| OVERVIEW
Many educators and their students were checking the “pulse” of the Hudson River all week with nets and traps. The relative health of the river and its wildlife can be deduced through the species diversity and species richness of their catches. We also took a look back at the Hudson River of 315 years ago.
HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
7/14 – Westchester County, HRM 46: Last August, I reported a northern fence lizard on a trail just upriver from Peekskill. Jesse Jaycox noted that this was a new location and a very important record for the New York Natural Heritage Program. I returned there today hoping I might spot one again. I was unsuccessful, but I did manage to find a young five-lined skink (another first for me) sitting on a fallen tree.
– Steve Rappaport
[The five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) is small lizard less than nine-inches-long. They are not rare in the lower Hudson Valley. The bright blue tail of the immature five-lined skink may serve as a survival strategy: predators grabbing the skink by its colorful tail will find that it breaks off, the skink escapes, and eventually regenerates another. Tom Lake]
NATURAL HISTORY ENTRIES
[Note: Fran Martino’s 7/11 entry from last week occurred in Rensselaer County. We mistakenly attributed it to Columbia County. Tom Lake]
7/14 – Bedford, HRM 35: The great blue heron rookery was now empty with all the new herons having fledged. This odyssey began in mid-March and lasted four months. The fledglings were now off learning their hunting skills. In two years they will be sexually mature and will have their own broods.
– Jim Steck
7/14 – Bedford, HRM 35: I visited the Bedford Audubon’s native wildflower garden where I came upon a monarch butterfly, my first one of the year. As I went over to the bee balm, I quickly spotted two hummingbird clearwing moths darting back and forth among the flowers. It is a rare treat to see one; my last sighting was five years ago. There is always much to see and do if you take the time.
– Jim Steck
7/14 – Yonkers, HRM 18: The air was a very warm 91 degrees Fahrenheit (F) at the Sarah Lawrence College Center for the Urban River at Beczak as we went seining with our River Explorers students (ages 5-12). We caught an interesting mix of fishes, including young-of-the-year (YOY) blueback herring, bay anchovies, and striped bass. There was also the usual river life, such as Atlantic silverside, white perch, blue crabs, comb jellies, and moon jellyfish.
– Gabrielle Carmine, Toni Jackson, Alicia Mayo, Cindy Ishale, Hafeza Hossaim
7/15 – Ulster Park, HRM 87: After four years of having swamp milkweed plants (Asclepias incarnata), I finally had a Monarch caterpillar on one of them. The caterpillar was growing very fast, and in just a few days totally devoured one of the seed pods.
– Jim Yates
 7/15 – Northeast Dutchess County: Both fledglings from the Pine Tree bald eagle nest (NY487) were elsewhere this morning. One was in a neighboring tree and the other perched on a branch behind some large pines over a pond. Soon however, both were back in the nest tree, side-by-side, and calling for lunch. (Photo of bald eagle fledglings courtesy of Deborah Tracy-Kral)
– Jodie Preuss
 7/15 – Beacon, HRM 61: It began as just another evening at the beach, the tide ebbing out a millimeter (mm) a minute. We were collecting the usual YOY fishes, like Atlantic menhaden (43-46 mm), blueback herring (57-58 mm), and striped bass (28-52 mm). The river was 81 degrees F and the salinity was 2.5 parts-per-thousand (ppt). But, as we were shaking out our seine to leave, Phyllis Lake picked up a broken clay pipe in the sand. We wondered how the pipe came to be on the beach. We speculated that it had been eroded out of the sand by winter’s ice, ship’s wakes, or storm tides. Long Dock had long been a commercial port. This pipe could have been a seaman’s on a Hudson River cargo sloop. He may have tapped his pipe on the gunwale, accidently broken the stem, and then tossed it away. We wondered if we could date the pipe. (Photo of Atlantic menhaden courtesy of Tom Lake)
– Tom Lake, Phyllis Lake, Darlene Terpening
[Clay pipes are made from a fine white clay called kaolin. While not much in vogue today, these were the mainstay of pipe smokers from Colonial times through the end of the nineteenth century. Most of these clay pipes were of either Dutch, English, or later American manufacture.
 Dating Colonial kaolin pipes can be imprecise. Surface finds, such as this one that lacks provenience (original location), eliminates radiocarbon dating (there were no associated organics). Since there was no maker’s mark on the bowl of this pipe, bore diameter and bowl decoration (burnishing, carvings, etc.) had to be used. J.C. Harrington (1954) devised a means of relative dating for kaolin pipes based on the bore diameter of the stems. Binford (1962) and Hanson Jr. (1971) later fine-tuned the process. Using this protocol, we measured the bore diameter at 6/64 (inches). This translated to a date range of 1680 to 1720, with a Binford mean of 1703. The likely manufacturer was either Dutch or English. Tom Lake] (Photo of Colonial kaolin pipe courtesy of Phyllis Lake)
7/16 – Croton-on-Hudson, HRM 34: While waiting for the 7:15 AM Metro North commuter train to Manhattan, I watched an adult osprey and a nestling (soon to be a fledgling) at the cell phone tower nest. While I watched, the adult took off and flew in a lazy circle before returning to the nest and disappearing inside. Soon, the other adult flew into the tower and perched on one of the antennas along with the nestling. It was the first time in quite a while that I saw all three of the osprey at the nest at the same time.
– Hugh McClean
7/16 – Croton Bay, HRM 33: As my commuter train crossed the trestle over the Croton River, I spotted an adult bald eagle out on an exposed sandbar (one hour into the rising tide). At the same time, an immature eagle skimmed the bay and grabbed a fish, probably an Atlantic menhaden. It was a good start to the week!
– Hugh McClean
7/16 – Yonkers, HRM 18: Twenty students (ages 5-12) from School 14’s Can We Talk camp in Yonkers, visited the Sarah Lawrence College Center for the Urban River at Beczak. The highlight of any summer visit is an opportunity to haul a net in the river to see what is home today. Today we caught five YOY striped bass as well as Atlantic silverside, blue crabs, and moon jellyfish.
– Elisa Caref, Vanessa Vazquez, Shannon Rooney.
7/16 – Manhattan, HRM 13.5: At midday, the near 90-degree F air was still and very humid at Inwood Hill Park. The inlet of Spuyten Duyvil Creek had barely a ripple. In the tiny strip of salt marsh, saltwater cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) was flowering. Bouncing bet and white sweet-clover were blooming near the water along with the tiny flowers of field peppergrass (Lepidium campestre), a few flowers of horse-nettle (Solanum carolinense), and field bindweed. The “Three-Sisters” garden at the Nature Center has not been maintained since Hurricane Sandy (2012), but the corn has come up every year and now it was seven-feet-high. The horseweed (Conyza canadensis) was also that high and some lovely bee-balm was blooming as well. On the path up through the Clove, clearweed was filling in where lesser celandine had been groundcover earlier this year. Up on the ridge, foliage was abundant. Tiny white flowers of common enchanter’s nightshade were sprinkled everywhere, and there was a sunny triangle where purple-node Joe-Pye weed and pokeweed were budding.
-Thomas Shoesmith
7/16 – Manhattan, HRM 1: We checked our research sampling gear in Hudson River Park at The River Project’s sampling station on the lighthouse tender Lilac at Pier 25 and found that our pots and traps had caught four magnificent oyster toadfish (55-285 mm) and four burly tautog (195-365 mm).
– Henry Doering, Paula Lavelle
[Note: one inch = 25.4 millimeters (mm)]
7/17 – Yonkers, HRM 18: We hosted 20 students, ages 5-9, from the San Andres Community program at the Sarah Lawrence College Center for the Urban River at Beczak. This is one of the free community programs we run for local Yonkers students to encourage them to engage the waterfront. Thunder and lightning limited our seining to just half the group. The tide was extremely high and even though we took our seine into the Beczak Marsh, there was very little beach in which to check our catch. We still managed to catch at least 14 moon jellyfish and one YOY striped bass.
– Gabrielle Carmine, Elfateen Ash, Shreeda Segan, Michael Treus
7/18 – East Fishkill, HRM 66: Our gorgeous gray fox with no tail showed up in our backyard late this afternoon with a pup. Recently, we had been seeing her almost every day, after not seeing her since late April.
– Diane Anderson
[Gray foxes, perhaps owing to their largely nocturnal habits, are less commonly seen than red foxes. Gray foxes are more of a forest dweller, whereas red foxes tend to be more farmland and suburban wildlife. Gray foxes are the only dog (canid) that can climb a tree, albeit not with the skill of an opossum. Tom Lake]
7/18 – Fort Montgomery, HRM 46.5: There was a steady passage of helicopters coming down the river this morning from West Point Military Academy. In the middle of all of that, there was an adult and an immature bald eagle circling my house. It looked like the immature was trying out its new flying skills. It was hard not to notice that these incredible machines and talented aviators looked burdensome and earthbound compared to the eagles.
– Scott Craven
7/18 – Yonkers HRM 18: Eighteen students from the Yonkers Public School’s Summer Stem Program visited the Sarah Lawrence College Center for the Urban River at Beczak this morning. The students were really excited to get in the river and learn about the animals. We had a diverse catch from our seine, including YOY striped bass, American eels, Atlantic silverside, blueback herring, alewives, mummichogs, and white perch. While the fish were interesting, they found the blue crabs, comb jellies, moon jellyfish, and shore shrimp fascinating.
– Gabrielle Carmine, Shreeda Segan, Sam Collins-Zaluda, Shannon Rooney.
7/18 – Yonkers, HRM 18: We were joined this afternoon at the Sarah Lawrence College Center for the Urban River at Beczak by the Yonkers Partners in Education. This group assists local students, making sure they have the education they need to apply for and attend college. Eighteen students helped us haul a 20-foot seine in the Beczak Marsh where we caught American Eels, white perch, and YOY striped bass, as well as blue crabs, comb jellies, and moon jellyfish.
– Elisa Caref, Elfateen Ash, Janissa Medwid, Vanessa Vazquez, Sam Collins-Zaluda
7/18 – Manhattan, HRM 1: We returned to our research sampling gear in Hudson River Park at The River Project’s sampling station on the lighthouse tender Lilac at Pier 25 and found that our crab pot had captured a tautog (170 mm) and, in a bit of a surprise, a white perch (200 mm).
– Toland Kister, Paula Lavelle
7/18 – Queens, New York City: Along with students from the Alley Pond Environmental Center Field Biology Internship program, we spent the morning seining in Fort Totten-Little Bay Park in Queens. Among the six species of fish we collected were northern pipefish and Atlantic silverside, as well as YOY Atlantic tomcod (90 mm), tautog (noticeably green-colored as an adaptation to its habitat), and blueback herring (25 mm), and a grubby (50 mm). Invertebrates included shore shrimp (Palaemonetes spp.), mud snails, and fifteen-scaled scaleworm (20 mm), a marine Polychaete worm. Based on range, it was likely Harmothoe spp. The bay’s water temperature was 77 degrees F and the salinity was 28-29 ppt.
– Peter Park, Kasey Wilding
[Grubby (Myoxocephalus aenaeus), one of four sculpins (Cottidae) found in the watershed, are a small, bottom-dwelling fish. Grubby feed on shrimp, snails, crabs, and small fish including Atlantic tomcod. Of the four sculpins, the grubby is the most common inshore in the New York Bight. Tom Lake]
7/19 – Town of Poughkeepsie: The two immatures from bald eagle nest NY62, now free of the nest for 42 days, were still hanging around. They have been frequenting a small pond not far from the nest tree and have been using some of the trees to loaf on hot afternoons. They have learned to catch their own food, so while the adults come and go (we see them almost every day), the fledglings are no longer dependent on them.
– Kathleen Courtney
7/19 – Beacon, HRM 61: It was not a banner day for carp at Long Dock. There was little indication they were even around. Across six hours, there were a few surface disturbances – rolls and splashes – barely enough to indicate the presence of carp. I did manage to catch and release eight channel catfish, all 1-2 pounds.
– Bill Greene
 7/19 – Putnam County: A decidedly foul odor was wafting into an open window today. A quick check outside revealed a small collection of the most malodorous of mushrooms growing in mulch. The species Mutinus elegans, M. caninus, M. ravenelii, and others, are known as stinkhorns for a very good reason. They stink in order to attract flies to the slime they produce to facilitate spore dispersal. (Photo of stinkhorms courtesy of Steve Rock)
– Steve Rock
7/19 – Yonkers, HRM 18: Nineteen students from the Fieldston Outdoors Summer Camp program joined us to go seining this morning at the Sarah Lawrence College Center for the Urban River at Beczak. The students had a lot of energy and could hardly contain their excitement at being on the river. We hauled our net at low tide and had a great catch, including American eels, Atlantic silverside, and white perch, as well as YOY striped bass, and bluefish. Perhaps the most exciting part of the catch for them was the blue crabs and moon jellyfish.
– Jason Muller, Shreeda Segan, Janissa Medwid, Elfateen Ash
7/19 – Yonkers, HRM 18: In the afternoon, we hosted 18 students, ages 5-12, from the San Andres Community program at the Sarah Lawrence College Center for the Urban River at Beczak. Since it was high tide, we went seining in the Beczak Marsh and caught Atlantic silverside, white perch, and mummichogs. YOY fishes included striped bass and bluefish. As with our morning program, the comb jellies, moon jellyfish, and blue crabs provided much excitement. Two of the blue crabs were “soft-shelled,” or recent moults.
– Gabrielle Carmine, Vanessa Vazquez, Sam Collins-Zaluda, Mateo Portune, Michael T Stack
[Blue crabs, as Crustacea, have an exoskeleton (their “skeleton” is on the outside) and must shed their shell from time-to-time to accommodate their growing body. Their new shell has the elasticity of a balloon and can take up to twenty-four-hours to harden depending on water temperature – the warmer the water, the quicker it will harden. While they are in a soft-shell stage, they are extremely vulnerable to predation being unable to use their crushing claws. Tom Lake]
 7/20 – Hamilton County, HRM 265: I spotted a gorgeous clearwing moth enjoying nectar on my King George daylily this evening in Indian Lake, not far from the Hudson River. I do not think these little moths are especially rare, but I do not get to see too many of them up here at 1,700 feet elevation. (Photo of hummingbird clearwing courtesy of Barbara Dodsworth)
– Barbara Dodsworth
[This was one of the clearwing moths, and in Barbara’s photo, it looks like a male hummingbird clearwing (Hemaris thysbe). These are common diurnal moths that readily visit garden flowers for nectar and are often very active late in the day at dusk. They are seen nectaring at flowers throughout the summer into early autumn. Butterfly bush, bee balm (Monarda sp.), and summer phlox in shades of purple seem to be the perennial favorites in my garden. I most often find their caterpillars on viburnums and honeysuckle. Steve Chorvas]
7/20 – Yonkers, HRM 18: Students from the Yonkers Public School’s Stem Program (the program has more than 180 students) came to the Sarah Lawrence College Center for the Urban River at Beczak this morning to go seining. We are teaching 20 students at a time this month. This group was working toward a final project about how the warmer weather might have changed our fish catch and how catches change throughout the seasons. Among the fish they caught were YOY striped bass, blueback herring, and one surprise, an Atlantic herring, as well as mummichogs and American eels. Invertebrates included blue crabs, shores shrimp, comb jellies, and 348 moon jellyfish.
– Jason Muller, Sam Collins-Zaluda, Vanessa Vazquez, Michael T Stack, Taylor Kozemko
7/20 – Manhattan, HRM 1: We checked our research sampling gear in Hudson River Park at The River Project’s sampling station on the lighthouse tender Lilac at Pier 25 and were treated with an adorably tiny skilletfish (5.0 mm) as well as a handsome oyster toadfish (215 mm).
-Lauren Negron, Justin Chen, Emma Palmer, Alyssa De Falco
SUMMER 2018 NATURAL HISTORY PROGRAMS
Saturday, August 11
Sixth Annual Great Hudson River Fish Count
For more information on specific times and locations, go to https://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/97891.html
Free Trees for Streamside Planting
The Hudson River Estuary Program’s Trees for Tribs program offers free native trees and shrubs for planting along the tributary streams in the Hudson River Estuary watershed. Our staff can help you with a planting plan and work with your volunteers. Since 2007, Trees for Tribs has provided more than 40,000 native trees and shrubs for planting along 20 miles of stream with the help of more than 9,000 local volunteers. We are now accepting applications for planting projects.
For more information about the program or to download an application, please visit the DEC website at: HudsonEstuaryTFT.
HUDSON RIVER MILES
The Hudson is measured north from Hudson River Mile 0 at the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan. The George Washington Bridge is at HRM 12, the Tappan Zee 28, Bear Mountain 47, Beacon-Newburgh 62, Mid-Hudson 75, Kingston-Rhinecliff 95, Rip Van Winkle 114, and the Federal Dam at Troy, the head of tidewater, at 153. The tidal section of the Hudson constitutes a bit less than half the total distance – 315 miles – from Lake Tear of the Clouds to the Battery. Entries from points east and west in the watershed reference the corresponding river mile on the mainstem.
TO CONTRIBUTE YOUR OBSERVATIONS OR TO SUBSCRIBE
The Hudson River Almanac is compiled and edited by Tom Lake and emailed weekly by DEC’s Hudson River Estuary Program. Share your observations by e-mailing them to trlake7.
To subscribe to the Almanac (or to unsubscribe), use the links on DEC’s Hudson River Almanac or DEC Delivers web pages.
Discover New York State Conservationist – the award-winning, advertisement-free magazine focusing on New York State’s great outdoors and natural resources. Conservationist features stunning photography, informative articles and around-the-state coverage. Visit the Conservationist webpage for more information.
USEFUL LINKS
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration online tide and tidal current predictions are invaluable when planning Hudson River field trips.
For real-time information on Hudson River tides, weather and water conditions from sixteen monitoring stations, visit the Hudson River Environmental Conditions Observing System website.
DEC’s Smartphone app for iPhone and Android is now available at: New York Fishing, Hunting & Wildlife App.
NY Open for Hunting and Fishing Initiative: Under Governor Cuomo’s Adventure NY initiative, DEC is making strategic investments to expand access to healthy, active outdoor recreation, connect more New Yorkers and visitors to nature and the outdoors, protect natural resources, and boost local economies. This initiative will support the completion of more than 75 projects over the next three years, ranging from improvements to youth camps and environmental education centers to new boat launches, duck blinds, and hiking trails. Read more about the Adventure NY initiative. For more information on planning an outdoor adventure in New York State, visit DEC’s website at http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor.
Information about the Hudson River Estuary Program is available on DEC’s website at http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/4920.html.
Copies of past issues of the Hudson River Almanac, Volumes II-VIII, are available for purchase from the publisher, Purple Mountain Press, (800) 325-2665, or email purple |
Hudson River Almanac
