Birdapalooza!

Bill and I recently did a road trip to Florida, exploring sites on the Gulf coast, the Everglades and the Atlantic coast. What a fantastic trip! It was mainly a birding trip but we really enjoyed the botany too, and of course we took way too many pictures. I could write lots of blog posts about it, but will try to limit myself to 4 or 5. Or maybe not. The area is a photographer's dream, since so many of the birds are large and stay relatively still!

One of our favorite areas that we visited was Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, adjacent to Canaveral National Seashore and the Kennedy Space Center. Its Black Point Wildlife Drive was beyond amazing. This was the scene at the entrance to the drive:

Here is a quick guide to the cast of characters in that photo, and remember that you can click on any photo to see a higher resolution image. First, of course, are the Roseate Spoonbills, perhaps the most glamorous of the birds that can be seen in Florida. 

The biggest bird in the first picture is a White Pelican. These birds are found most often in fresh or brackish water, while their cousin, the Brown Pelican, tends to stay near the ocean.

Next is the Great Egret, which is actually pretty common in Ohio in the summer. 

Its cousin, the Snowy Egret, is just as elegant, and perhaps more so with its bright yellow feet:

Next is the White Ibis, with its brilliant red bill and pink legs:

And of course the Wood Storks, looking like gossipy old men:

Put all these birds together in a small pond, and you have quite a mix of sight and sound! Early in the morning the birds fly in, sometimes singly and sometimes in groups. All seem to be very hungry, and it was hard to believe there was enough food in this pool to satisfy all of them. But each species feeds just a little differently, partially in terms of their behavior and partially because of their bill shape. In this video, watch the spoonbills swish their bills back and forth through the water and sediment, while the wood storks use their beaks almost like chopsticks, the ibises poke in the sediment, and the Great Egrets seem to visually locate food and capture it:

Most of the time when I've seen Snowy Egrets feed they stand still and wait till they spot something and then they lunge to catch it. Here, the snowies were behaving quite differently, flying over the pool, dragging their feet in the water, and occasionally catching a minnow. A guide who was there at the same time we were even said that he had never before seen this behavior.

It was hard to drag ourselves and our cameras away from this spot, but on we went. The drive has several parking areas with trail access, and convenient viewing platforms:

Various ponds and impoundments are surrounded by vigorous stands of mangroves, which looked ethereal in the light, early morning fog:

Did you ever wonder where ducks go in winter? Well, just like people, a lot of them go to Florida!

This is probably my favorite duck, the Hooded Merganser, many of which breed in Ohio in summer:

We spotted a large group with a couple of males and lots of females and juveniles. They feed by diving for fish, and are remarkably successful. I love how the males in this video "deflate" their crest before taking a dive!

Probably the most unusual bird at the refuge this winter is the duck with the reddish head in this picture, the Eurasian Wigeon.  As its name implies, it is not a native North American bird, although a few appear each year, even sometimes in Ohio. The birds next to it are American Wigeons, which are quite common in Ohio in summer.

Although this is not the prime wildflower time in Florida, there were a few in bloom that added color and interest to the drive. Because of its preference for wet areas and its starchy root, this plant is called Duck Potato (Sagittaria lancifolia).

Another species of wet areas, this plant is known as Pickerel Weed (Pontederia cordata)

In addition to the mangroves, Dahoon Holly (Ilex cassine) lined some of the lagoons and added bright color to the landscape:

No trip through these impoundments and marshes would be complete without spotting an alligator or two!

Needless to say, a winter visit to Merritt Island is well worth the time, for birders and non-birders alike. And here is one final image of that gorgeous wader, the Roseate Spoonbill, coming in for a landing:

More from Florida in future posts!

Nature's Christmas Tree??

Not long ago while walking through Ohio's Springville Marsh State Nature Preserve I noticed this small tree:

My first thought was that it looked like fun Christmas ornaments were hanging from the tree, moving lightly in the breeze.

Immediately after that thought, however, my brain registered "Poison Sumac" and the notion of hanging the fat golden clusters of berries on a tree inside a house was quickly rejected. You see, I have a long history of being allergic to urushiol, the oily allergen that is characteristic of Poison Sumac, Poison Ivy, and Poison Oak. What a family! 

This family (Anacardiaceae) is commonly called the cashew family, and it includes mangos and pistachios as well as cashews. All of these contain urushiol or very similar compounds, but in smaller quantities than the related species that occur in North America. Some people are quite allergic to pistachios and the skin of mangoes for this reason, and cashews have to be peeled and roasted to destroy the irritant.

Poison Sumac (Toxicodendron vernix) fortunately is not very common. It only grows in wet areas, and other places I've seen it in Ohio include Cedar Bog, Cranberry Bog in Buckeye Lake, and Brown's Lake Bog. It has a compound leaf with 7-13 leaflets, so the poison ivy/poison oak adage "leaflets three, let them be" doesn't work. I don't have a great picture of its reddish pink fall color, but this gives the general idea:

It really is a bad idea to touch any part of this plant. The urushiol is found in all parts of it, and Poison Sumac causes an even worse contact dermatitis than the other two North American members of its genus. In fact, some botanists have called it the most toxic plant in the United States.

So what is urushiol, and why does it cause the itchy, blistery, seeping rashes? It is an organic compound that can have several chemical formulas depending on the composition of its side chains. Once it has been absorbed by the skin it is recognized by cells that are part of the immune system. These cells then migrate to lymph nodes where they present the urushiol to T-lymphocytes and send them to the skin. Once in the skin, the T-lymphocytes produce the compounds which cause the rash.

Lots of factual information, old wives' tales, and home remedies can be found in A Field Guide to Poison Ivy, Poison Oak and Poison Sumac by Susan Carol Hauser. As for most of the home remedies, the book basically says that if you use them the rash will clear in about two weeks; without them it will last 14 days! Surprisingly, the book says that if you rinse with copious amounts of water soon after exposure the urushiol will be washed away, and adding soap has no additional effect. I'm not sure I believe that; I always use soap if I know I've been exposed, and I think I'll continue to do so!

Apparently the word urushiol comes from Japanese, where it is represented by this character:
     漆

The Japanese have long used the toxic sap from the Chinese Lacquer Tree (T. vernicifluum) in art work, musical instruments and furnishings. After heat treatment, the urushiol-laden sap hardens and forms a durable, glossy finish which is way less toxic than the untreated material but some people still may be sensitive to it. If you search for "Urushi Lacquer" on Ebay you can see all sorts of possibly toxic products that you can buy!

What I'd like to know is why humans (and possibly some other primates) have immune systems that react in such an extreme way to this compound, while birds and other animals eat berries and other parts of the Toxicodendron genus without any problem. And what, if any, purpose does urushiol serve for the plants that produce it? 

At any rate, I definitely won't be getting out the gold spray paint any time soon, a la Martha Stewart, to turn these toxic berries into decorations for my house!

A Botanical Feast

Not long ago Bill and I attended a fun program at Dawe's Arboretum in Newark, Ohio that featured food plants from around the world. Organized and led by the arboretum's botanist, Dr. David Brandenburg, the program grouped the plants by their botanical family, which produced some surprises for all of the participants. The program started with a review of some basic plant biology and the differences, to a botanist, between fruits and vegetables.

Then we went into a room that featured many, many tables of foods from every continent except Antarctica--this picture shows about half the tables:

The first two families that Dr. Brandenburg showed us, the grasses and the legumes, are the most important food families and they basically "feed the world". The grasses include sugar cane and all the true grains like wheat, oats and barley. Interestingly, buckwheat and quinoa are in other families and are not true grains. No plants contain all the amino acids that are necessary as the building blocks of proteins for animals, but grains + legumes give a complete diet. I was surprised to learn that jicama is a legume, and licorice is from the bark of a root of a legume native to Asia! 

Most of the foods that we consume originated outside of North America. In fact, if we were to only eat plants native to North America just about all we would have would be pecans, cranberries, Concord grapes, sunflower seeds and a few other nuts and berries.

For centuries humans have selectively bred plants from around the world to create the food that we eat today. For example, we learned that cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, broccoli and cauliflower not only are all in the same family (mustard), they are all the same species of plant! Thanks to human intervention, they are all descended from a kale, Brassica oleracae, that originally grew wild in Europe.

The Composite or Aster family is one of the largest plant families, but is not as important as grasses and legumes to our diet. Here is a plant in that family that is familiar to most of us:

This roadside weed is chicory, one of our loveliest wildflowers. Native to Europe, it became naturalized in North America long ago and its roots were used to brew a drink, often by people who couldn't afford or who didn't have access to coffee. I never would have guessed that this humble plant is the same species as two popular "yuppie" vegetables, radicchio and Belgian endive!

So after learning about these and many other plant families, we were served a lunch prepared by high school students from C-TEC (Career and Technical Education Centers) of Licking County, Ohio. The main dish, a quiche, featured Japanese Goba Root which comes from the burdock plant. Readers might remember burdock as one of the plants that I discussed in a previous post, found here. This is a picture of the long taproot that is used in many Asian cuisines:

It had kind of a bland flavor and I don't think I'd go out of my way to have it again, but I'm glad I tried it once!

Here is the entire menu that we enjoyed at Dawes, and a photo of the dessert:

Chickpea and Tamarind Hummus with Caraway and Cumin Lavash

Brie in a crust with Green Apples and Ancho-Guava Jam

Wild Arugula, Fennel and Pomegranate Salad with Buddha’s Hand Vinaigrette

Japanese Gobo and Horseradish Quiche 

with Bacon and Swiss cheese

Blueberry Cherry Crisp with Coconut Milk, Vanilla Bean 

and Grains of Paradise Ice Cream

Iced Green Tea

Punch (ginger syrup, pineapple juice, and sparkling water)

A botanical feast indeed! And many thanks to Dr. David Brandenburg and Dawes Arboretum for such an excellent and unique program.

Leave it to Beavers

I've found that usually when we go out exploring, no matter how much we've tried to find out about our destination beforehand, there is usually at least one surprise in store for us. Here is the unexpected sight that we came upon recently at Kiser Lake Wetlands State Nature Preserve:

Of course I had to get a closer look!

Clearly, this was the work of a North American Beaver (Castor canadensis), and it looked like that work was quite recent. I have seen lots of beaver evidence in my years of hiking and working outdoors, but never have I seen a freshly-gnawed half-felled tree, looking as precarious as this one was! I was tempted to see what would happen if I pushed it, but I resisted.

These large semi-aquatic nocturnal rodents eat tree bark and the cambium layer just under the bark. Obviously, this individual stripped the tree all the way down to the structural wood, as far up as it could reach, and then starting to gnaw into the wood to take down the tree. They also eat a variety of aquatic vegetation.

An even closer look reveals the beaver's tooth marks:

Work like this is likely to wear down the strongest of teeth; fortunately the beaver's strong incisors continue to grow throughout its life.

This seemed like a pretty big tree for a beaver to deal with, especially since the nearby stream was small and not flowing very rapidly. I didn't see any evidence of beaver dams nearby so I don't know what this tree's destination might be.

Beavers were extirpated in Ohio by 1830 after trapping by both Native Americans and settlers who sold the pelts for use in tall beaver felt hats, which were all the rage in England. The heaviest trapping occurred between 1750 and 1800. 

About 100 years later, beavers were again active in Ohio. Now, although seldom seen, they are quite common and often wreak havoc with culverts and flood control facilities. Their dam building also increases wildlife diversity and continuously changes the landscape in natural areas.

Since I've gotten kind of interested in Pleistocene mammals since I started doing this blog it is interesting to note that the North American Beaver that we are familiar with is not the first beaver species known to live in Ohio. That honor would have to go to the Giant Beaver (Castoroides ohioensis), which became extinct only 10,000 years ago. This animal was 7 1/2 feet long and weighed 400 pounds! In Ohio it ranged from the western border east to the Columbus area. What a different place this must have been!

For more beaver information and a cool video, check Jim McCormac's recent post over at Ohio Birds and Biodiversity.

Kaiser Lake Wetlands State Nature Preserve is well worth a visit with its boardwalk that allows access to an alkaline fen and marsh, rare habitats in this area. Here is a picture of Stiff Gentian (Gentiana quinquefolia), a lovely late-fall wildflower that often blooms into November:

A Bittersweet Tale

Even after most of the leaves have fallen from the trees, late fall has a lot to offer in the way of color and interest. Recently we noticed these bright berries on a walk in a nearby park:

I recognized them as the fruit of a woody vine called bittersweet, which is often used in fall wreaths and other decorations. I hope that this particular plant is American Bittersweet, Celastrus scandens, but I suspect that this plant is its extremely nasty cousin called Oriental Bittersweet, C. orbiculatis. Without leaves they are hard to tell apart on a small plant, but the oriental variety tends to have fruit all along the twigs rather than just at the tips. 

What's so nasty about Oriental Bittersweet? It is one of North American's most invasive plants. Its seeds are readily spread by birds, and their germination rate is very high. The plant grows rapidly and can engulf large trees, out-competing them for sunlight. The really menacing thing about these vines is that they can grow up to 4 inches in diameter and can literally strangle a large tree by compressing its vascular system and preventing the flow of water and nutrients, much like the tropical strangler figs. Here is a picture of the plant that we saw, showing a small woody vine climbing in a twisting fashion up a shrub:

Imagine a 4 inch vine doing the same to a large tree! 

A few days later we were taking a walk in another park and spotted something I'd never seen before: a small tree with what looked like bright pink berries:

I knew it wasn't familiar so I had to take a closer look:

Getting even closer, I saw that the fruit was actually red with a pink covering, and it certainly had a structure similar to the bittersweet we had seen a couple of days before:

A bit of googling and checking in some books soon revealed the plant to be a small tree or shrub called American Wahoo (Euonymus atropurpureus). It too has an invasive cousin, E. alatus, which is the common landscape plant known as burningbush. 

According to Horticulture Magazine, American Wahoo is an excellent choice to replace E. alatus in the home landscape. "Once the foliage drops, the red fruits inside light pink capsules will stop traffic." It certainly stopped me! It is native to the eastern half of North America, and is generally found along streambanks but can do well elsewhere also. American Indians believed it to have a "warrior spirit" and planted it around their camps to keep enemies out.

So back to the fact that both bittersweet and American Wahoo have bright fruits which are revealed with the opening of a colorful capsule. Well, a bit more research reveals that both plants are members of the botanical family called Celastraceae, or the bittersweet family. Most of the genera within this family are tropical, with Euonymus, Celastrus, and one other being the only ones to grow in temperate areas.

Both American Bittersweet and American Wahoo are interesting plants to find when hiking in late fall. Both can be fun additions to the home landscape as well. Just be sure to avoid the nasty relatives! (Always good advice as Thanksgiving approaches...)

Big Darby Headwaters Nature Preserve

I have probably spent literally hundreds of hours with students of all ages in Big Darby Creek, studying stream ecology and just plain having fun. Oh—and I’ve had some wonderful kayaking and canoeing adventures too.

Big Darby Creek in central Ohio has been designated as both a State and National Scenic River, because of the diversity of plants and animals that live on, in, under and around it. The raccoons in the photo below (you might have to squint to see them) may not know it, but the creek also is one of The Nature Conservancy’s Last Great Places, so designated because healthy streams of this type, that originate as cold water seeps, are very rare in North America.

Big Darby, and its main tributary Little Darby Creek, run for 82 miles through several Ohio counties and drain a watershed of over 500 square miles. For much of their distance the creeks are lined with mature forests which keep agricultural and other pollutants out of the stream and feed the system with the leaves that drop each fall. 

Development pressure, farming, bridge and highway construction, and other disturbances have, however, threatened portions of the stream and require continuous monitoring.

The creeks support nearly 100 different species of fish, some endangered, and 44 species of mussels, which is truly remarkable. Some of my favorite Darby Creek experiences involved noodling around for different kinds of mussels, and one awesome day watching representatives of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency employ a method of stunning fish to examine their condition and to inventory species.

But recently I had a different Darby Creek experience when we visited the new Big Darby Headwaters Nature Preserve just northwest of Marysville. This land not only preserves upper reaches of the creek's watershed, but it is also the site of an extensive stream restoration project. A segment of the stream that had been turned into a man-made channel along a highway has been transformed into a much more natural meandering configuration by a project sponsored by The Nature Conservancy. This new stream mimics the natural flow of the stream from its beginnings as a series of seeps and wetlands, and already has resulted in increased wildlife diversity in the area.

For the whole story, try to plan a visit to this preserve. Excellent interpretive signs introduce the creek and the restoration project. The 2.5 mile (round trip) trail is a wonderful hike of minimal difficulty through forests and abandoned farm fields which, when we visited, were lovely with goldenrod and purple New England Aster. 

This project will go a long way toward ensuring that the Darby continues to support diverse plant and animal populations and that it continues to provide excellent educational and recreation opportunities. I can't wait to get back into the creek!

Botanical Hitchhikers

Those of us who grew up roaming woods and meadows can remember often coming home with a variety of hitchhiking seeds attached to our clothing:

Kids that I hung around with called all of them "burs" but we had no idea what the parent plants looked like, since we didn't realize that they had hooked on to us till we were far away and had started picking them off, preferably before going into the house. 

That, of course, served the plants' interests extremely well, since our actions helped to spread their range, avoiding competition with the parent and other plants in their immediate area.

Recently I've started to learn to identify more plants and in the process have found out, in some cases for the first time, where some of these "burs" come from.

At the top of the sock are the hooked burdock burs which are supposedly the inspiration for Velcro®. Each bur contains the small seeds shown in the lower right: 

There are several species of burdock, all native to the old world and widely distributed. The plant's enormous leaves make it nearly unmistakable:

Here is a picture of burdock in bloom:

Next are some of the most common burs, from a plant called agrimony (accent on the second syllable) or groovebur. 

There are 7 species of agrimony that are native to North America and the plant is reported to have a variety of medicinal uses. A member of the rose family, it has small yellow flowers and compound leaves. Here is a picture of the plant showing the flower stalk bearing the burs after blooming:

Here is a close-up view, and notice how the burs are angled down, the better to snag on a passing mammal: 

Next is cocklebur, a member of the aster family.

It is found mostly along streams and in wet areas. Each football-shaped cocklebur fruit contains two seeds. 

It has large coarse leaves like burdock, but in general the plant is much smaller.

Last but not least are the seeds of beggarticks or sticktights.

These come from plants in the genus Bidens and have a wide variety of common names. There are about 200 species of Bidens, and they occur all over the world. Some common members of the genus are not at all showy, with no petals or ray flowers:

Another one in this area is the very showy Nodding Bur Marigold, generally a plant of wet areas:

If you have ever had to cut any of these burs out of your dog's hair or tried to pick one out of your carpet you can really appreciate their tenacity. Plants whose seeds stick to clothing, fur or feathers are termed zoochorous and they have managed to exploit this characteristic to spread all over the world. 

A few posts back I wrote about the huge Pleistocene mammals that roamed Ohio just 13,000 years ago, and postulated that they probably had lice and fleas. Just think about what else they were carrying around in all that fur!