Walking the Chagrin

A sketch I made while taking a break from fly fishing.

Fecundity of Cattail

When attempting to control an invasive species it is important to know the potential of a particular species to reproduce by seed or by vegetative means. It is also helpful to know how long seed of that species is viable in the soil, for example if seed is viable for 3 years then I can feel pretty good in 2016 if I stop seed production in 2012. Narrow-leaf cattail (Typha angustifolia) is one of the nastiest invasive species out there. It has destroyed and is destroying native wetlands all over the eastern U.S. T. angustifolia has an amazing ability to reproduce: an individual cattail head (hotdog) can have as many as 700,000 seeds and under ideal conditions seeds can remain viable in the soil for more than 100 years. Furthermore vegetative reproduction has been reported to be very high; as many as 98 vegetative buds per mature plant. Let 1 single narrow-leaf cattail into your wetland and your in big trouble.

These pages from my notebook were done while I was working at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes (NCSL). You can follow NCSL’s attempt to restore an urban wetland choked with T. angustifolia right here.

Canada Geese: When they can successfully breed in WalMart parking lots by the thousands there are too many; I have heard them referred to as ‘sky carp” which might be a better common name…

Post Deer Season Depression

Yesterday was the last day of bow hunting season in Ohio, a day that can cause anxiety and even depression for deer hunters.  Here is a poster I made back in my days of working with deer hunters.  Cheer-up fellas there’s always next year!

Shagbark

I have added a lot of sketches of fruit and twigs of the hickories - here is a field journal sketch of shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) bark.

Pawpaw

Today I planted some pawpaw (Asimina triloba) seeds that will be used in a future floodplain restoration project.  It is a great little native tree with a unique tropical tasting fruit.  Here are some sketches of the spring flowers.  The flowers are unusual in that they are the color of raw meat and have a foul odor this is because they are pollinated by carrion flies and beetles.  Pawpaw patches are often clones of each other and since the plant is self sterile these isolated clones will never produce fruit.  So if your pawpaws are barren introduce some new genes to the patch and if that doesn’t work try throwing some road kill under the trees or try tying rotten meat to the branches to attract the proper pollinators.  Once you get the trees to fruit you will have to work hard to beat the raccoons and opossums to the fruit…

April 2011 Journal

January 31 and it is 55 degrees... it sure feels like this stuff is right around the corner.

Hickory Nuts

I have taken some time over the last two winters to pick up hickory nuts and do some illustrations, here they are.  I know that these would be much more valuable if I were able to add scale to the images, but at this time I am not.

Bitternut hickory (Carya cordiformis) these small nuts are about 2-4 cm tall with a thin husk. Notice in the top right image the sutures are slightly winged - most of the other hickory species have smooth sutures.  Pecan (Carya illinoensis) has winged sutures - I have not sketched pecan yet...

Pignut hickory (Carya glabra) these nuts are slightly larger (3-4.5 cm) than bitternut hickory and have a distinctive pear-shape.  The actual nut surface is smoother and less angled than bitternut hickory and shagbark hickory. Pignut hickory and sweet pignut hickory (Carya ovalis) are difficult to tell apart, however the most often described difference is in the mature fruit.  The difference: the husks of pignut do not split all the way to the base of the fruit however occasionally they will along 1 of 4 sutures, sweet pignut husks split all the way to the base along all sutures when mature (see below)

Fruit of sweet pignut hickory (Carya ovalis) similar shape and size as pignut but with sutures splitting all the way to the base of the fruit.

Shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) fruits are about 3-5 cm in length they are oval to round and do not have a distinct pear shape.  The husk is very thick (3-12 mmm) and freely splits all the way to the base.  The actual nut is strongly angled.  The insides are tasty.

Last but not least is shellbark hickory (Carya laciniosa) often times called kingnut hickory the fruit of this beast are 5-9 cm in size.  The husk of the fruit is also very thick 8-12 mm.  Also very tasty on the inside.

Vulture Return

Last year's turkey vulture return

Coffee Stain

Black and white warbler head with a coffee stain eye ring

Lower Lake

I finally got my scanner working again hence the recent flurry of activity on here. I scanned in some of my favorite pages from my field journal and will try and post them along with the more common and more formal sketches. Here are the pages from a few warm days last April, we spent a few hours each day walking the trails at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes and around Lower Lake.