Today for conservation biology lab we took a trip to Mariton Wildlife Sanctuary. Mariton is a 200 acre park that is located over the Delaware River. The purpose of our lab was to compare the species richness and the diversity of the birds in two locations, one in the center of the park and the other along the edge of the sanctuary. To do this we went to our assigned spots in the park and in 15 minute intervals we observed and recorded the birds we heard and saw. Fortunately the Preserve Manager, who is really good at identifying bird calls and bird type,s came along with us to help us identify each bird call and sighting. While we were doing this and I was listening for bird calls and trying to identify each bird I kept thinking of this quote from The Diary of a Citizen Scientist where Russell writes, “When you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail, and when you’re looking for the larval burrow whole of a Western red-bellied tiger beetle, you see a surprising number of holes you’ve never seen before. Usually not the same size or shape, but you look inside anyway because you want to know: who lives in all these holes? (117).”

When we first started to listen for birds, I heard sounds I usually do not notice and every sound I heard I thought was a bird, when in reality the Preserve Manager said some of the sounds I was hearing were insects or frogs in the park. I really identified with Russel’s comparison to when you are a hammer everything looks like a nail and while I was listening for bird sounds for the first time everything sounded like a bird call. When the park manager would tell me they were not bird calls I was so curious what animal it was, but unfortunately he didn’t know for sure.

Some of the birds we identified at Mariton were common birds like cardinals and blue jays, but we also identified some other types of birds. Below are their names and pictures:

Red belly woodpecker:

Tuft Titmouse:

Downy Woodpecker:

Turkey Vulture:

“The removal of Indians to create an ‘uninhabited wilderness’ – uninhabited as never before in the human history of the place – reminds us just how invented, just how constructed, the American wilderness really is…there is nothing natural about the concept of wilderness. It is entirely a creation of the culture that holds it dear” (Cronon, 79).

“As I drew still fresher soil about the rows with my hoe, I disturbed the ashes of unchronicled nation who in primeval years lived under these heavens, and their small implements of war and hunting were brought to the light of this modern day. They lay mingled with other natural stones, some of which bore the marks of having been burned by Indian fires, and some by the sun, and also bits of pottery and glass brought hither by the the recent cultivators of the soil. When my hoe tinked against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop” (Thoreau, 172).

In our third visit to the site our group made a conscious effort to try and notice something we had not previously noticed about the site and to notice something that had changed. The first thing we immediately noticed that was new was the smell of the island. It was not a new thing we had to search for. As we had walked across the bridge, we had all wrinkled our noses at the terrible smell, but assumed it was from the construction site. Yet after walking down to the shore the smell remained. We were confused by the origin of the smell, but new it was overpowering and smelled like mold. It changed the way we viewed our site and how long we had hoped to stay there. The main change we noticed in our third trip down to the site was that many of the leaves closest to the shore had begun to change into their fall colors while those further away remained green. We wondered whether this was due to the type of plant that grew closer to the shore or that it was slightly warmer further away from the water.

Along with visiting the island, this week our group did a lot of background research. We discovered that Getter’s Island sits in the Delaware opposite the mouth of the Bushkill River at Easton. Years ago the place was called Abel Island. It was named for a respected local family who listed the island among its extensive land holdings, although some people believed in commemoration of a murder. The island’s association with murder, and its present name, didn’t occur until long after that original crime in 1833.

Carl Getter was a young recent German immigrant who had found employment as a farm laborer in Easton. Carl was known for being quite the ladies man. On January 19, 1833, he was charged by Margaret Lawall with being the father of his unborn child. The Easton magistrate gave him a choice of marriage or prison, and he chose to marry her, hoping it would be the easier path. Although married, Carl continued to pursue other women, namely being Molly Hummer. Carl liked Molly a lot, and chose to end his short marriage to Margaret.

On the frozen morning of February 28, the body of Margaret Lawall Getter was found in a limestone quarry about three miles from Easton. The woman, still with her unborn child, was choked to death. Police arrested Getter the very same day for her murder.

The murder became the area’s most sensational crime. Getter’s lawyer could not get him off of the hook and he to be hung on October 31^st. Due to the intense public interest, the hanging was to occur on Abel’s Island. People came and stayed in hotels near Easton to see the hanging.

The first time they tried to hang him, the rope broke when he was only three feet off the ground. Getter smirked and said, “Well that was good for nothing.” The second time when the job was done, Getter remained in the air for eleven minutes quivering, when all motion ceased. After 30 minutes he was cut down and put in his coffin.

Although Getter’s life was short, he is now immortal because the Island lives on in his name.

The island was the site of another tragedy thirty years later when the steamboat Alfred Thomas exploded on its shore. From this catastrophe- the barren sands were strewn with the bodies of innocent victims who, unlike Carl Getter, had committed no crime at all.

In our second trip over to the park, we took along Professor Brandes to help us investigate the area. Our trip began on the opposite side of the area to where there was no obvious trail, or bike path. What we first saw was a lot more geese and a waterway that in our previous trip was not seen (photo below).

The section of the waterway that was closest to us was not all that clean and really unappealing compared to the rest of the river. Using the aerial photos provided to us by Professor Brandes, this portion of the river in particular has gone through many changes over its history in Forks Township and it will be critical in telling our story of place because it has served so many purposes from trolley stop, to potential dam, to bus stop, to the muck we see to day.

Further along our little trek, our group took in many different signs that surrounded the park. In particular some of the signs i give the area a very haunted appearance even though in the long run they are not the oldest human constructed infrastructure located on the property (Below).

Continuing the discussion from my last comment, throughout our trek multiple times we witnessed remnants of old bridges, mills, or dams (below). It was also interesting to see just how much influence the older construction materials had shaped the river bed and its surrounding area; It was clearly evident that much of the sand and erosion occurring was from these materials.

Another great example of trying to define what is nature and what is not.

With this second trip now behind us and a little investigative work done, our group has a new target/ person to interview about the history of our area to go along with the history we saw in nature. Hopefully, with our next post we can have a better defined understanding of the two.

Vantage point taken from behind the park. A few spotted a Red Tailed Fox.

“I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades” (Leopold 140).

I like this analogy because it is a good representation of the destruction humans have caused to our environment. Humans are extremely overpopulated because they have no natural predators. It’s weird to think about it that way but the only predators we have are with the technology we create: cars, boats, planes. We destroy and exploit the environment so that it is no longer there. If humans did not exist, the earth would continue to thrive, but if humans continue to exploit the earth for its resources, the effects of climate change will continue to get worse.

This past weekend I had gone home for a night. While I was home my mother was watching an old show called The Waltons. The only reason this is important is because it reminded me of my time spent at my grandparents’ place in Walton, New York. They had a small modular home on the mountain. As a child, my brother and cousins and I spent many summers and weekends exploring the land. Behind their land was a big wooded area. I remember being a child and exploring the woods with my older cousins and some of my aunts and uncles. There was one particular time I remember most vividly

.
I was about six or seven years old during this particular visit. On a beautiful, sunny summer day we went on one our typical hike in the woods. The older cousins had found deer tracks so they, along with one of my uncles, followed the tracks in hope to find the deer. While they were off, the younger cousins and I continued on the hike with our aunt. There was no trail, we just wandered through the woods until we came upon a clearing. It was beautiful. I remember exploring other times around their house, but none have stood out as much as that time. I can still picture the field, with tall grass about knee high, surrounded by trees. We walked through the field and ran around until it started to get dark. At that point we walked back to the house for dinner. It is one of my favorite memories up in Walton. I wish my grandparents still owned that house, I would love to go exploring now that I am older. I am sure I would be able to make many more memories just like that one. It would also be able to explore alone and get lost with my thoughts amongst the trees.

Have you ever seen the spiders hanging out in the parking deck? Maybe not during the day, but at night they’re hard to miss. These spiders have spun their webs around the bright lights illuminating the parking deck on each floor because this is the most efficient way for them to FEAST. These lights attract tons of little flying bugs, so the spiders set up camp right there. Not too bad for a spider, right? So have spiders actually benefited from human impact on nature? Would you find more spiders in the city than in the forest because of the ample bug and light sources?

The above photo was on top of our guide for the camping trip this weekend. The second cartoon reminded me a lot of my experience climbing half dome. I spent four hours during the middle of the night climbing half dome by headlamp. When I finally reached the top the sun was beginning to rise, and the first thing I did was take out my phone. Because half dome is so high in elevation, it surprisingly gets perfect cell signal. I had known this before my hike, so had messaged the rest of my family who were in Cambodia telling them I would have service and the approximate time I would be up at the top. I immediately facetimed my family from around the world and talked to them and showed them the view and the sunrise. In some ways I think this ability is absolutely amazing. My family can be on a trip thousands of miles away and still experience what I experience and see what I see. I think it is an incredible use of technology. Yet on the other hand I felt slightly impure or off that my first move upon achieving an incredible accomplishment was to pull out my phone and document it. In such a pristine “wild” place it felt weird using technology.

This weekend, I participated in a 5k walk to fight blindness. It was located at the Bethlehem Steel Stacks which is where Bethlehem Steel used to be located before it went out of business. It has been since renovated into a very nice facility, but the old structures are still all around and very cool to see (fun fact part of the first transformers film was filmed there).

Most of the old buildings are all falling apart and very rusted, but there are some that still stand proudly, striking impressive figures against the sky. Something else that accents this interesting look is the green that is slowly working its way back against the sea of red rust. While walking, I witnessed many plants, even trees sometimes, jutting out from the buildings many feet up in the air.

It was amazing to see these trees seemingly growing from nothing and flourishing. It speaks for how hardy nature is and how everything gets reclaimed by it sooner or later. A steel mill definitely was not the most environmentally friendly structure, and yet now, not that many years after it went out of business, the environment is slowly but surely reclaiming its land. And not only is it reclaiming it, it is adapting to it. The plants have access to higher up structures which give them better access to sunlight. There is more area (in the form of verticality) for plants to grow. It is fascinating to see this transition back to nature from a once industrialized area.

The split between nature and industry also strikes a cool dichotomy. As mentioned before, the color scheme between red and green is appealing in itself. But it also always surprising to see a patch of green perched haphazardly off the edge of a two story crumbling building or wrapping its way up a rusty old stairway. In time, the green will eventually take over and the red will succumb, but until then, the picture they paint is unforgettable.