This week in the woods, male red-winged blackbirds continue to establish territories while they wait for their female counterparts to return from southern wintering grounds. The males arrive as many as two weeks beforehand, often when snow remains on the ground and the birds’ summer insect diet has not yet emerged. During this period, agricultural fields with residual grain prove useful for forays from the marshes, swamps, meadows, and roadside drainage areas where these common blackbirds will make their nests. Males often sing their chilling conk-a-reek song from the tops of vegetation like these cattails and spread out their wings to enlarge and show off their red-and-yellow wing bars (called epaulets, like the ornamental shoulder pieces on military jackets).
Seasonal Notes columnist and former executive director of Northern Woodlands Elise Tillinghast provided a tip for where to see skunk cabbage flowers poking out of a swampy roadside area in Thetford, Vermont. The purply, veiny modified leaf seen here is called a spathe and encloses a spadix, a spherical flower head with dozens of packed-together blossoms. A relative of the tropical philodendron and dieffenbachia, skunk cabbage can metabolize root starch in a process called thermogenesis and maintain a temperature above 70 degrees, even as the outside air hovers around freezing. Because the plant does not self-pollinate, it relies on pollinating insects either to be attracted to its rot-like smell or to want to take advantage of the heated shelter it creates.
Unlike the early-blooming skunk cabbage, American witch-hazel flowers in the fall or winter. The flowers mature into hard capsules that eject black seeds up to 40 feet with an audible pop. On a crooked, angled specimen growing on a rocky ledge in Thetford, we encountered the remnants of these explosive fruits.
While we wait for the comparable explosion of wildflowers, we can find the leafy plants that will flower and fruit later, now released from the snow. The fruits of wild strawberries will serve as vital food for many animals in the summer, but their flowers (due in May) and leaves also provide sustenance. Woodland strawberry and the more common wild strawberry both resemble the hybrid cultivated strawberry but have smaller leaves and fruit. You can tell the difference between the two wild-growing species by noting the teeth, hairiness, and veins of the leaves: a wild strawberry’s finely hairy and softly veined leaflets will have a tiny terminal tooth (smaller than the surrounding teeth), while a woodland strawberry’s coarsely toothed, prominently veined, nearly hairless leaflets will have one of length equal to or longer than the teeth to either side. We also observed some barren strawberry, listed as threatened in New Hampshire and endangered in other parts of its range. A fellow rose family member but not an actual strawberry (or even a berry-bearing plant), it will produce a single-seeded, inedible fruit later in the season.
What have you noticed in the woods this week? Submit a recent photo for possible inclusion in our monthly online Reader Photo Gallery.