April: Following Nature's Ups and Downs

April's annual weather roller coaster was marked with record highs -- with the better part of a week pushing into the 80s (even upper 80s) -- and then near record lows (with 6" of snowfall on April 20/21 in southern portions of Erie County). But things stayed plenty active on and around the marsh.

The stately parental pair of "our eagles" standing guard on their bayfront nest.

Roy witnessed a very unusual drama playing out at our eagle nest on our Sandusky Bay shoreline. It all started the afternoon after an arctic blast interrupted what was starting to feel like early summer. While the marsh itself did not get any accumulating snow (due to the lake and bay warming into the 50s), the abrupt change may have upset the balance at the eagle nursery in the sky. 

An unexpected intruder to the nest on April 21.

Even if it wasn't the weather, it was a third eagle (above) that tipped us off that something was amiss. While the proud parents were reluctant to do so, Roy watched as they relented to the persistent intruder, ultimately giving up their rightful spots on the nest to take up agitated perches on a nearby cottonwood tree. Roy's first instinct was that he might be witnessing a rare golden eagle predating on fledgling bald eagle chicks.

A close-up of the intruder's heavy bill helped to confirm its identity.

But with the help of a telephoto lens (even in strong bayside winds) we could confirm that Roy was looking at a two- or maybe more likely three-year-old immature baldie. And its presence did not bode well for the welfare of the young eaglets.

While it is difficult to make out what the immature eagle was scavenging on, we feared the worst for the success of the eagle nest -- one of three at the marsh at present.

A lack of activity on the nest since a day or two after the "invasion" makes it clear that this particular brood was unsuccessful. Since bald eagles aren't known (to our knowledge) to predate on their own nests, its our hunch that the eaglets simply perished, perhaps due to bad timing of weather extremes. And is nature is prone to do, the immature eagle (very possibly the offspring of the nesting adults) was just making sure nothing went to waste.

More green in the Rest Pond -- largely broadleaf cattail and soft-stemmed bulrush -- is an indication that things are at least
trending toward warmer and brighter.

New growth through last year's decay.

Roy could only manage to scramble for his smartphone to capture this passing group of nearly three dozen American white pelicans.
Since I first wrote about them in May of 2017, we've seen them sporadically, each spring. It's fun every time.

April wasn't all just wildlife watching -- it also marked the beginning of Roy's labor intensive and relentless annual assault on invasive species.
First target victim: poison hemlock.

July 2020: Nursing Along the West & Laying the Groundwork for the East Marsh

Much of our energy this month centered around the submittal of a nationwide U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit application that would allow us to conduct many of the same restoration initiatives we have implemented on Standing Rush's West Marsh on the east. By contrast though, we have been asked to assemble a single "comprehensive" application for the East Marsh. If successful, what we accomplished in handful of discrete permits (on the west) could theoretically be implemented through this single application on the east. 

One of my favorite marsh plants, arrowhead or "duck potato," pioneering its way into a
fully drawn down Rest Pond, July 2020. (These types of vegetative "successes" are
only possible thanks to improvements we have been able to make to both the earthen
infrastructure and the related water control structures on the West Marsh.)

We feel like a broken record, but our common refrain is: "Water levels dictate about everything
else on the marsh." 

Our recently achieved ability to fully remove up to 3-4' of water off large expanses of the West Marsh (even when water levels in the adjacent bay are at or near record highs), allows us -- given the proper seasonal timing -- to establish an environment where a broad diversity of desirable
annual and perennial herbaceous (native!) plants can then flourish. (July 6, 2020)

We have to keep a very close eye on these early emergents to make sure we like what we are seeing:
annual nutsedges and smartweeds along with perennial broadleaf cattail and soft-stemmed bulrush
have become a familiar -- and desirable -- script over recent drawdowns. 

The goal is to encourage as much desirable vegetation as possible to promote native diversity
and high nutritional value before gradually adding water back into the system 
-- in an effort to mimic natural processes and to discourage the germination or rhizomatous spread
of our usual suspects of invasive species. (July 16, 2020) 

But undesirables (invasives) are a reality, and we have gotten pretty aggressive about singling out
noxious flowering rush, even if it is one isolated clump among a sea of desirable plants (see below).
Spot-treatment for solitary plants has become a mainstay of our management efforts throughout
the summer months.

While this might look like a dog stain in your front yard, it is actually the aftermath of a spot
herbicide treatment to eliminate a solitary flower rush plant (highlighted with the red arrow).
Unfortunately, it can take two or even three applications to eliminate both the stems and the 
even more persistent roots and nutlets beneath the soil.

As an aside, one of the byproducts of a full drawdown is finding things that have been submerged, sometimes for a long time.
This pile of "tufa rock" (a local calcium carbonate derived geological anomaly related to marl and worthy of its own future post) is a good example.
Our guess is that it was imported by duck hunters many years -- like maybe 50-100 years -- ago
to create a more stable base for blinding. A lot of work . . . all in the name of ducks!
At some point, we want to obtain a geologists perspective.

Rest Pond Doing Its Job

Self-seeded millet in the foreground with desirable
perennials (dark green) dominating in the deeper water

I received one of those memorable messages on my phone on Friday. Roy let me know that he had just been out in the Rest Pond assessing how much flowering rush (a nasty invasive plant) we may have deal with out there. Back in June and July, we took several boat rides out for that same purpose, and the initial signs were ominous.

However, Roy's discovery late last week: what we thought were flowering rush starts a couple/few months ago (when only 4-10" long and largely submerged in a couple feet of water) proved to be almost all cattail. "I don't know what else to say other than this is as good as it gets.  I only found one plant of flowering rush . . . the amount of cattail & bulrush coming up through the millet and smartweed is outstanding. The millet is also putting out a second seed crop as the terminal heads get stripped."

The restoration of these 40 acres couldn't be coming much better. It comes down to a combination of planning, vision, existing site conditions, good fortune, favorable weather, and some dumb luck. We know a lot of it is out of our control, but especially when it progresses like it has here, we'll take it!

A 10 x 10' island of Walter's millet pioneering in the Rest Pond

It's extremely gratifying to see some predictability in nature's response. What is unfolding is really what we had hoped to see -- the residual seed from last year's millet crop has resulted in new plants this year that may dominate as much as 20 of the 40 acres; smartweed, another highly prized, seed-rich waterfowl forage, dominates maybe another 10 acres; and then the final 10 acres or so is transitioning to desirable perennial plants, most notably cattail and soft-stemmed bulrush. We are also starting to signs of other attractive plants like Walter's millet (right) and arrowhead interspersed within the annuals.

A punt boat "path" through smartweed on the west side of the Rest Pond; the transition to fall red means
flowers are evolving to edible seed -- this crop is every bit of 6' tall and should be a magnet for passing ducks and geese

While I didn't take any photos, I spent Sunday evening in the blind (#15) with my brother and nephew. It was another memorable night. The teal didn't cooperate, but I can honestly say I've never seen more wood ducks and mallards fly over my blind. We witnessed literally thousands of big ducks cascade into the evolving buffet between 5:00-8:00 PM and watched just as many pull out and fly south for the night -- with guts full of seed. The Rest Pond is doing its job.

I took this blurry image on my phone; click to enlarge to see what several hundred mallards look like
-- these were pushed out of the Rest Pond to the Tower Marsh late last week as we finished up seeding the dike
(it was the largest congregation I had seen on property this year; we saw multiple times more this past Sunday night)