summer

September 2026: Where Have All Our Turtles Gone?

/ Chris Thaiss / Leave a comment

Monarch on pink Zinnia, our garden, September 9

In this month’s blog:

Lake Pollution: Where Have All Our Turtles Gone?
Climate Collapse: EPA Removes Curbs on Power Plant Emissions
Climate Hope: California Leads–Again
Garden Update: Transition to Autumn
The September 2026 Photo/Video Gallery

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Lake Pollution? Where Have All Our Turtles Gone?

 

Lone Black-shelled Red-Bellied Cooter on log in the southeast cove of our little lake, warm September 15

In recent months, since our humidity climbed to record levels in this most-likely warmest year on record across the world, and as the lake water has been choked with blue-green algae and, in July,  covered with smoke residue from wildfires to the distant north and west, what we haven’t seen is more obvious than what we have seen.  There are noticeably fewer songbirds in the mornings  and far fewer birds to be seen in the trees. Perhaps even more noticeable  is the absence of the Turtles, particularly the Northern Red-Bellied Cooters, that  we used to marvel at every day in our congenial community in Northern Virginia.  Up until a few months ago, a walker around the lake  would see clusters of Red Bellies on logs and rocks at the shores, but no longer.

These eight Red-bellied Cooters crowded on to the log on the north shore of the lake all the way back on March 23 of this year.

This phenomenon is not just noticed here.

The Virginia Herpetological Society reports the precipitous decline of the box turtle population across the state. The decline has been most noted  in the urbanized areas, like ours, but is happening everywhere. Habitat loss is the most obvious cause, through rampant development, but pollution of lakes and ponds through runoff from farms, vehicle emissions,  and businesses is  also a leading cause.

Typically, these Turtles emerge from their winter homes in the mud below the surface once the temperature gets to 60 degrees F, and they will be out and about daily until the temps get into the 90s. But this year we haven’t seen them since late spring. Even now, when temps  have fallen into the 70s and even the 60s,  the Turtles have failed to appear.

Except on one day, a warm September 15 , when a cluster of 10 Red Bellies appeared on their accustomed perch on a log at the north end of the lake.

10 Red-bellied Cooters on log at north end, afternoon, September 15. This is the only day we’ve seen a cluster since the spring.

Will there be another appearance?  We, along with other  nature observers in Virginia, will keep looking.

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EPA ends rules monitoring emissions from power plants, CBS News, September20 (CBS photo )

Climate Collapse: EPA Removes Curbs on Power Plant Emissions

This latest outrage by the Trump Administration against environmental protection follows on the elimination earlier this month of the law protecting endangered species    from all unintended killings. The LA Times (Hayley Smith and Blanca Begert, Sept. 15) . the New York Times, and CBS News were among the many sources reporting these further erosions of any environmental protection. Under this  current federal regime, the US is steadily moving back to the times before the establishment of the EPA and of the Clean Air and Water Acts by the Nixon Administration in 1970. What the President and his disciples gain by these actions is not clear, but what all of us are losing by an ever warmer,dryer, and more extremely fire-and-storm-prone environment is absolutely clear.

Climate Hope: California Leads By Example

California use of renewable energy (solar, wind, battery} has surpassed 50% toward its goal of 100% by 2045), CA Energy Commission

California, by far the mot populous state in the nation, has for years been the most ambitious in terms of its use of renewable energy. Despite the efforts of the Trump Administration to undermine the state’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions and to limit  the state’s ability to set its own targets for fossil fuel efficiency, Californians continue to move closer to their goals for percentage use of renewables and for use of electric vehicles. Although still well short of their goals, California gets year by year closer to its targets for 2030 and 2045. Moreover, as battery storage technology keeps dramatically improving, no longer can opponents of solar power use the old argument that solar doesn’t work at night or on cloudy days. In addition, the public benefits from not only clearer air, but also from the lower prices that people pay for  solar electricity than for gas, especially as gas prices keep rising.

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Garden Update: Transition to Autumn

 

 

Final green Pepper harvest and final display of Cherry Tomatoes on Virginia cutting board in kitchen, September 20

After the four months of growth from planting in late April through the bountiful harvesting from late June and into early September, it’s time for the Northern Virginia garden to rest.  September is a strange month for an East Coast garden. When the month begins, it’s still lush , hot summer, teeming with butterflies. By the time September ends, it’s definitely fall, with all that implies.

We picked the last ripe Cherry tomatoes from the five plants and have now pulled them up. The same with the 2 prolific mild Peppers and the productive (and very hot)Jalapeño.  We still have two aromatic herbs, the Rosemary and the Basil, looking lush and smelling even better.

Of our flowers, several are still looking gorgeous, including the Dahlias, the Hibiscus, and the remaining Zinnias.   Still to bloom this fall are the Mums, which are close to popping, and the Wild Blue Aster, which put on a great show last October and is the largest plant in the garden. Stay tuned!

All in all, this was a successful spring/summer second year for our garden plot. We harvested about 1000 Cherry Tomatoes, most of which are now in the freezer in jars for use over the fall and winter, plus lots of Zucchini, Peppers and Herbs.

In October, we’ll try the winter veggies again–the Broccoli and Cauliflower–and hope we don’t have to deal again with snow-crete in early 2027. Remember that?  We’ll keep you posted.

Panorama of Tiger Swallowtail and Sachem butterflies on Zinnias in our garden, September 3

In our garden, Petunias and Impatiens, September 3

Multiple blooms on our gorgeous Hibiscus, September 10

Mocha Skipper in Zinnia cluster, hot September 3

In the garden, Dahlia blooms put on a show, September 10

Blue jay, with prize in mouth, atop the east fence of the community garden, September 13

Four Mild Peppers growing in our garden, hot September 3

The still-lush Basil plant in our transitioning fall garden, September 27

The pale yellow of this Goldfinch in late September in the garden on the 27th

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Brilliant New England Asters north of dam, cool September 23

The September 2026 Photo/Video Gallery: As the Birds and Turtles have Declined, the Wildflowers Thrive

Pennsylvania Smartweed and Yellow Foxtail north of dam, September 23

Flock of Rock Doves on their favorite perch, atop the power tower west of the lake, September 23

Another late September avian surprise: this Downy Woodpecker on a neighbor’s feeder southeast of the lake, September 27

Chinese Bushclover in bloom, north of dam, cool.cloudy September 23

Hairy Asters in bloom at the south end of the lake, September 23

Yellow Beggarticks and Late Boneset profusion,southeast cove of the lake, September 5

View of wildflower profusion from north end path toward north with power lines and gas substation, sunny PM, September 15

Asiatic Smartweed along outlet stream, September 23

Praying Mantis feeds on Yellow Beggarticks, southeast cove, cloudy September 1

Mockingbird in Amur Honeysuckle, east shore, sunny September 15

Sachem butterfly on Late Boneset, southeast cove, September 5

Pokeberry in full bloom, south end, September 14

Visiting Chesapeake Bay Osprey atop dead Oak, east bank, September 1

View toward downtown, with Cutleaf Teazel and Virginia Pine, September 14

Many Bumblebees visit Boneset, as Crickets call, southeast shore, September 15

Blue jay atop tall White Oak, south of lake, September 14

Blue Heron among Reeds, northeast shore, sunny PM, September 15

Grey Squirrel digs in mulch, east side, September 15

Tomatoes, Peppers, and Jalapenos from our garden in omelet in skillet, September 10

Black Swallowtail amid Blackberry vines, southeast cove, September 1

Black Locust, north of dam, cool September 23

Goldenrod, Hirsute Raspberry, and Boneset, northeast shore, September 14

Bumblebee closeup on Beggarticks, east shore, sunny AM,September 15

Blue Heron in flight toward northeast shore, September 15

Black Swallowtail amid Zinnia cluster, garden, September 3

Homemade Shakshuka with our garden Tomatoes and Peppers, September 13

And on to October, with hopes for more Bird and Turtle sightings , and even more Wildflowers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

August 2025: Garden, Lake, Ponies, and Living Shorelines

/ Chris Thaiss / Leave a comment

Monarch feeds on Peach Zinnia in our community garden, August 14

In this month’s blog:

Bounty and Beauty in the Late Summer Garden
Climate Log: Fighting the Good Fight–Ponies, Storms, and Living Shorelines
The August 2025 Photo/Video Gallery: Wildflowers around Our Lake and More from the Eastern Shore

Turkey Vulture eats meal atop post along the shore on Tilghman Island, Eastern Shore, Maryland, August 17

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Beauty and Bounty in the Late Summer Garden

Sachem Butterfly in Orange Marigolds, our garden, August 15

In August, our garden this year reached its apex in productivity, with some plants starting to decline, a few exhausted, and others still going strong–or even making a comeback. On August 22, the Community held its annual Garden Potluck, where gardeners from the five collections of plots across town came together to share stories about what worked and what didn’t, ask each other for advice, and bring dishes made from our produce and other goodies.

Chris’s Three Sisters (corn, squash, beans) stew, with zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, and green peppers from our garden, served at the Community Garden Potluck, August 22

So how have the diverse plants done this August?

  1. Still going strong: Plants still producing with no let-up in our plot are the profuse marigolds (yellow and orange), white and pink vinca, the spreading zinnias, one amazing green pepper plant,  hot burrito pepper, herbs (rosemary and oregano), and the late blooming and very tall cosmos.

Marigold explosion, still vibrant, morning, August 28

Pink and white Vinca happy in our garden, August 8

Translucent magenta Cosmos blooms, early morning, August 8

Zinnias and cosmos, still brilliant, morning, August 28

The last of 3 mild pepper plants, still producing, morning, August 28

2. Starting to decline: our three varieties of tomatoes: Husky Cherry Red, Juliet, and Sweet Millions–the most productive tomatoes we’ve ever grown and still putting out 2 dozen or more per day.

One day’s produce from our garden plot and that of a generous neighbor, August 8

3. Exhausted after production since April: Zucchini (May to mid July), Mint (May to mid August), Strawberries (April to end of July), Blueberries (April to June), Yellow Squash (May to mid July), Coneflowers (May to end of July), Swiss Chard (May to early August), Thyme (May to end of July)

Early morning sunlight through Swiss Chard, with Rosemary, August 8

4. Making a comeback after early success: the royally-hued Dahlias

Our Dahlias were colorfully prolific in May and June, and now have returned in August!

As we look over the five months so far of this new garden venture for us, three features stand out. The first is the large amount of rain we’ve had this half year (about 12 inches) compared to the deep drought our fellow gardeners went through last year. The second is how this prolific small plot has surprised us each time we visit (about every other day) with the uniqueness of the growing and fruiting patterns of each plant. Each one indeed has its own personality.

And the third feature is the absolute splendor of the creativity and dedication of the many friendly gardeners we’ve encountered and gotten to know. This collection of garden plots is an entreprenurial place, where the living soil, air, water, seeds, pollinators, microbes, and loving humans cooperate to make many, many small miracles from day to day. With more miracles yet to come in the rest of the year!

An American Goldfinch calls from across the garden plots on the early morning of August 12

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Climate Log: Fighting the Good Fight–Ponies, Storms, and Living Shorelines

Female Osprey preens on her nest in the marshes of Tilghman Island on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, August 17

As the Trump administration keeps

  • denying a changed climate of ever more dangerous heat, drought, and floods
  • defunding protections for animals, plants, and human beings, and
  • intensifying the burning of poisonous fossil fuels,

groups and localities around the US are fighting back through local and regional actions that try to sustain healthy living for all creatures. What can we as Americans do to promote health and counteract these dangerous anti-life actions by the new regime? The New York Times series “Fifty States, Fifty Fixes” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/climate/50-states-fixes.html is one effort. It asks readers to contribute their own examples of life-saving actions in their own communities–and thousands of readers throughout the nation have answered the call.

“Living shoreline” built with natural materials near Lewes, Delaware, August 21 (New York Times photo)

One such coordinated action–now being replicated in other states–is the “living shorelines” project in Delaware. “Living shorelines” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/climate/delaware-living-shorelines.html uses natural materials, including the power of plants and soil, to recreate the marshy wetlands destroyed by sea level rise along US coasts. These living shorelines are far more effective than the concrete and rocky barriers often used to delay coastal erosion. Not only are the living shorelines of deep-rooted plants stronger and more lasting than artificial barriers–but they provide homes for water creatures and in fact grow steadily more diverse and broader as time goes on.

On our recent trip to Maryland’s Eastern Shore, we saw the living shoreline at the Maritime Museum in St. Michael’s, August 17

Protecting the Marshes, Coastline, and Precious Ponies of Chincoteague, Virginia.

On our visit to the Eastern Shore, we joined a few surfers, several park personnel, and a beach full of Lesser Yellowlegs and Laughing Gulls riding out the effects of Hurricane Erin, August 18, on Assateague Island

Misty and Stormy. If you’ve been to the Atlantic Coast’s Chincoteague Island, Virginia, just across the Maryland state line, you probably know the story of Misty, the pony made famous by writer Marguerite Henry in the 1950s and 60s. Her 1963 sequel, Stormy, Misty’s Foal, describes in sad detail the tidal storm that took the lives of so many of the islands’ legendary ponies–which the states and the National Park Service have protected for over 100 years.

Six ponies in an Assateague Island saltgrass marsh, early morning, windy, rainy August 19. Care by national and state park personnel have extended life spans of the ponies, as well as their protecting the marshes and shorelines https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/maryland/2015/06/02/assateague-pony-population-aging/28347157/

We visited Chincoteague and Assateague islands on August 18-20, just as Hurricane Erin was moving up the Atlantic and beginning to build a storm surge on the coast. The whipping winds and intermittent rain made for a lively time for us and the birds, but the ponies and waterfowl were easily up to the task, as were the park personnel. The protection of shorelines and marshes in the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge is a model of what federal, state, and local cooperation can accomplish.

A Lauguing Gull fights the wind on Assateague Beach, early AM, August 19

The pony herds draw many thousands of tourists each year–and the grazing ponies were on magnificent display in the saltgrass marshes visible to drivers for hundreds of yards beyond the roads of the refuge. We were able to get beautiful views of one herd and of their symbiotic relationship with the egrets and gulls who flock among them. In this video, Jean reads from Stormy, Misty’s Foal as I scan the herd and the birds. This excerpt is Marguerite Henry’s recounting of the legendary history of how a Spanish shipwreck in the 16th century brought the ponies to Assateague:

As we scan about a dozen members of the pony herd and their accompanying birds in the Assateague marshes, Jean reads from Marguerite Henry’s Stormy, Misty’s Foal (August 19, early morning in the rain)

Here are a few more of the photos and videos from our visit to Chincoteague and to the Wildlife Refuge (see a few more pics and clips of our visit to the Eastern Shore in this month’s Gallery, too).

Laughing Gulls and male and female Mallards beside our hotel in Chincoteague, August 18

Two surfers in the high waves, Assateague Beach, August 19, early morning rain

Three Lesser Yellowlegs run in the wind and rain of Assateague Beach, early morning, August 19

Large flock of egrets and four ponies active in the early morning wind and rain, Assateague Island, August 19

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Okra plant and bloom from the Tilghman Island Inn kitchen garden, Maryland, August 17

The August 2025 Photo/Video Gallery: Wildflowers around Our Lake and More from the Eastern Shore

Whereas our garden plot features what we’ve planted, our little lake provides a changing feast of wildflowers. The display changes as the months do, and new leaves, stems, and flowers appear, while others fade back or disappear until next year.  As citizens of our local refuge (even if not so named), these new flowers highlight the good work we humans do when we don’t do too much–and we let the plants and animals do what they are experts at doing.

A Bee feeds atop this Evening Primrose on the east bank of our lake. These brilliant flowers appear along the lake in August, here on the morning of August 22

In much the same way, our visit to the Eastern Shore on August 16-20 let us witness ways, such as the St. Michael’s Maritime Museum and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, by which humans can assist nature by deliberately limiting commercial development and preserving native habitats. But beyond preservation, in exhibits like “Sailing to Freedom,” curating groups such as the Maritime  Museum go beyond preservation to call out past injustices, which are starting to reappear in the current political climate of censorship of diversity and the censors’ rewriting of history .

The multi-room exhibit “Sailing to Freedom” at the St. Michael’s Maritime Museum illustrates the rich but rarely mentioned history of enslaved people and their allies using boats and waterways to escape enslavement in the pre-Civil-War United States.

At the Maritime Museum is the re-located home of the sister of Frederick Douglass, where the garden includes a “three sisters” display of how Native Americans planted the 3 plants (beans, corn, and squash) together. Note how the bean vines encircle the corn stalk.

At the Maritime Museum in St. Michael’s, this skipjack is one of many vessels that have been restored to tell the history of the fisheries for over centuries on the Eastern Shore (Photo August 17)

Wild Blue Chicory is one of the late summer wildflowers/herbs that grow around our lake, August 3

Purple Martins in the wildlife preserve at the tip of Tilghman Island, Maryland, August 17

With the Virginia shore 12 miles across the Chesapeake Bay, a Swamp Rose Mallow blooms at the tip of Tilghman Island, August 17

Magnificent Weeping Willow at the Tilghman Island Inn, August 16

In the Tilghman Island marsh beside the Inn, a male Osprey devours his catch, August 17

At the Tilghman Island Inn, a Black Swallowtail flits within Purple Top Vervain

Pokeberry in bloom along the north shore of our lake, August 3

Four Red-bellied Cooters sun on a log at the north shore of our lake, just after sunrise, August 3

Bumblebee in Cutleaf Teazel on the north shore path of our lake, August 3

Two Bumblebees in 2 Purple Teazel, north shore, sunny noon, August 27

Grey Catbird flits amid Woodbine along the west bank of our lake, morning, August 3

The Chincoteague Fairgrounds, where for 100 years the people have celebrated the annual Pony Penning festival and carnival. Pony Penning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pony_Penning strengthens the herd and protects the land, while also giving new homes to young members of the herd among farmers and ranchers of the region. (Photo, August 20)

South Corral on Assateague Island, where ponies are rounded up for the swim across the channel on Pony Penning Day each year (photo August 19)

Four Herring Gulls on the roof of our hotel in Chincoteague, early morning, August 19

Daisy Fleabane display on the east bank of our lake, August 3

Five Canada Geese exercise in the southeast cove of our lake, sunny noon, August 27

Bumblebee in Swamp Milkweed on the east bank of our lake, on a breezy August 3

Panorama toward the south end of our lake on the morning of August 22, with Evening Primrose and prolific Horseweed in the foreground

Gallery Bonus: Raccoon crosses the trail at the Seneca Regional Park, visited on August 8

Bonus 2: At Seneca Park, a side channel of the Potomac River flows swiftly through the forest, August 8

And so on toward September, with continued courage to protect and celebrate the great diversity of life…