Still Life, With Woodpeckers

It is autumn once again. The ornamental grasses and other shrubbery are turning gold and brown and the trees in my yard have lost their leaves except for the red and white oaks. Other trees in the area have leaves but they are fluttering with each breeze to the ground like rain. Even though age has forced my husband and me to hire a lawn service to get the bulk of the leaves and locust tree pods to the curb, today I went out with my rake because I miss the calm I get from simple yard work outside.

Male redbelly at his preferred feeder. (Margo D. Beller)

But though my rake is far more quiet than a leaf blower, the calm was soon broken by the incessant and increasingly high-pitched barking of a neighbor's dog. After I finished, that noise was replaced by several homeowners using the inevitable leaf blower. Here in the suburbs, leaf blower season will last until it finally snows and people will stop caring about having a perfect green lawn.

It is dark at 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time now, and southbound bird migration is just about done in my area. If the Merlin app on my phone is any guide, there are still a lot of different birds that will be stay through the winter in the general vicinity of my backyard early in the morning. (I usually hear about half of them.) But the catbird, warblers and other summer birds are now far south of here.

Once in a long while I do find something interesting in the yard - a Carolina wren, a gold-crowned kinglet, more recently a yellow-bellied sapsucker softly tapping on a branch of my old apple tree in the dim light of dawn. I like sapsuckers, and rarely see them, but this tree has had enough stress in its life and its trunk is already covered in tiny sapsucker holes of past years. So I walked toward the tree and the bird flew off.

Nearby tree. The leaves will soon be gone.
(Margo D. Beller)

Now, on my enclosed porch and running a fan to cut the leaf blower noise, I watch my feeders. It is not the coldest of days so there has been little activity. Suddenly, a red-bellied woodpecker - the red going up the back of its neck to its head showing this is a male bird - comes to the house feeder for a sunflower seed. It takes it, flies to a nearby tree and then pounds the seed against a limb to break open the shell and get to the meat.

The redbelly, a medium-sized bird, has drawn the attention of the much smaller downy woodpecker. There is no red spot on the back of the neck, so this is a female. She is on the dogwood tree, closer to the other feeder pole. When the redbelly flies off, she flies to the pole and slides down until she can jump up to the suet that hangs upside down in its feeder.

She picks at the suet, then quickly flies back to the dogwood as the redbelly returns to the house feeder for another seed. This is the law of nature. If you are a little bird and a larger bird, especially one of your type, flies at you, you quickly get out of the way. So each time the redbelly came to the house feeder - first one side, then the other - the downy would leave the suet for the safety of the dogwood.

Downy woodpecker at suet, back when I hung it near the house feeder.
(Margo D. Beller)

I don't know why this redbelly is not inclined to hang below the suet feeder as downys and the larger hairy woodpeckers do. This bird kept at the house feeder before deciding to try the caged seed feeder that hangs near the suet. The cage feeder is for the little birds but bigger birds like the redbelly will cling to the cage, put its head in and try to grab a seed from the central tube. It is not a comfortable position for the bird and eventually it goes to the house feeder.

The downy, meanwhile, climbed to the top of the dogwood. I thought she would fly off but instead she flew to the pear tree. I turned in my chair and saw her tapping at the trunk. She waited to see if the big bird would come back, then flew to the house feeder for her own seed. She took it back to where she had been on the pear tree to hammer off the shell and get at the seed. The redbelly, perhaps sated, flew off from another tree. The downy ate and later left.

I have seen downys come to the house feeder when titmice and chickadees make their runs back and forth to grab a seed. But should a large jay, redbelly or cardinal fly in, the smaller birds fly to the bushes and wait for the big birds to leave. 

This tableau has and will be repeated countless times, especially when the weather becomes colder. At this time of year I am not nearly as active as I would like. I feel aches and pains more often. I dread the coming of cold, snow and the dry heat from the furnace that affects my sinuses. 

When life becomes still, watching the feeders will be the best thing I do.

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.

Wild Goose Watching

Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way.

-- William Shakespeare, "King Lear"

A cool October Sunday morning and I am sweeping. The trees are starting to color and the leaves are falling in earnest when shaken by the breeze coming from the north. It is blessedly quiet, only a couple of dogs barking in the near-distance dog park, the occasional jay or crow calling and the sound of my broom brushing together the acorns on the patio. The clouds are being chased across the sun. 

It is slow right now, no runners or dog walkers or kids yelling. No one heading to church or VFW pancake breakfasts or pick-your-own apples or cross-country running matches. I fully expect to soon hear this activity as well as neighbors using their blowers on the fallen leaves (fighting the wind blowing more down) once it is the legal start time for noise on a Sunday. (I hear them now as I write.)

There are fewer acorns to collect this time than last time but they are still falling in smaller numbers on the roof of the enclosed porch and in the lawn, where I have to step carefully if I am doing any yard work. I raked locust pods from the front lawn before our mowing guy came through, and expect to do it again before he next comes. The yew hedge, I notice, has dropped its uneaten red berries on the edge of the driveway, and I push those away with my broom, too.

"Moongooses" by Wildlife Terry is marked with CC0 1.0.

I enjoy the quiet, but then I hear the distant honking. I stop and look at the sky where it is not blocked by trees, and I wait. 

This time there are only about 40 Canada geese very high up. Most of them are in a long V while some are in an uneven line to the V's left. They are flying southeast because at this time of year they are migrating to their winter grounds. I always stop to watch the flying geese when I hear the honking. 

It is not as though these are rare migrants. In my part of the world they are far too common. Decades ago a few did not migrate. They found parks, office campuses and backyards full of food, the weather not too bad and few to no predators. They stayed, they bred, they created a large number of little fuzzballs (one brood each year can include from two to eight goslings) that start off looking so cute but then grow to look just like their parents. Then the cycle begins again.

Canada geese, whether they are wild or domesticated, are protected by treaty. They can't be hunted except during specific state hunting seasons. The hunters must be licensed. Those hunts help keep down the population. But people in cities are horrified when officials order a goose "culling" to cut down the number befouling the parks. They rally, they protest. These are people who do not hunt and do not see an ecological imbalance, they see "nature" being destroyed for (to them) no good reason.

At their worst, grass and ponds are green with goose excrement. When the young are small the goose parents, which mate for life, are extremely protective and will attack a person who gets too close. Most of the time when I hear honking it is from geese that are in the nearby community garden, or the pond a quarter mile away. When they fly they are not heading north in the spring or south for the winter, they are rising from one pond and heading to another so they can continue eating. When people walk their dogs at the community garden the geese take off with a noisy clatter, scattering in many directions but then meeting up later. (In that they are like another now-common pest where I live, the deer.)

How I see Canada geese all too often. (Margo D. Beller)

But this morning's calling geese are wild geese, doing what wild geese are supposed to do - get out before winter comes and the lakes and ponds freeze.

Why are they flying in a V? According to an article by the U.S. Library of Congress:

First, it conserves their energy. Each bird flies slightly above the bird in front of them, resulting in a reduction of wind resistance. The birds take turns being in the front, falling back when they get tired. In this way, the geese can fly for a long time before they must stop for rest. The authors of a 2001 Nature article stated that pelicans that fly alone beat their wings more frequently and have higher heart rates than those that fly in formation. It follows that birds that fly in formation glide more often and reduce energy expenditure (Weimerskirch, 2001).

The second benefit to the V formation is that it is easy to keep track of every bird in the group. Flying in formation may assist with the communication and coordination within the group. Fighter pilots often use this formation for the same reason. 

Easy birding atop Hawk Mountain, Pa. (Margo D. Beller)

If I am outside at the right time of morning on the right day in the right month, I can see multiple large Vs of geese, sometimes with hundreds of birds. This is an easy type of bird watching, just as being on a hawk platform and watching the migrating eagles, buteos, accipiters and falcons heading south over mountain ridges each autumn is easy birding. The birds fly in daylight and are big and easy to see, not like the small warblers jumping around quietly from branch to branch in still-leafy trees. Finding warblers in autumn is a challenge, but there are times I don't want a challenge. I just want to stand still on a quiet Sunday morning and look up at a V of wild birds flying away to the south.

Earthbound, I envy them. 

Cleaning Up After The Trees

 In October, a maple tree before your window lights up your room like a great lamp.

-- John Burroughs

October, the year's tenth month (with a name reflecting when it was the eighth month under the Roman calendar), is a time of transition. October is when you really notice it is darker later in the morning and earlier in the evening. October is when the weather switches from over 80 degrees one day to cold enough to break out the winter quilt the next. 

The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree - a small sample of
what I have been sweeping up from the patio.
(Margo D. Beller)

October is when the pumpkins, squashes and dried corn threshes start showing up on suburban doorsteps with the September mums. You realize you are closer to the end of the year than the beginning, and you wonder if there will be more snow this year than last.

For me, October is when I start thinking about bringing plants back into the house and putting up storm windows. I notice fewer catbirds in the yard but hear white-throated sparrows. Raptors are on the move and I see skeins of Canada geese overhead, heading south. Soon I will be putting out more seed feeders and suet.

The "flowers" on the ornamental grasses are the
best they've been in years. (Margo D. Beller)

Yes, there are also the colorful autumn leaves that send people into their cars to drive north to Vermont or the Adirondacks or other such hotspots. In my yard the red leaves of the maple and the dogwood, the brown of the white oak, the yellow of the elms and the scarlet of the red oak will be very pretty, at least for a short while. And then the usual October winds will blow them off the trees to become that much more mess to be cleaned up. 

Yes, October is when things start falling out of trees.

This week, the summery days gave way to foggy, cool nights and my sleep has been continually interrupted by the sharp rap of oak acorns falling on the enclosed porch's roof. The squirrels are foraging in the trees by day, and by night the trees must figure it's time to spread some seeds all over the ground beneath them to perpetuate the species. 

The dropping does not cease. Sometimes, if the acorn hits a metal gutter, it can sound like a gunshot. Most of the time, however, it sounds like someone is banging into something in the night.

Two types of nuts falling from my trees. (Margo D. Beller)

Despite the noise I am glad I have this roof over my porch. I have friends with open decks who are forced to huddle under the picnic table umbrella as acorn bombs drop from the sky. When my in-laws lived in New Jersey the big oak next to the driveway regularly pitted the old family sedan, making it look like it had been in a hail storm.

My problem is when the acorns make it hard to walk to the feeder pole or the water dish. That is why I have gone out on the patio three times - so far - to herd marble-like oak acorns with my broom into my large garden pail, lug it to a corner of my yard and dump it for any squirrel, chipmunk, deer, woodpecker, jay or crow that might want a snack.

But there are many, many more acorns all over the lawn, and even when I am drinking coffee on the porch, congratulating myself on a job well done, I hear the acorns continuing to drop. It will be like this for weeks.

What hangs up will eventually come down. (Margo D. Beller)

It is not the tree's fault, of course. It is just trying to survive. If the trees were in the woods this would be a barely noticed process. But these trees are not in the woods, they border the property of my suburban yard. And so I notice big time.

There are some years when there are many more acorns than there are squirrels, like this year. There are some years there are many more squirrels than there are acorns, like last year. This boom and bust is not as random as it may seem.

Acorns are seeds and they are dropped by the oaks to make more trees. But the seeds are also food. The more food there is, the more an animal eats and then the more it breeds. More animals mean more food is needed. When seeds are plentiful, everyone is happy - the animals and the trees. But if there are too many animals and not enough seeds, there will be a decrease in new trees. That seems to prompt trees to shut down making seeds, which then cuts back on the animal population because there is less food.

The technical name for this boom and bust cycling is masting. According to the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, mast is the fruit of forest trees, in this case acorns. During "mast" years, the trees "go into overdrive, producing enormous amounts of nuts." Then comes the bust, a year or more when there are very few nuts produced.

How the pretty autumn leaves will eventually end up...
(Margo D. Beller)

Why does this happen? Again, from the Foundation:

Scientists don’t know the exact trigger for mast years, but it most likely has to do with climate events in past stressful years. Trees may produce an abundance of offspring as a hedge in case the stressful times continue. Stressors may include droughts, heat waves, or cold spells.

I'm no scientist but I know there is a lot of wacky stuff going on in the atmosphere around the world - a rare tropical storm in California, abundant wildfires in Canada, deadly floods in Libya. We are on pace to have the hottest year on record after having the hottest past few months on record.

... and the pods. (Margo D. Beller)

Closer to home, this has been a very wet year. The same abundance of rain that has helped keep my dogwood tree alive, produced the "flowers" on my ornamental grasses for the first time in years and kept the spider mites and white flies off my flowers likely produced favorable conditions for the oak trees to produce acorns after a year when not many were produced. The old trees have grown and now more of their branches are above the porch roof, something I didn't notice until the acorns started raining down heavier than usual this year. 

The oaks are not alone, of course. Many other trees are now dropping their seeds, including the bane of my existence, the black locust. October is when I notice how many of the long, black pods are hanging, waiting for some signal or gust of wind to drop like a blanket over my lawn. Like the acorns, eventually they will all come down and be swept away, to be forgotten until the next October. 

Autumnal Thoughts

As I write, a tropical storm named Ophelia hit the North Carolina coast and will slowly make its way north. While still many miles away, rain and strong winds are currently lashing my northeast-facing windows. The fact it took a very long time for this storm to get strong enough to finally be named while being big enough to be constantly pointed out by local and national weather forecasters is, to me, another manifestation of the, shall we say, unusual weather afflicting us in recent years. 

This pot of coleus will eventually come inside. (Margo D. Beller)

This storm will not be like October 2012's Hurricane Sandy, which hit even my inland New Jersey area with storm-force winds that ripped off one of my window shutters and put us into cold darkness for two days. Sandy was, according to the federal weather agency NOAA,  the "second-largest Atlantic storm on record, and affected the East Coast from Florida to Maine, as well as states as far inland as West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana. The storm made landfall in southern New Jersey on Oct. 29, 2012, battering the densely populated New York and New Jersey region with heavy rains, strong winds, and record storm surges."

Ophelia shouldn't be nearly that bad, and the raw, wet conditions we're facing now are nicer, by comparison, than earlier this year when the wildfire smoke blown south from Canada turned the skies over New York City orange. And then there were the fires in Hawaii that killed hundreds of people, mainly older people. The Environmental Protection Agency, in the emotionless prose of a federal bureaucracy, has even provided a report on the key threats of climate change on older people, including heat illnesses, respiratory illnesses, insect-related diseases (including ticks), water-related illnesses and, my personal favorite, mental health issues.

A couple of the zinnias I grew from seed and
cut for my kitchen. I will grow more next year.
(Margo D. Beller)

So an older person not only has to contend with physical and emotional issues but environmental ones far beyond his or her control. In my case, there is the shortening of the days and knowing at some point there will be leaves to rake, gutters to have cleaned and a garden to cut down and put to bed. My husband (MH) and I now hire people to clear the gutters and get rid of the leaves (tho' I've been known to go after the blanket of pods that falls on the front lawn), but I, however, am the one doing the work on the garden, and that work gets harder each year.

I finally had someone come over with a chainsaw to cut off the dead parts of the dogwood. Two-thirds of the tree was removed. The remaining part is still filled with leaves slowly going red. It is struggling to stay alive. As am I.

What remains of the dogwood. (Margo D. Beller)

In past blog posts I have mentioned walking among the autumn weeds and enjoying the autumnal colors. I've even mentioned the feeling of peace when cutting down the garden. Nowadays I don't feel that enjoyment, likely because as I get older it gets harder and I feel the resulting muscle pains for longer. (MH, having ceded his grass-cutting duties to paid help to spare his balky knees, is much happier.) 

This year's wet summer - not as bad for us as for New England - has been a boon for my flowers, keeping the red spider mites and the white flies away (unlike last year). It has also benefited the weeds, which proliferated until the unusual September heatwave we had subsided and I could go out and pull them. 

I guess what bothers me even more than climate changes I can't control and the aches and pains of my older body is the inevitability of it all. The summer ends. The birds fly south. The leaves fall. The days grow shorter. The plants must be cut back or brought inside from back porch or front yard before the winter cold can kill them. Daylight savings time ends (this year on November 5). The year ends. 

Life ends. But not anytime soon for the world or for me, I hope.

Food for Flight

As usual, the year is flying by. It is now August. For many birds, nesting is complete and the young have dispersed. The days are starting to get shorter and the winds are coming out of the north. Instinct tells them it is time to head south for the winter.

Jewelweed (Margo D. Beller)

Birds travel light, literally and figuratively. A hummingbird weighs less than an ounce. An osprey can weigh up to four pounds. Even the biggest birds can be thrown off course by high winds and heavy rains, making their travel perilous, especially when they have to fly over open water such as the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean.

They also don't travel with a cooler filled with snacks. They have to depend on whatever foods they can find when they land after a day (diurnal flyers such as hawks) or night (most small birds including warblers) of flying. For the osprey, that means fish. For other raptors, that means small mammals or birds (which is why most small birds travel at night). For the smaller birds, that includes insects, the seeds and fruits ripening now, and whatever they might find at people's feeders.

The privet shrubs in my backyard are filled with small, round, black berries favored by such fruit eaters as robins, mockingbirds, catbirds and cedar waxwings. The wild cherry tree has also attracted birds because it is fruiting, which is good because the viburnum and dogwood are not going to provide much to eat this fall. There are also red berries all over the yew hedge.

In my travels I have seen plenty of food Mother Nature has put out for migrating birds.

Hop hornbeam with hanging seeds (Margo D. Beller)

There's the hop hornbeam, for instance. I would never have even noticed this tree had I not almost walked into a low-hanging branch and noticed the seeds dangling from it. Once I identified this tree I found it everywhere - on hillsides, along river banks. It is an understory tree, meaning it grows below the canopy of larger trees. Apparently it thrives on being left alone, which may be why they were planted years ago by municipal parks departments. I've seen cardinals and cedar waxwings eating the seeds from this tree. 

There are also nectar-filled or seeding flowers. Thistle and goldenrod bloom now, and when they go to seed they will feed goldfinches, sparrows and other seed eaters. Weeds are also a wonderful source of seeds, including the ragweed that torments my sinuses and always seems to come back no matter how much it is mowed or pulled out.

The cardinal flower has a gentle spike of red flower and prefers moist areas, which is why I see it near streams and why I've had no luck growing it in my garden. Hummingbirds are attracted by the color and feed on the pollen. Another hummingbird favorite is jewelweed. This one also favors wet areas along stream banks or bogs but unlike the cardinal flower it is orange-yellow. However, its flower is a trumpet that attracts the hummingbird. Apparently it is also used to make medicine, but thankfully no one has touched the stands of jewelweed I've seen attracting hummingbirds, bees and insects.

Cardinal flower (Margo D. Beller)

These food sources are not everywhere, of course. The insect population is in decline, which will have a devastating effect not only on birds but on humans because most of our food needs to be pollinated by bees and insects when it is first flowering. Ocean waters are much warmer than they should be this summer. According to NOAA, we are in an El Nino year. That means:

Our global climate models are predicting that the warmer-than-average Pacific ocean conditions will not only last through the winter, but continue to increase. There is a good chance—approximately 2 in 3—that the peak Oceanic Niño Index this winter will match or exceed 1.5 °C, our informal threshold for a “strong” El Niño event.

El Nino, according to NOAA, is a "naturally occurring climate pattern associated with warming of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, which can significantly influence weather patterns, ocean conditions, and marine fisheries worldwide."

When the Pacific Northwest is as hot as Houston, when wildfires destroy millions of acres of forests and homes, when parts of the U.S. have not gone below 100 degrees F in months, when New England is hit with tornadoes, when the mid-Atlantic states are hit by several 100-year floods in one season, what is a "naturally occurring climate pattern" anymore?

I just hope the birds make it.

 

It Happens Every October

I know I've written before about late-summer blues and how December can be especially depressing, but in this year of coronavirus I am feeling particular sad this October for many reasons.

Speedwell Lake, Morris Township, NJ, Oct. 24, 2020. I had to walk
some distance to get away from all the other people and get this
picture. (Margo D. Beller)

October is when my mother died and when a good friend, gone too soon, was born.

October is when the lawn services switch from mowers to blowers, both the usual loud and the hurricane-level superloud types. If the services are not working the homeowners are, which means nearly constant noise at most times of the weekday and on the weekends (such as now, as I write with headphones on).

October is when the locust tree pods once again darken the lawn. This year we have far fewer than last year, which means less to rake to the street - a good thing because until this week MH has not been able to mow due to work on our street by the gas utility, including digging in our yard. When he mows he will crunch up the mat of leaves covering front and back yards but I don't want him to crunch the pods and spread the seeds to create a forest of locust trees. So I must still rake.

In October the garden gets cut back and the pots of cannas, coleus and dahlias are left out until frost kills them or their foliage, at which point it will be time to compost the plants or store the roots in the garage.

Makeshift greenhouse (Margo D. Beller)

October is when the house plants must come in from the porch and the table can now hold bird seed containers and feeders. I am trying an experiment this year. I have two pots of peppers and one tomato on the enclosed porch, in the corner that gets the sun the longest, in the cage I used to protect them this summer. The cage is wrapped with medium-grade plastic in such a way there is a flap I can pull up and over the plants at night. If the night is very cold, and we had at least one night so far when it got very close to freezing, I can add an old sheet as a cover.

As a control I have one pepper and one part of the tomato plant I rooted and potted in the house. This year I did not see white flies. However, if I see any in the house, or if the tomato grows like a weed, the plants will be moved outside to my makeshift greenhouse.

October is when there is a tug of war between warm weather and colder chill. More nights are in the 40s but some last week were in the 50s or low 60s, creating thick fog in the morning, making it even darker and so harder to get out of bed. When I sit on my porch now I have to put a throw on my knees on colder mornings.

October is when there is now less daylight than before, the sun's arc far shorter than it was in summer. I must bring in the feeders at 6 p.m. before it gets too dark (to avoid bears), and it isn't light out in the mornings until close to 7 a.m. If I want to get anything done before I start work at 9 a.m. I must rise in the dark, which I dislike greatly.

October is when the farm markets begin to close, if they aren't offering corn mazes, pumpkins, petting zoos or pick your own apples. The place where I go closes on Halloween this year and I've already stocked up on tomatoes, peppers and spinach. But they won't last forever, even if cooked or frozen. 

Pine siskins, visitors from the north, a
one-day wonder, Oct. 9, 2020
(Margo D. Beller)

October is when I realize that, for the most part, bird migration is over. The hummingbirds, house wrens and catbirds are long gone from my yard (tho' there have been reports from elsewhere). Yes, there are white-throated sparrows and juncos whose migration brings them to my area and there are plenty of the usual backyard birds visiting my suet and seed feeders. There's even the occasional surprise, such as the small flock of pine siskins, visitors from the north, that have been passing through lately in an irruption year. But now it seems I have little reason to get out of bed early most weekend mornings to look for new birds in the parks near me. New birds are now few and far between.

And this coronavirus year has brought additional challenges. I work in the house five days a week again (MH runs the outdoor errands). While I don't miss the commute, I do miss the daily walk to the train. On some non-rainy weekend mornings, unless I know we are going somewhere or I am busy in the house I feel an almost urgent need to get out, despite the dark. Unfortunately, other people (a LOT of other people) also working at home feel the same and not many of them are birders. Unless I travel in the dark somewhere to start birding at first light I run into walkers, runners, bikers, dog walkers. (Many times they are out at that early hour, too.) More people are on the local streets and in the parks where I used to have solitude. Not many of them wear masks.  

You can feel the intensity as people rush around on the weekends to make up for the time lost working or helping their children, also stuck at home, with school. When MH and I travel on weekends, I make our lunch and we have to hope there is a convenience store with an open bathroom because most park bathrooms are now locked, unless there are port-o-sans. We don't feel comfortable around people, including in diners.

As I write, this virus has been with us since March, nearly eight months. The infection rate went down a few months ago for the summer (in my state where there have been more restrictions than elsewhere) and we were able to make short trips to visit family or look for birds. Now, with the October cold, infections are starting to come back up as people gather with friends or family indoors. For those who fear this illness, even getting together with generations of family for Thanksgiving is threatened, and that is extremely depressing.

October's end means it's only a week or so later we turn back the clocks and it will be dark at 5 p.m. Winter, its deep chill and the potential for a lot of snow are not that far off. 

It is the inevitability of that and everything else that happens every October, even without a pandemic, that may be the saddest thing of all.

October means death.

Disposing of the Fruits of My Labor

Dahlia, Autumn 2019 (Margo D. Beller)

As I sit on my enclosed porch, the weather is most definitely autumnal. I am in my warmest robe. The windows are closed. A feeder has drawn cardinals. The sun's arc is shorter and it doesn't rise as high in the sky. Days are most decidedly shorter.

And in the corner are four pots of vegetables continuing to grow.

Every year around this time I begin the slow task of closing the garden and getting the house ready for winter. I wait for as long as possible before bringing indoors the houseplants I've put on the porch for the summer because they are going to get more humidity outside than in, especially once I start using the furnace. This year I made it until the beginning of October when the projected overnight low one night would be 37 degrees F. My porch would've kept the plants a degree or two warmer but since many of them are tropicals they had to be brought in.

The pots of cannas and dahlias in front behind the deer netting are staying put for now. The dahlias are autumn flowers, just starting to bloom. The cannas' leaves still look fresh although what flowers they had are long since done. Once frost hits and the foliage goes brown I can cut it off and put the pots in the garage, while I pull up the dahlias and store the bulbs, wrapped in newspaper, in a box nearby.

Tomato plant, still bearing fruit (Margo D. Beller)

That leaves the vegetables. Most people, if they grow vegetables, seem to harvest what they can and leave the rest to rot. I've seen this in my town's community garden. I've walked there after a frost and found many tomatoes still on the vine until the plot holder makes it there to rip out the plants. (One of those holders allowed me access once and now I know what a frozen tomato looks and feels like.)

I, however, grow vegetables in pots. Usually I have anywhere from two to five pots of peppers and one of basil. The basil is used up first, long before the first frost. But if the peppers are covered with flowers (connoting the fruit to come), I bring them indoors for the winter.

Things are different this year.

Two autumns ago, I found a tomato seedling near my compost pile. I potted it and it grew into a tree that was difficult to keep upright. Just as it was about to put out fruit, it became infested with white flies that also affected the nearby peppers and my houseplants. Out went the tomato and the peppers, the former into the front yard where, despite the sun, it died in the cold, the latter into the one corner of the enclosed porch where the sun shines the longest. (Each houseplant was examined and cleaned outside before coming back in.)

Peppers  and base of tomato plant; note the pepper flowers
(Margo D. Beller)

This year, I had two of the four peppers I had kept inside for the winter (two died and the other two were continually moved to rid them of white flies) plus a basil, a third type of pepper and a cherry tomato plant that also grew to be like a tree. All were in a protective cage but the deer soon discovered they could reach up and eat the upper parts of the tomato. Thus I covered the tomato and the cage in netting. The plants continued to give me vegetables and, as usual, seemed to get a second life late in the summer.

So once the houseplants were brought into the house, I transported the four pots to the porch where I continue to pick tomatoes even as more grow. Of the peppers, one has been a disappointment (the one decent pepper it produced wasn't particularly good), one is nearly done but the last is covered with flowers and growing fruit.

Tomato flowers and small, unripe fruit (Margo D. Beller

What is different this year is my attitude - none of these pots are going to be taken into the house. I am done with battling white flies. I am done with moving heavy pots. In the autumn of my life, there are more important things I must consider, such as my declining physical strength.

Next year I plan on following Thoreau's dictum of "simplify, simplify" and have one pot of peppers and one of basil. I'll leave the majority of vegetable growing to the farm markets.

When the really cold weather comes, which it inevitably will, I will pick what tomatoes and peppers I can use and leave the plants on the porch and let nature take its course. Then the plants will be pulled out and composted to feed the worms.

A Walk Among the Autumn Weeds

It is nearly autumn. Leaves on the maples and the dogwoods are turning and the days are getting shorter. Now that I have more time on my hands I find that unless I can get out and take a walk I don't feel comfortable in my skin.

A lovely autumn plant with an ugly name - snakeroot.
It is poisonous so deer leave it alone.
(Margo D. Beller)

The other day I went to one of my usual bird-spotting places but there were very few birds to be had aside from the ubiquitous jays and catbirds. The tree swallows that had been zipping around the sky over the open field had been replaced by a variety of dragonflies, also hunting for food. No calling warblers, wrens or even a red-winged blackbird. All gone south.

The field itself was now filled with wildflowers - bright yellow goldenrod, pink joe-pye weed, milkweed and a variety of seeding plants and others that had already boomed and busted.

It is an unfortunate fact that now I can no longer make myself rise before dawn and rush out after the birds, especially at this time of year when there is no birdsong, no bright-colored feathers, no prospect of something possibly hanging around for a while. Now, the birds just want to go south whenever the weather allows them. I have seen more hummingbirds visiting the jewelweed along rivers than my feeder.

That doesn't mean nothing is flying at midday. There are many types of butterflies including sulphurs, cabbage whites, tiger and dark swallowtails and the mighty monarchs, all heading south. If a leaf isn't falling, the fluttering will more likely be a butterfly.

This time, however, the wildflowers and weeds have my attention. Let us take a walk along this path, Reader, and see what there is to see. (All pictures by me.)

My fall garden is mainly shades of pink - rose of Sharon, sedums, coneflowers and liriope - but I was given some goldenrod and that has brought a welcome shade of yellow. In the wild, there are large stands of goldenrod. Some forms bloom early, some much later in the summer. 

Unfortunately, ragweed is another fact of autumn life. You will see it everywhere, including in parks.

Milkweed, by contrast, is something to encourage. Monarchs need milkweed to survive - the adults lay eggs in it and the caterpillars eat the foliage.

Japanese knotweed grows in thick stands and at this time of year it flowers, enabling it to spread its seeds. I have been in many parks where it was cut down, even burned, but it comes back and thrives. It is one of the worst invasive plants you'll ever see in this area.

This one was a surprise. If you look closely you'll see the thin, feathery, green branches of wild asparagus. If the park mower doesn't destroy it, it should provide edible stalks of asparagus in the spring.

Bermuda grass is right up there with crabgrass and ground ivy as one of the worst plants to invade my yard. Every summer I find a large stand growing under my rhododendron, where it is hard to reach it because of the deer netting. It comes out easily but it is a perennial so you can expect more next year.

By contrast, I wish I could grow more joe-pye in my yard instead of grass. But while I've never seen a field of wild joe-pye browsed by deer, some that I planted was nearly destroyed, forcing me to put it behind deer netting, where it hasn't been happy. Seeing stands of it in the wild makes me envious.

I can't know everything. I have no idea what this is but at this time of year it looks like it is full of spikes. Was this a lush plant with flowers that dried? I don't know. I'll have to come back here in the spring and see what comes up.

Another mystery. The leaves suggested columbine when I saw this in the spring. But there are blue berries. Columbine doesn't produce blue berries. I found this and nearby stands in the woods, and at some point I'll look at my references.

If ever there was a plant I wish was on my property it is jewelweed. It is found in wet areas, near streams. It can grow in large stands and attract bees, flies, beetles and hummingbirds, which pollenate the plant by taking pollen from the small yellow-orange trumpet flowers. Whenever I see jewelweed I look for hummingbirds.

There are other plants, of course, many on the decline but others that are producing food such as the fruiting vines of wild grape, poison ivy and Virginia creeper.

As I discovered, even while concentrating on the variety of textures and colors in the weeds and wildflowers, there is always the possibility of a bird surprising me.

For instance, as I was taking the picture of the joe-pye seen above, I saw a raptor flying high over the field. The binoculars revealed a broadwing hawk, easily identified by the broad white stripe in an otherwise dark tail. That bird reminds me why I must get out of the house, whatever the time of day.