Snapping turtles at Hawksnest

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Since my childhood in the 1950s, I've seen snapping turtles at Hawksnest, usually close to Black Pond.  Years might go between sightings, but they were definitely there, and some were BIG.

Common snapping turtle crossing a road.

Carnivorous plants--Bladderwort in Black Pond

by Rex Merrill

You don't know what lurks below the surface unless you look.

One of the joys of living near a pond is being able to get out on the water for a paddle on a sunny summer day. I often make a quick circuit in a canoe or kayak just inside the zone of submerged aquatic vegetation.

Bladderwort is found in shallow water along the shore of Black Pond, near the isthmus.

Ponds on Cape Cod with toxic algae, 2009-2011

Blue-green algae creates "toxic algae blooms." They have been known to kill dogs and people. While only a few people have been sickened by algae blooms in the US, about 50 people were killed in Brazil from drinking water tainted with algae.

In 1998, four dogs were poisoned--two of them died--from drinking water at Cliff Pond in Nickerson State Park.  One of the dogs that died belonged to Jeff Hook--and he thinks the four dogs are just the tip of the iceberg.  A few years later, he had a second dog die at Cliff Pond.

Protecting fragile vegetation at Hawksnest

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The soil's surface... is the living skin of the earth.

When vegetation is destroyed, erosion creates a wound--as dangerous to the ecosystem as a festering sore.  In the resulting scars, invasive plants and animals can become established.

Healthy soil stores nutrients for plants--but with erosion, phosphorus escapes, creating imbalances in waterways downstream.

If erosion is allowed to continue unchecked, the resulting gullies will be very expensive to repair.  At Walden Pond State Reservation near Boston, erosion that went unchecked for decades cost over a million dollars to repair.

Trail over "Sunset Hill" closed for erosion control

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Rising to a breath-taking altitude of 79 feet, "Sunset Hill" is one of the highest places in Hawksnest State Park.  A trail over the top didn't exist when the park was established, but it soon became a favorite route of equestrians and off-road vehicles.

The trail is useful, because it links Round Cove Rd. with Nathan Walker Rd.  But to provide that link, it doesn't have to go over the hilltop.

Recently, Friends of Hawksnest secured permission from the State to detour the trail away from the top of the hill.  One of the equestrians was consulted, and agreed to use the new route.

Drug use at Hawksnest

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The New York Times reports growing drug use on Cape Cod.  Recent events show drug users are causing litter and fire damage at Hawksnest.

If drug use at Hawksnest isn't stopped, it may lead to break-ins in houses surrounding the park.  Report any campfires you see to the police.  Campfires are illegal in the park and lead to water pollution.

Hash pipe found in campfire at Hawksnest--the "jackknife" they were looking for.

Hawksnest is a showcase for coastal plain ponds

The Coastal Plain Ponds of Cape Cod are mostly deep ponds formed during the last Ice Age by large chunks of ice breaking off the retreating glaciers and causing depressions in the ground called "kettle holes." If the hole was deep enough to reach the water table, then the hole filled with water and became a kettle pond.

Seasonal changes in groundwater level are mirrored by changes in the level of these ponds. The fluctuating water levels alternately flood and expose the shore, and this determines the plant types that can live in these habitats. A rich diversity of wildflowers, grasses, sedges, and rushes inhabit these shorelines, with small, sheltered ponds, and sand/peat soil mixtures having higher diversity. The sandy soils are nutrient poor, so it is not uncommon to find insectivorous plants along the shores.

Global distribution of coastal plain ponds is extremely limited, and therefore so are the plants which grow abundantly on their shores, such as Plymouth gentian (Sabatia kennedyana) and slender arrowhead (Sagittaria teres), which are mostly confined to Plymouth and Barnstable counties. The densest populations of rare species found in Massachusetts are in the Mary Dunn Pond area of Hyannis.

Rare wildlife is also found around coastal plain ponds, occasionally even bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), but they avoid ponds surrounded by homes.

Coastal plain ponds are threatened by recreational vehicle traffic, development, littering, water pollution and water table draw-down by nearby municipal wells.

Source

Coyote sighted at Hawksnest

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Alert but not afraid.

On July 12 at about sundown, I saw a coyote along the east border of Hawksnest, near Seth Whitfield Rd.  See lower right of photo.

Hiking around Hawksnest and Black ponds

The cove--or the "hawks head"-- from Walker Rd near the cemetery.



There's some lovely hiking at Hawksnest.  You can hike most of the way around the park, although at some distance from the ponds, on Nathan Walker Rd, combined with Seth Whitfield Rd (Hawksnest Rd).  These historic roads, looking much as they did 50 or 100 years ago, are one of the assets of the park.

There's a particularly charming loop that goes around both Hawksnest and Black ponds.  To avoid some very rough driving, you can park on Seth Whitfield Road near the "four corners," or closer to Queen Ann Rd.

Big rainstorm pollutes NW side of Hawksnest Pond

On Friday, morning, heavy rain pummelled Harwich while I was showing Selectman Larry Ballantine around.  It was the most intense storm in over a year, and we both were soaked to the skin.  But the pond took the worst beating.

Selectman Larry Ballantine enjoys a drenching at Hawksnest.
The black material under his feet includes campfire ashes and forest debris.

Illegal ATV use at Hawksnest continues

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Off-road vehicle use is illegal everywhere in Harwich, including Hawksnest State Park.

Off-road at Hawksnest State Park, July 7.

The Power of a Pond

Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden during his two-year stay in a tiny shack on the shores of the pond. It became a best-seller when his literary friends promoted it after his untimely death. As Thoreau gained a worldwide following for his environmental philosophy, the pond itself became a celebrity.

Now people are loving the pond to death. It receives 700,000 visitors a year, who come to worship Thoreau’s legacy, or just to swim in one of the few freshwater ponds near Boston.

Is ATV abuse a gateway crime*?



A pedestrian area in Hawksnest State Park, 8/5/10.

Use of unlicenced ATVs and dirt bikes is illegal everywhere in Harwich (except on your own property).  This abuse is mostly done by teens, with the tacit approval of their parents.

What's disturbing about this abuse is that young "recreational outlaws" are at risk of becoming real outlaws.

Events far away threaten ponds on Cape Cod

Last summer, while swimming in Hawksnest Pond, I noticed--shining in the late afternoon sun--a layer of feathery "stuff" floating on the surface. 

The next day, I found out there were big fires in Quebec--the smoke and ash had drifted over Cape Cod, turning the skies grayish.

We often hear about "algae blooms" in ponds and estuaries caused by nutrients leaking from septic systems.  But did you know--dust and smoke from far away adds to the problem?  That's why action to protect our ponds from excess nutrients is so important.

A dust-->algae-->penguin connection

View from space of the massive growth of red, green, and blue single-celled plants, in the currents flowing north.

Growth may be fed by iron in the brown dust cloud, lower left.

In the ocean, iron feeds the algae, like phosphorus does in our ponds.

"Stirring Up a Bloom Off Patagonia

Off the coast of Argentina, two strong ocean currents recently stirred up a colorful brew of floating nutrients and microscopic plant life just in time for the Southern Hemisphere's summer solstice

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of a massive phytoplankton bloom off of the Atlantic coast of Patagonia on Dec. 21, 2010.

Scientists used seven separate spectral bands to highlight the differences in the plankton communities across this swath of ocean."

This bloom of algae helps sustain penguins. The famous Punta Tombo colony of Magellanic Penguins is found on the coast just below the odd peninsula (upper center of photo). With half a million of these birds, it's the largest breeding area for Magellanic Penguins in the world.

Alaska

The North Pacific, west of Alaska, is extremely fertile. That's where the Humpback Whales come to fatten for the summer, and it supports one of the biggest fisheries in the world. This photo (below) of the Alaskan panhandle shows strong winds blowing dust into the ocean, towards the lower left.

Click to enlarge. NASA photo.

On Cape Cod, dust contributes nutrients to our ponds, especially during strong winds of early spring when the ground is bare.

Clouds of smake and ash from distant forest fires can also deliver phosphorus to the ponds.

NASA photo of fires in Quebec, 2002. Click to enlarge.

While windblown dust may be good for penguins and whales, it's bad for our ponds. It helps create toxic, smelly algae blooms--and ruins recreational values.   With so many sources of nutrients, it's important to reduce them where ever possible.

At Hawksnest, that means picking up after your dog, no fires, stopping shore erosion, and packing out all waste.

Quotes and photos thanks to NASA