American Woodcock (Scolopax minor)

Let’s say they were American Woodcocks, so charmingly known as Timberdoodles, although they may have been Ruffed Grouse. The American Woodcock attracts comment and is also called a night partridge, big-eye, bogsucker, and mudbat. I caught a glimpse—almost too generous a word given the brief time I saw them—of three that fed on the forest floor as they rapidly fluttered to camouflage themselves in the duff and shrubs that edged the trail. The Woodcock is a shorebird in the sandpiper family that forages in young forests and shrubby places, digging for worms with its long, slender beak, which ends in a flexible tip. As soon as I saw this passage about their hunting behavior, I knew I had to quote it, “A woodcock may rock its body back and forth without moving its head as it slowly walks around, stepping heavily with its front foot. This action may make worms move around in the soil, increasing their detectablity.” At first I read this as delectability, which I find a little more amusing, but I’m still left thinking that they are clever as well as pretty darn cute.

Porcini (Boletus edulis)

Three friends, two dogs, and I went mushroom hunting in the mountains of northern Colorado. We were a merry group, our good cheer heightened by the pounds and pounds of porcini we found in the conifer forests. They seem to like to grow along trails. I asked my friend Donna why they grow where they grow, and she said, because they are “gregarious.” If that explanation doesn’t satisfy, then it should be known that this mushroom grows in late summer and early autumn, in sunny yet forested areas, commonly on north-facing slopes, during years of good rainfall. They often appear along with the Amanita muscaria, a mushroom that looks as though—with its white-dotted, brilliant red cap—it should star in a fairy tale or, even better, a Technicolor Disney movie, something Bambi would see in the forest during the idyllic portion of his life. But, with toxic qualities, its really more like something a evil witch would give children wondering through the forest, or the hallucinogenic mushroom Alice nibbled on. Don’t eat it. Porcini, on the other hand, are a “choice edible,” meaning they taste delicious. When I got home, I spent hours cutting them up before leaving them out in the sun to dry. Taking care of them was some work, as I had to bring them in at night, so they wouldn’t get dewy, set them out every morning, and then package them in half gallon size jars that I’ve temporarily stolen from the dairyman from whom we get our raw milk. Now these delicacies from a boon year will enrich winter dishes like soups and risottos and act as reminders of summertime, and of my friends Alison and Jerry, who are moving to Seattle next month.

Common Loon (Gavia immer)

I was totally thrilled to see a Common Loon while walking around Jordan Pond in Maine’s Acadia National Park. I would have cavalierly passed by if not for a family who pointed it out to my husband and I. The family had been photographing the loon for three hours, trying to capture an elusive image. The above image is one of Jordan Pond. Although I didn’t hear its eerie call, I was excited enough just to see it in summer plumage, with its dramatic white and black checked back, sailing upright and magnificent. I’ve always wanted to see a Common Loon, and had no idea I would see it on a “pond” (what we in Colorado would call a lake) in Maine. Common Loons are made for diving in pursuit of fish. Adaptations such as setback legs and—unusual among birds—heavy, solid bones, allow them to do things like flip-flop underwater and make them excellent at what they do. But these same traits make flight, or at least take off, challenging. Loons can get landlocked if they don’t find the thirty yards or up to a quarter of a mile they need to build up speed. Unfortunately, patches of dark, wet pavement and small ponds can act as traps, deceiving the birds into believing they’ve found sufficiently large bodies of water. The Common Loon is no sluggard when aloft, though, and has been clocked migrating at up to 70 m.p.h. The loon made me think a lot about the mechanics of flying on our flight home—how much propulsion a plane has to have to lift all of that weight into the air and especially about landing—how the plane has to slow, yet maintain a certain speed so it won’t fall out of the air. (For a technical description of the four elements of flight, see this site.) My favorite fact about the loon, though, is that two adults and their two offspring can eat up to half-ton of fish in fifteen weeks.

Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora)

The enigmatic poet Emily Dickinson described the Indian Pipe as the “preferred flower of life,” but it’s commonly known as the corpse or ghost plant. I’m not good at conundrums and wonder what she meant. Reputed to be Dickinson’s favorite flower, I’ve seen references to at least three of her poems that mention the Indian Pipe. Native Americans used Indian Pipe, later called eyebright, to treat eye inflammation. Colonists knew the flower as convulsion root, because they used it to treat convulsions. Nowadays, medicinal plant experts warn that it may be toxic. The plant exists widely, except for in the southwest, the intermountain west, and the central Rockies. I was lucky enough to see it while hiking in a dense, “humusy” Maine forest. The Indian Pipe is a saprophyte, an organism that feeds on dead or decaying matter. More accurately, the plants are parasites that feed on fungi that in turn feed on trees. These wildflowers don’t need leaves to produce chlorophyll, so the plants do not have any green, and the leaves are merely scales or bracts. The plants turn black with age or when damaged—these were new and pristine, white with a pinkish tinge, waxy, with drooping heads. 

On Vacation

I'm on vacation for the month of July.

Foxglove: Digitalis purpurea

From the first time I saw one, the complex coloration and bell-shaped flowers of the foxglove attracted me, and I knew I wanted some in my garden. They are one of the first plants I planted last year, and this June they are blooming extravagantly. They are happy where I’ve planted them, growing in partial shade. A local nursery explained that foxglove is a biennial that acts like a perennial, flowering in its second year and then self-sowing. Fortunately, the plant produces up to two million seeds during its lifetime. I have a cream one and a mauve one, and I didn’t know that the cream will revert to purple during the reseeding cycle. The heart medication digitalis is made from its leaves, and you can murder someone with an overdose, in the best tradition of Agatha Christie’s stories. The plant is also poisonous to animals, but I didn’t know that bees love it, along with other insects, and hummingbirds. The flower’s inside is florescent, and this florescence, which can be seen under a black light, guides bees like a “landing strip.” Fairies figure prominently in legends surrounding the foxglove, no surprise given its magical appearance and native woodland habitat. A Modern Floral says that people once believed the dappling on the flower were fingerprints left by fairies, leading to the name folksglove. My favorite story is that bad fairies gave the blossoms to foxes to muffle their footsteps as they hunted. 

Elaeagnus angustifolia: The Case For, The Case Against

Until this year, I had not noticed the honeysuckle-like fragrance of the Russian olive trees (Elaeagnus angustifolia). And, with their gray-green leaves, they provide a pleasing contrast to the darker leaves of the cottonwoods that also line the rivers. I have a friend who, not without reason, claims that they provide food for animals and fix nitrogen in the soil.

But, the smell of the flowers becomes cloying, the fruits are unpalatable to the human tongue (or at least they were to me when I tasted them), and, most importantly, in Colorado where I live, the tree is a non-native invasive species that rapidly crowds out native species. A report by Columbia University claims that in Colorado, Russian olive trees have replaced hundreds of thousands of acres of willow and cottonwood woodlands. The state categorizes the Russian olive as a noxious weed slated for eradication, containment, or suppression.

But, what about my friend’s claims? Although it’s true they provide food for birds, this is the case only for some species, and trees appear to reduce “avifaunal diversity.” Cavity-nesting birds and woodpeckers, for example, do not use the Russian olive tree, and so its spread destroys the richness or variety of birds present in a location.

What about its nitrogen-fixing abilities? According to various Web sites, this quality interferes with “nutrient cycling” by attracting other species that prefer high nitrogen soils and outcompete native species that survive on less fixed nitrogen.

Finally, Russian olive trees are almost impossible to control. They do not attract insects, grow from suckers (making pruning ineffective), and resist fire. They thrive on a variety of water, temperature, and soil conditions.

My friend’s knowledge is true as far as it goes, but taken within the context of the riparian areas of the western United States the case against the Russian olive tree is watertight.