Quoddy Nature Notes – Ready for Winter?

Ready for winter?

Nannyberries

Nannyberries

Seeing as the growing season is just about over here in the Quoddy Region, it’s time to take stock of what happened.  How will the wild critters (and us?) fare with what nature provided in the growing season of 2013?  It’s interesting to take a deep breath and reminisce a bit before we get back to our chores.

If we start with the fruit, one of the earliest berries is the shadbush.  Lots of good blossoms early in the spring, especially on Leighton Point road, but the hiccoughs in the weather apparently disrupted good fruit formation, so I don’t think many critters fattened up significantly on shadbush berries.

Red raspberries were also pretty poor from my vantage point, and also pretty small in size and with few sections on each berry.  Blackberries were pretty good, especially in some of the newer patches, but some of my old patches that I like to frequent have gone by the wayside.  The low bunchberry, growing in places where it can get some light (like along my driveway), was very productive.  It’s not a favorite with many birds, but partridges, robins and squirrels do forage casually for the bright berries amidst the contrasting green leaves.

Fly honeysuckle is another berry that was very productive this year.  This shrub was especially beautiful in places like along the banks of the Pennamaquan River.  It has sort of a WD-40 taste, but I have seen Catbirds eat them.

Chokecherries were also very common, and these will be a boon to many animals and birds.  Cedar waxwings and robins eat these fruits with gusto, as do many mammals.  The big poops on the trails decorated with the cherry pits are likely bear; the smaller poops on your doorstep with lots of cherry pits are probably raccoon, and even fox and coyote will eat choke cherries.  Red squirrels, chipmunks and mice hoard cherries, and I often find the pits in the birdhouses that I have put up in many places in the Quoddy region.  I try to clean these out in the spring before the tree swallows come back.

While the chokecherries were very productive, I saw no Pin cherries this year.  Pin cherries are a pleasant but tart trailside nibble, but unfortunately I have not developed a taste for the chokecherry.  Other fruits that are ripening now with good crops are Nannyberries, highbush cranberries and hawthorns.  Mountain ash is ripening with fairly good production closer to the coast, but further from the shore the numbers are less.

The wild apples are pretty good this year and I hope to visit my favorite trees shortly before the bears and porcupines get there.  In the winter the pine grosbeaks and squirrels like to harvest the apples that are left.

The cone crop is excellent this year, especially for spruce.  Although not yet ripe as we would consider it, the red squirrels have been harvesting cones and taking them apart and eating the seeds since the beginning of August.  The acorn production of our northern red oaks seems to be very low this year. I have been told by a forester from the Downeast Lakes Land Trust that the beechnut crop is much better than expected, considering the ravages of beechbark disease.  I haven’t seen a productive beech tree in years.

And what about my efforts at planting a garden?  In general, pretty poor; in aspects of germination, growth, disease and insect problems and production.  Thank goodness for Stop and Shop, Walmart, IGA and, of course, the Farmer’s Market and Tide Mill Farm.

Roadside Chokecherries

Roadside Chokecherries