Outside My Window

Early September is a quiet spell of lengthening shadows and shorter days.  Birds and animals, insects and plants are packing up and getting ready for winter.  Even we humans are starting to take the hint.  Here’s what to expect outdoors in western Pennsylvania in the coming weeks: 

• The days are getting shorter.  By September 23rd, day will equal night.
• Flowers will put on one last extravaganza, especially the goldenrods and asters.  Look for late blooming turtleheads.
• Watch the trees begin to change color.  Even now the hackberries are starting to turn yellow.
• Woodchucks and squirrels will focus on food – for sure!
• All our monarch butterflies are migrating.  They flutter and set their wings for a long glide.  Marcy Cunkelman tells me they can cover 50 miles a day.
• Birds are migrating too:  warblers, hummingbirds, thrushes, broad-winged hawks, sharp-shinned hawks, kestrels, swallows and swifts!

Chuck Tague’s phenology for early September has even more information.

(photo of Turtleheads by Tim Vechter)

Jewelweed flowers (Impatiens capensis) offer inviting landing pads for bumblebees.  The “jewel” in the name comes from the way water beads up on the leaves and sparkles like diamonds in the sun. 

This plant is also called Spotted Touch-me-not because the flowers are spotted and the ripe seed pods explode when you touch them as if to say ”Touch Me Not.”

The explosions are so cool that I am tempted to touch the plant even more.  I make it a contest and try to beat the seeds at their own game.  Whenever I find Jewelweed I look for the fattest seed pods and give each one a squeeze to see if I can capture the seeds before they leap from my finger tips.  I always lose unless I cup my hand around the pod.

(photo by Dianne Machesney)

Our robins and cardinals are looking pretty ragged lately.  The adults are molting. 

Their feathers wear out so birds molt to replace them.  Robins and cardinals do it once a year.  Long distance migrants molt twice.  American goldfinches molt twice a year but their closest finch relatives don’t.  Who knows why.

Birds replace their feathers in a pattern across their bodies.  Most replace their center two tail feathers, then the two tail feathers next to those and so on until their entire tail has new feathers.  Their wings molt the same one feather at the same time on both wings.  This prevents flight impairment because their wings are still the same on both sides.  Heavy birds, like ducks and geese, molt all at once and are flightless for a short time each year.

I suppose August is as a good time as any to replace their feathers.  April won’t do because they have to look beautiful and sleek during courtship.  Rule out May through July because breeding season is too intense to be hampered by missing feathers.  Winter is too cold which eliminates November through February.  In the other months they’re migrating.  So August it is. 

I’ll be glad when they look normal again.

(photo of a wet northern cardinal by Chuck Tague)

p.s. Have your goldfinches started to turn dull yellow again? Mine have.

Ragweed season officially begins today. 

Mercifully I have never been allergic to ragweed but I’ve had my share of outdoor allergies.  I know the agony of a sneezy, runny nose and itchy, watery eyes and the scratchy throat that itches all the way back into your ears.  Misery!  Once the itchy reaction starts it’s hard to stop. 

Eventually, through sneezy experimentation I figured out what caused my allergies – hay, cut grass, marigolds, cut ground ivy, privet flowers, chrysanthemums - and I learned not to sniff them deeply.  I’m helped by living in the city where there aren’t extensive lawns.  And no, you can’t tell me that cut grass smells sweet.  It smells like misery.

So ragweed sufferers, know thine enemy.  The leaves are dark green and deeply cut.  The flower is a pale green-yellow spike that it doesn’t look much like a flower at all.  Common ragweed doesn’t need to be beautiful.  It has no interest in attracting insects.  It’s pollinated by the wind and that’s why it’s so good at making you sneeze.  It produces a ton of pollen.  To add insult to injury, its Latin name is Ambrosia artemisiifolia.  Ambrosia!  

Good luck … and take an antihistamine before you go outdoors.

(photos by Chuck Tague)

In my Joe-Pye weed post last week I said I had two favorite late summer flowers.  Here’s the other one:  Tall Ironweed (Vernonia altissima).

Deep magenta-purple flowers in a showy flat-topped cluster at the top of a 10-foot plant.  The stem is so tough – like iron – that cattle won’t browse it in the fields so it stands as an ornament.  It’s so large you can easily see it from the highway, so beautiful it’s worth stopping to take a look.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

In late summer I have two favorite flowers.  Here’s one of them: Sweet Joe-Pye weed (Eupatorium purpureum also known as Eutrochium purpureum).   As you can see, it’s a favorite with insects too.

The plant is huge – 10 feet tall – and the flowers, though individually small, are arranged in a large dome-shaped cluster 6 to 9 inches across.  Its size is amazing when you consider it grew to this height since April.  Click on the photo to see what the entire plant looks like.

Joe-Pye weed used to be considered a weed and was only found growing wild near creeks and in damp roadside ditches.  But now gardeners focus on native plants, so you don’t have to leave town to see it.  Stop in Schenley Park and look at the wildflowers across the street from the Westinghouse fountain.  The Joe-Pye weed is spectacular.

(photo by Chuck Tague)

As Chuck Tague pointed out last week, August is the end of the season for Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) but I couldn’t resist showing you a beautiful picture of this member of the milkweed family. 

True to its name, Butterfly Weed is very attractive to butterflies.  Here, a Coral Hairstreak drinks the nectar in Marcy Cunkelman’s garden. 

This plant has done well this year and is still in bloom.  Look for it in open, unmowed fields, especially at the recovered strip mines in western Allegheny County (also called the Imperial Grasslands).

(photo by Marcy Cunkelman)

Summer has turned the corner.  In August it’s on the ebb. 

If you didn’t have a calendar, how would you know?  Here’s a quick list of what to look for outdoors.  For a detailed list, especially flowers and butterflies, see Chuck Tague’s phenology. 

• Hummingbird Clearwing Moths drink from Swamp Thistles.  This moth resembles a hummingbird when it flies.  Look closely; don’t be fooled.
• Late summer flowers are here – Coneflowers and Bonesets, Wingstems and Sunflowers, Goldenrods and Asters – and so are their accompanying butterflies and moths.
• Bird song is rare.  Only cardinals sing at dawn in my neighborhood and soon they’ll be silent too.
• Hummingbird migration begins.  Visit any place with lots of flowers and you’ll see hummingbirds zipping by.  In the eastern U.S. we have only ruby-throated hummingbirds, but during migration there’s a chance a rufous hummingbird will arrive.  Keep a watch on your feeders.
• Warblers and shorebirds leave for the south. 
• Many adult birds, including peregrine falcons, are molting.
• Some trees show late-season insect or fungal disease.  Stands of black locusts are brown.  Fall webworms will make tents in the trees. 
• By mid-August we should be hearing katydids but I’m not holding my breath.  I’m still waiting to hear cicadas and crickets in the numbers I expected in June and July.  What a strange year!

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Dense Blazing Star (Liatris spicata) is blooming among the goldenrod and the prairie is decked out in purple and gold. Indigo buntings sing from the trees and American goldfinches fly loops around the field.

Don’t miss your chance to see Jennings Prairie in bloom.  You can get a guided tour of the flowers on Friday July 31 at 10:00am when the Wissahickon Nature Club visits Jennings Environmental Education Center in Butler County. Meet at the Prairie parking lot.  Click here for more information.

…If I didn’t have to work, I’d be there!

(photo by Chuck Tague)

Looking for something beautiful and red?  Then you’ll enjoy finding Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) in bloom this month. 

Cardinal flower grows in wet places and is quite a hummingbird favorite.  I too love its deep, red color. 

You can find it along the Butler-Freeport Trail south of Cabot, in the woods at Jennings Environmental Center and in many other places in western Pennsylvania.  Check the creek sides, look in the shady places.  It’s worth a hike to find it.

(photo by Tim Vechter)