Spruce Loses His Winter Coat

I was in the backyard the other morning, checking to make sure the woodpeckers had not finished all the suet in the feeder, when Spruce Bringsgreen called to me.

"Look, Margo, my winter coat is gone!"

Sure enough, Spruce, whose boughs were heavily laden with snow for what seemed like forever, now showed their usual blue-greenness. 

After our late January foot of snow, followed a period of intense cold, the slowly warming temperatures started working to melt the white stuff until I could not only see a good swath of the front and back lawns, I could carefully walk in the two inches or so of remaining snow to get to my compost pile and find just enough thawed area to dump several weeks of coffee grounds and other worm food.

Then, a month later, we had another foot of snow. This time, however, there was no deep freeze to follow but very warm (for February) temperatures.

Spruce in the winter coat he has finally shed.
(Margo D. Beller)

As Bernd Heinrich points out in his book "The Trees in My Forest," conifers including firs and spruces have boughs that point downward. When covered with snow the boughs are pushed against the trunk and the snow slides off ... eventually.

"I am so glad to be rid of that coat," Spruce said. "Yes," I replied, "I am getting tired of all the snow, too. It gets depressing after a while to always have to put on my boots to take out or take in feeders. The sun never gets to the area behind the enclosed back porch that I have to walk, and with all the recent melting by day and freezing by night it can get rather slippery."

"Didn't I see you putting down some gray stuff before?"

"Yes, that was some old cat litter. It helped after the first storm when there was ice, but when the melting started it became mud and left quite a mess on my boots. This time I am leaving that area alone and walking very carefully so I don't fall again."

"I will be glad to get rid of those juncos," he said. "They've been hiding out in my branches but they seem to be anxious to leave, and there are so many they are annoying some of the other birds I've hosted such as the red-breasted nuthatches and chickadees."

Over the past week there has been an increase in the number of birds singing territorial songs or drumming on trees to warn potential rivals away from a preferred nest site. A Carolina wren showed up in the yard for the first time in weeks. Canada geese have been getting restless to move now that lakes and rivers are nearly free of ice. Daffodils have started growing. So have the weeds.

"Don't worry," I said, "the juncos will be gone soon and they'll be replaced by catbirds like the one that screamed at me when I got too close last summer. There must've been a nest nearby, perhaps in you."

"Not me," he said, "tho' I don't mind catbirds or even the robins that build nests in my upper branches they don't always use. What I do mind is when a hawk that goes after your feeder birds hides in my branches."

He meant the accipiters, specifically the small sharp-shinned hawk. Accipiters are accomplished fliers. If they aren't strafing the ground looking to pick off a bird or squirrel they are diving into bushes or trees to catch a meal. The larger accipiter called the Cooper's hawk is another hazard to the feeder birds.

"Well, Spruce, considering the number of birds that are in decline because of climate change, pollution, the destruction of forests for more residential houses and agriculture, I can put up with the occasional hawk in the yard. I'll just make sure one doesn't set up housekeeping in your branches."

"That would be fine," he said. "Is the snow done for the year?"

"Gosh, I hope so," I said. "Maybe the occasional snow shower. But the forecasts I see are mainly for higher temperatures. Anything from the sky would be rain."

"That means when the snow is all gone you'll soon be cleaning up the winter mess in your garden, right?"

Alas, yes.

Dear Birder,

I don't get questions from my readers, but if I did they might look like this:

Dear Birder:

My neighbor has spent the last week having some very tall, very old trees cut down in her backyard and one in her front yard. Why would someone want to take down so many trees at once?

Perplexed

My cut tree
(Margo D. Beller

Dear Perplexed:

There could be many reasons why. Perhaps these were ash trees infected with the emerald ash borer, the reason I had a dead tree removed earlier this month. Perhaps the homeowner was afraid a strong wind or snow storm would bring one or more of them down on the house. Perhaps the owner is putting in a swimming pool or a deluxe playset for the kids and the trees were in the way. Or the owner got tired of picking up fallen branches.

It is not YOUR backyard so ignore the devastation. Put up more feeders to attract the birds the cutting down has displaced.

Dear Birder:

My feeder has two sides but when certain birds come they fight each other over one side. Why can't they share the feeder?

Wondering

Dear Wondering:

Far be it from me to decipher the thinking of birds. You do not say what type(s) of bird. There are some that are more territorial than others. White-breasted nuthatches, for instance. They are small but feisty and if another one or even a larger bird of a different type tries to get to the feeder the first will chase off the second. I have found hummingbirds to be the same way when I hang a nectar feeder.

Nuthatch on the feeder
about to chase off a
titmouse. (Margo D. Beller)

Cardinals will spend more time chasing each other away than eating, unless it is a pair. A pair, during mating season, will sit on either side of my house-shaped feeder but another male or another female approaching will get chased off. So I can't tell you why your birds fight. Maybe hanging more feeders farther apart will help.

Dear Birder:

This year I have a lot of juncos coming to my seed feeders. Last year I had very few. Why do I get a lot some year and none at other times?

Watching

Dear Watching: 

I wonder about that myself. I think a lot depends on the wind and weather during the migration period. Maybe when the juncos were heading south from the breeding grounds to your yard (the males stay farther north than the females; in my yard I see only male juncos) the winds were favorable and there was a lot of food (such as from your feeders) to encourage juncos to stick around.

Junco (Margo D. Beller)

I have been seeing fewer cardinals and white-throated sparrows and more house finches, at least those few times during the workday when I can look outside. But as we used to say in Brooklyn, wait til next year.

Dear Birder:

How are Spruce and the apple tree doing? We haven't heard from them in a while.

A big fan

Dear Fan,

Earlier this month, when I was writing about the trees I had trimmed back or cut down, I wrote about the apple tree. She had not been pruned back in about a decade. I think she looks better now. Gone are the web of lower branches where I used to hang the house wren nest box. Gone are the very high branches where I'd leave the apples for the squirrels.

How the apple tree looks now
(Margo D. Beller)

However, she has not talked to me yet. It will be a few months before any apple blossoms appear, and with the blossoms will come fruit. The last time she was cut back (not as drastically as this time) she provided a lot of apples. This time, with fewer branches, I don't know. I hope she will talk to me.

As for Spruce, he is standing tall and looks very healthy. He provides winter roosting spots for juncos, chickadees and titmice. It is too early to know if a finch, for instance, will try to nest in him this year after I cut back the arborvitae, where I always seemed to disturb something when I opened the front door.

Spruce Bringsgreen
(Margo D. Beller)

I will pass along your good wishes. Maybe he will write another post for me soon.