The Second Snow

Snow finally arrived last night, having been loathe to return ever since its much criticized, heavy footed miscue back in October. My daughter, deciding the snow was insufficient for sledding, chose instead to send her little people on an exhilarating slide off the rooftop, aided by a broom handle.

Later on, some paddleboating in snow? What were they thinking? At least it got them outdoors.

This seemed much more sensible--some restful cloudbathing after their brief but exciting sledding venture, and a bit of stretching. Many a time have I thought there should be a designated "Conspicuous Stretching Zone" in the park, where parents wishing to spend their time more productively could feel permitted to assume various self-improving poses, free of any sense of awkwardness.

I didn't see how this contraption fit into the narrative. There was no enemy castle in sight, into which to hurl plague-infested pigs. Perhaps they thought it would be a good way to get back to the second floor.

As the day's light faded, a couple hardy northerners, dreaming of winters past, looked longingly out across the lake, wondering when the ice will be thick enough to skate on.

Nature Stereotype Listing Badly

In part to lure an audience, television tends to emphasize the violent side of nature. Preferential exposure is given to storms, wildfires and animals with big teeth. When nature is consistently portrayed as an adversary, people may forget that its primary role is as an ally, and that it's up to us whether we want to work with its forces or against them.

The latest contribution to the stereotype of nature as adversary is an ad seen last week immediately following the Miss America contest. We had finally strayed from Ingrid Bergman's improbable romance with Anthony Perkins in "Goodbye, Again" just in time to see Miss Wisconsin crowned the new Miss America, which closed with an ad for Carnival Cruises. They've launched a new ad campaign that compares land-based and sea-based vacations.

In the ad, a couple gazing serenely out at the ocean, drinks in hand, flash back to last year's camping vacation, when they were trapped in a car out in the woods by an enormous grizzly bear and mountain lion, pawing at the car, trying to get at the occupants. "Never again.", the woman says. Obviously, it's best to avoid the dangers of nature in favor of a safe, clean vacation on a massive cruise ship.

The ad segued immediately, improbably, into ABC evening news' lead story about the cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Italy. Eleven found dead thus far, at least 24 missing. The ship is owned by a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation. April 15 will be the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's demise. Not a great time to be touting cruises as safer than a camping trip.

Backyard Bird Numbers Down?

I'm hearing reports from friends that their backyard birdfeeders are not needing as frequent refills as in past years, meaning there are fewer birds around. Though we don't have a birdfeeder, I noticed a flurry of bird activity in the backyard in early to mid-December, with mixed groups of birds visiting and then moving on, but have seen almost none since then.

This from Bill Sachs of Princeton:

In winters past, we have had to replenish the seed in our backyard birdfeeder at least twice a week.  This winter, the birds seem  noticeable by their absence and the interval between needed refills has exceeded two weeks!  Oh, we have birds visiting the feeder from time-to-time, especially mourning doves and blue jays, but visits by chickadees, titmice, nuthatches and wood peckers seem much reduced.  I am curious because there was a review article in a recent edition of Science magazine on “Globalization, Land Use, and the Invasion of West Nile Virus” (A. M. Kilpatrick, Science, 334: 323-327) in which the author writes,

“The impacts of WNV on wildlife have been yet more severe than those on humans.  Millions of birds have died from WNV infection, and regional-scale population declines of >50% have been observed for several species (11).  The range of taxa that have suffered declines is surprisingly large and includes corvids, chickadees and titmice, wrens, and thrushes (Fig. 1) and probably others.  Some populations have recovered after initial declines, whereas others have not.”

And this from an avid birder in town:

We too have had fewer birds at our feeder. Don't know why. Maybe mild weather, more berries, more insects? We've had a lot of Red-Tailed Hawks in the neighborhood, too. Declines of migratory birds, e.g., thrushes, have been occurring over a few decades, and that's due to multiple factors, including loss of winter habitat in the tropics. Among the year-round residents, or short distance migrants, disease could be a factor. Blue Jays were victims a while back, but seem to have recovered. House Finches, on the other hand, were decimated by disease a few years ago and have not come back.


Note: Ran into Henry Horn, professor emeritus at the PU Dept. of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, who agrees that birds are very scarce. Closer to usual numbers are bluejays, crows and Carolina wrens. 


Note #2: Data from the Princeton Christmas Bird Count, and also from the national Cornell Backyard Feeder Watch, will be available soon. I'll post that when it comes in.

Puerto Rico and Princeton--Parallels in a Rainforest

Even in a tropical rainforest, witnessed during a hike up El Yunque, it's possible to find parallels to Princeton's nature. El Yunque rises into the clouds 40 minutes southeast of San Juan, its slopes populated by a mix of palms and hardwoods. The Puerto Rican coqui frogs sing "ko-kee" along the path to the top.

With only the diminutive ferns of temperate forests as a reference, one has to get used to the concept of looking upward at a 30 foot high tree fern reaching into the clouds.

As in Princeton, nettles are found near streams,

Since jewel weed (Impatiens capensis) is a frequent companion of nettle in Princeton's floodplains, it wasn't surprising to find an Impatiens species growing along the trails in a Puerto Rican rainforest,

doing a good imitation of the Impatiens planted as annuals in northern gardens.

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The Impatiens in El Yunque have the same spring-loaded mechanism for distributing seeds as our jewelweed.

The mountain, with its opulent vegetation providing abundant surface area for water to cling to, acts like a sponge to capture rainfall and slowly release it into the surrounding lands below. Though it was recommended to take rain gear, we found that weather changed constantly during the day. If a light rain started, we needed only wait five minutes for some other weather to come along. I speculated, purely for the sake of speculation, that such mild, free-flowing, constantly transitioning weather would influence people to hold less tightly to moods.

It was a surprise, in such an exotic world, to find information about two familiar birds. This sign tells of spectacular mating flights to be seen above the rainforest cainopy by redtailed and broadwinged hawks.

When I travel to other parts of America, I look for parallels to two species shot to extinction in the early 1900s in North America--the Carolina parakeet and the passenger pigeon. Puerto Rico's one remaining native parrot, which may share little relation to the Carolina parakeet other than family and color, still survives in small numbers in El Yunque National Forest.

Puerto Rico: Stalking the Elusive Baby Pigeon

While visiting Old San Juan, the question may come up: What to do while the next generation is feeding pigeons in the park? Break into a rendition of Mary Poppins' Feed the Birds in espanol?

Or take a photo of a hibiscus tree,

or a colorful caterpillar feasting on a favored plant?

Finally, my mission of the moment came into focus. I remembered a segment from a radio program years back called "Ask Dr. Science (He Knows More Than You Do!)", in which Dr. Science explained why we never see baby pigeons. I forget what the answer was--something about the species' deeply engrained embarrassment over the appearance of its young. This wall of nests seemed the perfect opportunity to finally get a glimpse. Yet even here, the babies were kept so well hidden that the enigma remains, at least until you google "baby pigeons" and click on images.

Puerto Rico: Skinless Trees and People

On the way to the historic fort El Morro, in Old San Juan, we encountered something that looked less like a tree than a sculpture built of rebar.

This branch is reminiscent of a man's arm without the skin, or an exagerated version of one of Princeton's musclewood trees (Carpinus caroliniana).

This sort of growth is common in more tropical climes, particularly among species of fig (Ficus). If you google images for strangler fig, you'll see all sorts of extravagant examples.

As explained in a Wikipedia entry, a strangler fig can actually begin its life above ground, sprouting on the limb of another tree, then extend its roots down towards the ground while also sending branches and trunk upward. Over time, the original tree dies off and the strangler fig completely usurps the space.

Some of our invasive vine species in New Jersey, such as English ivy, can weaken their host tree, but they don't develop the sturdy infrastructure to continue to stand if the original tree dies.

By chance, there was an exhibition called Body Worlds just down the street in San Juan,

featuring skinless renderings of people. As a friend once said after seeing pictures of her vocal cords, there's a good reason why people have skin.

And at a local museum, a similarly fibrous merging of tree and human. It's tempting to think the painting was inspired by the local strangler figs.

Puerto Rico and Princeton--Buttress Roots

One of the pleasures of an acquaintance with plants is being able to see similarities and differences in distant plant worlds. Some of our potted plants, such as the pothos vine and various kinds of fig trees that show little ambition while standing neglected in a dimly lit corner, grow to enormous size outdoors in tropical climes.

The roots of fig trees can be as impressive as their canopies.

Here's one, growing next to dormitories at the University of Puerto Rico, that brings back memories of flying buttresses on European cathedrals.

If this tree were to ever blow over, which is looking very unlikely, it would take the wall with it.

Princeton offers a few examples of root buttressing. This white oak grows on a lower slope of the Princeton Ridge, in Herrontown Woods, where the soil is often wet for long periods.

Fire's Ecological Role

Fire is an important and beneficial ecological force. Writers like Stephen Pyne have documented how it was in past centuries an important tool for maintaining meadows and open woodlands even along the east coast. Many native plant species have evolved adaptations to and even dependency on periodic fire. In  past years, living in the midwest and later the piedmont of North Carolina, I was fortunate to participate in controlled burns of some small prairies. One prairie was right in the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where they regularly burn native prairie grasses and woodlands in their parks, in a very controlled way, of course. Controlled burns are being done at a few preserves in New Jersey, as described in a previous post about Schiff Nature Preserve 30 miles north of Princeton, and more widespread use would undoubtedly benefit habitat and ecological health.

This storyline is seldom encountered in news reports, which focus on war-like responses to wildfires out west.   A post at another website of mine speaks to the gap in people's knowledge perpetuated by this unbalanced reporting: Rethinking News Coverage of Wildfires.

Communal Bath for Robins

Flocks of robins have been appreciating the backyard minipond the last couple days, arriving in flocks of 20 or so to splash in the shallow water. Their frenzied head-dipping is reminiscent of the movement of the birds on this toy, and wooden birds are much more cooperative in front of a camera.

While half of the flock is in the water, the other half remains perched in the overhanging branches, to keep a keen eye or two out for any approaching photographers. The old apple tree next to the pond, half of its branches dead, serves this function well. The human inclination is to trim trees up and remove all the dead branches, but the birds make it clear they like lots of perches of varied heights--the better to scope out the ground before dropping in.

Let Them Be Cake?

Back in the early 90's, I had two jobs--taking care of indoor plants at a university, and playing weekends in a wedding band. Sometimes the band would play at large surburban reception hall complexes that serviced multiple wedding receptions simultaneously. During breaks, we'd walk the hallways, ornamented increasingly with plastic plants, and note how wedding parties were trending towards hiring D.J.s instead of bands. Real plants and musicians were steadily being replaced by imitations.

Given that indoor plants, and saxophonists playing Top 40 pop/rock, are seriously displaced from their preferred habitats, their phasing out cannot be compared to the rapid changes in habitat many native species are up against.

Something about this polar bear,

these penguins, and the Santa, encased like museum displays, made me wonder if and when the penguins of the southern seas, and the polar bears of the north, will join Santa in the world of make believe and memory. It wasn't a very sweet thought to mix with all that frosting.

The next day, part of the answer was provided by Stephanie Pfirman of Columbia University in a fascinating talk at Princeton University entitled "Managing Arctic Sea Ice".

The quick answer, for those in a hurry, appears to be that polar bear numbers will be decimated in coming decades, but that a residual population might survive through most of the century in an area just north of Greenland, where computer models suggest summer sea ice will linger. Her talk did not focus on penguins, though she did say that one colony of Emperor penguins at the South Pole has already disappeared, for reasons linked to changing climate. Changes at the South Pole are more subtle thus far than in the Arctic. Here is fuller account of her talk:

She began in an uncharacteristic way for a scientist. Back in 1992, when scientists assumed that the big impacts of climate change were 100 years off, she had a dream in which she was flying over the arctic, and all the ice was gone.

Her dream is looking prescient. It is now believed that most of the summer ice in the Arctic Ocean will be gone by 2035, and with it most of the habitat for polar bears and the ringed seals they feed on. Already, the diminishing summer sea ice has triggered polar bear cannibalism and interbreeding with grizzlies.

They still expect the Arctic Ocean to freeze over in winter, but the ice cover is getting progressively thinner. Ice that was 4 meters thick before is now half that. As ice melts in the summer, deep blue water is exposed, which absorbs solar energy that was before being reflected back out into space by the snow-covered ice. (Much like the difference between having a white roof, or a dark-colored one, on your house.) This radical shift, from reflection to absorption of energy, is causing much more rapid heating of the arctic than, say, is occurring in New Jersey.

The food chain of polar cod, seals and polar bears is being further stressed, surprisingly, by pollution that is carried on trade winds from northern Europe and Asia. As an example, Inuit indians have some of the highest levels of PCBs anywhere, and as temperatures warm, these pollutants become more mobile in the arctic ecosystem. Oil spills, an inevitable result as easier access to the Arctic attracts extractive industries, will pose an additional threat.

There is one small hope, however. Pfirman and others have used modeling to determine that the last vestiges of summer sea ice later this century will be found in an area north of Greenland. Discussions are underway to create a refuge there. In this way, a small portion of polar bears has a chance of surviving after others perish.

Though I felt a flush of sadness at the beginning of her talk, Pfirman described the devastating changes in a matter of fact way. Scientific inquiry can have its satisfactions, even when the subject of study is a human-driven process heading full tilt towards tragedy. People in dead-end jobs can seek new ones, but a polar bear in a dead-end habitat does not have that luxury. Some would say a polar bear is inferior because it cannot adapt, yet we are the one's who most clearly show a refusal to change, even in the face of well-studied consequences. It's the scientist's spirit of inquiry, that capacity to be dispassionate and yet deeply engaged, that we could all use, to get past the paralysis of guilt and denial, and figure out what we can do.

A Visit From the Claw

A Visit From The Claw

'Twas the month before Christmas, when all through the town,

The streets were chocked full of great mounds of brown--

Yardwaste and tree limbs, dumped without care,

In hopes that the street crew soon would be there.

The kids, how they wished they could jump in a pile

Of leaves dry and crisp, where they'd linger awhile.

But all dreams were dashed! Their dad called a halt

To such thoughts of venturing near the asphalt.

The streets had become so exceedingly narrow,

That bicyclists mixed with the cars at their peril.

The street drains were clogged, the rains made a river.

I watched this insane spectacle with a shiver.

When just down the way there arose such a clatter.

I sprang to the door to see what was the matter.

From round the next corner at once there appeared

A caravan that was demonstrably weird.

With dump truck and pickup and street crew I saw

A giant contraption with grappling claw

That groaned as it scooped up the leaves in great gobs.

One thing that was clear was they wouldn't lose their jobs.

For no sooner did they the street cleaner make,

Than neighbors dumped even more leaves in their wake.

The mounds they grew higher than ever before.

I guessed that our town had gone nuts at the core.

How could such a state of affairs come to pass?

What sense underlies this self-made morass?

Is decomposition a thing to be purged

From yards prim and proper that so blandly merge?

The leaves, they have value, it's clear, don't you see?

To earthworms and robins and flowers and trees.

Let's make room between the back fenceline and shrubs,

And there place the leaves as good food for the grubs.

Hidden from view they will quietly mellow.

As Jefferson did at beloved Monticello.

To ground they return; no need for more work.

As they flatten and fade, no varmints will lurk.

Let humus and nutrients there feed your soil.

The mulch will kill weeds, and save you some toil.

The leaf-softened ground will soak up the rain

And lessen the floods that now seem to gain.

Or, grind up the leaves as you last mow the grass.

Okay, so it might take just one extra pass.

But saved be our streets from a public display

Of all that in nature is meant to decay.

I know that I'm fighting a dominant force,

That flouts local law as a matter of course.

No bureaucrat dares to deliver a fine,

Risking taxpayer wrath of a virulent kind.

But speak up I must, and speak up I will

As long as the streets continue to fill.

This dumping is wrong. It's an ongoing blight.

To all who love sense: Let's fight the good fight!

Background: Yesterday, a man overheard me talking to a friend at the Arts Council about all the leaves clogging the streets. He came over and said that West Windsor has the same problem, and that their town council had just thrown its hands up in exasperation, for lack of a solution to the annual deluge of leaves. The thought of towns all over New Jersey struggling with the same intractable problem, mixed perhaps with the flush of vitamins from eating swiss chard from the backyard garden, had the unexpected effect of later moving me to verse, which I read yesterday night at the Princeton borough council meeting. When faced with adversity, write a poem. By coincidence, The Claw came by our house as I was writing it. My apologies to Clement Clarke Moore for rerouting his 1822 "A Visit From St. Nicholas" down a very messy street.

Recycling Information

Three recent posts at another of my blogs, PrincetonPrimer.org, offer information about recycling in Princeton, including a cargo bike that ferries recyclable plastic from the Whole Earth Center to the township recycling bins. Here are the specific links:

http://princetonprimer.blogspot.com/2011/12/whats-recyclable-and-where-our.html

http://princetonprimer.blogspot.com/2011/12/are-rollout-bins-right-for-princeton.html

http://princetonprimer.blogspot.com/2011/11/cargo-bicycle-on-princetons-streets.html

Ivy's Deadly Embrace

This picture tells the story of a neighbor's Kentucky Coffee Tree  laid low by English Ivy's long embrace. The smaller trunks are the ivy, which had climbed far up into the canopy of the tree. During the freak snowstorm earlier this fall, the snow clung to all that extra surface area created by the ivy, the extra weight of which toppled the tree. The fallen tree blocked the street for a week.

My backyard, too, is in an uncomfortable embrace of English ivy, in that the vine is invading from the neighbor's yard to the north,

cascading in over the ramparts facing the park to the east,

and creeping over, under and through the fence to the south. If a neighbor's runoff is flowing into my yard, I can change the contour of the ground to direct it away from the house, and consider the problem largely solved. But the flow of ivy in from neighbor's yards cannot be diverted, and instead creates a perennial chore.

The moral of this story? Never plant english ivy anywhere that its potential to spread is not blocked on all sides by lawn, pavement or foundation. Cut english ivy off of any tree you wish to live. Better yet, never plant english ivy, and remove as much as you can from your yard.

One approach to getting rid of it without working too terribly hard can be found at http://princetonnaturenotes.blogspot.com/2007/11/ivy-control-part-2.html.  Other related posts can be found by typing the words english ivy in the search box at the upper left corner of this blog.

A Flock of Robins

If I were organized enough to keep faithful track of when migratory birds pass through, I would write neatly and clearly in that hypothetical journal that on Friday, Nov. 25th, some exact number of robins, let's say 15, visited the backyard, accompanied by a few white-throated sparrows, juncos and chicadees. The robins busied themselves flipping over red oak leaves in search of delectable insects or worms hiding underneath. A robin's orange breast starts making complete sense as camouflage once you see it amongst the similarly colored leaves, as if one were the reflection of the other.

When I lived in the piedmont of North Carolina, there would be one day in the fall when hundreds of robins would descend upon the neighborhood and strip the dogwoods of their ripe, red berries. If we were lucky, we saw a green female scarlet tanager mixed in. I've often wondered how these migrations are fairing since an introduced disease greatly reduced the numbers of flowering dogwoods in the eastern forests, and whether the timing of berry ripening and the birds' arrival is being thrown off by climate change. Nature has adjusted to very gradual changes in the past, but the multiple changes--new species, new temperature regimes--we're throwing at it are by comparison very rapid.

The Annual Purging of Leaves

One of this blog's "pages" (listed in the right column as Leaves) contains my annual letter to the editor calling for clean streets and backyard composting, and each year the dumping of leaves, dirt, grassclippings, branches and garden trimmings on the pavement becomes more emphatic and non-stop. The power of the pen is overrated.

What does a tidy yard gain the homeowner if the street in front of it is clogged with debris? It's as if we've disowned the public space. Dumping on the streets has become a year-round, essentially unregulated activity.

True, the leaves, etc. eventually end up getting composted outside of town, but collecting leaves is a highly mechanized, gas-gulping process that makes municipal workers unavailable for other tasks.

And leaves the streets strewn with organic debris that then adds a nutrient load to local waterways.

Streets function essentially as ephemeral creeks, connected directly to local streams, so that the dumping of organic matter in the streets is akin to dumping directly into a waterway--an urge society was supposed to have cured itself of decades ago.

There was a time when leaves were appreciated, not only for their rich fertilizer value but for their beauty and the joy a pile of dry, crisp leaves can bring to kids.

Many homeowners have abundant space in back, yet make a point of raking all leaves to the street. Seeking to comprehend, I came up with two new possible reasons this year: 1) the frenetic pace of life has caused people to reject the relatively slow pace of decomposition, and 2) since homeowners often take their cues from neighbors, the highly visible practice of dumping leaves on the streets is more readily imitated than the comparatively hidden practice of piling leaves in a corner of the backyard.

Thanksgiving Article on Chestnuts in NY Times

Last year on Thanksgiving, the New York Times had an oped piece on the surprising role eels played in early Thanksgivings, and in American diets in general. This year, there's a wide-ranging piece on chestnuts, which among other things explains why my store-bought chestnuts didn't keep well in the cupboard. Lacking the fat content that helps preserve nuts like walnuts and peanuts, chestnuts need to be kept refrigerated, the article says. Cooking them after they had sat for a week in the kitchen cupboard, I found that the leathery inner skin had become inseparable from the meat.

Frost and Water on Kale

Water interacts in interesting ways with a backyard kale leaf. Here's frost one recent morning, like a miniature game of pick-up sticks.

Put a curly kale leaf underwater, and it develops glittery metalic highlights, much like a jewelweed leaf.

The waxy underside of curly kale gathers water into droplets.

In the same genre, an oak leaf fringed by frost, reminiscent somehow of a deer antler.

Walking Tour of D&R Canal in Trenton Sunday

The Delaware & Raritan Canal Watch will hold a free walking tour of the D and R Canal feeder in Trenton on Sunday at 10am, Nov. 20. The walk will explore the part of the canal feeder between Cadwalader Park and the junction with the main canal at Old Rose Street. 

      More info at the DR Canal Watch website.