Gardening – Page 7 – Birding Boomers

Birding On Board — Netherlands Trip Notes

July 25, 2013joannie65354 Comments

First there are gulls – there are always gulls. Of course, if you are near the water anywhere in the world, you will see gulls.

When you are on a river boat cruise, you spend a good portion of your time either on the boat or on a walking tour of the towns where you are docked for the day. And I found out that you do not spend as much time birding as you might have planned to do back months ago when you were planning the trip. Prior to the trip, I had ordered guides for the area from Amazon.com® – actually I ordered three guides. Now that might seem like it is at least one guide too many but I have never been known to walk away from a good deal. I found two great deals on used guides at Amazon….when you can get a used guide for less than $5, then you pretty much just have to buy it just in case you might need it…and think how much money I saved by buying three discounted guides rather than one at full-price (Joannie logic for sure). One turned out to be too technical with not enough color photos but the other two turned out to be just right – right size, right number of photos, right amount of technical information for a more casual birder like me. So those two went into the suitcase and were carried on the trip with me.*

I also went online to birdingpal.org and tried to make contact with birders in Amsterdam. We had a free day before the ship sailed and I was looking for a little help in doing just a little birding and asked for suggestions of places to go to in/around Amsterdam. I sent several messages but, alas, got no responses. So my first experience with birdingpal turned out to be… not so good. But, knowing that even common birds in Europe would be new to my husband and me, we decided to wing it (pun intended)….when it comes to birds, you mostly have to wing it anyway and timing is everything.

Before I move on, one little travel hint. I have a little trick I use to keep track of the birds I see while on a trip. I tuck little Post-It® flags in with my guidebook and when I see a bird, I add a flag to the photo and description in the guidebook. I add the date and location of the sighting. Later when I am back at the hotel room or, in this case, the boat, I can go through the guidebook and note down all the birds I have seen that day and check descriptions against the photos I might have managed to take during the outing. Ultimately, when I am back home again, I can flip through the guidebook and prepare my trip bird listing and I remove all the little flags from the book before stowing it away until next time. Now, I know that more serious birders would have already uploaded their daily lists to eBird and may not need this hint but it is a little trick that I have found helpful for me when traveling.

But getting back to gulls, we didn’t see as many as I thought we would see. Or at least, I didn’t see as many different kinds of gulls or other seabirds as I thought I would see. For the most part, there were Black Headed Gulls (Lorus ridibundus) which were new to me and therefore okay by me. I am more used to Laughing Gulls (Leucophaeus atricilla) with black heads back on the east coast in the States so getting to know another gull with a black head was just fine. I did see quite a few Herring Gulls (Larus argentatus) which were very familiar to me and a few Greater Black-Backed Gulls (Larus ridibundus) but there just didn’t seem to be as many other kinds as I would have expected when taking a river cruise.

There were tons of pigeons and, being pigeons, came in all shapes and sizes (mostly big) and were absolutely everywhere. Every tour guide we met seemed to have a complaint about the pigeons. Among them were Wood Pigeons (Columba palumbus) and Collared Doves (Streptopelia decaocto), both new to me. Although people complained a bit about the number of pigeons in the cities, I just tried to enjoy the view and pick out the ones that were different from the rest and were new to me.

Birding while cruising turned out to be rather difficult considering the boat is moving down the middle of the rivers, channels, waterways which was usually some distance from the shorelines where most of the birds were hanging out. Add the 6 knot cruising speed of the boat…which sounds very slow until you try to focus on a bird on the shore before it is long gone…and you have a challenge. But we did okay in spotting birds notwithstanding the difficulties. We got distant views of a good sized flock of Barnacle Geese (Branta leucopsis) and closer looks at several Oystercatchers (Haematopus ostralegus) that were spotted on a grassy area near a lock along with numerous other Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), Coots (Fulica atra), and other ducks.

Now, the Mallards are pretty much the same as those we have back home in Maryland although there seemed to be quite a few hybrids. This is not unusual since Mallards are known to breed with American Black Ducks (Anas rubripes) but the Mallards here seem to have intermixed with domestic ducks so we saw many brown splotched Mallards. It reminded me of the pigeons with all the variation on basic colors possible.

On the other hand, the Coots and Oystercatchers were very similar to their American counterparts but were different enough that you can tell they are an old world species.

Speaking of Coots, don’t you love the blue feet on that bird? I cannot remember ever seeing a Coot out of water, so was very surprised at the size and color of their feet.

It was the same with the Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) which looks remarkably like the Great Bearded Heron (Ardea herodias) in America but is decidedly different when photos of the two birds are viewed side by side.

Most of our birding luck on the trip came in the towns when we managed to squeeze in time before or after a walking tour. I have written already about our visit to the Amsterdam Botanical Garden several weeks ago in the post, Birds in a Garden, so I won’t go back over the birds we saw there in this post. (Except for adding a photo of the Ring Necked Parakeet (Psittacula krameri), of course.)

We did manage to find birds also along the way as we followed the tour guides through the towns but one of our best birding moments came in the town of Hoorn when we found a wonderful park by a canal totally by chance when we sort of got lost looking for something else.

The day before we left for the cruise, I had spent some time working in our garden back home and was tackling the removal of some Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) that had gotten totally out of control and was rambling about everywhere. Now, what I didn’t realize was that Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicans) had grown up in the Creeper and was hiding there like some sneaky snake ready to pounce on those of us who are most susceptible to its evil poison. Only I could get a poison oak rash the day before I left on vacation….and then not realize that I had it. So, about the second day of the trip, I found out that I had a nasty rash in several places on my hands and arms and a day or so after that I figured out what it was exactly. Fortunately, it was a relatively light case so I wasn’t totally miserable and didn’t need a doctor. But I am in Europe with poison oak and I am not even sure that they have the plant over there, let alone any idea of whether or not they had anything resembling calamine lotion with which to treat it. And who takes calamine lotion on a cruise? Nobody, that’s who.

After about three days, I am thinking I need to find anything that might help the incessant itching. We found ourselves with a little time after the walking tour of Hoorn but before we had to be back to the boat for lunch and decided the time was right to find a drugstore, or an Apotheek as the locals call it. We got directions to go down a half a block and turn left and proceed for a couple blocks and the pharmacy would be right there – has a big green cross on front of the building — couldn’t miss it. Have you ever noticed how local people have no real idea of distances when it comes to their home town? Everything is just right there, not far at all, and you can absolutely never miss it, whatever it is. Well, we went down the block and turned left….so far, so good. But the distance to the next intersection of any size was more than just a couple blocks; it was more like 1/2 mile. And, of course, the pharmacy wasn’t just right there – well, it was but it wasn’t exactly what we were expecting. We stood there a bit before realizing the store was on the corner but just wasn’t obvious…it didn’t look like a pharmacy…it looked like just another building. Having found it, we went in and inquired about calamine lotion and somehow or another made the pharmacist, who was perhaps the only person in the Netherlands we met who didn’t speak English, understand what we were looking for and why. Turns out they did carry calamine lotion and had a single bottle left in stock which we happily purchased for 9 Euro – not cheap by any means but I would have gladly paid more at this point. (Note: I just found out by looking at answerbag.com that poison ivy/oak is a North American native plant and is non-existent in Europe. Now I am wondering what they do with calamine. Oh well, I am just happy they had that one bottle when I needed it.)

As we left the pharmacy and headed back to the docks, we noticed a lovely park that ran along a canal and backed up to the houses and back gardens of the houses along a parallel street. And where there is water and there are gardens and, more importantly, where there is open space, there are birds. We took the long way back through the park and we did get lucky with views of a Jay (Garrulus glandarius), Jackdaws (Corvus monedula), and a Redwing (Turdus iliacus) and more views of Magpies (Pica pica), Great Crested Grebes (Podiceps cristatus), and Coots (Fulica atra).

Now a Jay is one bird you would never get confused with an American Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata)….totally different birds.

Mission accomplished with several new life-birds on the list and a bottle of calamine, we headed back to the boat, promptly got lost following my finely honed sense of direction, then got back on track when the husband took the lead and we made it back in time for lunch. But don’t tell him that I ever admitted that I got us lost and he got us back on track…..I might never hear the end of it.

All in all, without really looking or doing any serious birding, we saw 42 different species that we could affirmatively identify. We saw several hawks overhead and from a distance, plenty of gulls that were not close enough to see discriminating marks, and other birds we just couldn’t identify so we do not include them in the count. Since this is the first time we have looked for birds in Europe at all, most were life-birds and added to our combined life list quite nicely. Notably missing from the list were woodpeckers. We just did not see any woodpeckers although we did hear a bird that sounded very much like a Red-Bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) from back home.

I also expected to see Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) everywhere since they are very invasive in the States but I was surprised by how few we did see in the Netherlands. There were Starlings at the airport when we arrived in Amsterdam but we never encountered them elsewhere. The birds might have been everywhere else….we just didn’t see them anywhere else. Maybe the pigeons keep the starlings in check. Finally, I expected to see more migrating birds, especially waterfowl but, other than the flock of Barnacle Geese, we did not see large flocks of any ducks or geese although the area is in a migration flyway.

It was an excellent trip and we did see awesome birds although that wasn’t really the purpose of the trip. I do wonder how many new species we would have seen if we had actually gone birding with a guide, found a few more parks and gardens, or had more than 10 days in which to look……something to think about and to plan for on future trips.

* Guidebooks:

“A Naturalist’s Guide to the Birds of Britain & Northern Europe”; Peter Goodfellow & Paul Sterry; Beaufoy Books; 2010; (purchased from Amazon.com®)

“Birds of Britain and Europe, Photographic Field Guide”; Jim Flegg & David Hosking; New Holland Publishers; 1990; (purchased from Amazon.com®)

June Blooms (June 21, 2013)

June 21, 2013joannie65352 Comments

As of late, I have been browsing blogs to see what others go on about and what makes each blog special. Yep, I’m looking for pointers and ideas so I’m surfing the blog-o-sphere. I had become a fan of The Tidewater Gardener after a friend recommended that I check him out. Recently, there was a post with a challenge that members of the blogger community – the flower lovers & gardeners among us – get out there and take photos of the flowers blooming in their gardens on June 15^th and post them for all to see. The original idea seems to have come from another blogger – Carol of May Dreams Gardens. Carol invites all bloggers to survey, photograph, and share their blooms and then add a link at her blog-site to share the wealth with everyone. Of course, I found all this a week or so later than the intended “share” date but I cannot really let that stop me, now can I?

So, round the yard I went taking photos of flowers with my trusty Sony Cybershot® only to find that most of the photos were too blurry to use. Either my eyes are going bad or the camera has been dropped a few times too many. Vanity keeps me from admitting the first and thriftiness the second. So, next day, I was out there again with a little bit better camera….and I got a little bit better photos….and some are good enough to share.

Starting off with the obvious, there are three different hydrangeas blooming in the flowerbeds at present. I ask you, what respectable southern gardener would not have hydrangeas in the yard? There are some givens with southern gardens – hydrangeas and roses and crepe myrtles. If you have any more yard room at all, then you have to have a Southern Magnolia; if your yard is small, like ours, you can get away with omitting the magnolia but you absolutely must have the others. Of course, the crepe myrtles are not blooming right now or I’d surely have a picture to show you. We have both mopheads and lace cap hydrangeas blooming this June (Macophylla mophead & Macophylla normalus).

Moving on to roses, we have a few but mostly they are the easy to deal with type of roses – shrub or blanket. I also, do not tell any of my gardening buddies, have Knock Out® roses. I absolutely cannot grow roses – they are just too much trouble. Every fungus and disease known to man also is known to roses – intimately. I am here to tell you, if there is a spot to be had, black or otherwise, it’ll be had on the roses. So, I gave up on the tea roses and the fancy ones and just stick to the wilder looking ones that seem to grow by themselves without dust or spray or, in my shady yard, light of day. The particular rose photo I am sharing is one from a rose whose name I do not know. It is not unusual for me not to know the names of the flowers I grow because I do not always keep up with the right & proper (i.e. species) name for anything. And, on top of that, I inherited my daddy’s habit of re-naming every flower to better fit what it looks like. For example, he called wild red Columbines (Aquilegia species) “red tinker-bells” and Forsythia was, of course, “yellow tinker-bells”. I can totally see that so I now call them that too. Oh, just so you know, Forsythia is another of those flower bushes that no southern home can be without. But back to the rose that I do not know the name of whose photo I included. This one I will not take credit for forgetting – it didn’t come with a name. I got it for $1 at an “end of season” sale at Lowe’s®. I got two roses and I stuck them in the ground that very day and it was some six months or so before I had any clue what kind of rose they were. Turns out they were blanket (or carpet or groundcover) roses – one light pink and one dark pink. Both are blooming now but I kind of like the light pink one best.

As you might be able to tell, I am a sucker for a bargain and will peruse the “on sale” area like nobody’s business. I once bought a little piddly looking plant that didn’t have a chance of surviving because it was marked “slow mover”. I took it home and tried to make it live because I wanted to see if it ever would move at all. I’ll never know – it died shortly after I got it home. But even better than buying a plant on sale is getting one free. Now, hold your horses, I am not talking about “rustling” plants although it has occurred to me that pinching off a little Coleus now and then from someone’s overflowing container garden might not be such a bad thing. I prefer to think of my habit as “relocating” plants to a better place in life. But I do limit myself (for the most part) to relocating plants with permission or from places that are obviously not going to be a problem like construction sites where everything is being plowed up and destroyed – although you need to get permission to be there too. But the next photo (above) is a wild-flower (of sorts). This is a Wild Yam Vine (Dioscorea villosa) that we inadvertently came home with while “relocating” a fern from beside a creek bed by the side of the road. We also came home with a poison ivy vine that gave me the worst case of poison ivy I have had in many a year (plant rustling is not without its punishment). The yam vine is an interesting one so I kept it. I have never really seen any type of flowers blooming on it but it always has these tiny little seed pods. I do not know if these are some sort of modified bloom but it is what passes for blooms for me. On the good side, this vine comes back every year but doesn’t really seem to get bigger or spread any further than where it is. These may be famous last words for me. On the other hand, no matter how much I love birds and how much birds love poison ivy berries, I am not about to keep that evil vine anywhere near my yard.

The next best kind of “free” plants are those that come up voluntarily. These volunteers are usually weeds (beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, is it not?) and most people do not want them around and spend considerable amounts of time and money trying to get rid of them. But the red raspberry vine growing in the yard is my favorite kind of volunteer. The vines were here when we moved here and we have transplanted them to various places in the yard (with a little help from the birds). Fortunately, they are relatively easy to remove and keep under control (with good thick gloves). AND, they produce wonderful sweet berries every year. On the down side, we do not usually get to eat many of the berries because the birds get to them first. I have noted that birds are better at gardening than I am – at least they are better at monitoring progress on the berry bushes than I am. The blooms on a raspberry vine are pretty innocuous but the early buds are quite lovely. I suspect this is not a cultivated red raspberry bush but rather a Japanese Wineberry (Rubus phoenicolaseus) which has become invasive in some parts of this state. For now, they are loved by the birds (and by me) so I allow the vines to continue to grow.

Another berry bush just coming into bloom is the Beauty Berry (Callicarpa americana). Unlike the wineberry vines, the beauty berry is all American – nothing foreign or invasive about it. Again, the blooms are tiny but will be replaced by bright purple berries in another few weeks. I planted this bush specifically for the birds to enjoy and they do. When we planted a blueberry bush out front, we dreamed of eating those sweet berries but the birds get to them and finish them off long before they are fully ripe so we never get a one. On the other hand, the beauty berry bush is different… the birds do not really eat the berries until late autumn. Maybe, they know that we humans do not eat beauty berries so there is no need to eat them quickly to keep us from getting to them first. So, a bit after the first good cold snap in autumn, the robins and mockingbirds and catbirds swoop in and consume every single little beauty berry in just a day or two.

I also have planted Trumpet Vine (Campsis radecans) for the birds to enjoy – particularly the hummingbirds. And who doesn’t want hummingbirds in their yards? The trumpet vine is also a native plant but this one can be invasive and it can grow quite large so you have to plant it where you can try to control it. I say “try” because that is about all you can do. But, it is a favorite with hummingbirds and butterflies and, apparently from the photo, ants. I have never seen so many ants on a bud before and I am wondering if the trumpet flower is like a peony that is covered with ants and has a bit of a symbiotic relationship during the hard bud stage. I note that a more common name for the plant is the “cow-itch vine”. Do you suppose it is the ants that cause the cows to itch or the vine? Of course, the “itch” could come from some allergen in the plant – the leaves remind me quite a bit of poison sumac. But I’m good with it as long as it is the cows that are itching and not me.

Now, moving back to blooms from plants less wild. The next two flowers are plants I purchased in years past at the Philadelphia Flower Show. The first is a Persicaria ‘Red Dragon’ and has a tiny bloom but, like coleus, has such beautiful foliage that it holds a special place in my garden. For me, that is. It hangs over the edges of the flower beds and drives my husband to distraction…but that is only because I do not let him run through it with the weed whacker.

The other is one of those mystery plants that I bought on a whim at the show and I haven’t the foggiest idea what it is. It is a bulb and not hardy at all so I keep it in a pot with an Elephant’s Ear that I bring in to the sun room to winter over every year. You’ve been to those shows and heard those vendors talking about magic bulbs that produce marvelous tropical flowers that you know you just got to have and today only they are only $2.99 or you know you’ll regret it if you do not buy this bulb right now!!! Well, I heard the spiel and had to have it and I bought it and came home proudly with my little bulb like a treasure in a little brown paper bag. I figured I would plant it and it would never come up and I’d just be out my three bucks….which is usually what happens. But it has surpassed all my expectations and then some. It was supposed to be a “firecracker” lily and I continue to call it that because it blooms without fail every year around July 4^th. This year, it is a little bit early but the blooms will last a week or so and take us right into Independence Day. I have googled the name and did see one image of a similar plant but mostly the only bloom that popped up on Google® was a bright red Asiatic lily. If anyone knows the name of this bulb, please pass it along. Otherwise, it’ll remain the Firecracker Lily. I think that maybe an orange or yellow one planted in the same pot would make a nice fireworks type display but I would have to know what it is before I can try to buy another one. It is sounding more and more like I need to go back to the flower show in hopes that the bulb hustler is still there with his brown bag of goodies that no gardener can ever resist.

And finally, June is the month for lilies, both daylilies and Asiatic lilies. And there are few plants more beautiful. From the cool clean elegance of the Easter Lily (Lilium longiflorum) to the bright hot orange of the roadside orange or tawny daylily (Hemerocallis fulva) , they are all quite beautiful.

For lilies & daylilies, it is best to let the photos speak for themselves.