Road-crossing Kingsnake

I spotted this black kingsnake (Lampropeltis getulus) on my afternoon constitutional. He was about 3-1/2 feet long and was looking for a place to cross the road. I used my walking stick to keep him at bay in the vegetation on the edge of the road in order to take a picture. He kept slithering further along the edge of the road and was quite intent on crossing. After 3 or 4 attempts to slow him down, he finally stopped long enough for this picture. Black kingsnakes are known to vibrate, hiss, and strike when cornered but this chap was not apparently annoyed sufficiently by my interruptions to his travels to do so. Right after I took the picture he scooted ahead of me and across the road. 

 

Watershed Watch Training

My oldest son and I have been volunteer water samplers and habitat/biological assessors for Four Rivers Watershed Watch for five years. My son will be going away to college in the fall so he is passing the torch to son no. 2. Providentially, the organization is implementing enough changes to the procedures and criteria that re-training was deemed necessary for all samplers, so it was very timely for son no. 2. The lecture part of the training was held at the local community college. We then went to a local stream for some hands-on biological sampling as well as habitat assessment. It was unseasonably warm and we found many examples of dragonfly, mayfly, and stonefly nymphs. This creek is unusually low for this time of year but it did make it easier for the training.

Bat Houses

I had a purple martin house for at least 10 years and nary a single purple martin. This year I decided to take it down and replace it with two bat houses. It isn't that bats eat more mosquitos than purple martins as some have asserted, since research of the stomach contents of both has found that neither consume many mosquitos. Rather, I regularly see bats flitting about around dusk so I know that they are already in the area. The habitat surrounding our home is quite diverse including forest, open fields, creek, wetlands, and a pond within 100 yards.

I used these plans from the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife as the basis for my houses. I placed them back-to-back on one post with one house oriented South and the other North. This will allow the bats to choose a warmer or cooler house depending ambient temperature fluctuations.

I made the bat house largely from Oriented Strand Board (OSB) for two reasons. First, I wanted the rough surface on the interior to provide gripping for the bats and second, it is inexpensive.

For the post, I joined together two 12 foot long 4"X4" treated timbers using a scarf joint and two 3/4 inch bolts. With 3 feet of the bottom post buried below grade, that places the bat houses around 20 feet off of the ground.

 

On the interior boards, I sawed shallow horizontal grooves equally spaced in 1 inch intervals. This is to provide additonal gripping points for the bats. I dyed the interior boards with a dark brown stain.

I made some small shingles from larger asphalt shingles to protect the roof of each house. I also placed a finial on top of the post for purely aesthetic purposes. I sealed all of the joints with caulk and I painted the exterior of the house with three coats of exterior latex stain. Bats like the interior of their summer roosting house to be between 80-100 degF. Your geography will determine whether you paint it a light, medium or dark color. Based on our location, I chose a medium color. In addition this should protect the wood and it is certainly more pleasing to the eye than the unpainted OSB.

First Bluebird Clutch

Over the winter, I repaired the entrance hole to the bluebird house as the original hole had become somewhat enlarged over the years.

Our first eastern bluebird fledglings, their four heads buried, probably one or two days old.

And five days later.

Luna Moth

 This rather lethargic Luna moth (Actius luna) was hanging around the rear of the house this early this morning. The left hind wing was slightly damaged but it did not appear to affect his flight later in the day. It should do for his vaporous one week life.

Scarback Sighting

This was the first sighting of Scarback, the eastern box turtle that has lived on our smallholding for at least 7 or 8 years. He was found buried in the side of a drainage ditch near the driveway. He appeared to be quite content, so we left him nestled in the muck to enjoy the last of the cool weather.

 

Earthquake

We had an earthquake this morning that registered 4.0 on the Richter scale. The epicenter was on the New Madrid Fault not far from Sikeston, MO. which is within 50 miles of my home here in Kentucky. It occured at 4:00 am and did not wake me, but many in the area reported feeling it. Being this close the New Madrid Fault, we have many small earthquakes, but it is unusual for ones of this magnitude.

Post Snowpocolypse Snow

We managed to escape the Jan. 31 - Feb. 2 massive winter snowstorm which was humorously named Snowcopolypse or Snowmageddon. The freezing precipitation from that storm stayed just north of the Ohio River Valley and we managed to dodge the bullet but did receive some needed rain.


However, the following week, the National Weather Service had predicted that we would receive 1-3" of snow during the morning of February 7th. They were sticking to that forecast in the early morning but by 1 pm, we had received 8" of wet snow! The snow was seemingly magnetic, connecting itself to anything that came across its path.


The next day, the Paducah Sun carried an article explaining the botched forecast. One local meteorologist, who had predicted 2-4" said "Low pressure passing to the region's south combined with other atmospheric conditions to intensify the banding of snow. Banding is when a storm concentrates precipitation in the same area again and again."


The article went on to quote another meteorologist who said, "Snow is notoriously difficult to predict. Meteorologists must keep in mind the temperatures at various levels of the atmosphere-and on the ground-as well as how much moisture is in the air, where the fronts are located and how they are moving."


It is somehow comforting that in spite of all of our powerful tools used to predict the weather, there are still surprises. We enjoyed the day at home.

Update: Two days later received another 3" under much colder temperatures. This time the meteorologists warned that "certain areas might receive more snow due to banding". Temperatures dropped down to -6 °F. Two days later, we had a high of 70 °F. Bizarre.

July Watershed Sampling

My son and I do water sampling in a nearby stream for the Four Rivers Watershed Watch. The stream that we sample ultimately feeds into the West Fork of the Clarks River. We have had a dry summer and as of last week, we expected to find nothing but stagnant pools in our stream. However, we received a significant rain just days before sampling and the stream was flowing reasonably well for this time of year.


We always measure the pH, dissolved oxygen, and water temperature.


The sample we take in July is specifically for the presence of E.coli bacteria. The analysis is performed at the Hancock Biological Station, which is a field research facility located on Kentucky Lake and operated by Murray State University.


This is what we have to walk through to get from the road to our access point on the stream. The machete is always much needed.

Is the New Madrid Fault at Fault?

Was the source of what are commonly refered to as the New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811 and 1812 really in the Wabash Seismic zone of Southern Illinois? This was indeed initially reported on our local NPR station, WKMS.

WKMS, along with other news outlets on "the wire" reported:

"New research by U.S. Geological Survey scientists is casting doubt on the long-held idea the New Madrid Fault Zone in Missouri's Bootheel unleashed a series of devastating earthquakes in 1811 and 1812. In a new study, the researchers say the culprit may have instead been the Wabash Valley Fault Line that runs through southern Illinois."



Later, WKMS updated the story with a correction. In the updated story, Dr. Susan Hough, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey states that in actuality, her article introduces evidence that the smallest of the three New Madrid earthquakes might have come from the Wabash Valley zone of Southern Illinois and Indiana. She states, "...which would sort of make it a triggered earthquake, triggered by the New Madrid activity. But there's no question that the sequence was overwhelmingly in the New Madrid seismic zone. So the idea that, 'Oh we were wrong and the activity was in Illinois', that's just not what the study ever said."

Thus, from this statement, Dr. Hough clarifies that her report did not imply that the 1811/12 New Madrid quakes really occurred in the Wabash Valley, but that the Wabash Valley quake was perhaps triggered by the New Madrid quake.

At this point, I thought that the misunderstanding had been clarified but the report goes on to quote retired Murray State University professor Lynne Leasure who says, "That's one of the relatively newer ideas, that it might be remotely triggered. There was a possibility that one of the earthquakes in this series might have occurred in Southern Illinois. They do have surface evidence of sandblows. And the sandblows are very common in southeast Missouri from this event."

She seems to be saying that one of the earthquakes in "this series", that series being the New Madrid series, might have occurred in Southern Illinois. What does the "it" refer to in "it might be remotely triggered"? The New Madrid quakes or the Wabash Valley quake? It is not clear but let's assume that she is referring to the Wabash Valley quake.

Now the report goes back to Dr. Hough, who states, "The January main shock... I can present evidence for why the Wabash valley is a plausible source. But the truth is that we really can't constrain the location of that event. It could have been in Western Kentucky. It could have been in New Madrid. But the observations just aren't as strong."

Huh? So now Dr. Hough does indeed suggest that the source (trigger) of the main January shock commonly attributed to the New Madrid Fault was actually in the Wabash Valley...or even possibly in Western Kentucky! I am confused. What triggered what?

The problem here does not lie in the uncertainty of Dr. Hough. Developing theories on what happened in 1811 from current data and analysis with something as complex as the inter-relationships between adjacent geological faults and seismic zones is challenging scientific work. Further, I honestly do not believe that either Dr. Leasure or Dr. Hough were as unclear as this report suggests. I think it is really just a case of sloppy reporting. Here is a suggestion for all of you budding journalists. If you initially release a story with incorrect information. Please be sure that your correction is does not further muddy the waters.