A Walk Through History

If you feel like exploring off-island, on foot or by bike, head for one of our favorite outdoor venues, the West Ashley Greenway, a ten-mile former railroad bed created by the city of Charleston and opened to the public more than a decade ago. Running between Folly Road to the east and Main Road to the west, and paralleling Savannah Highway to the north, the Greenway has become a popular hiking and biking trail offering a varied landscape, from park-like suburbs on the eastern end, where the trail is mostly asphalt, to wild marsh and maritime forest to the west along hard dirt-packed ground.

During your walk or ride, you'll cross former dairy land once owned by Coburg Dairies (the famous Coburg Cow on Savannah Highway is all that remains), former farms that once provided Charleston tables with fresh produce, and tributaries and creeks of the Stono River that still teem with fish and bird life, making the trail a favorite destination for birdwatchers, especially during migration seasons.

There's older history here, too. The Greenway follows an old rail bed first laid down in the 1830's, at the dawn of the steam locomotive era, to carry produce and passengers between Charleston and Savannah. Later, it was a crucial supply line for Confederate forces guarding the western and southern approaches to

The train to Savannah, c.1895

the city and a prime target for Union bombardments. The rail line was reconstructed after the war but fell into disuse by the mid-twentieth century (a newer track along Savannah Highway still carries freight between Charleston and Savannah) and was eventually acquired by the city when the Rails To Trails movement gained national momentum.

The western end of the trail ends at Main Road near the Limehouse Bridge, but don't head home just yet. Across Main Road is the entrance to Stono River County Park, with a looped trail across the marshes to the banks of the river, affording a unique view of the bridge and river traffic. Enjoy the view!

The Limehouse Bridge, from Stono River County Park

Summer Threads

Of the 45,000 species of spiders known globally, an estimated 600 live in South Carolina. In the Lowcountry, these mid-summer days are when our eight-legged neighbors become busiest as spiderlings that emerged in the spring have reached full maturity, motionless and waiting for prey in their elaborate webs. Fortunately for us, there are only four venomous spiders in our area - three varieties of the hourglass-marked widow family, and the brown recluse - all of which will only bite if physically threatened. The widows' bites, if painful, are very rarely fatal; the brown recluse's bite, however, can in severe cases cause swellings on the skin that can take months to heal.

A golden silk orbweaver

Fortunately for us, the most commonly encountered Lowcountry spiders are non-venomous. Often popularly grouped together as banana spiders, we share the environment with three distinct types of yellow/black spiders - the yellow garden spider (Argiope aurantia), the golden silk orb weaver (Trichonephila calvipes), and a newcomer, the Joro spider (Trichonephila clavata). If you encounter any of these three types, you will most commonly be looking at the imposingly large female, while the much smaller males may be nearby in their own webs to entice the female by strumming on hers with their legs. And, yes, the female may sometimes consume the male after mating before laying her eggs; in any event, an unconsumed male will die shortly after mating.

The newly arrived Joro spider

You can tell you're looking at a yellow garden spider if its web, usually constructed in sunny, open areas, has a characteristic zig-zagged thread, the stabilimentum, through the middle of the otherwise round web (seen in the photo at the top of this post). Its purpose is uncertain. The webs of orb weaver spiders, found in dense vegetation, are to many admirers the most beautiful with their yellow/gold coloring, which may be intended as camouflage in the shifting sunlight and shadows of wooded areas. The orb weaver is also the largest of the three types, with females' bodies as large as two inches. The newcomer to the Lowcountry, the Joro spider, arrived here from Asia, where it's common in China, the Korean peninsula and Japan. It's also an orb weaver with a bright yellow-and-green striped abdomen and darker stripes on its underside. As a relatively new non-native species, its effects on the southeast's ecology are still under study.

Whatever your reaction on seeing one of these arachnids, remember that spiders are important to ecosystems as a natural form of pest control, capturing and consuming insects that are harmful to crops, pets and us. And few sights are more beautiful than a delicate golden web glistening in the summer sun.

Southern Song

Photo: Dan Pancamo, via Wikipedia Commons

Easy trivia question: what's the State Bird of South Carolina? Easy answer: the Carolina Wren, one of the most ubiquitous birds in the Lowcountry, as it is for nearly the entire eastern United States, with a range from New England south to northern Mexico, and westward to the Mississippi River.

A cozy nest in an old pair of boots

The Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) is easily identified by its cinammon-brown plumage, white eyebrow stripe and upwardly flicked tail, and can be seen year-round here busily darting and hopping among dense undergrowth and marsh vegetation in search of insects. They'll nest almost anywhere that offers protection from the elements, including eave-sheltered hanging plant baskets, mailboxes, even under the valve lids of propane tanks, as well as in trees and fallen logs. Males and females can pair for life and share in building nests, in which the female will lay up to seven brown-spotted eggs that will hatch in about two weeks. She may brood up to three times a year.

A male belts it out (image (c) birdwatchingdaily.com)

The "teakettle-teakettle" call of these diminutive birds, unexpectedly loud for such a small animal, can be heard year-round. Unlike other wrens, only the male Carolina Wren sings this distinctive call to attract females and warn other males away from its territory. One male Carolina Wren was recorded making the call more than 3,000 times in one twelve-hour period.

You can attract these energetic birds to your backyard during the winter with a suet-stocked feeder and provide nesting sites with brush piles or empty flowerpots. Then sit back and enjoy the music of these lively Lowcountry neighbors. (Listen to the song here)