Nut birds

The season of nuts is upon us, and squirrels are once again being admired for being so industrious. Don't they gather up and bury all those acorns and other nuts? Aren't they responsible for planting forests full of oaks, hickories and beeches?

Not necessarily. Biologist M.R. Chettleburgh has found that during the single month of October, 30 to 40 jays can gather and plant more than 20,000 acorns alone. The jays are caching them for future use, but often forget their whereabouts, allowing the nuts to sprout.

On average, jays carry these acorns a quarter mile from the tree that bore them, but often they fly them a half to three-quarters of a mile away. No lazy, old squirrel is going to haul an acorn a half-mile.

Clearly, jays are the real planters and spreaders of our woodlands. In Siberia, in fact, they are protected by the state because of their forest-expanding abilities.

And maybe that's why Blue Jays are so noisy at this time of year, screeching and squawking seemingly from dawn to dusk: They're whining about all the credit the squirrels get for being hard-working.

Beeches and bears

For most of us, “beech nut” means a baby food. However, if you’re old enough, you probably remember Beech-Nut Chewing Gum. And if you’re really old enough, Beech-Nut Coffee, Beech-Nut Macaroni, and – with a name in which the words seem to clash, Beech-Nut Peanut Butter.

For a bear, however, a real beech nut is like candy.

At this time of year, Black Bears will climb 60 or more feet to the top of an American Beech to search for its offering of food. The bear will break off nut-laden branches from the tree’s crown and stuff in them in the crotches of limbs while it picks off and eats the nuts. Old New Englanders called the resulting tangles of nutless, broken branches “bear nests.”

Why go through all this trouble when berries and other foods abound down below? The beech nut is said to be the calorically richest nut in North America, containing at least 50% fat and 20% protein. For a bear about to hunker down for a long winter’s nap, that’s an ideal food – well worth the climb and the work that includes breaking off branches up to two and a half inches in diameter.

The season for sneezin'

As millions of tons of sneeze-provoking pollen is spewed the air this season, innocent bystanders invariably get the blame.

Goldenrod is often cited as the cause of hay fever simply because it's so brilliant at a time when its humble but potent cousin, ragweed, is also blooming. As a result, misguided allergy sufferers destroy countless goldenrods, one of the great seasonal sources of color and scent as well as nectar for bees.

Airborne pollen causes hay fever. Most flowers with airborne pollen – ragweed, plantain, grasses, many trees – are green and unnoticed, hidden among their own leaves. They're green because they don't need to be “different” to catch the eye of passing bees and other flying pollinators – they use air, not insects, to effect pollination. Goldenrod has bee-borne pollen, too heavy to float in the air and up the nose. Its yellow helps attract bees to haul its pollen around.

Thus, despite all the colorful TV and magazine ads for allergy medications, few if any brightly colored flowers will ever tickle your nose or tighten your chest. Wheezers and sneezers should join everyone else and enjoy Mother Nature's late summer explosion of yellow.

Somniloquent singers?

Long after its season of nighttime wooing has passed, the Eastern Gray Treefrog occasionally erupts in daytime song, but no one seems to know just why.

These arboreal acrobats that can climb glass windows as well as trees can also deftly snag an insect in mid-air as it passes by a branch. They feed mostly at night and sleep by day.

However, in late August, their brief, bird-like trills can occasionally be heard at almost any time of the day, especially if there’s been a shower. You might hear a call from one tree, then a response from another, and depending on how froggy your neighborhood is, two or three other treefrogs nearby may join in the exchange.

In the spring, their calls are part of the expected nighttime chorus of courting critters, but by this time of year, all that love-making is long past. So why sing when they’re supposed to be asleep? Perhaps they suffer from somniloquy and are just sleep-talking as they dream of happy, youthful encounters those long months ago.

Acorn Rain

On an early morning walk in late August, you are bound to hear the click-clacking of the oak trees. High in their branches gray squirrels are picking and dropping acorns that fall through the leaves and twigs like so many giant raindrops.

Squirrels learned long ago that, rather than pick and carry each acorn or hickory nut to the ground to bury, it’s a lot easier to drop a bunch at a time, then climb down to collect and cache them.

But they have to be quick about it sometimes.

One day a few years ago, we came across one of the drawbacks of the squirrels’ efficient operation. Under a bountiful oak raining with acorns from a half dozen squirrels stood a herd of a five deer, eating these gifts from above as quickly as they landed.

Even in nature, no system is perfect – unless you’re a deer that likes good service.

Up on the Roof

Some wildlife has taken kindly to suburbia, delighting in man’s manipulation of the landscape. Deer and the Canada Geese like our environment so well, they’ve overpopulated into pests.

Others are more subtle at adapting. The Killdeer, a common plover that looks as if it belongs on a beach where most of its cousins live, is doing well, population surveys report. This might seem odd since Killdeer nest on the open ground, and in the suburbs, about the only open grounds are lawns and parking lots.

Killdeer will in fact nest on grassy islands in the middle of shopping center lots. If a shopper gets too close, mom or pop will stage the famous broken-wing act, fluttering along the ground to draw attention away from a well-camouflaged nest.

Many Killdeer have discovered much safer nesting grounds. The flat roofs of the shopping centers and office buildings that fill our business districts provide fine Killdeer homesites. The parents don’t have to worry about four-legged predators – or two-legged interlopers – and can concentrate on watching for the usual enemies from above, such as crows and hawks.

For the Killdeer, up on the roof can be down home.

Really good raspberries

It’s been another bumper year for berries, but few have been as bountiful as the raspberry. Big bunches of them have been bending canes with their weight this season, and that’s a boon to both man and beast.

The raspberry is among the most valuable food sources for scores of species of birds and small mammals. Fortunately, the thorny canes have prevented a big mammal, deer, from decimating the plants, which favor the same wood edges that deer do.

Roadside berries are free for the picking, and considering the prices that even rural farm stands are charging – $3.50 a half pint at one in northern Vermont on Sunday, it’s a sweet treat that’s well worth the effort as well as a few scratches.

What’s more, they are good for us – really good. Raspberries are rich in antioxidants that promote healthy hearts. They have lots of vitamins A, B1, 2 and 3, and C, plus calcium, iron, and potassium. And because each berry is a cluster of tiny berries or “drupelets,” the raspberry has lots of skin, which is full of fiber – up to one-fifth of the berry’s weight – making it among the most fiber-filled fruits in North America.