Ode to the Sumacs

[Don't tell ME sumacs are "native invasives." Female Eastern Bluebird on winged sumac, Cox Hall Creek WMA, Cape May County, NJ December 13, 2020.]

Birding lately for me means, in part, sumac watching. The sumacs are excellent wildlife food plants, not the most nutritious calorie-wise perhaps (great for micro-nutrients, though) but making up for that with abundant fruit that stays on the plant, off the ground and above the snow, until it is consumed.

[Male and female Eastern Bluebirds on and around sumacs, Cox Hall Creek WMA, Cape May County, NJ December 13, 2020.]

Some biologists call sumacs "native invasives." This is stupid. Unless you've got a better idea for a field in ecological succession, or a hedgerow, leave them alone.

NJ hosts three species of sumacs bearing red fruit clusters (smooth, staghorn and winged), plus poison-sumac, which is in a different genus and bears grayish-white fruits (birds eat these too.) The ones at CHC WMA are winged. Sumacs with red fruits are in the plant genus Rhus, which means "red." Poison-sumac's apt genus name is Toxicodendron. It means "poison tree."

Among the bird species I've seen feeding on sumacs at Cox Hall Creek WMA in recent days are:

Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Carolina Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Carolina Wren
Eastern Bluebird (big time!)
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
Brown Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird
European Starling
Cedar Waxwing
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Eastern Towhee
Fox Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Pine Siskin
American Goldfinch
Evening Grosbeak

22 species, not too shabby. My black oil sunflower seeds don't get that many. Some of these may have been after insects or insect eggs in the fruit clusters, not just the fruit. My dream bird for CHC's sumacs is Pine Grosbeak. . . 

[Above and below, you need this book, if you can find it, published first by Dover in 1951. If you feed them, they will come.]

 

 

 

 

Of Owls, Chance Encounters, And How Random Events Don’t Always Send Life South

 [“Do you know if there are any owls around here?” Red morph Eastern Screech-owl.]

That was such a great opening line I may well use it sometime.
 

Sunday night of Thanksgiving weekend I headed out like always to chase sunset over Delaware Bay, and stopped to chat with my neighbor. An unfamiliar pickup truck rolled slowly down our street, a big new-looking crew cab Ford that I'd never seen before. I watch.

The truck drives to the end of the street, turns around, and rolls very slowly back towards us. It stops next to us. The driver seems a regular-looking guy, one with a question on his face.

"Do you know if there are any owls around here?"

Apparently I looked surprised or wary or something, because he explained, "I wanted to show my kids an owl, they're into birds, and I saw a report there are owls around here."

My heart melted a little, just around the edges, so I revealed, “Yeah, there are three or four pairs of Great-horned Owls around here, you're sure to hear them around sunset this time of year. Sometimes even before.”

"How about screech-owls? There's been some reported around here, and I'd really like to show my kids."

I notice for the first time he's got his kids in the truck, including a cute little 11ish-year-old in the passenger seat. Heart melts a little more. So I explain that that's pretty much a whistle-them-in-at-night thing, although if you look at roughly 10,000 tree holes you might find one during the day.

He looks slightly disappointed. "Yeah, there's this guy around here that sees all kinds of birds down here, unbelievable, I forget his name."

This has now become, umm, unusual. I innocently ask, “Is it Don Freiday?”

He says, "Yeah, that's the guy, I see all these reports from him online like on eBird and the New Jersey bird thing."

“That would be me,” I say.

I've never seen this man before and, understand, I'm on my bike (part of a concerted effort to drive my orthopedists up the wall), dressed like a cyclist, binoculars stowed in my pack. I fish out my card and hand it to him.

"Man, I'd like to take you to lunch sometime. We just got a place down here. There's this other guy down here, does bird banding in his backyard, I got to go one time…"

“Richard Crossley,” I say.

"Yeah, you know him?"

“Yes, we've been on World Series of Birding teams together. Really good guy. Superb birder.”

"Yeah, see, were from north Jersey, I used to go into this wild bird store, and by the way it feels like I pay more to feed birds than to feed my kids, and this guy in there kept trying to take me birding, Bill Elrick, and eventually I went…"

This is developing into a significantly crazy set of coincidences. “He took you to Garret Mountain.”

"Yeah, you know him? I can't believe there are all these birds in New Jersey. Bill goes to this place called Forsythe all the time now, seems like another great place…"

The spirit-that-moves-in-all-things is on the move once again, perhaps cutting me some slack after moving me through a divorce, job change, extended illness, a bike crash, and a Thanksgiving weekend spent pandemically alone.

I say, “Yes, Forsythe is pretty awesome, I worked there for five years. I used to say I live in the best birding place on the planet [Cape May] and work in the second-best place. Not by accident.”

Before he drives off he says, "I'm going to look you up…"

If he does, those kids are going to see some owls.

Wordless Wednesday: Liking (Lichen?) Red-breasted Nuthatches

 

Thoughtful Thursday: Firewood 2020

FIREWOOD

Chill over land.

Shapes move, eyes glow
in shadows beyond light.

Fire dying.

Disease, brutality, supremacy.
Hatred, ignorance, apathy.
Divided world lost.

Beasts gather and rush.
Fire glows warmth and light.
Love and friendship protect.
Firewood.

-DPF

 

 

 

 

 

Wordless Wednesday: Siskinpalooza

 [UPDATE November 11: Pine Siskins seem to have left NJ en masse in the past few days.]