Meadow Fritillary

Meadow Fritillary on New York Ironweed

The pink petals and golden pincushions of Echinacea are now faded, but American goldfinch in breeding plumage delight in pecking at the thistle. Still, the late blooming native flowers create a wonderful opportunity to get up close and personal with all kinds of pollinators. New York ironweed is towering above the strip of meadow, Maryland golden asters are just beginning to open to a deep yellow and the Joe Pye weed blossoms are covered with bees. And, I have been observing all kinds of visitors to the mountain mints, thoroughwort, rudbeckia and butterfly weed. This summer has been a bit lean for the sighting of butterflies in the garden. I have seen only one Monarch butterfly and the number of swallowtails is way down; branded skippers and spring azures being the most frequent visitors.  So I was delighted and surprised to catch a glimpse of a beautiful meadow fritillary feeding on New York ironweed. Photographing butterflies is a challenge for me as their visits to flowers are short and sweet. But I get a second chance because, after being disturbed, they always flutter around the area for a short while before returning to the same flower for a second sip.

Buds and Bees - Signs of Spring

Mining Bee (Andrena sp.)

It has been too long since my last blog entry. But spring has been slow in coming and I have been searching the tangled wood and garden for all signs vernal. How had nature diarist Edwin Way Teale experienced early April in his patch of the woods almost 40 years ago? He walked a mossy woodland trail and found what he was hoping to see, a spring azure butterfly. Last year in March I had recorded the sighting of a mourning cloak butterfly warming itself on a rock in the sun. That was a joyful sign that spring had arrived. Now I trip along an ivy-covered path to an overgrown corner of the wood where some spicebush has survived a fallen tree. There are tiny yellow buds swelling against slender stems, but they are tightly closed against the cold spring air. The maples are beginning to blush high up against the clear blue sky. Perhaps I can get a closer look at the flowers of the young red maple on the slope. These buds are about to burst, but no blossom yet. As I walk the garden path I hear the unmistakable buzz of a bee visiting a flower. Honeybees are already out and about, brushing against the deep orange pollen of crocuses, which are blooming a good month later than last year. At another patch of crocus I spot small dark, gray bees quietly gathering pollen. These bees seem calmer than their European cousins and I realize that they are mining bees (Andrena sp.) once I see one swiftly disappear into a mounded hole in sandy soil nearby. I have seen buds of promise and soon enough there will be more flowers for this solitary bee to visit and provision her underground nest. I have yet to catch a glimpse of the spring azure butterfly, but for me spring is here!

Entrance to a Mining Bee Nest 

Counting on life in a white winter

I feel a need to watch for signs of life in the winter garden, especially during a season as hard as this one. Today I’m counting birds while taking part in the Great Backyard Bird Count.  I enjoy watching the antics of black-capped chickadees and tufted titmice. Dark-eyed juncos and white-throated sparrows hop about for seeds spilled on a snow bank. A female cardinal visits the feeder and there is the call of a blue jay, and the drumming of a woodpecker up in the bare, windswept canopy. 

Snow is piled high. It obliterates form, covering bird baths and creating snow caves under shrubs. Only the stiffest and tallest stems poke up through the snow - red osier dogwood, purple top grass (now straw gold), brown seed heads almost pecked clean. Yet more fresh snow is falling as the daylight fades and tree branches are defined by a dusting of white.

Winterseed

Leaves have fallen but seeds persist amongst white fluff, dark brown cones or beaded along erect and bended stem. The birds have pecked some clean leaving gray skeletons and little straw-like stars. The color palette ranges from white through pink to beige. Beneath is a carpet of brown oak leaves through which robins and white-throated sparrows scratch and peck for grubs and spilled seed. Nature, left to its own devices, creates this muted beauty in a winter’s garden. A garden left alone to complete a life’s cycle. No power tools are necessary.

 Rake versus Blower

The wind rustles the trees and birds twitter from bare branches. 

Rake scrapes in a steady rhythm and pushes golden leaves into a rough and tumble pile.

Blower makes its own wind. 

A deafening roar that coerces nature’s bounty to be tidied up and put out of the way.

Using rake is wholesome exercise. 

Blower makes it all a chore.

The fuel for rake is from burning calories. 

A human body is warmed in the cool crisp air, which has the sweet smell of fall. 

Blower burns fossil fuel. 

A motor becomes hot and releases toxic fumes.

Rake caresses red leaf of maple, orange mitt of sassafras and leathery brown of oak.

Blower makes all a blur and a whir.

Neighbors stop for a chat when rake is in operation.

Doors, windows, blinds, and ears, are closed and covered when blower blows.

Rake makes free mulch that feeds the soil.

Blower leaves behind a blasted bare earth and long rows of leaf bags.

Robins and sparrows scratch and peck for food once rake is put away.

A naked soil must bear winter’s wrath after blower has done its job.

Rake has the last word.

                         

Milkweed and the Tale of the Mummy

Oleander aphids on milkweed

The leaves on the milkweed plant (Asclepias syriaca) in the meadow are shriveling to yellow and crinkly brown. Yet upon closer inspection there is still some life along the plant’s folds and stems. A milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) avoids my gaze and moves to the underside of a leaf and along the stem there are clusters of Oleander aphids (Aphis nerii) being farmed by tiny red ants. The aphids have an orange color, because just like the larvae of the milkweed beetle and monarch butterfly caterpillar, they acquire glycosides from the milkweed sap, which renders them toxic to predators. The ants protect the colonies of aphids because they feed off the honeydew, which is secreted by the tiny black tubes, or cornicles, on the aphid’s rear ends. With the first frost the aphids, ants and beetle will be gone and the milkweed plant will wither and retreat into the ground. Even if I had discovered these aphids during the growing season I would have left them well alone as a wasp parasitizes large numbers of them. Female wasps (Lysiphlebus testaceipes) lay their eggs in aphid nymphs. As the parasitoid wasp develops and consumes the insides of the nymph the aphid’s body turns color. The wasps finally emerge leaving behind brown papery mummies. Infestations of aphids on plants that are more ornamental are dealt with a soapy spray. But in this wildlife habitat garden I let nature take its course and leave the parasitoid wasps to do their thing.

Berries for Wildlife's Winter Table

Goldenrod flowers are fading to brown from gold, but berries are now ripening and readying for wildlife’s winter table. I searched around my garden to see what is on offer. The young Winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata) plants have large clusters of shiny red berries. They will persist well into winter and cheer the winter landscape while providing sustenance for the northern mocking bird, the American robin and the brown thrasher.

The flowering dogwood tree (Cornus florida) in my garden is not in the best of health, but it hangs in there and produces brilliant red berries, which will feed the northern flicker, the yellow-bellied sapsucker and the eastern towhee. 

Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) is a robust weed that people love to hate, but I let it grow in the wilder parts of my garden. In the Fall it comes into its own when it sports clusters of juicy, purple berries on magenta pink stems. The berries provide sustenance for migrating birds. This plant has been used for dye, ink for the pen that signed the Declaration of Independence and a spring vegetable, which is high in vitamins A and C. In southern states young shoots are canned and sold as “Poke Sallet”. All other parts of the plant, including the berries, are poisonous.

Red chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia) produces tiny little red apples (it belongs in the apple family). This is a very tart fruit, which will persist on the shrub and provide winter interest in the garden before becoming palatable enough for a late winter feast for birds.

False Solomon’s Seal (Maianthemum racemosa) looks a little bedraggled this year because we have had little rainfall lately. This plant grows in the shady wilder parts of my garden and usually at this time of the year it has golden yellow leaves and plump red berries, which are relished by birds.

Tea viburnum (Viburnum setigerum) is a plant I uncovered at the edge of my garden in the tangled wood. It will be interesting to see what will eat the berries of this non-native plant. Right now I am enjoying this shrub’s ornamental properties and I am assuming insect pollinators were responsible for these gorgeous red clusters.

Front lawn transformed into habitat

September 2013

A habitat garden shows its true worth at this glorious time of the year. Bumblebees, many kinds of solitary bee, predatory wasps, locust borers, tiny flower flies and countless insects (I am only just beginning to know how to identify) are in a feeding frenzy on goldenrods and asters. Flowering grasses are pollinated for copious seed. Butterflies sip the last supplies of nectar. I feel the sun’s warmth and the sheer energy of color and movement as I stand nearby and just watch.

Compare the scene above with the ivy-covered “desert” of three years ago. The front lawn was already over-run and suppressed with English ivy, where the swathe of invading green seemed all the more somber from a lack of biodiversity. I have pulled and rolled up many bags-worth of tenacious tendril to restore this area. I think you will agree that my efforts have paid off.

September 2010