Summer Green and the Little Miami River at Clifton Gorge...

With a dew point of 77 degrees and the temperature pushing 90, yesterday was decidedly tropical, so it was especially nice to slip into the cool embrace of the steep walls of Clifton Gorge, where summer green filters through the trees and settles on every available surface, and rushing waters create an ancient atmosphere of escape and respite...

The Little Miami River rushes wildly through the green corridor at Clifton Gorge. As you descend the wooden steps at the beginning of the trail, you feel like you're entering another world. 

The profusion of lush foliage and moss is appealing to the senses and almost seems to glow electric in the deep shadows. You want to linger and listen as the river rushes past every plant, moss-covered rock, and watery seep trickling down the cliff.  

...special things grow here, simply put. The riparian corridor at this stretch of the river holds rare boreal relics left over from seeds deposited by the Wisconsinan glacier meltwaters over 10,000 years ago. The steep cliffs of the gorge form a cooler microclimate that allow northern plants such as Eastern Hemlock and White Cedar to survive.

Dark Silurian dolomite limestone walls add drama to an already stunningly beautiful backdrop. 

To the Little Miami River," by William H. Venable, 1836

Romantic the rocky and fern-scented regions,

          Miami, the grots where thy brambles begin,

 By cedars and hemlocks, in evergreen legions,

        With silence and twilight seclusion shut in.

There darkling recesses in miniature mountains

          Recall to my fancy the haunts of the gnome;

     There fabled Undina might rise from  the fountains,

     Or sport in the water-falls glistening foam.

           

Click here for a pdf brochure and map of Clifton Gorge by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

Click here for a pdf of "The Ohio Naturalist," Vol IV, February, 1904, for the article "The Topography and Geology of Clifton Gorge," by W. E. Wells.

For information on Ohio's Silurian period, click here for "Geology of Ohio -- The Silurian," by Michael C. Hansen, or here for an article by Ohio History Central.

Black-throated Green Warblers at Magee Marsh during the Biggest Week in American Birding

I'm back home from the Biggest Week in American Birding and am already missing the warblers! I'm definitely returning next year for the event, and I'm adding a day to my stay. This year I was there Monday-Thursday, but next year I'm adding in Friday :-) I'm going to get Matty and Rick up for a few days too. Spending a week birding and photographing warblers at Magee is heaven. I loved it...

A Black-throated Green Warbler (Dendroica virens) clings to a vine looking for something to eat along the boardwalk at Magee Marsh. He was singing up a storm, and all eyes were on him!

It's easy to see where he gets the "Black-throated" part of his name. I don't think that throat could get any blacker! 

...but where does the "Green" part of his name fit in? From below he looks black, white and yellow!

You have to look on top to catch sight of the green. If you look closely, you'll see the back of his head and shoulders are an olive green color. Now the name Black-throated Green Warbler makes sense! 

Black-throated Green Warblers were everywhere along the boardwalk, and they were very vocal. I enjoyed listening to their song. Their constant singing made it easier to find them (just like with the Yellow Warblers)!

This little fellow was just passing through the Black Swamp at Magee Marsh, which provides critical habitat for migrating neotropical songbirds. He was fueling up for his long trip over Lake Erie to reach his nesting grounds further north, but even though this bird prefers cooler northern temps, you can find Black-throated Green Warblers nesting in Ohio. You just have to head to the deep gorges found within the Hocking Hills region in southeastern Ohio. In 2009 we were hiking the Old Man's Cave trail in Hocking Hills in the heat of summer when we heard this bird's call. It took a while to focus in on the bird, but eventually we found him. That's when I really started appreciating the microclimates of the deep dolomite gorges carved out by meltwater from the retreating Wisconsinan glacier 10,000-15,000 years ago. The cooler temperatures of the shaded gorges allow hemlock trees (boreal relics from seeds swept down and deposited by the glacier) to thrive and creates habitat for species that prefer the cooler northern coniferous woodlands. Within a short time of seeing the Black-throated Green Warbler, we heard and saw a Hermit Thrush--another bird that normally nests much farther north. According to the breeding bird atlas map in Peterjohn's "The Birds of Ohio," small breeding populations of Black-throated Green Warblers also nest in northeastern Ohio east of Cleveland.

For migration predictions and info on the birds being seen on the boardwalk, click here for Kenn Kaufman's Crane Creek - Magee Birding blog (covers the Lake Erie Shores and Islands Region of northwest Ohio). Click here for a nice resource on Magee Marsh.

A Midland Smooth Softshell Turtle (Apalone mutica mutica) from the Little Miami River

Up where I live, the Little Miami River is speckled with rocky beaches and is held captive by cliffs and towering hills of woods and dolomite outcroppings. Near its headwaters upstream, it flows through even steeper gorges carved out by glacial meltwater. The dolomite cliffs at Clifton Gorge in Yellow Springs are so steep they create a microclimate that allows hemlock trees and white cedars (boreal relics from seeds swept down and deposited by the Wisconsinan continental glacier 10,000-15,000 years ago) to thrive in the cooler, shaded forests of the gorges. Further down the river, near me, Fort Ancient is the largest ancient earthen hilltop enclosure in the world, perched on land that rises 240 feet above the river, and its narrow rocky and muddy corridor keeps the water moving along swiftly, but after the river flows past the stretch I walk and canoe or kayak, its banks and bottom slowly start to change until mile after mile, the gorges disappear and the land flattens out. As it flows through Cincinnati and nears its mouth at the Ohio river, the Little Miami widens and the banks and river bottom become more sandy, and sandbars can be found here and there too, moving and shifting each year with the rains and currents. This newer habitat creates an ideal playground for Midland Smooth Softshell turtles...

Midland Smooth Softshell Turtle (Apalone mutica mutica)

A male Midland Smooth Softshell Turtle rests in the sand along the Little Miami River at Armleder Park in Cincinnati. Here, where the river nears its confluence with the Ohio river, the river bottom and banks are sandy and support a population of smooth softshell turtles. Paul Krusling knows where the smooth softshells live in the Little Miami, so two weeks ago I met up with Paul and Joe at Armleder to photograph this guy.

Last summer, Rick and I kayaked and canoed the Little Miami river many times always hopeful we'd see a Midland Smooth sunning on a log, but we didn't. The habitat was not right. The rocky, muddy corridors and river bottoms do not appeal to the smooth softshells. Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtles, however, love the parts of the Little Miami we paddled on, and we saw well over 30 turtles. There is just enough sand mixed in with the mud for them to thrive, but two weeks ago, I finally saw my first Midland Smooth Softshell in the Little Miami (up until then, all the smooth softshell turtles I photographed were from the Great Miami River, a much larger and sandier river). Paul and Joe were heading to Armleder Park, so I met up with them to photograph the Smoothy.

At first glance, the two softshell turtles look a lot a like. They are both flat like pancakes (and are sometimes commonly called pancake turtles) and have carapaces with no scutes--thus the "soft shell" (scutes are the armored, bony plates that make up a turtle's carapace--the upper shell.) You can also see the carapace bones through the soft shell of both species, but when you look closely, differences emerge and are easily recognizable.

Midland Smooth Softshells (Apalone mutica mutica) have an apricot or peach-colored stripe that runs from the nose, through the eye, and down the neck. Eastern Spiny Softshells (Aplone spinifera spinifera) have a yellowish stripe. I was surprised at how "peach" mutica's stripe really was!

...another color to look for...blue! If you turn a Midland Smooth Softshell turtle's foot over, you'll find a blue pad. It's quite a surprise!! Here Paul held the turtle upside down so I could snap off a quick shot. The brave turtle didn't seem to mind.

...and talking about feet. Look at that webbing! Apalone mutica mutica is a very fast swimmer--the fastest swimming turtle in our area. Of course, the Spiny softshell has webbed feet too, but not quite as extensive. The Spiny Softshell turtle can bite and is more aggressive than this Smooth Softshell turtle. Maybe being just a little faster in the water makes up for the more passive nature of the Smooth Softshell turtle, which doesn't bite. Another noticeable difference...Smoothys have less noticeable markings on their legs.

A very visible difference between the two species relates to their namesakes! As you can see here, the Smooth Softshell turtle has no spines or ridges at the edge of the carapace. It's smooth! The Spiny Softshell turtle has spines and bumps (click here to see the spines of a Spiny).

...and last but not least, the carapace pattern visible on males and young Midland Smooth Softshell turtles is much different than the pattern that shows on Spiney Softshells (click here for the Spiney Softshell carapace pattern of dark circles called ocelli). Smooth Softshells have dots and dashes. This is an older male Smooth Softshell so his pattern is a bit faded (click here to see a very visible pattern on a baby Smoothy). The females of both species develop a similar pattern. Sherman Minton, Jr. in "Amphibians & Reptiles of Indiana" refers to the pattern as "lichenoid," which perfectly describes the blotchy, lichen-like look (click here to see a female softshell turtle's carapace pattern).

I have more photos of this fellow and a video of him swimming away in the water too. I'll work on getting them posted soon.