The Wonders of Winter

It is almost Winter. The days are short and gray. The flowers and much of the green growth of Spring are gone. What's left of our native fruit is mostly past its prime. This is the time when the beauty of nature can provide a truly heartwarming boost.

The red waxy tips, on their inner wing feathers, inspired the last name of the Cedar Waxwings.

A female American Robin is a surprisingly beautiful bird. Her head and back are similar in color to a Waxwing, the white and dark streaks on her throat and the broken white eye-rings create wonderful contrasting highlights. Best of all her breast is a subtle shade of russet-orange that may be the most beautiful hue on a color wheel. 

The glowing display of the last lingering leaves is another wonderful aspect of winter beauty.

By the way, in my previous post, there is a new update regarding Varied Thrush. My friend Etta kindly reminded me that Varied Thrush do not breed in urban areas. This is also documented in BirdWeb our local, free, online birding application from Seattle Audubon.

Last week, this tiny Hermit Thrush attracted my attention, as it searched for food on this moss-covered support for the Wilcox walking bridge, in the Arboretum. 

When it flew, it landed nearby in this leafless tree. The Hermit Thrush was clearly focusing its attention on the little pink spheres.

Its feeding strategy, i.e. fluttering up, and seizing the food while hovering in mid-air, seemed somewhat extravagant. I wondered, What was attracting this exceptional attention? 

When I looked more closely, my confusion increased. I wondered, What is this? Is it a fruit,  flower, or seed? Are the outer pink parts edible? How much of this do the birds eat? 

After repeated trips, I documented one of the larger and calmer Varied Thrush as it sat and pulled out the inner reddish-orange part. Plus, as I looked closer, I realized that the empty pink "husks" were being left hanging on the tree.

Online, I found websites like this one, that solved the mystery. The pink unit as a whole is the fruit of the Spindle tree. The pink parts open up to reveal its orange seeds. On a cautionary note, this tree and its fruit are poisonous to humans, but it does not seem to bother our local Thrush.

The other mystery about this tree is how it got its name. It is called a Spindle tree because historically its durable wood was carved into spindles for spinning wool into yarn. 

Mallards are another common bird whose beauty can be easily overlooked. In early Winter, the males are adorned in a fresh set of feathers. Its beautiful new breeding plumage will hopefully attract a mate. The blue speculum, at some angles, looks purple, and it is often hidden by the bird's outer wing feathers.

We also tend to overlook female Hooded Mergansers, partly, because of the way their subtle coloring blends with the world around them.

But also, because the more extravagant males, with their contrasting colors and flashy mating behaviors, easily attract our attention.

The male Wood Duck has a beauty we see year-round, however with such a variety of colors, we tend to overlook the blue highlights on its back. I believe these are from the secondary feathers in its folded wings.

Another beautiful duck, that we usually see only during the colder months, is the Northern Pintail.

Year-round we can find Red-winged Blackbirds. Early in their lives, the males wear basic brown like the females. However, there is a window of time in their first year when the tips of their mature black feathers still retain beautiful youthful highlights of beige and brown. 

This time of year, male Northern Shovelers tend to have dark green heads while still having a few dark crescents from their non-breeding plumage on their chests. Their rich chestnut sides do an excellent job of offsetting the bright green of their speculums.

Monty and Marsha, our local Montlake Cut Bald Eagles, have bright yellow bills that blend perfectly with the Fall leaves in their favorite cottonwood tree.

Just to the north, mated pairs of the elegant Trumpeter Swans, calmly dip and feed on the aquatic vegetation below Union Bay. We are lucky to live near a bay that is shallow enough to have vegetation and yet deep enough, and south enough, to not freeze in Winter.

However, for me, one of the most heart-warming sights this week was repeatedly seeing this Wilson's Snipe and watching it bobbing its body up and down, while totally confident in its awesome camouflage.

Have a great day on Union Bay...where nature lives in the city and Black Birders are welcome!

Sincerely,

Larry

Going Native:

Each of us, who breathes the air, drinks water, and eats food should be helping to protect our environment. Local efforts are most effective and sustainable. Native plants and trees encourage the largest diversity of lifeforms because of their long intertwined history with our local environment and native creatures. Even the microbes in the soil are native to each local landscape. 

I hope we can inspire ourselves, our neighbors, and local businesses to respect native flora and support native wildlife at every opportunity. I have learned that our most logical approach to native trees and plants (in order of priority) should be to:

1) Learn and leave established native flora undisturbed.

2) Remove invasive species and then wait to see if native plants begin to grow without assistance. (When native plants start on their own, then these plants or trees are likely the most appropriate flora for the habitat.)

3) Scatter seeds from nearby native plants in a similar habitat.

4) If you feel you must add a new plant then select a native plant while considering how the plant fits with the specific habitat and understanding the plant's logical place in the normal succession of native plants. 

*************** 

My friend Elaine Chuang shared several resources (that were new to me) from the January 2022 Washington Ornithological Society meeting. By the way, Elaine credits Vicki King for researching and supplying this information. Keystone native plants are an important new idea. Douglas Tallamy in the book "Nature's Best Hope " explains that caterpillars supply more energy to birds than any other plant eater. He also mentions that 14% of our native plants, i.e. Keystone Plants, provide food for 90% of our caterpillars. This unique subset of native plants and trees enables critical moths, butterflies, and caterpillars that in turn provide food for the great majority of birds, especially during the breeding season. 

Here are the top two relevant links.

A video all about native keystone plants for wildlife:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5cXccWx030

New! Updated resources for adding keystone native plants to your yard. 

https://wos.org/wos-wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Native-Plant-Resources-10-7-22.pdf

This updated collection includes a variety of new and different books, perspectives, and interactions between plants, birds, and insects. Thank you to Vicki King for continuing to collect all of these exceptionally helpful works. Also, thank you to each of the individuals who contributed.

***************

In the area below it is my intention to display at least one photo each week to help challenge us to know the difference between native and non-native lifeforms. 

1)

2)

3)

These three trees are non-native, deciduous conifers that can be found in the Arboretum. Every year, when the weather turns cold, they lose their needles and look like they are dying, but they are not. In alphabetical order they are: 

A) Bald Cypress

B) Dawn Redwood

C) Japanese Larch

Your challenge is to associate the appropriate photo number with the correct letter and name. 

Scroll down for the answer.

******************

The answers are:

1 = A - Bald Cypress

2 = C - Japanese Larch

3 = B - Dawn Redwood

Curiously, The Bald Cypress is the only one that originated in North America. It comes from the S.E. portion of the United States. The Dawn Redwood comes from China. It's only two living relatives come from California. However, our North American Redwoods are not deciduous conifers. The Japanese Larch obviously comes from Japan, but it has a nearby Pacific Northwest relative in Washington State, i.e. the Western Larch, which is a deciduous conifer. Nature is just one mystery inside of another.

The Dawn Redwood photo, in the prior set, is from November. If you go looking for that tree today you would find it has already lost its needles and its foliage looks like this photo. The other two species were photographed this morning.

*****************

The Email Challenge:

Over the years, I have had many readers tell me that Google is no longer sending them email announcements. As of 2021, Google has discontinued the service.

In response, I have set up my own email list. With each post, I will manually send out an announcement. If you would like to be added to my personal email list please send me an email requesting to be added. Something like:

                Larry, Please add me to your personal email list. 

My email address is:  

                     LDHubbell@comcast.net

Thank you!

*******************

The Comment Challenge:

Another common issue is losing your input while attempting to leave a comment on this blog. Often everything functions fine, however, sometimes people are unable to make it past the robot-detection challenge or maybe it is the lack of a Google account. I am uncertain about the precise issue. Sadly, a person can lose their comment with no recovery recourse. 
Bottom Line: 
If you write a long comment, please, copy it before hitting enter. Then, if the comment function fails to record your information, you can send the comment directly to me using email.

My email address is:  

                     LDHubbell@comcast.net

Sincerely,

Larry

A Final Photo:

A Frugivore Test

The Fall provides an ephemeral beauty. One moment the leaves are bursting with color and the next they are on the ground, turning brown, replenishing the soil and providing food, shelter, and warmth for a variety of small creatures. Leaves tend to follow a fairly fast path around the circle of life. 

Fruits and nuts also fall from trees but they have the potential for much longer lives. I find it mind-numbing to wonder how many times a seed molecule might become part of a new tree, and then be transferred again into a new seed and then into another tree, and so on. Surely, the odds are slim for this process to be repeated infinitely, but it seems technically possible.

However, the seeds in most fruit do not become trees. Often when the fruit is consumed by other species, the seeds do not land in a fortuitous location, and the fruit molecules involved take a much shorter ride along the swifter side of the circle of life. 

This post focuses primarily on some of our local fruit-eating birds. Not only do they help enable the life cycles of fruit trees, but their own lives, and life cycles, are also enabled by the fruit they consume.

In this post, your challenge is to determine which of the six bird species shown are frugivores. 

Note: For our purposes, any birds that eat fruit are frugivores. It does not matter if they are part-time fruit eaters - since fruit is seasonal this is the most likely situation.

All six species have been photographed near fruit in the last month.

Some are common birds. 

Some are not seen so often.

Of the species shown above, three belong to the Thrush (Turdidae) family, two are Warblers (Dendroica) and one is a Waxwing (Bombycilla). All are winter residents in our area. (For the advanced birders a secondary challenge is, Which of these species does not breed locally?)

In the same order they were presented the six species are:

1. Varied Thrush

2. Townsend's Warbler

3. Cedar Waxwing

4. American Robin (also a Thrush)

5. Hermit Thrush and

6. Yellow-rumped Warbler

To be totally open and consistent it is the foods listed for each species in All About Birds that have been used to objectively determine whether we consider them frugivores. 

Your primary challenge is to determine from memory which of these species are not known to eat fruit. You should make your mental list before proceeding.

*******************

Spoiler Alert! 

The following photos will show many of these species eat fruit.

*******************

American Robins are the most commonly seen of these Fall frugivores.

In the Spring, you will often see them sporadically sprinting across lawns, sometimes stopping to listen, and then snagging, stretching, and securing worms, to take to their young.

Their similarly-sized cousins, the Varied Thrush, tend to raise their young in forested areas. In the Spring, while American Robins may be searching for worms in Western Washington cities, Varied Thrush are more likely to be found in the forests of the Olympic or Cascade Mountains, looking through the leaf litter for insects. 

In the Fall, some of them come to the cities. However, they are bashful. When you find a fruit tree full of feeding Robins look closely at the birds on the far side of the tree, sometimes, you may see a Varied Thrush.

In the same Fall fruit trees, small flocks of Cedar Waxwings can occasionally be found. 

It is obvious they are attracted to the fruit, but how they decide when and where to feed is a mystery to me. Unlike the Robins, they are not likely to feed until the fruit is gone. On the whole, they feed more briefly, return less frequently, and flock more tightly.

Of the three Thrush mentioned the Hermit Thrush, true to its name, is the least likely to be seen. It is also the smallest in size and roughly three times smaller in weight. Visually, they are closer in size to Song Sparrows than to the other two Thrush. However, their shape is clearly quite similar to their larger cousins.

Their size has a logical impact on where they can be seen. Since Thrush prefer to eat fruit whole they tend to be found feeding in trees with the smallest of fruit.

Curiously, Cedar Waxwings are similar in weight to the Hermit Thrush, but they appear to be able to eat larger fruit. Their bills seem longer and apparently able to open wider. They may be just better adapted as frugivores.

The last frugivore in our group may be the most surprising of all, the Yellow-rumped Warbler. By weight, they are about half the size of the average Hermit Thrush. (On the other hand, they can be as much as fifty percent larger than the Townsend's Warblers - which is the only other winter Warbler found in Western Washington.)

Yellow-rumped Warblers have the ability to process and eat the fruit of Wax Myrtles. 

This ability is such a specific adaptation and preference that the white-throated variety of the Yellow-rumped Warbler is named the Myrtle subspecies.

In conclusion, while the tiny Townsend's Warbler may search for food in fruit-bearing trees, it is actually the only one of our six species that, per All About Birds, is not mentioned as a fruit-eater.

In answer to the other, earlier question, the Hermit Thrush is the only one of the six species not known to breed in Western Washington per the All About Birds range maps.

Have a great day on Union Bay...where nature lives in the city and Black Birders are welcome!

Sincerely,

Larry

Going Native:

Each of us, who breathes the air, drinks water and eats food should be helping to protect our environment. Local efforts are most effective and sustainable. Native plants and trees encourage the largest diversity of lifeforms because of their long intertwined history with our local environment and native creatures. Even the microbes in the soil are native to each local landscape. 

I hope we can inspire ourselves, our neighbors, and local businesses to respect native flora and support native wildlife at every opportunity. I have learned that our most logical approach to native trees and plants (in order of priority) should be to:

1) Learn and leave established native flora undisturbed.

2) Remove invasive species and then wait to see if native plants begin to grow without assistance. (When native plants start on their own, then these plants or trees are likely the most appropriate flora for the habitat.)

3) Scatter seeds from nearby native plants in a similar habitat.

4) If you feel you must add a new plant then select a native plant while considering how the plant fits with the specific habitat and understanding the plant's logical place in the normal succession of native plants. 

*************** 

My friend Elaine Chuang shared several resources (that were new to me) from the January 2022 Washington Ornithological Society meeting. By the way, Elaine credits Vicki King for researching and supplying this information. Keystone native plants are an important new idea. Douglas Tallamy in the book "Nature's Best Hope " explains that caterpillars supply more energy to birds than any other plant eater. He also mentions that 14% of our native plants, i.e. Keystone Plants, provide food for 90% of our caterpillars. This unique subset of native plants and trees enables critical moths, butterflies, and caterpillars that in turn provide food for the great majority of birds, especially during the breeding season. 

Here are the top two relevant links.

A video all about native keystone plants for wildlife:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5cXccWx030

New! Updated resources for adding keystone native plants to your yard. 

https://wos.org/wos-wp/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Native-Plant-Resources-10-7-22.pdf

This updated collection includes a variety of new and different books, perspectives, and interactions between plants, birds, and insects. Thank you to Vicki King for continuing to collect all of these exceptionally helpful works. Also, thank you to each of the individuals who contributed.

***************

In the area below it is my intention to display at least one photo each week to help challenge us to know the difference between native and non-native lifeforms. 

What type of tree is this? Is it native to our area?

Scroll down for the answer.

******************

Pacific Madrone: Yes, this tree is native to the West Coast. It is our only native, broad-leafed, evergreen tree. Its fruit attracts a variety of birds and the hardwood of its dead branches and snags is utilized by a variety of cavity-nesting birds to create enduring and easily recycled nest sites.

*****************

The Email Challenge:

Over the years, I have had many readers tell me that Google is no longer sending them email announcements. As of 2021, Google has discontinued the service.

In response, I have set up my own email list. With each post, I will manually send out an announcement. If you would like to be added to my personal email list please send me an email requesting to be added. Something like:

                Larry, Please add me to your personal email list. 

My email address is:  

                     LDHubbell@comcast.net

Thank you!

*******************

The Comment Challenge:

Another common issue is losing your input while attempting to leave a comment on this blog. Often everything functions fine, however, sometimes people are unable to make it past the robot-detection challenge or maybe it is the lack of a Google account. I am uncertain about the precise issue. Sadly, a person can lose their comment with no recovery recourse. 
Bottom Line: 
If you write a long comment, please, copy it before hitting enter. Then, if the comment function fails to record your information, you can send the comment directly to me using email.

My email address is:  

                     LDHubbell@comcast.net

Sincerely,

Larry

Final Photos:

Yellow-rumped Warblers, weighing half an ounce or less, may be one of Union Bay's smallest Frugivores.