from Blue Jays to white asters

Blue Jays high up in the oaks are almost certainly looking for acorns which are hard to come by this year. Blue Jays are known to cache acorns as winter food in hiding places that they sometimes forget (thereby helping the spread of oak trees). Catbirds everywhere -- apparently feeding on pokeweed berries. Small groups of American Robins (possibly also feeding on poke berries) include several juvenile birds that still retain their spots. Among the deer that frequent the place, there are three fauns which also still retain their spots. There are also at least three young Raccoons, generally seen -- even in daylight -- in the areas around the head of the marsh; they may also be eating poke berries but a more probable explanation is that this area is densely vegetated and provides excellent cover for a lot of creatures.

Several readers have sent me to online sources to research the mystery vine mentioned in my last post but few of them mention what I consider the most likely candidate. Climbing False Buckwheat is a member of the big Buckwheat family and is called Polygonum scandens in the old books (newer sources call it Fallopio scandens). The stems are red and the sprays of almost invisible flowers and winged seeds come out of the leaf axils. This seems to be another one of those plants which has appeared in areas that were scoured by Sandy. Another flower that has appeared in some of these areas is a small white aster that may actually be the Small White Aster (Aster vimineus); it is an attractive species with small white flower heads and narrow, grass-like leaves. The only problem is that there are many species of small white asters some of which also have numerous small leaves -- and not all of them well illustrated or described in the field guides let alone on line.

Eric Salzman