January 1, 2023 by Beth

Rime Ice, New Year’s Eve

Rime ice etches the evergreen leaves of boxwood shrubs.

On the last morning of the year, soft gray clouds insulate the city. The air is still and quiet except for a few American robins and goldfinches calling. In the silence of the night, fog crept in and dressed every tree branch and plant with beautiful needle-like ice crystals.

When fog or mist droplets freeze instantly on contact with the wind-facing side of a cold surface, rime ice is formed. The milky white color of rime is caused by the air pockets between the ice particles.

How is rime ice different from hoar frost? First, they differ in appearance: Hoar frost often looks feathered and lacy, in contrast with the sharp needles of rime. They also form by different processes. Hoar frost typically forms on cold, clear nights rather than during cloudy conditions. Water vapor freezes and crystallizes on surfaces without becoming water droplets first. Both rime ice and hoar frost add a magical beauty to the monochrome winter world.

Rime ice’s sharp needle-like crystals decorate a garden obelisk.

Sources:

Wisconsin State Farmer

National Weather Service, Aberdeen, SD

December 8, 2022 by Beth

Winter’s Arrival

A quiet trail in Minneapolis, Minnesota, glows with fresh snow and late-afternoon sun.

The “keeper snow” came early this year. In late November, we walked in lightweight clothing and running shoes. Two days later a storm blew in ahead of a Canadian cold front and dropped eight inches of new snow. We’ve entered the stark season. Green is a memory buried under an ice-cold blanket. Gone from our yard are the bumblebees, painted lady butterflies and other pollinators. I’ve put the garden to bed for the winter.

Black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) are high-energy winter residents in our back yard.

Just ahead of the storm, a mixed flock of robins, dark-eyed juncos, black-capped chickadees and small woodpeckers—both downy and hairy—descended into our back yard. Robins tossed aside leaves to uncover stray insects, seeds and fruit. Juncos sought seeds on the garden wall. Chickadees and woodpeckers hunted for insect larvae and other delights in the bark of our old apple tree.

This afternoon at dusk, a female northern cardinal, softly colored and alone, delicately plucked crabapples one-by-one in our front yard. She was lucky to find any because the portly gray squirrels have stripped most of the tree bare. I am grateful for these winged winter residents that bring life to our garden on even the coldest winter days.

A female downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) excavates for insect eggs and larvae in a dead portion of our apple tree.

February 13, 2021 by Beth

Who Will Nest Here?

Black-capped chickadees, downy woodpeckers and white-breasted nuthatches recently explored this cavity in our apple tree.

Our beacon apple tree is pushing 80 years old. It’s dropped a few limbs over time; some splintered under the weight of apples, others weakened with age and rot. One old limb bears a small cavity. “So what?” you think — unless you’re a chickadee, nuthatch or other cavity dweller looking for a nesting site. All three species frequently explore and tussle over this cavity, and I believe the chickadees are winning.

One sunny, frigid afternoon, a downy woodpecker pair ducked in and out of the cavity and were confronted and chased away by a black-capped chickadee. A curious white-breasted nuthatch also sidled over for a peek and was waved off by the chickadee. Later, three chickadees fluttered around the opening until two chased off the third. The remaining pair excavated and removed wood chips from the cavity interior; evidence they are preparing a nesting site! The male sings his territorial “fee-bee” (sometimes “fee-bee-bee”) song. I first heard him sing on December 31.

One member of the black-capped chickadee pair (Poecile atricapillus) removes wood chips from the apple tree cavity.

Chickadees deposit excavated wood chips away from the nest site to avoid leaving signs for predators.

Will this pair nest in our apple tree? Black-capped chickadees prepare multiple nesting sites before the female chooses one, so we won’t know for a few weeks. Wherever they nest, the female will line the tree cavity with moss, soft plant fibers, feathers, hair and fur. She will lay 1-13 (usually 6-8) white eggs marked with reddish-brown spots. The female incubates the eggs and the male feeds her on the nest. Once the hatchlings are old enough to be alone for a short time, both parents feed them. Insects (including their eggs and caterpillars) and spiders comprise most of their high-protein summer diet. Black-capped chickadees also eat other small invertebrates, seeds, nuts and berries. They’ll visit seed and suet feeders in the winter. One cold afternoon, as I topped off our sunflower seed feeder, a cheeky chickadee landed on the edge of my filling-cup, snatched a seed off the top and flew into our arbor vitae hedge to either eat its treat, or cache it for another day.

Black-capped chickadees remain in Minnesota year round. They are common in much of the northern United States and most of Canada.

I enjoy the chickadees’ curiosity, high-energy antics and their melodious breeding calls, especially as winter drags on. Stay tuned to find out whether or not they nest in our apple tree.

Further Reading

Black-capped Chickadee; Audubon Bird Guide

Chickadee Delight. The Sleepy Eye Herald-Dispatch. February 3, 2020.

Haupt, Lyanda Lynn. The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild. (First edition). New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013.

January 26, 2021 by Beth

January Silence and Sound

Male cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis) typically begin singing during mid-January in Minnesota. (I photographed this fellow on a sunny winter morning.)

The weight of winter silence presses on my ears. Heavy snowflakes drape tree limbs, topple seed heads and cover squirrel nests with a crystalline blanket. Falling snow absorbs the whir of auto engines, which pass almost noiselessly down the street. Even the incessant hum of the airport is muffled.

Suddenly, in the snowy hush a northern cardinal sings: “What cheer-cheer-cheer-cheer.” He repeats his joyful song four times and falls silent. His call momentarily illuminates the quiet. His red brilliance punctuates the black, gray and white of a January snowfall.

It is the first time I’ve heard a cardinal sing since last summer. In Minnesota, they typically begin singing in mid-January and will soon renew pair bonds and breeding territories. I welcome his upbeat melody that, along with the lengthening daylight, signals another milestone on the journey to spring.

Winter Crane Flies

Maple and basswood line the banks of the Mississippi River.

We hike along the Mississippi River as a cloudless sky, calm wind and a mild 52°F settle in for the afternoon. (The average high for Minneapolis-Saint Paul is 28°F today.) Blue jays, black-capped chickadees, and red-bellied woodpeckers call; gray squirrels rattle through the crisp fallen leaves. The river’s surface is unmarked by ripple or wave, and two Canada geese float a few feet from shore, honking softly to each other.

Winter crane flies (Trichocera species) swarm and mate on mild winter days.

Wherever rays of winter sunlight stream through bare branches of basswood and maple, the air shimmers with small swarms of winter crane flies. The low December sun ignites their wispy forms into sparks of gold. They zip around as energetically as though it were July.

Most types of crane flies are abundant in summer. Just a few species mature and mate in the winter. The swarms shimmering in the afternoon sun consist mainly of males. Females join them briefly to mate, and then lay their eggs in rotting leaves and soil. When not in flight on mild days, the adults rest in protected areas such as hollow trees and caves. (What could they possibly find to eat during a Minnesota winter? Not much. In fact, adults typically don’t eat at all! The larvae eat rotting vegetation, fungi and animal scat.)

They sparkle like tiny gold jewels in patches of winter sunlight.

Winter crane flies are most common in late autumn, early spring and sometimes on mild winter days. Today, they never stray from the sun’s mild warmth — nor do we! A rare Minnesota December day, indeed, and one to remember when winter weather returns.

Seed Story

Prairie grass seeds glow in late-afternoon sun.

Seeds are tiny packets of possibility nestled in the earth. One could easily mistake a seed for a piece of soil, a pebble, or fragment of some spent plant. But each holds a spark of life waiting to ignite in spring’s intense sun and snowmelt.

I have loved seeds for as long as I can remember. As a young child I held morning glory, blue flax, nasturtium and snap dragon seeds as my mother prepared the ground for planting. She cultivated the soil, tossed out pebbles and broke up pieces of clay. We traced a shallow furrow in which I placed the seeds, buried them and watered them with her help.

In elementary school, we grew green beans in Dixie cups. A bean seed is substantial enough for a child to get a good grip on its silky-smooth shape. Our classroom bubbled with excitement the morning we arrived to find pale green sprouts pushing through the dirt! The challenge was to get the seedlings home without breaking them off. I grew mine on strings attached to the side of our garage; not fancy, but the stalks vined upward, blossomed white and yellow, and we ate fresh green beans a few weeks later.

Another year, my brother’s class grew pumpkins. He planted his seedlings in a corner of our urban backyard. By mid summer, baby pumpkins grew over, under and even between the wooden pickets of our fence! That October, he loaded his wagon, lugged it around the neighborhood and sold all of his pumpkins at the bargain price of 10 cents a piece.

I also cherish memories of teaching our son about seeds. We planted tomatoes, radishes, beans, carrots, dill, basil, parsley and borage. He loved to watch for the first sprouts and sampled the baby carrots and beans as they grew. On warm summer mornings, we’d gently run our hands over the herbs to release their aromas. One year, the parsley plants were host to eastern black swallowtail butterfly caterpillars. They demolished the parsley, but taught the butterfly life cycle hands-on.

Seeds of purple hyacinth (Lablab purpureus) and scarlet runner (Phaseolus coccineus) beans produce colorful blossoms and pods.

Some seeds are nondescript. Others hold beauty in their patterns, pods and shapes. Purple hyacinth bean seeds look like ice cream sandwiches and scarlet runner bean seeds are colored crimson and black like the last bit of light in a stormy evening sky. Canada columbine, Siberian iris and day lily seeds are shiny black beads that gleam in their spilt pods. Others, like white snakeroot and asters, are clouds of fluff designed to disperse on the wind. Whether humble or eye-catching, each must fall to the dirt, be buried and moistened. Only then can its journey to light and life begin.

Oblong black seeds and fluff of native white snakeroot (Ageratina altissima) ripen in October.

Ripe Canada columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) pods break open to release shiny, black seeds.

January 23, 2020 by Beth

Seeking Winter’s Beauty

Nature’s beauty is spare and uncomplicated in winter.

In the Upper Midwest, there’s little that isn’t hidden under layers of snow in January. What remains is pared down to basics: bare branches, open seed pods and stripped down stalks. Their lines are clean, sharp, punctuated by frozen fruit and picked-over seed heads.

Prickly seed heads of Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta).

Plump apples of the dwarf Tina Sargent crabapple (Malus sargentii ‘Tina’).

January’s color palette is simple: white, black, shades of brown, berry reds and green hues of conifers. Cloudless skies range from deep to powder blue during daylight, softening to a blue tint after sunset, and on moonshine nights, the snow glows with a cold, blue light seen only in midwinter.

Tart fruit of the nonpoisonous staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina).

Male downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens).

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca).

To find winter’s beauty requires ignoring the persistent desire to “just go back inside” to warm up! It is necessary to open one’s senses to the more subtle signs of life: perhaps you’ll hear the call of a black-capped chickadee, the tap-tap of a woodpecker looking for food, or the soft hoots of courting great-horned owls. Maybe you’ll spot the showy red of sumac fruit or plump crabapples. Perhaps you’ll touch the satiny inner lining of a milkweed pod, or the prickly seed head of a black-eyed Susan. If you’re fortunate enough to have native grasses growing nearby, stop for a moment and inhale their sweet, ripe scent — a lingering gift of autumn. Whenever you go outside, try to be open to winter’s spare beauty so very different from its abundance in spring, summer and autumn. Already the days are lengthening and the the sun is warmer. Winter will soon give way to spring.

A quiet place to observe winter’s beauty.

December 17, 2018 by Beth

A Nuthatch Winter

This male white-breasted nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) retrieved a seed from tree bark crevices. Notice the long, third toe used for balance.

The tiny, high-energy nuthatch is one of my favorite winter birds. Why the curious name “nuthatch”? “Hatch” was the Middle English word for hack or pound: nuthatches obtain much of their food by placing acorns and other nuts in bark crevices to hammer or hack open. They also store nuts and seeds under loose pieces of bark. Occasionally, I’ve seen red-breasted nuthatches with tiny twigs in their mouths and wondered if they were levering seeds out of a hiding place.

If you live near woods, or have trees in your yard, you’re likely to hear and see nuthatches. The white-breasted nuthatch is a year-round resident in Minnesota, and in most of the United States, Mexico and part of southern Canada.¹ Its smaller cousin, the red-breasted nuthatch, is present in fewer numbers during the winter because most remain on their northern breeding grounds — unless there’s a shortage of spruce seeds, their primary food. In that case, they migrate in large numbers to the northern and eastern United States. This movement is called an irruption and it’s happening in 2018. (I saw my first red-breasted nuthatch of the season in our backyard on August 27.)

Similar in size to a house sparrow, the white-breasted nuthatch is a small bird with a big voice. I hear them call on the coldest winter days when most birds are silent. Its call is described as a nasal “yank-yank”. During the breeding season, the males also make a nasal “wha-wha-wha” song. They like deciduous trees, especially white oaks. Favorite foods include the nuts or seeds of oak, hickory, beech, maple, pine and spruce in the winter. They often come to suet and sunflower seed feeders, too. Insects and spiders are choice foods for the summer.

This red-breasted nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) carries a shaving of red pine bark, which it broke off of the tree. (Photograph used with permission.)

The tiny red-breasted nuthatch is present year-round at our cabin in east central Minnesota. Smaller than its white-breasted cousin, it’s about the size of a kinglet. Its song is also a nasal,“yank-yank,” however, it is higher pitched and has been compared to the tone of a toy tin horn. They frequently make fast, high-pitched squeaking calls. Red-breasteds favor coniferous forests, but can also be found in deciduous woods, parks and yards during a winter irruption. They eat the nuts of spruce and other conifers in the winter, and visit feeders for suet, sunflower seeds and peanuts. Insects and spiders are summer favorites.

Nuthatches are cavity nesters — red-breasteds often select dead aspens because the wood is soft and easy to excavate. White-breasteds nest in both deciduous and conifer trees — they’ll frequently use an old woodpecker nest, rather than dig out a new cavity. Both build a bed of grass and shredded bark, then line it with fur, feathers and other soft material. Each species raises one brood per year.

White oaks are a favorite food source of white-breasted nuthatches.

Both species sport blue-gray, black, and white coloration. However, the red-breasted nuthatch has a wide, black eyestripe, whereas the white-breasted shows mainly white around its eye. Upper parts on both nuthatches are blue-gray. All have a black crown except for the female white-breasted nuthatch, which has a blue-gray crown. Red-breasted nuthatches have rusty or rufous-colored underparts in contrast to the white-breasted’s mainly bright, white belly. Both species have a long rear toe that is used to grip the bark of trees. (Other climbers, such as woodpeckers and brown creepers, use their tail to support themselves when climbing a tree trunk.)

Red-breasted nuthatches are easily identified by their small size, rusty colored underparts and high-pitched calls.

When you’re outside on winter days, listen for nuthatch “yank-yank-yank” calls and keep an eye on tree trunks for tiny blue-gray, black and white birds intently inspecting the bark. Since nuthatches often join small flocks of other winter birds, you might also see downy woodpeckers, brown creepers, chickadees and kinglets as an added bonus!

¹North America has four species of nuthatch: the brown-headed and pygmy nuthatches, in addition to the white-breasted and red-breasted nuthatches. There are 25 nuthatch species worldwide.

December 6, 2017 by Beth

November Bulbs: Hope for the Spring

‘Maureen’ tulip bulbs bloom in late spring.

In the darkness of a warm, late November evening, my sister planted hope for the spring in my garden: five waxy-smooth, tear drop-shaped “Maureen” tulip bulbs. As she dug the bulb planter into the moist earth, the soil released fresh scents of spicy bee balm, native geraniums, and the pleasant odor of dirt and old leaves.

We nestled each bulb into its own little chamber, filled each space with dirt, lightly watered them and returned the blanket of fallen leaves. I placed a temporary cover of chicken wire and stones on the soil, until it freezes, to discourage squirrels from digging up the bulbs.

Spring bulbs emerging from their winter sleep is a highlight of spring for me.

I think about those small packets of life tucked into the dark earth, and wait for them to ride out the winter. Yes, it’s later than desirable to plant bulbs, but it is how it worked out this year for many reasons. I choose to have hope that they will survive. While I wait, I’ll dream of a mild April day when I’ll walk out the back door and spot bright green shoots poking up through the wet soil. I’ll watch them form buds and bloom; cool ivory against a field of blue Siberian squill and green foliage. In a special way, I will recall the two “Maureens” in my life: a wise aunt who died this past summer and a wonderful young niece who shares her name.

A ‘Maureen’ tulip from a previous spring.

March 1, 2017 by Beth

Winter Trees

A weathered old northern red oak (still living) has been a home to many birds and other animals.

A weathered old northern red oak (Quercus rubra) is home to many species of birds and other animals.

A tree’s beauty is easily noticed in three seasons: Spring’s first green haze of buds; summer’s rustling crown of leaves; and autumn’s smoldering colors. Winter uncovers a different kind of beauty: that of bark, interesting shapes, animal shelters and open sky — the guts of things not often seen.

A small stand of northern red oak, at our cabin along the Snake River in Pine County, MN, includes a tree that was sheared off in a summer windstorm two decades ago. Neighboring branches hide the jagged top most of the year, but in winter the scarred wood’s polished grain and shape are revealed, along with hidden nesting cavities. Squirrels, great-crested flycatchers, red-bellied woodpeckers and most recently, pileated woodpeckers have nested and raised their young in this red oak.

Crabapple trees (Malus) provide food for many birds and add winter color.

Crabapple trees, especially those with long-lasting fruit, add warm crimson to the stark black and white landscape. Their small shapes and curving branches remind me of bonsai trees. By late spring, most of the plump fruit will be consumed by cedar waxwings and robins.

The bark of river birch (Betula nigra) is multicolored and has a shredded texture.

Bark patterns and colors are more pronounced in winter with fewer distractions from the rest of the plant world. One of my favorites is the papery bark of the river birch. The colors range from soft brown to salmon, pink and ivory. The bark shreds and flutters in the wind. Paper birch bark (Betula papyrifera) is pretty too, especially at sunrise and sunset when low rays add blush to the tips of twigs and branches.

White spruce (Picea glauca) and other evergreens shelter many creatures.

The white spruce has grayish-red bark with a rough mosaic-like texture. Its evergreen branches shelter cardinals, kinglets, juncos and chickadees. At the end of winter, new burgundy cones appear, like tiny ornaments, on the tips of branches.

New cones form on a white spruce.

Winter trees reveal the hidden face of nature — textures, hues, patterns weathered and worn — and more open sky to view the moon, stars and urban sunsets; beauty to the eye that looks carefully. What do you see?

Winter sunset over Saint Paul, MN, on Feb. 22, 2017.