Indeed, a fun group of hearty souls joined me this afternoon for a winter plant ID walk at Anchor Diamond Park at Hawkwood. We actually experienced true winter conditions, complete with chilly air temp and snow and ice underfoot – a striking contrast to the bare ground and near 50 degrees this past Monday when I adorned selected plants along our route with numbered flags.
Each participant used a digital trailside guide that I compiled and sent to them before today’s outing.
As we encountered a numbered flag, we’d briefly huddle around the mystery plant and then, using that trailside guide, participants would click on a number in its table of contents that corresponded with the number shown on the colored flag. Doing so would open that page of the trailside guide to reveal the identity of that plant and provide helpful tips on how to identify that particular plant in its winter slumber.
Folks seemed to enjoy the outing at this beautiful park and I certainly enjoyed their company as well as the mutual sharing of our collective knowledge. I always pick up a few new and interesting factoids on these outings.
For those of you who were unable to attend, I hope you’ll join me on any of my upcoming wildflower walks this spring, summer and fall. Please visit the Events page for dates, locations, and details.
“Landscapes are accumulations of the past–both natural and human-made past influences, spanning from the recent past to the distant past. Like books, they can be read or interpreted. Instead of words on the page signifying the meaning, natural and human-made forces and elements that have shaped the landscape signify the landscape’s meaning.”
To “read the landscape” is to become aware of and to interpret the patterns, relationships, and landscape elements – both natural and man-made – that individually and collectively exhibit the events that occurred at a given location.
I have visited Hayes Nature Park in the Town of Clifton Park on numerous occasions in each of the four seasons. While I have noticed a group of Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus) trees (each with multiple trunks beginning approximately seven feet above the ground) along the far northeastern portion of the Red Fox Trail (refer to trail map) during those prior visits, I decided to take a few photographs on this particular recent visit in mid-January and take a closer look.
Eastern White Pine trees (click on the image for a closer look)Hayes Nature Park and location of mystery Eastern White Pine trees
Why do so many of these pine trees have multiple trunks? In taking a closer look, this group of pine trees appeared to be of a similar age. Why were most of those multiple trunks occurring at about the same height on those trees? What disturbance occurred that affected so many trees and why did it seemingly recur within a period of just a few years (exhibited by emergence of one or more smaller trunks growing vertically from either two or three different whorls of branches)?
These relatively even-aged white pines are the largest, and presumably oldest, trees present on this portion of the park.
When these particular pine trees were sapling sized, this portion of the trail area was not yet a forest.
This stand of even-aged pine trees with no other older species intermingled within them suggests that this was part of a larger open area that had likely been previously cleared for agricultural use and that this area was slowly revegetating back to trees. In these instances locally, Eastern White Pine is often one of the first trees to become established. They thrive in such sunny areas lacking other fast-growing tree species. It was probably also about this same time that what occurred will answer both of the two questions I posed above. So, when did that occur?
Foresters estimate the age of a mature tree after measuring its circumference (CBH) and then using these two formulas to (1) estimate its diameter (DBH) and (2) estimate its age:
CBH (inches) / Pi = DBH (inches), where Pi is the constant (3.141592)
DBH (inches) × Growth Factor = Estimated Age of Tree (years)
So can we.
Eastern White Pine #1
I measured two of these multiple-trunk trees and found that they are both around nine feet in circumference (104 and 111 inches, respectively).
Eastern White Pine #2
Each measurement was taken at diameter-at-breast-height (DBH), a forestry term indicating that a tree’s diameter is measured at the standardized height of 4-1/2 feet above the ground surface. For Eastern White Pine, that formula indicates that these two trees are approximately 166 and 177 years old, respectively. Those estimates suggest that this portion of the trail area was open land back in the 1840s. Further, the first cluster of multiple tops of each of these two trees occurred at about seven feet above the ground. White pines growing in such open land conditions are anticipated to grow about 4-1/2 feet in the first 8-10 years, then begin their rapid growth phase of up to 1-2 feet per year thereafter. Therefore, the formation of multiple tops in these two trees seems to have occurred when each tree was 15 years old or less, or approximately between 1850 to 1870.
Click on the image for a closer look.
So, why the multiple tops?
The White Pine Weevil (Pissodes strobi) prefers the young terminal shoot (the one that forms the single trunk of a white pine tree) that is no bigger than the thickness of your finger, which is typically found in trees less than 15 years old. Such young terminal shoots have thin green bark and soft tissue beneath that bark, which will be easy for it to penetrate with its chewing mouth parts at the end of its long proboscis – that is what enables this insect to penetrate to the core of the terminal shoot; it then deposits its eggs inside that bored hole. Read about the damage caused by this comical looking insect.
Next time you visit Hayes Nature Park, I hope you’ll take time to find and ponder about this stand of multi-trunked Eastern White Pine trees. May that inspire you to take a longer and more thoughtful view of the landscape surrounding you during your next stroll through nature.
I encourage you to learn more about reading the landscape; consider these resources to get you started:
Feed the Birds Day is celebrated on this day every year and is part of the celebration of National Bird-Feeding Month. Since 1994, it is celebrated during February since it represents the last stretch of extreme cold and thick snow of each winter, when birds’ food reserves run low and finding food can become quite difficult for them. This day is a great opportunity to think about the kind of food that is best for your feathered visitors and how to provide it to them in a consistent and safe manner.
Most birds eat seeds in the winter since insects and berries are virtually non-existent throughout this season; only woodpeckers are likely to discover hibernating insect larvae when they chisel into the trunks of decaying trees or logs. Seeds are dense in calories because many offer oil as a source of fat that helps birds generate the energy they need to stay warm and fly about in search of food.
Nutrient-rich seeds include black-oil sunflower, nyjer (or thistle seed,) and white proso millet.
A seed to avoid is the red milo seed (sorghum,) which birds won’t even eat if blended with other seeds. Unfortunately, this seed is too often blended with other seeds that are offered for sale in most retail outlets as “wild bird food.” Read the label and avoid future purchases of such blends since you’ll be both wasting your money and not providing what the birds need.
Suet is a fat-rich, high caloric food that woodpeckers seem to prefer. Therefore, the buffet that I annually offer to our over-wintering resident birds includes:
2. Nyjer seeds (~30-40% oil content): Birds that will feed on these seeds include American Goldfinch, Black-capped Chickadee, Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis), House Finch, Pine Siskin, Purple Finch, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, and White-breasted Nuthatch. A tube feeder with very small ports or even a loose knit stocking or wire mesh feeder is all you need to offer this unique seed to a variety of colorful visitors.
3. Suet: Birds that will feed on suet include Black-capped Chickadee, Blue Jay, Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus), Red-bellied Woodpecker, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Tufted Titmouse, and White-breasted Nuthatch. Suet is most often available in ~1” thick squares that fits into a similar-sized wire grill feeder that has a hinged door for easy access.
White-breasted NuthatchRed-bellied Woodpecker
When discovering such a buffet, birds aren’t the only opportunistic feeders that appear. Each of these foods, especially the sunflower seeds, are also a favorite of squirrels.
Some wild bird feeding facts to drop into conversations today –
more than 50 million Americans put out a billion pounds of bird feed each year, spending more than $3 billion to do so
chickadees can gain as much as 10 percent of their body weight each day and lose it all again during a cold winter night
about one in three adult Americans feed wild birds in their backyards, which is the second most popular hobby in the U.S.
species most prevalent at your feeders may vary year to year just as bird populations fluctuate naturally from year to year – thus, some years chickadees are the most prevalent while juncos may be more numerous other years
if you offer only one food, choose black oil sunflower as it will attract the widest variety of species more than any other single food
when temperatures <10 degrees, research has shown that the survival rate of chickadees almost doubles when they have access to feeders
Some suggestions on how to become engaged in today’s festivities –
Feed them and they will come: Install and fill one of each of the bird feeders noted above, then grab a pair of binoculars and sit back and wait for some close up viewing of these beautiful feathered visitors.
The full Snow Moon rises on Sunday afternoon, February 5. Although it will occur during the daytime in the U.S., the full moon generally stays for a long duration so you should be able to watch it during the night and the day after as well. The Moon will be visible throughout the night sky rising at sunset in the northeast and setting with the sunrise the next morning in the southwest; it will reach its highest point in the night sky around midnight.
Since the heaviest snow usually falls during this month, American Indian tribes of the north and east most often called February’s full Moon the Full Snow Moon. Read about how snowflakes form. View the science of snowflakes. View a slideshow of photographs of snowflakes.
This is also the time when trees most often bear frost cracks. When they form, frost cracks can make a surprisingly loud sound that has been compared to that of a rifle shot! A frost crack is a long, vertical gash in the trunk of a tree, and is the result of a tree bursting open. Frost cracks occur during the winter where the trunk is exposed to sunshine during the day (whose radiant energy raises the temperature of the inner wood and the water flowing through it) then followed by rapid cooling when the sun sets. This extreme temperature variation, especially when the long dark night that follows is accompanied by bitter cold temperatures, causes the wood to rapidly expand and split – loudly!
FYI: Mars will be perfectly visible during the three nights that the Snow Moon will appear to be full: Saturday through Monday. On Saturday night, February 4, at approximately 7:30pm, you’ll find Mars as shown here (click on photo to enlarge it):
Curious By Nature 