Becoming a Naturalist

Becoming a Naturalist

By: Jessa Tremblay

December 15, 2021

    It's been a productive 3 months here at the Nature Center learning how to become a naturalist. Ever since I was a child I have been fascinated by the outdoors and have loved being outside exploring nature. I would climb any tree I saw, look under rocks, and count the roly-polys I found. I would head down to my local creek to catch tadpoles and crawdads and watch those tadpoles turn into frogs. Little did child me know, but I would become a Naturalist and help inspire and educate people to be as passionate about the environment as I am. I have had to tap into my childhood wonderment since starting here at Warner Parks and I can't imagine ever going back! 

Proof that I would climb anything I found from a young age.

    My first month at Warner was a huge whirlwind. Everything was new to me and I tried to soak up as much information as I could from the wonderful knowledgeable staff that is here. I had fun exploring the park and finding interesting things. My first day I found some intriguing insects I had never seen before. They were a complete mystery to me and my fellow naturalists. I took note of their features, took some pictures and I finally was able to identify them as bark lice (or tree cattle). With a name like that you'd think they are pests when in fact they perform a very necessary function, cleaning the bark of trees by eating fungus, lichen, dead cells, etc.  It was so fun having such a huge mystery to solve on my first day and it was just the beginning of many more. 

Bark Lice herding their young on a chair by the library.

    After starting, the staff here had me jump right into my duties! Here at WPNC my main focus will be providing public programing and it felt fitting that my first public program would be one of the more involved programs we hold, Vulture Feeding.

Roadkill brought by TDOT for our vulture program.

   The Program was lots of fun and I had to learn so much about vultures to prepare. For example, did you know that vulture's poop on their legs to keep cool? Pretty gross, but pretty cool, right? It was just so much fun getting to share these facts while watching the vultures feast on the roadkill we had next to the Learning Center. 

    I also got to help with many other programs such as ones supporting bird banding, looking for spiders, fall leaves, and looking at soil. Preparing for all these topics meant I had to become an expert quickly. I've learned so many new fun facts and information about so much of our local ecosystem. One of them being harvestmen spiders aren't actually spiders, and thus do not spin webs or have venom!

Observing a woodpecker that was caught during bird banding.

Found this little cutie out in the field. 

I was shocked at how bright orange it was!

    Not only did I get thrown right into public programming I also got to do my first school field trips! I love getting to work with children of all ages and I hope that I can inspire them to all find their own inner naturalist. My favorite lab we did with students was the water quality lab. In this lab we took students over to the Little Harpeth, tested the water to detect pollutants and searched for macro invertebrates. We even caught some fish and a snake in the water! 

Fellow naturalist Nasyr showing off snake found in the Little Harpeth

One of my favorite things about being a Naturalist is getting to go roving through the park. I love getting to find neat things throughout the park, and I know each time I go out I will find something interesting or something I can't identify. Late summer was a great time finding caterpillars, and butterflies. In fall I was constantly on the hunt for different mushrooms, and I was able to find some species I had never seen in the wild before such as lion's mane, chicken of the woods, and giant puffball. 

Various pictures of insects and mushrooms I've spotted throughout the park.

I am so excited to be on the WPNC staff and I am really excited to get started on all the programing ideas I have for next year! My goal is to bring some more programs in around sustainability. I hope I can inspire wonder into people about the natural environment around them for many years to come!  

 A Snail on a Sooty Tin Roof

December 2, 2021

Melissa Donahue

Tracks on the roof

This is the view of the roof of the library on the Learning Center Campus.  The markings have caused a bit of discussion among the Nature Center's naturalists.  Even though it looked as if an alien creature is visiting the library, it soon became clear the truth was far more interesting.

White-lipped Snail

Land snails are responsible for these tracks on the roof! According to the TN Wildlife Resources Agency, there are at least 120 land snail species in middle Tennessee.  Fossil records show snails have been on the earth at least a half a billion years.  With a life span of 2 – 5 years, it has been discovered snails have a memory, can retain knowledge for weeks to months, and adapt behavior based on that memory.

A snail retracting into it's shell

A snail consists of a hard shell and a soft body.  The shell, made mostly of calcium carbonate, is protection for the soft body.  It grows with the snail and can provide a place for the snail to hibernate if environmental conditions become unfavorable.

Image under GNU license. Author original by Wikimedia Commons User A12, English captions and other edits by Jeff Dahl

The soft body contains all the organs and orifices the snail needs to live.  As you can see from the above diagram there are a lot of organs in a little space.  The snail has a lung and breaths through a respiratory pore as well as the skin. When thirsty, they can sip through the mouth or drink through the skin.  The process of drinking through the skin is called "foot drinking".  The snail has both male and female parts, but that subject is for another blog.  

Close up of long and short tentacles

Each snail has two sets of tentacles that can regrow if needed.  The upper tentacles allow them to experience the wider world. Longer, with a pair of retractable eyes on top, these tentacles wave in the air to pick up smells, moving towards good smells and away from bad.  Although they have eyes, snails rely on smell, taste, and touch rather than sight to experience the world.  The second set of tentacles are smaller. These tentacles are used to dip into potential food sources for a final check before eating.  Using these small tentacles a snail can distinguish between salty, bitter, and sweet.  The tentacles are the only mucus free section of a snail’s body.  

Snail moving along a leaf

Most people when they think of snails think of slime.  Slime (mucus) is used for movement, defense (who wants to eat a mouthful of slime?), temperature regulation, courting, mating, and egg protection.  A snail produces at least five types of mucus cells.  One type of slime allows the snail to move.  Moving on a bed of slime, which they have changed from a solid to a liquid disrupting friction, a snail can move a few inches per minute.  Navigation relies on odors, dark and light and touch receptors on the body/foot.  These touch receptors respond to vibration and the types of terrain.   Snails seem to have a home base, often in the leaf litter, and are active mostly at night.  They will venture out for food, often returning to the same spot each morning, although, if necessary, they will change their sleeping spots.  Juvenile snails tend to go further afield than older snails.   

Close up of Snail Markings

It seems these odd trails were caused by a snail eating. Snails are scavengers and eat what they can find, observations indicate their favorite food to be mushrooms.   Although they may prefer mushrooms, these scavengers find the mold on the roof an easy meal.  A snail has a sword like tongue and an immense number of very sharp teeth The teeth are pointed inward, with 80 rows of 33 teeth. The teeth are positioned on a multitoothed ribbon called a radula, so when teeth wear down a new row takes its place.  Land snails do not chew their food, but instead scrape it, using their radula.

Snail Markings and Ruler

So...back to the mysterious markings on the roof of the building.  The snails are enjoying a meal of sooty mold.  The mystery starts with the woolly aphids on the hackberry trees around the building.  The aphids suck the sap out of the leaves and secrete a substance called honeydew which drops onto the roof and mold grows. As a result, a black mold covers the roof of our library.  The snails then eat the sooty (black) mold.  We were intrigued by the patterns of these snails and decided to take a closer look.  Using their many teeth and sword like tongue the snails make passes along the roof.  There are about 25 licks per pass and 14 passes in one inch.  After a little math it was determined that the snails tongue covered 13.5 inches for every inch the snail moved forward, or the snail’s tongue moves about 14 times faster than the rest of the snail.  Please contact me if you want more information.

A special thanks to Will Chamberlain for all his help and math skills.  And his contribution of this haiku.

"Spiral coiled stone home,

Slow it glides on self-paved paths--

Silent in the night."

(Wi Cha)