Seasonal solitude

I don't often get a cold, but I guess my time had come. Ever since this past Christmas, I have been battling a persistent cold. Had I been bad this past year? Most people would maybe have received a chunk of coal at Christmas....I received a persistent cold. As a result I have hardly left the house, so am posting a blog that I was originally going to post in early December. Maybe now is a better time, especially since it features a warmer outdoor period than what most of eastern North America has experienced in these last few weeks.

There is a certain appeal to get out in a forest or other natural setting, and not necessarily with birds or butterflies as a primary focus. The joy is just to get out and soak up as much of the natural atmosphere as possible, enjoying the light, the shadows, the muted colours and perhaps most important to my way of thinking, the solitude. Any form of wildlife encountered is a bonus. The latter part of November and early part of December are two of my favourite times for this experience, and the setting at Rondeau is perfect. One can spend several hours on the trails and closed roads, and never see another person.

There is an activity I recently had pointed out to me, called 'forest bathing', where one spends time in a forest, or at least in the vicinity of trees, soaking up the fresh air and the atmosphere, to experience various health benefits including a reduced stress level. According to Wikipedia, forest bathing apparently originated in Japan in the 1980s.

To that I say 'Nonsense'.

I've been doing it since the early 1970s. My dad used to do it from time to time in his early years. While it may not have officially been named 'forest bathing', the reality is that people have been doing this for decades, likely centuries or more. I'm sure that the likes of John Muir in the mid to late 1800s and Ansel Adams in the early 1900s, among others, did a lot of 'forest bathing' when they were out exploring the natural world in their time.

It is usually during these times when I seldom take my camera with a telephoto lens, knowing that a wide angle lens will be more useful to capture what I see.

One can sit in one spot for a time, or one can hike the trails and get the benefits of some cardio exercise, or even away from the trails (but if it is above freezing, be aware of ticks!!). And there is always something to see, especially on warmer, sunny days. I had this Eastern Comma flitting about on a warm sunny day on Nov 29, which according to ebutterfly, was the latest Ontario date for a butterfly added to that database in 2017.

Reptiles may be out, soaking up a last bit of sunshine before going underground for the upcoming winter.

Eastern Gartersnake

Some resident birds are a little more obvious. It seems that Pileated Woodpeckers are more noticeable during these quiet periods.

The leaves have fallen by late November, as have a multitude of seeds. The trails and roadsides are covered, or at least lined along the edges, with a mix of leaves and seeds.

This first photo shows a packed roadside of beech nuts from the American Beech tree, with a few Tuliptree seeds mixed in. It had indeed been a great year for beech nut production, as well as acorns from oaks. While this 'mast' production will go along way towards placating the hunger of deer, Wild Turkeys, Blue Jays, Red-bellied Woodpeckers and mice, one cannot help but wonder if it also means a profusion of ticks that benefit when mice are more prolific. More mice, means more ticks, and the greater the chance of hikers encountering Lyme Disease in the following year.

 This next photo, taken along a section of trail where Tuliptrees are a little more dominant, is made up entirely of Tuliptree seeds. Although Tuliptrees are prolific producers of seeds, only about 1% or so of the seeds are really viable and will germinate. The vast majority of these seeds will be enjoyed by squirrels, mice, etc.

The bright orange-red berries of Climbing Bittersweet are more visible against the muted colours of the forest late in the season.

The lake can be really riled up during sustained windy periods, or it can be quite calm and subdued. The riled up weather that occurred a short time before this photo was taken resulted in significant changes to the dynamic shoreline, such as this new pond area. Will it remain as a breeding pool for the rare Fowler's Toad this coming summer or be a feeding stop for shorebirds? Or will another storm make changes to this, making it only a very temporary feature?

Patterns in the sand are visible, the result of fairly strong winds in previous days.

While it is always nice to see birds and butterflies, etc., they are just a few of the multitude of reasons to get out and enjoy the natural world around us!

Passenger Pigeon, Japanese Barberry and.....Lyme Disease

September is the month when we mark the anniversary of an avian tragedy: it was on September 1, 1914, when the last remaining Passenger Pigeon died. A species that went from an estimated 3 billion to zero in the space of a human's lifetime. Not that the population was always so numerous....it was a species whose population was believed to fluctuate dramatically, as described in this article in Scientific American.

Passenger Pigeons (PAPI) fed on the seed produced by various trees in the eastern and mid-western forests, specifically acorns from various oaks, nuts from the American Beech as well as chestnuts from the American Chestnut. American Chestnut was once one of the most common trees in eastern North American forests, but a serious blight that arrived in the early part of last century devastated the forest of that species. It is a legally endangered species due to its extremely limited occurrence in Canada.

Open oak forests were particularly attractive to PAPI, since not only did the acorns provide a valuable source of food, but the large and sturdy spreading branches were safe places to roost and/or build their nests.

In this first photo is a mix of acorns of the Red Oak and beech nuts of the American Beech.

 This next image is a close-up of an opened chestnut bur, showing the seeds in side the husk.

American Chestnut leaves

White Oak

These tree species are known to produce large quantities of seed for one or two years, and then very small quantities of seed for the next few years. Years of high seed production are known as 'mast' years. If several tree species produce mast in successive years, it might result in very high production of young PAPI causing the population to get to the estimated 3 billion. But that wouldn't last, and the productivity would then decline. This process is certainly beneficial for the trees. If the seed production maintained a consistent level over the years, those wildlife species that fed on them would maximize their production, and most seed would likely be consumed. By having most years of seed production at lower levels, the wildlife species would remain at a relatively lower level, so that when seed production increased briefly, more of it would survive to germinate and produce an age class of trees for the future.

Regardless, when the population of PAPI was reduced to zero, it resulted in a lot of seed not being consumed. And this was a boon for other species of wildlife that fed on those seeds that would normally be competing with the PAPI, such as White-tailed Deer, squirrels, mice, Wild Turkey, etc.

The numbers of those remaining species of wildlife would likely have increased substantially, now that there weren't a billion or more PAPI to compete with.

Japanese Barberry
Japanese Barberry (Berberis thunbergii) was introduced to North America in the late 1800s as an ornamental shrub. It leafs out early and has many flowers. It also has sharp spines along its stems.

It is a prolific seed producer, and birds love the bright red berries. But when the birds travel and defecate elsewhere, the seeds are spread far and wide. The sharp spines ensure that browsing by deer is minimal, so there are virtually no controls on the spread of this species. As a result, Japanese Barberry is one of the more insidious invasive species in our eastern forests. It is especially distinctive in the fall when their leaves turn a deep red.

The density at which Japanese Barberry can grow unchecked in a forest is great for mice! Their normal predators, such as owls, hawks and foxes will not penetrate the dense, prickly stand of barberry, so it is a safe haven. Numbers of mice where barberry is plentiful are known to be higher than areas where barberry is low to non-existent.

And that brings us to the unfortunate result of the loss of PAPI and the invasion of barberry. You see, mice are critical hosts to ticks, both the American Dog Tick (a.k.a. Wood Tick) and the Black-legged Tick (a.k.a Deer Tick). It is the latter species that is the prime vector of the spirochete which causes Lyme Disease. I have written several blog posts on Lyme Disease, specifically related to my several experiences with it. The most informative one can be read here.

Deer Tick

Ticks thrive where there are high populations of their deer and mice hosts. The blood meal, which is critical for the development of both nymph and adult ticks, is readily available from each of those mammal species when the host populations are high.  Also, where there is a dense stand of barberry, the relative humidity remains higher, which is also beneficial for the ticks.

It takes ticks two years to reach the adult stage when they will produce young. It is interesting to note that two years following a year of mast production of the acorns and seeds mentioned at the outset of this post, there is a greater abundance of ticks.

In simplistic terms, now that the billion or so PAPI are long gone, a high production of acorns and beech nuts attracts greater numbers of deer and mice. Mice are predominant hosts to the nymphal stage of the ticks, and deer are hosts to the adult stage of the ticks. So two years after the mast year, are more ticks, and the greater the chance of encountering a tick capable of transmitting Lyme Disease!

On a related note, I have read where in rural areas, free-range chickens, guinea fowl etc, are great at controlling ticks in their immediate area. It is possible that Wild Turkeys have a similar effect, as they feed on numerous small vertebrates and invertebrates alike. Wild Turkeys were extirpated from southwestern Ontario many decades ago, but beginning in 1984 were successfully re-introduced in several areas of the province. A decade or so after their initial re-introduction, saw Wild Turkeys move in to Rondeau Provincial Park, and they seem to be doing well. Perhaps they will help control ticks in areas of the park that they spend much of their time in.

 There are many sources of information on parts of what I have written. Some of the more useful references I found and used include:

1. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/3-billion-to-zero-what-happened-to-the-passenger-pigeon/
2.  https://mnfi.anr.msu.edu/invasive-species/JapaneseBarberryBCP.pdf
3. http://omnilearn.net/esacourse/pdfs/lyme_disease.pdf

The last one was particularly interesting, and is a pdf of an article that appeared in Birding magazine several years ago, entitled "Passenger Pigeons, Lyme Disease and Us: the unintended consequences of the death of a species" by David E. Blockstein. I couldn't find the article in the Birding archives, but managed to locate it via this online source.