nature – Page 9 – Birding Boomers

Plant Sale at Paca House

May 16, 2015joannie65354 Comments

It’s spring and plant sales are popping up everywhere. And I love plant sales more than a hoarder loves yard sales. One of my favorite spring plant sales is at the Paca House and Gardens in Annapolis, Maryland. Really, what is not to like about a plant sale at a historical garden that you get to see without having to pay the usual entry fee? It has become a bit of an annual tradition for me and one of my gardening buddies and we pretty much turn it into an all day thing by lollygagging over lunch at a local haunt talking about what plants we bought and where we are going to plant them and so on and so on. And not to be left out, I’ve recruited my dear sweet husband to do all the driving and negotiating those tiny alley sized roads in downtown Annapolis. He just drops us off at the sale and then comes round to pick us up an hour or so later. We also let him buy lunch — it works out splendidly.

Never been to Paca House? Well, me neither – not actually. I’ve only seen the back of the place from the gardens. But I’m sure it is quite lovely inside the house and I’m sure I’ll go there one day but not this year. I’ve actually never seen the front of the house either since we always come in from the rear on East Street right by the Water Witch Fire Station #1 in Annapolis. And every year I take a photo of the Water Witch #1 and tell myself I will look this up on the internet and find out some more about a Water Witch Fire Station. And this year I did!

What I found out was that this is not a fire house anymore. It has been “re-purposed” into office space. Rats! What is the good of having a cool looking fire house when it is not used for a fire house anymore? Oh well, it once was one of three fire houses in Annapolis: Water Witch Company on East Street, Independent Fire Company No. 2 on Duke of Gloucester opposite City Hall, and Rescue Hose Company on West Street next to Loew’s Hotel. The three fire houses were consolidated into a new facility located on Taylor Avenue….so no more Water Witches….in Annapolis, that is. But there are Water Witches in Port Deposit/Conowingo and somewhere in Cecil County so all is not lost. Out there somewhere is a water witch just waiting to put out a fire or two. But knowing that doesn’t help me get to the bottom of why it is called a water witch rather than a pump house or a fire station in the first place.

I seem to recall something from my childhood about water witching being another name for dowsing and guys who would come out to your property with bent willow sticks to help find water. But I never heard them called water witches. But this is pretty much what I found out when I checked good old reliable (sometimes) Wikipedia for water witch. But it doesn’t tell me how a fire station became a water witch…..was it the job of our very first volunteer firemen to go out and find water? Of course, there is the obvious connection of fire trucks pumping water but I’m not sure that really explains it. On the other hand, I can just imagine a volunteer fireman walking around with a bent willow stick witching out a good spot to dig while the town burns down all around him. Oh well, if anyone knows, leave me a comment so I can stop wondering about it and get back to the gardens at the back of the Paca House, which, by the way, was probably established right about the time that old Water Witch #1 was founded so the estate was, no doubt, a big potential customer for the Water Witch in case of fires.

So William Paca House (to be precise) was built by the gentlemen for which it is named between 1763 and 1765 making it, as the brochure says, a beautiful example of a “Pre-Revolutionary War” home and garden. Now, aren’t we thankful that those dastardly British skipped Annapolis on their way to burn Baltimore during the War of 1812? Otherwise, we’d not have this example of the houses built prior to the war. As for William Paca – he is known hereabouts as being a signer of the Declaration of Independence as well as for being the Governor of Maryland for three terms.

The house is a Georgian mansion and I realized I wasn’t exactly sure what made it a Georgian mansion as opposed to say, a Federalist mansion. I’m not really up on architecture so I had to take a moment and look that up too. (Now, you’re wondering if I will ever get to the part about buying plants. Maybe not, but I promise to show you something of the garden as we go.) Turns out Georgian architecture refers to the “styles” that were current between the years 1720 to 1830. And you know why? Because those were the years when Kings George I, II, III, and IV ruled in England. So for a hundred years or so the King was named George and the architecture became known as Georgian. If you want to know more about Georgian architecture, look here. Essentially, the houses are simple 1-2 stories, kind of boxy, and very symmetrical with the front door in the center of the house, with rectangular windows capped with elaborate crowns and cornices with decorative moldings/dentilwork. I think maybe when the Levitt Brothers pared them down in size, dropped the fancy moldings and made them affordable for all Americans (certainly on the East Coast), lost the “mansion” part and became those “colonials” so popular in America today…built some years after the Revolutionary War, of course. For those of you who live around here but didn’t know, the Belair section of Bowie, MD was built by Levitt and Sons.….the Levitts didn’t just build Levittown, you know……they were building those houses everywhere.

And moving right back to the gardens: So my friend, Glo, and I grabbed our cardboard plant boxes (or whatever they are called) and started filling them with herbs and native plants. The plant sale area is laid out such that you get to spend some time looking at herbs and vegetables, then you walk up through the wall and into the bottom part of the garden and then back up the walkway and through the garden wall (it is a walled garden after all) and into the area where the rest of the plants – annuals and perennials – are laid out to be sold. So, on your way, you get to tour the garden. So, with our boxes about halfway full, we found a nice place to stow them giving us plenty of time to explore the two acre walled garden before tackling the annuals and perennials.

One thing I always notice about this garden is the pollarded and espaliered fruit trees. Pollarding does get my attention and I do find myself thinking that it is really akin to butchering the trees. The pruning technique is radical (to me) but has been used in Europe for many (hundreds of) years. I recall seeing trees that had been pollarded when we visited Amsterdam several years ago.

The trees lined the streets but looked more like huge sculpted tree menorahs than trees. I asked about the trees and was told they were mostly Linden Trees and would look lovely when the foliage grew back in spring. In this country, we see this process used on Crepe Myrtles – extreme pruning leaving the trees looking pretty horrible (to me) in spring. But the trees do seem to recover okay although they look like sticks and then sticks with powder puff leaf balls before they ever start looking like trees again. I will say that I do not pollard the Crepe Myrtles in my yard and they bloom just fine…..for those who would say the process means more blooms. Proponents of the technique say that it makes the trees live longer because they [the trees] are always having to recover and renew themselves and are never allowed to grow old [as trees go]. (You should read that sentence like you are a snobby hoity toity landscape designer who never deigns to actually get his hands dirty.) I’m not sure I buy that explanation but I do like the explanation that, in Europe, they do not have a problem with large tree limbs falling into power lines in those towns with pollarded trees during storms……because there are no large limbs to fall….now that makes sense.

At Paca House, there are two ancient figs that are pollarded (or appear to be) and are also trained against the brick garden wall. As it is early spring when the plant sales are conducted, I have never been able to see the figs with leaves. But the ancient-looking gnarled tree trunks are quite impressive even without the leaves.

Now, the apple trees on the other hand are trained and espaliered to make a low edging to the walkways. I have never seen this before and I do not know what the technique is except to call it espaliering….or, making short walls out of trees. In years past, I have seen the trees filled out and marveled at the effect. And, yes, I have seen the tiny knee-high trees (some peach but mostly apple) with lots of setting fruit so I have to assume they are very productive trees regardless of their height. In the last couple years, the garden appears to have been re-vamped completely and the little apple tree walls have been removed (I suppose they get too old and start dying out) and new trees have now been planted and are now in training. Just the thing to get me back next year so I can see how the trees have progressed.

There is also an apple tree archway that provides a covered entrance to another part of the garden that is pretty neat – no other way to describe it. It is just pretty neat to walk through an archway that is an apple tree or maybe several apple trees together. I like to imagine just taking a stroll in the garden and reaching up overhead and picking a little snack and you go from the vegetable garden to the topiary garden….find a bench….read a book….gardens can affect you that way.

The garden is really pretty formal with gigantic hollies pruned into perfect cones and a centrally placed circular herb and rose garden that should be lovely later in the year.

There is a side/kitchen garden comprised of maybe ten raised beds that appear to have been planted in but so far no little sprouts are showing this early in the year although the Rosemary and Lavender is growing like weeds…..err, maybe more like herbs.

If you stand just at the back of the house, there is a broad graveled walk that goes all the way to the summer house at the very back of the property. There is also a pond with a lovely arched bridge just before you reach the summer house (or folly as I would think of it).

But what always grabs my attention is the beautiful and very large Buckeye just to the right of the summer house. It is always in full bloom just in time for the plant sale each year. I fell in love with it the first year I went to the plant sale. I guess I had never really seen or noticed a Buckeye Tree before so didn’t realize they bloomed. When I asked about it, I was informed that the tree was a very special Buckeye – it was a cutting from a tree that was on George Washington’s estate, Mount Vernon, down near Alexandria, Virginia. I am not clear on whether or not the seedling was taken from a tree that George Washington actually planted or just one that is planted there today as being consistent with trees that George might have had on his estate. I think maybe the latter because I do not think Buckeyes live so long….but you never know. For want of a better name, the lady I asked just called it the George Washington Buckeye but I think it is really a Red Buckeye Tree.

Well, you know I had to have one….and you know they just happened to have a seedling on sale right there at the plant sale that very day….and you know I had to buy it right on the spot. What else could I do? I brought it home and potted it up – it wasn’t much more than a stick after all – and I nurtured it (sort of) for a couple years and when it got big enough (bigger than a stick), I planted it in the ground. It is doing splendidly and this year produced its first bloom – a beautiful red bloom just like I had seen on the mother tree. Not a single regret do I have in buying that tree…..my very own bit of history and connection to good ole George right in my front yard.

So, now we’ve circled the garden and it was time to get back to the good part – buying flowers. And, as it turns out, there’s not much to talk about for that part. They had mostly native plants and plants that might have been planted in gardens back in the 1700’s. I bought a couple more hollyhocks to replace the one I had bought last year. Since hollyhocks are biennials, last year’s plant is doing well and should bloom this year before dying out. The two new plants will grow this year and bloom next year. It’s a circular process that means I’ll have to keep putting in new hollyhocks each year to replace the ones that bloom and die. Not as good as perennials but better than annuals. It keeps a gardener digging in the dirt year after year after year.

I also got the herbs I had mentioned and some Swamp Milkweed in my never ending quest to attract butterflies and, specifically, Monarchs to my flowerbeds. And a little Thyme and Bronze Fennel (love that color). I did not get Rosemary this year – just haven’t had luck with it in the past. But I did get a Cardoon plant to try…..it sounds so Madagascar so why not? And then there’s the Hyacinth bean vine for the trellis in the Hosta bed and a new little lemon colored miniature Hosta and a Moonflower vine for a hanging pot for the deck and……well, you get the gist of it, I filled my box so the good folks at the Paca House got their money’s worth out of me….til next year, that is. (Oh, in case you’re wondering, the box was full…..I just forgot to get a picture before some of the plants were planted.)

Florida Plan – Strictly For The Birds

April 4, 2015joannie65352 Comments

We had a plan….a good plan…..a well thought out plan to take us through southern Florida and some of the best birding ever and all in 30 days (more or less). Well, I thought it was a good plan and I had done considerable research and had created a nice short eleven page listing of places to see with links and directions and notes and big plans to see every single place on the list. It was to be the best trip ever with birding extraordinaire and all in a place where it was warm and it wasn’t snowing and there were no ice storms or winter weather warnings and, more importantly, no signs that read, “Bridges Freeze Before Roadways”. HA! There would be no bridge freezing at all – we were just not going to have any of that in the Sunshine State. End of story – just sunshine and birds and maybe some fishing. Because you see, I HAD A PLAN.

I know you’re thinking about my last blog (Snowbirds Test Flight) and how the best laid plans get all hosed up in the implementation stage. Well, you’re wrong. The plan worked marvelously. We spent a glorious thirty-four days (longest vacation ever) doing exactly what we set out to do.

I mentioned my list. It was a bit optimistic but it was a good starting point. It wasn’t our first trip to Florida so we had an idea about the lay of the land (very flat) and the type of birds we’d be seeing (lots of Herons and Egrets and Hawks and Ibises and Pelicans) and a few rare birds that we wanted to see (Kites and Burrowing Owls and Scrub Jays). We knew the Auto Train would drop us in Sanford so we planned to travel first up the road to Deland and visit an uncle who would show us around while trying to convince us mightily that we should pack up and move to Deland. It is always good to find someone who is excited about where they live and who loves to show you the sights around town.

Our plan was to go from there straight to the east coast and the Atlantic and, more specifically, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. We’d been once before in summer but we’d heard the best birding is in winter so we were going back. From there we would head down the east coast and bird the areas around the main corridors of Route 1 (yep, the same one that begins and Maine and ends in Key West) and Interstate 95. We would head down to Miami and then work our way across Florida on the Tamiami Trail. Once on the west coast, we’d hit the highs around Fort Myers and then head north. We’d incorporate a visit with friends at Bradenton for the fishing part….at least for my better half. I have found that he will do a tremendous amount of birding day in and day out if he knows there is fishing somewhere in the mix. Then we’d continue north along the Gulf Coast up past Tampa (with a short visit with my sister thrown in) to Crystal Springs and then over to Ocala to visit an aunt. Finally, we’d bird our way back to Sanford and catch the train back home. I had taken to calling this “the loop” since a look at a map of Florida shows us looping our way through the southern part of the state and ending up in Sanford right back where we started.

And, pretty much, that is exactly what we did. The first part of the plan went very well except for the part about finding that hotel rooms wouldn’t be as easy to find as we’d thought (as I explained in my last blog). The only real changes to the plan came on the Gulf Coast part of the loop. My sister’s move to Tampa was delayed and then our aunt called to say that she would be out of town taking care of some unexpected business so we ended up bypassing Tampa and rethinking our plans for Ocala. So, we ended up in the lake district outside Orlando. I know you’re thinking, “Orlando…Disneyworld…kids…..traffic…Yikes!” but Orlando is actually more than Disneyworld and turned out to be good for birding and good for just plain roaming around checking things out in the central part of the state. Besides, what’s wrong with Disney except for all that traffic near the park?

All in all, we visited 53 parks and refuges and preserves that I counted specifically…..some parks were little more than community recreational ball fields with minimal birding opportunities so I didn’t really count them. I had used the Great Florida Birding Trail and eBird to plan many of the sites on my list. Otherwise, we discovered we liked the Florida State Parks which had apparently been voted the best in the United States in the past by some authority or another. We bought an annual pass and checked out their nifty guide to state parks and started incorporating the parks into our trip. We also found that there are quite a few county and local parks that have pretty good walking and hiking trails. Since water is pretty much everywhere, even in the dry season, there are apt to be birds everywhere. I do have to mention that the birds are not all huddled up in one spot just waiting for you though. They are spread out all over the state so you do have to go out looking for them…and they can be darned hard to find sometimes!

Now, having said that, I have to say that Florida is about the best state that I have visited for birding and hiking if you are older or have arthritis or not in the best of health or physical shape. Many of the refuges and preserves have extensive boardwalks through the wetlands and excellent nature centers. There are regularly scheduled activities for all age groups throughout the year. In the bigger parks, most of the boardwalks are fully accessible and walking trails are paved. I was amazed at how many of the parks included some sort of boardwalk or observation deck that accommodated wheelchairs and walkers. There are, of course, wilder areas with unpaved paths and rustic facilities (those dreaded porta-potties) for those who swear that you can only enjoy wildlife if you are hot and sweaty, plagued by mosquitos, ants, and bees, and you have to hike over rough trails for miles on sore feet. But I like my creature comforts so I was pleasantly surprised at how many good birding sites were also great parks in general that can be very easily enjoyed by all ages no matter what shape you are in.

I was also impressed by the Florida water management practices and how many wetlands are water treatment facilities that are set up with boardwalks and walking paths or that allow you to drive through the impounds. It seems birds like water and really like water that smells quite yukky because we saw lots of birds in the impoundments at water treatment facilities and we got great opportunities to bird while breathing very carefully through our mouths and not directly through our noses. Notwithstanding the smell, I do wish more states would consider driving and walking trails through treatment facilities or, I suppose, landfills too. But, then again, maybe it is only birders who would visit such places.

But I digress (how unusual is that?). Back to the plan and the birds, I recorded 112 species on eBird with 15 lifebirds on more than 70 checklists. Of these 15 lifebirds, there were 5 that we had seen before so technically weren’t lifebirds for us….they just hadn’t ever been recorded by us on eBird before. To add 10 new lifebirds on any trip was big and we were quite pleased with these results. As noted, there were plenty Egrets, Herons, and Pelicans but, as we meandered, we seemed to be birding more inland sites away from the shoreline so we really didn’t record very many shorebirds. There were gulls a plenty everywhere we went but they were mostly Laughing Gulls so we didn’t really see many rarities in terms of gulls or shorebirds. I did hear a non-birder refer to a Swallow-Tailed Kite as a Frigate bird but it really wasn’t and we were not really anywhere near where we might actually see Frigate birds (too far inland) although it would have been nice…but it wasn’t… so no bingo there…..although I found myself wondering if he went home and told everyone about the Magnificent Frigate Bird he spotted in the northern part of the Everglades. I know I would be.

The most birds at any one site were spotted at Merritt National Wildlife Refuge. The least birds we saw at any one site had to be at Seminole Collier State Park (but that was just a drive through so who can say how many birds we might have tallied had we gotten out and walked the trails?) The most crowded place (in terms of people not birds) we birded was at Green Cay Nature Center & Wetlands – who knew so many just plain tourists would want to walk the boardwalk through the wetlands? I have to admit that Green Cay was also one of the nicest birding venues we visited so I can totally understand all those people taking a weekend stroll through the preserve.

On the other hand, the most crowded place we went to and almost birded was Wakodahatchee Wetlands. We went twice and could not even get into the place. The first time, we couldn’t even turn into the parking lot from the main road. The second time we made it into the parking lot but there was a line queued up getting to the boardwalk. A LINE!! Can you imagine waiting to get onto a boardwalk to go birding? Just unbelievable! We didn’t stay. We put Wakodahatchee on the list for next time with a note to go at odd hours on weekdays.

The least crowded place we visited was the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. No, we didn’t see any panthers and we didn’t see many birds. There were wildflowers and it was very peaceful and quiet but very empty, or at least to me, it appeared that way. We were the only visitors when we arrived so headed out on a looping trail. We were about a quarter mile into the refuge when we stopped at an observation platform to check out some wildflowers when a young couple walked up behind us and just about scared the socks right off of me. They went on ahead of us but then turned back after a bit so, for the most part, we were left alone on the trail. We never saw another person during the remainder of our two hour walk until we arrived back at the parking lot where we found a young couple with car trouble waiting for roadside assistance and another photographer/birder who quickly disappeared down a trail. We checked to make sure the young couple was okay and then headed out on our way.

I suppose one might wonder where we saw the “best birds”. It’s an impossible question to answer for me, or, perhaps, for any birder. A friend once asked me what my favorite bird was. I thought about this for several minutes ticking through a mental list of scores of birds we’ve seen over the past few years and the only answer I could come up with was, that my favorite bird is the one I’m looking at right now…at any given moment. Every bird is beautiful – yes, even the vulture – and fascinating in its own way. Every memory of birds we’ve seen is just as nice as the others. I suppose some stand out but then, once I think of another, that one gets my attention and is great too. I just cannot pick one that I like more than the others. I’ve tried. I just cannot pick a favorite bird.

I will certainly tell you more about the places we visited in blogs to come. Suffice to say, our plan worked, we had great birding and we would do it again in a heartbeat. Besides, I’ve updated my list and there are still plenty of places to go in Florida….and there’s Wakodahatchee to get back to at some point. As long as birds have wings, we’ll probably be out there, binoculars in hand trying to find them.