Frog Calls NEWSLETTER OF CROSSTIMBERS CONNECTION
June, 2016 Volume 4, No. 2 ISSN: 2471-6979
Feature
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Pond Life at Southwest Nature Preserve
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Events
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The Tandy Hills BioBlitz
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Nic inspecting the contents of the net, with Mike McCorkhill on shore
A LOOK AT THE POND LIFE OF SOUTHWEST NATURE PRESERVE By Nic Martinez
On Sunday, May 15th, around 2:30 in the afternoon, Michael Smith and I carried out a pond survey at the Southwest Nature Preserve in Arlington, Texas along with members of the Friends of Southwest Nature Preserve. We wanted to document the kinds of plants and animals living in this pond. Based on earlier observations, we expected to see turtles like the Red-eared slider, frogs such as the Blanchard’s cricket frog, Watersnakes, Sunfish, Mosquito fish, and who knew what else. Leading up to this survey, I had looked at this park many times on Google Maps. On Google Maps everything looks flat, but I could see on the maps that there were four ponds; a large pond at the top, a slightly smaller one— but still a decent size for fishing—in the south, and two smaller ones. Only one of those smaller ones is easily accessible, and this is the one we planned to focus on. I also noticed that the south pond seemed to have a dock/ boardwalk on it as well which lead me to believe that this one had to be the best fishing pond. On the day of the survey, I arrived early to take a look at our target pond because I had not been to this park before and I was curious to see what I could find before Michael and I started the survey. I arrived around 1:00 pm and I was astonished how much topography there was. Among that which I noticed, the north end of the park has a good sized hill covered with Eastern Crosstimbers sloping down to the south.
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A Look at the Pond Life of Southwest Nature Preserve, continued from page 1 The first thing I needed to do was get my gear ready. I purchased a 20-foot seine specifically for this survey and was anxious to use it; however, because I did not want to bring any uninvited guests into this pond, the seine sat in the box in the back of my SUV until the day of survey. I strung up the seine to the pine rod, got the aquarium nets that I bought earlier in the day, as well as a few white five-gallon buckets, slipped on my rubber boots, and with a tiny plastic kid aquarium, I made my way to the pond. When you are in the parking lot of this park you cannot see any of the ponds, so I walked over to the really inviting park map sign to figure out where I needed to go. I got my bearing and I Floating water primrose
Alligator weed
went down the trail to find this nice looking pond with Floating water primrose (Ludwigia peploides) and Alligator weed (Alternanthera philoxeroides) surrounding the edges and Muskgrass (Chara spp.) just under the surface of the water. I began walking the edge trying to see if I could catch any creatures trying to hide out in the primrose, and I saw Mosquito fish (Gambusia affinis) hugging the primrose (I assume hiding from me). I stumbled across the outlet where the middle pond dumps into what the map labeled as the fishing pond. At this pond, I saw more Mosquito fish, so I scooped a few up with my net and placed them in the small aquarium to take a few pictures.
When Michael arrived, I was just completing my search around the pond and we went to go check out the fishing pond. As we were getting in sight of the pond, I could hear the splash of bobbers hitting the water and a kid saying “I got one, I got one!” At that point, I knew it was going to be a good day. As we were making our way around the last curve, there was the fishing pond. It’s a great sized pond and there is also water primrose skirting the edges all the way around. the primrose and other features make this pond a great habitat for fry (baby fish) to hide out and eat until they are big enough to venture out. As Michael and I walked on the boardwalk towards the dock, we discussed the plan for the survey. He told me that the Friends of the SW Nature Preserve would be joining us and one of the board members, Mike McCorkhill, was a native fish guy Mosquito fish
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A Look at the Pond Life of Southwest Nature Preserve, continued from page 2 who would be assisting us with the pond survey. To pass time, we walked around the park talking about this hidden jewel just off of Interstate 20 in the heart of DFW, and how we needed more parks like the preserve that show what this land used to look like. Before we knew it, it was 2:20 pm and Michael had to head home to get a few things. I went to my SUV to put on my waders and grab Sunfish—notice the spines followed by softer rays of the top (dorsal) fin a few more things, then I headed down to the pond to see how deep I could go before water flooded my waders. I thought the pond would have a hard bottom to it, but I was mistaken; after just a few steps in the pond I started sinking. The bottom of the pond was like quick sand, if you didn’t move fast you were likely to get stuck. As Michael was returning, Mike also showed up to lend a hand. Michael asked what I thought and I informed him this might be harder than it looks. Michael, Mike, and I discussed how we were going to go about doing this survey. There was only one area where the primrose had not completely closed in so we decided that would be the spot where we bring the seine to shore. Michael and I grabbed the seine and we were off to seine up anything we could, but our first haul didn’t reveal much. We caught a few Bluegill fry (Lepomis macrochirus) and Mosquito fish. Then we tried something different - Mike brought a pond rake which he used to pull up the vegetation so Michael and I could use the dip-net to see what we could find. It worked surprisingly well; we caught all kinds of fingerling Lepomis and dragonfly nymphs, and placed them in the aquarium.
Dragonfly nymph
After dip-netting one side of the pond, we decided to try out the seine again. Michael and I were fighting the muddy bottoms of the pond in chest to shoulder deep water, but we finally got the seine to shore and this time it worked. During our second go with the 20 foot seine we pulled up a Green Sunfish fingerling (Lepomis cyanellus), more Bluegill, and a few dragonfly nymphs. I was excited, so we tried two more times; all we were catching were fingerlings and nickel-sized Bluegill fry. We discussed trying the seine at the other end of the pond where it dumps into the fishing pond when full, but there was a dense carpet of Muskgrass. The Muskgrass did not allow the bottom of the seine to reach the bottom of the pond, so everything was just swimPage 3
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A Look at the Pond Life of Southwest Nature Preserve, continued from page 3 ming underneath the seine. By this time, about an hour-and-a-half had gone by and Michael and I were confident we managed to catch everything we were going to catch out of the pond. After the pond set us free of its grip and we had a couple bottles of water, we wanted to take pictures of the fish and nymphs we caught. We surveyed two Green sunfish fingerlings, twelve Bluegill fry and fingerlings, three dragonfly nymphs, and male Blanchard’s cricket frog and female Mosquito fish. Additionally, the cricket frogs were common all along the edge of the pond, and Michael spotted a couple of Leopard frogs near a Black willow tree. Those frogs escaped the net, so we could not be sure if they were Southern leopard frogs (Lithobates sphenocephala, the most likely one) or Plains leopard frogs (Lithobates blairi). A couple of species of spiders were common, and we saw one Six-spotted fishing spider making a meal off of one of the cricket frogs. Unfortunately, we did not catch any sliders, probably because the turtles were easily able to outrun our slow-motion attempts to move through the mud. All-in-all, I feel it turned out great and I had a blast doing it. In the future, my plan is to see how I can survey both the large pond and the fishing pond as well.
(Please note that this activity was carried out by Crosstimbers Connection under a permit issued by the Arlington Parks & Recreation Department. Please do not wade and seine the ponds at Southwest Nature Preserve on your own—the ponds and creatures living in it can tolerate this kind of disturbance once in a while, but not often!)
Six-spotted fishing spider eating a cricket frog
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k June 2016k
June Events:
(All of our events are free, but the host location may charge an entrance fee – check their website to see if there is a fee.) Outdoor events are subject to change based on weather - if you have registered by email, we will make every effort to email you if there are any changes to this event. Additionally, you can check our Facebook page.
6/21/16, 7:00pm n Reptiles & Amphibians of SW Nature Preserve (& Surrounding Area) n Friends of Southwest Nature Preserve An introduction, in pictures and stories, to the reptiles and amphibians of this cross timbers remnant and the surrounding area. Michael Smith will talk about the frogs, salamanders, turtles, lizards, and snakes (including venomous species) of Tarrant and nearby counties. We’ll have a harmless example or two of these animals for you to meet up close. The event is in the Community Room at the West Arlington Police Station, 2060 W. Green Oaks Blvd, Arlington, TX. It is free and open to the public. http://www.swnp.org/ Please register for our events by emailing us at: contact@crosstimbersconnection.org
Texas ratsnake (now the “Western” ratsnake)
Stay Connected!
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Want to stay in touch, so you hear about events early and can share your ideas about the crosstimbers and prairies? We have a free subscription email list at Yahoo Groups, and we hope you’ll join. Although anyone can join, memberships need approval and so it’s unlikely you will see spam or off-topic emails. It’s a great way for your voice to be heard, about your favorite places or species, experiences you’ve had, and what you’d like to see from us. To join, email crosstimbers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and we will get you on the list! We would also love for you to visit our Facebook page, at www.facebook.com/CrosstimbersConnection . Please “like” our page and feel free to post your thoughts there! Page 5
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THE TANDY HILLS BIOBLITZ By Michael Smith
This past April 22 and 23, a team of people got together to provide some answers to the question, “What lives in the Tandy Hills Natural Area?” Over the two day period, people who know about plants, birds, invertebrates, reptiles and amphibians, mammals, and all kinds of other things worked together to find and document everything they could on the rolling hills and shrubby ravines of this patch of Fort Worth prairie. In other words, they had a bioblitz. The Wikipedia entry for bioblitz says that it is an “intense period of biological surveying in an attempt to record all the living species within a designated area” (Wikipedia, 2016). As you can imagine, this requires lots of energy from lots of people, and there were 159 observers keeping the iNaturalist site humming with new entries (if you are not familiar with iNaturalist, see the piece in the January, 2016 issue of Frog Calls). All those volunteers recorded a total of 3,477 observations, documenting 700 species, according to the June 1st issue of Prairie Notes, Don Young’s monthly publication from Tandy Hills Natural Area. Crosstimbers Connection was among the numerous organizations and individuals who walked the trails and searched out the different species in this remarkable place. In my ramblings up and down the hills and across the fields, I was accompanied by some wonderful TCU students who helped find a number of species. One of the high points for me was when one of the students flipped a rock and discovered a Texas blind snake (now called a “threadsnake”). When you first see them, these small, pinkish or silvery snakes might appear to be some sort of worm, but they are actually snakes with backbones and scales. Their eyes are covered by scales so they are nearly blind, and they
Texas blind snake, or Texas threadsnake
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The Tandy Hills BioBlitz, continued from page 6
spend their lives searching through colonies of ants or termites, eating the larvae. This first blind snake got away, but amazingly we found another at this same spot and got a photo to document this cool species for Tandy Hills. Michael Perez, with Fort Worth Nature Center & Refuge, went with us on one of our walks and found a rough earthsnake as well as a flat-headed snake. Both of these are small, rather plain-colored snakes that are usually found under rocks, boards, or logs. The earthsnake is a plain brown serpent with a narrow head, while the flat-headed snake has a blunt head and a salmon -colored belly. It has enlarged teeth and mild toxins that help it subdue the centipedes and other invertebrates that it eats. A flat-headed snake’s mouth and teeth are so small that these enlarged teeth and toxins are not relevant to humans – they are completely harmless to us.
Little brown skink
On one hillside, the students and I discovered an old mattress. How it got there, we’ll never know, and it certainly should not be there. However, we were certainly not going to pass up such a potential shelter for herps, no matter that the thing was an unwanted eyesore. We flipped the mattress, imagining any number of cool snakes that could be underneath. What we found were several little brown skinks (in older field guides these are “ground skinks”), which are small lizards that are common in leaf litter and underneath logs or rocks, where they find small insects and other invertebrates to eat. I caught one for a photo, Page 7
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The Tandy Hills BioBlitz, continued from page 7 and we left the old mattress on the hillside, out of sight of most visitors. There were lots of other species, including a great variety of grasses, wildflowers, and other plants, most of which I cannot reliably identify. However, I did find and photograph a low-growing cactus that resembled a species my friend John Chmielewski had pointed out in a Crosstimbers Connection field trip last fall: the nipple cactus. The nice thing about iNaturalist is that an average guy like me, who knows little about cacti, can post a photo and the experts will step in and help confirm what it is. In this case, TPWD Urban Biologist Sam Kieschnick identified it as a MisThree members of the amazing TCU herping team! souri foxtail cactus. There you go: A Missouri foxtail cactus observed at Tandy Hills Natural Area! I had a great time, and Crosstimbers Connection was proud to participate in this effort to better understand the many species at Tandy Hills. Once again we can be delighted and amazed at the diversity of life that is held in trust for all of us by preserves such as this one. Wikipedia. Entry for “Bioblitz� (Internet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BioBlitz) Young, Don (2016) Prairie Notes #114 (Internet: http://www.tandyhills.org/notes/ sense-pairie)
Missouri foxtail cactus We take people out into the woods and prairies, looking for reptiles, amphibians, and other wildlife. We also give presentations to bring the woods and wildlife to the people with slides, stories, and animals. Additionally, we publish Frog Calls and the Post Oak & Prairie Journal to bring the natural places in north Texas to life in print and photos. We do all this without charging anything (but we gladly accept tax-deductible contributions Connecting people with nature in north Texas
to keep us going). We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Please visit us on the web at www.crosstimbersconnection.org, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ CrosstimbersConnection.
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