Naming the Creeks

Up until now we have been referencing our position in the Tom Turkey management area by referring to one of the many creeks than run through it. We have crossed enough creeks now that you would have to refer to the previous reports to try to figure out which one we are at now. To more precisely identify them we will try numbering them as follows:

Creek#1: This is the first creek north of the path below the field station to the river and was roughly where the UM students worked cleared honeysuckle to in January.

Creek#2: This is the creek below which we cleaned out the rest of the honeysuckle on the August Ford workday and some of our first weekday workdays. It is almost directly below our second base camp.

Creek#3: In the area south of this creek we had two base camps, saw the rattlesnake, temporarily lost an applicator, and Russell cut down the big Common Buckthorn.

Creek#4: This creek is below the base camp where our seats are ash tree trunks. The area south of it had the huge four-trunked honeysuckle, the green Gray Tree Frog, and the bee hive in the tree trunk we sat next to for our first break on September 2 (we moved the break area after we noticed the bees). We built one brush pile in this creek to slow down erosion and because it is easier to throw branches down into the creek than up onto a pile and the branches should rot faster if the bottom ones are sitting in water. With no salmon runs, I don't think there will be any ecological damage.

These creeks do not run all the way from the the field to the river but start somewhere below the slope and get wider and deeper as they approach the river.

Russell will decide whether to delineate these creeks on the maps and whether to devise more interesting names. I suppose he could name them after volunteers, i.e. Katie's Creek, Karla's Creek, Bob's Brook, Sam's Stream, Russell's Rivulet. If you have a better name for any of them, make a comment.

Lifetime Handles

The fiberglass handles on our Corona compound action loppers eventually weaken and break. In the past we had no way to repair them so the cutting jaws were thrown out and the handles were recycled as stakes to mark plantings.

Now we are experimenting with using aluminum pipe to replace the handles. The first step in the modification is to drill out or grind off the end of the rivet which holds the original handles on, then use a long punch to punch it out. The smaller pipe fits over the cutting jaw extension but since the pipe is hollow and cylindrical and the extension is flat, it does not fit tightly. This is resolved by shaping some half round wood molding to fit in the pipe on either side of the extension. Lacking precise forming equipment, the wood will either be slightly large, in which case it can be hammered in, or a little loose, in which case it can be dipped in water, then coated with Gorilla Glue just before insertion. Gorilla glue expands and dries to a dense foam which will fill the gaps and hold it in place. 6mm holes are drilled in the wood after it is inserted and bolts are then used to replace the rivets which formerly held the handles on.

The larger pipe fits over the black end of the handle. The OD of the handle is 1.50 inches and the ID of the pipe is 1.49 inches so some material on the end of the handle has to be ground off. It is a hard rubbery material. I used a drill press with a cylindrical, flat end 6mm diameter silicon carbide bur from McMaster-Carr. Drilling holes in the pipe exactly opposite each other and at exactly the right distance from the end to line up with the holes in the handle was beyond my technology. The bur was used to adjust the pipe holes in the proper direction for the bolt to work. The big pipe seems to be tight but if it later loosens up we will use Gorilla Glue for it also. Red electrical tape is wrapped around the handle to make it more visible and artistic.

The first modified lopper has one big pipe and one small pipe. The smaller pipe is lighter and cheaper but not as strong. If it turns out to be strong enough it will be used for future repairs. If it breaks we will use the larger pipe. Heavy duty fiberglass reinforced plastic pipe was investigated but it was heavier and more expensive than the large aluminum pipe.

The pipes were ordered from OnlineMetals.com, the same place we get the aluminum angle for upgrading the cutters. They have pipes of different diameters, wall thicknesses, and materials and they give the detailed dimensions. If you want a high tech lopper and need to get rid of a lot of money, you could order brass, stainless steel or titanium pipes.

Working in The Rain

We had a rainy day on Saturday but we cut buckthorn and honeysuckle and herbicided anyway.

One reason people don't herbicide in the rain is that they think the herbicide will get washed off. If you are using herbicide with surfactant, in accordance with the label, and apply it as soon as the cut is made, it will soak in almost immediately and once it has soaked in it cannot wash off. The photo shows stumps that we herbicided on Saturday morning when it was raining. On Saturday afternoon it rained hard. The photo was taken on Sunday morning. You can tell from the dye that the herbicide did not wash off.





The other concern about herbiciding in the rain is that the sponge will get soaked with rain and then you will be applying water instead of herbicide. This can be prevented by keeping a cover on the sponge until you are ready to use it. We use covers made from bottled water containers. If you don't drink bottled water yourself you can get empties from the side of the road, parking lots, or open trash containers.


A possible research project would be to quantify how much rain it would take to reduce herbicide effectiveness. It would be a two year project since it would take until the second year to see how many resprouts there were. The first year would consist of designing the experiment, applying herbicide in various amounts of rain and marking the stumps. In the second year the resprouts would be counted, a statistical analysis done, and conclusions and recommendations determined.


Cut stump treatment is different from foliar spray since the herbicide soaks into the wood very quickly and takes from an hour to up to 24 hours to fully soak into foliage.

Coyote Hot Date Site

This scratched up sand is on the shore of West Lake. Since it has large canine footprints it may be a sign of coyotes. When a female is in proestrus her urine becomes increasingly attractive to the male. He will sniff intensively over an area she has just urinated in, then urinate over it and scrape the ground vigorously with his paws. The urination/scraping behavior continues with increasing frequency until the female comes into heat for two to five days sometime between mid January and late March. Once the female chooses a partner they may remain paired for a number of years.

Gestation lasts from 60 to 63 days. Litter size averages 6. The young are born blind, limp-eared and pug-nosed. Three to four weeks after birth, the young begin to emerge from the den and by 35 days they are fully weaned. They are fed regurgitated food by both parents. Male pups disperse from the dens in the fall while females stay with the parents and form the basis for the pack.

This is a Cabbage butterfly caterpillar on a garlic mustard leaf. Cabbage butterfly caterpillars feed on plants in the mustard family and garlic mustard is in the mustard family but I haven't heard of these caterpillars eating garlic mustard.

Butterflies sometimes lay eggs on plants that the caterpillars cannot reach maturity on. They start to feed, maybe make it through a few instars, and then die. An example of this is the West Virginia White. The original food plant is toothwort. The adult gets confused by the smell of garlic mustard, lays eggs on it, and the caterpillars die. This has resulted in West Virginia White populations being drastically reduced as garlic mustard has spread.

I don't think this caterpillar is going to die from the garlic mustard because it is full-sized. Caterpillars frequently move from their host plant when they are ready to pupate but I didn't see any other mustard family plants nearby. Could it be that one of our Cabbage butterflies has evolved the ability to eat garlic mustard?

Even if our Cabbage butterflies develop a taste for garlic mustard, they probably won't be a good biologic control for garlic mustard because they taste too good to predators such as wasps, spiders, and birds. This is why they have protective coloration instead of conspicuous coloration. We will have to keep pulling unless and until other biologic controls are proven out and released.

Butterfly Survey-July 13

Roger Kuhlman surveyed the fen areas of the preserve with Russell's assistance on July 13. He was hoping to find Swamp Metalmark and Mitchell's Satyr (he didn't) but he did find 30 other species. The list is below:

Eyed Brown 11
Cabbage White 7
Pearl Crescent 39
Wood Nymph 30
Great Spangled Fritillary 5
Broad-winged Skipper 1
Red-spotted Purple 4
Viceroy 8
Red Admiral 9
Dun Skipper 4
Little Glassywing 1
Tiger Swallowtail 4
Banded Hairstreak 2
Clouded Sulphur 6
Delaware Skipper 3
Silver-spotted Skipper 3
Little Wood Satyr 1
Summer Azure 3
Meadow Fritillary 4
American Painted Lady 1
Orange Sulphur 6
Monarch 9
Black Swallowtail 1
Checkered Skipper 1
Eastern-tailed Blue 2
Spicebush Swallowtail 2
Appalachian Eyed Brown 2
Wild Indigo Duskywing 1
Mulberry Wing 6
Mourning Cloak 1

Floodplain Forest Work April and May 2007

This is a summary of the areas that were worked on, the invasives removed, and future plans for the floodplain forest. "North" means upstream, even though we know that with the River Raisin, upstream can be any direction.

In the area north of the trail and between the channel and the fen all Garlic Mustard and Dame's Rocket, of which there wasn't much to begin with, was removed, along with some rose and honeysuckle. There is small rose and buckthorn remaining in the northwest corner of this section near the fen and more buckthorn on the western edge near the fen. It will be worked on next spring.

All blooming Garlic Mustard, Dame's Rocket, and honeysuckle was removed from the island. The island was also in good shape so the work here was done by individuals not on scheduled volunteer days. There is a thick patch of small rose and many garlic mustard seedlings in the southeast corner. The worst of the rose will be herbicided this summer and the garlic mustard will be herbicided in the fall and winter. Any rose and garlic mustard that survives the herbicide will receive hand pulling next spring. There is Reed Canary Grass on the south end next to the channel. The grass closest to the water will receive glyphosate and the grass further away will receive Poast Plus this summer. Poast Plus kills only grass but isn't allowed within 10 feet of open water. It would have been better to spray the beginning of June before the grass bloomed but other things were higher priority.

The tiny island just south of the bigger island had all the blooming garlic mustard removed but not all the Dame's Rocket. It has many small roses and honeysuckles. Dame's Rocket and Garlic Mustard rosettes will be herbicided in the fall and on warm winter days. Hand pulling will be used on remaining invasives in the spring.

The rest of Trillium was worked on during volunteer days. After clearing all the way to the stream in the south we started again in the north to get the ones we had missed. Some blooming Garlic Mustard and Dame's Rocket was still there when we stopped working here the end of May, more in the southern part than in the northern part. There is a little Canadian Thistle next to the path, some Reed Canary Grass in one place next to the river, and some small roses. The Canadian Thistle and Reed Canary Grass will receive one or two herbicidings this summer. Dame's Rocket and Garlic Mustard rosettes will be herbicided in the fall and winter. Those that survive this herbiciding will be the focus of the volunteer days next spring. Rose will also be pulled in the spring. Any large honeysuckle that we missed in prior years was cut down and most of the small ones were pulled. Remaining honeysuckle will be eliminated as it is found.

The heron rookery that was in big cottonwood in the river last year is abandoned. The herons nesting in Tom Turkey may be from this rookery.

Honeysuckle, rose, buckthorn, Garlic Mustard, and Dames Rocket in the floodplain forest next to the volunteer area received cutting, hand pulling and some herbiciding this spring. Progress is being made but this area is secondary priority to the north end. The large woody plants have been mostly gone since last year but there is still work to do on the smaller ones and the herbaceous invasives.