After just a half a year of residency I felt compelled to write a more in depth account of my complete awe and magnetism for this greatly unknown corner of Maryland. For decades folks like Bob Chance have illustrated the glory of nature that can be found here, but until one experiences it for themselves, they are only stories. Unfortunately it was only recently that I have traveled with Bob through his writings, using my imagination to explore those majestic places, many experienced during a simpler time that I was born too late to see with my own eyes. My account here isn’t about Bob Chance but I thought it would be unfair to even speak about this fine county without mentioning his work since he has been one of its finest spokesmen before I ever crossed the bridge over Little Gunpowder Falls. This story comes from my own journey.
If you are looking for suitable reptile habitat in the locust-like spread of asphalt and commerce, you will be hard pressed to more then an isolated remnant in the Baltimore-DC metropolitan area. Even though sliced diagonally by the east coast artery, Interstate 95, Harford County somehow remains home to some of our most sensitive and precious species, with their pristine homes left amazingly untouched.
I entered into home ownership in the southern region of Harford after an arduous search during one of the craziest markets in years. I was attracted by an affordable price, the fact that my brothers lives here, reasonable taxes, and above all else, the ability to purchase a home surrounded by wetlands for less money then one in an urban setting. The early portion of my time here was spent using the construction skills learned in my youth to transform this somewhat neglected foreclosure into a beautiful home. This job is not yet completed but at the start of spring I had afforded myself enough breathing room to give my weekends to nature.
A moment of fate struck me as the winter ice began to thaw. I was offered a volunteer position to head-up the Maryland Amphibian and Reptile Atlas (MARA) survey for my area of Harford County. The survey is a five year project to catalogue all of Maryland’s native species determining what is here and where things are found, if still found at all. Being someone who is accustomed to living a chaotic life, I gladly accepted one more commitment onto my plate. Now I had a purpose and focus for my wanderings. A few weeks passed and a warm weekend was forecasted. I knew the time had come when on a Friday night, the echoing chorus of spring peepers started calling me down to the swamp with their sweet siren song.
Suited up with chest waders, a head lamp, and my trusty pair of digital cameras (one telephoto, one waterproof), I mucked my way into the marsh only a few hundred yards from my house to see what had come alive. The peepers where deafening and the other usual suspects (green, bull, and pickerel frogs) were all present in smaller numbers. Standing there, surrounded by dead cattails, with water up to my waste, the piercing cries of the tiny tree frogs like car alarms, began gaining intensity as they accepted my presence in their home. My blood flow began to quicken, my eyes lit up, and the last remnants of winter hibernation shed from me like the skin of an old black rat snake. Spring had arrived.
When I moved here in the fall, everything was winding down and I hadn’t the time to give this area a fair shake. I was able to rescue a mud turtle and snapper from the busy roads last year, so I already know they are around here. I had the feeling that spring in this place was going to be different then any where else I had ever lived. Saturday morning I took off down the highway to the vast wetlands of southern Harford County that cradle the rivers before they intertwine their waters with that of the mighty Chesapeake. While I have been a lifelong enthusiast of all wildlife, it was turtles I was seeking that day.
Through my yearly winter research I already had an idea what I could find, but field guides don’t illustrate how difficult it actually is to find most species in a developed area like Baltimore. My first day was quite productive. Within five minutes after my trek began I noted dozens of eastern painted turtles crowded on floating logs much like how we must look jammed into subway cars, except they aren’t going anywhere, they’re just there to soak up the life giving sun. I thought to myself, if the conditions are right for the beautiful yet overpoweringly common painteds to be out, maybe there will be some others. From one marsh to another I searched. A bald eagle soared overhead, a red fox scurried away, and wood ducks exploded into flight as they noticed my intrusion. A group of northern water snakes sat strung like garland in the branches of a shrub bordering a waterway. There was a garter snake coiled below in the emerging grasses that ignored me, blood still flowing too slow to spring away. A barred owl taunted the slowly falling blanket of dusk in the distance. While leaving the marsh I stopped to watch a muskrat work its way through the vegetation to my left when I was startled by a tail slap on the water surface off to my right. I turned my attention to a mother beaver and her pup that boldly swam up within a few yards of me to investigate my intentions. This place is an ecologist’s dream.
Suddenly I had come across what had become my white whale, the spotted turtle. Perched up on a mound of distant vegetation was a turtle I had mistaken for another painted turtle and almost walked past as I decided to give up for the day. Luckily the digital zoom on my camera informed me otherwise. While technically deemed common, the spotted turtle is one of the hardest in my opinion to find because of their solitary behavior, secretive nature, and difficult habitat to traverse. Thankfully they are protected from collection here but their small size and amazing black and yellow pattern which resembles the night sky, make them desirable in the pet trade. I was pleased to see one here, in a secluded area that is difficult for the average person (or rather, a person not as insane as me) to reach. I spent a few moments with this tiny warrior of the swamp who told me of his life’s journey through his battle scars. Perhaps safe from humans for now, he clearly wasn’t able to completely avoid the higher layers of the marsh ecosystem judging by the teeth marks in his carapace and missing hind foot. I took my photographs to record the sighting and placed him back into his home where hopefully he can continue to further his species here for decades to come.
Charged up from the previous week’s experience, I continued to head out to new areas and see what treasures this county had in store. The MARA survey has some dedicated members in this county but a few spots were still left uncovered by its current participants. I met up with another surveyor to see what we could uncover in those regions. My love for Harford County, if not solidified by now, was to be this day. After a few clues we collected from some sources we discovered a greatly untouched marsh that yielded the first mating pairs of American toads this year. We dug around some debris and saw the proprietors of the cloudy egg masses left prior to the emerging toads. Thinking I had already missed out on the short window to find them in great numbers for the year, I rejoiced to find several large spotted salamanders hiding out until the next big rain where they can find their way back to their forest home. As if creatures with similar markings like to reside close to one another, we uncovered a female spotted turtle basking nearby. Then another one dove in not far off. Then to our surprise, clinging to some fallen marsh grasses was a spotted turtle hatchling! Not only was this struggling species calling this place home, but the next generation was already here, waiting to take the reigns.
I would have been happy to pack up and go home at this point, thinking that things couldn’t get any better after all we had just found. I was wrong. Towards the end of the day saw an assortment of common frogs, a few box turtle shells (which might be of some concern), and the sounds of our winged friends in the trees with all their excited chatter. All and all a good day but the earlier part was by far the most prosperous until we stumbled across a juvenile wood turtle, covered in mud. These turtles have the appearance of being a cross between spotteds, snappers, and box turtles. They love clear, clean forested streams and can be found either on the forest floor or swimming in the cool waters. I had heard stories of wood turtles in Harford County here and there but I accepted that east of the Appalachians in Maryland I may see never see one. Once again, this place has exceeded my expectations. This tiny guy might be one of a few, but he is here. A new generation of a species that I deemed to be mostly absent from this region in modern times, has been confirmed.
Anticipation runs through my mind as I realize that this county is home to almost all of the turtle species that can be found in Maryland. There are the endangered bog and map turtles that can still be uncovered in their isolated homes here. There are the painted, red-bellied, and box turtles that seem to carry nature’s finest artistry on their backs. There are the bold, yet more homely musk, mud, and snapping turtles. Wood and spotted turtles surprisingly may still have a stronghold here while less likely visitors like the diamondback terrapin and occasional sea turtle may find their way up the Chesapeake to our beaches and waterways when the salinity is right. The role call list is long and I hope to encounter each and every one in due time.
I am committed to set my roots here and devote my time traveling through the snaking rivers, lowland swamps, towering forests, and rolling hills. As many of the environmental enthusiasts of the sixties and seventies grow older, I feel a duty to invoke the energy and effort needed to continue their work to preserve what is left so that the mistakes of the past are not permanent and have been learned from. I vow to study, photograph, and enjoy these prehistoric ramblers of this land, taking on the almost overwhelming responsibility of becoming their guardian, long after the research grants of biologists have run out. The wilds of Harford County have not only become my new research lab, but my church, my refuge, my home.
