PawPaws and Waterthrushes-Hidden Jewels

This spring I took a trip to Barren River State Park in western Kentucky.  I had been asked to give a talk to the Kentucky Ornithological Society. The trip was squozed in between a couple of others, and I knew it'd be tight, but I wanted to see something of Kentucky, as I'd only been to Louisville and back. It was a beautiful place, just as I knew it would be. 

 Lyre-leaved sage Salvia lyrata turned the meadows misty blue

 and I learned something about pawpaws I hadn't known.

A few were still in bloom, but most of them were fruiting, a couple of weeks ahead of ours in southern Ohio.

 I learned that each pawpaw flower can make a bunch of little fruits, which explains something I"d always wondered. I'd see a small pawpaw tree with maybe five flowers on it, and then in September I'd see clusters of fruit. Well, those clusters all come from one little flower.  And here they are, the baby fruits forming. I was so excited I squealed.

 In September, they'll look like this, each the size of a small mango. Five in this cluster! Pretty cool.

Overhead, summer tanagers sang their halting songs in leafy fastnesses

and I crept silently through the underbrush to catch a glimpse of a pileated woodpecker and yes, I was pretending it was his huge cousin Campephilus--the setting was so perfect for seeing black, white and scarlet streaking and hitching through the watery mystery

I was helping my new KOS friend Scott Marsh--the tall one; that's my other Kentucky friend Carol Besse, president of KOS, in fetching pink-- lead a walking birding trip through the park. 

We found a phoebe nest, and Scott was tall enough to hold my camera up to immortalize its contents, which are doubtless flying and catching their own moths by now. 

It was here at Barren River State Park that I had one of my favorite-ever moments as a naturalist. Our little band of birders was walking up this beautiful stream, and there was a Louisiana waterthrush singing lustily, his wild ringing song filling the green spaces. We came to a little stone bridge and the waterthrush flew up, chipped at me twice, then flew a short distance away, watching me and bobbing his tail. It was clear to me he had a nest nearby. He might as well have said it in English.

"This is a perfect spot for a waterthrush nest," I told the group. I stood on the bank and quietly studied the opposite side, which was hung with grasses and roots. 

 

Just the kind of spot a Louisiana waterthrush would choose to hide its leafy, rooty little nest. Within seconds I found what I was looking for...some muddy leaves, tucked way up inside a nook in the bank, where no muddy leaves ought to be. The Louisiana waterthrush builds a little porch of muddy wet leaves that, when they dry, make a sturdy landing platform for the parents as they come and go.  It's one of the best-hidden warbler nests I know of; in fact when Hal Harrison wrote his photographic field guide to bird nests (in the Houghton Mifflin Peterson series)  the only one he couldn't find himself was the nest of the Louisiana waterthrush!

And the female waterthrush was sitting on her nest. With some difficulty, I pointed her out to everyone. It was hard to make her out. Her two white eye stripes, converging at her bill, gave her away. In this photo she's head-on, and you can see her eyes and bill. 

Knowing the gig was up, she hunkered even lower until all we could make out was one bright eye with a white stripe over it. It's under a little triangle of white grasses.

And the best part of all was that, in discovering her, we never put her off her nest. That's the beauty of listening to what the birds tell you, knowing where to look, standing back quietly, and having the right optics to do it. Serendipity favors the prepared mind.

Kentucky's Crane Hunt

For those of you who've been following the drama unfolding in Kentucky regarding a sandhill crane hunt, there's bad news. An eight-member commission unanimously approved the hunt proposal in early June.  Which wasn't a surprise, since everyone on the commission is a hunter. Thousands of letters and emails of protest apparently fell on deaf ears. Not surprising, but certainly disappointing. Shooting could start as early as mid-December 2011.

However.

Kentucky's wildlife offices have been flooded with protests, whether written, telephoned or emailed. It's probably of little use to further bombard Commissioner Jon Gassett with your good letters. Go ahead and check out his company, Southern Wildlife Resources LLC .  Now, I don't know much about conflict of interest or what taxpayer-paid state employees should or shouldn't be doing on their own time, but it looks to me as if he's offering the same services his Department of Fish and Wildlife does, only for personal profit. Brokering land to hunters, hooking them up with guide services...all for a fee. It isn't hard even for a simple bird painter to divine that Commissioner Gassett stands to gain financially from a crane hunt in Kentucky. No wonder his state office answering machine has a message on it expounding on the delicious meat of the sandhill crane. No, let's not write any more letters to Dr. Gassett. That dog don't hunt. Or rather, he does.

How about writing the Governor? And how about taking a few minutes to do it now? Here's an easy, quick link to a comment form on Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear's web site. He'll be deciding on the proposal TODAY, June 15. Let's give him a respectful little burst of opposition, huh?

                                    http://www.governor.ky.gov/contact/contact.htm

Photo by Cyndi Routledge

 These birds belong to all of us, not just a few hundred gunmen. Why should they get to unilaterally decide that the sandhill crane will be a game bird in Kentucky? 

We must make our voices heard.

As always, thank you for caring. And especially for acting.

Species Orchids: True Love

Much as I love the hybrids, the man-made orchids, I am hugely attracted to the ones that look just like they do in the wild. A lot of orchid fanciers go over to what they call the "species" orchids, and never go back to hybrids. At this point, I'm happy somewhere in between.

At the New England Flower Show in Boston in 2006, I spied a terrific looking specimen of Dendrobium kingianum. This is a very common species in Australia, called the pink rock orchid.  But I'd never seen it, and you don't see it much in cultivation.

It was a huge plant, covered in tiny pink flowers that were intensely fragrant. Oh, I wanted a little bitty piece of it so badly. I couldn't bring the entire plant back home on the plane, even if I could have afforded it. I eyed the plant, and finally asked the exhibitor if she would consider selling me a little cutting of it.

She eyed me right back. She could see the lust. "I don't know," she said. "You feeling lucky today?"

I laughed. "Where orchids are concerned, I'm always feeling lucky," I answered. 

"Take one," she said. "No charge."  She knew what it was to really want a plant.

I was so delighted! I chose an inconspicuous bulblet on the enormous plant, twisted it off, and stuck it down my shirt.

And now, five years later, the Little King is on its gangbustin' way, stinkin' up the whole room with a few little flowers. It will only get better as the years go by. That's what I love about orchids. That, and propagating teeny pieces into wonderful plants.

Getting better as years go by...another cutting I took in 2006, of a magnificent Guatemalan specimen of Encyclia cordigera, is in full, glorious bloom right now, emanating a honeysuckle fragrance when the eastern sun shines on it. It's the purple one in this photo.

The thing I notice about both these species orchids is their incredible vigor and hardiness. 

Every spring it throws a couple more bulbules, and makes a few more flower spikes. It is a true delight.

Oh, for Smellovision.

It's getting really big. I honestly wonder what's going to happen when these things reach their full bushel-basket size. Probably time to repot...

If I had to pick a favorite in my small collection, it would come down to Encyclia cordigera and the insanely satisfying Psychopsis Mendenhall "Hildos." Well, come to think of it, that one's a species orchid too, waving its dancing red and yellow kabuki lobster men in the Trinidadian understory. What do you know.

 You talkin' to me? Yes, you, Hildos, you gorgeous  species orchid. I mean, how cool is this flower? No improving on that!

Who knows. Over time, I may just go over to the species side. One could do worse than be a lover of  orchids, pure and wild.

Orchids, Fancy and Simple

In my last post, I alluded to the orchids which are man-made, created by crossing as many as four different genera of plants to make something completely new. It amazes me that we can figure out how to grow something that's never been seen under the sun, and that these man-made creations would be so beautiful and fun to keep. 

This is a little Doritaenopsis (Doritis x Phalaenopsis). Doritis donates its intense coloration and smaller flower size to the classic moth orchid.

This little thing is billed as a Phalaenopsis, but it looks kinda Doritic to me. It's called "Lava Glow" and I adore it.

Phalaenopsis gigantea is one of the parents of this blush-pink Phal. It is a simply huge plant, and getting bigger all the time.

This plant reminds me of a person who's just too big for his own frame. Not long after I got the plant, it had a huge growth spurt, and its new leaves got so long they busted right off! Needless to say, it looked horrible for about three years until it replaced the half-leaves with new ones. In the interim, I called its breeder and described the problem. She said it was definitely a happy plant, which is why it was throwing out such huge leaves.  She recommended that I support those enormous leaves with a great big cache pot. Once I did that, the leaves stopped breaking under their own weight. And now, four years later, it's finally in bloom. You have to be patient with orchids. But as my dad said, "I don't mind waiting. I'm waiting anyway."

The rewards are great for waiting. Each of these glorious blossoms is almost as big as my outstretched hand. Giantism can be nice.

Orchidpalooza!

A blushing Phalaenopsis does its thing.

 We're home, home from North Dakota as of last night, and there is a verra happeh puppeh kespraddled out on the Guatemalan bedspread. Note crossed hinders. People who are besotted with their dogs think things like crossed hind legs are so cute. I've no idea how they look to people who aren't besotted. I don't know what it's like not to be besotted over Chet Baker. Mmm mmm mmm, he's a licorice bonbon.

Speaking of besotted, I love my housesitter Monica, who is a superb plant waterer, hamster wheel washer, and macaw coddler. It's amazing to be able to leave for a week and come back to find everyone thriving. The only casualty: a lightning struck cordless phone. Blaaaa. It was a good one, too. Now, if I can replace the base unit, I guess we'll have six handsets. Three to use and three to drown.

The orchids are going bananas. Sometimes I wish they'd do this in midwinter, when everything outside is gray. But I'm just glad they do it. Boy, am I glad.

All my orchids live in one bedroom, because the light's perfect there and because they're ganged together on water-filled trays, the humidity's better too. This is one of two south windows. I keep the south Venetian blinds slatted horizontally all winter, but by the end of May I can raise them completely, because the sun doesn't slam in any more. South windows are actually kind of dark in summer, so the orchids get the indirect light they like. You can really cook them in a south window in winter, though, hence the slatted blinds.

Here's the east window grouping. I keep it up all winter--orchids adore east winter sun. But I have to keep the east window slatted in summer. So I do this little dance to make sure nobody gets sunburned. Slat the east in summer, slat the south in winter. Orchids like spots and bars of sunlight, not a steady burn. As you can see from these photos, they like it a lot!

Some of my orchids are refugees from the big box stores. I got two of these little peach beauties, a Phalaenopsis hybird, at Wal-Mart, where they were, of course, slated to die badly. They're the most floriferous orchids I have. They have a bit of a genetic defect in that the petals never open all the way, but they're still pretty, and fragrant too.

In the background of the photo above you can see my sweet little Phalaenopsis schilleriana. Here's the whole enchilada:

I prize this plant for its silvery mottled leaves as much as its glorious blossoms, which is a good thing because it's only bloomed twice for me in five years. The sweet thing about schilleriana crosses is the leaf mottling, but they also have this marvelous lyre-shaped lower lip. Mmm. Gorgeous. This is going to be a magnificent plant when it grows up. Super-slow grower. Got that one at a flower show in Chicago in '06, carried it home in a backpack as a seedling in scary cold March.

Iwangara "Apple Blossom" is a very groovy trigeneric hybrid that's highly fragrant as well as floriferous. It's vigorous and divides easily. Pretty much the perfect orchid. The mealybugs and Boisduval scale think so, too, so it gets frequent sprayings with organic clove oil. I love the corsage-like flower form, and the fact that it'll throw out a spike after the first one is done, extending the blooming season for a month or two.

Donna of KGMom Mumblings and I have been comparing notes on our sullen little Phalaenopsis "Nobby's Amy" plants, which have sat like turds on our windowsills for something like five years without blooming. Well, I'm here to tell ya, Donna, mine finally did it, and in a big, big way.

I'm not gloating, but I'm pretty thrilled. My delight is slightly compromised by the fact that all but a few of the blossoms are deformed, with weird oversized, fused or missing petals. Here's one of the perfect ones, with a little guy inside smiling and jumping up and down with pride at his huge accomplishment.

Yahoo! Look at his happy lil' face!

See that clean demarcation of color on the two outer petals? I can tell it's got Phalaenopsis violacea somewhere in its parentage, by that zone of demarcation. That plant is usually crossed into other Phal. hybrids because it's intensely fragrant, and can impart that to its hybrid children. Donna, did yours ever pop?

Genetic issues, like the peach Wal-Mart refugee that won't open all the way, or these deformed "Nobby's Amy" blossoms, show up with frequency in orchids. Remember, many of them are cross-bred two, three or even four times with other genera; it's a wonder they don't have more weirdnesses. People actually make trigeneric and quadrigeneric orchid hybrids, to see what they can do by crossing a Cattleya with a Laelia with a Brassaevola with a ...(fill in the blank). And I gotta say, they make some pretty darn neat plants. Improving on nature? I don't know. Having a ball? Sure.  In my next post, we'll look at a couple of wild type ("species") orchids that I'm honored to host in the Orchid Room.

Starbird Thrives

 Over the next few days, we checked on Starbird to make sure his single starling parent (the other bird, probably confused, closed the book on the whole deal) was still feeding him. He squatted on the five eggs, waiting for his foster parent to return with food.  Since he didn't have a brood patch to warm them properly, the eggs wouldn't hatch now. It's going to sound a bit odd, but I considered this a win/win situation: adorable foundling saved; five fewer potential starlings as a result. The strange math of a guilt-ridden rehabber's rationale.

I have to admit he was durn cute, and we all got pretty fond of him. It was fun to see him grow and feather out, and not have to be feeding him ourselves.

Liam checks him for mites. So far, so good. We got that infested gourd down just in time!

He grew and grew!

Back in the gourd with you.

Soon, he got so big and wiggly it was getting dangerous to remove him, for he was likely to take fright and try to fledge prematurely. This is the last photo of the whole Starbird. He's 14 days old here. 

At Day 15, we photographed him in situ, which turned out to be a mistake. Right after this photo was taken, he shrieked and bolted out of the nest, landing with a fluttery plop on the ground. I chased him down, popped him back in the hole, covered the hole, waited for him to settle down, and smoothly raised the gourd, never to lower it again. He was in the nest for another two days, and then I heard the characteristic harsh KWERR! of a newly fledged starling in the gourd. Interestingly, his parent removed the unhatched eggs the day before Starbird fledged, dumping them on the lawn. The next day, the strange little foundling left the gourd and was flying all around the yard, kwerring. Rarely, I'd see a parent starling, but he seemed to be mostly on his own.

This is a peculiarity of starlings. Believe it or not, a baby starling may be fed by a parent for only one day after it leaves the nest! sometimes as long as a week, but no more. I can't imagine a baby bird being ready to forage with that little subsidy, but starlings somehow pull it off. Starbird was lucky--I saw him chasing a parent three days after fledging. That day, he fetched up on the top of our tower, calling KWERR!, shouting his joy to be alive,  hoarse thanks to his reluctant benefactors, both feathered and human.

Meet Starbird

Whew. It's been a crazy spring for bird rehab calls and conundrums. Because Bird Watcher's Digest is the only thing in Marietta with "bird" in its name, many people call there hoping to get baby birds taken off their hands. Some arrive in cardboard boxes, the donors conveniently overlooking the fact that magazine staffers are not wildlife rehabilitators. Surely they must know what to do with this poor baby bird.

As you might have deduced, these little living problems often land on my lap. It's easy in theory to say, "One shouldn't raise a starling (or house sparrow); they're an exotic species that doesn't belong here."
It's extremely difficult to look into the bright eyes of a little bag of guts and hope like this

and what? Wring its neck? Leave it in the weeds somewhere? Not a karmic option for someone who's just come through three days of feeding 35 bluebirds and chickadees back to health. There'd been enough death and destruction in my world of late. I couldn't deny him his life.

Starlings are very sneaky birds. They can build a nest and get a clutch of eggs laid before you know it. And two pairs had done just that in our martin gourds, completely uncontested by any martins. I knew there were nests in there; I'd seen the birds coming and going. When Bill called and sent me a cellphone picture of this little fellow from the BWD office, I thought, "I'll slip him in the nest with babies and let starlings raise him." I had checked just the afternoon before and seen two two-day old chicks gaping lustily.

When the bird arrived that evening, I was dismayed to find him a good nine days old. Yikes. Not a good mix with two-day-old chicks, but still worth a try to put him in the nest and see if the parents would adopt him and feed him along with their own young. I fed and rehydrated the little bird overnight until he was bright and eating and pooping well. The next morning I lowered the gourds, only to find the two babies dead, covered with chicken mites, a common parasite of starling nests, and a very common cause of their death at a young age. RATS!! Now what?

I peeked in the second gourd. Five warm eggs in a clean nest. I took the infested gourd down, plunged it in a bucket of hot water to kill all the mites, fed the baby starling again, took a deep breath, and put him in the mite-free nest with the five eggs. It was a crazy leap of faith, but worth a try. If the parents wouldn't adopt him, I'd figure out a Plan C. One thing I knew, I didn't want to raise him. Another thing I knew: I didn't want to euthanize him.

I withdrew to the house and watched through a window, well back where the starlings couldn't see me. The incubating bird returned and clung at the entrance to its gourd. It stared without entering at the new teen starling within. How had that hulking thing hatched from its half-incubated eggs? It flew away. 

Countless times over the next hour, the same scenario repeated. The pair would cling, peer in, and leave. And then something clicked, and they both dropped to the lawn and started foraging for all they were worth, grabbing grubs.  One member of the pair would hold a grub briefly, fly toward the box, land on a nearby perch, then eat the grub. Whoops. A bit conflicted there, a bit confused. I couldn't blame it. From eggs to half-grown young in one hour? I'd like to feed it, but I'm not so sure it's mine. I think I'll eat this grub myself.

About two hours later, I saw a bird enter the gourd with food, and I knew that I had just been released from duty as a starling surrogate. I whooped with joy and went on with my life. 

And Starbird went on with his. These photos were taken two days later, when he was being well-tended by his foster parent.