The Stranger

It is a cloudy weekday morning with a chance of rain. The young woman pushing the baby carriage down the grassy park path sees a figure ahead. The figure is in black - pants, wool cap, raincoat. The woman has a moment of panic and hesitates, but as she comes closer she sees the figure is another woman who is wearing binoculars on a harness. This woman is leaning on a large walking stick and looking intently into a weedy area. She looks up, notes where the woman with the carriage is walking, and goes back to looking into the weeds. The woman with the carriage passes by. They don't speak.

(Margo D. Beller)

A short time later an older couple, each walking a large dog on a leash, also sees the woman in black. They come down the small hill from the parking area where the woman has also parked. They see her and the binoculars. The woman sees them and the dogs. She walks to the other side of the path from where the dog walkers go, her back to them, looking up into the trees. When they leave she goes back over to the weeds and continues to watch.

After a time she shifts her position as the birds' calls draw her attention. Over here, a flock of goldfinches. Over there, palm warblers, a little duller in color but looking not much different from their spring plumage, batting their tails every time they alight on a tree branch or tall weed. 

The woman looks over and sees the couple coming back. Once again she shifts her position away from them. Once again they look at her. No one speaks. The couple goes down a hill and are gone to another part of the park. The woman goes back to finding the calling sparrows her Merlin app says are in the area. She will ultimately find six types of sparrows that come out of the weeds and sit in the open just long enough for the woman to see and identify them.

I have been doing this a long time and knew what I was seeing. 

The weedy area ahead of me is in a depression that, ringed by ragweed and filled with that, some milkweed, goldenrod and other weeds, provides a deep, relatively secure hiding and foraging place for the sparrows, warblers and other birds I found there. I had discovered this birdy area, located behind a playground and picnic area at the Central Park of Morris County (formerly the Greystone Psychiatric Hospital), after birding in a different area of the park the day before. I came on this weekday morning to explore it further without the crowd of noisy people the park draws for after-school soccer practice or weekend sporting events.

The weedy field. (Margo D. Beller)

I try to imagine what others see when we encounter each other. I usually wear a hat to protect my scalp from sun and bug bites. I keep my hair down and my shirt and jacket collars up to protect my ears and neck. I wear gloves tho' if I use Merlin or write something in my notebook I have to expose a hand.

I figure the binoculars is what allows people to relax, realizing I'm just some old bird watcher and not a sex offender or thief ready to ambush them. Still, I must look strange all covered up as others are walking or running the same paths in shorts and T-shirts.

Greystone, as I still call it, is a more-open piece of property than some of the places I go to bird. Where the playground sits once stood stone dormitories for the patients. I don't know if the weedy depression where I stand was there before and, if so, its use. But Greystone is filled with weedy areas, and at this time of year they provide food and shelter for migrating birds and those that will be hanging around for the winter.

Ragweed, in another part of Greystone. (Margo D. Beller)

When I am in areas where the paths are more narrow people passing me will sometimes say hello or good morning or even ask me what I am seeing or have seen. Runners don't usually speak to me unless it is to say "on your left" as they pass. Most people on bikes say nothing, don't even ring a bell. I have to hope to hear them coming so I don't step in their way. If I hear them and step out of the way maybe one in three thanks me.

Most of the time I am not out there to be sociable or exercise, I am out there looking for birds, particularly during the migration periods in spring - when birds are colorful and singing - and autumn - when they are dull and, if I'm lucky, making soft contact calls.  

One of the narrow paths I usually walk.
(Margo D. Beller)

People with dogs can be troublesome, particularly if their dogs are not on a leash. I used to make comments but after a few times I stopped because the reactions ranged from ignoring me to downright hostility. Concerned birders know unleashed dogs can kill birds. Dog owners know these concerned birders can be troublesome, too. We pass each other and I hope they don't come back this way.

Most times the people I see with dogs are pleasant, leash their pets and clean up after them. If the dogs are friendly I pet them. Since Covid there seems to be more people spending time outside in the parks, often with the dogs they bought during the pandemic. When someone is heading my way with a dog I stand aside and let them pass.

If they look at me as strange, I don't care. They are strange to me, too.

Spruce Asks Another Question

The other morning I was putting out the bird feeders. As I shook out the large white plastic bags the feeders were in, the nearby Blue Spruce called me over. 

"Margo," said Spruce Bringsgreen, "I have a question."

"Again?" I said, smiling.

The porch plant, with Spruce watching from
around the corner (Margo D. Beller)

"I've been watching you putting feeders on those poles for years. Why are you now bringing them out in bags?"

"You are very observant," I said.

"Well, I am very tall and I can see quite a lot," he said modestly.

So I explained about the gnats I had been removing from the enclosed porch in one way or another since early August, how I had found the containers of sunflower seed to be infested with them, prompting me to put the seed outside in a trash bag, which squirrels soon discovered. So I bought a large plastic pail with a lid that locks to put the seed. My plan had been to keep it outside until all the seed was gone. Then I went out one morning to find it on its side - my guess is a raccoon could smell the seed and knocked the pail around to get the lid to pop off. (At least it wasn't a bear.) Since then I've kept the seed pail indoors.

I bring the feeders in nightly because of that possibility of a bear passing through the yard. But I knew from taking the lid off the pail that those gnats I had seen had laid hundreds, if not thousands, of eggs, and now the worm-like larvae were on the move. Every time I unlocked the lid I'd find them crawling on its underside as well as up the sides of the pail - where I also found spiders helping me out with webs that trapped them. I would wipe out the larvae and the webs but find more of both the next time I took off the lid a day or two later.

Gnat larvae on the underside of the seed pail lid, some of
them in spider webs. (Margo D. Beller)

But that also meant there were likely larvae in the seed in the feeders. Hence the bags to keep larvae that get out of the feeders from crawling around the porch and getting into the one source of soil still available - the big plant.

"Yes, I can see Brother Tree from here," Spruce said, referring to the plant that had started life small and I allowed to grow so tall it needs an upside-down tomato cage and support poles to stand. "I hadn't seen him for a while."

Well, I told him, I had to make a decision on what to do with the plant because it was too big and unwieldy to take it from its pot and replant it in fresh soil. So my husband (MH) and I used the hand truck to put it outside on the patio, leaning against the house. It was there when I bombed the porch with insecticide. It was there when the overnight temperatures dipped into the 40s. 

Finally, realizing I could not bring myself to kill it, and once the smell of the spray had dissipated, MH and I brought the plant back inside. It now stands in the far corner of the porch where it can get two hours of morning sun, which is how Spruce sees it.

"And what about when winter comes?" he asked.

Well, I said, MH and I are getting too old to deal with bringing the plant over the step from porch to house, then rolling it to the sunny front room and then up three steps to put it into position, all with the plant falling back like a ragdoll onto my shoulder and back. The porch will keep the plant sheltered and a few degrees warmer than the outside air but it won't keep it warm when the temperatures fall below freezing. 

(Margo D. Beller)

So it either lives or it doesn't, I said. I still find the occasional gnat on the porch, most of which come in when I go out. The yellow sticky tapes have trapped gnats and I spray the soil with hydrogen peroxide to kill any eggs. But I can do no more for this plant.

"That's a shame," said Spruce. "At least it's alive."

"Yes," I said. "We'll see what happens to it - and the gnats - once winter comes."

Autumn Garden Colors

 I've written before about the flowers I have seen during autumnal hikes. Yellow goldenrod, pink joe-pye weed, and purple asters are favorites, as is the humble snakeroot, a white wildflower blooming now that I've allowed to grow in profusion in a corner of the garden. 

The other morning I went outside to cut a couple of purple coneflowers to add to a bouquet and realized just how many of the plants blooming now in my garden are varying shades of pink and purple. 

In spring the dominant colors in the front yard are yellow and white - daffodils, crocus, snowdrops - with a little blue from glory of the snow. Then come the deep pink of the rhododendrons and lilies, the reds of the azaleas, the white of the daisies and the yellow of the coreopsis.

In the back, meanwhile, these colors also include the pink of bleeding heart, ornamental onions, coral bells and perennial geranium. There is even some purple from columbine.

But those flowers are all gone or soon will be gone, and now the dominant color is pink or purple. (All pictures by Margo D. Beller)

It took several years of trying before I succeeded in growing purple coneflowers. The plant would grow and then some sort of fungus would turn the leaves black. But this one has grown well for years.

We had a wonderful landlady at our first apartment and she, like just about everyone else in the area, grew Rose of Sharon. Hers were purple. When I put in new plantings I bought two to frame the bay window. When they bloomed they turned out to be a very pale pink with a mauve center. One of the plants didn't last a year but the other one spawned a daughter plant behind it I dug up and moved to replace the other one. This one is the original.

I once had a friend who, for various reasons, had to break up her urban garden. She begged me to take in some of her plants, which I did. Of the plants that are still around is this liriope, which I've since divided into three plants, all of which produce spikes of purple flowers in autumn. The plants have lasted longer than the friend.

Sedum is a succulent that produces clusters of pink flowers that attract the bees. It is also a favorite of deer, which is why it is behind deer netting. It is also very easy to root - if I break off a piece by accident I can put it in water and have another plant, which is why I have a number of sedums in two netted areas in the front yard. The pink on this plant will get deeper as the cold sets in.

Also blooming pinkish purple now are the Russian sage and the butterfly bush, the latter now considered an invasive plant. But I keep it anyway, cutting it back before winter snow can bend a branch low enough to affect the netting.

Of course, there are also plenty of blooming weeds around the garden and soon enough the trees will turn colors and drop their seeds and leaves. Then it is time to close up the garden for the winter.

Beneficial Friends

It is a great help to have friends in the garden, even if I am the only one working here.

One such friend I rediscovered during the worst of the fungus gnat invasion was spiders. I've always known their webs catch all sorts of flies and other unwanted insects that get onto my enclosed porch, but many of the gnats were also caught. Unfortunately, I did have to eventually spray and I hope I didn't kill the spiders at the same time. 

But there will be more spiders as long as there are bugs, so I know they will be back.

More recently I found another friend - an American toad.

Usually I find one of these on the patio, hiding behind the cover of the charcoal grill or behind the large composter. That is how I found this recent one, when I moved the grill to make room for the large container I bought to protect the bird seed that didn't get invested by gnats.

American toad (Margo D. Beller)

The toad didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave. After being scared away from the grill it sat behind the composter for a long time, probably making sure I wasn't going to bother it. Then It came out, which is when I photographed it. It was facing the netted garden and I wondered if it was heading back there. I thought I knew why.

Every so often I'd see shiny lines on the paving stones. Then one day, after I'd run the sprinkler overnight, I found what seemed like a parade of slugs - think snails without shells -  slowly making their way from the lawn to the netted garden. Some of them were very large. Slugs will do a lot of damage to leafy plants such as hostas, two of which I keep in the back of this area so the deer can't see them.

In two days I must've caught nine of them, scraping them off the paving stones with a plastic container and then dumping them down the sewer. Then we had the lawn mowed and I didn't see them again - until last week when I saw more trails. And suddenly here is a toad - which eats, among other things, slugs.

Enjoy the feast, friend.

Garter snake (Margo D. Beller)

I'm still waiting for another old friend, Mr. Slither the garter snake, to come by and keep the chipmunks away. At this time of year chipmunks and the squirrels are looking for places to store nuts. Chipmunks can easily get behind the deer netting and the big pots of plants I have there are particularly inviting. They dig and the plants get uprooted. (Chipmunks will also dig up my plants in the spring, looking for the nuts they stored.)

Like the toad, snakes aren't the prettiest creatures and we humans are taught to fear or abhor them. Yes, they also eat bird eggs and can be a menace to the creatures I like. But if they eat the pests in my garden they are more than welcome to hang around a while.