wetlands | The Raleigh Naturalist

August 10, 2021

Edisto Island seems 1,000 Miles From Nag’s Head

Filed under: About & reflection, climate change, Exotica, Nature Lore — Tags: birding, South Carolina, wetlands — raleighnaturalist @ 6:25 pm

Edisto Island back road – 2 miles from the ocean

When we traveled with our daughter and her partner to South Carolina Carolina for a week at the beach, I knew we would have nature adventures. After all, Lily was the 2019 Environmental Educator of the Year, and Collin is a bonsai artist and expert botanist who looks for new plant experiences at every opportunity. Sure enough, the back porch of our beach house in Edisto Beach looked out on a vast prairie-sized marsh of cordgrass (spartina) slowly oozing fresh water toward the ocean, crisscrossed by freshwater creeks and a river, (though pushed backward twice daily by the tides),and edged on the other side by a heavily forested state park. Our house was surrounded by beautifully formed live oaks and other hardwoods, which were inhabited by cardinals, blue birds and several kinds of wrens. Thing is, we were two blocks from the beach. All week, I pondered: “How and why is this so different from the North Carolina beaches I grew up visiting?”

Edisto is an example of a Carolina Sea Island, of which there are over 100 between the Santee in SC and St John’s River in Florida. They are a special kind of barrier island that usually faces somewhat southward. These islands are the historic and present home of the Gullah people and culture, of which we saw evidence at the historic museum and in the basket weavers making and selling sweetgrass baskets at the craft market. The accents of the basketmakers and indeed many of the African American folks working all over, sounded Creole. Their history as the dominant population in this land of rice plantations is a wonderful story itself. But my first love in this situation is topography, and I found myself in one of the wettest topographies to be found.

Young greater egret hunts freshwater creek 2 blocks from ocean

Edisto barely qualifies as an island because at its northern tip, the Edisto River sends part of its flow on a different path toward the ocean, forming the North Edisto. The larger area of which it is part is called the ACE basin, for the Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto rivers that flow through it. The 350,000 acres are about half wetland, and comprise one of the largest wetland natural areas on the East coast. Our beach house stood at 4 meters above sea level. Ten miles back up Highway 174 toward 17, the marshes beside the road are at 5 meters and the high point at the middle of the area has a wooded rise that is just 18 meters above the sea. That’s flat=wet! This is one of the main reasons excessive development has not reached the area , because very few through roads connect the necks of the woods, which are everywhere fragmented by marshes. The ride pushes back such that even inland where the waterways are not brackish the fresh water rises and falls with the tidal rhythm that allowed rice to be grown and harvested.

HIghway 174 leading from 17 to Edisto Beach

The other reasons for the lack of massive development are a fascinating human history. The rice planters made large fortunes using slave labor to clear and dike the wetlands for planting. As the Industrial Revolution produced a new class of wealth in the north, some of those men developed a passion for waterfowl hunting and purchased many of the plantations after the Civil War, maintaining the dikes and managing the landscape for hunting. Alongside these developments, the black residents, who predominated the population and acquired significant land holdings in the aftermath of the Civil War, developed a strong and somewhat isolating local culture that helped maintain the Gullah language, crafts and outlook that permeate the area to this day.

Boat channel beside Spanish Mount, a large shell midden

In the 1980’s duck-hunting organizations joined with the federal government and conservation groups to place permanent protections on well over 100,000 acres in the ACE basin, which has become a premiere legacy of South Carolina’s Low Country and its unique ecosystems. From 250 bird species to loggerhead turtles to shortnose sturgeon, the area’s success at what amounts to ecotourism represents a boon to wildlife and local residents and treasured experiences for the many visitors.

A live oak in the Botany Bay Nature Preserve about 3 miles from the beach

Edisto Beach jetty built to reduce beach erosion. One is at each public access point

Edisto Beach is full of beach houses, but the look and feel is retro – that is the beach towns of my childhood. There is one small Food Lion, with a Subway next door. Otherwise, all the shops and businesses are local. There are no high-rise motels. The only four story building is a residential hotel that is part of the large marina. A Wyndam villa resort shares the interior of the town with civic facilities and a small golf course. Bike sharrows edge all the roads, and the ubiquitous bike and golf cart rentals minimize car traffic. The edge road on which we stayed was so quiet a five year old would be safe bicycling on it (we can’t wait for that – our grandson is three). The beach houses get grander and less rental looking as you travel from the main island out to the point. Many of the sound side houses have boat docks.

The larger area is filled with wonderful naturalist destinations. The Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve contains the most popular and dramatic: Driftwood Beach, a remote stretch of sand that is inundated with the bleached skeletons of oak, palmetto and pine trees which were washed out of existence by severe erosion over the last 100 years (the shoreline has moved a mile landward in that time), but have persisted in death to create a surreal and quite beautiful tableaux.

2 Roseate Spoonbills hunting the marsh at Botany Bay

On the half-mile walk to the beach from the parking area, we had the great luck to encounter two Roseate Spoonbills hunting in a marsh creek. When we got to the beach, we wandered among the trees, some toppled, some partly submerged, a few eking their way back up the beach with each tide after being torn out by the roots by a hurricane.

Soil profile created by ongoing erosion at Driftwood Beach

“It was erosion that formed Botany Bay in the first place. One hundred years ago, the shoreline was nearly a mile out to sea, and the area where the beach now stands was a saltwater marsh. This is evidenced by large strips of slick mud deposits that line areas of the beach called “marsh relicts” which mark the foundations of where the marsh once stood. Over time, erosion caused by longshore drift currents formed a two–mile beach along one of the wooded barrier islands. The saltwater poisoned the trees, and the sun turned them white.

The erosion that created Botany Bay is now wearing away at the current beach, accelerated by the passing of hurricanes. It was closed for nine months after Hurricane Matthew ripped away the causeway bridge. The beach took a beating again when Hurricane Irma swept through, carving a large, impassible inlet towards one end of the beach, and sweeping almost all the sand away for a period of time.” Kristina Rackley in the Carolina News & Reporter

The huge salt marshes that predominate the visual and road landscape are richly populated with species that need patience to observe. The denizens are mostly hidden by the tall cordgrass, but every few minutes, a greater white egret or two will rise up and cruise around looking for a new spot to disappear.Gulls come twisting through, swooping closer to the plants and then resuming long distance flights. Popping shrimp sound like percolating bubbles in the mud, reminding one of all the invisible creatures that depend on and enrich this homogeneous and thus also specialized ecosystem. the cordgrass provides no food for during its life cycle, which confused early developers into undervaluing and destroying it, but the previous year’s rotting cordgrass is the base of the entire rich field of nutrients that nurture so many ocean and shoreline species.

Mother and baby egret below our back porch

black vultures have at a dead armadillo

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February 14, 2019

Raleigh Swamp Recovers from a Swamping

Filed under: Central Raleigh, Crabtree Creek, Greenways & Parks, waterways — Tags: Buckeye Trail, Crabtree Creek, floodplains, Raleigh Swamp, turtles, wetlands — raleighnaturalist @ 5:27 pm

Raleigh Swamp is a prominent, even dramatic feature of the Raleigh Greenway at the intersection of Crabtree Boulevard and Raleigh Boulevard, joining Buckeye Trail to Middle Crabtree Trail and crossing a large shallow body of water with a causeway. The water was never intended to be permanent, but a wetland was turned into a shallow lake by the work of beavers, as explained in this 2013 post.

The place is a paradise for visiting birds, thirsty deer and other wildlife, and an amazing collection of turtles that bask by the piled up dozens on the many logs protruding from the water. The causeway was built with best ecological practices, minimizing disruption, but it has needed repairs recently because of extensive flooding. Cara and I visited in November 2018 and saw some of the work.

The crossing of the greenway with a utility cut has been strengthened and guarded with metal gates. The northwestern end of the site has a short stretch of asphalt that has repeatedly been ruined as the flooded marsh cuts through the shoulder of Crabtree and dumps excess water into the creek. looks like they are going to repair (instead of culvert) it once again, but this spot has closed the causeway, officially that is, for months. Most people just make their way around the mild barricades.

Different species of trees can tolerate shorter or longer periods of flooding. Ash, river birch and of course willows can survive many weeks of inundation. But if flooding lasts too long, trees die and the vegetative regime changes.

This area was a scrubby wetland with a smattering of drier tussocks and paths through it until the construction of the Raleigh Boulevard bridge. Many relics of the former trees dot the wide expanse of water. There is thus a small justiofication for the term used by locals and myself, Raleigh Swamp, though in fact this is a marsh. Whatever you call it, it’s a great place to bike walk, fish, or bird watch.

Below is the illustration I created from the lead photograph for my new book, the Natural History of Raleigh. Raleigh Swamp is featured in Chapter Four. Happy trails!

The Natural History of Raleigh

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May 20, 2015

Raleigh Nature Starts a Shift Westward With Lake Lynn Residency

Filed under: About & reflection, Nature Lore, Rural Raleigh, waterways, West Raleigh — Tags: birding, Falls Lake, flooding, Lake Lynn, turtles, wetlands — raleighnaturalist @ 7:25 pm

A red-throated loon shows his Springtime stuff at Lake Lynn in northwest Raleigh

A cormorant shows his Springtime stuff at Lake Lynn in northwest Raleigh

Blog News June 2015

This blog always centered on a book project: The Natural History of Raleigh, which now exists as a finished manuscript of 25,000 words I am working to get published. Having retired from over twenty years as a special educator, my wife Cara and I are selling our Oakwood home and moving to Asheville, setting up book arts studios as well as a big garden and small greenhouse to grow food, papermaking fibers, and flowers. For Cara’s final year of teaching, we are renting a small apartment that overlooks Lake Lynn. The blog will eventually take on a state-wide perspective, but will always focus on urban natural areas and have plenty of posts about Raleigh. For now, enjoy the Lake Lynn and Falls Lake areas I will pop into when in Raleigh, while I explore and document what to show you up in Baird Cove. Best, John

Many kinds of wildlife inhabit Lake Lynn, but (for enthusiasts) it has a citywide reputation for its turtles.

Lake Lynn, along with Shelley Lake, was created to provide flood protection to Crabtree Valley Mall, which was constructed in a former muddy cow pasture and flooded soon after it was built. Hare Snipe Creek, which feeds Lake Lynn, runs from the back of Tabernacle Church on Leesville nearly due south all the way to Crabtree by the Golden Corral headquarters on Glenwood Avenue. Lake Lynn has a gigantic earthen dam but is normally quite shallow, and its edges are dissected by the numerous small creeks and freshets that formerly found their way to Hare Snipe Creek. A popular greenway with long boardwalks encircles the Lake, and a spur follows the soggy wetlands of its headwaters up to a public park. At uncrowded times (and I’m talking people driving and parking at my apartment complex just to walk here) it’s an opportunity for some remarkable encounters with nature.

Some of the more interesting birds to watch are naturalized escapees – dark, red-wattled Muscovy ducks and aggressive white barnyard geese. Lake Lynn itself is a mixture of native and natural features blended with the man-made lake and the surrounding (relatively wooded) apartments and houses. The Canada geese, well described in an earlier post, are so numerous and boisterous as to evoke aquatic chickens as they honk out the rising day outside our windows each morning.

An Enticing Nearby Area

Cypress trees on the southwestern shore of Falls Lake

Just a few miles north of Lake Lynn I can cross over the highest spot in Wake County – Crestmont off Leesville Road – and travel out of Crabtree Creek’s watershed into that of the Neuse, inundated by Falls Lake. North of 98, off Baptist Road, is an access point for the Mountain-to-Sea Trail, which traces the southern shore of Fall Lake. Here a juncture of powerline cuts and shallow lobes of the lake provide wide open views and a nifty look at a population of cypress. There is a stunning serpentine boardwalk that serves the trail, and a raised bridge over Lick Creek with gorgeous views. More to come, as well as more on the whole stretch from here to the Rollingview Marina.

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November 16, 2013

Great Blue Heron Rookery Exposed, As Are Buckeye’s Beaches

Filed under: Crabtree Creek, East Raleigh, Greenways & Parks, waterways — Tags: Buckeye Trail, Crabtree Creek, great blue heron, hackberry, hawks, mistletoe, Pigeon House Branch, Raleigh Swamp, wetlands — raleighnaturalist @ 9:30 pm

Google map of rookery

The sewer work beside Crabtree Creek in East Raleigh has provided temporary easy access to a favorite, mostly secret feature of Raleigh Swamp: a small permanent marsh fed by Pigeon House Branch which provides a yearly haven for breeding great blue herons and red-shouldered hawks. The site, seen below, is not pretty but has water all year and a wide variety of cover, and so provides a perfect nursery for the babies of large predatory water-loving birds.

The site can be seen by walking a short way down the new sewer cut off of Crabtree Boulevard. After crossing a nifty and temporary metal bridge over Pigeon House Branch, just before it reaches Crabtree, Crabtree Creek is on your right and the small marsh is on the left. It makes me think of gator country for very small gators, though the “gators” that startle one here are furry and have criss-crossed tails.

Between sewer cuts the best access to this site, which is currently low, is from the railroad line parallel to Capital Boulevard. The greenway is just across the creek, and you can often see the activity of the breeding birds on Raleigh Swamp walks, while looking SW across the creek.

Across Raleigh Boulevard, the sewer project swallows the greenway and makes it appear impassable. But I was slightly amazed to see a jogger and biker come right through the construction. A very friendly construction crew, which was hard at work this Saturday morning.

Buckeye jogger approaches bulldozer

Walking Buckeye eastward toward Rollingwood and Milburnie, I could see very well here in late fall the sandy beaches, old and new, that ring the inner banks of Crabtree’s curves. Beaches also form just downstream of large obstacles, typically fallen trees. Just such a beach has newly formed across the greenway from the first stretch of this walk.

pebbly beach on Crabtree

One of my favorite Buckeye beaches is Goose Beach, which is no longer a beach but has become a vegetated bank. This happened when Crabtree changed its course, right after Hurricane Floyd in 1999. My children, ten and nine at the time, watched our sandy gosling playpen (thus the name) slowly change as it swallowed the previous turning path of the creek and divert it back to the more ancient path it had abandoned for several decades.

former Goose Beach at Crabtree’s turn, which was abandoned in 1999

What could make such a change? Besides a hurricane flood to carve the new path, there needs to be a blockage in the old path. Below is just such a near blockage right below Goose beach. Who knows when Crabtree will turn again?

Crabtree Creek constricted at turn

Bonus pics

hackberry grove on Buckeye just east of Raleigh Boulevard

lower rockfall on Crabtree below Raleigh Boulevard

November Mistletoe

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April 9, 2013

Raleigh Swamp Shifts with Sewer Project

Filed under: Crabtree Creek, Greenways & Parks, Northeast Raleigh, waterways — Tags: birding, Buckeye Trail, Crabtree Creek, creek levels, floodplains, great blue heron, Raleigh Swamp, turtles, wetlands — raleighnaturalist @ 5:05 pm

The huge sewer project – seen above at Crabtree Boulevard looking toward the Mouth of Pigeon House Branch – has introduced a new geography to Raleigh Swamp, my name for the body of water off Raleigh Boulevard just north of its intersection with Crabtree Boulevard. The large wooden causeway and gazebo were wonderful additions to the meeting of Buckeye trail and Middle Crabtree Trail. Now the sewer project has dictated a large dam and concrete bridge section that bisects the “swamp.” I know a real swamp is moving water with trees, but this lowland was dotted with dying trees for years after its establishment, and the snags of many remain as resting spots for herons, cormorants, and the occasional wood duck. Canada geese and mallards breed here, while the turtle population has grown to a staggering level. It is all thanks to the beavers.

When I first returned to Raleigh from Greensboro in 1980, they were starting to build the Raleigh Boulevard bridge over Crabtree Creek. The caissons they used to sink the bridge piers were impressive, and Dulci, my black lab and I kept a close watch on the process. At this time, the “Raleigh Swamp” area was a sometime wetland dotted with scrub trees and ribboned with the paths of homeless campers. Like many floodplains in the area, it got wet in the winter but stayed dry most summers. The Boulevard project changed that, with a little help from the local beavers. The transition was clarified for me by a city engineer years later through a comment on this blog in 2009. I quote it in full below:

Was reading through your website after getting the link from the Fletcher Park Watergarden and noted that the “pond” off Raleigh Blvd was one of your favorite places. I thought I’d mention that this was actually a City of Raleigh mitigation project I designed many years ago to offset the environmental impacts from the construction of Raleigh Blvd. It was supposed to be a wetland but the beavers in the area had a different idea as they immediately blocked the culverts under the roadway causing the water to back up and form a permanent pond. Can’t say I object to the result of their efforts. It’s a beautiful spot and the addition of the greenway has made it accessible to the masses.

Mark Senior, PE, Senior Project Engineer, Water Quality Section, Stormwater Divsion of the City of Raleigh Public Works Department

The beavers have indeed made great use of the spot with several different lodges in different spots. New generations of beavers tend to build their own lodge. Until I got the info from Mark, I assumed the construction of the road bed dammed up the water. The water on the east side of Raleigh Boulevard acts more normally – rising and falling with rains and seasons. I know the beavers play over there as well, because you can see their slides into Crabtree Creek as you walk down Buckeye toward Rollingwood.

Getting back to the sewer project, you can see above the large dam across the wetland. This, along with the upgraded line in general, has changed the location and depth of water around the edges of the marsh (which is technically what it is). Some areas are now totally dry – at least for now – and some are substantially deeper. No real harm done, since nature and time effect these kinds of changes all the time anyway. but the newly dry areas, which were beaver playgrounds until now, will undergo an interesting and specialized kind of succession – new plants adapted to the new conditions will take over. It should be a fascinating transition and Raleigh Nature will keep an eye on it. Below are shots of the stranded areas.

The beavers had a lodge at the very spot pictured below years ago but abandoned it during the drought of the early 2000s. Perhaps they will rebuild now that the water situation is restored!

All posts on Raleigh Swamp

previous post on this sewer project

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December 8, 2009

Lassiter Mill Shows Crabtree at Strength

Filed under: Crabtree Creek, Geographic Areas, Nature Lore, Raleigh mills, waterways — Tags: Crabtree Creek, creek levels, floodplains, geology, Lassiter Mill, wetlands — raleighnaturalist @ 2:38 am

The previous post talked about Crabtree Creek’s tendency to flood – last week again brought heavy rains over the Crabtree watershed that brought the creek up to the edge of its large channels. This also sends an impressive load of water over Lassiter Mill Dam, as seen above. I shot a video clip of the rushing water from below the tailrace, as linked below.

video- Lassiter Mill dam at high water

What happens at Lassiter Mill vividily and intensely demonstrates what happens lots of places more gradually – the deposition of new soil by spreading flood waters. This is an essential part of the natural systems of the Piedmont, and our flood control measures prevent the process from periodically enriching the soil with a layer of mud and silt – though the process continues to work just fine in the “waste” lowlands that remain in Raleigh. An astounding number of these lowlands have become major thoroughfares – roads built relatively later in Raleigh’s long history, on land left undeveloped due to the floodplain. The Beltline follows the low contours of Walnut Creek, House Creek, Crabtree Creek, Big Branch, Marsh Creek and then Walnut Creek quite precisely as it curves from Cary’s Buck Jones to Glenwood, over the crest of North Hills, and around southeast to Poole Rd and then Lake Wheeler Road. The water is piped and rushed away from underneath these elevated roadways, carrying its minerals with it.

The suburbs and businesses near these roads certainly don’t need the sediments! But the stuff has to go somewhere, and these days there is a lot of stuff. When streams are buffered by a healthy band of water-loving trees and shrubs, erosion material is reduced greatly. In central Raleigh, Crabtree is clogged with lots of dislodged soil, construction materials and unnaturally exposed red clay. But the deposition process is a vital one, and it gets exaggerated at Lassiter Mill, where the water brings its load of suspended minerals hurtling over the dam and then slows and spreads its course below. As it slows, it drops much of its sediment load. The area below Lassiter Mill changes yearly as the creek alternately erodes and builds up materials. Check out the new load of sand deposited by the recent high waters.

There are several caveats and complications to consider. This is a large load of sand! Eight or nine inches at a dose, and not the silt and mud that the plants would prefer. But nature adapts, and the Lassiter “beach” is fun to browse, with a wide variety of weeds incubated from the loads of soil and debris. The silt and sand that currently washes down Crabtree is terribly unhealthy for the filtering mussels and other delicate aquatic life. The red clay that paints Crabtree brown is such a strong pigment that Crabtree often changes the color of the Neuse where it conjoins.

Crabtree builds itself “shoulders” as it repeatedly overflows, dropping the heaviest particles first as the water disperse into the floodplain. This is why Crabtree presents such a tall ditched appearance as above at Hodge Road. The plants arrange themselves in an orderly sequence beside or on top of these embankments according to their tolerance for flooding.

The next time Crabtree rises over it’s banks, put on your rubber boots and check out the glistening mica-rich silt that covers the greenways before the city sends its scrapers to clear it off to the side, where it enriches the plants as well as any landscaper’s mulch. You are walking in the stuff that makes our floodplain soils, a rich muck delivered by the yearly floods.