National Go Birding Day is celebrated annually on the last Saturday in April.
Up until the mid-1700s, most people looked at birds from the perspective of hunting them as a sport or primarily for food. The late 18th century works of Thomas Bewick, John Clare, George Montagu, and Gilbert White show an early interest in observing birds for their aesthetic rather than as a source of food. Then, during the Victorian era (1837 to 1901) people collected birds’ eggs and feathers, and later preserved their feathers. The phrase “bird watching” first appeared as the title of a book by Edmund Selous in 1901.
Birdwatching first gained popularity in the United Kingdom, with the United States not far behind. Going birding is basically the same as birdwatching, although some may say that birdwatchers enjoy simply observing birds, while birders may be more inclined to seek and identify as many species as they can find, including by their songs and calls. Either way, observing birds in their natural habitat is a hobby that draws a great deal of interest for many nature lovers.
One of the many appeals of birdwatching is that it is an inexpensive activity. The necessary equipment includes binoculars and a field guide (and/or a bird ID app) to identify the species you observe. Birders will likely add a camera with telephoto lenses and a notebook to document information of each sighting.
Some relevant factoids to drop into conversations today –
Birds through an Opera Glass (1889) by Florence Bailey was the first field guide published in the United States.
Based on a survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 51.3 million Americans indicated that they watch birds.
Pish: to make a noise that sounds like “psssh psssh psssh” with the intention of luring out a hidden bird.
A “twitcher” is a birdwatcher who is obsessed with list-keeping.
Suggested activities in celebration of this day –
Spend some time birdwatching in your own backyard.
This week, I’m featuring Dwarf Ginseng (Panax trifolius) as one of our local wildflowers that begins to bloom at this time.
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Dwarf Ginseng is one of our ephemeral spring wildflowers. Each year it has a fleeting above-ground life of only about two months. Then the foliage dies back and the root lives underground until the next spring.
This perennial herbaceous plant grows 3-8″ tall. It has a smooth and reddish green unbranched stem that terminates in a whorl of compound leaves and a single flowering stalk.
Dwarf Ginseng has medium green compound leaves with stalks about 1-1/4 inches long to which three (sometimes five) leaflets are attached. The leaflets are finely toothed and stalkless, and they appear in a whorl around the stem about halfway between the base and flower cluster. The leaves are oblong to lance-like to elliptic with the middle leaflet being the largest and the side leaflets becoming progressively smaller. The upper surface of the leaves is medium green and hairless.
The flowering stalk rises 1-3″ above the leaves, terminating in a single small umbel of white flowers about ¾” across. Like the central stem, it is light green to dull red and hairless. Individual flowers are about 1/8″ across with five white petals. The flowers of some plants are all staminate (male, which bear pollen), while the flowers of other plants are perfect (male and female, with the latter producing seeds). Smaller plants usually produce male flowers. Individual plants are capable of changing their gender from year-to-year. It has been estimated that every year about one fourth to one third of the plants in an area switch from producing one kind of flower to the producing the other. The flowers turn pale pink before withering.
Fertilized perfect flowers are replaced by small clusters of berries. The rather dry berries are initially green, but later become yellow as they ripen. Each berry contains 2-3 white kidney-shaped seeds, each less than 1/8” in size.
The distinctive tubers (a small round ball only about half an inch wide) of Dwarf Ginseng can be eaten raw or boiled. This species, in contrast to the well-known herbal medicine American Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), is not extensively used for medicinal purposes. However, in the past, the Cherokee and the Iroquois used tea of the whole plant in the past to treat a wide variety of ailments, such as chest pain, colic, gout, hepatitis, hives, indigestion, liver ailments, rheumatism, and tuberculosis. The root was chewed for headaches, shortness of breath, fainting, and nervous debility.
Wildlife Value:
Very little is known about floral-faunal relationships for this species. The flowers are probably cross-pollinated by small bees and flies.
In sunny wetlands, Marsh Marigold is one of the first wildflowers to bloom in the spring. According to the Cornell Botanic Gardens in Ithaca, New York, Marsh Marigold bloomed an average of six days earlier over the period of 1986 to 2015 as an indication of climate change sensitivity.
Description:
Marsh Marigold is a native perennial herbaceous plant in the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) that tends to grow in clumps. Also known as cowslip, cowflock, or kingcup, it is a lovely harbinger of spring.
Marsh Marigold in Ushers Road State Forest
Marsh Marigold grows from 8-24 inches tall with many branches, and has glossy green basal leaves that are round, oval, heart or kidney-shaped and up to 4” long and 4” across.
The basal leaves have long petioles while upper, stem leaves are alternate and on shorter petioles becoming stalkless as they ascend the stem. The stems are hairless and hollow. Leaves are smooth with a deep and narrow notch and their margins have small scallops or teeth. Leaf edges may be toothless but are more often scalloped.
The upper stems produce small clusters of 2-5 bright yellow flowers on short petioles, usually rising above the leaves. Each flower is about ¾–1½” across with 5-9 (usually) petal-like sepals. There are no true petals. The sepals are bright yellow, well-rounded, and slightly overlapping. There is no noticeable floral scent.
Fertilized flowers mature into a flattened and recurved seedpod (follicle) about 3/8 inch long. Each follicle is initially green and erect, spreading out as it matures, drying to light greenish brown and eventually splitting open along its upper side to release its seeds.
A German legend tells the story of a maiden named Caltha (meaning “cup” in Greek) who fell so in love with the sun god that she spent her days and nights in the fields, trying to see as much as possible of him, until her body and spirit wasted away. The very first Marsh Marigold – a cup filled with the sun’s rays – grew where the devoted maiden had stood.
Culinary and Medicinal Uses:
CAUTION: Plant juices can cause blistering or inflammation on skin or mucous membranes on contact. WARNING: POISONOUS – Leaves contain the oily toxin protoanemonin, the amount of which increases as the leaves progress through a growing season. If ingested raw, it can induce convulsions and lesions throughout the digestive tract.
The young leaves (picked before the plant blooms) are sometimes used as potherbs, but require several short boilings with changes of water between each; heat destroys the toxins. Tightly closed buds can be similarly prepared and pickled like capers.
Medicinally, the whole plant is anodyne (painkiller), antispasmodic, diaphoretic (induces sweating), diuretic (induces urination), emetic (induces vomiting), expectorant and rubefacient. A poultice of the boiled and mashed roots was used by American Indians to treat sores, remove warts, protect against love charms, and as an aid in childbirth. A tea made from its leaves was also believed to relieve constipation. Early colonists learned from American Indians to mix a decoction of the root with maple syrup to make cough syrup.
Wildlife Value:
The flowers produce both nectar and copious amounts of pollen, which attract primarily flies and bees. Marsh Marigolds are primarily pollinated by pollen-seeking Greater Bee Fly (Bombylius major), Halictid bees, honey bees, and hoverflies (family Syrphidae, including Lejops spp., Neoascia spp., and Xylota spp.). Ants (family Formicidae) and cuckoo bees (Nomada spp.) collect the nectar.
Because the acrid foliage contains toxic alkaloids and glycosides, it is usually avoided by browsing animals. The seeds are eaten by Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus), Meadow Vole (Microtus pennsylvanicus), Sora Rail (Porzana carolina), and Wood Duck (Aix sponsa).
Where Found Locally:
As its name suggests, Marsh Marigold is a plant that prefers sunny areas where the soil is consistently wet from underground seepage of water. Habitats include various wetlands, including vernal pools in low woodlands, swamps, soggy meadows in river floodplains, marshes, fens, seeps and springs, and ditches that get part or full sun.
Sweetfern is a small, native, aromatic mound-shaped shrub, 2-5 feet tall that has ascending to widely spreading branches with fine twigs and occurs in dense colonies. The bark of branches and twigs is gray or reddish brown, more or less smooth, with scattered white lenticels. Young shoots are light green to light brown, and very pubescent, becoming less pubescent with age.
Alternate leaves occur along the twigs and shoots. These leaves are 2-6″ long and ¼-1″ across; they are narrowly oblong to oblong-elliptic in shape and the edges of which are rolled back and rounded, with a fern-like division. The upper surface of mature leaves is medium green to olive-green and smooth to slightly short-pubescent, while the lower surface is light green and nearly smooth to short-pubescent. Immature leaves, in contrast to the mature leaves, are yellowish green and more heavily covered with silky hairs (especially along their undersides). The leaves also have glandular resin-dots; leaves and twigs are very aromatic, so much so that on a warm day the fragrance can be detected at some distance without crushing its leaves. The leaf stems are less than ½” long, light green, more or less pubescent, and relatively stout.
Male and female flowers are borne separately on the same plant (monoecious) or different plants (dioecious) in clusters called catkins; flowering occurs before leaves emerge. Male catkins are drooping and cylindrical, ½ to 1¼ inches long, mostly crowded at tips of one-year-old twigs, with 25 to 50 flowers each with a sharply pointed scale-like bract and 3 to 8 pale stamens. Female catkins are erect, round to egg-shaped, 1/16 to 1/6 inch long and ovoid to globoid in shape, with 20 to 45 flowers each located below the male catkins when present or at branch tips when not.
Afterwards, the female catkins are replaced by bristly fruits that span about ¾” across; each fruit contains a cluster of 8 to 15 nutlets at its center and numerous bristly bractlets. At maturity, individual nutlets are 3-5 mm. long and ovoid in shape. The seeds contain a powerful germination inhibitor and can remain dormant but viable in the soil for as long as 70 years (Del Tredici, P. 1977. The buried seeds of Comptonia peregrina, the sweet fern. Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 104: 270-275.).
Still, even after becoming a dark brown color, the leaves of this colonizing plant adds interest in the autumn landscape.
Sweetfern leaf color in late autumn
Culinary and Medicinal Uses:
The young fruits are eaten as a pleasant nibble. The fresh aromatic leaves are used to make a palatable tea and are also used as a seasoning, such as to infuse baked or broiled fish with its flavor or to infuse a bottle of rye whiskey to make a woodsy cocktail. Sweetfern also makes an excellent rub for meat and fish.
Sweetfern has served a medical function due to its ability to act as an astringent, blood purifier, expectorant, and tonic. North American Indians used it as a poultice for wounds or sprains, and to make a tea to cure diarrhea, headache, or fever. Additionally, Sweetfern can be used topically to relieve itchiness from poison ivy or stings by infusing cold water with fresh leaves. Due to its astringent properties, the Shakers found Sweetfern to be of importance for maladies such as cholera, dysentery, debility following fevers, bruises, rheumatism and for diarrhea. It is still used for most of the same purposes in modern herbalism. Leaves are harvested in early summer and dried for later use.
Wildlife Value:
Sweetfern is a host plant to the caterpillars of a number of moths and butterflies:
The Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) feeds on the buds and catkins, while the White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) browses on the twigs and foliage. Two bird species, the Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) and Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), have been observed to feed on the nutlets of this small shrub. More importantly, colonies of Sweetfern growing around and in between the bases of Jack Pine (Pinus banksiana) provide safe nesting habitat for a Federally endangered bird, Kirtland’s Warbler (Setophaga kirtlandii).
Where Found Locally:
Sweetfern most often occurs in poor, sandy or gravelly, infertile soils, such as along roadsides. Habitats include upland sand prairies, sandy shrub prairies, and sandy upland savannas. Dominant trees in these savannas are oak trees (especially Black Oak (Quercus velutina)) and sometimes pine trees are present (especially Jack Pine). The root system can develop clonal offsets from underground runners, often creating colonies of plants. Dry, sterile, often sandy soil of open woodlands, pastures, old fields, and clearings; usually in full sun.
In New York, Sweetfern is a characteristic plant found in these ecological communities:
The month of April brings spring showers. After those showers, the sun comes out and a rainbow often appears. Each year on April 3rd, National Find a Rainbow Day challenges us to look to the sky and find a colorful ray of hope cast across it.
A rainbow is a spectrum of light in the form of a multicolored arc, appearing in the sky, that is caused by both reflection and refraction of light in water droplets in the Earth’s atmosphere. Rainbows always appear directly opposite of the sun. The light is refracted (bent) when it enters a droplet of water (which acts as a prism), then is reflected inside on the back of the droplet and refracted again when leaving it.
A rainbow has seven colors because water droplets in the atmosphere break sunlight into seven colors. When light leaves one medium and enters another, the light changes its propagation direction and bends. Red is the color that is visible on the outer part of a rainbow and violet on the inside of a primary rainbow.
In the rainbow (primary rainbow) light emerging from a water droplet, the shorter wavelength (violet) is diffracted more in comparison to the longer wavelength (red). Accordingly, when looking from the left side of the figure (seen from the direction with your back to the sun), the light emerges at lower angles. SOURCE: https://www.shimadzu.com/an/service-support/science/010912/010912a.html
For those of you who may want to delve deeper, please view the Physics of Rainbows.
Some relevant factoids and folklore to drop into conversations today –
The word rainbow originates from the Old English renboga – ‘regn’ meaning rain and ‘boga’ meaning bow.
The basic scientific explanation for rainbows dates to Persian physicist Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī and, independently, German physicist Theodoric of Freiberg in the 14th century.
Who remembers the science class mnemonic Roy G. Biv? Teachers used it in hopes that we would remember the sequence of colors in a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
Generally speaking, rainbows in American Indian cultures are seen as a sign of good fortune, hope, and a connection to the spirit world.
In Hawaiian folklore, rainbows symbolize the veil between the realms of the gods and the realm of humans.
In Irish legend, Leprechauns bury pots of gold at the end of the rainbow, but since a rainbow can only be seen at a distance, the gold is forever illusive.
Curious By Nature 