Ode to a Red Cedar

We're now packing up our last boxes and getting ready to say goodbye to the apartment where we've lived for the past four years. There have been some cool things about this place (my garden comes to mind), but there's only one thing that I've really loved about it, something I don't think I'll ever quite be able to duplicate, and that's the two Red Cedar trees outside the windows. These trees have been the stage for many of my blog posts over the years because -- even sandwiched as they are between two houses -- they attract an amazing variety of creatures, giving us close-up (just feet away) eye-level views of visiting and resident birds (and more!) in every season. Seeing and identifying Yellow-rumped Warblers in these trees in our first year here was one of the things that got me really paying attention to and learning more about birds.

I'm going to miss living next to these trees very much. So to try to remember what it's been like to live here for the past few years, here's a compilation of all the posts I've made featuring these trees and the creatures they've brought to our windows, season by season. (Plus one new sighting that I haven't had a chance to post about yet.) This isn't everything we've seen here, of course, just everything that's stuck around long enough for me to photograph it. Dear Red Cedar trees, thank you for everything, and I only hope future human residents appreciate you as much as we have!

In spring:

• Migration brings unusual and fancy visitors through the Red Cedar's branches, including Yellow-rumped Warblers (Mar 2012), Pine Warblers (Apr 2012), sleek Cedar Waxwings (Apr 2013), and brilliant Palm Warblers (Apr 2014).

 

• On some soaking rainy day in late April, orange-tentacled aliens (actually cedar-apple rust galls) appear (Apr 2012).
• Sleepy Chipping Sparrows rest on these branches (Apr 2011).
• And molting American Goldfinches forecast warmer weather (Mar 2014).

In summer: 

• The year's new youngsters show up to explore this part of the yard, including
  baby Tufted Titmice (Jun 2011) and teenaged Northern Cardinals (Aug 2013), while some parents -- like this scraggly Black-capped Chickadee (Jul 2013) -- show signs of wear.
• With our window feeder next to these sheltering trees, resident seed-eating birds come in for especially close views, including Black-capped Chickadees, Tufted Titmice, and Downy Woodpeckers (Aug 2013).

• During occasional (or, in recent years, more than occasional) heat waves, panting House Sparrows (Jul 2011) and Black-capped Chickadees (Sep 2012) hang out in these branches trying to keep cool.
• Titmice bathe and forage here as well (Aug 2012).
• This summer, these trees have become a daily relaxing parlor for a couple of Gray Squirrels. Usually, these squirrels doze on separate branches, but a few days ago, they settled onto the same branch for a grooming session:

Fall is a huge time for these trees:

• These branches become a prime insect-foraging spot for songbirds on their southward migration. The wide variety of birds I've seen here include American Redstarts (Sep 2012), Red-eyed Vireos and Magnolia Warblers (Sep 2012), Yellow-throated Vireos (Sep 2013), Northern Parulas, Black-throated Green Warblers, and Cape May Warblers (Sep 2013), Red-breasted Nuthatches and Ruby-crowned Kinglets (Oct 2012), Blackpoll Warblers (Oct 2012), and Golden-crowned Kinglets (Oct 2012).

A Cape May Warbler in September 2013

• The biggest draw for these trees, though, comes from their crops of berry-like cones that ripen in October. One of these trees is male and the other is female, and perhaps their closeness helps to optimize pollen dispersal and cone production on the female tree. Tons of creatures seem to love these things, and we end up with a festival outside our windows. Feasting animals include Northern Cardinals, American Robins, and Gray Squirrels (Oct 2011), Northern Flickers (Oct 2012), Cedar Waxwings (Oct 2013), Yellow-rumped Warblers (Oct 2012 and 2013), huge flocks of Fish Crows (Oct 2013), and Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers (Oct and Dec 2013).

A feasting Yellow-Rumped Warbler in October 2013

• Fall visitors to the window feeder include Carolina Wrens (Oct 2013) and Black-capped Chickadees and Dark-eyed Juncos cleaning up seeds dropped on the rooftop (Dec 2013).
• Assorted other sights include White-breasted Nuthatches (Nov 2011) and Blue Jays that make funny sounds (Sep 2012)

In winter:

• Adorable birds look even more adorable as they forage among the Red Cedars' snow-covered branches, including House Finches (Dec 2013), Black-capped Chickadees (Jan 2013), Dark-eyed Juncos, Northern Cardinals, and Tufted Titmice (Feb 2013), and Northern Mockingbirds (Mar 2013).
• Several birds continue to clean up the remaining cones from fall's bounty, including Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers (Jan 2014), Yellow-rumped Warblers (Jan 2014), and European Starlings that have gradually (Feb 2012) won me over (Jan 2014) to their crisp newly-feathered beauty.

• Snowfall brings crazy bird activity at the window feeder (Dec 2013).
• The cedar trees serve as part of a highway for our acrobatic Gray Squirrels all year, but the leafless maple tree next door makes the squirrels' dramatic approaches and leaps easier to see (Feb 2011).

And the year starts over again with spring. Red Cedar trees, you are the best, and I hope you will continue to enliven this place for many years to come!

Beach Season Begins

I was happy to return to Silver Sands State Park this morning for the start of a new season. As I have for the past two summers, I'll be monitoring this beach again for Piping Plovers and other potential nesting shorebirds this year. This will actually be my last summer in Connecticut -- big changes are coming in the next few months -- and I plan to take full advantage of my proximity to the Long Island Sound while I still can.

Today was a perfect beach day: warm and sunny, and with plenty of spring-like things to see. I'm assuming these Ring-billed Gulls were feeling appropriately amorous, judging from their strange balancing act (which was accompanied by loud calls but no actual mating as far as I could see):

Behind the marshes next to the beach, a few Red Maples were just starting to bloom, looking particularly dramatic against the bright blue sky:

A pair of Mourning Doves walked right past me on the path. I've never noticed the splash of iridescent gold highlights on these birds' necks before, and it's kind of amazingly pretty:

(How is it possible that I've been keeping this blog for more than three years now, and this is the first time I've posted a picture of this common and placid bird? Mourning Doves clearly deserve more of my attention.)

In the fields at the back of the park, many of the bushes and trees had been stripped of their bark up to a couple of feet off the ground:

And a few minutes after I stopped to look at the bare trees (and to watch a couple of American Robins tussling in the grass), the culprits came bounding into the open:

These rabbits must have gotten hungry with all the snow we had this winter, but at least there's always bark to nibble, and they seem to be thriving now! A few of these creatures were chasing each other in and out of the underbrush, and I felt lucky to get to watch these wild bunnies being so active.

As I was driving out of the park at the end of my visit (no plovers yet), I came up behind a curious trio of pedestrians on the shoulder of the road:

Wild Turkey crossing:

How crazy and cool that we have these dinosaur-creatures just wandering around. Oh, you strange and awesome bird:

All in all, this morning was quite a wonderful start to a new season of beach visits. Hooray for warm weather, sun, and sand!

Mostly Blue and Brown

When I visited Silver Sands State Park this afternoon, I found the beach quiet, windy, and cold (the winter coat and scarf came back out)... and totally beautiful:
 

The low tide made for huge expanses of wave-washed sand, and I don't think I've ever seen the water quite that shade of blue before (practically teal). Seriously, could this water be any prettier?
 

The sights on the rest of my walk continued the ocean's color scheme: lots of blue (sky, water), and lots of brown. A Killdeer posed among waves of dried marsh grass:
 

A Great Egret (the first I've seen this year) circled high over the marsh:
 

A pair of Red-breasted Mergansers drank (in unison) in the middle of a pond:
 

And highly appropriate to the day's theme, a pair of Blue-winged Teal (a particularly awesome-looking duck which I'd never seen before) were also at this pond, but stayed too far away for pictures. (Too bad.)

There was also at least one sign that some other colors are starting to creep into the landscape. The brilliant yellow on these blossoming Willow trees definitely stood out!

Maybe someday we'll even get to see the color green again?

Cedar Waxwings Galore

The Red Cedar tree in our yard is now officially open for business, so say the Cedar Waxwings who were busy feasting on its berry-like cones all day today:
 

A waxwing in a sea of food.

I counted about 20 or so Cedar Waxwings in this flock, but there could've easily been more -- they were moving around so much, it was hard to get an idea of how many were actually out there. Most of the birds were juveniles, with streaky breasts and a generally scruffy appearance:
 

Hello scruffy bird, see anything you like?
 

In fact, I only saw one individual with the sleeker feathers and those funky red waxy deposits on its wing tips that mark older birds:
 

So this may not have been the fanciest group of waxwings ever, but these birds were a ton of fun to watch as they scarfed down as many cones as they could, as quickly as possible. And yeah, the juveniles could actually be pretty sleek, too:
 

Look, a waxwing tongue!
 

Speaking of tongues, there were a few other birds sampling Red Cedar cones today as well, including, to my surprise, a Northern Flicker -- I didn't think these birds ate fruit, but I guess they do! A few cones down, and then it licked its lips....
 

Now that's a tongue!!

I'll keep an eye on this tree to see what other creatures stop by for a snack. Hopefully there will be enough food to go around for a while yet!

Invading Red-breasted Nuthatches, and More Birds Passing Through

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Connecticut (and the rest of the United States, actually) is current experiencing an irruption of Red-breasted Nuthatches. This means there are now way more of these little birds scampering around than usual, and so I've been thinking that it should be only a matter of time before a Red-breasted Nuthatch shows up in our yard. I was quite happy this morning, then, when the Red Cedar outside our apartment's windows played host to one of these unusual visitors!

You are so cute, little bird, and so good at being upside-down. I love those fluffy, rusty feathers under your belly!

I was struck, actually, by how similar this bird's costume looked to those of the Black-capped Chickadees who were also flitting through the trees. Shift around the black and white on your face, little nuthatch, stop climbing along the undersides of branches, and you're practically a chickadee. (Well, almost.) The chickadees were making the comparison even easier this morning by carrying around big black sunflower seeds, so their beaks looked almost nuthatch-length (although way too bulky):
 

Chickadee... Red-breasted Nuthatch... It's like they were shopping in the same clothing store:

OK, one last chickadee picture, because these guys were being especially photogenic this morning, and I couldn't help myself:

So the Red-breasted Nuthatch was exciting. Around the same time, a tiny Ruby-crowned Kinglet passed through these trees as well -- this is another very cool bird who only rarely stops by, and usually only in the spring and fall:
 

As you may have noticed in some of these pictures, the Red Cedar's fleshy cones -- which are like dark blue berries -- are now ripe and ready for birds to scarf them down. Over the past couple of days, a small flock of Cedar Waxwings has been visiting our tree, but so far these birds have been plucking berries from the far side of its branches, and (mostly) hiding from my camera:

Hey birds, there are tons of good berries on this side of the tree, too! The buffet's open, so come on over!

Many Bright Creatures in Two Gray Days, Part 2: Birds and Flowers

There were tons of birds out and about on Thursday and Friday morning when I visited the meadows of Naugatuck State Forest, including some very colorful newly-arrived migrants that stayed active the whole time I was there. These sorts of wet, overcast days seem to be just about perfect, it turns out, for seeing awesome creatures (a fact I will need to remember for the future), and I found only one real downside: My camera has a very hard time focusing on quick-moving birds in low-light conditions. Nevertheless I managed to capture a few pictures of these flying gems as they flitted among the bushes and trees around me.

A bunch of Yellow Warblers made a strong presence, announcing themselves with their loud cheerful songs:

Several Blue-winged Warblers were hanging around, too, singing their little songs that sound like a wheezy breath in and out (which, since I read that description in my Peterson field guide, is the only thing I can think of now when I hear these birds):

Sing it, little bird!

A single male Chestnut-sided Warbler graced me with his presence, and even came quite close:

I honestly think this is one of our prettiest birds. He has so many colors, and such an interesting costume! Even from the back, he's a striking little creature:

There were Ovenbirds singing all around, but I only saw one individual who popped up into view for a few seconds before flying off again:

Also hanging out (though not within camera-range) was a male Scarlet Tanager, some Black-throated Green Warblers, a Black-and-white Warbler, a Blue-headed Vireo, and probably many other species that I didn't see or identify. I love the huge variety of cool birds that are showing up now!

The weather also made for some lovely wildflower sights -- colorful blooms were practically luminescent against the damp ground. Here's another, better view of the Wood Betony that I found the other day, with its gorgeous yellow and/or red whorls of blossoms:

I'm definitely impressed by the range of possible colors on these plants:

This lovely little Starflower (Trientalis borealis) shone out from under the trees:

Huh, a flower with seven petals (normal for the species).... How strange, and yet beautifully symmetrical!

I was very happy to see these Wild Red Columbines in bloom -- they're one of my favorites, and I don't find them very often:

And I can't believe how utterly gorgeous these Pink Azalea (Rhododendron periclymenoides) blooms were, like something straight out of a fairy tale:

Finally, not to be outdone by the flowers, the masses of cedar-apple rust galls on the Red Cedar trees were pretty phenomenal -- and I thought the handful of orange-tentacled galls on the trees outside our apartment windows were impressive!

After two days of exploring the woods in what I thought would be less than ideal conditions, I have definitely come to appreciate the benefits of soggy weather. Here's to active birds, reptiles, and amphibians, blooming plants, and lots of color on deceptively gray days!

Red Cedar Alien

The two Red Cedar trees next to our house not only serve to draw in birds passing through our yard, they also play host (literally) to some very interesting organisms. This morning, I looked out our office window and saw this:

Ahhh, it's an alien! Well, no, not really. It's actually a gall, caused by the fungus Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae. Galls appear when an insect or fungus feeds off of a plant and somehow changes the plant's structure, causing it to produce abnormal growths, inside of which the insect or fungus then lives. (For the tree, then, I guess this might actually count as an alien invasion.) Each gall-making creature has its own preferred host plant, and each causes a distinctive abnormal growth.

During the winter, these galls on our Red Cedar trees just looked like brownish balls -- they could have been windblown pinecones at first glance -- and it wasn't until recently that they sprouted these weird orange tentacles. (I only noticed them today.)

Those "tentacles" are actually the spore-producing appendages of the fungus inside the gall. According to this fascinating information sheet on cedar-apple rust (the "disease" caused by this fungus, so-called because the fungus actually needs to live on both cedar trees and apple trees in different stages of its life cycle), the tentacles (i.e., "telial horns") enlarge during periods of rainy weather, and indeed, with today's constant rain, the fungus was looking spectacularly goopy by the end of the day. (The gall in this next picture is the same one from the previous picture, but several hours later.)

I can see five of these galls from our window, and who knows how many more there are higher up in the trees. The fungus won't do lasting harm to the Red Cedars (these orange appendages mark the end of their life cycle), so our trees should be around for a while yet. Who knows what strange and interesting things these trees will show us next!

Many Firsts-of-the-Year

Hello, spring! It was 75 degrees when I went for a walk at Naugatuck State Forest this afternoon -- did I say "spring"? I think I meant "summer"! -- and things are really coming to life out there. In fact, I saw many creatures that I hadn't seen yet this year. It was a great day for firsts!

Like first amphibians, for instance. I'd heard Spring Peepers and saw Wood Frog eggs in the woods this past Thursday, but today I got to actually see the Wood Frogs for myself. I love these little creatures and the weird "quack"-ing sounds the males make. Some of the frogs were coupled up, pinkish-colored female paired with darker brown male:
 

But mostly there were single males floating across the pool's surface, waiting for the females, and calling out to them when I wasn't looking:
 

The frogs have produced quite a collection of eggs already -- I wonder how much longer they'll continue their activities:
 

I spent some time watching a bunch of Red-spotted Newts swimming along the shore of the lakes:
 

Newts are awesome (and so pretty!), and like the Wood Frogs, it seems like they might now have reproduction on their minds -- or at least, there was a certain amount of wrestling going on while I was there:
 

I also saw my first caterpillar of the year, a fuzzy Woolly Bear trundling across the path:
 

Other firsts from today include the first Eastern Phoebe (they're just now coming back from their wintering areas down south), the first turtles (Painted Turtles, basking on logs), and the first tick (crawling up my pant leg, yech).

And there were more cool things to see in the woods, too. A sizable ant mound (which I'd never noticed before) was broken open next to the path, and the big red-and-black ants were scurrying all over the place:
 

Finally, here's something I've read about on other nature blogs, but that I've never found on my own before -- flowers on an American Hazelnut shrub:
 

Those long dangly things (catkins) are the male, pollen-bearing flowers, and further along the stem, that tiny pink alien-like growth is the female flower. These little flowers are so weird looking, and also really beautiful -- this is why I'm so glad the internet exists, so that I can be aware of these things and be ready to look for them on my own visits to the woods:
 

Everything feels so alive now! Hooray for spring!