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July 11, 2002 - Nature's everywhere take a lookJuly 11, 2002 * The Suffolk Time Nature's everywhere• take a look KP w Times /Review photos by Paul Stoutenburgh One pull of the seine and you've opened a whole new world for these young people. Remember, they will be the stewards of our land and sea and the more they know and appreciate our East End, the better off we all will be. Below: tiny horseshoe crab eggs YOU WON'T BELIEVE THIS. I could hardly believe it myself. I was writin in our living room when there came a terrific splash from the little four - foot fish pond that's a mere 15 inch- es away from the house. The culprit was a kingfisher and he captured one this kingfisher fly off with my biggest goldfish in his bill. Twenty minutes later, he came back and took another one. This had to stop! I went out behind the woodshed and got a big screen that I use to cover the pond in the winter and now, instead of having a nice pond to look at with goldfish swimming around, we have this screen over the .top to protect the few remaining fish. How did that kingfish- er, which we always associate with our saltwater bays and creeks, find my little pond right next to the house? For those of you with ponds and pools and big birdbaths that have fish in them, beware: Mr. Kingfisher will find you out. What I'll have to do is remove the screen and replace it with a mesh netting to keep him from getting any more of my gold- fish. Then I'll have to replace my goldfish, as they do such a good job of keeping down the mosquitoes, and we enjoy having them there as well. These birds are getting smarter and smarter every year. The last few weeks have been egg - laying time for the turtle and I've had a number of calls. One was from a man who said he had a box turtle; that's the turtle we find in our woods. You can't miss it, it has a high hump back and yellow markings on its shell. We're seeing fewer and fewer of these turtles as the East End becomes more developed with houses, roads and shopping malls. My caller wanted to know what he could do to save the turtle eggs that he saw being laid in his garden. One of the biggest problems for all turtles here on the East End is that raccoons, with their extra - sensitive noses, can detect where the eggs have been laid and dig them up and make a meal of them. I can't tell you how many times I've found the egg casings scattered about where a rac- coon, or perhaps even a fox, had found these delicacies to eat. Our caller thought because of the heavy predation of turtle eggs, he might cover the area with a mesh screen, which I think is a good idea. It will take all summer for the eggs to develop and by that time most of the scent will be gone and he could take the mesh wire off so the young could enter the real world. Along these same lines, Jim called to tell me how he and his wife had their eggs in the sandy portion of one of our creeks. He was excited about it and photographed them. Our diamondback is the saltwater turtle that a sharp eye can observe when the little head pops up above the water only to disappear as you Approach. Diamondbacks are the tur- tle that was most favored for turtle soup and back in the '30s a man raised these turtles right in Mud Creek for the market. Who knows, maybe some of the turtles we see are descendents from that early opera- tion. A good -sized diamondback in those early days would bring five dollars, which was pretty good - money. Why the enterprise collapsed I don't know. I'm hoping because they all escaped. After the turtle's eggs are laid, they develop in the warmth of the sun, and should we have a cool sum- mer, believe it or not, the undevel- oped embryos in the eggs will stay through the winter and hatch in the spring. That's the unusual. The norm is that they hatch in the fall. And so, let's hope that the eggs laid by tur- tles that escape the sniffing nose of a raccoon or fox and mature will grace our woodlands and creeks for anoth- er year. Curiosity pays off Some of us seem to have sharper eyes, a keener sense of smell, better hearing and on top of that an inquisi- tive mind. Usually we see these attributes in older people who have but I'm for- Eto utilize tunate to or my oeautitut FOCUS goldfish that I use to keep ON mosquitoes — nhla down. They are NATURE great for that by Paul job. Stoutenburgh Everyone was dumbfounded a: this kingfisher fly off with my biggest goldfish in his bill. Twenty minutes later, he came back and took another one. This had to stop! I went out behind the woodshed and got a big screen that I use to cover the pond in the winter and now, instead of having a nice pond to look at with goldfish swimming around, we have this screen over the .top to protect the few remaining fish. How did that kingfish- er, which we always associate with our saltwater bays and creeks, find my little pond right next to the house? For those of you with ponds and pools and big birdbaths that have fish in them, beware: Mr. Kingfisher will find you out. What I'll have to do is remove the screen and replace it with a mesh netting to keep him from getting any more of my gold- fish. Then I'll have to replace my goldfish, as they do such a good job of keeping down the mosquitoes, and we enjoy having them there as well. These birds are getting smarter and smarter every year. The last few weeks have been egg - laying time for the turtle and I've had a number of calls. One was from a man who said he had a box turtle; that's the turtle we find in our woods. You can't miss it, it has a high hump back and yellow markings on its shell. We're seeing fewer and fewer of these turtles as the East End becomes more developed with houses, roads and shopping malls. My caller wanted to know what he could do to save the turtle eggs that he saw being laid in his garden. One of the biggest problems for all turtles here on the East End is that raccoons, with their extra - sensitive noses, can detect where the eggs have been laid and dig them up and make a meal of them. I can't tell you how many times I've found the egg casings scattered about where a rac- coon, or perhaps even a fox, had found these delicacies to eat. Our caller thought because of the heavy predation of turtle eggs, he might cover the area with a mesh screen, which I think is a good idea. It will take all summer for the eggs to develop and by that time most of the scent will be gone and he could take the mesh wire off so the young could enter the real world. Along these same lines, Jim called to tell me how he and his wife had their eggs in the sandy portion of one of our creeks. He was excited about it and photographed them. Our diamondback is the saltwater turtle that a sharp eye can observe when the little head pops up above the water only to disappear as you Approach. Diamondbacks are the tur- tle that was most favored for turtle soup and back in the '30s a man raised these turtles right in Mud Creek for the market. Who knows, maybe some of the turtles we see are descendents from that early opera- tion. A good -sized diamondback in those early days would bring five dollars, which was pretty good - money. Why the enterprise collapsed I don't know. I'm hoping because they all escaped. After the turtle's eggs are laid, they develop in the warmth of the sun, and should we have a cool sum- mer, believe it or not, the undevel- oped embryos in the eggs will stay through the winter and hatch in the spring. That's the unusual. The norm is that they hatch in the fall. And so, let's hope that the eggs laid by tur- tles that escape the sniffing nose of a raccoon or fox and mature will grace our woodlands and creeks for anoth- er year. Curiosity pays off Some of us seem to have sharper eyes, a keener sense of smell, better hearing and on top of that an inquisi- tive mind. Usually we see these attributes in older people who have but I'm for- Eto utilize tunate to these unique have a gifts. I say livhpneverwe grandson I...0 this because — nhla go anywhere, he pops up with a garter snake, a frog or a two - tailed worm, and just recently as he was scouring the water's edge of the bay, he found developing horseshoe crab eggs. This saga of horseshoe crabs took place a month or so ago when, under a full moon and on the high tide, these relics from the past came ashore and laid their eggs in the sands of the high, high tide line. Now, with time and the warmth of the sun, it was time for the eggs to hatch, and sure enough, in my grandson's hands, we could see tiny horseshoe crabs moving about in their now- transpar- ent BB -sized eggs that he had found. It took some doing on his part to find them but there they were, almost ready to embark on the ven- ture that would lead to their life or death, for out of a thousand eggs only one or two might grow to matu- rity. All along the way, the eggs would be preyed on by birds, fish, crabs and other hungry mouths that make up the food chain. Once hatched, the tiny surviving horseshoe crabs go through multitudes of shed- ding. Each time they shed, they dis- card their old shell and the horse- shoe crab grows a little larger. We occasionally find these tiny horse- shoe crabs when we go clamming. They are light brown, in a shell that is rather leathery, not hard like the adult shell. The adults that came to our shores in the early spring to lay their eggs now have disappeared and we won't see them again until next year, when this routine of millions of years repeats itself once again under a full moon on a high, high tide. Leaving my story of the horseshoe crab eggs, there's another chapter in this young man's quest for knowl- edge. And that is his uncanny ability to do or see things that pass most of us by. He had been watching a moth- er bird feed her young in one of the many bird boxes around the place, and the thought must have occurred to him, "I wonder if I could do that ?" And so, by turning over rocks and boards, he found some worms. Then by attaching pieces of the worm to a tiny stick, he climbed up on a box so that he could reach the opening. By scratching the side of the entrance hole in the bird box, he got the little heads to pop up. Then, he gently reached in and fed them the worm on the stick. Time and time again he repeated this as we all watched in amusement. When he found one worm that looked odd to him, he realized it not only had a head and tail but this par- ticular worm had two tails. He brought it inside for us to see and. sure enough, he had a two - tailed worm. How or why this particular worm grew a forked tail, we'll never know. Was it nature's way of continu- ally trying to improve itself? We call this process evolution. My hope is that this young teenag- er never loses that special gift that makes the world around him an exciting place to be.