2009 – Seabrooke Leckie

Tay Meadows Tidbit – Poinsettias

I had to pop in to town to pick up some staples (bread, milk, etc) from the grocery store yesterday. Inevitably when I go into the store I have to swing by their flower section, just to peruse what’s there, admire the plants, think of what I’d like to buy if I was rolling in cash. In this store it’s right by the front doors, so it’s easy to just park the cart a moment and have a quick walk through. Yesterday they were selling off their Christmas poinsettias, marked down to a mere 99c, from the regular price of $10. I just couldn’t resist picking one up, for that price! I ended up getting three, because I couldn’t decide which one I liked best. And it would only cost me $3, instead of the $30 it might have before Christmas. They’re such lovely plants. And if you take care of them over the summer, and then put them into a strict lighting regimen next fall, they’ll bloom again for the holidays next year.

We tend to think of the showy red or yellow displays as the poinsettia flowers, but they’re actually just coloured leaves, usually referred to as bracts, that serve the same purpose as petals in a traditional flower. The actual flower structures are at the centre of all those red leaves, and can be easily seen with a closer look. They don’t look like traditional flowers, either (so we’re excused for thinking the red bracts are the flowers). The bulbous base to each flower is a structure called a cyathium, and is unique to the genus Euphorbia (which includes the poinsettia, E. pulcherima, as well as many smaller and less showy native species). This structure contains both the pollen-bearing stamens and the female pistil. Technically, the male and female parts (one female surrounded by many male) within the cyathium are all considered their own individual flowers, as opposed to parts of a greater whole. It appears that the female flower in the poinsettia cyathium matures later than the males, or at least it didn’t seem to be visible on any of my plants. When it matures, it looks like a ball on a stem, flopped over the side of the cyathium. On my pale plant some of the flowers are still maturing and are still green, so I’ll have to watch how they develop.

Is it just me, or do the flowers look like a bunch of baby birds, muppet-style with their big yellow beaks and furry topknots, clustered together and begging for food? The fleshy “beaks” are actually nectar glands that produce the reward for pollinators, since the actual flowers themselves are far too minimalist to be able to accomplish that.

We usually see poinsettias as small bushy plants appropriate for the table-top, but in the wild they are woody shrubs that can actually grow quite large. In the store I saw one potted poinsettia that had been grown for a while longer and its lower branches clipped so it had developed into a tree. It would have made a lovely floor plant, but it was considerably more than the discount 99c plants.

Poinsettias also have an interesting history of use by humans. To learn a bit more about that side of things, visit posts at my mom’s blog, or my aunt’s.

Destructive beauty

I hope everyone had an enjoyable and relaxing holiday! It can be such a busy time of year for many people, sometimes it takes a conscious effort to slow down and sit back for a bit. I had a nice visit with my family, who are so spread out over eastern Ontario these days (no one is closer than an hour to anyone else, and the farthest distance between two of us is four hours) that we don’t have many occasions where we’re all able to get together. Needless to say, the break in the usual routine proved a slight distraction from online activities, and I’m just getting back into the post-holiday swing.

This afternoon was beautiful and sunny, albeit a bit on the cold side. I bundled up and took Raven out to the 100-acre woods for her daily exercise. We got a couple of inches of snow yesterday night, and the landscape was freshly powdered. I admired it all, through the narrow gap between my toque and scarf, but didn’t take many photos. I already have lots of lovely winter landscape images. There’s only so many I can actually put to use. You’d all get quite tired of seeing snowy scenes if I photographed and posted every spot I admired.

Christmas night and into Boxing Day we got a fair accumulation of freezing rain. In most open areas, where the sun can reach and shine on the branches, the ice had melted off. However, in the confines of the forest where direct sunlight is sparse and fleeting, much of it still remains on the trees, a glittering coat about 1/2 cm (~1/5 inch) thick. We haven’t had any above-freezing temperatures that would melt it in the absence of direct sun, and so it persists. Where they catch the sun as it filters through the branches, the ice-coated trees can be quite beautiful, glittering like crystal. I wish that the camera could capture the scene as well as the eye can perceive it.

Ice can be incredibly destructive, too. Pine trees seem to suffer the heaviest casualties. Of the pines I passed today, very few were unscathed, and most had at least one limb lying on the snow at their foot. The pine out in front of our house has lost two branches. We had some wicked winds yesterday night, and they may have helped to bring down some branches that might otherwise have escaped damage simply through the weight of the ice itself.

The problem for pines seems to be that their long needles all sit slightly separated, so that when the ice freezes on them they can hold a lot more of it than an equivalent limb on a spruce (short needles), cedar (few spaces), or other evergreen might. Generally speaking, evergreens have developed very strong limbs that can support more weight than the average deciduous tree might be able to, because they need to be able to hold the heavy snow and ice that accumulates on their needles. Deciduous trees have comparatively weak limbs – they don’t need stronger ones because they drop their leaves in the winter, instead, and ice and snow buildup is relatively minimal.

Underneath the big maples in our fields the snow is scattered with shards of ice, crystals that have dropped from the tree’s overhanging limbs as the sun has warmed and melted it. It crunches underneath my snowshoes as I walk through. The maples sit out in the open, exposed. They lost a few twigs and smaller branches with the winds blowing the weight of the ice-covered limbs about, but compared to the pines, it was simply a light pruning. You’d be hard-pressed to even detect where the branches fell off from.

Enough ice collected on the dried grass stems in the fields to lay them flat, and blowing snow from last night has all but covered them. Strange shadows, grass blades carved in relief from the surface of the sheet of white. A few scattered stems still project from the soft surface, and these, too, will soon be hidden by the next storm, or perhaps the one after.

This area was part of the Ice Storm of 1998. The nearby town of Smiths Falls actually makes the Wikipedia page on the event as it was one of a number that declared a state of emergency. Perth and vicinity received in the neighbourhood of 60-80mm of freezing rain – assuming it all froze solid, that would be 6-8 cm (2.3 to 3.1 inches) of ice coating everything. Millions of trees through the affected region were damaged or destroyed. Aside from the obvious aesthetic effects, the storm also crippled the maple syrup and orchard industries, who depend on healthy trees for their crops. I bet woodpeckers were one of the few groups to substantially benefit from the storm, as the sudden preponderance of dead trees and snags would provide a bounty of nesting and foraging sites. Although there are very few signs of the storm remaining, or at least ones that can clearly be attributed to that particular event, I do sometimes wonder about bowed trees like these, and what weight might have caused them to bend so.

Merry Christmas from Tay Meadows

Wide, sparkling fields snow-vestured lie
Beneath a blue, unshadowed sky;
A glistening splendor crowns the woods
And bosky, whistling solitudes;
In hemlock glen and reedy mere
The tang of frost is sharp and clear;
Life hath a jollity and zest,
A poignancy made manifest;
Laughter and courage have their way
At noontide of a winter’s day.
Faint music rings in wold and dell,
The tinkling of a distant bell,
Where homestead lights with friendly glow
Glimmer across the drifted snow.
—-Excerpt, A Winter Day by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Dipped in raspberry

A couple of days ago, the first winter finches showed up to our feeders. I classify any finch species that is normally encountered in greatest abundance in our area during the winter as a winter finch. This usually applies to irruptive species such as redpolls and siskins, but also includes a few others such as Evening and Pine Grosbeaks, crossbills, and these guys: Purple Finches.

A bird of coniferous woodlands, its greatest breeding abundance occurs in the boreal forests of the Shield. We’re right on the edge of the Shield here, and we have a fair amount of conifers in our forests. Although I don’t recall seeing any in the fall, except perhaps through hearing the odd bird fly overhead, I’m sure they breed in our woods in the summer. As with most species, they’ll be most readily detected in the spring, by the male’s song. My parents’ previous house, where I grew up, was set in a mixed woodland and the birds were a staple in the winter. We didn’t see many at the lake house, largely due to the lack of conifers in our immediate vicinity.

I’ve been waiting to get some to our feeders here. The birds have slowly been trickling in as the easily-accessible food sources in the natural habitats is depleted and the rest is now buried under snow. Dan spotted the first one, a male, foraging on the ground under the lilac bush. He called me to look, and I spotted a female with the male. I hurried off to grab my camera, but by the time I returned, the pair had departed. I left my camera on the kitchen table hoping that they might return. I didn’t see them again until today, but when they finally came back they brought friends. A double-date! I just happened to notice them as I was preparing to head out to pick up some baking supplies for Christmas goodies. I ran off a number of shots before I went out and disturbed them.

I’m actually a co-author on the species account for Purple Finch in the Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Ontario, 2001-2005, so you’d think I’d know a lot about them without having to look it up. I’m familiar with the basics of their ecology, but it seems in the nearly three years since I wrote the account I’ve forgotten a lot of the details. So I’ve got the book out in front of me. (Incidentally, if you’re interested in your own copy, it’s on sale right now for a holiday price of $60 – a savings of 35%.)

Some neat things can be learned from the second edition of the atlas. I mentioned the huge increase in cardinals in Ontario as shown by the second atlas. The book provides some interesting data on Purple Finches, as well. The species saw statistically significant changes in population in all but the most southwestern part of the province (which is strongly agricultural and doesn’t contain much coniferous forest). Unfortunately, the only region where that change was an increase was the area just south of the Shield. This increase was attributed to a succession and maturation of abandoned or retired farmland and conifer plantations throughout this region, particularly since a similar increase is seen in the region for other conifer-loving species such as Yellow-rumped Warblers.

In the rest of Ontario, from the start of the Shield in our area northward, the species has shown a decline in numbers. The trend is also observed in the Breeding Bird Survey. One theory suggested that the declines were due to the invasion of the House Finch, but in actuality the areas where the Purple is declining, the House hasn’t reached yet (nor is it likely to – its close association with human habitation, much like the House Sparrow, means it’s not typically found widely in sparsely populated areas). The real reason for the Purple’s decline isn’t really clear. It’s possible it’s tied in with Spruce Budworm numbers, which were high during the first atlas but have since been reduced to much lower, albeit constant, levels through forest management practices (this has also affected the Evening Grosbeak, which has declined from the peak numbers it had reached in the 80s, when I was a kid, and can remember counting on it being a regular visitor at the feeders every winter – I haven’t seen one in years now). However, the Purple Finch isn’t a budworm specialist in the way that some warblers are, it just happens to take advantage of the extra food when budworm numbers are high, so it may not be the entire story.

The Purple Finch looks very similar to the House Finch, and new birders can often have some difficulty in telling the two apart. One of the easiest ways for me is the shade of red of each species. The Purple Finches, to quote Roger Tory Peterson, appears to have been “dipped in raspberry juice”. If the Purple is raspberry, then the House could be considered strawberry, being a more orangey red than the Purple’s wine-red. The House’s red is also less extensive on its body. There are other differences in shape and size, but they’re more subtle to novice birders. Female Purples have the wide white eyebrow stripe that tells them apart from Houses, which are more uniform across the head. The Cassin’s Finch, a species that occurs through the western mountains, is roughly intermediate between the two species in both sexes. Love that little crest, which kept getting ruffled by the wind.

Occasionally you’ll spot what looks like a female finch singing from the top of a tree; this is a young male, full of hormones, doing his best to draw in the ladies despite his lanky proportions and pimpled face. Males in their first breeding season will look like females; they don’t obtain that lovely raspberry plumage until their first fall as an adult. Sometimes (but not always) young males will show hints of colour in their plumage that might help to identify them as male. I noticed a slight bit of colour on the throat of this one, which makes me wonder if it’s perhaps a young male rather than a female. No way to know, really, at this time of year.

Signs of holiday visitors

If you’ve noticed a slight sparseness to the posts here over the last week or so, it’s because I’ve been spending a lot of time on various holiday projects. For whatever reason, maybe because I’ve finally got a space where I can do so, I’ve decided to do a few home-made projects as Christmas gifts this year. Last weekend was my mom’s birthday (because it’s less than two weeks before Christmas, it kind of gets rolled in to the same gift-prep boat), which I made her a horse-head hat for. From there I’ve carried on to other gifts, and the poor sewing machine has barely had a rest. I’ll be doing some Christmas baking tomorrow, and then it’s off to get together with the family for a few days of holidays. My youngest sister took her holidays in the week preceding Christmas, rather than the week after – you really need that extra time to get everything done!

I’ve made a bit of time to take Raven out for her walk, which she really needs to get or otherwise we have a very restless dog pestering us to play ball in the evening. I buckle up the snowshoes and hike off back into our fields along the trails we’ve made, which are quickly becoming well-packed. The several inches of snow we received a couple of weeks ago has stuck around (and shows no signs of leaving now until March – it seemed like an unusually abrupt transition from November browns to winter whites this year). Raven has a blast tearing around in it, and I have to admit the landscape looks quite lovely, especially at dusk, with the setting sun casting an orange-pink glow on the western side of the snow hummocks, their eastern side shaded with pastel blues.

One of the neat things about snow cover is that it reveals the movements of the local wildlife, normally hidden from view during the warmer months. You get a chance to see what pathways are traversed by which animals; suddenly you’re aware of rabbit highways and squirrel burrows and the foraging routes of mice. Deer make especially large and noticeable tracks, and when out a few days ago I discovered a set of them leading out of the woods and down to our now-frozen pond, using the trail that Dan and I had packed down with the snowshoes. The next day I found some more – many also following our snowshoe paths – heading into the cedar groves at the back of the fields. In the summer, would we be aware of these beautiful creatures following silently in our steps? But in the winter we can have a small peek into their world.

There seemed to be three sizes of deer tracks following our trails; a rather large set, at slightly smaller set, and a quite petite set. I really hope that at least one of them happens to be young Joe Buck, who I haven’t seen since before hunting season when he happened to wander by while Raven was outside and she chased him off the property. The little tracks are so tiny my first thought would have been doe with fawn, except it’s quite the wrong season for dependent fawns. The mating season usually occurs around the end of November.

It’s interesting how variable deer tracks are. Their hooves are actually two separate pieces on the ends of toe-like digits, rather than the single hoof of horses. The separate toes given them greater traction and the ability of the toes to separate also creates a broader surface area in softer substrates.

I like that in this one you can see the dew claws (why they’re still called claws in ungulates who don’t really have claw-like nails, I don’t know), which belong to reduced toes and don’t serve much function (though in soft conditions, such as here, or in wet mud, they may touch the ground and could potentially help with grip, I suppose).

Raven checks out the tracks as they head back into the forest. I haven’t seen any deer around here in many weeks, but clearly they’re about, and just staying well back of the house and its crazy black dog. It’s nice to know they’re here still, even if they never come say hello.