The Up-Side of "Invasives"

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The Up-Side of Invasives

Admittedly, the title of this blog could be considered blasphemous to true naturalists.  An invasive is by definition something that doesn’t belong, and its arrival, be it plant or animal, is generally bad news for the local population.

So, I must admit this is true of the Multiflora Rose that made its way here from Japan in 1866 and has been taking over fields and forest edge, streamsides and savannahs ever since. They say a decent sized shrub can produce up to a million seeds a year, and these seeds can remain viable for up to 20 years.  On top of that, wherever its canes touch the ground, a new plant can take root, so impenetrable thickets are the norm.  Of course such thickets block the light, and generally make it impossible for the usual herb layer plants or other native plants  to grow there. 

Under the category of “It seemed like a good idea at the time”, this rose was brought over from Japan to serve as a rootstock for ornamental roses.  In the 1930’s, the Soil Conservation Dept. thought it would make a great erosion control plant and a lovely, living fence to keep the cattle in.  Birds love the seeds, rabbits love the rosehips 

and quail loved the cover.  This looked like a win/win until it started to spread. 

And spread it has, throughout much of the US and now everyone is trying to figure out how to get rid of it.  Cut it down 3-6 times a year for 2-4 yrs. is one way; job security for the mowers.  Poison it with Round up they say, or introduce a fungus that wipes it out but yikes, doesn’t anyone worry that may well wipe out the other roses too?  There is thought of introducing a small mite, that might kill them yet, it seems to me that one day that too, might fall under the category of “It seemed like a good idea at the time”. 

So, upon reflection, maybe it is a little rash to mention any “up-side” of these roses but I say that because I had the immense joy of being on Cape Cod in early June.  And from early to mid June this pesky invasive makes the world smell like Paradise.  Along the Falmouth Bike path, Multiflora rose climbs up the trees, forms a hedgerow with another fabulous smelling invasive, honeysuckle, and as you bike you are completely surrounded by such perfumed air you never want to exhale. 

On the trail behind the Penniman House near Ft Hill, in Orleans, the roses climb the locust trees making it look like a bower for a wedding has been set in the woods.  Working at Greenbrier Nature center, the “Briar patch” of Burgesses books was comprised of heady thickets of multiflorsa rose that perfumed our air. From spring, when the plant would begin to green, to fall when the rose hips would have formed, I would snip a branch or two to bring as a treat for Peter   (our mascot rabbit of course) so that he would get a treat for his “performance” and the kids would get a treat watching the branch be nibbled away, thorns and all.

So, as unethical as it may seem, I have selfishly loved this rose and I was so happy to have been there when it was blooming.  And for saying that I perhaps will get a few demerits on my report card but as it seems it will be here for my lifetime anyways, I might as well enjoy it.  Stop and smell the roses, be they invasive or not will be my motto.

Getting Acquainted with the Local Corvids

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The Corvid  (Corvidae) family of birds is a huge one, with representation throughout the world.  Crows, ravens, magpies, jays, jackdaws and so many others and all smart as a whip.   For that matter, scientists rank their brain- to-body-size right up there with chimps and cetaceans.  Which is part of what makes them such entertaining birds to get to know.

On the Cape, I loved my crows, and often wrote about the antics of a few well-known family groups that lived around the bog where I walked daily.  I loved their sidelong glances when slipping behind trees to hide the whereabouts of their nest,  or their ability to go from making a ceaseless racket when they found some poor hawk in their area to being as silent as the grave when they were nesting. 

 I loved watching their morning and evening commute to and from the roosting area.  They took up their stations, practically with a Starbucks in hand, just as I was getting to the bog myself.  So, I miss them here in Texas.  Oh, there are crows in Texas, and ravens too, but it’s a big place and there just don’t happen to be any in my neck of the woods.

However, I do have Scrub jays, quite a few of them for that matter, for this year their nesting efforts were clearly successful, and they seem worth getting to know.  Just the other day, when I was walking the dog, a group of jays set up a huge row.  Now, I am used to the Blue jays of the East doing that all the time.  If a predator is near they go ballistic.  This group was carrying on in such a thick patch of junipers that I couldn’t get a good look at what was happening.  And then, in preparation for writing this, I went on- line to read what I could about their behavior and now I wonder if I possibly had missed out on a Scrub jay “funeral”.

A researcher at UC Davis, a Ms. Ingleseus, studied the California subspecies of Scrub jay, who amusingly is said to be more laid back than the species that inhabits the interior,(Aphelocoma woodhouseii)  and found they are anything but laid back when they discover a “crime scene” where the victim is one of their own.  Then they are said to set up a ruckus that brings in all the other Scrub jays in the area and the wild lament is on.  It can last up to 30 minutes! Wow!  I wonder if somewhere in that clump of junipers there lay a cold corpse of a jay? 

These Scrub jays are also the kind to cache food, which I can attest to as I watch them transferring seed from the feeder to trees, to spots on the ground etc.  My husband used to get so angry at the Blue jays in our Cape yard that would take the food from the feeder and hammer it into the windowsills.  Luckily, with stucco and rock as the basic home building material around here, I haven’t seen them doing that yet.

The other thing researchers noticed was that they would cache and re-cache food if they thought another jay was watching and then hide it one last time when they were finally alone.  That sort of devious thinking is only thought to be present in chimps and ourselves. 

So, perhaps I will have to crash through that brush someday to see if there is indeed, remnants of jay there.  Or could it just have been a family of young jays that, although they have left the nest, can’t get over not being fed their “three-squares” a day. There seems to be a lot of that going around in my yard.  But, that’s a blog for another day. 

Meanwhile, there will be squawking here if someone doesn’t get going on one of the three squares expected to come forth from my own kitchen-till another day then.

Familiarity Breeds Contempt

                              

Contempt, admittedly, is a strong word.  Familiarity breeds a ho-hum reaction is more like it.  I am talking about the visceral reaction I get these days when I see White Tailed Deer.  Spotting deer, when I walked around the bog on the Cape, used to be a rare event; a cause for celebrating.  I saw their tracks in the sand far more often than I saw them. 

Here in Texas, that is reversed.  The ground is too hard for tracks, but the deer themselves are “up close and personal”.  They stare in the windows, they come onto the front porch, they sample everything we have growing, even those plants labeled “super-duper deer resistant.”  “Artemisia, the perfect native plant to grow, for deer won’t touch it”, say the experts.  Mine was nibbled to within an inch of its life the first day I planted it. 

Which, I can partly understand- “Look, something new in the yard, something with tender young leaves.  Let’s try it.”  But even things that are awful, like my rather prickly Asparagus fern got eaten too.  I picture them lining up with a  “Have you tried that? It’s awful! Really, try it, you’ll see.”  At least that’s how I explain bits of Asparagus fern being all over the deck.   

The work of young deer is my guess.  First of all, we have a rope across the opening to the porch, but a young deer could no doubt pass beneath it and again, one not wise in the way of prickly asparagus fern might be willing to try some.  Either way, one by one my mostly-eaten, potted plants have been moved to the protected back yard where they form a graveyard of chewed off remnants.

The dog and I see the deer, not only staring in our windows, but crossing streets; fading in and out of the fields as we pass by on our walk. 

 Tucker has been good about not chasing them, but one day, while I was gone on my Maine trip, one angry doe chased him.  I imagine he stumbled on a fawn that was hiding in the grass, but either way, my husband said the dog came yelping, running at top speed out of the woods with a doe in hot pursuit.  He thought that Tuck had had his leg broken.  Perhaps the doe had struck out at him, for he wouldn’t put his foot down for days but he also has arthritis so any wild dash to get away would have pulled a muscle.   Now, you should see the wide, wide berth he gives any deer that so much as looks our way. 

I have read that there are more White-tailed deer in the Hill Country of Texas than anywhere else and I don’t think that is just TX bravado. It seems like it surely could be true.  All due to the fact that, not only are predators a rare thing here these days, but they eradicated “screwworm” in Texas by the 1960’s and from all of Mexico, and Central America by the year 2,000. 

I attended a talk on the eradication program but I will spare you the, more than gory, details that accompany any talk of this flesh-eating bot fly.  It used to wipe out 1,000’s of cattle and 1,000’s of deer.  Really, a horrific end for any beast that had the misfortune of having eggs laid in open wounds.  But, I promised to spare you this sort of info didn’t I?  But, they do say, that is why there are so many deer here today, perfect habitat, no predators and people ready to feed them at a drop of the hat.

There is a doe looking in the window as we speak, and although I am not one to buy deer corn, I bet before long, I will go cut up that watermelon just so I can toss out the rinds as a way of a) paying some protection money, but b) satisfying the “need to feed” that I always claim is part of my Italian heritage. 

(Luke Ormand photo credit)

So, contempt WAS too strong a word wasn’t it? For look at me, another sucker falling for those big brown eyes- watermelon rinds, coming up.

Being at the Right Place at the Right Time

I have long been a huge fan of Edwin Way Teale, a wonderful writer/ naturalist of, how weird is this to say, the last century.  He covered so much more than basic identification of whatever flora or fauna he was discussing and he did it in such an engaging, beautifully written way.  His enthusiasm over insects would become my enthusiasm over insects.  Imagine then, my delight at finding myself witnessing, on the very first night of my visit to my friend on Lake Huron, the rising of thousands of mayflies for their nuptial dance that I had once read about in his “Journey Into Summer”. 

 

 I don’t believe Joann has ever had any other guest get as excited about this as I did.  Now, admittedly, in his book, written in 1960, the mayflies were coating every inch of every living and nonliving thing on Kelly Island on Lake Erie, a place famous to this day for seeing this particular “spectacle of nature”. I will have to admit; it wasn’t quite that dramatic where we were. 

Mayflies (also called Junebugs, 24 hour bugs, fish flies, Canadian soldiers, on our side, Yankee soldiers on the Canadian side, etc.) spend the bulk of their life, 2 yrs or so, as naiads (think larva only aquatic) living in the muck of river, pond and lake bottoms, enjoying the organic morsels in the muck as they go through 30 or so molts before they reach their adult stage.  In teaching the pond program on Cape Cod and here in Texas too, I have regularly found this naiad stage and its good news to find them for they are an indicator of good water quality. 

But where they reach epic proportions are in the shallow Great Lakes of Lake Erie and Lake Huron, and in places along the Mississippi river where their eruption from the water has been picked up by NOAA’s radar. They are in the Order Ephemeroptera from the Greek “ephermos” for short lived and “pteron” for wing, and truly this final adult stage will only last a day or two.  Eating isn’t what’s on their mind for they are not even equipped with a functional mouth.  The courtship dance where they rise several feet than drift down again until they find their true love and mate, is the main and only event that counts in this two-day life on land.  Immediately the female will lay thousands of eggs in the water, which will sink to the bottom and start the cycle all over again but their time is over.

The pluses of mayflies are that they claim the title of “Most Important Group of Bottom Dwelling Animals in Streams, Rivers and Lakes Throughout the World”.  And that is surely something.  Fish love them, and therefore fishermen love them. They are also the only insects to go through a second molt after molting into the adult stage.  With all other insects once you have your wings, you have your wings and that’s that.  But mayflies float to the surface of the water, slip their surely bond of naiadness, but then within the next 24 hours, and often much sooner, they will, and I can imagine how incredible this would be to see, slip out of this first winged form into a shimmery second wing form which will be their “go wow her look”. 

I found these pictures on www,mayflynews.net and it is always so astounding to think something so delicate can ease out of a next- to nothing-outfit into something else.  The wonders and flexibility of chitin!

The negatives are felt more by those whose houses are coated in them, whose streets are made slippery by their multitudinous dead bodies, and who must endure the smell of rotting flies that are akin to rotting fish.  Kelly Island is the spot the Teale’s went to and to this day is still “Mayfly Central”. If only they could come up with a Mayfly Festival; distributing awards to the person with the most mayflies clinging to their body, or the building most completely coated, or the most engulfed car.  Perhaps they are already looking into it. 

Meanwhile, I will just consider it terribly lucky that I was with my friend, on the shore watching the rising and falling of Mayflies in love.  I couldn’t have planned it any better if I had tried.





(photo credit: wickepedia)

“See, I Have Engraved You on the Palm of my Hands” - Isaiah 49:16

 I have always loved that verse in the Old Testament, such a picture of caring, and then the, shazam, that made me think later, ah the nail prints, of course, I am engraved in the palm of God’s hand.  Not that this is intended to be a Bible Study on Pat’s favorite verses, but as a way of “rolling the tape back” storytelling, I have to say, those were the exact words that came to mind as I watched a scar form on both my palms. 

No, we are not talking “stigmata” here, but the result of a clumsy fall I took that day I was hiking along the craggy coast of Acadia, in the rain… while holding things.  And the “holding things” is key here.  I don’t know what it is about me, but I am definitely deficient in the dexterity column, at least where my hands are concerned.  I can leap over boulders, cross streams, swing on Tarzan swings and do other feats of a physical nature but ask me to carry more than two things, and walk at the same time, and you have my own personal, “Iron Man” challenge. 

And so, that blog that I wrote about visiting Acadia, (“I must go down to the Sea Again”), left out a key event.  I had just made it to the farthest point of the Cliffside hike and was heading back, when my phone rang.  Now, to paint the scene for you again: it had been misting/raining the entire time, I was carrying an umbrella, my binoculars, and a backpack and my phone was safely in my pocket.  I had called people along the way, as an extrovert is want to do, for it was so stunningly beautiful and I HAD to tell people about it, but, I was careful to do so when I was standing still, feet firmly planted on the ground, back to the wind. 

But now, I was just heading down a steep, craggy, bit of trail when the phone rang.  And again, what does an extrovert do? She answers it.  And no sooner had I said hello than my foot caught one of those craggy rocks and I, not just stumbled, but pitched through the air like some superhero without a cape, and landed with both hands splayed out in front of me, on more jagged rocks.  That my wrists didn’t snap is a minor miracle.  But my phone, umbrella and binoculars all went flying off in different directions, thankfully, none of them over the cliffs and into the sea.   As my friend on the other end of the line was wondering if she needed to call 911, I assessed the situation, both hands were bleeding down my arms and not a pretty sight.  The kind of sight actually that makes you put your head between your knees and breathe deeply.  Which is what I did. 

Now, none of the tourists had ventured out of their cars at any spot that wasn’t mentioned on the map, so no one was around.  Which was a good thing in a way for I must have looked ridiculous, flying through the air like that, but it also meant my two little Kleenexes would be all I had to stop the bleeding.   But I survived, and after a few miles came to a rest stop with a bathroom so I could pick out the parts of the “rockbound coast of Maine” that were imbedded in my hand.  I had some pretty crusty scabs to impress my grandchildren with for weeks and scars that, in the right light, looked rather like the state of Maine itself. 

And so,  “See, I have engraved you in the palm of my hands” comes to mind in the sweetest way: three grandchildren in Maine, my daughter’s family, engraved in my hand and my heart.  Lovely really, although, with the miracle of skin, I see it is mostly faded now, but still, it was a lovely thought, and in the end, as most mishaps are, a funny story.

So, no nature here, just the nature of yours truly who should have followed a career in prat falling.  

Back in the Saddle Again

Metaphorically, the title means that I am back in Texas again, but the actual picture of being “back in the saddle” comes from a day on the Cape when I chose to use my dwindling funds on a trail ride rather than a whale watch. I love whale watches, but I have been on at least 40 or so, plus ones I led back in my Sea World days, so saddling- up was a good choice. 

But that is not what I am here to write about.  Mostly, I want to restart the writing engine.  It seems I can’t look back and write about the myriad of intersections with nature that happened during my 6-week trip, until I close the chapter on the trip itself, by saying I am home again.  

 

 Back in Texas; the heat has arrived, each day in the high 90’s now, the katydids once again fill the entire night with their lovesick calls, the flowers are toast and the grass is crispy.  Welcome home.

 On the plus side, the Queen butterflies are rising like clouds from the Blue Mist flowers that crowd around the gazebo and the population of birds at the feeder has at least tripled with the young that were successfully raised this spring.  Last year, I remember the Scrub Jays nesting but hysteria followed when squirrels made off with their eggs.  This year perhaps they invested in better security system, for a very noisy, comical-looking, group of half-fledged jays are at the feeders and the bird bath much of the day. 

The Golden Fronted woodpeckers also seemed to have raised a number of gawky looking young and the whole family has discovered that hummingbird food isn’t just for hummingbirds.  Also humorous to watch, as they try to fit their large bodies, 11 ½”, on the small rim of a feeder designed for a 3 ¾” bird. 

Without the myriad of cats that the previous owner had, the squirrel population has taken off.  And I am glad to see that since my “Greek austerity program” went into effect, they no longer look threatened with Type 2 diabetes and are sailing through the trees with ease. 

 The young ones tumble in and out of the ivy that climbs up these huge Live Oaks and are in constant motion. They have their own dried corn hanging in the trees but still they like to make a dive for one of the feeders that they can spill food out of, and, just moments ago, I was watching a young one consider if such a daredevil thing seemed worth the pay off.  As of yet it is only watching from a tree as an older one repeats this Evil Kneival move over and over again.

I do have good intentions of writing about the trip, for it was beyond gorgeous everywhere I went, but we all know how the “tyranny of the urgent” works. The first day’s home saw me reenacting “Ba, ba, black sheep. Have you any wool?” as “Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full” of dog hair were vacuumed up from the rugs. Plants, inside and out, that had tried to survive the heat and the care of a pretty busy husband needed a lot of TLC.   Still, in the afternoon heat, I can either splay out as the squirrels on the deck are doing, or get to writing.  Lets hope I do the latter.