Farrar Pond

In praise of parthenocissus

Virginia creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, is surely one of our finest native vines. Propagated by birds, it shows up almost everywhere, and is easily propagated deliberately from rooted ground sections. It is self-supporting, but much more benign to structures than other strong clinging vines like Campsis radicans (trumpetvine) or the climbing hydrangeas. It also offers possibly the best autumn coloration of any native plant except Toxicodendron radicans, which has certain human-compatibility issues.

Virginia creeper, when grown in good light, delivers a profusion of blue berries in the fall. In a year of abundant alternative food supplies, these will typically reach complete ripeness before being harvested in a one- or two-day sweep by birds like these yellow-shafted flickers

that arrived in a group of four

and stayed all day. The ruckus attracted larger cousins

and true-blue friends

leaving the vines bare but still beautiful by sundown.

Highly recommended as a natural enhancement for snags, stumps, living trees and constructions like this pergola, which also supports a deep-red Lonicera sempervirens (Alabama Crimson honeysuckle) to attract hummingbirds and a sweet autumn Clematic terniflora to attract people.

The immortal chestnut/2

(Please see earlier post.)

Many of the developing burrs are knocked off by wind and rain before maturing. But with fair weather and good fortune, a few complete development

and are released

to the forest floor, or into the waiting jaws of squirrels. In this case, the tree produced about 15 burrs, from all of which only three nuts seem large enough to be viable. Collected before dropping from the opened case—a window of only a day or so—these are now being stratified in an un-natural refrigerator in hope of germination next spring.

(Please see what comes next.)

A long first journey

The beginning of June (in normal years; mid-May this time around the sun) times the arrival of hummingbirds from above and gravid turtles from below. On just one house lot not quite neighboring the pond, an average of 12~15 snapping and eastern painted turtles lay, mainly during a two-week period. (Layovers in smaller satellite and garden ponds allow the expectant mothers to delay laying for up to a few weeks.)

Bleached duckweed

Seeking friable or sandy soil and good southern exposure, most seem to survive difficult trek through rough woodland, up steep banks and past other obstructions, with predator attack or automobile accident claiming a few.

The majority of these nests do not survive their first night, scent cues of turtle and disturbed earth attracting ovivores within hours of most nestings. By the end of the first week, hundreds of leathery remains signal good fortune for skunks, raccoons and perhaps others (see p.27).

A sad day for chelydra-kind

However, just enough evade detection to maintain (apparently) stable populations. Hatching occurs throughout the autumn, occasionally on a warm day in winter, and is sometimes delayed until the following spring.

New-born snapping turtle, yolk all et up

Hatchlings are easy prey for all sorts of land animals, bullfrogs and birds. If adults can take several hours to trek up from the pond, the journey back for a toddler that cannot clamber over rocks and branches must be heroic indeed.

Then, after a few years on a diet of worms and leeches and ducks, half (depending on incubation temperature) may return to continue the cycle.

First sight of the promised land – er, water

Weeding by Thor

Cloud-to-cloud

Don’t stand under a tall tree during a storm…

Late on Friday afternoon, a brief but violent thunderstorm took a narrow track through town. Along with gusty winds and hail came an unusual amount of lightning. On this side-road above Farrar Pond, a bolt hit slightly below the top of a 90-foot eastern white pine

After the strike

causing a steam explosion that blew warm bark and bone-dry shards all around the area. A large amount of energy was apparently deposited in a zone about 18 feet up from the ground, leaving a little soot from pyrolized pitch

and blasting out about two yards of the tree’s core.

Heartwood attack

The trunk was split vertically along two lines, leaving most of the mass supported by a narrow strip in the middle. The whole thing teetered alarmingly (see video here) so police closed that part of the street until a sharp gust of wind finished the take-down on Saturday afternoon

with enough force to land the whole upper section all the way out onto the street. Remarkably, the top missed wires—including the new 13,000V lines—that occupy more than 180° azimuth of possible fall paths. The large rhododendrons inside the circle were damaged, but should largely recover in 3-5 years. Clearing the street kept axe and mule team busy for a couple of hours

and then the good folks from the Highway Department came to remove the mess.

So now there’s a scenic new snag for the woodpeckers, and some other upstanding tree can take the next hit.

The immortal chestnut

Just about the time Farrar Pond was filling, a disease was discovered among American chestnut trees in Long Island. Within Ed Farrar’s lifetime, Castanea dentata, the dominant tree in many eastern forests, was all but extinct. An estimated four billion chestnut trees were lost, and with them a staple food, valued lumber and shade tree that inspired memorable poetry.

A handful of specimens—not even a thousandth of what stood in our great-grandparents’ time—survive in the wild: not (as with elms resistant to their own blight) due to some happy accident of genetics, and therefore suitable for rebreeding. They are, rather, scattered in places remote enough that they simply have not yet been infected.

An active national program, represented in Lincoln at the Umbrello Farm, is breeding in blight-resistant Chinese-American crosses. The hope is that a 15/16ths native will prove hardy while maintaining nearly the American phenotype. Results due in soon…

Meanwhile, the roots system of our native species is fairly resistant to the blight. So an infected tree will sometimes survive as a natural coppice: after a few or a few dozen years’ growth (typically not quite to 6″ girth), the trunk will become diseased and die, leaving a living “stool” at the root crown. Strolling the woods here, one often finds a mixed clump of weathered deadwood, dying trunks, and new shoots to keep the process going. It is a fine metaphor for the persistence of life in difficult circumstances.

An abundant harvest

Where conditions are favorable, these barely mature trees will set seed before succumbing. Proof that viable nuts can be produced is all around the pond, in the form of seedling and sapling chestnut trees on new, small roots. And because their spiky defenses are effective against predators, one can often find burrs singly or in clusters ripening on the tree

Almost ripe

or lying all about its base. Perhaps one day a naturally immune nut will appear; in just a few thousand years, it may again be possible for a squirrel to travel from the Atlantic to the Mississippi without ever leaving the branches of the native chestnut.

(Click here for the sequel.)

Oriole photographs taken May 7, 2012

Mayflies

There’s a huge hatch this morning. Genus Hexagenia?

Early turtle

Painted and snapping turtles clamber up the steep banks of Farrar Pond and through rough woodland, sometimes for hundreds of yards. When these energetic parents identify just the right patch of friable soil, they scoop out a narrow hole with their hind legs, pack it full of eggs and soil, moisten it, and head for home. Sadly for the turtles, most of these nests are predated before the next morning; a scattering of leathery shells is all that remains of more than 90% of the nests. But enough survive to carry on the lineages.

If the expectant mothers find a vernal pool or other small pond like this one, they may rest and refresh for up to several weeks before laying, and then immediately return to the larger body of water.

Chrysemys picta relaxing at the spa

This year, like so many other flora and fauna here, the turtles are out a couple of weeks early. Please drive slowly near ponds, swamps and streams; a black turtle hides all too well on an asphalt road.