When Timing Is Everything

I am no expert. I do not have the training to understand what trees need to grow and thrive aside from the basics of sunlight and water. But this coronavirus year of 2020, which has been topsy-turvy in so many ways, has changed the dynamics of the trees in my front and back yard. 

In this case, events worked in my favor.

All in a day's work. There are more leaves on either
side of what you see here. Nov. 21, 2000
(Margo D. Beller)

I've written before of my front yard black locust trees. The ones on my property - planted on the orders of some long-ago functionary on my town's shade tree commission - are all male trees except for one female. The locusts are the first trees to drop their small, yellow leaves and long stems everywhere I walk. These are the leaves that get tracked into the house.

The amount of long, black locust seed pods on the female tree varies from year to year. Some years, when the tree is full of them, a wind storm drops so many pods the lawn turns black in some areas. Raking them is heavy, tiring work but at least it is only one tree. Several houses down the street have double the work.

Some years, especially the year after a bountiful year, fewer pods are produced, as tho' the tree is catching her breath. This turned out to be one such year, as it was for my apple tree and the white oaks' acorns. Most of the pods came down in one strong wind storm, and because they were so close to the curb there was less distance to rake them. What few were left hanging came down the other week after a particularly violent storm, where the squall line was thin and intense, the wind blowing the heavy rain to look like waves on my street. What detritus was washed away.

The apple tree provided few fruits this year, a relief
for me and the house wren that nests in the box
I put there. (Margo D. Beller)

Meanwhile, in the backyard, oak leaves came raining down earlier than usual. We had our first frost in mid-October and had a week of freezing temperatures, followed by a period of warmer than usual temperatures before a hard freeze at month's end. And we had rain. The white oak, ash (what I once thought were elm trees) and maple trees dropped their leaves seeming at once, thickly covering the grass. 

Luckily, MH had plans to do one more mowing and was able to mulch all the leaves. Mulched leaves help the lawn by decomposing and providing nutrients. Mulching leaves also means not having to rake them into loose piles in the street for the town to take away, presuming the November winds don't blow them back.

After the last intense storm - and we have had a number of intense rain and wind storms this season - I realized all the white oak leaves were off the trees. In fact, all the leaves were off all the trees (except for the red oak trees in the next yard; leaves on the lower part of these trees will stay on until spring), including the apple, the pear and the dogwood. The viburnum shrub still had leaves, which turned a deep bronze (so deep I had to look closely to see if the berries were still there; they were). But that was it. Even the walnut tree in the front yard on the border between our property and a neighbor's had dropped all its leaves. Many has been the year when we've finished with the oak leaves, generally the last to fall, only to find the walnut still leafy, giving me more work to remove the thin, red-brown leaves for weeks after.

So aside from sweeping up baskets full of leaves that had accumulated on the back patio and putting them into compost, I had done very little raking this year. That changed yesterday.

First, I went out with my rake to pull leaves away from the house, the areas at the base of the feeder poles, the flood wall, the patch where I have ornamental grasses. Then, as the leaf blowers elsewhere started their racket, I put on my noise-cancelling earmuffs and began my own blowing. Once MH got himself together we started hauling big tarps full of leaves to the street - ultimately, five tarps full. I left the leaves that piled up around shrubs and other plants. These leaves will get raked out and composted in the spring when the growing begins.

It is essential dahlia tubers be completely
dry before they are stored so they don't rot. This
was one of the many chores I did earlier
than I had last year. (Margo D. Beller)

Yes, it was aching work. The raking put a blister on my hand despite protective gloves while the blower's vibrations affected my arms and hands. MH's sore knees made hauling the tarps to the curb slow work for me and at one point I stepped wrong and hurt my ankle. But the job is done - what blows onto the lawn will stay there until the next time MH mows. Soon enough I expect snow to blanket the lawn anyway.

I keep a sort of almanac on old calendars. Today I looked at it. I didn't mark the last day we raked but last year - when I was underemployed until December and we traveled to Maryland and then to NH during November - I handled my winter prep chores in early November. This year, when I've been working at home and have no plans to travel very far for the holidays, I did those same chores on the last day of October, which was a Saturday. Why so early? On that day, I woke up to find the foliage blackened on the cannas and dahlias, and the coleus plants dead. So I composted and stored for winter. Last year I could do these same chores over the course of several weeks, maybe because 2019 was one of the warmest years ever.

Was the roller coaster of freeze followed by warmer than normal temperatures followed by freeze this year why the oak and walnut trees dropped their leaves so early or why were there fewer acorns, apples and locust pods? Was it the long periods of summer dryness after a wet, cool spring? Or were the trees as stressed as we humans are by what is going on around us in this pandemic year? Did climate change play more of a part than usual?

As I said, I'm no expert. I just know what I see. The relief of finishing one of the year's hardest chores is tempered by a vague sense of dread.

Breakfast With the Birds

It is 32 degrees F at first light. Sitting on my enclosed porch I can see some frost on the neighbor's roof. In my coat, hat and gloves, a blanket on my knees and a large cup of hot coffee in my hands, I do not feel the cold. It is early Sunday morning and I am enjoying a time of peace while the washing machine works inside, behind the closed back door.

I have put out feeders and now I have breakfast with the birds.

Carolina wren at feeder. (Margo D. Beller)

Things start slowly on a Sunday, especially on a cold morning. No leaf blowers, no barking dogs, no shouting children, perhaps one or two people jogging or walking dogs. I take note of what birds I can see or hear as I rest from my week's labors. 

Two goldfinches, now in their winter brown feathers and the male with just a hint of yellow at his throat.

Larger house finches and house sparrows.

A redbellied woodpecker with his brilliant red crown.

Smaller downy woodpeckers, the male with a bit of red on the back of his head.

Blackcapped chickadees, tufted titmice, white-breasted nuthatches. All fly to the feeder, grab a seed and take off for a safe place to break the seed apart and eat what's within.

Not at the feeders but flying around the yard are juncos. As winter wears on these dark winter visitors will start coming to the feeders. For now, they glean what they can from around the yard.

A Carolina wren sings from various places around the yard, then investigates both seed feeders. 

Male redbellied woodpecker (Margo D. Beller)

A male cardinal calls from the pear tree, watches as the smaller birds come to the house feeder, then flies to the ground to pick at what is dropped, as the squirrels will soon do. This male doesn't seem to like the feeder but his browner mate is not as skittish. She flies to the feeder, shoos away the smaller birds there, has a few seeds and flies off.

Two larger birds fly a few backyards away, American crows. Had they been hawks, such as the Cooper's hawk, and closer the little birds would've flown to avoid the predators. MH always says the hawks have to eat, too. I understand that, but I don't want my feeders to be involved.

One bird not at the house feeder this morning, at least not right now, is the blue jay. It will come to the house feeder, scarf up a lot of seeds and then fly off to digest them, only to return for more. The force of their leaving makes the old feeder swing wildly, and I fear it dropping to the ground and finally breaking apart. So I am glad the jays have not come by while I'm here.

At this time of year, when I am no longer distracted by chasing migrant birds, it is easy to feel depressed and forgotten. There is less daylight. The majority of garden chores are done. Younger neighbors are wrapped up in their families. Older people like me are just part of the scenery, like the birds, and barely noticed. It is hard for me to get going some mornings.

Female cardinal (Margo D. Beller)

During this year of coronavirus, these feelings are intensified because of another element - fear. Older people are often shunted aside. Now they can be told it is for their own good. You give them "special hours" to shop because they are "vulnerable" to this virus. Most of us have longstanding conditions where exposure to the virus would put us in the hospital. It is safer staying home. Those of us with jobs can be "attached" to the world without being in it. But many seniors don't have that.

With the cold comes deprivation. It would be harder for the birds to survive without help from people like me putting out the feeders. Many people nowadays do not have that safety net. Unlike many of the birds, many of us won't be with our family groups this winter.

Sitting and watching the birds, the sun peeks through the clouds. I can see its arc is now short enough that the sun rises just past my neighbor's roof. Were it not cloudy I'd have the sun full on my face for a longer time until it rose above the porch window. Still, I close my eyes and time seems to stand still.

But time does not stand still. When the clouds move back in I can see a black cat in my backyard neighbor's yard, heading away from mine. The birds were not perturbed - I have frequently found this well-kept house cat curled up in the sun on my flood wall as the birds eat - but the squirrels rush up the trees and start their alarmed barking. This is when there is a sudden frenzy of birds at the feeder, eating as if there is no tomorrow.  

Cooper's hawk, a common backyard predator. Not today.
(Margo D. Beller)

I don't know what goes through a bird's brain. I can make some guesses. I can guess the suet is being ignored because it is not that cold (the porch temperature rose at least 5 degrees during the time I was out) and it is more important to cache seeds for later, when other food might not be available. I can guess the birds "understand" the sounds of an alarmed squirrel mean danger and eat so they can have the fat in them to take off quickly and fly far if need be.

But when the squirrels and birds calm down, I find myself agitated. I am not free as a bird.

So I leave the porch before the dogs, leaf blowers and other disturbances start for my warm kitchen to tend to the laundry, consider my other chores and wait for MH to wake and come downstairs. Like the birds, he will be fed.

I look at the clock and see I was outside for over an hour. Time I'll never get back.  

It is too easy for people like me to feel depressed, shut in, fearful and forgotten. The birds don't have these "advanced" human feelings, thank goodness. Sitting on my cold porch and watching them on a Sunday morning helps me forget mine.

A Creature of Light

Autumn is a time of long shadows.
(Margo D. Beller)

This year, we turned back the clock before going to sleep on Halloween night, a night where the moon was full for the second time in a month (a blue moon), three planets were easily seen (Jupiter, Saturn, Mars) and one could be seen with binoculars (Uranus). 

With the start of November 2020 we are on standard time. We get an extra hour to use. Many might not want more time in a terrible year of natural and man-made disasters. I know a few hardworking people who likely used the time for well-deserved sleep. I thought I would be doing the same after a lot of activity the day before. Instead, I used this gift of time to sit on the enclosed porch, watching the feeder birds and listening to the silence at first light.

I feel the lack of that extra sleep. Halloween started with temperatures in the upper 20s, our first hard frost of the year. As it happened, I had errands to run. In my travels I saw roofs, shrubs and lawns white with the frost. At home, as expected, the sub-freezing cold put an end to the coleus plants and the dahlias I had in pots in the front yard and dulled the foliage of the cannas. I also discovered at least one deer had, yet again, found a weakness in the deer netting and had gotten a head in to chew on what plants it could grab. 

So I spent much of the day lugging pots from outside to inside and repairing deer netting after I cut back enough of the plants in the front of this particular area to make it harder on the deer should they try again.

Dahlia tubers, 2020
(Margo D. Beller)

The cannas were moved to their winter home - the garage - and stored in a dark area once I cut off the foliage. The dahlias were moved to the enclosed porch where the plants were cut back and the tubers dug out of the pot so they could dry before being stored. The dead coleus plants were pulled, the pot moved to the porch and the four cuttings I had rooted were planted. The pot is now in the sunny front room until it is warm enough to go outside again next year. All the cut plant matter went into the compost pile.

By the time I finished all that and even some raking I was very sore and tired. Why push myself to finish that very day? Several reasons. Halloween was the first bright, sunny day in a long time and, while still cold, I was happy to be working in the sun. Also, rain was expected Sunday (it is raining now, as I write).

And it will be dark at 5 p.m., the down side of getting that extra light in the morning.

That is why I rose at 5:45 a.m. I can be exhausted, I can go to bed late but when light starts to creep into my room, I wake up. Just yesterday I would've seen this light at 6:45 a.m., and I am still adjusting to it being an hour earlier. But it was silent at 5:45 a.m. standard time, too early for many to walk or jog with or without dogs on a Sunday morning.

Female purple finch (Margo D. Beller)

The feeders went out at first light and were immediately visited by black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice and a visitor from the north, the purple finch. Unlike the more common house finch, these have a distinctive "eyebrow" - white for the brownish female, pinkish for the male. The purple finch isn't really all that purple, more like raspberry (which is how Roger Tory Peterson describes it in his field guide). 

These finches are irregular visitors, once a lot more common until the house finches started pushing them out of many areas, such as my part of suburbia. Maybe because they don't show up at my feeders as often, the other small birds, even the pugnacious white-breasted nuthatch, leaves them alone. Only when a large bird such as a jay comes at it will the purple finch move. It is a bit bigger and chunkier than the house finch and it has taken me many years to be able to know one when I see it. 

Autumn scene, Westbrook Preserve
West Milford, NJ, October 2020
(Margo D. Beller)

This year there have been many reports of other irregular visitors from the north - pine siskins (I had three the other week) and evening grosbeaks. The grosbeaks, like all the finches (house, purple, goldfinch and their larger cousin the cardinals), will sit and eat until all the seed is gone unless something forces them to leave. Now that the southbound autumn migration is over, for the most part, finding a bird that considers my part of the country warm enough to stay for the winter is thrilling.

The fact 2020 is looking like an "irruption" year should not have surprised me in this year of the coronavirus pandemic at a time when New England has already been hit with heavy snowfall, when we are learning the Greek alphabet thanks to a record number of named storms, when much of the west has seen a record number of wildfires. These birds are looking for food, just like the warblers and others that passed through New Jersey on their way south for the winter. Just as my apple tree produced fewer fruits and the locust tree produced fewer seed pods, the cone seed crop in Canada was poor this year. It has been that type of year.

Luckily for me, sitting in my coat with my steaming cup of coffee at first light, birds don't have to worry about travel restrictions.