The Speckled Alder

The buds on many trees have been swelling this past week. The speckled alder gets a really early jump on the season. Their catkins are out. The catkins are developed in the fall but stay closed until spring when they swell up. A single catkin can produce a large amount of yellow powdery pollen. Close by the showy yellow pollen producing catkins are the much smaller fertile catkins that look like a very small red pine cone.
In the picture below there are some open yellow catkins, some brown catkins that are not yet open and above them on the same twig the small red pine cone like female flowers. There are also a few buds that are just about to open in the picture. The bud of the speckled alder stays covered in a protective brown covering until it is quite large (1cm long) and then opens up rapidly into a large toothed leaf. If you want to learn more this link contains more information. One interesting thing about the alder is that it fixes nitrogen and thus improves soil fertility.

Getting organized for 2011

We're getting organized for the 2011 tree planting event. We received our official approval on Friday and went out for a site visit with the tree person from the city. Here is a map to the planned area for 2011.

Bugs are out

So I walked through the square on Wednesday to check out the meadow vole damage. It was the first nice warm day in a long while. Before that we had had about a weak of weather that rarely got much above freezing. The snow was gone but the ground was still frozen. But nevertheless there were a multitude of little black spiders hopping and scurrying over the long grass. I saw about 2 for every step I took. The spiders were limited to the long grass, and when walking over the mowed areas no spiders were evident. I also saw a small fly so insect life has definitely come back to the field for a new year.

There was surprisingly little rodent damage to the trees in the square. None of the trees look like they are toppling over and I didn't see evidence of girdling by mice. It was a totally different story on the west side where the new trees got severely hit by either the rabbits or the mice. Any tree that didn't have plastic protecting around the trunk looks to be girdled.



I didn't visit the north side of the berm as winter still had a hold there.

Signs of spring

I went for a walk along the berm on Tuesday the 15th. It was a nice warm and sunny day with the snow quickly melting underfoot. All the plants are still asleep but the birds knew spring is coming. The crows, sparrows, chickadees, and cardinals and starlings that have been our wintertime companions were all active but I also noticed some Redwing blackbirds up at the top of the populars lustily announcing their claims. There was also a single Robin waiting for the snow to melt away perched in a crabapple tree.



I learned today the school's application to plant more trees this spring was approved. So if all goes well the tree planting area will be extended to a new area to the south of the end of Newhaven this spring.

A late summer field

Well the goldenrod is out with a few clumps planting their yellow flags in the square. The yarrow and trefoil are still in bloom with the occasional fleabane, and purple vetch still out. The grass has mostly toppled over to form a messy mat over which you can walk. The insect life has grown numerous with plenty of truly large yellow and black orb spiders hanging out at the centre of their webs. The grasshoppers are quite large though not numerous. I saw yesterday a clump of large metalic japanese beetles mating all over a rasberry bush. There is a wasps nest in the square. The wasps are living in the ground and the only evidence of their nest is a small patch of disturbed earth in front of their wasp sized hole in the ground. The wasps were entering the hole every couple of seconds so it must be a fairly large colony.

As for mammal predators, I have seen a couple of different cats hanging out in the area in the past week. I didn't see any active hunting but one was spending time in the tall grass of the square. Yesterday I also saw a young coyote less than a kilometer away at the intersection of huntclub and woodroffe, it was broad daylight and he didn't seem to mind too much being watched. He eventually lopped away down the road.

Trees of the 1995 planting

I took some time in the past week looking at trees planted in 1994 and 1995.

Silver maples: These are quite a few fast growing silver maples. They have multiple trunks, but typically only one or two survive. The others as well as the lower branches die off and are easily broken off. The tree cuts off circulation to the branch at the trunk and after a year or two the branch is completely dry. The bark breaks apart and the branch will snap cleanly off with only a slight tap.

White Ash: These are also a common part of the overstory of the forest. They are more often a single trunk with multiple branches sweeping up. Their branches do not cleanly break off unless they have dried out completely after several years, otherwise the dead branches will remain flexible and on the tree. The bark on the tree trunks are only begining to become mature crevised bark. The bark on the branches is smooth redish brown.

Trembling Aspen: This short lived tree is already dying except at the edges of the forest. They spread by suckers and are expanding into the 2010 planting area through suckers.

Eastern Cottonwood: These fast growing trees are about 50% taller than the rest of the trees. They are already large trees, with one or two thick trunks. The branches of this tree are upsweeping, the bark readily falls off the dead branches but they don't break cleanly off until they have rotted out. Some of these trees have already died but the ones that remain have thick substantial trunks. These trees are already suckering into the new planting area.

White willow: This sickly bushy trees is growing on the forest edge but has died out in the interior.

Staghorn Sumac: The far south-east corner of the berm area is a sumac bush that is vigorously suckering into the grass area. The mower keeps it in check but it has also come up in the new bush area.

White spruce: There a few of these trees from the original planting. They are overshadowed by the deciduous trees except where they are on the edge of the forest.

White pine: A few of these straggly trees remain from the original planting, but they haven't been able to keep up with the other trees and are slowly being crowded out by the taller trees.

Red Oak: A couple of these trees are poking out from the edge of the forest.

Hawthorne: The hawthorne is on the east side north of the sumac bush. There are a couple of different hawthornes growing there.

Serviceberry: a few of these are on the eastern side by the Hawthorne. Most of the leaves seem to fall off in high summer.

European buckthorn: This is growing vigorously in the understory all over, especially on the north side.

Honeysuckle: This is also growing in the understory but grows best at the forest edge.

elderberry: a single elderberry (probably from the original planting is growing iin the northeast corner.

Sugar maple: There seems to be a few sugar maples growing although it is not as common as the silver maple

New resident? Groundhog

I think this is a new groundhog who has taken up residence in the holes on the east side of the berm. The holes had seemed disused for some time but this little guy was out there the other day making himself at home.

I saw some scat the other day that looked like it was perhaps from a coyote. It was black and full of fur and about the size of a dog's scat. I saw a coyote a couple of weeks ago not a mile west along Huntclub so they are certainly about. Hopefully they come by and take a few of the meadow voles. I have caught glimpses of the voles too often to not be sure that they are plentiful. I don't often get a good view of them though , I just see the little brown ball streaking across a bit of ground before it disappears into the grass. I learned though that the voles can be vocal. They make a high pitched squeek when they are disturbed by something. The other day I heard this high pitched squeek in the grass as I was walking through the square, when I came back to investigate I found a ball of grass about the size of my palm that turned out to be a nest of mice. There were 5 mostly hairless blind voles in the nest. Three of them came away in the covering when I removed the roof of the nest. I put them back and they seemed to be ok. 3 of them squiggled into the grass and the remaining 2 seemed to be asleep. When I came back a few hours later they were all gone. hopefully the mother had made a new nest for them.