Spanish Moss Offers Clues to Weather

If you haven’t visited First Landing State Park, you might never know that Virginia Beach is considered the northernmost habitat for Spanish moss.

Once you are inside the park, you’ll see the silvery gray moss hanging from trees whenever you are near water and sometimes when you are not.

Spanish moss drapes over branches on cypress trees, live oaks and other trees and plants that grow near or in freshwater ponds throughout First Landing. The exotic adornment grows in delicate strands up to 20 feet long.

Unlike mistletoe and other tree parasites, Spanish moss uses trees only for support. Known as an epiphyte, or air plant, Spanish moss hangs from trees, but gets all its moisture and nutrients from sun, rainfall and air.

The wispy stems don’t look like moss or any plant for the matter. Another name for Spanish moss is “graybeard,” which may be more of an apt description.

You could even think that Spanish moss was dead unless you look closely at it to see signs of life this time of year. About a month ago, it began to bloom with a tiny greenish flower down in the crook of some of its side branches.

Now, you can see its tiny brown open seedpods from which minute seeds have been carried by the wind. The seeds will begin to grow when they land in crevices on trees or other plants that will hold them in place.

Spanish moss has tiny scales up and down its stems that catch and trap moisture – so much moisture that it can sustain Spanish moss through drought. Therein lies another unusual feature of this seemingly lifeless plant.

Because of its ability to retain moisture, Spanish moss may go down in the annals of weather-forecasting science as a result of a study by University of Pennsylvania biology professor Brent Helliker .

Spanish moss will be collected weekly in First Landing and in Florida, the moss’s southernmost range. By studying moisture that Spanish moss has stored , Helliker hopes to understand what the makeup of humidity in the atmosphere has been on regular basis.

Because humidity is so important to weather forecasting, information learned from Spanish moss may help weather forecasters predict hurricanes, storm and other weather more accurately.

For a plant that looks like it’s not even alive, Spanish moss plays a lively role in both botany and meteorology.

Stork visit After two false starts, the Norfolk Botanical Garden eagle pair has a nestling. The eaglet hatched Sunday. Visit www.norfolkbotanicalgarden.org and click on the link to WVEC’s Eagle Cam to see the new arrival.

Snake vs. crow Pete Atkinson watched a northern water snake and a crow fight over an eel that the snake had caught in an Ocean Lakes waterway. When the snake managed to move back into the water with the eel, the crow gave up.

Surrogate dad Bonnie Osborn watched a Canada goose on Lake Windsor round up and protect a trio of Muscovy ducklings while the mother was eating cracked corn on Osborn’s dock. Most male ducks are dead-beat dads but male Canada geese are good dads so this gander must have lost his family and adopted a new one.

Wildlife weekend Jeanette and John Winsor fed peanuts to a flying squirrel, saw their first hummingbird at the feeder, had a male and female rose-breasted grosbeak at the sunflower feeder and watched a gray fox saunter down the sidewalk behind their house in College park.

Box turtles emerge So far, three of the five box turtles that live free in Gerry Dashiell-Richter’s yard in Pembroke Meadows have emerged from hibernation. She says the turtles start coming out when the ground temperatures reach about 50 degrees and they crawl around looking for food. One has been there for eight years.

More wildlife sightings

* Peggy Jackson still has a rufous hummingbird in her Dogwood Acres yard.

* Connie Fulton’s green herons have returned for a second year to her North End yard and seem to be checking out their old nest sight. “Beginning of chapter two?” Fulton wonders.

* Cynthia Jordan , who lives in Norfolk’s Bayview section, said her chickadees are back for the third year. They nest down in the middle of a hollow metal laundry pole, which Jordan protects from the rain with a pink umbrella.

* A robin has built a nest on a light fixture on Janet Stemm’s front porch in Charlestown Lakes South and the bird has become comfortable with the family’s coming and goings.

Photo ops

* Don Crago photographed a turtle laying eggs in his neighbor’s Lake Charles yard. “It was fascinating to observe this chapter of nature,” Crago said.

* Kitty Kane sent a great photo of a red-tailed hawk in her Great Bridge yard in Chesapeake. The hawk stayed around for several hours and caught a squirrel.

* Jim Fields sent a photo of a great horned owl that was on the ground in his neighbor’s Back Bay yard. Animal Control took the big bird to a wildlife rehabilitator.

* Thomas Brewster snapped a Cooper’s hawk that had been hanging around his yard.

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