Social Behavior of Trees - communities of the forest

Apparently, more accurate and deeper knowledge is leading us towards an understanding of how trees interact among themselves and unite for the benefit of the whole.A rudimentary social behavior has been observed recently in studies of forest trees. Using their roots systems, a forest "community" has a natural way of survival by exploiting fungi to communicate among themselves. Where there is need, but in a healthy network, nutrients are shared among trees. So the microcosm of a tree stand, or the ecosystem of an area has trees playing certain roles. This video show the results of recent studies where a "mother tree" shares resources to younger ones in the area, irrespective of species. This concept is extremely interesting and can explain some of the strange things that can happen in a forest ecosystem. This is new knowledge, something to watch in the future, as we try to protect our ecosystems. Planting a couple of trees in the front yard of newly built homes just doesn't do the trees justice. Our planting habits tend to be like a zoo for trees. "There's a good spot. It will look good there." We need to change to consider the social behavior benefits of trees in a forest ecology network.

We are about to embark on another cycle of planting trees.I will keep this in mind as I plan my reforestation. Just think, assuming this is correct which I truly believe, we have destroyed the forest and expect our trees to survive a drought when their social infrastructure has been destroyed. The Woodlands Texas needs to better understand the relationships among our trees to be able to comprehend what it means to humans to live in the forest and to maintain a healthy tall canopy and a diverse ecology below it. Our motive is visual but our tactics need to be focused on their health.

The Mother Tree of the Forest , Prof. Suzanne Simard talks about Mother trees
Video by: Dan McKinney; Producer: Julia Dordel, 2011

Tagging Monarch Butterfiles

Update 03/01/2011: so far there has not been any feedback on the location of these butterflies. Sometimes, information does not become available for as long as two years after tagging. I will follow up with an update if any information becomes available.

In my most recent butterfly count in Montgomery County Texas, our count team had the privilege of tagging 14 Monarch butterflies before their migration to Mexico. This year, there is a shortage of these insects due to cold conditions in Mexico last winter. It is a special year for tracking these beautiful creatures.

First we had to find and catch them. This attempt was successful. The Monarch was in flight about to land on this wall of flowers where it was captured.

Then a tag purchased from the NABA was carefully placed on the outside of the wing in a specific place. Each of us had the chance to tag a butterfly. I successfully tagged one. You have to be very careful not to harm the insect.

Tagged Monarch

The tag is uniquely numbered, so it is cataloged with the location, sex, and other pertinent information to enable an accurate record of its migration and/or ultimate destination if and when someone spots the tag and records the butterfly whereabouts.  You can see the tag more clearly if you click on the photo.

Then the butterfly is put into a white mesh container which would eventually be opened to release the insects back into their habitat.

Don DuBois

Our group leader, Don DuBois, organized this activity. He is a big local butterfly enthusiast.

On completion of the task, the tagged butterflies were released. We had two casualties of the 14 captured butterflies in the process. Well, actually one was given a splint in the hope it could make its journey, but the other will probably remain local and not survive the winter.

Monarch preparing to resume normal life

A few just hung around for a while, not particularly anxious to fly off, but eventually got their wings and disappeared. Now we hope to hear the outcome and see if any are actually spotted in Mexico.

Link to the North American Butterfly Association (NABA)
Link to the local chapter of NABA: Butterfly Enthusiasts of Southeast Texas - B.E.S.T.

The urban sprawl era of Montgomery County

Montgomery County is changing day by day, via planners, via developers, via population. We have been walking through a few related topics in previous articles noted below.^{1 2 3}  Now we take it from a different but related perspective - conservation alongside regional urbanization. A local consultant, Burditt Land and Place Consultanting in Conroe, specializes in resource management, treescaping and urban planning. Integration is their central theme. They have a design process that yields "definable and buildable" plans, molded from client goals. My discussion with a couple of  representatives of this company brings to reality much of the future of this area that I have been contemplating over the past few weeks. Pictured on the left, left to right are John Ross, CA,CF , Senior Resource Specialist and Charles Burditt, President.  Inspired by these two gentlemen, I am sure you will appreciate what I am about to say. It is intended to begin to help open visionary eyes, where our children and grandchildren may live in the future. I constantly ask myself, "will they have the quality of life that we have, enough to enjoy natural resources and living as we do today?" 

Resource management includes preservation and management of our trees and wildlife, in addition to our water and soil. On staff of Burditt are architects, landscape architects, planners, park and recreational professionals, engineers and conservation specialists. This company has completed planning projects for The Woodlands, Conroe, Magnolia, and Seabrook among others. Today, I met a long time resident of the area, who explained the past to me, why we are where we are in urbanization and resource management. We are in a boom - the "urban spread" era of our county! "Just think, in the 1980s Montgomery County had the largest timber volume of any east Texas county!" Today, the volume of wood is not only difficult to quantify, but just not in the same ball park as then. This came about from a change in tax assessment law. One should know that the influence of tax laws has affected timberlands throughout history. For example, under the Ottoman Empire, tax evaders would hide in the forest from tax collectors. Today, if you travel from Amman, Jordan to Israel, through the barren hills, you will see the outcome of that forest. The government of that empire levied a payment for each tree cut down, so that the tax evaders would not have safe haven from the government. Therefore, greed was leveraged to destroy the forest. Government can negatively or positively affect the conservation of our natural resources.

In the case here of Montgomery County, along with other counties, the assessment tax was changed to a productivity tax in the 1980's. As a direct result, overnight it became too expensive to grow and harvest timber. Long term timber investments had to be sold for other purposes. George Mitchell was one who already had a plan for his timberland. He also could not sustain timber operations with the high cost of land taxes. This tax assessment strategy was a sudden change for the long term investment process of timber production. Cattlemen got the tax advantage in the use of land. The difference in land use taxes caused the large holding companies to sell off their assets - Friendswood, Mitchell, Foster, and Champion were large holders of timberland. Real estate companies bought large amounts and sold them in smaller 100 acre or so parcels. Then the timberlands began to be used for other purposes, eventually causing today's urban sprawl. Timber remains an important resource to manage in this and adjoining counties. Even Harris County has some significant forest remaining. There is in fact a 40+ acre timber farm in northwest Harris County. In Montgomery and Grimes, there are still some significant pine stands originally planted for timber production. There are locations near Montgomery, one timber farm in the city limits of Conroe, some near Willis and some in the bottom lands of southeast Montgomery county. Today, diversity of tree species is emphasized wherever tree resources are managed. Hardwoods are often included in any stands of trees whether it be for visual purposes or for wildlife management. Certain species like the Burr Oak or Cedar Elm provide deer and other wildlife with better resources than do pines. The old timberland production process is giving way to this new vision of tree diversity and carefully planned forests or parks to provide livable forests to inhabitants of the county, as urban sprawl takes its course.

I see my grandchildren living in the forests of Montgomery County, don't you? I see them on bicycles preparing for races on the bike ways, walking along the pedestrian ways to service providers and market. I also see shuttles carrying people past stands of trees and scenic ways. I see quiet neighborhoods but fairly densely populated, even in the far reaches of the county.  I see water conservation using strategies for natural recharging of underground reservoirs and very accessible parks and green belts using the diversity of tall trees, some dense as we see in forests, others standing alone, as the planted hardwoods begin to mature. There will be remnants of the great east Texas forest, but it will not be the same. Even you and I do not see the true native forests here in The Woodlands. We are amidst the timber lands intended for logging, not exactly the native forest. Over time, the forest has been evolving, but we have few long leaf pines in it. Most of them are along the creek beds.

John Ross was quick to note that ranching has not been a factor on the forest productivity in the past few decades. Clearly the escalating arrival of people in our urban sprawl has affected the timber lands, but perhaps not as much as we might think. Now we face many opportunities to manage potential and in-place forest resources. What decline in tree population we have noticed can be mitigated somewhat with the planting of seedlings. The more we do, the better it will be for our childrens' families (and ourselves). Hopefully, the forest will be here, although in a different form in the future for the community. Charles Burditt noted some of their projects are now integrating pedestrian ways to achieve higher standards of living quality for livability. I will be following up with an article on a very interesting project his company has planned out. I can't wait to explore that for my readers.

Red-Cockaded Woodpecker at Jesse Jones State Forest

Do you know we have a true living forest next to The Woodlands, Texas? There are 43 counties containing parts of the East Texas forest system. The significance of this conservation next to us is quite important. When entering the forest, you will recognize a vast difference between going into the managed logging forests such as The Woodlands and this managed forest.You generally won't find the same along Spring Creek either, because much of it was part of the logging forests, or fires have been prevented and there are no clearings. In the logging forests, the short needle pines were planted in place of the native Long Leaf pines. Those pines are faster growing and produce more wood, giving investors a higher return on their investments. We do find the Long Leaf Pine in some places, but the predominate species in our area now is the Loblolly Pine.

The Long Leaf Pine is more susceptible to disease than its brother the Loblolly. Jesse Jones National Forest is populated with the Long Leaf. The forest is "fire maintained". That is, the density of the forest is controlled with planned clearings to enable the sun to reach the ground, a necessary condition to maintain the natural native ecology. Various species of creatures depend on the natural ecology and native plants which thrive within the boundaries of this forest. It is believed that there were many frequent fires in the forests which continuously reconstructed the ecology that is now maintained through a forest management process within Jesse Jones.

One such creature is the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker (RCW). It is one of eight native species of woodpeckers in our East Texas forests. It shares its habitat with the Red-Headed Woodpecker and other woodpeckers we see right here in The Woodlands. It is unlikely but possible to see the RCW in The Woodlands, since Jesse Jones Forest is so close. The bird is found on private lands and in some areas along Spring Creek. However, there are no places for the bird to nest here. Each year, there is a formal national bird count conducted in December to watch and mitigate extinction. It's range in Texas was the entire East Texas forest system. Today, only 13 counties report significant sightings of nests; 15 counties no longer have the birds at all. This woodpecker is found and protected in several southeastern states. Some 6500 birds survive the wild today.

This woodpecker species is on the endangered list. In past centuries, it inhabited all the East Texas forest. Then, forest consisted primarily of Long Leaf pines, with an understory of grass on the forest floor. There were not many hardwoods in the forest, primarily due to frequent fires. RCW (Red-Cockaded Woodpecker) requires a mature pine tree with a disease that comes in that maturity. It does not nest near a hardwood. The disease is "red heart disease, a fungal infection that causes the core of the tree to rot. In Longleaf pines, trees do not begin to suffer from red-heart fungus until their age averages 80 - 120 years old. Once a suitable, mature tree is found, it generally takes an RCW 1-3 years to construct a cavity. Generally these birds will excavate groups of cavity trees in an area (called a cluster)."¹ The disease softens the core, enabling the bird to carve out a cavity for its nest.

This photograph was taken of a nesting tree in Jesse JOnes Forest right after a family of the birds fledged from the nest in 2009. This Longleaf at this location is found among several of one cluster in the park. Note the holes about 30 - 35 feet high on the tree. Only one of the holes was the nest of a family this season. All of the baby birds have left the nests but will be building new ones for next year. Sap produced by the tree is released by the excavation of the cavity and said to be a natural barrier to the birds' enemies. If a hardwood is nearby, there is danger of a Rat Snake climbing up into the nest, discouraging parents from raising a family in the tree.

So we see a little bird with a specific ecological need, being protected in Jesse Jones Forest, right next door. Hopefully I will acquire a photo of this shy little bird in the near future and expand on this subject.

References

¹ The Long Leaf Alliance, "A Family of Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers Makes a Home in a Mature Longleaf Pine Tree",

Coyote - friend or foe? threat or help? Southeast Texas

Do you like to befriend animals? I know I do. My impression of the Coyote has been an elusive, wily and timid wild animal that helps control our local varmints. I see it as beneficial to the ecology about us. But is that an impression only from perception and not from fact? I decided to seek a better understanding of this animal and share it with my readers. Unfortunately, all my encounters have been without a camera, so I have no photos to show. However, there is a reference below with a photo of both a Coyote and a Red Wolf. ⁶

Human behavior should be different when it comes to a dog or to a Coyote. This is especially important in teaching our children how to behave in their presence. Humans should not be aggressive with dogs. A dog will be threatened and will protect itself or its human master if attacked. A Coyote will be intimidated and run. Therefore, it is recommended in various literature that a human not move in the presence of a growling dog, but let the animal calm down and slowly remove yourself from its presence to avoid being bitten. That behavior may entices the Coyote to approach the human.

As I write this article, the Coyote is at the beginning of its breeding season. This is the time one can hear the famous Coyote howl on very dark nights. We will see more of them during the day as well. This will continue through February into March.

Please allow me the opportunity to first tell you why I looked into this and why I want to share what I discovered. One day, a friend and I were on Spring Creek, on a Kayak fishing expedition. We came upon some children playing in the creek with adult supervision, so we said "hello" and after a few introductions, proceeded to hear a story they all wanted to tell. It was about this young Coyote they would see every morning when they came to the creek. That group traveled in a little two-wheel trailer pulled by a four-wheeler. We were interested and listened intently, asking questions. The adult instantly could tell that we had an interest in wildlife. The adult asked, "do you want to see this?" Our immediate response was "sure". We got in the back with the kids and rode up the trail with them. At some point, we turned around in the vicinity where they had last seen the Coyote. As we proceeded back, sure enough, the youngster suddenly appeared bouncing along beside us, some 100 feet away. This sure was a novel situation. I could see the fascination of viewing a wild animal of the forest as I looked into the eyes of the children. I was seeing the Coyote in a similar light as the children. I got this strange sense of a wild camaraderie between young humans and a young animal. There was no fear evidenced by either.

In retrospect, I understand now how I had felt that age-long connection between man's best friend (dog) and man. Perhaps that was in error. The children really do not have a grip on the difference between a dog and a Coyote, except the Coyote is found in the wild, and the dog is typically found in the home. We live in a society that wishes to retain all the wildness of nature that it can. That desire is currently packaged in a neat little box of "Green" and "Animal Conservation". The adult supervising the children was also in touch with the outdoors and felt a natural connection to nature by this close proximity to such a wild creature. This harmless dog-like animal maintained a distance of about 30 yards, running parallel with our 4-wheeler and did not threaten us, or so it seemed.

I have since had one other encounter. That was with a family of Coyotes about 5AM, just before daybreak. Standing only 40 feet from me next to the tree line, they were curious about me and appeared to be calmly studying me. They were not at all spooked. This was in The Woodlands proper, near a golf course. I froze and studied them also. They finally got bored and disappeared into the forest. They never made one move towards me nor did I take one step towards them.

Then one day I heard that our community was relocating our wild Coyotes before they could "turn urban", like those in California. Although that did not set well with me, I acquiesced and just let it all pass by without challenging the strategy. Recently, a new wave of concern surfaced with new but daylight sightings. So I researched the issue and asked an expert. This is what I found:

The number of threatening incidents in Texas is almost non-existent. Although we live amidst a forest where the Coyote thrives, we see little of them, and no one gets attacked. He eats small animals such as rabbits or rats. Tree rats are common here and provide a staple diet. Any small animal would be considered food by the Coyote. He will eat feral cats (domesticated also) and small dogs. He often hunts alone but may take his prey with the help of several members of his family. They also eat fruit, berries and insects. ⁵

He can be lured to a hunter with a caller that sounds like a squealing rabbit. I have witnessed the success of this tool in bringing a Coyote right into the back of a pickup truck! The only time this happened to me was with a friend of mine one time when he dared me to go. In west Texas, we waited for an animal to appear as we called. Nothing happened for a couple of hours. When we got tired, we waited a few minutes and a Coyote then jumped suddenly into back of the pickup. My friend and I were so startled that we jumped over the side to the ground, but we also saw the Coyote leave the bed of the truck on the other side. Neither he nor us wanted to have anything to do with each other. A close encounter, yet it proved nothing about the behavior of the animal. He did enter a human scent area, but he was only chasing what he thought was a normal meal.

Recently one local resident told me that the remains of her lost cat had been found nearby. Apparently a Coyote killed and ate it. This was disturbing, but we all know that our cats are at risk when outside during the night here. The cats are not supposed to be outside without a leash. Personally, I would never want to leash a cat. I have been through a thrashing machine before and don't want to experience that again.

We do have the coyote in our midst right here in The Woodlands. Do you respect his potential aggressiveness for the sake of your child's safety? Do your children know about this animal? If the statistics show a very low threat, why would I even ask? Urbanization of the Coyote habitat took place in the western area of our country long before it occurred here. We are in the early stages of habitat change. There are lessons to be learned from urban Californians and other western residents.

From studies there, over time, some of these creatures have learned not to fear man. There have been a number of threatening encounters out west and even small children dragged as apparent prey. "In some cases, our provision of ample resources to these urban coyotes (particularly in the form of intentional feeding) has resulted in their losing almost all fear of humans, and in some cases a few coyotes will become aggressive enough to attack pets and people." ¹

New York state recommends: "People should never try to get close to a coyote. Any coyote that shows unusual boldness or acts tame should be avoided. Coyote attacks directed towards people have occurred in the western United States, and aggressive coyote behavior has also been reported in the eastern United States and in New York State."²

In Texas, we need to understand the North American trend towards increased Coyote aggressiveness. While studies in other areas continue to to be conducted, we must not lay back and be complacent. We must take precautionary measures to keep our children safe, yet not be overly aggressive ourselves toward removing one of the inhabitants of our forest. Here are some practical measures that we as residents can take:

• Do not feed or befriend the Coyote. He should fear man. We can even appear aggressive and to him by using sudden moves and intimidating gestures such as throwing an object in his direction.
  
• We should not encourage his presence in any way, giving him opportunity for malicious behavior.
  
• We must not corner the animal, forcing self defense.
  
• We should not allow very small children to play unattended in our green areas. Assume there are Coyotes nearby and one of them is aggressive.
  
• We should keep our small pets indoors at night. Don't let cats pets roam loose outdoors, especially outside of fences. The small ones become potential food for the Coyote. A dog the size of a Coyote or larger is considered a trespasser in his territory. A Coyote group will gang up on him.
  
• We should keep our fences maintained, what I call "pet tight", where no Coyote can enter and your pet cannot escape. If you have problems with this, use chicken wire at the base of the fence to prevent digging and passing under base boards.
  
• We should report sightings to the community association.
  

There are a few practices that our community can take or has already taken:

• Receive and track reported sightings through an organized process. (taken)
  
• Remove animals to another location if they are sighted during daylight.
  
• Respond quickly to sightings near children. Treat the sighting as an emergency.
  
• Deploy portable remote animal photography units in selected green areas to monitor activity and population.
  

Additional facts

The Coyote is considered a varmint, along with Bobcats and other animals. Coyote and other varmints may be taken in any number, by any method, 365 days a year in Texas! It's pelt can even usually fetch a couple of bucks or a little more. It's lifespan is only about 7 or 8 years. They will mate for life and have frequent encounters with their mate throughout the year. The Coyote is not a native resident of our forest. We had its larger but look-a-like cousin, the Red Wolf before 1900. Gradually, the Coyote displaced the Red Wolf because man drove the Red Wolf to extinction in East Texas.⁶ Dogs are by far more dangerous to children and adults than the Coyote. It is important that we understand this. If we see a dog without a leash on the streets, I would be much more apt to report it than a Coyote. Many dogs are much larger and more dangerous than the Coyote.

So you can see that I do respect the Coyote. He is not my enemy. If he can stay on his diet of rodents and leave human flesh alone, he is welcome at my home, outside my fence. I regard him as a very minor threat to both my pets and my family. There have been no deaths in Texas or the southern part of the United States as a result of a Coyote attack and very few human incidents. Texas had two deaths in 2008 from dog attacks. There has already been a dog-related death for 2009 in Houston. This comparison is similar for every state of the nation. Let's cohabit the forest with the Coyote or even better yet, the Red Wolf. I am not optimistic that we will see any effort to being back the wolf however.

References

¹ Statement by known Coyote expert, 2009, Bob Timm.

² "Bad Dogs: Why Do Coyotes and Other Canids Become Unruly?" http://www.coyotebytes.org/urban_symposium.html

³ "Prevent Encounters with Black Bears and Avoid Conflicts with Coyotes" June 2006, http://www.dec.ny.gov/environmentdec/18907.html

⁴ "More Isle Coyote Sightings",Galveston County Health District, 2008 - http://www.gchd.org/press/2008/02Coyotesight.htm

⁵ "Behavior of Coyotes in Texas", undated, WILLIAM F. ANDELT, Department of Fishery and Wildlife Biology, Colorado State University http://texnat.tamu.edu/symposia/coyote/p2.htm

⁶"Coyote Mammals of Texas", Texas A&M, 1994, http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/tmot1/canilatr.htm

⁷"RESPONSE TO COYOTE PREDATION ON PETS, Dorinda Pulliam City of Austin,TX, USA, 2007, http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=icwdm_wdmconfproc


⁸"Coyote, Canis latrans", Texas Parks and Wildlife, http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/species/coyote/

Energy, Biofuels, the forest and our economy

Truly this is a mouthful, but we endear our forests, so we pay attention to what is happening as these things interlink. We must have transportation and it must be at an affordable price for us to exist. Under extreme financial pressure, diminishing available consumables, and higher costs of transportation, our country is searching for solutions. These are all connected, and I hope we are all paying attention.

So here we are, talking about this relative to our East Texas forests. Now there is a trend to seek fuel sources using natural and unnatural biodegradable techniques. Major oil companies are funding research into these technologies. It all started with corn. We all know that corn will produce alcohol. Heaven knows, there has been enough movies about illegal liqueur-running in the back woods for decades. Production of alcohol in the backwoods is a well known fact. Corn whiskey is relatively easy to make. Now our cars are using it for fuel. 10% of what we get at the pump is distilled corn "whiskey" (i.e., ethanol)! However, we do have problems with this strategy. We burn food to reduce the amount of petroleum that we consume! It is really diluted gasoline that we burn in our cars today. In turn, the prices of a major food staple has risen considerably. So the strategy of adding ethanol to gasoline is having a negative economic response. Even those people who can't afford to own automobiles are negatively affected by this oil conservation strategy. This is now a recognized fact, and many businesses are scrambling for their piece of a future change to alternate biofuel sources.

They want to use our forests! We have many components for fuel in our forests. After all, we used to get our energy from there. We would burn wood, primarily cellulose. Put fire to wood and it generates heat, a form of energy. The answer seems not to be in fire since it is so inefficient. Instead, researchers are looking into biodegrading methods, that is, let the natural bacterial decay that occurs every day in the forest be our means to producing energy.

Do you have a compost pile? I do. I take the fallen leaves of the trees, crush them to some extent and put them in a compost bin. The bin is a heavy wire mesh that I can easily empty and turn over every month. I stimulate decomposition by adding egg shells, raw potato skins, raw green leaf leftovers, coffee and tea bags. The composition occurs because we have bacteria that will break these things down. That process generates heat and the process then accelerates. Wood also will break down but at a much slower pace than the leaves. Basically, what remains after one year of a compost pile, is the cellulose and nutrients for plants that result from the breakdown. I point this out because it is what happens in the forest. Various carbon gases and liquids are produced in the process.

Companies are now seeking ways to harness these by-products and even more. They want to find ways to use the cellulose, the backbone of the forest, to produce fuel. To do that, one must find organisms that will break down cellulose into carbon chains. Yes, even alcohol is a carbon chain. When it burns, water and carbon dioxide are produced as by-products. So you see, the environment is affected as well. When you burn something, you are feeding the global warming cycle from gas emissions into the environment. Of course the forest takes a substantial amount of the CO2 and produces oxygen through photo genesis. It also produces some carbon-chain liquids and gases, especially on the forest floor where the leaves decay. Where is all of this heading?

Let's say that our science is successful. Our universities come up with a viable solution to this approach. Then the forest becomes another money producing resource. Its cellulose is valuable. What's more, in the science labs, microbes are synthesized as a means to break down cellulose. So the question is asked, how would these new microbes be controlled as to not harm our forests? Could they make our forests sick? Possibly, but not likely since the targeted cellulose would be dead, not living matter. The more likely problem would be the enemy of the forest - humans. I call us the enemy because when it comes to money, we as a race have destroyed forests for thousands of years. Just think, 1500 years or so after the Ottoman Empire, there remains a large amount of land without trees where there were forests before. Why? Because the Turks paid a bounty for trees which protected tax evaders. To get those taxes, the forests had to be destroyed (in their eyes). We can look at the Amazon jungles today to see what happens to forests given economic reason.

Our economy is severely stressed. We need alternate fuel sources. Is this a good way to spend our money? Will we be opening up our forests to tree cutting for fuel? Will we be turning our forests into tree farms so that we can have gasoline? I surely hope not!!!!! Let's think about the environment, retaining the natural forests and seeking alternate fuel sources in the wind, the ocean and the sun, not our forests nor our crops.

References -

1. Forbes article - Beaker Fuel November 2008
   

Frogs in The Woodlands Texas area

Croak… croak …croak….

We have an excellent Herpetology resource just a few miles down the road near the airport in Jesse Jones Park – Mike Howlett. Last night at McCullough school, he presented a “how to” identify local frogs and toads. Not only was the material excellent, but also his humor was super! Have you ever wondered what was making those noises outside (and sometimes inside)? He offered a few memory tips to identify these amphibians by their call and believe me; seniors need help in this area. Amphibians are endangered by our environmental non-consciousness just as birds, insects and animals. Ant poison is often over applied resulting in more than the inconvenience of these creatures. Construction in sandy soil areas has endangered two frogs and they are on the national endangered list. Their living environment has been more than encroached. It has been mostly removed. Introduction of species from other locations and competing amphibians for food sources, as well as lawn and garden poisons and fertilizer also affect the environment of these creatures.

Common toads and frogs in our area include the small Grey Frog, Gulf Coast Toad, Houston Toad, Cricket Frog, Spring Peeper tree frog, Western Chorus Frog, Rio Grand Chirping Frog (not native but here in abundance), Grey Tree Frog, Coats Grey Tree Frog, Green Tree Frog, Squirrel Tree Frog, Bull Frog, Bronze Frog, Southern Leopard Frog, Narrow Mouth Frog, and Herder Spade Foot Frog. Each one has a unique call. One can see the eggs on top of the water after a big rain. Toads’ eggs are laid in a double row and frogs’ eggs are laid in a glob.

Each of these creatures makes a unique sound. That is the way they manage to call their own species for social gatherings and mating. We humans are fortunate to be able to discern those calls, well enough to be able to go out, sit down and identify all the frogs in a given area and even be able to estimate the populations by their calls. Texas Parks and Wildlife sponsors a catalog process, which monitors area ponds and forest areas for their amphibian populations. One can adopt a pond for monitoring and cataloging by attending a class and getting the materials, including a CD of sounds for identifying these creatures.

OK, now let’s talk food chain! What creature is at the top of the food chain on some ponds and will eat a Crawfish? It is the Bull Frog! He will eat about anything that moves that is within reach of that sticky tongue. Those pinchers of a crawfish do not faze him at all. What is a threat to small birds that comes to take a drink on the pond? Again … the Bull Frog. Picture a frog with a mouth full of feathers. What looks like a snake but has legs? A Skink. What are those lizards called that change colors? Nope, not a chameleon, but an Anole! What are those translucent lizard-like creatures on the windows and sometimes get into the house at night? Mediterranean Geckoes. They are not native here but they are thriving here.

Later this Spring, I will go out in rain to listen to these creatures and hopefully I can find the time to get certified in frog monitoring on one of our Woodlands ponds. I may take one of my grandchildren with me. The children attending this lecture were obviously very interested and came to look at the living frogs in the bottles that Mike brought with him.

I highly recommend attending this Woodlands Association series of lectures on nature. The remaining lectures this Spring are “The Quiet Invasion” (invasive plants on March 26th and “Beyond Butterflies” on April 17th (should also be an interesting one for children).

Now let's change that croak to Peep ... peep ....peep

tweetily.tweetily.tweetily.tweetily.tweetily.tweetily..tweetily.tweetily.tweetily

Loose banjo string sound...........Loose banjo string sound (bwang?)

myyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.........myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

I went away with a much different appreciation for an important resident of our forest.

Resources:
1. Any book store: look for Amphibian field guides in the Texas book section.
2. Jesse Jones Park: http://www.hcp4.net/jones/pw/amreptiles.htm
3. Texas Parks and Wildlife kids stuff: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/kids/
4. Texas Parks and Wildlife Texas Amphibians Watch: http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_br_w7000_0492.pdf