The Milkweed Project

I usually see life as a glass half full.  That was not the case when the core that lets me turn the key and start my car failed and I had to get it to a dealer to have it fixed. That cost about $900 including a tow to Bangor, Maine,  about 75 miles away.  Then I had to wait until my boss was heading  from the refuge, back to his home in Bangor, which he only does once or twice a week.  The first time, he had to leave before I was finished with my course on driving off-road vehicles.  So I was even more bummed out about not having a car. 

Finally I was able to catch a ride with him and go retrieve my car.  Steve is a fascinating person as he started life as a biologist and also has a very quick mind.  In the course of our conversation, I mentioned how I love to grow plants.  He said that maybe I was the person to start a milkweed project.  He wanted to grow a lot of milkweed and then plant it on the refuge.  At that point, I got real excited and was kind of glad I had had car trouble, since I would get to grow plants. 

Monarch butterflies go just a little past Maine into southern Canada, but they have been disappearing from Maine for the last decade.  Maine is asking people to grow milkweed, the ONLY genus of plants that the caterpillars can feed on, to help bring back habitat for them. And milkweeds are also VERY important to native bees, another species I'm passionate about saving. So I was REALLY excited to get to be in on this project.  And I LOVE the perfume of common milkweed so I want to be around LOTS of it. 

 I started researching how to do start milkweed.   We had some seeds collected last year which needed to be cleaned of their floss, and stratified - soaked in water overnight, then mixed with a dampened mix of perlite and vermiculite and refrigerated for two to four weeks. Then the seeds needed to be started in trays before being transplanted into five inch pots to accommodate their extensive root system. 

I found sources for the planting cells plus trays, vermiculite, compost, and perlite.  Steve rapidly got it all ordered and I bought 35 dishpans to use as seed starting trays.  He also decided to buy 1000 MORE seeds each of common milkweed and swamp milkweed since he thought the ones  the staff had collected had a low germination rate.  I conned an intern into cleaning the collected seeds - we have a homemade cage that we can crank around.  It has rocks in it which nock off the little parachutes and leave the seeds behind.  (The floss falls out through the screen.) These gave us several thousand more seeds. 

We were starting this project a few months late so I pushed the seeds along, only stratifying them for two weeks, and then transplanting them when only a few of them had true leaves.  I had so many seeds, that I planted some directly into the ground before stratifying, and others after stratifying, after I filled up all my bins with seeds. 

The dishpan planting trays of milkweed seeds plus views of my garden

The next problem was that I had maybe 6000 seeds that sprouted but we could only afford to raise 2000 plants in cells. So we decided to plant the rest of the seedlings directly into the ground.  I had potting mix left over, so I decided to add a little of it around each little transplant. Then I transplanted seeds for many days.  But even with help from the YCC kids on a day and a half and help for a few hours from various staff members and two volunteers - all the way from Israel - I still had some plants still in their sprouting trays. 

I got seven flats of forty cells from the first dishpan of seedlings - ended up using nine of the thirty-five to transplant to the cells - the rest were planted directly into the ground

The first day, the YCC kids helped me, we had several of them absent. But I think we were five or six and were using those little weeders to build our holes in clay soil.  It was REALLY hard to get the clay to break up enough for us to cover the seedlings.   I think we all planted less than one hundred seedlings each. 

Michael had landscaping experience and pre-worked his plot  

Daniel concentrating on getting a hole made

Then watering his plot

Our watering system - that's a collapsible watering tank in the back of the truck - we fill it with a fire hose

The second time the YCC kids helped, we had the full crew and I had found a MUCH easier place to plant to seeds - along a newly worked ditch where the planting cover failed. 

Another day - another site and several new workers so I'm explaining the setup - each pair of bins is a planting station - one has the seedlings, and one potting mix 

I'm demonstrating how to carefully loosen the mix around the seedlings and then carefully separate them as they are growing in clumps and we have to tease their roots apart without breaking them or touching the roots

I'm demonstrating how to hold the seedling by ONLY the leaves and what a good root system looks like - with so many seedlings, we don't transplant plants with poor roots

We are planting in a ditch that needs cover and which is at the end of the meadow around headquarters - they used trowels and the weeders here 

Christina, a summer worker and two ladies from Israel helped me one morning

No, that's clover, NOT milkweed. The milkweed is that tiny little green stem just above the index finger - it will take about a week before it gets over planting shock and starts growing 

I'm writing this blog on Friday, July 29.  I planned to plant seeds for a few hours last night and most of the day today as well as most of the day tomorrow.  But we had a big long rain last evening so everything is too wet to attempt to plant until later today. An I'm going off for a week of play with two of my daughters, starting Sunday, so  about a thousand of my babies are going to die because they aren't in growing medium. 

Last week, I started planning my next two steps in this  project - to get places ready in which to transplant the seeds and to arrange for help to get them in the ground. I planned it all out, with possible dates, and got Steve's approval.  So we are having a work day August 21 and grilling hot dogs and providing a hot dog lunch to planting volunteers. So far, we have put out more posters than we need people as I think we can plant with about thirty helpers. 

You are invited too! - I'll provide lodging to the first out of town volunteer!

Next week, the refuge staff will first mow and then till lots of  little patches within the big meadow around the Refuge Headquarters.  They will also lay out a hose system so we can water each patch.  I plan to give the plots LOTS of water, to (hopefully) make dormant seeds think it's spring and sprout.  Then we'll till one more time just before the work day to murder them all. 

Hopefully we'll get enough people out for planting.  If not, we plan on me planting them over the course of the following week, then making sure they have enough water to grow fast until around September 10.  Then I'll let them start to go dormant so they will survive winter.

Then I'll be holding my breath that these little guys will get big enough to harden off before frost - which I expect near October 1st this year.  And I'll have to beg for reports on the fate of them next summer.  But I hope they look like this next July and August. These pictures are from plants already growing and blooming on the refuge.  Several species of bees were VERY excited about them. 

A tricolored bumblebee feeding on milkweed

I'm not sure of this species of bee?  but I have only seen them on milkweed

If this is a bee, it's really long and skinny - but there were LOTS of them in the milkweed patch

I've had a great time growing the little guys.  And my now my glass is again half full.  

My swamp milkweed is growing faster than is the common milkweed - this picture on July30

 I'll post another blog on our work day.  And stay tuned for my play week with my daughters - through Maine's Bold Coast, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. I'll be playing with my youngest daughter when this blog comes out.


Postscript Two Summers Later: I got this report and pictures from Keith Ramos, the new refuge manager: During the summer of 2016 one of our resident volunteers, Marilyn Kircus, took on a monumental task to plant milkweed around the refuge for the benefit of monarch butterflies. Over the course of the summer she started from seeds, grew and planted over 2,000 milkweed plants with some help from staff and other volunteers.

Today we got to see the fruit of her labor when we found monarch caterpillars feasting on the milkweed that she planted.

Photos by Keith Ramos/USFWS

This was the best reward of ALL.

Goose Roundup

July 6, 2016

Early Wednesday morning, I got a call from Kirsten, our biotechs, asking if I wanted to come, RIGHT NOW,  and help with the goose roundup. I rushed to the office and found everyone was about to leave, and I couldn't help with the kayak herding, but could help from the bank and with the actual banding. So I raced back to the house and grabbed a hat and water and went dressed as I was, in my shorts and water shoes, which I often wear as slippers.

We traveled down the highway to an entrance to Lake Sealy. As we got to the beginning of the lake, we waited for the three kayakers to get in the water and start the drive. Meanwhile the Youth Conservation Corp (YCC) kids and their leaders had sneaked in to the far side of the lake and one of the leaders, Chris, was in his boat, waiting for the geese to show up in their area. Then the rest of us got out of our car and lined up along the road to wait for the geese and kayakers to appear. Then we walked along the edge of the lake to keep the geese more to the middle until they reached the bottom of the lake where the kayakers drove them into a trap on the levee. We all surrounded the trap to keep the geese from rushing the fence and then picked them up by getting a grip on them at the root of their wings and put them into the waiting pens.

The pen was on the levy- Some of the YCC kids are in the background

From there, we loaded them into pens,  then took turns getting them out, sexing them, then putting a band on them, except for one that had already been banded. We were finished with the whole endeavor in less than two and a half hours. This was a much smaller endeavor, both scope and numbers of birds than are the scaup roundups at Red Rock Lakes NWR. There we survey thousands of ducks in 9 days of roundups. And we weigh them, measure the distance from the back of their heads to their bills and also the length of their tarsus. And, if we catch adult females, who will come back to the refuge to breed, we mark them with colored shapes on a wire through their bills. This allows us to gather information about them in successive years without having to recapture them. If you missed that story, click the link above. 

Me hauling a goose from the pen to the banders

Biologist, Ray helping a YCC girl band her goose. 

Murray is our other biologist - he's also helping with the band

Me getting my goose in place to be sexed

Sexing the goose- I had a male

Getting help with the banding

One of the interesting things I learned is that Moosehorn actually brought Canada geese to the refuge many years ago. In the central flyway, they are regarded more like weeds, than as a valued species.  But they seem to only be here in small numbers, even though they and wood ducks seem to be the most numerous breeders of our water birds. 

And since everybody gave me pictures of me, I even look like I stared in the roundup. But I actually only helped keep the geese in the middle of the lake and herded into the pen, then helped remove them from the pens and give them to the YCC kids except for the two I banded with help. 

The end of a few hours of fun - we released the geese all at once - since this was the last one, I just held it until we dumped the rest out of the pens. 

I'm joining Wild Bird Wednesday.  Click on the picture to read more wild bird blogs from around the world.

On the Hunt for Hidden Culverts

July 11, 2016

One of my assignments at Moosehorn NWR was to survey the trails in the Wilderness Area for places that needed work to make it easier to travel across them. I was looking for trees that had fallen and blocked the trail or for vegetation that had overgrown the trail. Then, after I was already almost finishing marking the coordinates of the problem places, I got the added assignment of finding and marking the culverts, and also measuring the diameter and length of them. (I think this is because, we are trying to remove the signs of man from the areas now designated as wilderness.) So, while, not as efficient in data gathering as I could have been, I DO get to go hike again on the company dollar.

I loved the tree with theses seed pods - but I couldn't make the camera separate a group of them from their background and had to focus on just one

I hoped to get off to an early start, but, after a few days of rain, the vegetation was dripping, so I waited to leave until around 8:00 AM. This was later than most wildlife would be out so, I didn't see much. But the hermit thrushes were still singing their hauntingly beautiful songs as were the oven birds and white throated sparrows. As I walked down the road to the beginning of Headquarter's Trail, I heard begging babies and watched a female yellow-bellied sapsucker fly across the street. I looked for the nest and saw several holes in a birch tree. This was the first day of sun after several cloudy and often rainy days so everything looked brand new.

I found, way-pointed, and measured 5 culverts. I also found a place where water was coming out of what seemed to be a cement culvert – I couldn't actually see it, but when I stuck a stick behind the water flow, the area resonated as though it was a culvert. And even stranger, there was a metal culvert only a few feet further down the trail.

Yes, there is a culvert running just under the white card and my GPS which is average the way points - it will be tough to get it out from under several trees. 

This culvert was much easier to find

Another lagniappe - pink mushrooms growing on a fallen birch tree 

I was completely enthralled by a rosy maple moth I found.  It was sleeping in a little evening primrose. I took it's picture, then pulled it out and photographed it on my finger, then tucked it back to continue sleeping.  What a cooperative subject. 

Primrose moth (Schinia florida) - must be closely associated with primroses

Moth posing on my thumb - love it's "do"

I decided to come back by refuge roads, a most serendipitous choice, because when I investigated movement in the ditch, I found a porcupine which eventually climbed a tree. Unfortunately, this was around eleven o'clock and the light was very contrasty so he was either in too dark or too bright a place.  I also scared a sunning garter snake who leaped up to crawl away, then just stopped to see if I would come after  it. 

Garter snake

The only fireweed I'd seen -but now there are fields of it

Porcupine climbing tree

And then sitting on a branch

I need help identifying this flower.  It is just now coming into bloom - it is under a foot high and grows in the ditches under the shade of trees

A most impressive evergreen

I came back tired and hungry, having walked over ten miles. Now I only have one more trail over which to hunt for culverts. But I'm diverted from that job by my milkweed which are now ready to transplant. So I've been working eleven to thirteen hours a day for the last five days, to get them in pots. That is going well. BUT the bad news is that I have 35 dishpans full of seedlings and only have the planting mix and pots to transplant about eight of those bins.

And that's my excuse as to why I didn't get my Wednesday blog up.

I'm putting the finishing touches on this blog from the town of Eastport, Maine, where I went to visit a farmer's market.  I have free range eggs, lettuce, beet greens, kale, Swiss chard, and service berries. I planted another six flats of milkweed, leaving only the last four flats to finish this evening.

And tomorrow I plan to visit the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden, which is three and a half hours south of me.  

Turtle Time

Turtles have been making their presence known across the refuge

June 8, 2016

Turtles have been making their presence known all month as the females crawl out of our many waterways to dig their nests and lay their eggs. 

I have to cross a huge water diversion channel to read the Upper Magurrewok water gauge. It feels like a huge skateboard channel, only for vehicles. As I started down it, I saw a snapping turtle sitting near the bottom. I stopped far enough away to not scare it and took lots of pictures. When I climbed up the other side, I saw several more snapping turtles, many busily digging nest holes or actually sitting and laying eggs. So, of course, it took me about an hour to read that gauge.

This turtle is not going to find a place for her nest here

Her portrait

I think this is a defensive posture - she assumed this position as I got closer

Another turtle laying eggs 

I checked several laying turtles for a peek at their eggs, but all I could see was this

A finished nest - the turtle adds urine to make mud and set it over the eggs

This turtle is returning to the water after laying her eggs

I love their ancient faces

New turtles had appeared while I walked less than a tenth of a mile from where I leave the truck to where the gauge is, in the channel, then returned.

Places where turtles are or have been digging nests

A little later that morning, as I was walking back to the road, after reading the lower Magururrewok gauge which is on Highway 1, I saw a Border Patrol Car start almost across from where I was parked. The patrolwoman jumped out of her car and picked up a small turtle crossing the road and carried it to the side towards which it was heading. I called out “Thank you!”, and she replied, “I have a real soft spot for painted turtles”. After she left, I attempted to locate the turtle but couldn't find it in the high grass along the road.

But some days later, I was able to photograph my own painted turtle before making sure it was safely off a refuge road. I've also seen lots of snapping turtles crossing roads or digging their nests in them, but I'm not brave enough to pick them up.

Painted turtle crossing a refuge road

Love that turtleneck "sweater" - wish I could knit that pattern

On the personal front, I hope to be able to get my car on the day this publishes - I got permission to use a refuge vehicle to come to town for shopping and internet. I'm planning to spend the evening in Bangor, and then get up early to go to Eastport with the summer crew to hike, visit a mustard factory, play laser tag,  and enjoy fireworks, music, and food.  I also got invited to go to St. James, Canada for more Independence celebrations on Friday evening, but since I haven't figured out cloning, I'll have to visit that town another time.