personal tales of travel around the country talking with scientists and visiting paleontological sites. You can preview Brannen’s writing in one of his science articles, like this one titled “A Climate Catastrophe Paved the Way for the Dinosaurs’ Reign,” published in The Atlantic. Occasionally, Brannen’s storytelling risks anthropomorphism, as when he describes the first fish to walk on land in the Devonian as “bold explorers” and “brave pioneers.” However, Brannen’s engaging writing makes this book enjoyable reading for a broad audience.

By studying the causes of past mass extinctions, we find that most were caused by climate change. The Earth’s climate has changed naturally in the past, but drastic changes were violent and caused massive destruction. Life is ultimately resilient, and, eventually, surviving species evolved to repopulate a new Earth, but life after the extinction looked very different from life before. In the most deadly mass extinction, the End-Permian event, nearly all life was wiped out. This extinction event was caused in part by volcanic activity in the Siberian Traps burning underground coal basins and releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 

Our present day fossil fuel activity has a similar effect of releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, but at an even faster rate than in the end-Permian extinction. The overarching theme of the book is that  past mass extinctions can teach us lessons for the present, as we find ourselves in the midst of a sixth mass extinction. This time, human activity is the cause of the extinction–beginning tens of thousands of years ago with the loss of megafauna like marsupial lions, giant kangaroos, woolly mammoths, mastodons, and giant ground sloths due to hunting, and continuing today due to habitat loss and human-induced climate change. This book is ultimately a cautionary tale: learn from the past so we can avoid a catastrophe on the same scale today. 

On March 20, 2019, Peter Brannen will be speaking at an event at the Library of Congress called “Climate Change, Nature, and the Writer’s Eye”, along with distinguished authors Annie Proulx and Amitav Ghosh. The authors will discuss environmental change and a writer’s responsibility to the issue. This event is approved for FMN continuing education credit. The event is free but registration is required. 

Want to review a resource? We’d love to hear from you. Instructions for submission await your click and commitment.

What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World, by Jon Young

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Reviewed by Ann DiFiore

Jon Young is an expert on bird language. Growing up near New Jersey’s Pine Barrens, Jon became fascinated with the wildlife outside his door. Under a local naturalist’s tutelage, he learned to recognize birds, their various calls, and the role they played in their habitat. He has since studied with San Bushmen in the Kalahari and indigenous peoples all over the world, learning techniques for tracking and observation, as well as their philosophies towards wildlife, the natural world, and our place in it.

Today he lives in Northern California and teaches seminars on bird language. Birds, he believes, are the watchers and sentinels of the natural world. Understanding bird language and behavior is key to learning how to access, connect with, and understand nature.

By learning the primary, or baseline, forms of vocalization—songs, companion calls, territorial aggression and adolescent begging—we can recognize alarm calls that break the pattern. Young has his students establish a daily “sit spot,” a place to observe bird activity and calls each day, becoming familiar with birds, feeding patterns, habits, and vocalizations. That familiarity opens up a new world of understanding and awareness: “…ultimately the birds will yield to us the first rite of passage:  a close encounter with an animal otherwise wary of our presence” (p. 173). 

Young’s insights into the complexity of bird language (chickadees vary alarm calls to indicate a specific predator, its proximity and approach), the uniqueness of each species and its behavior, infuse the reader with new appreciation for birds and all wildlife. 

In What the Robin Knows, Young discusses human impact on wildlife and suggests we adopt a routine of invisibility, an attitude of awareness, respect, and calm that minimizes disturbance. Heedless humans are responsible for bird plows—an alarm shape or form taken by birds when fleeing predators. While the humans may not mean harm, predators take advantage of disoriented songbirds, swooping down as they flee, using a technique called “wake hunting.” 

Master Naturalists will find Young’s information on bird communications and behavior fascinating. The techniques he uses to promote nature awareness and connection would be valuable to educators and interpreters. 

A section of the book that I found especially enjoyable and eye-opening related to observations of companion calls between mated pairs of cardinals’ daily visitors to my bird feeder. Their basic exchange is a “chip…chip” uttered every five seconds. I learned that what seemed like a bird version of humming is actually a means of checking on each other’s safety:

“Are you there?” 

“Yes, are you okay?”

“Everything’s fine, are you?”

When a “chip” goes unanswered, the mate will follow up with a more insistent “CHIP!” and then go to investigate. Young witnessed a concerned male fly towards his lady’s last “chip” to find her rocketing towards a shrub, a sharp-shinned hawk in hot pursuit. The male flung himself in front of the sharpie, spinning the hawk off course and saving his mate—a true Valentine’s Day cardinal’s tale. 

As Young observes, “If we learn to read the birds. . .we can read the world at large” (p. 173). What the Robin Knows is a great primer.

 

Want to review a resource? We’d love to hear from you. Instructions for submission await your click and commitment.