Late Winter Observations
Last week Mary wrote about a winter of contentment. It has also been that for me, but I am ready for something else. I feel the promise of spring. Robert Frost’s poem describes my mood.
A Dust of Snow
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued
About 20 years ago we remodeled our 130 – 135 year old farm house. We added a solar greenhouse, a fireplace, an upstairs bathroom and two large picture windows that face west to the back portion of our one and a half acre lot. Between the two picture windows is a stack of three small windows that can be opened for fresh air. Outside, two wisteria vines shade the windows from the south and west afternoon summer sun.
Looking out these windows, we can see to the west what remains of two rows of Norway spruce trees that were probably planted as a windbreak. There are four Christmas trees, planted when our kids were younger. The tallest, a white pine, must be 50 feet high. A sycamore that was 3 feet tall when it was planted in l962, is now perhaps 70 feet tall. There are several fruit trees, nut trees and other deciduous trees. Birds use the fruit of June berries, high bush cranberries, the cherries and the Washington hawthorn that is about 15 feet from the windows.
From our table where we eat all our meals, we have a great view to the west. A rocking chair with a nearby table and a reading lamp is also a favorite place for viewing the birds, coming storms and sunsets.
Birds feed from five feeders containing black sunflower. A thistle feeder just a few feet away from the windows attracts finches, pine siskins, and chickadees. About 25 pine siskins are feeding there now. Two suet locations bring in woodpeckers, nuthatches, and to some degree of aggravation, starlings. The suet basket holders are hung so that the only way the birds can get to the suet is to climb up the tree trunk to the bottom of the feeder. The starlings give up after several attempts.
Since we began keeping records, 85 species of birds have been sighted within or from our yard. Since December 1 to date, we have seen 30 species of birds from our back windows. The total minimal numbers of different birds seen is 292. That sum is derived from counting the highest number of the different species seen at any one time.
A bald eagle was sighted at three different times. The count includes four hawks: the northern harrier, the red-tail, the Cooper’s, and the sharp-shinned. Seven mourning doves were seen on one occasion last week. An estimated fifty crows landed in a black walnut in the backyard. The crows are continually after the hawks.
Other special sightings include a brown creeper, red-breasted nuthatches, a Carolina wren, and a red poll, which first appeared Jan. 29th on the thistle feeder. Red polls were last seen in the yard over 30 years ago.
A single robin was seen Dec. 15 , 18 more on Feb. l and an estimated 75 along with 13 cedar waxwings on Feb. 10 ate the remainder of the red fruit from the Washington hawthorn.
This seems to be the year of cardinals. Seventeen were seen at one time, including only three females. Cardinals have great difficulty feeding from our globe feeders. Since they cannot perch, they sometimes act like humming birds and grab a sunflower seed on the wing. I recently observed a cardinal grab a limber pear branch that was below the feeder, fly while holding onto the branch until it was just opposite a port, grab a seed, settle down on the branch, now about 15 inches below the feeder and hull and eat the seed. The cardinal repeated this procedure two more times while grasping the same place on the limb the entire time. Our neighbor, Merle Ranker, watched a male cardinal remove a seed from their feeder and give it to his female only about four feet away!
Another pleasure this winter season has been harvesting lettuce and tomatoes from our solar greenhouse. Bibb lettuce seeds were planted in a flower pot last November, and the young seedlings were transferred to a bed of compost, soil mixture. Some were placed in potting soil in 3 inch plastic pots. Both places have yielded nice compact heads beginning about Jan. 1. A foliar application of fertilizer was applied about every two weeks.
Tomato seeds were started in Feb. 1998. Four plants were transferred to the back part of a bed which has soil about ten inches deep. The plants were staked and tied. Two more plants from suckers from the original plants were placed in the front of the bed. They began to produce fruit and have continued to produce more than we can use since June of l998. Older growth was pruned away and new “sucker” growth was encouraged by the application of foliar fertilizer every two weeks. There is no supplemental heat to the greenhouse, and because of the many dark cold days of winter, the fruits are small but still very tasty.
In a week or two we should see snowdrops, the yellow flowers of witch hazel, and spice bush. The skunk cabbage flowering structure is now poking its head through the snow.
We’ll soon see an end to winter.
– Percy