Diamondback Terrapin (dead) and jellyfish (probably dead)

On some of my blog posts you will find a good number of turtle photos. First of all, turtles are very photogenic, especially when basking, and secondly, I love turtles. Since my Maryland days, I have always wanted to see an [alive] Diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin).  Sadly, this one is dead.  In the early 2000s during many Eastern Shore (of Maryland) visits, I was constantly on the search for one.  Those visits took me through Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in the car and also on my bike.  Once, on my bike, I thought I saw one on the road and stopped for a look.  In those days, I didn't have a smartphone and so without google images to check, I couldn't be sure.  Regretfully, on got on my bike and continued riding.  Now, I'll never recall that turtle's field marks, so I keep looking.    

Indeed, the University of Maryland, now a Big Ten team, has 'the Terrapins', as their athletic teams' name and mascot - just in case anyone was wondering.  "The terrapins" has regional and native significance.  

The Diamondback Terrapin is a turtle of the brackish waters of salt marshes, estuaries and tidal creeks, all of which the Eastern Shore of Maryland has in abundance, as do all of the Chesapeake Bay states.  My dead diamondback rolled on to an Ocean City beach along the salty Atlantic Ocean during tide change.  So why was it there?  It had been dead for awhile, but not for a super long time.  On September 22nd (a week prior to my visit),  Hurricane Ophelia arrived (from Emerald Isle, NC) along the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  I hypothesize that its brackish habitat was flooded and forced the turtle out to the salty ocean - where it probably met its death.

Even dead, the terrapin was beautiful.  The pattern on its shell reveals this.  It was probably quite an old turtle as well; at least old enough to have barnacles on its shell.  Additionally, female Diamondback terrapins are larger than males.  I think this turtle was probably female because it was about  8 to 9 inches in size.

Just so everyone knows, the Diamondback terrapin is in trouble.  That its numbers are decreasing should not surprise most.  This is probably why I have never seen a living Diamondback terrapin.  Please don't pick up and take home to sell or raise.  Wild Diamondback terrapins do not adapt well to captivity.  Please do not buy a Diamondback Terrapin from a seller.  This is a practice, amongst many practices involving wild turtles, that needs to stop.  Only licensed and dedicated rehabbers and licensed naturalists who are supporting Diamondback terrapin survival and recovery in the wild should keep these turtles. 

The rising sun on the morning I found the Diamondback Terrapin.  And in the western sky, the moon.

Sy Montgomery has published a new book and already a bestseller, Of Time and Turtles:  Mending the World Shell by Shattered Shell.  It's out now in hardcover.  Sy Montgomery is also the award wining author of The Soul of an Octopus:  A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness and many other really good books.

Here also is a beautiful 20 second video from the morning.  Make sure your sound is on.  I wish I had made it longer!  

On to other topics, this jellyfish was the size of a dinner plate.  I wanted to put it back in the water (I had no idea if it was dead or alive; it appeared quite fresh), but I was strongly advised against trying.  It was well beyond the tide line.

A couple of final photos to complete this post.

Dead horseshoe crabs on the beach.  There were quite a few of them.  If they were intact, I took a photo.  I also saw many horseshoe crab tails, like straight sticks, in the sand.

Horseshoe crabs are, unfortunately, also diminishing in numbers thanks to the illegal harvesting of them for fishing bait.  Of course, the impact on the long-distance migrating Red Knot is much studied and well-known.  Yet, somehow the harvesting of this amazing dinosaur persists.  

An answer for our manicured lawn ...

... may lie in a column from this morning's front page in the Real Estate section of the New York Times:

A Viable Alternative to Conventional Lawn?  Cornell May Have Found One.

Follow this up with Brendan Woodruff's 45 minute Cornell powerpoint talk shared on You Tube:

Cornell Botanic Gardens' Native Lawn

Addendum 01/16/2024

Also found in the New York Times today, 01/16/2024 (but not published today).  Today, I also learned the meaning of the word xeriscaping.

Low-Maintenance Yards by Amy Gunderson, May 23, 2007

Updated endangered and threatened bird species in the State of Michigan

Julie Craves has just posted (Sept. 1, 2023) on her Net Results blog the updated list for endangered and threatened bird species list for Michigan.

Above: Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina), photo taken at Nichols Arboretum on Thursday, 08/31/2023.  Though I've heard one or two singing at various times last spring, this is the first wood thrush I've seen this year.  New on the species of special concern list.

I think everyone should take a good look at this list.  Many of the listed birds are going to surprise a lot of birders.

Requiem for a Double-crested Cormorant

At Belle Isle yesterday looking for anything of interest, but especially dragonflies.  Found plenty of interest, including an apparently sleeping juvenile double-crested cormorant.  But not that many dragonflies.

Seen perched at the edge of the lake across from the Yacht Club.

I was stepping lightly and it awakened by didn't fly or swim.  Hmmm.

Odd.  Unbalanced with the tip of its tail submerged in the water.

It seemed thirsty.

After that drink it seemed to settle down, but was still wobbly on its perch.  And it bothered me that the tip of its tail was submerged in the water.

Continue on.  Leave it alone.  Maybe it will recover.

Thirty minutes later when I returned it was dead and its tail was more deeply submerged in the water.

I felt bad.  Was it Avian flu?  West Nile virus?  Lead or mercury poisoning from fish in the river or this lake?  I stopped for a bit to decide what to do.  I wanted to collect the bird for the University of Michigan bird collection; however,  ever since Janet H. left that division seems so out of touch and discombobulated.   They don't answer their phone or emails and they don't respond to messages left on their voicemail.  

Its position on the perch made it appear peaceful.  I don't know how long it will remain this way.  I was too busy to return today to check on it.  I might try tomorrow.

Update:  I didn't get to return for several days or so and the bird was no longer present on the perch. 

Non-native and potentially invasive

Bummer!

Both photos taken with my iPhone.  I'm a brand new user of iNaturalist.  Yesterday I posted the photos above and this morning got my ID:  Blackberry Lily (Iris domestica).   I thought with a name like this it was surely a native flower.  Nope.  Native to east Asia.

So disappointed because it is such charming little flower.  I found them under my spicebush at the head of my pondless waterfall yesterday.  I know I didn't plant them.  The stalk creates a seedpod that is present in  fall and winter.  Apparently, one or more of the robin visitors to my pond dropped a few seeds that took hold.

My yard is not completely native but I am trying to keep it as native as is possible; despite living in a non-native heaven area of the state    Just planted a couple of new coneflowers and some Anise hyssop yesterday.