A pictorial ramble along the Grand River

The beautiful Grand River, as seen from Lake County Metropark's River Road property in Lake County, a state and national treasure. I shared a bit of last Sunday's trip HERE, focusing on the bounty of "dancer" damselflies that we found. But we saw much more, and a few photographic highlights follow.

Three major features of the Grand River can be seen in this photo. One, the thick buffer of forest, which is typical along most of the Grand's course and the reason its water quality is so good. Two, steep shale bluffs punctuate many of the river bends, providing an aesthetic contrast and providing habitat for some interesting flora and fauna. Finally, the thick bed of "grass" in the foreground is actually a dense stand of Emory's sedge, Carex emoryi. This riparian sedge is abundant along the Grand and its luxuriant growths provide habitat for many animals.

John Pogacnik and I had barely set foot onto our first gravel bar when John spotted this tiny butterfly. A dainty sulphur, Nathalis iole! This thumbnail-sized animal is an immigrant from the deep south, and rare in northern Ohio.

Here's the dainty sulphur species account and range map from the Butterflies and Skippers of Ohio book. This rather academic work was published in 1992, so after two decades it's a bit dated, but the map does show a blank for Lake County, where we saw the butterfly. A county record, apparently.

One of the most gorgeous damselflies to be found along our streams is the American rubyspot, Hetaerina americana, and we saw plenty. The male is on the left, and has a firm grip on his female. They have either just mated, or are soon going to. Rubyspots are strongly associated with streamside beds of Emory's sedge, and especially water-willow, Justicia americana.

A pair of stream bluets, Enallagma exsulans, caught in the act of mating. The male (blue) has the brownish female held by her neck in his forceps-like claspers, and she has brought her abdomen tip around to join with his genitalia. Such a mating position is termed a "mating wheel", and when so joined the damselflies form the shape of a heart.

We stumbled into this interesting clubtail dragonfly; a massive bruiser in comparison to the previous two damselflies. It is a black-shouldered spinyleg, Dromogomphus spinosus.

This was a very cool find and I was pleased to be able to make a decent image of the animal. It is the eupatorium borer moth, Carmenta bassiformis, and it is most unmothlike in appearance. This species is a day flyer, and an apparent wasp or hornet mimic.

We saw several of these colorful and ornately marked Henry's marsh moth caterpillars, Simyra henrici, all in beds of Emory's sedge. The sedge beds were often interspersed with prairie cord grass, Spartina pectinata, and it may be this grass that these caterpillars are feeding on.

Looking rather lobsterlike is this robust crayfish, Cambarus robustus. The Grand River is full of crayfish of several species.

Hunting from some streamside vegetation was this huge fishing spider, which I think is Dolomedes tenebrosus. Fishing spiders on the hunt will float their forelegs and palps on the water's surface, and use them to sense aquatic prey. Should a bug or even a small fish cause perturbations to the water nearby, the spider will be on it in a flash.

Marcia Rubin spotted this colorful red eft, Notophthalmus viridescens, scaling a moist shaley bank. Efts are the immature stage of the red-spotted newt, and can remain in this orange land-dwelling form for several years. Eventually it'll transform into an adult and commence life as a strictly aquatic salamander.

Of course, we stopped to admire and make photos of the bizarre freshwater sponges, Spongilla lacustris, which I wrote about HERE. This was a "life sponge" for me, and about everyone else who has seen them here.

We were stopped dead in our tracks by the spectacle of several six foot tall turk's-cap lilies, Lilium superbum, in full flower. Turk's-caps rank high on the list of showiest wildflowers, and they are not common in Ohio. Plenty of the orange beauties can be found along the Grand River, though.

We made a special side trip for this plant, the few-flowered St. John's-wort, Hypericum ellipticum. It is threatened in Ohio, and I had only seen it once before, at this very spot some 15 years prior. It was nice to see this rarity still prospering at this site.

Huge, luxuriant beds of lizard's-tail, Saururus cernuus, line the Grand's banks in places, and this aquatic plant was in full flower. It seems that everywhere one turns along this river there is something noteworthy to see,

I am most appreciate of all the organizations that work hard to conserve the Grand River and its spectacular habitats, and I hope you get the opportunity to explore this river someday, if you haven't already.

Exotic dancers

The Grand River in Lake County, Ohio, as seen from Lake County Metropark's Hidden Valley Park. The Grand is a state and national treasure, and its status as an official State Scenic and Wild River is fitting. Among Ohio Ohio biologists, the Grand is fabled for its diversity of aquatic life. The stream is tops or nearly so when it comes to Lake Erie tributaries that are largely unspoiled.

Photo: Marcia Rubin

Your narrator (left) and John Pogacnik photograph a freshwater sponge, Spongilla lacustris, in shallow waters of the Grand River. John is a biologist for Lake Metroparks, and one of the finest field naturalists that I know. An outing with him is always sure to produce a bonanza of interesting finds, and I was long overdue for a Pogacnik expedition. His and others discovery of the odd freshwater sponges, as reported HERE, spurred me to arrange yesterday's Grand River exploration. We were also joined by photographer Marcia Rubin; check some of her work out HERE.

I have never been much for jazzy LL Bean-style field clothes, especially on aquatic forays. Such wear is expensive, and I'd just destroy it in fairly short order. If the weather is warm and the water nice, I prefer shorts, an old shirt, and sandals for my creek wading. And wade we did, probably covering two miles or more of river bottom sloshing.

Photo: Marcia Rubin

Of course, one can pay a price for the comfort of sandals. We had just exited the stream after our last trek, and popped into a streamside store at the campground whose owners had kindly allowed us access to their property. I was talking to the lady behind the counter, when I looked down and noticed my feet were bleeding rather profusely. We politely excused ourselves, and went outside to make photos of the leeches that were busily wolfing down my hard-earned blood before I dealt with them.

Leeches, which are segmented worms (I don't know which species these are but will look into it, of course), can cause fairly prolific localized bleeding. To encourage unfettered blood flow, the animal releases a powerful anticoagulant. Their bites are not painful, and it takes a big one 15 minutes or so to become fully sated, at which point it detaches and drops off. If you're in the water the entire time, you may well never know what bit you, until you see the bloody wound later.

A gorgeous dusky dancer, Argia translata, sports ball-shaped eyes of the deepest blue-purple. Dancers are a type of damselfly in the genus Argia, and there are seven dancer species in Ohio. With one exception, all of the dancers are species of creeks and rivers. It quickly became apparent, as predicted by John, that the Grand River would produce scores of dancers and we ended up devoting much of our time to seeking out exotic dancers and photographing them. We were quite successful, finding all six possible species. The seventh is the seepage dancer, Argia bipunctulata, which is a species of fens and marshy springfed seepages.

This dusky dancer was good enough to use Pogacnik's hand as a perch, which provides scale. All of the dancers are close to this size. This shot shows a field character for identifying Argia; dancers typically hold their wings up and slightly elevated above the abdomen, while other damselflies such as bluets hold their wings lower, so that the abdomen is sandwiched between the wings.

I had to cheat a bit on this one. We did see a number of blue-fronted dancers, Argia apicalis, as shown above, but for whatever reason I never made a photo of one. This picture is of a blue-fronted dancer that I shot  along the Scioto River near my house in central Ohio. Blue-fronts are often very common along rivers, and males are a distinctive robin's egg blue.

A miniature work of art is this male blue-ringed dancer, Argia sedula. Its deep rich turquoise eyes and upper thorax stripes contrast nicely with the paler blue thorax lateral stripes and blue-tipped abdomen. This specimen is perched on a blade of Emory's sedge, Carex emoryi. This riparian sedge forms extensive colonies along the Grand River, and its lush meadows provide an important habitat for damselflies and dragonflies.

Perhaps my favorite damselfly is the violet dancer, Argia fumipennis. One doesn't see many purple insects flying about, and the unusual color makes the adult males really stand out. This is a pair in tandem; the male (right) holding the female by her neck with his cerci, or claspers. While mating, male dancers keep a tight hold on the female lest she be snapped up by some other male. At some point, she will twist her abdomen around and connect with the male just below and aft of his thorax, and the transfer of sperm will be made.

This is the well-named powdered dancer, Argia moesta. Adult males are a distinctive whitish-blue on the thorax and abdomen tip. Powdered dancers were by far the most numerous species of dancer that we saw. Their typical perch is on a rock in the river, but animals in such a setting often don't look very good in photos. I waited until one obliging lit on some sedges; the green vegetation makes the dancer really pop.

The powdered dancers were at the peak of mating activities, and their communal ovipositing was a spectacular sight. Females have a bladelike ovipositor which they use to insert their eggs into saturated wood or other plants. There are about a dozen pairs on the branch above, which is floating in the river. The males keep a firm grip on the female as she sticks her eggs into the wood, and they project upwards like little puppets.

We noticed that floating leaves were especially coveted by the powdered dancers, and this sugar maple leaf is completely covered with ovipositing females and their attendant males. These insects are not social; it is the shared need for suitable ovipositing substrates that bring them together like this. It is an uneasy truce, and the males are constantly bumping each other and otherwise squabbling.

John's theory is that powdered dancers seek objects that can float for extended periods to lay their eggs on, as this is a very efficient way to migrate to new locales and thus expand their range. This maple leaf, which was moving downstream with the current, might end up a mile or so downstream before it lodges against something and the dancers' eggs hatch. Such a tactic is an incredibly effective way of ensuring that the species rapidly colonizes an entire stream corridor. The powdered dancers seem to be the most advanced of the damselflies in regards to "rafting migration".

All of these dancers were but a small part of the assemblage of animals and plants that we found, and I'll try and share some of the other finds later.

Freshwater Sponge!

Photo: Wikimedia Commons, photographer unattributed

Orange and tubelike, a common antlers sea sponge, Axinella polypoides, grows among other sponges on the  sea floor, probably somewhere in the Indian or Pacific oceans. These strange organisms are familiar to viewers of Jacques Cousteau type shows, or people who are fortunate enough to dive in such places.

 Photo: John Pogacnik

While hopelessly landlocked in my office yesterday, I was texted a photo of a bizarre growth by John Pogacnik, who was, along with some others, exploring the Grand River. Neither he, I, or anyone he was with at the time recognized this thing. A quick bit of sleuthing by Judy Semroc led to Tim Wood of Wright State University, who was able to identify the organism. It is a freshwater sponge!

Dr. Wood studies freshwater bryozoans, which are in a different phylum than sponges, but he obviously doesn't ignore other strange underwater critters and pinned this one to the correct family, and even genus. It is a sponge in the genus Spongilla, and may be the species Spongilla lacustris.

This is a totally new one on me, and indeed the find offers me my first blogging foray into the Phylum Porifera, a group made up of simple filter-feeding animals. There may be as many as 10,000 species of sponges worldwide, and the vast majority of them live in oceans. I had no idea that we had freshwater sponges in Ohio; learn something new everyday!

Photo: John Pogacnik

This sponge is one of few cases - at least in these parts - where it would be easy to confuse the animal and plant kingdoms. One could be forgiven for thinking that this sponge is actually some sort of odd aquatic plant, when in reality it is a simple rather formless animal.

Sponges are all about water intake efficiency, and the need to constantly draw in H2O accounts for their long tubular growth habit. The innards are comprised of long channels, and external water is drawn in through openings called ostia. Lashlike flagella beat near the ostia, and draw in the water from which minute organisms, algae, bacteria and who knows what else are extracted and digested. Because of the need for clear water to feed in, sponges apparently fare poorly in waters that are excessively silted or otherwise polluted.

John and company found these sponges at Lake County Metropark's River Road property, an area known for its outstanding aquatic health. Not too far away is Ohio's only known site for riverweed, Podostemum ceratophyllum, an aquatic plant that only grows in high-quality streams. I'm sure it is no coincidence that these sponges are in the Grand River; another interesting piece of evidence that testifies to the topnotch ecological health of this State Scenic and Wild River.

Kudos to Lake County Metroparks, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Western Reserve Land Conservancy, Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, and everyone else who works to keep the Grand pristine. I wrote a piece about one of TNC's Grand River projects RIGHT HERE. Maybe few people would care about freshwater sponges, but I think they are quite cool indeed, and am glad that we still have streams that will support such life.

P.S.: If you know anything about the presence of these sponges in Ohio, please let me know.

Cleveland's City Mission donates valuable land

In a wonderful fit of irony, as I was composing my last post on the invasive grass Phragmites australis and its takeover of Mentor Marsh in the lower reaches of the Grand River, Randy Edwards wrote with exciting news from the upper reaches of the Grand River. Randy is the media relations manager for the Ohio Chapter of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), an organization that protects and conserves some of the best lands in the state.

The Upper Grand River and vicinity is about as close to wilderness as you'll find in northeastern Ohio. Not only is the stream one of Ohio's most pristine waterways, but terrestrial habitats along the river corridor are diverse, largely intact, and full of biodiversity including many rare species.

This map depicts the jigsaw puzzle of protected lands along part of the Grand, with the centerpiece being the 1300-acre Morgan Swamp. Morgan is owned by TNC, and is a fantastically wild and swampy place that is a treasure trove of wetland diversity. The sinuous course of the Grand River is outlined in blue.

Land protection efforts began along the Grand in 1956, when the Ohio Division of Wildlife began acquisition for the Grand River Wildlife Area, which now totals nearly 7,500 acres. The Cleveland Museum of Natural History made its inaugural purchase in 1982 of an area now known as the Grand River Terraces. And, of course, TNC has added large and significant holdings to the total.

In 2009, the Ohio Chapter of TNC purchased a vital add-on to Morgan Swamp - 200 acres from City Mission, a Cleveland-based charity which owned a camp adjacent to the swamp. And now comes news that City Mission has donated the remaining 58 acres of the camp property to TNC, completing acquisition of critical streamside acreage in the Morgan Swamp region.

This donation is a charitable gift of the highest order, and helps to ensure that Ohioans far into the future will have wildlands along the Grand River. The positive ramifications of protecting land along the Grand are numerous and varied, and I want to share a few of the area's highlights below. Many thanks to Ian Adams for the use of a few of his stunning photos. Ian is one of the country's best photographers of natural history; check him out RIGHT HERE.

Photo: Ian Adams

Morgan Swamp features one of Ohio's best hemlock swamps. Such habitat is exceedingly rare this far south, and supports many species of rare plants and animals. Boreal breeding birds such as Hermit Thrush and Winter Wren occur here, along with over 100 other nesting bird species.

Photo: Jim McCormac

Scores of unusual plants occur in Morgan Swamp, including a half-dozen species of orchids. This is Crane-fly Orchid, Tipularia discolor. Its ghostly white spires of flowers push from the humus of the forest floor in mid-summer, when they are hard to see in the dimly lit understory. The flowers are noctodorous: they produce a fragrance only at night, which lures moth pollinators.

Photo: Ian Adams

A soggy lowland is brightened by emerald Royal Ferns, Osmunda regalis. Ohio has lost over 90% of its pre-settlement wetlands, and conservation of our remaining bogs, fens, swamps, and marshes is vital. Biological diversity spikes enormously in such places, and their value is not just to the curious naturalist. Wetlands reduce downstream flooding, improve aquifers, provide breeding habitat for long-distance migrant Neoptropical birds, and harbor an incredible array of flora.

Photo: Jim McCormac

Several species of salamanders breed in Morgan Swamp's wetlands, including Spotted Salamanders. The Spotted Salamander is one of a group known as "mole salamanders", as they spend nearly all of their lives subterraneously, tunneling through the soil. When triggered by the first warm rainy nights of spring, Spotted Salamanders and others of their ilk burst from the ground and engage in a fantastic overland migration to age-old woodland pools where they court, mate, and lay eggs.

Photo: Jim McCormac

High on the flashy list of rare plants is the gaudy Turk's-cap Lily, Lilium superbum. It's worth a mid-summer trip to Ashtabula County and Morgan Swamp just to see this jaw-dropper. A vigorous Turk's-cap can tower well over your head and the plant's pendant pedicels might support a dozen of the fawn-speckled orange blooms.

Photo: Ian Adams

Central to all of the land protection efforts in this region is the Grand River. In recognition of the stream's outstanding attributes, it has been designated a State and National Wild and Scenic River. Permanently protecting riparian lands such as the newly donated City Mission property helps to protect water quality of streams. And ensuring the waters of the Grand River stay clean and healthy has consequences far beyond Ashtabula County and Ohio. The Grand dumps its waters into Lake Erie, which is a world class perch and walleye fishery, and fishing alone generates tens of millions of dollars annually, and fish depend upon clean water.

A number of highly sensitive organisms live within the waters of the Grand River, and this plant is certainly one of the oddest. It is Riverweed, Podostemum ceratophyllum, and it is a true flowering vascular plant. By way of adhesive discs, the Riverweed attaches itself to rocks in swiftly flowing riffles, and grows under the water. The Grand supports Ohio's only known population of Riverweed. This species has disappeared in many places due to water quality degradation.

Photo: Illinois Department of Natural Resources

A staggering 74 species of fish have been found in the Grand River, including the little charmer above. It's a Sand Darter, and these tiny bottom-dwelling fish are utterly dependent upon clean sandy stream bottoms. If excessive siltation enters the stream and smothers the sand with a layer of mud, it's curtains for the Sand Darter, and it has disappeared in many parts of its range.

Without doubt, the Grand River and its corridor ranks near the top of Ohio's natural treasures. Major thanks are due the City Mission for helping to ensure that this resource is protected well into the future.