Outdoors Maryland; 1011

Coming up. Discover an ancient pocket of natural history we've. Seen where Maryland adventure can sometimes lead you. To dust. And listen closely for that. Welcome homing in the garden. Outdoors Marylanders produced in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. DENR. Inspired by Nature. Meet me. In the meaning.

In the mountains especially quirks of geography create idiosyncratic nukes and crannies each with its own wildlife. And even weather. Cranes will swamp is one of these out of place places. It's a frost spot. And ancient mountain peat bog with roots in the Ice Age and towering trees that foreshadow the mighty forests of the north. Botanist Rodney barges is director of the joint central Appalachian program of the Nature Conservancy which owns and preserves cranes Phil swan. He reveals the changing face of cranes fill first in summer then in winter. Currently the preserve covers about 1600 acres and borders Garretts De Forest one of the unique things about cranes those is the state line goes right down to the middle of the swamp.

About half of it's in Maryland and about half of its in West Virginia. It has many features that today. Are like much farther north and the Canada. And northern New England. And that has other features that are more characteristic of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. 18 to 12000 years ago there was a particularly code period when a lot of northern species were either here or moved into here from far the north and the other surrounding areas because of the characteristics of where the swamps it. Those species like those cool wet environments have been able to persist as the climate warmed up and deciduous forest replaced. It one time had been tundra. The wetlands that's in the basin at two thousand five hundred feet in elevation. But when we look at the surrounding landscape we see that the ridges are even higher up to around 3000 feet higher storm systems move from the west into Maryland they hit the mountains and Garrett County raising the weather systems.

And forcing the clouds to drop their moisture as either a rain or snow. This is one of the wettest areas in Maryland. Here's the unique plume of the cranberry. One of the Northern plants that's found here cranes. The petals flare back. And almost have a shooting star quality to them. A few weeks after the Cranberries have bloomed they start to form the berries themselves come October November. Cranberries will be ripe. This is the same cranberry that's harvested. In New Jersey and Massachusetts for Thanksgiving dinners. Right here. We have hidden down among the cranberries sun to plant the sun to. Actually captures and digest insects. Sooner or later one of those ants. Is going to crawl across one of those leaves. And those little sun do droplets are sticky.

And the ant will get caught there over a matter of hours the sun to leaf will close in around it close up. Digest. The Leaf will open back up. Revealing a carcass like that. In. The grass like plant we see out on the bald. That has that cottony look to it. It's called Cotton grass. It's a actually a type the sedge. This particular species is fairly common involves up in the far north. And we believe it like a lot of other species are here because of climate changes associated with the last ice age. The tree on the right is American Larch. It's a northern conifer that comes south of the Appalachians and the southern most fight for it is here at cranes they'll swap. It is unique among our mountain conifers in that it is the only one to lose its needles in the fall. At one time most of Kriegspiel swamp consisted of larch hemlock and red spruce trees. Echoes of this ancient forest lie in the southeast

corner of the swamp. The Spruce hemlock swamp that we're standing in is probably one of the most significant natural areas in Maryland. The lighter green of the helm block. Contrasts with a deeper green of the spruce. Up higher. Red spruce. Is a true northerner and mountain plant. At the turn of the century when Western Maryland was numbered. We had spruce that were keenly two feet across and sometimes up to four feet across. All through this area you almost have to daydream to be able to envision and watch this place was like 200 years ago. Ritz birds can live for a couple hundred years. When the loggers came here they found many spruce trees that are like a hundred and fifty feet tall. Its bruises are very shallowly rooted in these wet environments. So even though they can live to be old trees. It's not unusual for ice storms in the wind. To knock them over. When the trees get knocked over.

They expose these huge mounds when Arinze and juncos are both northern species that specialize nesting in these type of places. On this side of this great mound. You see growing out of it. Little hemlock tree and little spruce trees. He's up rooted tree in the swamp. Act like the nurse logs in the Pacific Northwest. And the perfect place for the new forest trees to get started. Winter falls bigger and deeper it drains will swamp to fill is a cold valley sink in garrets high mountainous plateau. It captures snow from three directions east west and north. It's exaggerated here by cranes they'll fall. By the well and sits down in a basin. The snow lasts longer. The frost occur later in the spring and earlier in the fall. That's why northern species like the large and forests and cranes will. Buy a winner at the American large has lost their needles.

But all her other conifers the hemlocks the spruce the pines owed on their needles year round. Unlike a lot of wild berries the cranberry holds its fruit. All through the winter. So even in late winter as the snow begins to melt off you can still find the fruits as the snow melts off. The cranberries are a source of food for the winter wildlife. And the winter birds that come south from Canada search out places like cranes will swap. Evening Grosbeaks Cedar Waxwings and white throat sparrows are our northern verbs that will try to hone in on a place like Rainsville small. Here's a set of bare tracks. That's. Probably a week old in the warm spells in the winter. The Bears awake up from their winter sleep.

And will go look for food. They like these hemlock forest in and around cranes they'll swap. Because it gives the player a place to get away from human disturbance. And also because it's close to the swamp. Means there's a good food supply nearby. Places in Western Maryland like Corinne still small. Used to have snowshoe hares. When the forester logoff the snowshoe hares disappear. Unfortunately. Our habitat patches today may be too small for them. Conservationist hope that some day as this prison hemlock forest return will be able to bring the snowshoe hares back. Cranes they'll swap thousands of year census form back in the ice age. But protection efforts have been going on now for 40 years looking into the future. Hopefully it will become more of a refuge and more of a home. The remarkable diversity of the wonder and mountain plants and animals that call cranes they'll swamp

home. Maryland's natural legacy. From rushing waterways to abundant forests. Our state provides visitors a large variety of opportunities to enjoy the great outdoors. To the uninitiated figuring out where to go and what to do can be a daunting task. Help is available however in the form of a new program designed to assist visitors in getting the most out of the state's more than 350000 acres of public lands and waterways make a tourism eco tourism outdoor adventures. There's lots of different names for it. We call our program nature tourism to encompass the wide range of activities that people are enjoying the outdoors. Nita citynet is chief of the nature tourism program run by the Maryland

DNR. The mission of the program really reflects the department natural resources mission and that is to inspire a stewardship ethic in people by encouraging them to play in the outdoors. A self-guided biking trail the Green Ridge State Forest in western Maryland is one example of what the DNR is promoting. Bill see Lara's park manager for Green Ridge. This is 11 1/2 mile course about a thousand foot gain and loss in elevation rather throughout the total bike course. But most significantly a feature of relatively minor technical trails. Now a little bit of a Robot Challenge. We created this concept by the idea of meeting the needs of a wide variety of mountain bikers and their varying fitness levels. So this trail for instance there's actually four different what we call easy out option is a place where actually a bike brick and mortar could bail out they get tired and find a very quick return route back to the car. Right here this is what makes the green ridge mountain bike trail so unique for

so many people this is the first of our four different easy out options and here you have the choice of continuing 11 and a half mile long trail or turning to the right and following a county roadway a nice rural county way back here car to the left and keep going. Yeah. All right. Working. Toward. A major thrust of the program involves pairing up park visitors with qualified naturalists guides and Outfitters who can help enhance their outdoor experience. This is particularly a great way for novices to get introduced to the outdoors. We don't frankly in the state for some Park Service have the corps of naturalists and Rangers that we need to meet that growing demand and so we said hey why not look at the private sector and partner with them so that we can send the public out and to have great experiences new

experiences and at the same time support local economies in western Maryland. Visitors are frequently sent to Alan Nolan then Harold harsh of Spring Creek Outfitters near Deep Creek. We do this. 365 days a year. So with the DNR started you get the private sector involved in a lot of the stuff that works out well for the DNR they get. Real experienced. People. To work that well for the price. Thanks for bringing a little extra money here and there. One of their favorite fishing spots the Yankee game the river or yacht is among the state's most popular recreation sites where water based activities. They often bring clients here. We have this form our naturally section. That has a whole lot of fish rainbows and browns throughout the few brook trout that are coming out of doors run and sang run. As mechanics. It's not tough to learn. After a while becomes second nature you just do it don't even think about it a lot of people are are afraid. You know it looks intimidating it looks hard it

looks tough. And we do a lot of lessons and we haven't had anybody yet that couldn't learn. Here. But it's like anything else it's practice. Right technique it's timing and it's basically just get into it go with it. It's therapy. One thing about fly fishing after a while you realize it is not necessarily about catching fish. And a good day on the water is a good day on the water to catch fish. That's just a plus. A few miles away from the rushing yard visitors to Rocky Gap State Park and undertake a number of activities among them repelling Cindy Crites is one of the guides for Allegheny expeditions they're doing great as a process of being on top of a cliff or a mountain to work your way down here using ropes and other calming devices you should always have your feet shoulder width apart with your butt out and just kind of walk backwards.

Welcome to the city. Yeah like your city. Oh and most of all to let people you know get him and turn him on to the outdoors with a really good experience. I'm Bill Lane and we tie man. And then belaying is pretty much a braking system and may have another route for the hell that the person's going down if they're right handed. They have it. They hold on to their group and they take it behind them and they have the you know the ability to stop anytime they want to. They want to put all their weight into their harness. And I stick to butt out and just kind of walk away backwards down off the top of the mountain looking down. Keep your feet up against a rock. All right. It's not natural to walk backwards off of the side of the cliff. But. But after you like anything in life I think after you take the first step you know.

You take a couple steps you get the feeling you feel the rock on and if your feet and you feel secure so. And then you know you feel the Quitman everything take hold and then after that you know just that they just really just kind of let it happen. Yeah. I made it. OK. Let's go right down the road. Maryland is fortunate to have a number of rivers and bays flowing through its borders on the eastern shore at the Poca moke river canoe company helps visitors take full advantage of this natural resource. Perfect. We like to take people up the river and so they can explore see they are not nature or all the natural things about the river of birth or the poet kind of thing it's just a really really beautiful river to say. Visitors are free to take a canoe or kayak out by themselves or employ the

services of a guide and one of the Park Service naturalists. Bob Barker works out of the Snow Hill area. I go out and I am attacked you know working as a interpreter interpreter what the people see. Very very old ancient ancient type of tree this is pretty much the northernmost range. Of the bald Cypress. And of course I haven't seen any needs there. Probably we could see them if we went up in the bushes but we don't want to do that. Back when I was in forestry school my professor thought that the purpose for the knees the vertical grouse the come out the roots stick up above the water was to enable the tree to breathe. But it doesn't do it ever. There are a lot of guesses at why cypress trees have knees and mind my own personal guess and a lot other naturalists would be that it provides additional strength.

It's a very very calm soothing flatwater experience. I know that like some of the mighty rivers of Western Maryland the thrill seekers love them and they are interesting to say I don't know if I'd want a canoe on White Water canoe on one. But being on the poker which originates in the cypress swamp in Delaware and ends at the Chesapeake Bay is a very very peaceful soothing experience to me and people like me we it's almost like stepping back in time. Here's one he's pond lilies we were talking about with the hollow stem before you see the Native Americans when they were running from their enemies down the swamps. Oh brave if you wanted to hide under the water he could break off one of those stems and use it for a breathing tube until His enemies went by and then he could escape. Barker says that visitors who canoe the river it can expect to be surrounded by all types of

wildlife. From Canada geese and great blue heron to snapping turtles and a spray. River is one of the most unique rivers that you'll ever canoe on in your life. As far as I'm concerned it's a remarkable river and and we're very happy with it. We want to be able to offer these kind of adventure in nature tourism packages to the public so that they can either go out and enjoy these things on their own if they have the skills and the equipment and if they don't we offer the services of a vendor an outfitter guide who can take them out there and. Hopefully inspire them to to learn how to do it on their own more often in the future. Lutherville Maryland resident Sharon dick isn't content just to create a garden that looks

good. She also wants a garden that flutters chirps croaks and homes especially one that homes. In summer. Her backyard is filled with the hum and buzz of up to a dozen humming birds. They don't take up much space and they get so much pleasure in return. I just think they're nice and different to a backyard habitat. The species that's found in Maryland is the ruby throated Humming-Bird named for the red jewel like patch under the male's chin. And these birds truly don't take up much space. Ross Hawkins is president of the hummingbird society. The average weight is it. And without. The 10th and I mean that I think it put him hummingbirds in one envelope you can mail in for 33 cents. But size isn't the bird's only remarkable trait. The only bird. That can hover. This gives them an enormous advantage. Over other birds. For example has a blossom that is tubular and hangs down.

Other birds can easily access the power to get the nectar that might be in it. But hovering uses an enormous amount of energy. The hummingbird has to feed in theory at least every half hour for a start. I calculate. That. A man weighing a hundred and seventy pounds if he ate like a hummingbird. Would have to consume a hundred fifty five thousand calories a day. That corresponds to two hundred seventy six Big Macs. We put that in proportion. Hummingbird devotees like Sharon Dick understand that one of the best ways to attract the birds is to provide ample food. I planted a variety plants to. Attract the hummingbird which include the Panther The Texas the butterfly boy. Or applause. Lily. And we got nine different beers at this point. They just keep coming back every year. Some of those feeders hang outside the dining room window where they provide Sharon and her

husband can endless entertainment. See here it comes here it comes. Look we sit in our dining room and just watch all the antics. And we have. Long breakfasts and dinners simply so we can sit and enjoy them as long as possible. In Walkersville Maryland Jim and Teresa Gallion have also created a habitat that's hospitable to hummingbirds. The intention that we had in creating a wildlife habitat was to be able to provide food and cover and shelter and places to raise the young for the creatures that we like to see in our backyard the kinds of flowers that we've created in our garden would be. Wild column by. The daily trumpet vine and honeysuckle vine. Those really do bring in. The hummingbirds which winter in Mexico usually arrive in the galleons backyard in April. An event that merits a special mention into Reese's diary.

I started a garden diary. The first of the year. I always go in in the spring. The first Robin the first sprout the first death Adele bloom and definitely the first hummingbird. In fact hummingbirds actually make a bee line to backyard habitats like this one says the hummingbird society's Ross Hawkins. What's amazing to me is that these birds displace the delicate. There's a good chance that the ones you see in your backyard are the very same birds that you had the preceding year or the year before. Which is sort of exciting because that means if you make them happy and you give them lots of water for me if they had a flower for feeding and clean fresh mixture in the feeders. Why shouldn't they do. That. The ruby throat summer in the eastern U.S. and Canada where they breed and raise their young building tiny cup like nests in trees close to food supplies. Most people have never seen a hummingbirds nest. And that's because it's so well camouflaged and it's so small.

Here we have a sample that's been kindly provided to us today by the silvery museum. It's only about the diameter of a golf ball. The inside would just barely hold a quarter. The outside is covered with tiny pieces of lichen which have been attached to the spider web. Spider Web has also been used to attach the nets to the branches so. The chicks are fledged by early July. As summer comes to an end then food sources grow scarce. The birds prepare for their journey south. They fly to the northern Gulf Coast where they stock up on nectar before making the flight over the ocean to wintering grounds in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. We know something about the birds migration thanks to the efforts of people like Jim Gruber. He's one of only a small number of people on the East Coast licensed to undertake the delicate operation of banding ruby throated hummingbirds and his banding station in Queen Anne's County.

He uses large mist nets to catch homing birds as well as other species as they migrate through the area. This nets operate on the principle that the black nylon ash is invisible to birds if they're set against a dark background. When he does fly into the net he hits the net becomes entangled. We will then come along on untangle and pull him out of the net and take him back to the lab for banning the bands that we put on the birds and cells are made of aluminum they're very lightweight. Each band that we put on our earth is individually serially numbered ban numbers why 3 6 8 8 1. We take the band off of the string that we had formed on. We opened it up with a small band opener we then placed it around the left leg of the hummingbird squeezing. Shot with my fingers it needs fine tuning I'll take a pliers and fine tune it very gently. At that point then we age and sex the bird.

This is a young male take a wing measurement which is indicative of the size of the bird. Males being much smaller than the females. We will check for fat to see what condition it is in for Migration. He has now at. Least two point nine rounds. Most birds that we get away are right around 3 grams or about the weight of a dime. All the data we collect from banding birds here at the farm goes to the toxin Wildlife Research Center. The bird banding lab and they put it in a computer data bank and it's available for research throughout the United States and Canada. The research will give us a migratory patterns migratory timing along Gemini records of how possibly how long some hummingbirds can live with the bending completed. The bird is ready to be released to continue his journey I think.

But with any luck this bird will return next spring. Having a flash of color and a hum of activity to our gardens once again. Drop in to our website and w w w dot MP T Dot OIG to send us your comments and suggestions.