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The Ladybug

3/28/2021

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The Ladybug

These days, when I make breakfast in the morning, looking through the window to the lawn in front of the house, I will get distracted by the ladybugs crawling  on the window pane or sitting on the windowsill drinking in the warmth of the morning sunshine. The window’s southern exposure lets the sunshine in and it is giving me the kick to start my day, and that of the ladybugs. 

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For me seeing ladybugs means that I am expecting a couple of days of joyous circumstances. I have learned that as a little girl in Europe, and I am a firm believer of joyous days in the future. I also learned that you should never kill a ladybug. Who would, with a prediction like that?  You will find ladybugs all over the world. They might look differently and have a different name, but they belong to the same beetle family.
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They are considered useful insects because they prey on aphids or scale insects which are considered an agricultural pest. Usually you will find ladybugs in your garden near your tomatoes where they are very welcome.  They snuged into our old farmhouse a long time ago and considered it their winter quarters.

They are fine with humans, not poisonous and they do not bite. During the night they disappear, but bounce back as soon as the sun hits the kitchen window.
Picture"Bleeding Knee"
As we all know, nothing is perfect. So ladybugs also have a not so favorable side.  If you startle an adult ladybug, they will emit a foul-smelling liquid, which  seeps from its leg joints and will leave a yellow stain on the surface. It is called “knee bleeding”. It might signal to a predator that it is dealing with a sick beetle and it should move on. Even larvae from ladybugs can produce a foul-smelling liquid. The liquid however is not poisonous and can be wiped up easily.
PictureCottony Cushion Scale
Ladybugs live for a year. Its life begins when a batch of bright-yellow eggs are laid near a food source, for example near aphids. In four to ten days they will hatch, and when the food source has been eaten up, they will begin to build a pupa. In a good week they emerge as an adult with the red dome-shaped red back with the black dots. Farmers love them because during its lifetime, it is said that they will consume 5,000 aphids apiece! Farmers use ladybugs to control other insects. The first time it was done was in 1880, when an Australian ladybug was imported into California to control the cottony cushion scale. It was a very expensive experiment, but in 1890 the orange crop in California tripled.
But not all experiments are successful. The Asian harlequin ladybug was introduced to the U.S. in 1980. It did depress the aphid population, but it also caused the declines in native species of ladybugs. And there is another problem with the harlequin ladybug. They love fruit, especially grapes. They get harvested with the grapes and if the winemakers are not careful, the nasty taste of “knee bleeding” will spoil the wine. 

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As soon as the temperature rises to 60 degrees or more outside, the ladybug will leave me and head into our garden and hopefully return at the beginning of the next winter.

If you enjoy having a vegetable garden every year but have a bad aphid or scale insect problem, then ladybugs can help - particularly if you are as fond of having several different varieties of tomatoes like we do. If you find that you lack sufficient numbers of them in your garden, or have a particularly bad aphid infestation, you can order live ladybugs online. They are delivered in a small box by the postal service. You can just release them into your garden and they will quickly solve the problem.
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But don’t forget that you ordered them, as one of our new urban fugitive neighbors on the road did one year. He ordered several hundred ladybugs and then promptly forgot about them and left for Europe for a few weeks, after putting a hold on his mail. We don’t have home delivery of our mail in our rural area, so several hundred homes share one small post office with a bank of post office boxes. Well after a couple weeks, the now dead ladybugs began to cause quite the stink, in more than one sense of the word! Everyone was trying to find a dead rodent or something you would expect. But the non-descript little box in one P.O. box was overlooked for quite a while. So remember, they don’t ship with food!
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A visit of an 'old' friend -The Possum

2/22/2021

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A visit of an 'old' friend -
The Possum

A few days ago, I saw a small animal in the snow under our bird feeder. It was partially obscured in the depression of packed snow under the feeder, hidden behind the walls of the surrounding two feet of snow we’ve had in the last few weeks. It was much smaller than any of the visiting raccoons or neighboring cats that forage under the feeders, so it caught my attention. After a few minutes it showed itself and it was a small possum!

The Possum (or Opossum), America’s only marsupial, goes back 20 to 23 million years. It has a bad reputation. I guess his appearance has something to do with it. As they are usually nocturnal,  you often see them in a beam of light. The shaky shadows of a hand held light probably make it look even more scary. It looks like a big rat, with beady eyes, a long prehensile naked tail and it seems to eat everything. When I saw my first possum I thought it was creepy. This was reinforced later with a close encounter.
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I was at a friend's house chatting on her back deck, when we saw a possum climb up a tree where she had hung a suet feeder. Wanting to see if the old saying “playing possum” was a real thing, we ran up on it and it dropped to the ground, hissed at us and promptly dropped on its side and appeared to die immediately! It was really unsettling. Within moments, its lips curled all the way back exposing all its teeth, the gums and mouth turned an awful yellowish grey, the body became stiff as if rigor mortis had already set in, and it quickly started to emit a very foul odor. I’m not surprised that close encounters like this have put people off of possums.
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But this is a very unfortunate and undeserved impression! Truth be told, they are actually very beneficial sanitary workers, keeping our surroundings healthy and safer for all of us! They should be welcomed in the neighborhood.

Compared to other wildlife, they are very helpful and play an essential role in the ecosystem. They consume a variety of foods like beetles, slugs and snails (your home gardens are thankful), but also rotting vegetation, which they prefer to fresh. They are cleaning up dropped fruits and vegetables in the garden.
Perhaps the biggest benefit of possums is their ability to control ticks, which might carry Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. The possum consumes - through careful grooming, 95 % of the ticks which ride on their bodies. It is estimated that it eats 5000 ticks a year. 

And there are other items on its menu card, like mice, rats, and snakes (even poisonous ones). As they are scavengers they clean up carcasses, which can spread disease to you and your pets - not to mention foul smells. 

They do not get rabies or botulism (early theories said that the foaming at the mouth was rabies, which proved to be untrue). They are immune to toxins in bee and scorpion stings.
As it does not dig deep holes, it is not injurious to your landscaping, but it might occupy burrows of other animals. If you leave cat food outside, it will eat it. It might be happy to move into your garage or outbuilding and feed on the contents of your garbage bags. But I’ve never met anyone who has adopted one as a pet or cohabitant. (Are you surprised?)

And what about the American expression “playing possum” (pretending to be dead)? It is one of their defense mechanisms: they are playing dead.  Most hunting predators only eat what they kill when they can. They won’t touch a carcass in most circumstances. “Playing Dead” is actually an involuntary reaction - a lot like fainting, that causes the possum to seize up. When it is in this state, it will bare its teeth, have foam at the mouth and produce a foul smelling fluid from an anal gland to mimic sickness. It will remain like that for up to four hours. Predators will easily avoid such an animal.
Baby possums are called joeys, like baby kangaroos. They are not bigger than a honeybee when they are born. After birth they will crawl into the mother’s pouch and will stay there for two to three months. As they get older, they venture out of the pouch, but instead of wandering around they cling to the mother’s back as she scavenges. And they have prehensile tails like new world monkeys, anteaters and tree pangolins. They can curl and grip with their tails to help them climb and anchor themselves.
Possums are considered to be living fossils, as they go back 20 to 23 million years. Interestingly you will find them everywhere on the globe, even if they might look a little different, they belong to the same family - the order Didelphimorphia. They originated in South America and spread into North America when the two continents connected. Because of its varied diet, non-specialized biology and reproductive habits (it doesn’t need to nest or den for example), it has been able to colonize most of the world. Generalists always tend to survive better in varying environments.

Possums have survived the reach of time that included the Earth’s tectonic plates bringing together today’s North and South Americas, and then having time for them to spread around the world! It is truly amazing to be able to watch this living fossil.
So next time you see a ‘creepy’ possum, perhaps give it a nod of appreciation for keeping the neighborhood clean. It is just one of the army of sanitation workers (some species of mammals, birds, fish, insects and bacteria, etc.) that keep our world humming and clean. The possum should be a welcome visitor, but perhaps not a house guest.

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2021 - A year full of hope! Let’s see whether Janus gives us some hints.

1/30/2021

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2021 - A year full of hope!
Let’s see whether Janus gives us some hints.

January was named for the Roman god Janus. He was the protector of gates and doorways, who symbolized beginnings and endings. When Janus is portrayed, he usually has two faces: one looking into the past and the other with the ability to see into the future.

Until 450 BC, January and February were not part of the Roman calendar. They were considered dormant in agriculture and also in terms of war. This was a time of peace. Due to the March Equinox, the Roman calendar began in March, and was named for “Mars”, the god of War, who was also an agricultural guardian. 
PictureWassail Bowl Celebration
According to folklore, the weather of the first 12 days of the year is said to be indicative of the following 12 months.

January 5th - in English folk custom, marked the end of the Christmas period, and in ancient Celtic tradition, the end of the 12-day winter solstice celebration. On the Twelfth Night, it was customary for the assembled company to toast each other from the wassail bowl, a delicious hot cider drink toasting to health.
PictureEuropean Star Singers
On January 6th is Epiphany. According to the New Testament, the three kings brought gifts to the infant Jesus. Not only in Germany, but also in most of the other European States, so called Star Singers go door to door singing and asking for donations for poor children in their neighborhood.
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There are other forgotten customs, like the one marking the day to go back to work. This one though has nothing to do with our current virus. The day after Epiphany (January 6) was once called Distaff Day and marked when the women went back spinning, after the 12-day Christmas celebration. A distaff is a wooden rod (staff) that holds flax or wool. Although not used so much anymore, distaff in English was also a word that referred to women related issues or topics.  Before the Spinning Wheel arrived, spinning was slowly and tediously done on a Drop Spindle. As is often the case, it’s hard to go back to work after the holidays and not much gets done! The women’s husbands would mischievously try to set fire to the flax on their wives’ distaffs, while the women, lying in wait, would retaliate with humor by dousing them with buckets of water.
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Plow (Plough) Monday marks the resumption of agricultural activities. Dating back to the fifteenth century, the first Monday after Epiphany (January 6) marked the start of the agricultural season, specifically for ploughing the fields for spring-sown crops. Of course, not much work was actually done on the first day! Dressed in clean white smocks decorated with ribbons, the men dragged a plow (plough) through the village and collected money for the “plow light” that was kept burning in the church all year. Often men from several farms joined together to pull the plow through all their villages. They sang and danced their way from village to village to the accompaniment of music. In the evening, each farmer provided a Plough Monday supper for his workers, with plentiful beef and ale for all.

In modern times, a folk revival has returned Plough Monday to some small communities. If you have a small farm, why not celebrate the start of spring sowing this way!
Of course all these customs are meant to coincide with the Perihelion- when Earth passes Its closest to the Sun. This year it occurred on January 2, 2021. At perihelion, the Earth will be 91,399,454 miles from our bright star.
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January’s Moon is called the Wolf Moon. The Saxon word for the month is “Wulf-monath” or wolf month. This year, the full Moon is late in the month of January, reaching peak illumination at 2:18 P.M. EST on Thursday, January 28, 2021. It can be seen rising from the horizon around sunset that evening.

 
WHY IS IT CALLED THE FULL WOLF MOON?
The full Moon names used by The Old Farmer’s Almanac come from a number of places, including Native American, Colonial American, and European sources. Traditionally, each full Moon name was applied to the entire lunar month in which it occurred, not just to the full Moon itself.
It’s thought that January’s full Moon came to be known as the Wolf Moon because wolves were more often heard howling at this time. It was traditionally believed that wolves howled due to hunger during winter, but we know today that wolves howl for other reasons. Howling and other wolf vocalizations are generally used to define territory, locate pack members, reinforce social bonds, and coordinate hunting.
PictureSome of the countless viruses
In this crazy year of complete social disruptions due to pandemic lockdowns and governmental restrictions, it is somewhat comforting to look back at traditional customs and beliefs. Our last global pandemic was 102 years ago in 1918. Tens of millions of people worldwide were killed by the global Spanish Flu. I heard that in today’s numbers, that would translate to well over 300 million deaths worldwide today! And of course, human history is punctuated by widespread plagues and pandemics going back all the way through human recorded history. They have toppled our greatest civilizations from the Roman Empire through the great empires in the Americas of the Aztecs and Mayans.
 
So it is somehow comforting to look back at folk traditions, that have endured through these thousands of years of collapses and rebirths, to see that the timeless cycles of the seasons, of growth and renewal, remain embedded in our yearly work of growing and reproducing. This pandemic too will pass. Perhaps our children will look back at the final numbers and see that we were able with our modern technologies to hold the line against the grim reaper’s massive success in the past, and not come close to what he stole from us 102 years ago.

The science of viral evolution shows us that viruses tend to become less virulent over time. After all, it makes more ‘sense’ for the hosts that are infected to survive, to facilitate the survival of the virus to continue existing into the future. A virus that kills 100% of the hosts it attacks, is a virus that will die out and disappear. The more hosts that survive, the more chances of mutating into more sustainable forms that the virus will have. We lacked the modern medicines/technologies in 1918 that are available to us today. So maybe 300 million deaths worldwide in today’s numbers, is not so likely. We choose to be optimistic and think that our agricultural traditions will survive this current assault. We will get through this!
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Are wild turkeys in the Eastern United States on the decline?

12/28/2020

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Are wild turkeys
in the Eastern United States 
on the decline?

In the beginning of December 2020, I got a request from the Department of Environmental Conservation to participate in the annual Summer Wild Turkey Sighting Survey. They are conducted during August to estimate the average number of wild turkey poults (the young ones) per hen statewide. The survey will indicate the geographic regions and predict the reproductive success in a given year and monitor this popular game bird.

I had never received such a request and thought that I would participate. After a while I had to admit that I had not seen wild turkeys in a year or two …. I have plenty of pictures of turkeys under our bird feeders or taking dust baths on our front lawn.
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In late summer you see the turkey family parading their young ones in a long line with the male in front and the female in the back; and nobody dares to leave the line. 

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Here is some turkey history. In the late 1990 and early 2000s, turkey populations hit an estimated 7 million birds in NYS, but since then there has been a slow decline. In the beginning, scientists speculated that the turkey population had stabilized and the capacity of the habitat was met. In the Eastern United States however, the population has dropped 40 % since 2010, and that is alarming. But other states also report declining numbers; Tennessee is down 50 % and Arkansas even 65 %.

Scientists have noticed that hens with poults were down 43 % from the year before and on a five year average of 34 %. The Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources stated that with a poult-per-hen count of only 1.9, the wild turkey population would neither grow nor decline.
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So what is happening? One reason could be that the nesting habitat has changed. Turkeys prefer older mixed forests. Hens need brushy, young growth for nesting. Unfortunately, our timber management in this region is not providing this habitat. Then you have more and more fences around crop fields and increased use of pesticides. This results in less insects for the hens and the poults. Less nesting habitat leads to increased attacks of raccoons and other predators.


Survival of the poults is difficult to observe. Scientists assume that only 50 % of the young tiny poults will make it, due to predators or even the weather conditions.

Turkey hunters like to blame the decline of wild turkeys on chicken manure from poultry operations. It is used as fertilizer and some people think the chicken manure might spread a disease. This was tested but the results were inconclusive. Personally, we doubt this is one of the causes based on personal experiences. We’ve been observing wild turkeys in our area since the 1970’s. Chicken farming for eggs and meat was always a major industry in this area. In fact, our property was a former mom and pop chicken operation with as many as 14,000 free range chickens on any given year. 

The local farmers have been using chicken manure for generations to fertilize their fields. When they spread it in the winter and early spring, all the local turkeys follow the spreaders and dine on insects and uneaten chicken fodder found in the waste. If the practice was a vector for harmful diseases, the local populations probably never would have peaked in the early 2000’s. It may be that the unpleasant, exceptionally strong odor that it emanates- you do not want to get anywhere near a freshly spread field for at least several days, is the reason that it is being blamed, but if you spot a freshly spread field, you will probably see the turkeys in train behind the spreader tracks.
It is assumed that a moderate harvest of turkeys in the spring has no effect on the population. Nevertheless scientists are taking another look. Each state could change hunting rules to take the pressure off the turkeys. Every state’s hunting seasons and rules are different, so modifying them to adjust to local population declines, is a long held tool of biologists to regulate wildlife levels. Although hunting has become somewhat politically incorrect to newer generations, it is a vital instrument in maintaining our natural habitats and wildlife. Hunting fees, permits and related taxes are a major source of revenue for states to use to maintain and restore habitats and fund research programs. Although the general public are slow to agree to new taxes for conservation initiatives, hunters gladly fund these efforts as they want to preserve their sport in sustainable ways.

The weather is of course also playing a role. If the spring arrives late and is cold and wet on top of it, it is not weather that turkeys want to reproduce. Everything must be right.
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There is one interesting fact: turkeys can fly despite popular perception, but it looks rather awkward! If pursued by a predator, they will tend to run and launch themselves into a long glide when possible, to evade danger. In fact they do roost in trees at night to sleep. I remember being startled one morning shortly after dawn while I was hiding in my game blind in a stand of trees. Suddenly, I was surprised by a series of slapping noises behind and above my head and a group of large dark shapes swept silently over me from behind. It was quite unexpected and startling in the quiet early dawn. I had in fact entered the stand in the dark and was unaware of about a dozen turkeys sleeping right above me in the gloom. When they all launched themselves together into the field I was watching, it took my breath away.
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I hope they will not disappear like the bats did due to disease. Wild Turkeys are such a unique part of the United States. In fact, the American polymath and founding father, Benjamin Franklin- always a scientist at heart, wanted it to be the National Bird! Perhaps unfortunately, he lost out to the bald eagle lobby.
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By endangerednj.blogspot.com
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The Fisher Cat

11/29/2020

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The Fisher Cat

Some time ago I saw the neighbor’s cat hunting near the treeline. When it moved, I was puzzled. In spite of its color, the brownish black fur, the small round head with the small ears, the bushy tail and the long slender body, it was not a cat. The first give away was the posture. When cats hunt, their body is very concentrated and their long legs are ready to pounce. The little guy I saw had small legs and it was total action. It took me some time to find out its proper identification: A Fisher Cat.
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Fisher Cats are not cats nor are they really fishers. They belong to the weasel family, kind of a bigger relative. They live in the forests of Canada and across the northern United States. They have long thin bodies and a fur coat that a century ago was so highly valued that they were hunted to near extinction in some parts of the U.S. Fisher's fur was almost like mink, especially from the females. They were put on the endangered species list. It also helped that fur lately has fallen out of style in general, and Fishers have been taken off the endangered species list and are coming back.
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Regarding the name Fisher Cat, it is assumed that early European settlers misidentified the Fishers as a polecat. The Dutch call a small weasel “Fitch”, but nobody knows really. As the Dutch were among the earliest European settlers in New York, there are many confusing artifacts in the local language that sprung from Dutch. I remember an early visitor from Germany, who came to see our property. We gave him a tour of the local area, which included the world famous Beaverkill and Otterkill trout streams. He sniffed disapprovingly that he couldn’t understand the American fascination with killing things, and why they had to memorialize features on the land with animals they had killed!  Of course he was wrong. I explained that ‘kill’, in this context, was derived from the Dutch word for stream, and was instead named for the various animals the early frontiersmen observed on the land.
PictureThis Fisher was caught on our trail camera taking a freezer-burned piece of venison we left in the woods.
With a name like ‘Fisher’ you have to assume that they eat a lot of fish. They eat a lot of things, but fish is not at the top of the list. They enjoy dining on red and gray squirrels, rabbits,  fruit, reptiles, birds and bird eggs, and other small mammals, and chipmunks. They’ve even been known to kill the much larger predator - the lynx! This has been observed when a lynx has been bedded down during a snowstorm, and is found by the ever active Fisher as it hunts during the storm. The Fisher will latch onto the back of the lynx’s neck with a vice like grip and hang on until the end. The Fisher is also among the few animals which can kill a porcupine. It attacks the porcupine’s face and bites it, and thus gets spared from those piercing quills.
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Fishers are about three feet long with a 15 inch long tail. Males weigh around 12 lbs. And females 8 lbs. They are expert climbers with five toes on each foot with unsheathed retractable claws. Their feet are large, making it easier to walk on snow packs. They have mobile ankle joints giving them added traction on slippery surfaces. They can rotate their hind paws almost 180 degrees, allowing them  to climb down head first. 
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They seek shelter in hollow trees, crevices found in rocks and other dens. They make use of scents to mark their territory, which can be more than a square mile. Their hunting range however is 3 square miles. 

Fishers mate in early spring. The gestation period is between ten and eleven months. The female can have one to six kits. Fishers build a nest in a hollow tree and the female looks after the young after birth for five months. Then she encouraged them to move out and search for their own territory.  

Although Fishers are not considered an endangered  species anymore, they are under threat  from loss of forest habitat due to logging and road building. Forest fires destroy the older cavity bearing trees they need for denning.
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Fishers are not ideal animals to be kept in captivity. You cannot spot them even in zoos. They are nocturnal, solitary and shy, and they tend to hide from humans. There are however instances of fishers paying a visit to chicken coops and preying on small pets. 

Nevertheless, I am excited that we have a new animal on our property and hope to see them once in a while. 

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Do we have to  kiss our ash trees goodbye?

10/29/2020

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Trees above the pond ten years ago.
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Trees above the pond in the fall of 2020.
PictureEmerald Ash Borer
October is my favorite time of year because nature will give us a great show of dazzling colors. The leaves turn into deep red,  golden yellow and brown, and everything is almost breathtaking. This year our reds are more deep than I remember and the yellows almost sparkle. But there is trouble in paradise. There is a catastrophe unfolding; the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), has done an efficient job of robbing us of so many ash trees! You will see them still standing with no leaves amongst the other trees in full cover.

We had our woods logged six years ago and the logger took all the marketable ash trees that were 16 inches in diameter at chest height and were still healthy. He explained to us that in five or six years they would be infected and the wood would be worthless. He was spot on it appears. Today 90% of our ashes are dead or declining quickly.
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Even our few 120+ year old trees that survived their changing surroundings, are in decline. They grew up next to the open fields the original settlers cleared, and they sprouted and avoided being grazed away by livestock.. They then competed with other trees, as those fields were abandoned and left to nature, transitioning to sapling crowded thickets that competed with them for light and nutrients, and they survived against browsing deer. Finally, they were robust woodland sentinels, with multiple tiers of branches, spreading more offspring around them.
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Sadly today, even these survivors are showing stress as well, and may be the last to fall. The loggers that came behind them were not interested in them because- as they had grown up, next to, or in an open field, their branches were many and spread in all directions to catch the light. Their branches, knots and flaws were scattered randomly through the trunk, which gave them absolution from the loggers axe. Only straight grained trees from crowded middle/older growth woods are desirable.

So what about our trees now?  You do not see it from the outside; usually they just break and fall. We went through such an “event” last week. We had a little wind and suddenly the power went out. One of the ashes fell on the electricity line. It took the provider almost ten hours to repair it.
PictureHoles from a hunting woodpecker
If you have ashes on your property, look for signs of infection. Look at the bark from a few meters (yards) away. Mature ash bark is a mottled light gray to black. If you can see small beige spots from that distance, take a closer look. If those spots are actually from the bark being chipped out, exposing the inner wood. Then it may be a sign that the woodpeckers are chasing the emerald ash borer under the bark already, and you may have to take action. Another sign would be seen on the outermost branches.  If the leaves on the furthest extremities of the crown appear significantly smaller than the leaves closer to the main trunk, then this may be a sign of distress, as the tree is struggling to pump up enough water to support them. Once in the tree, the borer disrupts the flow of water and nutrients up and down the whole tree. Now, in the Fall- at this time of year, if your ashes are shedding their leaves much earlier than the other trees, it is also a bad sign.
If you have a valued ash tree on your property that you really want to save, you can have it treated chemically by an arborist, but it will be a yearly treatment for the rest of its life. I recently visited Midland Michigan, and they were aggressively treating their trees, as decades ago they planted their ashes as a large part of their arboreal urban/suburban landscapes. Today they are majestic, tall shade trees and the community has decided it is worth the expense and effort to save them.
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What can we do to stop losing all of our valuable ashes? Unfortunately probably nothing ultimately. We don’t have any clever chemical or mechanical means. Using biological weapons- like introducing a lethal fungus or natural predator for this invasive species into the mix, is fraught with unexpected consequences. And although this is always a consideration,  we are not likely to do this.

In the eastern U.S. we have gone through many blights. In the early 1900's the chestnut blight killed all of them and changed the forest forever. Our old barn, which was built in the1850’s out of old growth chestnut, is still going strong. After the chestnut blight, the elms were killed by an exotic bark beetle. Then we lost almost all our beeches, which after 30 years are coming back now.  And now the Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), an Asian insect, which was first discovered twenty years ago in Detroit, Michigan. It is assumed that it was hidden in wooden crates or packing material from China.  It is the most destructive insect ever to invade the U.S. So far it has killed millions of ash trees and was found first in 18 states, along with Ontario and Quebec, and then in all the eastern United States. I still remember when I first saw the purple EAB trap in our County, trying to confirm that it had arrived. Somehow I cannot help thinking of Covid19 now!
The EAB is very good at finding ash trees that are stressed or injured, noticeably with purple and green leaves. First they nibble along leaves and then they lay eggs, pushing them into bark indentations. The larvae hatch in mid-summer and chew through the outer bark to reach the inner layer (phloem). The tree needs it to transport carbohydrates from the tree crown to the roots. The larva keeps making tunnels and forms a ring around the inner trunk (out of your sight), thus girdling the tree and stopping water transportation from the roots to the top of the tree. If it has hundreds or thousands of larvae, the tree gets strangled and it starves.

Scientists have found that most EAB stay within about a half a mile from where they first were spotted. A few of the females however are able to fly three miles and find new ash trees.
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Unfortunately, we have helped the EAB to move further. Infested ash trees have been sold by nurseries or sold as firewood. Although an infested ash tree trunk will not be infected again, any larvae under the bark will go through the regular life circle and emerge as adults. So just because your wood is cut and down, doesn't mean that EAB won't escape into the local environment! In NYS, it is illegal to transport firewood more than 50 miles from its source, without a certification that it has been kiln heated to at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit for 75 minutes. 

In China the EAB is only a secondary pest, attacking only dying ash trees. Because it is an indigenous species there, it has natural controls. We don't have that, and trying to import those natural controls could be even more dangerous. The ash trees in North America have no- or only few, defenses to resist this pest.
The economic impact of the loss of ash trees is enormous. I have read that eight billion ash trees were lost in the last decade which are valued at $280 billion. And it will get more expensive when all the dead ash trees have to be removed before or after they fall down. This will lead to more power outages and insurance claims as time and storms claim them. 

There is much hope that a native tiny wasp might come to the rescue. It has not been studied enough, but it seems to have become more common where ashes are dying, teasing the hope that the wasp's numbers are increasing because they are preying on EAB? . If this native predatory wasp is expanding in response to the explosion of EAB, that would be possibly great news. Perhaps nature will save us with a home grown predator. Unfortunately, this is all 'blue sky' wondering. We don't have a solution right now. Considering all the other invasive species stories in this country resulting from global trade, the prospects are grim.

Scientists have tried insecticides and tree girdling or “SLAM” (Slow Ash Mortality), before the larvae can go to work. Scientists hope to slow the death of all ash trees, but it is a struggle.

It seems likely that we have to kiss millions of ash trees goodbye, before we find a solution. We sincerely hope not!!

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Wolves are back in Europe and an American tale of the wolves' return!

9/22/2020

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Wolves are back in Europe 
and
an American tale of the wolves' return!

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When I read in my local German paper that the county I grew up in was officially declared a “Wolf Region”, I just could not believe it! Those woods are not even 20 miles away from where I was born and perhaps 25 miles away from Bonn, the former capital of Germany. In my mind, Germany is way too populated for this to happen naturally.

The wolves have been seen once in a while for over two years in this region, but now there are two adorable pups, a sign that the parents feel confident there, so they can raise a family.  In the article it was mentioned that the farmers around the “Wolf Region” could apply for funds from the German Government to erect electric fences to protect their livestock. It is a very encouraging sign that Germany is determined to make this change work, which may very well change the ecology for the better!
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It is quite astonishing that wild animals like wolves are coming back to a region as densely populated as Germany.  Central Europeans not only accept them, they welcome them, as they are part of the woods. Wolves also play an important part in many German fairy tales in a not so frightening way. ​Germans have a special relationship with their woods and the returning wolves make them complete. There deer and wild boar roam the woods without any real natural predators. There are no bitter, cold winters anymore to cut their numbers down. On top of it, hunters have organized feeding programs for those animals to make their hunts more enjoyable.
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As the trees in those woods are strictly managed for timber, this results in plenty of grass and other plants  to grow. You offer the deer and wild boar a supermarket, with a lot of variety and treats. The wild boar are now more than plentiful and also feed on the food left by hunters. I read that a boar invaded a beach area in Berlin and ran away with a laptop one the the swimmers had left on his beach towel while swimming in the lake. Wild boar can be very dangerous however, and their population is hard to keep in check. Now that the wolf has entered the scene, he might bring the balance in nature back, as he did in Yellowstone National Park in America.
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In less ecologically enlightened times in the early twentieth century, wolves and coyotes were seen as economic threats to livestock and farming in the American West. Liberal hunting regulations and government cash bounty programs succeeded in virtually exterminating the wolves. The last pack of wolves in Yellowstone National Park was eradicated in 1926. Single wolves were seen once in a while thereafter, but in 1930 Yellowstone Park was “wolf free”.  Farmers bordering on Yellowstone were even encouraged to feed the elk population so they could make it through the harsh winters. Coyotes were much more intractable. Despite draconian poisoning and bounty programs, they adapted their behaviors and litter sizes, to actually expand their ranges and numbers, expanding into areas formerly controlled by wolves - which kill coyotes.
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And then things started to change. The elk population did very well and increased, but other parts of Yellowstone started to change, but not in the ways we wanted.

Beavers disappeared. As the elk loved the juicy grass and sprouting trees along the riverbanks, the beavers could no longer get the trees to build their dens and dams, or the bark which is also part of their diet. So the beavers left. Even birds were leaving along with their raptors, because the trees disappeared. As the elk population soared, they browsed away the vegetation that held the river banks stable, causing more erosion and soil loss. The whole appearance of the valleys changed and was made into an ecological desert, with only a fraction of the plant and animal species  The stagnant, unmoving large herds of elk in the valleys browsed away all the diverse species of plants that supported other animals. After 70 wolf-less years, the park had completely changed in appearance as well as diversity.  Yellowstone Park took notice and wanted Yellowstone to be how it used to be.
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In 1995 they released wolves caught in Canada to bring back the park’s ecological balance. The ecosystem was changed through the food chain. With the release of the wolves, the top of the chain was altered and caused what is referred to as a ‘trophic cascade’, which tumbles down to every living thing in the ecosystem, and things started to happen.
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The elk population had come to concentrate in the valleys and assembled in large herds that quickly browsed away willow, aspen and cottonwood seedlings before they could mature. As the wolf population increased, the elk’s behavior changed. They broke into smaller groups and moved around a lot more, spending more time in the heavily timbered slopes, avoiding wolf packs as they were moving around. Their increased movement helped increase the soil aeration and allowed the trees needed by the beavers to return. As the riverbank trees and vegetation returned, the rivers stabilized, returning sections of swift flowing gravel bed water needed by the spawning trout. This returned the fishing birds of prey like the bald eagle.
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With the return of the willows, aspen and cottonwoods, the other master engineer of the ecology - the beaver, could return to damming up some river runs. Their dams help control the seasonal pulse of water through the valley drainages. The dams also help store water which recharges the water tables for everyone. Their cold clear pools provide habitat for insect hatches and food for the fish. This has in turn increased the numbers of amphibians, otters, muskrats, ducks and herons.
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As the trees increased exponentially - their biomass rising as much as 800 percent in some cases, the songbirds and their raptors returned. The berry bushes that were favored - and stripped away by the always present elk, now were able to return, which increased the health and number of the bears - which returned them into the food chain as a controlling predator of the elk, along with the wolves.

Without the wolves to control them, the coyote population exploded. Now, with the wolves back and the coyotes moving on to less dangerous territories, rabbits, voles and mice have returned in greater numbers, which has increased the numbers of foxes, weasels, badgers, owls and hawks.
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It might seem counter-intuitive, but ironically enough, the elk population today is actually triple what it was in 1968! https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem This means that there are more large animal carcasses to support all the scavenging species - like vultures, ravens and crows, particularly through the harsh snowbound winters in the park. Bears, foxes, badgers, cougars and birds of prey are also benefited by these winter-killed carcasses.
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Just introducing the wolf to Yellowstone Park has brought back the state of the park to how nature had planned it before the disrupting hand of man. Our determination to expunge our large competing predators from the lands we use here in the U.S., has brought similar changes to our fauna and flora all across the country. 

Our forests are much less diverse as less prevalent tree species and berry bushes are quickly browsed out before they can get established, by our exploded whitetail,  and mule deer populations. Here in the northeast, this is easily evident when looking at the woods. Next time you are driving down a road bordered by stands of trees, you will most likely see a distinct ‘browse line’. It appears as if someone has neatly clipped all the leaves from the tree branches at a uniform height of about four feet above the ground. This is clear evidence that there are too many deer around and they are likely eating any seedlings on the ground before they can grow tall enough to escape the hungry mouths.
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So how will Germany and the rest of Europe fare in handling the resurgence of wolves into their ancestral territories? Hopefully better than we did here in the U.S. Deer fatalities in the U.S. are led by automobiles, domestic dogs allowed to run free at night, and harsh winters. (Yes, even your cuddly little lap dog Fluffy, when left to roam outside at night, will team up in ad hoc chasing packs with other neighborhood dogs and run deer to death by exhaustion - particularly fawns).
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The antiquated state hunting regulations don’t help either. As evidenced  in most states, hunting harvests are way down on the list of deer mortality. They are not accomplishing the desired misconception of the general public, that they are managing the deer populations.  It also doesn’t help that sport hunting is down in popularity amongst the newer generations.

In America, locals were actively financially incentivized with cash bounties and open seasons to rid the landscape of our apex predators. In Germany, at least it would seem that by giving cash and practical alternatives to locals to coexist with the returning wolves, they seem to be going in the right direction. 


How the local fauna and flora will change in Europe if the wolves reestablish their place in the ecosystem and re-balance the plants and animals, will be a fascinating thing to watch! 


Will the wild boars be reined in, in some manner, and will we lose their destructive habits? Will indigenous trees and shrubs come back, that formerly flourished? Will we get a greater diversity of plants in the forests and animals returning as a result? 

We eagerly wait to see how this approach changes the flora and fauna in Europe as the wolves return. The comparison will be amazing!


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The Color Blue in Nature

8/26/2020

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The Color Blue in Nature

PictureElderberries
Our blueberry bushes are almost ready to be picked, and I have to admit that I am looking forward to it, because they are just delicious. These bushes were here already when we bought the house, over thirty years ago. Later we discovered wild blueberries up the hill. Although wild blueberries are smaller, their taste is different;  they are tangy  and sweeter. I do not care really, I just love them. When you open up one of those little berries you realize that they are not really blue inside but a deep purple, just like elderberries.
PictureEastern Bluebird
The color blue is rare in nature. It is true that once in a while I see a blue bird and I get all excited, but in general the color blue is not as abundant as for example red or yellow or brown. Of course the red cardinal is eye-catching and the Baltimore Oriole is trying to outdo him. Their females however have the same markings but in a muted, beige-brownish hue. So I was wondering what the reason behind this could be.
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Most of the color pigments are not made in our bodies. The diet of the animals supports them making those pigments. Take the flamingos for example. After consuming blue-green algae and shrimp, they turn from their drab gray color  to a delightful pink.
PictureBlue eye strructure
 So how do birds or butterflies get their blue color? Well, there is not a unique path in nature to get to the color blue. The Blue Jay's feathers for example, have a microscopic bead design at the surface, from which only blue wavelength light is able to escape. The blues in peacock feathers work with microscopic lamellae (thin membranes) in the feathers to achieve the same result. Researching the whole subject, I learned that in humans, the blue eyes are based on the microscopic structures in the irises, and not on pigments.
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Closeup of a peacock feather
PictureViburnum Bush
Big, leafy viburnum bushes- common in the U.S., yield shiny, brilliantly blue fruit. Curious scientists only recently discovered that viburnum’s blue fruit is actually the result of a phenomenon called ‘structural color’, not pigmentation!

The appearance of the color blue is due to the microscopic structure and a concept called interference of light, when two rays of light collide. In the case of the color blue, the two light rays allow us to see the blue color. In the case of viburnum fruit, it is from the stacking of thin layers of fat molecules. It is believed that this shiny blue color is an evolutionary adaptation to attract birds to eat them and thus aid in the spread of the viburnum’s seeds.
PictureAfrican Pollia
But an even more amazing- and inedible by the way, example of structural color,  is the spectacular iridescence of the African pollia plant berries. Although smaller than blueberries, they stand out in the forest by being incredibly, luminously blue, despite their skins having NO pigments whatsoever. They are the most reflective living things on the planet at 30% reflectivity of light! They accomplished this feat by coiling their cells in a peculiar tight twist, that is formed in sheets like an onion, and absorbing all the light waves except blue- which get reflected back out at near 90%. They also manage to maintain a tiny percentage of some cells that will reflect other colors, which gives them the almost shimmering glow that attracts the eyes.

So if they are inedible you may ask, why are they so brightly colored? As it turns out, it is a different evolutionary strategy. They are attractive as baubles to various animals that will decorate their nests or breeding patches to attract mates, thereby spreading the seeds.
PictureBlue butterfly
There is only one butterfly that is known to produce a blue pigment. It is the Olive Wing Butterfly. Very little has been known about this butterfly and how it produces the pigment but the scientists are working on it. 

The lack of blue as a pigment is also seen in the plant world. Plants use a red pigment called anthocyanin for their blue color. Plants mix anthocyanin with other pigments to produce the color blue. Evolution was not able to develop a process for blue pigments for every organism, but was nevertheless able to produce a blue effect.
Coming back to my blueberries. Blueberries are known to be high in antioxidants, which are good for the human body; the anthocyanins are  thought to be useful for combating inflammation. A good rule to follow is, the darker the berry, the more anthocyanins are present; the anthocyanins in the flesh and the skin are water soluble and will turn teeth, lips and tongue blue! Children in particular find this great fun.
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Summer Surprises in Front of My Nose!

7/20/2020

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Summer Surprises in Front of My Nose!

While I was mowing the lawn, a “new” bush caught my attention. It is now ten feet tall (3 plus meters)  - or even more,  and has great white flat blossoms. The blossoms reminded me of a European bush which is known for its  little black berries, which is not only used for making juice and jam, but also into cough syrup or drops, and even liquor.  It  is an elderberry.
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The elderberry has a long history. Even Hippocrates called it the “Father of Medicine”  in 400 A.D. People in Europe, Northern Africa and Asia have used it as medicine and therefore it is known as the medicine chest of country folk. There have not been any clinical studies to back up its reputation as a homeopathic treatment for a wide range of illnesses, but it is considered effective by people all over the globe.

The little black berries are rich in antioxidants and they have an anti-inflammatory effect on the respiratory system. Elderberries help relieve congestion and are a wonderful source of vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, potassium and vitamin B6. Well, I could go on and on, but if you feel inclined to use the berries, be advised that they are toxic if uncooked. In fact most of the rest of the plant is toxic if ingested as well.
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In Europe, people depend on a cough drop called Ricola, which has been around for the last 90 years. Ricola consists of a classic blend of 13 herbs growing in the Alps. One of them is the elderberry. Europeans love those drops and now you can get them even sugar-free, taking into account dental hygiene.

When the berries are dark blue or black, I will write about  how I harvested them and what I did with them. In fact, elderberry juice is a USDA approved coloring for a variety of foods and drinks. It is also frequently used as a dye for fabrics and baskets. 
You might wonder why I did not see such a big bush before. Well, when we had our property logged four years ago, the loggers took trees and left  spaces which now could get light from the sun. The bushes that were struggling unnoticed in the low, shaded undergrowth there, took some time to blossom and bear fruit. I only had to see them and it was a big surprise.

On the homepage you find the big adventure of logging our woods!
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The other surprise was landing on our hummingbird feeder and it was not a hummingbird! A downy woodpecker was hanging on the part of the hummingbird feeder, where the holes are for the hummingbirds to drink from. The woodpecker was hanging there and craning his beak into the hole and I could see him drinking by the beating of his throat. Of course I was wondering how he could do that. His beak could only rest at the opening of the tiny hole and I wondered how he could get the liquid,  and how could his tongue get into the tiny hole and what it looked like. And here I was surprised, too. After some research I found a picture of how long its tongue really is. And that was a real surprise.
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As a rule of thumb, the woodpecker’s tongue is three times the length of its beak. It reminds me of a spear with tiny hooks facing up and backwards. The tongue does not only operate like a harpoon, but it is also a listening device. It can detect insects inside the hole it excavates with its sharp beak. You will see the bird initially land on the tree trunk and hop about, with its head cocked slightly to the side, listening for the sounds of insects burrowing under the bark. It then pecks a hole to reach it. The tongue has a sticky coating. With the combination of the hooks and the sticky coating, there  is no chance for an insect to get away.
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And there is yet another surprise. Since the hummingbirds returned for the summer, I had the feeling that this summer they consumed a lot more of the liquid than I had prepared in previous years. There was another thing I noticed and for this, I was grateful. For the first time in years, there were no ants floating in the liquid after a couple of days. We like to hang the feeder from an iron hook planted in the ground directly in front of our dining room bay window, so we can watch the hummingbirds up close. But no matter where we hung it, the ants would eventually find it and drown en masse in the liquid. The woodpecker cleared all that up. It did not only participate  in drinking my “nectar”, it  also must have added ants as a bonus side dish. 

You see in the photo above that there are no ants in the feeder!
After all these years of having hummingbird feeders, I was thrilled to see this unique self-taught behavior by the woodpecker for the first time. I thought this was rare and unique behavior, but I was very wrong. A quick check of YouTube revealed that it is a very common behavior indeed. There are dozens of videos posted of woodpeckers doing the same thing.

There is an article about hummingbirds on our home page and an update about hummingbirds in our posts in August 2015.

In general, nature is full of surprises. You only have to notice them.

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My Pine Trees are turning brown ... Why?

6/30/2020

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My Pine Trees Are Turning Brown …. Why?

The pine tree next to my office window that greeted Spring with an abundance of green needles, now shows a lot of brown needles and the promising Spring appearance is fading away quickly. We do see a browning of pine needles in plantations and along roadsides with the arrival of Spring. Of course, it depends on the species of pine to determine whether the browning is normal or can I do anything to help the tree to overcome a disease? 

So let’s look at the different pine trees. It all starts with looking at the needles that cluster together in groups. They are called fascicles. Besides the bark, size and general shape of a pine tree, you can identify the type by looking at the fascicles. Count the needles in a fascicle and you know what kind of pine tree you are dealing with. For example:

White pines have five needles in each fascicle. The needles are soft and often pale green. The cones of white pines are slender and 4 inches or even longer.

Austrian and Scots pines belong to a group of hard pines, together with the American jack pine and red pine. Hard pines have only two or three needles in each fascicle. 
PictureReflected burn from wall
If pine trees are along a road that sees a lot of salting during the Winter to keep it drivable, pines- especially white pine, will probably survive one winter and not more. There is also the so-called ‘winter burn’, usually on the ‘sunny’ side of the tree. If the lower branches were buried under the snow during Winter, they would survive the burn. 

There is also the needle blight. Usually you have this disease in Austrian pine. A fungus called  Mycosphaerella pini will  affect trees of all ages and eventually kill them. It is easy to spot because the needles are brown at the tip, whereas the rest of the needle is still green.
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Mycosphaerella pini
PictureNeedle Cast
When you deal with the needle cast diseases-which affects Scots pine as well,  you may see an entire tree brown in the Spring. The needles are infected from spores being released by black fruiting bodies that form on the fallen needles.

Needle cast diseases are caused by various fungi that infect the new needles on pines, spruce, Douglas fir, and true fir. Although the needles become infected, symptoms may  not be visible until the following Winter or Spring seasons. So it may be a good idea to check fallen needles on the ground for dark fruiting bodies as an early warning sign, particularly if you see symptoms on neighboring trees that may signal an incipient infection. The symptoms may appear also on interior needles, which may turn brown or yellow, and shed prematurely, and also show the dark fungal fruiting bodies. If your tree looks more sparse this year than last, you may want to look for these symptoms so you can treat the tree. Often the only needles remaining are the current season's new growth, so spotting this should be easy. Treatments can be applied with a fungicide from late July through August.
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And of course you have old age

Trees may live to a maturity, then to old age, and the dying process is slow and may take centuries to complete. A tree does damage control around an infected or damaged area and still continues to grow. Growth will slow down a bit when it matures, but it still is able to support adequate foliage for hydration and food. There might be some immature new branches called epicormic sprouts, which try to assist the tree. Usually though they are too weak and insufficient to support life for long. Slowly the tree collapses under its weight. Its decaying body becomes host to myriads of creatures and fungi that will break it down as part of their own life cycles, feeding them and spawning their new generations. Eventually, it becomes the nutrients and topsoil for future trees.
But now back to my original question: why is my pine tree turning brown? Browning needles in a pine can indicate problems. They are however a natural occurrence. Yes, pines are evergreens. That means there are green needles throughout the year. The trees however do not keep the needles forever and will dispose of needles which are three to four years old. This will happen in the Fall and in the Spring. These needles are shaded by the outer, newer, needles and do not receive enough light to photosynthesize and produce food for the tree. Pine trees shaded by other trees will also exhibit needle thinning.

Some years there appears to be more brown needles than other years. This is due to the fact that if needles from a good growing year are being dropped, there are many more needles. So, if the weather allowed for good growth four years ago, then this year we can expect a lot of brown needles.
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A mature White Pine
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    >This is about our journey from being Big City people to learning how to embrace a country lifestyle. 

    We bought an old farmhouse (built in the 1850's); we have hay fields and woods, streams, bridges and a long drive way. Our neighbors are far away. We are so far away that we have to go to the post office to get our mail. For us it has been paradise.

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