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It’s In Your Nature: Think out of the box and look low

Published September 20. 2025 07:35AM

You already know my passion for finding whatever I can while hiking in some woodlands, marshes or meadows. I was a jock in high school and loved athletic competition, and I still follow the Indians since that was my alma mater and workplace.

I also enjoy watching good college games and, of course, the Eagles or Phils. But … if the weather predicts a favorable wind or the woods are dampened from the previous night’s rain, I’ll forego watching any TV and head out somewhere.

I also think I must by part house cat or black bear. While trekking around Penn’s Woods I can’t resist flipping over a couple of flat rocks, a rotting log or a discarded board. The summer’s heat can be negated under these objects, and I never know what I will find by flipping one over. I guess my catlike curiosity takes over.

I typically find centipedes or an ant colony, or in cooler spring weather I hope to find a salamander species or two trying to keep their skin moist.

At one of my birding spots near Ashfield’s old railroad bed I seem to find a ring neck snake or two after flipping over maybe a dozen rocks or boards. If I’m in the rocky, more mountainous Penn Forest area, I’m much more cautious so as to not put my hands too close to a resting rattlesnake or copperhead.

Nature’s creatures aren’t always very visible or vocal. It sure is easy to find a great horned owl when a murder of crows finds one and harass it till it heads for the hills. If a pileated woodpecker cackles loudly and alights on the dead tree near you, it makes nature snooping very easy.

In the last month my snooping low has allowed me to find a few common toads, a ring neck snake, a number of slugs, plenty of field crickets and even a couple of earthworms, despite our unusually dry weather.

One treat I had was chasing out a short-tailed shrew that took a short rest beneath a partially rotted tree trunk. You never know what you’ll find, and of course, sometimes you have to think out of the box and look low.

Speaking of earthworms … Did you know almost all our earthworm species are not native to North America. Even our nightcrawlers that I collected as a youngster on rainy nights is not native here. This earthworm, Lumbricus terristris, sold as bait, is/was our most common species.

I did some researching because I thought I was finding a new species. Well, it isn’t completely new to the United States, but the Asian jumping worm is quickly becoming the most common species.

If you garden or lift rocks like I do and pick up one of these worms, they almost flip out of your hands. They don’t jump like a cricket or grasshopper, but you can hardly hold it without it working out of your grip. They are most common in suburban areas where folks have introduced loads of mulch or soil to their landscaped areas.

Do some stone lifting in your backyards and see if you can find them. Neat. Also, I like to keep learning, and I knew these weren’t the old limp nightcrawlers that this youngster caught for my dad and for my outings in Pine Run. So, get out there and keep learning and lifting stones.

Test Your Outdoor Knowledge: Broad-winged hawks take center stage in mid-September. Which of these raptors will dominate the count from late September till mid-October? A. sharp-shinned hawks; B. red-shouldered hawks; C. ospreys; D. Cooper’s hawks.

Last Week’s Trivia Answer: The largest daily flight of broad-winged hawks recorded passing by Bake Oven Knob was 5,655. If you remember in last week’s column, I suggested visiting the Knob between Sept 10-20. Well, if you had, here are some daily totals: Sept. 11 — 271; Sept. 12 — 1,189; Sept. 13 — 3,175; Sept. 14 — 364; and, get this, Sept. 15 — 4,603. A total of 9,602 in a five-day span.

Email Barry Reed at breed71@gmail.com

Not an insect at all, the sowbug can be found when you turn over a stone or rotting log. They play a part in breaking down leaf litter and releasing the trapped carbon there. They have seven body segments, each with a pair of legs. Identified as an isopod, the sowbug is actually a type of crustacean. BARRY REED/SPECIAL TO THE TIMES NEWS
As summer progresses, field crickets mature and begin their rasping sounds. Active at night, they can usually be found hiding under rocks and litter.
Requiring damp places, like under logs or maybe a damp area of your basement, centipedes are not insects, either. They belong to the order Chilopoda, having one pair of legs per segment. They are usually rather long and are speedy compared to millipedes, which have two pairs of legs per body segment.
On one of my many trips to the Bake Oven Knob summit, I often tipped over a few stones to reveal mountain millipedes. About 2 to 2½ inches long and almost as thick as a pencil, they curl when disturbed and move as slow as molasses in January.
A common little snake is the ring-neck snake, which maybe reaches about 15 inches in length. They spend the day hiding under forest debris, stones or rotting logs.
I don’t find as many milk snakes in my rock-turning adventures, but this young milk snake is one of about a half-dozen I’ve uncovered in the last 10 years or so.
Even found in our local towns (if you look in the right places), red-back and lead-backed salamanders keep their thin amphibian skin damp during the day by hiding under flat rocks, rotting logs, etc. If you handle them, don’t be surprised to have them squirm and intentionally break off the tip of their tails.
Tags:
Barry Reed, Environment