Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

Most woodpeckers are homebodies. Downy, hairy, red –bellied and most other woodpeckers are nonmigratory. Search a woodsy area and chances are they can be spotted or heard year round. Many will come to the backyard for a suet feast. Most woodpeckers are easy to observe and identify. They are noisy and move frequently making them easy to spot. They often call and drum as they move from tree to tree. The yellow-bellied sapsucker is an unusual woodpecker. It’s migratory in part of the country, secretive and challenging to find. Patient observation helps locate one hugging an April tree in the upper Midwest.

This colorful bird is about the size of the familiar hairy woodpecker. Despite its name the yellow belly is hard to see. More visible is a red crown and white stripe down the wings. The bird nests and summers from the Yukon across the continent to New England. Some spend the entire year in southeastern states down to southern Mexico, but many migrate north to nest. Winding Pathways is in Iowa where sapsuckers only pass through. They are most common in April.

Checking out the sap sucker "wells".

Obvious evidence of sapsuckers with horizontal holes dripping sap.

Although more secretive than other woodpeckers sapsuckers are fairly common suburban and woodland birds. They leave unmistakable evidence of their presence.

Sapsuckers ingest sap and eat the insects that are attracted to this sticky substance. Birds drill holes in thin bark, especially of maples, birches and pines. Sap oozes out of the wound, and the birds return for nutritious dining. Usually the holes, called wells, are perfectly round with several forming a horizontal line. Sapsucker wells rarely harm a tree, although scars can remain on the bark for several years.

An outstanding information source for yellow-bellied sapsuckers and hundreds of other bird species is a website sponsored by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. Go to allaboutbirds.org and enter in the species of interest. Photos, videos, maps, sound recordings and interesting tidbits of information will appear. The lab also offers a free smart phone bird identification app. Click on the website tab for information.

Maple Syruping in the Back Yard

Winding Pathways has had fun this spring working with neighbor children on syruping. While the season here in Iowa has ended, in more northern and Eastern areas it is still in full swing. The 2015 syruping season may last longer in the north east because of the deep snow and continued cold. Take in the excitement of a syrup festival in your region and take time to tap a tree in your backyard. Things will pop fast, so go outside and play!

Maple Syruping With Kids

Anticipation!

Waiting for a drop of sap.

Maple syruping is captivating. Perhaps because the process is fascinating, it’s one of the first signs of spring or it conjures up childhood memories reading books about syruping or seeing old Currier and Ives prints of Native Americans or hearty pioneers sugaring off.

Alhough it’s a historic process, tapping trees and making syrup is a fun family activity and a great way to pique childhood curiosity about history and science. Syruping is a blend of botany, weather, science, history and all topped off with delicious eating.

Native Americans invented maple syruping long ago. Before honeybees were imported from Europe and sugar became a trade item maple syrup was THE ONLY sweetener they had. Typically Native Americans made maple sugar by slicing the bark of trees in late winter, catching what sap they could in bark or wooden containers and boiling the sap in large, hollowed out wooden containers by dropping fire-heated rocks into the liquid. They used this cumbersome method because until Europeans arrived they didn’t have metal. Syruping was plenty of work.

When Europeans settled along the Atlantic coast they quickly developed a taste for maple and supplied Natives with metal buckets, pans, axes and spiles that enabled them and European settlers to make syrup efficiently. It was the main American sweetener until a cane sugar tariff was lifted in the late 1800’s. Today maple syrup is a delicious, but expensive, luxury.

Modern producers use plastic tubes to channel sap from their sugarbush (maple grove) to their sugarhouse, where it’s processed into syrup by eliminating water in ultra-modern reverse osmosis machines followed by some boiling. It’s an efficient, but not nostalgic, process.

Making syrup from a backyard tree using old methods is fascinating fun. It’s now late winter. Soon days will be above freezing and sap will flow. Syruping season is upon us. Assuming there’s a maple tree in the yard most families have many of the items they need to make a small batch of syrup. Here’s how:

What you need: It’s simple. You need a maple tree or two of any species. Sugar, black, silver, red and European maples produce sweet sap. Even common box elders, which are true maples in disguise, yield sap that makes delicious syrup. The tree needs to be at least 10” in diameter but bigger ones are better. Other needs are:

• A drill and bit to create a 7/16th or ½ inch diameter hole three inches deep into the tree.
• A homemade or purchased spout, or “spile” as it’s called in syruping country.
• A container to catch sap. Plastic milk jugs work!
• A container to collect and store sap.
• A way to boil off about 40 gallons of water to make one gallon of syrup.

Where can syrup be made: Although New England, Canada and the Lake States are traditional syruping regions it can be made anywhere maples grow and the right weather conditions occur. Syruping is possible from Alabama to North Dakota, east to the Atlantic, and even from street trees in western towns.

When are trees tapped: Maples drip sap only when nights are below freezing followed by daytime temperatures above 32 degrees. Ideal conditions are several days in a row with clear, cold frosty nights followed by sunny warm days. Traditionally syruping starts around March first in the north but can be earlier down south. The season ends when sap stops dripping as night temperatures remain above freezing. The sap flow can be as short as four or five days or as long as six weeks. It all depends on the weather.

How to tap a tree: In late winter, just before warm days are expected, gather a drill, bucket and child and tap your backyard tree. If done properly it does no harm to the tree. A young 10” diameter maple is good for just one tap, but a 30” diameter veteran can support up to three taps. Use either an electric drill or be traditional and use a carpenter’s brace and bit. Drill at a slight upward angle two to three inches into the tree. A short piece of wire can be bent into a hook to drag wood chips out of the hole. Tap in the spout, or spile, and attach the bucket or milk jug to catch sap. If the weather is perfect sap will flow as soon as the drill passes through the bark.

Spiles and collection supplies can be purchased but here’s how to make your own:

Step One: Find a patch of sumac. These common shrubs often grow along roads. Cut off a three foot section about a half inch in diameter with pruning shears. Then cut it into pieces about four inches long. Sumac has thick soft pith. Either poke it out with a piece of stiff wire or drill it out to create a tube. Taper the end that will go into the hole in the tree by whittling with a pocket knife. Gently tap your spile into the hole.

Step Two: Use the pocket knife to cut a small hole in the neck of a clean gallon milk jug just above the handle. Slip the hole over the end of the spile. If you’ve done it right the jug will stay in place and is strong enough to hold a gallon of sap without pulling out of the tree.

If the weather’s right the jug will fill in just a couple of hours. Empty the sap into a storage container. It’s best to begin boiling right away but cold sap will keep a few days. But, there are other uses for maple sap than boiling into syrup. Fill a teacup with boiling sap instead of water and add a tea bag. The delicious beverage will have a hint of maple flavor. Some people drink sap as a spring tonic.

Step Three: Now comes processing. Nothing is added to sap to create syrup but about 40 parts of water must be evaporated to make one part syrup. It can be boiled in a saucepan over the kitchen stove, but that puts lots of sticky steam into the house. Boiling is best done outdoors over a wood fire or propane burner. Large shallow pans help speed boiling. Boil for several hours. The syrup is ready to eat when:

• It is golden colored with delicious sweetness.
• It slowly dribbles off a spoon dunked in hot syrup and suspended over the pan.
• It boils at seven degrees Fahrenheit hotter than boiling water.

Serious sugarmakers use more precise ways to tell when their syrup is done but these simple tests work for a small quantity. Finished syrup has sediment at the bottom of the container that looks like fine sand. It’s mostly calcium that’s perfectly fine to eat, but it can be filtered through cheese cloth to remove it. Refrigerate your precious syrup to prevent spoilage.

Commonly asked syruping questions:

Q. Will it hurt the tree? A. Only if the tree is overtapped. Only drill one hole in a 10” diameter tree. Up to three or four taps are fine in a massive maple.

Q. Do I plug the hole in the tree at the end of the season? A. Nope. Just pull out the spile. The tree will heal itself.

Q. How much syrup will one small tree with one tap produce? A. It all depends on the weather. During a long season a small tree could yield up to a half gallon of syrup, but during a short season it might yield only a cup or two. The long term average is about one quart of syrup per tap.

 Sources of Syruping Equipment and Information

Simply Google Maple Syruping and the computer’s screen will be filled with places to buy equipment and information on how to tap trees and make syrup. One of our favorite sites is Tap My Trees.

                                         Winding Pathways urges people to go outside and have fun. Few backyard                                                                         activities are as fun as making a batch of maple syrup from your own tree.

Delicious, Nutritious Stinging Nettles!

Although the northern and mid sections of the US are still bitterly cold and blanketed by inches of snow or ice, the south is beginning to warm up. That means the Greening of Springtime!

Following a long winter, a plate of steaming ultra-fresh greens from the yard is a delicious and nutritious treat.While most Americans consider stinging nettles weeds, Europeans enjoy them as an early spring food that is delicious, abundant and free for the picking.

Stinging nettles are one of the first plants to green up in early spring. They pop from the ground shortly after the snow melts and are ready to harvest about the time gardeners plant spinach, lettuce and other early cultivated greens. Winding Pathways is in Iowa, and we can count on harvesting nettles by early April, but the season starts sooner in warmer climates.

Nettles grow in all states except Hawaii and are common across much of Europe, Asia and even Northern Africa. They thrive in rich moist soil where there is partial sun. Seek them on the edge of suburban lawns and along rivers and streams. Nettles have high nutritional value and are sold in tablet or liquid form in vitamin shops.  As described in the International Journal of Food Science, nettle “Results show that processed nettle can supply 90%–100% of vitamin A (including vitamin A as β-carotene) and is a good source of dietary calcium, iron, and protein.”

Stinging nettles are named for numerous tiny spines that can inject a chemical into the skin. The sensation is uncomfortable but quickly fades and is not dangerous. Some people call the plant the “seven minute itch”.

Before collecting nettles, or any other wild food, for dinner be sure to positively identify the plant. Photos of nettles can be found online and are in nearly every wild food book.

There is a trick to harvesting them. Use gloves to protect the hands and scissors to snip off the top few tender leaves. Alternately, gently put your thumb and index finger just below the top few leaves and slide them up, pinching off the top, rinse and drop a few cups of them in water. A few minutes of boiling neutralizes the sting and results in a delicious high protein vegetable. Enjoy them covered with melted butter and a dash of vinegar. Save the water that nettles have been boiled in as a stock for soup or to drink as a delicious tea.

Pinching off tender young leaves encourages the plant to produce new ones, so by harvesting nettles from the same patch about every week the collecting season is prolonged. Don’t even try eating tough mature nettle leaves or stems. Early settlers once used the fibers of these rough stems to weave into a linen-like cloth.

By early summer in the upper Midwest, the nettles have “gone by”. But, we let them grow up because many species of butterflies are attracted to the yellow-greenish flowers of the nettles. Stinging nettles are a wonderful plant that we enjoy having on our property at Winding Pathways.

 

WILDLIFE’S CHECKING ACCOUNT

At Winding Pathways we often sit in cozy warmth created by our furnace and wood stove and watch tiny birds outdoors struggle in subzero wind and deep snow. Just how do tiny chickadees, juncos, and other animals survive?

Every animal has an energy budget similar to a family checking account. When possible they eat as much as they can and put on a layer of fat or store seeds in the nooks and crannies of nearby trees. Fat and stored food is their cash cushion that tides them over should bitter cold or long blizzards make foraging impossible.

With people, maintaining a cash cushion in a checking account lets a family occasionally spend more in a given month than it takes in. As long as the trend doesn’t persist and funds are restored checks won’t bounce. It’s almost the same with wildlife. If a tiny bird, deer, or squirrel has a cash cushion in the form of body fat or stored food it can simply wait out severe weather in a sheltered place. Winter warm spells enable foraging to replenish reserves.

Deep snow makes it hard for animals to find food and intense cold requires burning additional fat to stay warm. If severe weather persists for weeks, as it has in recent winters, many animals simply reach the bottom of their checking account….their energy reserve…. and starve. It’s a sad fate but one of nature’s ways of trimming wildlife populations.

Although human skiers and snowshoers relish deep snow it presents an extreme challenge for many species of wildlife. They must carefully monitor their energy balance to make sure there is enough fat or stored food to tide them over until spring. 

The Great Backyard Bird Count

Show Birds Some  on Valentine’s Weekend:

Join the Great Backyard Bird Count!

This in from The Audubon Society. Join other birders for this family event from the warmth of your home!  You cannot beat that!
“New York, NY, Ithaca, NY, and Port Rowan, ON —Give Mother Nature a valentine this year and show how much you care about birds by counting them for the Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). The 18th annual count is taking place February 13 through 16.”Anyone in the world can count birds at any location for at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the count and enter their sightings at The Audubon Society Backyard Bird Count. The information gathered by tens of thousands of volunteers helps track changes in bird populations on a massive scale. The GBBC is a joint project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society with partner Bird Studies Canada.

Snowy Owl by Jane Ogilvie, VT Click image to download for print

Bird watchers fell in love with the magnificent Snowy Owl during the last count when the birds were reported in unprecedented numbers across southeastern Canada, the Great Lakes states, the Northeast, and down the Atlantic Coast. Expect Snowy Owls to show up in higher numbers during this year’s GBBC, too. “”It’s called an ‘echo flight,'” explains Marshall Iliff, eBird Project Leader at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “After a huge irruption like we had last winter, the following year often yields higher-than-usual numbers as well. The abundance of lemmings that produced last year’s Snowy Owl irruption likely continued or emerged in new areas of eastern Canada, more owls may have stayed east after last year’s irruption, and some of last year’s birds that came south are returning.” “”This may also be a big year for finches,” notes Audubon Chief Scientist Gary Langham. “GBBC participants in North America should be on the lookout for larger numbers of Pine Siskins and redpolls. These birds also push farther south when pine cone seed crops fail in the far north of Canada.”

Common Redpoll by Helena Garcia, Quebec Click image to download for print

“Bird watchers from 135 countries participated in the 2014 count, documenting nearly 4,300 species on more than 144,000 bird checklists–that’s about 43% of all the bird species in the world! In addition to the U.S. and Canada, India, Australia, and Mexico led the way with the greatest number of checklists submitted. “”We especially want to encourage people to share their love of birds and bird watching with someone new this year,” says Dick Cannings at Bird Studies Canada. “Take your sweetheart, a child, a neighbor, or a coworker with you while you count birds for the GBBC. Share your passion and you may fledge a brand new bird watcher!” “The Great Backyard Bird Count is a great way for people of all ages and backgrounds to connect with nature and show some love for the birds this Valentine’s Day. Participation is free and easy. To learn more about how to join the count, download instructions, a slide show, web buttons, and other materials, visit http://gbbc.birdcount.org/. While you’re there, get inspired by the winning photos of 2014. “The Great Backyard Bird Count is made possible in part by sponsor Wild Bird Unlimited.

“Contacts: