Leech becomes teaching tool

HOLDEN – One warm day of wading with the children in Fields Pond Audubon nature camp, a junior counselor came back from the edge of Fields Pond to the building and discovered he had a leech on his leg.

What a great role model he was. He was very calm about it, and even made it into a “teaching moment.” He called all the camp children to come over and see it. Of course, the children were fascinated, and his calm demeanor taught them that it was nothing to panic about. That junior counselor, of high school age, is a born teacher.

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Unusual birds are showing up locally – Great Egrets. They are pure white and a little smaller than the familiar Great Blue Heron.

They are large and obvious, standing tall in a shallow marsh or pond. They are spectacular and attract attention. Reports of this unusual bird are coming in from Unity, Orrington, Holden, Orono and other nearby townships in Penobscot County.

This is the season of “post-nesting dispersal.” It is a time for the young and adult birds to explore, looking for good areas to feed in now, and possibly to nest in next spring.

Birders are always on the lookout for rarities, from mid-July through October, of post-nesting dispersal for all species. At some time, different for each species, migration will start in earnest; the random wandering of dispersal will change to a consistent direction south.

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Frogs disperse, too. The young leave the pond from which they metamorphose from the tadpole stage. On rainy nights, they disperse in enormous numbers. Young green frogs or bullfrogs are looking for a new pond to colonize. Young wood frogs, gray tree frogs or spring peepers are looking for an upland forested area to hibernate in.

Where the dispersal route of frogs goes across a road, mayhem occurs on rainy nights, unnoticed by most people. Those who drive slowly on back roads on a rainy night, with headlights on low, can see hundreds of small frogs hopping in the road.

The aftermath is not a pretty sight. Raccoons and skunks are the clean-up crew; some of these in turn become road kill, and at dawn the crows finish the job. Just another reason not to drive on a rainy night.

For information on Fields Pond Audubon Center, call 989-2591.