northeast-flora-and-fauna

Last spring I saw  Baltimore Orioles in this general area though I only got pictures of this individual. This fella would sing a bit , fly to another branch, sing a bit more, and repeat this process.  The activity was near Duke Farms' Hay Barn, up in the American Sycamore and London Plane trees. As birds that will eat Eastern Tent Caterpillars [1], there was an abundance of food nearby. On the other hand Orioles enjoy a balanced diet that includes fruit, and this immediate area doesn't strike me as rich in berries and other fruits [2]. May 3, 2023 at Duke Farms Photo 278556535, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] I'm pretty sure they eat these caterpillars when the caterpillars leave their tents to forage for food. [2] Depending on how far they're willing to go for a meal, raspberries, blackberries, and grapes would probably be available later in the year.

At Duke Farms they're working to identify and label more of their trees and shrubs. When I saw the sign I figured I'd wander over and see whether they had planted an American Sycamore or a London Planetree ; the 2 (related) trees look very similar. Imagine my surprise when I read the sign saying that this was a Ginkgo tree. This wasn't a misidentification - this time - on my part. The smooth, patchy-white bark clearly indicates some sort of sycamore [1]. So what happened? The first thing to realize is that there was a fairly large Ginkgo tree a short distance away, and the sign was no doubt intended for that tree. There is a small chance that some Duke Farms visitor really thought that the sycamore was a Ginkgo tree and tried to be helpful by moving the sign. Far more likely though is that this was intended as a practical joke.  As jokes go, it probably doesn't work well: Some people who know virtually nothing about trees might be fooled, but fooling these folks isn...

I'm not sure whether this is from an American Sycamore or the American Sycamore/ Oriental Plane Tree hybrid, the London Plane Tree . (The most reliable way to distinguish them is that the American Sycamore has single seed balls while the London Plane usually has a pair of seed balls.) Both trees are perhaps the most prolific bark-shedders of trees in my area. Though bark shedding can occur any time of the year, there's usually a period in the summer when they get most of their shedding out of the way, leaving potentially large strips of old bark on the ground. These trees have a different bark strategy from most trees. The thin bark that they readily shed may facilitate faster growth than the harder, more permanent bark of most trees. Thick bark might be more important for trees that grow in drier locations, both to retain water better and to potentially protect the tree from smallish fires. It's possible that the discarded bark helps the trees rid itself of hangers-on, ...