gloomy morning with flowers

It was a gloomy, overcast, foggy morning. With all the reports about the health of the western half of Shinnecock Bay, I was rather alarmed to see green algae and suspicious-looking white foam in the pond this morning. However on looking back through old records, I see that both the algae and the foam have appeared every year -- usually around the time (or slightly thereafter) of the Pitch Pine pollen. The tide was low but coming in fast and there were no birds in the pond but, curiously, a couple of thin whistles in my ear, turned out to be a pair of Cedar Waxwings sitting right over my head on a bare branch. Cedar Waxwings are notable for their late nesting habits but perhaps, like everything else this year, they are getting an early start. A flying apparition appearing overhead out of the mist and then disappearing back into the miasma was an unlikely Great Blue Heron -- unlikely for this time of year when most of the local Great Blues have gone north to breed.

On an incoming tide, the open area in the middle of the marsh takes longer to fill up than the pond. Thanks to Hurricane Irene (or subsequent high tides), I can now walk a wooden plank that takes me right to the edge of the open water and mud flats, a perch from which I can look for those otherwise well-hidden marsh birds. Straining to see what I could see, I was moving right to the edge of the plank when it tipped up and I stumbled backwards into the marsh grass. The noise and sudden movement kicked up a Green Heron, previously invisible in the grass.

I was worried that Hurricane Irene, which caused so much damage near the shore, had obliterated our small stand of Starflower so I was happy to see a few of the seven-pointed stars emerging from the grass. The big floral show though is the one currently being staged by the Big Leaf Magnolias. My neighbor calls it the Jurassic Park tree and in a way she's right. Magnolias are an ancient type of flowering plants; ancestor magnolias have been dated back as far as 95 million years (as far as I know, only the Gingko is older and it's not native). When magnolias appeared on the scene, there were no bees and to this day their flowers, which lack recognizable sepals or petals, are pollinated by beetles. Magnolia macrophylla is said to have the largest leaf and the largest flower of any North American plant -- big, white, floppy inflorescences lighting up the gloom. This plant is described as rare and even endangered in much of its southern range but it is doing just fine in a light woodland just off our backyard with a whole thicket of self-sprouting and flowering trees (see below).


Eric Salzman

The Flowers that bloom in the summer, tra-la

Late June but officially summer and flowers are blooming in great numbers. Although my post on Saturday's Linnaean trip was focused on birds (with a few mammals thrown in), there also was a long list of flowering plants. The most spectacular were the flowering cactus off Dune Road by the Ponquogue Bridge. This is a native prickly-pear (Opuntia) that seems to regard beach sand as the same habitat as desert sand. These creatures have large and beautiful lemony yellow flowers which all bloom at once. Quite a display.

There were lots of other flowers at the beach and in the upland grasslands including Coreopsis or Tickseed, Rudbeckia or Black-eyed Susans, St. John's Wort, Butter-and-Eggs, Deptford Pink, Blue Toadflax, Common Mullein, Moth Mullein, Rabbit-foot Clover, Venus' Looking Glass, various Hawkweeds and other plants too numerous to mention or which, more honestly, I have forgotten. In addition to Wild Rose both Rugosa and Rambler Roses are in full bloom. Many (if not most) of these flowers are introduced species, garden escapes or 'near natives' but Tickseed (an ugly name for a beautiful flower), Black-eyed Susan, Wild or Virginia Rose and, believe it or not, Prickly-pear Cactus are native to the American northeast.

One previously unmentioned incident from Saturday that I did not forget was the singing Vesper Sparrow at Gabreski. There are at least four different sparrow species here: Grasshopper (the rarest), Chipping (the most common), Vesper (the most sought-after) and Field (formerly common, now much less so). The song was coming from a nearby fence so I hopped over in that direction and spotted the bird, first on an emergent Pitch Pine and then perched nicely on the fence. "There it is", I shouted bringing over the crowd of Linnaean birdwatchers. "But isn't that a Field Sparrow?" asked one perspicacious birder. So I decided to actually look at the bird through my binoculars and it was indeed a Field Sparrow singing something very un-Field Sparrow-like (no bouncing ball) and close to a typical Vesper Song. I had boldly called the bird on what I thought was a sure identification of the song. The double moral of the story: (1) some species can actually sing like other species, and (2) can't win 'em all.

Eric Salzman

herons and hawkweeds

On an overcast, cool, windy and drippy morning, there were few insects and no Barn Swallows at all over the marsh. The Purple Martins were in the air but all flying very high along with two or three twittering Chimney Swifts. Are there really so many insects up there? The martins and swifts must know! Only when I got around to the north side of the property -- the fixed part of our neighbor's dock opposite the mouth of the pond outflow with a view of the nearby Aldrich Boat Yard -- did I see one or two Barn Swallows and another of those neat little Bank Swallows that fly almost as well as the Barns.

From this observation post I could also see a Yellow-crowned Night Heron come flying in from the bay, landing on our creek shore just out of sight but then, as if to confirm the sighting, taking off again for another, closer shoreline spot. It's the first one of the season for a bird that I believe nests somewhere in the vicinity.

Speaking of herons, the Gulping Green was sitting in a pine tree nearby and doing a two-part, almost growling version of the gulp. As I walked back along the path on the west bank of the pond, what seemed like a second Green Heron came flying down the pond from the opposite side and then landed on the bank right underneath the dead cedar. I waited to see if it would climb up to the 'on guard' post at the top (as it did yesterday) but it only hopped up onto a low branch. It was silent and the Gulping Green in the woods -- if it was a different bird -- was also quiet. There's something going on with these great-looking Jurassic Park herons and I hope it's reproduction!

Besides following swallows and herons, I try to keep up with the sequence of flowering plants. Yesterday and today I noted that the locusts (the trees not the insects) had their full white floral sprays high above. And a few loosestrifes (a native species or a garden escape, I'm not sure which) have appeared on the ground by one of our right-of-ways. The stand-up dandelions in the field by the house, bright yellow all afternoon under a cloudy sky, belong to at least two different species. One has very hairy dandelion-like basal leaves, smooth stems (only occasionally branching) and fairly good-sized flowers, one to a stem (Cat's Ear perhaps). The other has less hairy, toothless, elliptical leaves in a basal rosette and smallish flowers in a little cluster on each stem (one of the hawkweeds no doubt). But the most spectacular vegetable appearance (if that's the right expression) was a bright yellow mold-like fungus spread across a rotting fallen log; like most fungi, it appeared overnight and like the yellow composites on the other side of the house, it adds a gay note of bright color to a somber day.

Eric Salzman

sunshine, a rising wind and 3 photos

Another 'fall' day in June: brilliant sunshine with little or no wind early on and then a rising wind throughout the morning. Brilliant male Wood Duck (to go with the brilliant sunshine) sitting on the pond. One or two Tree Swallows flying with the Purple Martins over the marsh. Marauding crows everywhere looking for eggs and nestlings to feed THEIR nestlings; then squadrons of Red-winged Blackbirds (and other birds) rising up to chase them off.

Here are three photos by Eileen Schwinn taken yesterday:

1) Willet 'on guard' at the top of the dead Red Cedar by the pond
2) emerging flower of the Big-leaf (a.k.a. 'Jurassic Park') Magnolia
3) not the Spicebush Swallowtail that we saw but a gorgeous Black Swallowtail that she photographed later in the day








Eric Salzman

P.O. Box 775 (14 Randall Lane)
East Quogue NY 11942
631 653-5236
es@ericsalzman.com
www.ericsalzman.com

back in the fog

Another pea-souper this morning blotting out the view across the bay, across the creek and even across the marsh. As I've mentioned before, the fog makes visibility difficult but audibility actually increases and, surprisingly, some of our local birds were active and singing loudly -- perhaps a way of communicating through the fog. The Purple Martins and even the martin house were invisible but the rolling, chirping of the birds overhead was loud and clear; are there really insects flying in the fog and, if so, can the martins really find them? Loud Baltimore Oriole calls as the orioles moved from one area to another must convey information about their location. The mournful whistles of a visiting Eastern Wood-Pewee also cut nicely through the mist.

The fog also shows off one feature of our local natural history that is often overlooked: the sheer number of spiders. The top of every bare twig on the vegetation in and around the marsh is covered by a messy lace of spider web, not the neat classic web of the orb-weaver spiders but a crest of loose threads at the apex of every dead bush and literally hundreds of them throughout. Each one is presumably the property of a different individual suddenly made visible by the glistening pearl-like droplets of water condensed out of the fog and now forming a necklace on each thread. Who knew there were so many spiders in the marsh? It ought to be possible to identify this species by its very characteristic web formation.

Although many flowers like the sun, the lack of it has not inhibited the appearances of some new blossoms. The most flamboyant is, without a doubt, the massive white flowers of the Big-leaf Magnolia (it might just as easily have been named Big-flowered Magnolia). Yesterday these were inside huge green buds and you had to look hard to notice them. Overnight these enormous white blossoms popped open. They will shortly collapse into a mass of huge white petals but at the moment they are still erect. Eileen Schwinn calls them Jurassic Park trees and these are certainly Jurassic Park flowers!

At the opposite extreme from the magnolias is the beautiful little six-pointed terrestrial white star of the Starflower. According to the books, this little gem is supposed to inhabit "cool or moist woods and high slopes" but we have a bed of it in sandy soil and pine needles; it is regular in mid- to late May.

In general, we are at the height of the second round of spring flowers. Apple blossoms are completely gone, Lilac is on its way out, Beach Plum as well as the Blueberries and Huckleberries are past their prime. Mony of the escaped garden plants are blooming right now: Wisteria, Lily-of-the-Valley, Bittersweet (the greenish flowers are easy to miss) and the bush form of Honeysuckle with the familiar honeysuckle yellow-and-white flowers and red or orange berries. Presumably this is another introduced species but just exactly which one?

The mid-May star of the Pine Barrens is the Flowering Dogwood, already past its prime. In some parts of the woods where the oak trees were hard hit by an infestation of a small geometrid or looper, the canopy has opened up and this has actually favored the dogwoods which have been making a striking display. The one 'wild' flowering dogwood on our property was at the edge of a right-of-way that had to be widened when we did renovations on the old house. I specifically marked the tree for preservation so it was, of course, the first thing that the contractor chopped down. Miraculously, it has sprouted from its roots and it will, we hope, reflower one of these years. Incidentally, in spite of the name of the plant, the showy blossoms are actually not flowers per se but consist of four showy white bracts that surround a cluster of small greenish flowers.

Other native flowers are starting to show. Two plants in the lily family, Wild Lily-of-the-Valley and False Solomon's Seal, are beginning to bloom and Chokeberry -- in spite of its ugly name, a handsome flowering shrub in the rose/apple family -- is sporting little bouquets of white flowers on the marsh edge (it does have puckery berries in late summer/early fall). Blue or Oldfield Toadflax is another pretty little early spring flower with an unattractive name; it grows in pure sand and is in full display (or just past) right now. There is a beautiful stand of it in the dunes at Cupsogue west of the parking lot just behind the (dying) Black Pines.

Another botanical feature of the moment is Pitch Pine pollen. I have discovered that it is not spring flowers that make me sneeze and cough at this time of the year but the wind blown pollen of Pinus rigida. You might not notice the pollen in the air but you can see it by looking at the edges of any puddle or pond. The yellow color is the pine pollen.

I almost forgot to mention the avian event of the morning. Our dooryard Carolina Wren resumed loud singing right out the kitchen door a few days ago and the prevelence of low buzzing sounds out back has raised suspicions. This morning a little covey of wrens exploded out of a bush as the adult birds tried to call attention to themselves and away from the 3 or 4 youngsters who scattered into the surrounding greenery, trying to escape detection. Carolina Wren, which stays here all winter, is almost always the earliest of our songbirds to produce young.

Eric Salzman

flowers

Germander has started to bloom. Its delicate and somewhat exotic pink flowers sprout from a spike that emerges from a low cluster of pointy, smoky, lightly notched green leaves that sprout from moist soil just back of the marsh in an open area at the edge of the woods. Germander, also known as Wood Sage (the scientific name is Teucrium canadense) is in the mint family and like other members of the family, has a rather striking little flower with projecting stamens from where the upper lip ought to be and a broad extended lower lip which perhaps offers a landing pad for fertilizing insects. This is the narrow-leafed variety known as littorale; it is certainly one of our more unusual wildflowers.

Another strange wildflower currently in bloom is easily overlooked as it is an unpossessing green plant with only the tiniest of tiny white flowers. But it has a whopper of a name -- Enchanter's Nightshade -- that gives this modest-looking botanical specimen more than a touch of mystery. To add to the strangeness, it's not a nightshade at all and the enchantment is elusive. The tiny white flowers are on longish stalks or racemes and each petal has two tiny little lobes (which makes it appear -- if you look through a magnifying glass -- as though each flower has four petals). and long stamens. The seedpods are tiny little flat paddles with a curious fringe on each paddle; apparently these pods will stick to clothes or fur. This plant is in the Evening Primrose family although it looks nothing like the familiar Evening Primrose. Its Latin name, Circaea, obviously refers to the fabled enchantress Circe. But why is this plant associated with magic? What magic? How did Circe get a hold of a presumably New World plant many centuries before Columbus? Apparently Circe seduced sailors like Odysseus into sticking with her just like the seed pods of her magic plant which she magically obtained from far-off America.

Another striking local plant currently in bloom is Spotted Wintergreen which, with its two-toned leaves, looks like a hot-house plant recently removed from the rain forest. The flower is a nodding, white, waxy affair that look positively unreal. Spotted Wintergreen grows in the mixed duff of pine and oak trees in sandy, pine-barrens soils. The fact that it grows in our woods tells me that these woods are an extension of, not the rainforest, but the pine barrens.

Other flowers of early summer: Yucca, Queen Anne's Lace, Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia), Rambler Rose (on its last legs) and the oddly named, blue-flowered Sheep's Bit (try saying that name several times quickly). Most of these are flowers of open areas and to find them I have to go to the edges of the property. The open area in front of the house is now too reduced by the encroaching woodland and too shaded during much of the day for most of these open-field plants to flourish.

Eric Salzman

flowers

Dune Road has an extraordinary burst of flowers right now. The best spot is the road next to the Ponquogue bridge (it goes to the old Ponquogue bridge or causeway, the two approaches of which have been retained as a fishing dock, boat put-in and town park). This short road is lined with prickly pear cactus in full, spectacular bloom (our own small stands of pickley pear are long gone, shaded out by the encroachment of the woods). Many do not realize that this species (Opuntia humosa) is native (it does all the way up the East Coast to Cape Cod). It is common on sandy soils in open areas.

Also on this stretch: coreopsis (nobody uses the old name of 'tickseed' any more) and St. John's-wort. There are many other flowers both here and up and down Dune Road in bloom right now including beach-pea, Virginia rose (the native wild rose), rambler and rugosa roses, hawkweeds, and various escapes such as knapweed, sundrops, (ox-eye) daisy, daisy fleabane, day lily, etc. Also the catalpa trees and yuccas are in full bloom or just past, making a grand show on the roads and back lanes of Quogue, East Quogue and elsewhere on the East End. Both of these belong to a category that can be called 'near-natives'; i.e. they are native just to the south and/or west of our area but have flourished here. Other examples are the widespread honey locusts and our prehistoric-looking Big-leaf Magnolia.

Some notable natives that have a foothold on our place are flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), American holly (Ilex opaca) and inkberry (Ilex glabra). One of the dogwoods was growing and flowering on a right of way that we had to enlarge when we renovated the house a number of years (to let in the larger pickups and small trucks needed by the contractor). I marked the tree carefully and gave instructions to said contractor not to touch it so of course it was the first tree that he cut down when he widened the roadway. Fortunately, it sprang back from the roots but it has not, to date, reflowered.

Eric Salzman

wet and warm

It rained last night and this morning was wet and warm and, as the sun broke through, it turned into a humid summer day. Except for the noisy Royal Terns on the creek and few Osprey cries, it was a quiet, still morning. Only after the sun came out did butterflies and dragonflies appear -- in some numbers. 

Seaside Goldenrod is coming into full bloom and Evening Primrose, benefiting from the overcast of the past couple of days, is also in full bloom (a bit late because, I believe, they were cut back when we mowed the open areas around the house earlier this summer). Also Groundsel or Baccharis halmifolia is in full bloom with both male and female flowers on different bushes. I assume the male flowers are the ones that look like regular flowers; they are greenish white and not very showy. The female flowers are presumably the ones that look like little white buds; in a short time they will expand into cigarette-like white pappuses (pappi?) that turn the female bushes into a striking cloud of white.

Eric Salzman