Site Discussions

I enjoyed the article on red spruce and had two comments on the story. “Spruce trees take three decades just to bear cones” is mentioned and I assume this includes red, white, and black spruce. In my experience as a forester I find that three decades better describes peak production of red spruce cones. Red spruce can produce cones as early as 15 years of age. My reference is at this link under botanical characteristics:
https://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis
/plants/tree/picrub/all.html

My other comment is that spruce-fir stands are being impacted by the balsam wooly adelgid eliminating balsam fir competition and allowing more light to the red spruce. This may help increase red spruce reproduction.

Climate change is certainly impacting red spruce and I appreciate the efforts that researchers at UVM are taking with red spruce.

My wife and I paddled 99 miles down the Green River in Utah with Polly. She is such a capable guide that you feel like you are the one making decisions.

I have made suet for the wintering sparrow’s but they have vanished. I normally had 15-20 around all year. None….birds are gone.

Last year I noticed wooly adelgid on my trees for the first time.  I cut off some branches that were infested but realized that I would have to take off too many branches.  We spent $1500 treating some of the trees around our yard (they also had the scalar issue) but I noticed that in the woods behind us many of the trees had already succumbed (some were huge trees and it was incredible sad).  I started scarping off the white areas on the branches of some of these trees in an effort to stop the spread.  Is there anything else I can do?

I enjoyed your post it brought back the simple things of nature, being a boy and growing up in the woods.

Thank you Mary for this article. Tonight I saw three grouse up high in poplar trees eating. It was a gift to see. I watched them for a while until I think a fourth grouse saw me and made a warning call so I left before I caused further disturbance.

Most Maine wooden boat builders have uses red oak for many years.  Plentiful and available in big sizes for backbone pieces, and straight grain for timbers (frames or ribs in lay terminology) it was sometimes referred to as Christmas tree wood — red & green was what was wanted for steam bending.  But the combination of global warming and the Clean Water Act have brought Teredo worms to Gulf of Maine waters, and ship worms look on red oak as candy.

My old friend, now passed, planted hundreds of Red Spruce and now 75 years later they are everywhere in our corner of the state.

Hi from over the Atlantic! Been reading about late leaf fall on Oak trees and we have had our house built on the edge of a wood containing many oak trees in the area and fields around. We have one oak which must be 200 plus years old in our garden which is still in nearly full leaf and yet the 3 oaks in the wood next to it lost their leaves about 2 months ago. Just wondering if the main tap root to our tree is deeper and larger thus keeping the tree in leaf much longer? Thoughts on that please from the expert arborialists out there….

Tree cavity in NE VT: apparently made decades ago by a logger with an axe, who after finding a rotten corer, decided that continued felling of this large , 2.5-ft diameter, tree was not worth the continued hard labor (axe markings are visible inside the cavity).  The tree survives, making a large cavity as it tried to repair the damage, probably to the liking of generations of birds.

Thank you for this extraordinary article with its very good links!

With climate change, are they likely to migrate northward? If so, what could we do to provide habitat that doesn’t conflict with farming in the hilltowns?

Interesting to know, Tom. Wow, that’s a big oak tree!

Along the LaHave River Valley in SW Nova Scotia there are many Red Oak.  Good growing conditions and many were uncut and left to grow.  The biggest I’ve found is about 216 inches in circumference, a massive beauty and still vigorous.  We’ve just concluded the spectacular fall colour change, altho many of the oaks refuse to let go of their leaves.

Voles are indeed extremely numerous. I often see several scampering out of the way while mowing the fields in late fall.  I see far fewer mice and moles while mowing.

Nice article. I will look for your magazine

An exceptionally beautiful essay. Thank you for this.

Love the Bubs!

Living in a woods, I enjoy observing the many birds and other animals that occupy various trees, but I hadn’t thought about how many must reside there that I cannot see. I thoroughly enjoyed this informative and beautifully written article by a fellow Ohioan.

In the 70’s we raised a pair of turkey chicks along with our laying hens, and both of them turned out to be Toms.  They imprinted on us and would often compete for our attention, entering full strut display and sometimes becoming pretty combative. 

We soon realized that one effect of dragging the primary wing feathers on the ground was to sharpen the feather shaft tips.  When sparring, the toms would hop sideways and attempt to jab one another in the lower shank of the legs with these stiffly extended and dropped wing feathers.  It looked to us to be an instinctive behavior.