E-Newsletter Articles - June, 2009

  Birding with Phil By Phil Kyle 

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

JUNE  BIRDING

Some birders consider SUMMER to be the low point of the birding year. Increasing temperatures  and associated reduction of song makes this true even on Cape Cod. This is the time of year where "BIRDING early in the AM " gained notoriety with the average person. Fortunately Cape Cod is surrounded by cool ocean water, which retards the leafing out fully of trees for a week or more until late May or early June and helps spring last longer. 

Most of the 115 new summer residents are still a challenge to find. Black-billed and Yellow-billed Cuckoo's are around especially Crooked-cart Pathway area of the West Barnstable Conservation Area. Thrashers and Scarlet Tanagers, summer residents also can be seen at Crane Wildlife Management Area. 

You can also see migrants like, Bank Swallow, Eastern Wood Pewee and the Blackpoll Warbler because almost every bird is so preoccupied with it chores as a parent, you get plenty of good looks!  

Remember Thornton Burgess Monday AM Birding happens weekly so come early and make sure you've pre-registered. We leave by Van at 8AM sharp and back before 11AM. 

  Around the Pond By Mary Beers, Ed. Director

 
Pumpkinseed Sunfish

 The Briar Patch is just bursting with every shade of green imaginable.  Reflected in the Smiling Pool these colors shimmer with vitality.  The swan family pushes through this palette as they cruise around for choice morsels of submerged vegetation.  Below the surface the male pumpkinseed sunfish is completing his morning housekeeping by pushing away small pieces of elodea that have drifted into his nest.  Called a Redd, this depression is swept clean of any errant vegetation as his awaits the arrival of his mate.  She will be his dance partner for their sideways tango, lay her eggs and leave him to do the rearing of any young that survive the pond predators.  Look for the male with his blue edged fins.  The female, if you can catch a glimpse of her,  has a soft brown edging. 

 The cherry trees around the pond are coming into their glory.  Branches droop with the weight of their white clusters of flowers.  The Briar Patch is home to Wild Black and Choke Cherry.  Scrape a small portion of bark off the gray branch of a choke cherry and the pungent sour smell will tell you why it has received this name.   The Black Locusts come into bloom mid June.  The morning air is suddenly filled with the overpoweringly sweet smell of the pea-blossom shaped white flowers are fragrance filled and a great source of nectar for our resident honey bees. 

The indoor observation hide should be up shortly for viewing.  The outside hive mates are busily working the many and varied flowers in the wildflower garden.  Spring azure butterflies are fluttering by the edges of the Briar Patch where I spotted my first tiger swallowtail of the season.  The front porch at the Green Briar building is hosting a phoebe and an hour sparrow couple.  Babies are peeping in food orders from both nests.  We are amazed by the persistence of the phoebe parents who endured the parade of passerby's during the Herb Festival to bring their eggs to hatching.  The mud dauber nest plops on the beams and upper wall of that porch await a bit warmer weather before the beautiful blue-black slender-waist wasps to emerge.   

Set aside an hour or two to come and be enveloped in the sights and smells of nature bursting for with spring beauty.  For me the Briar Patch continues to be my Balm in Gilead.  

  Nature's Apothecary   By Sharon Ackland

 
Mayapple

     Carpeting the forest floor alongside trillium and trout lily is a strange anomaly.  A plant so poisonous, its dangling yellow plum-like fruit - beckoning beneath a shroud of broad umbrella leaves - was long ago christened its cryptonym, the "devil's apple." 
 
        Member of the barberry family, the foot-high mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) sequesters a single bloom beneath its leafy veil.  Every spring the waxy-white flower entrances its primary pollinator, the bumblebee.  A soft perfume belies poison lurking for all others and present in all plant parts, leaves and rootstock.  Yet this very rhizome - full of resin, gum and flavonoids - is precisely what makes its venom so valuable. 

    For eons the reddish-brown rhizome was fermented into a brew drunk by Native Americans (NOT to be done at home).  Expelling intestinal worms, warts and skin tumors, it also served as a laxative (later touted in "Carter's Little Liver Pills").

    Today we know why.  The plant's resins are cathartic and powerfully purgative.  Lab analysis reveals an alkaloid - berberine (also present in common barberry) - a natural antibiotic useful for malaria.  Most diabolical of all, however, is its virulent root lignan - podophyllotoxin.  With an astounding ability to prevent cell division, its synthesized extract is now used in chemotherapy for lung, testicular, and skin cancer.  The FDA has also approved derivative drugs (whose annual dollar sales exceed hundreds of millions) for treating brain tumor and infant leukemia. 

    Like a plant sap slowly dripping, droplets of chemotherapy dispense a fine line between poison and cure.  Once veiled as devil, now reveals a sorcerer of cellular knowledge ... the plant spirit's dna of healing truth - its ultimate saving grace.  For as the Indian counseled ... make mischief nor war, but go deep in the wildwood where nothing is to fear, and everything to know.

E-Newsletter Articles - May, 2009

Herb Festival 2009

     The much anticipated annual Herb Festival at the Green Briar Nature Center takes place on May 15, 16 and 17 from 10am to 4pm each day.  This popular Cape Cod event offers an extensive plant sale of the best herbs, perennials, wildflowers, everlastings and annuals as well as special exhibits on the many uses of herbs.  Green Briar's unique gift shop displays a variety of herb-related items as well as its own jams, jellies and relishes made here in the historic Jam Kitchen.  All plant and shop sales help to support the environmental education programs of the Society and its Green Briar Nature Center. 

    On Friday of the festival a delightful herb luncheon by Bob King will be served by gracious volunteers.  The menu includes herbed tomato soup, craisin chicken salad with fruit garnish, rolls, jam squares with fresh whipped cream and iced herb tea.  Seatings are at 11:30am, 12:45pm and 1:30pm.  Paid reservations are required at $12 for members, $15 for non-members.  Call soon as space is limited. 

    "Herbal Perfumes: A Garden Tour" with Horticulturist Sharon Ackland will be offered free from 12:30pm to 1:00pm on Friday and Saturday. 

    Mrs. Peter Rabbit will also be offering her special sale in Green Briar's unique gift shop throughout the weekend.  Come and enjoy all that Herb Festival has to offer and learn how herbs can add spice to your life! 

Red-Bellied Woodpecker

Around the Pond By Mary Beers, Education Director

MAY  IN  THE  BRIAR  PATCH

    The air is filled with sounds of spring.  The very warm days that ended April seem to have accelerated blooms and birds alike.  A couple of days ago I stood underneath a black locust tree just about 10 feet down the Crooked Little Path listening to the persistent tap, tap, tapping of Mrs. Red-bellied Woodpecker excavating her nest hole.  The sound carried down the tree and try as I might I could not see where the entrance hole was.  Mister seemed trying to look busy on the hunt for insects along a topmost branch.  Was he avoiding housework or was he told to get out from underneath her feet?  I continued on the path and turned right to go up Fairy Hill.  When I got to the top of the hill and looked back at the tree I spied the entrance hole.  The tree top appeared to be rabbit-ear-like dividing into two trunks at the top.  There on the right "ear" was the hole.  Every time I walk by now I put my ear to the tree wondering if the sound of little woodpeckers would carry down with the same force as her tapping.  Red-bellied woodpeckers are very interesting.  Both sexes have bright red on their heads.  The female has the red down low on the back of her head while the male has a red crown and back of the neck.  They are smaller than a common flicker and larger than a hairy.  The Briar Patch hosts many pairs of red-bellied woodpeckers so a hike is sure to yield a sighting.

I heard my first Pickerel Frog of the season the last week of April.  Their snoring-like extended "room" may remind you of Grandfather Frog with a really bad sore throat.  The beginning of May is a great time to listen from the boat docks for the call of this handsomely svelte frog.  The skin color ranges from light brown to green with rows of rectangular brown spots.  Underneath the rear legs hides a surprise for any predator.  Bright yellow or orange skin may startle a predator and allow an escape.  Pickerel frog embryos in the egg cluster are yellow or gold colored unlike other any other frog's eggs.  Pickerel frog adults are often discovered deep in the Briar Patch away from the Smiling Pool.    

May is a great time to explore the wildflower garden.  The color palette is exquisite.  Yellow, pink, baby blue, even purple flowers spill out from the beds.  A recent hike through the garden also yielded Jerry Muskrat - shush do not tell the gardeners - and a slender garter snake.  The family of Little Joe Otter is quite busy around the spillway into Mr. Beaton's bog pond.  Look for their fish scale-filled scat on the sides of Discovery Hill Road.  Poison Ivy has started to leaf out.  The shiny reddish green leaves in the classic three leaflet shape mask the itchy rash many who touch will suffer.  Remember "Leaves of 3, Let Them Be." 

May is Strawberry Month in the kitchen classes.  Check the schedule for the many offerings this month.

Red-eyed Vireo

Birding with Phil By Phil Kyle 

     Mid May is peak birding for the year. A birder has the year-rounders available to observe, like Chickadees & Red-bellied Woodpeckers ; Then there are the migrants that come back to the Cape and breed, like Catbirds & Yellow Warblers, Red-eyed Vireo; and then there are the birds who stop to refuel and rest for a few days on Cape Cod but head north to northern New England or Canada to breed, like the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Black-bellied Plover. Maybe some straggling winter waterfowl like, American Widgeon, Scoters, or Long-tailed Ducks will also show up.  

     Thornton Burgess' Green Briar Nature Center is only birding Monday Memorial Day Mon. May 25th 8-11AM by van, AND all-day Sat May 30 up at "Plum Island", Parker River Refuge, Please call to pre-register for either trip at 888-6870.  

    But be sure to visit your other favorite spots during this time .......which will become  Ryder Conservation Area in Sandwich and Popple Bottom Road area in West Barnstable. 

    For novices and weathered veteran Birder's alike there is a course offered by me, Phil Kyle, a past President of the Cape Cod Bird Club every  weds. nite in  May from 7-8:30 PM. BIRDING CAPE COD . Topics will include Why Bird? Breeders, Migrants, and Birding by ear. Take them separately or all together! 

Solomon Seal

Nature's Apothecary By Sharon Ackland

Ask any seasoned gardener: What special traits might you cleverly flaunt - were you a nursery plant - to charm a consumer away from his or her hard-earned greenbacks?  If the answer is "require no maintenance and add beauty to the garden" ... then Solomon's seal will seal the deal.

    These elegant charmers are very hardy, deer resistant, seldom need division, and have little disease or pest problems.  They thrive in a broad range of conditions: a pH from acidic to neutral, and in moist sandy loam or humus-rich organic soil.  Though tolerating sun if planted in a cool, moist Cape Cod climate, they much prefer moderate shade, so are happiest when tucked in with shade-loving pals like ferns, hellebores, and bleeding hearts.  

        At season's end, leaves turn a glorious golden yellow and stalks wither to fall away from their underground rhizome.  The white root will then bear a circular leaf scar, one said to resemble the official wax seal and insignia once imprinted by the ancient King Soloman - hence its common name.

    With a royal signet to ratify its virtues, all parts of the plant (except its poisonous blue-black berries) were utilized over the centuries.  The root relieved dry throat and cough, improved complexion, and healed wounds, sprains, and broken bones.  Recent research has discovered why: along with sugar, gum, starch and pectin, it contains allantoin. A powerful cell-renewing agent, allantoin (also found in comfrey) is widely used for sports injuries and in cosmetic products for connective-tissue repair.  Young green shoots (the tender top half) are high in flavonoids and vitamin A, and delicious simmered like asparagus by wild-food enthusiasts.  Also sipped in tisanes as part of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the plant is now being studied in the West for its potential to lower blood pressure.

    Asian breeding and hybridizing programs are introducing lovely new cultivars with variegated and striped leaves, bright colors, exotic flower shape, and fragrance.  Related to lily-of-the-valley and in the Ruscaceae family (formerly in Liliaceae), Polygonatum ("jointed stem") pubescens and latifolium can be seen here in the garden.  P. biflorum and odoratum are also widely available.

E-Newsletter Articles - April, 2009

Primrose Veris

Nature's Apothecary by Sharon Ackland

     A radiant spring has come to coax fat yellow buds from the garden's fresh black earth.  Rising up from leafy rosettes, they'll soon swell to unfurl a most singular flower.  A posy with family lineage so diverse, its 400 species span centuries as royal physics, herbs officinal and today, rainbow-colored cultivars ... the prim and dainty primrose. 
 
     Lovely planted in wildflower or rock garden borders, primroses blend well with other spring harbingers like bluebells and violets.  Beloved by bees, birds, and English children (who love to suck nectar from the flowers), they provide larval food for diminishing butterfly caterpillars as well. 

     From March to May, primroses put on a parade; their genus name Primula is Latin for first (to open in spring).  There is the ancient English cowslip (Primula veris), once known as "fairy cups" and "palsywort," with its fragrant pale-yellow flowers nodding atop tall stems.  Cowslips have now been hybridized with the common primrose (P. vulgaris) to yield the two most popular English primroses sold today: P. acaulis and P. x polyantha.  Like small hidden jewels, these modern cut-glass colors sparkle red, purple, and blue from almost-stalkless flowers.  Only citrine and amber gems, reminiscent of their redolent ancestors, waft the soft phloxy scent.  Other species of note are the drumstick primrose (P. denticulata) with orbs of amethyst flowers held high on 12inch stems; and the Japanese primrose (P. japonica), perfect for the wet boggy site.  

      Primroses like a moist soil rich in humus, with a light organic mulch.  In rare instances some annual species like obconica may cause contact dermatitis, so gloves may be prudent.  Happy in dappled shade with protection from hot afternoon sun, many will still go dormant in summer.  Grow from seed or propagate by root division in autumn (japonica species increase by underground runners).  Specimens may also be obtained from plant sales of the American Primrose Society.

      English cowslips, once used to flavor cowslip wine, were popular as a cordial to cure insomnia.  Flowers were tossed into "sallets" and stirred into ointments and complexion waters for acne and sunburn. The Head Chef to Charles I was popular for his primrose-petal confections, which he whipped up with cream, sugar, egg and orange-flower water.  

     Flowers steeped in teas and anise-scented roots are employed in European homeopathy to strengthen nerves and expel flu and pneumonia.  Recent research confirms diuretic, sedative, and expectorant qualities.  A popular liquid root extract, "Solutan," is presently taken for headache and bronchial asthma. 

     To plant a primrose is to cultivate a private joy.  It is to yield to an ageless celebration of the land's rebirth.  This spring consider taking a trail less traveled ... have a wander down our primrose path for some inspiration and renewal.
 

Around the Pond by Mary Beers, Director of Education

APRIL  IN  THE  BRIAR  PATCH

 
   Spring beginnings in March were nothing to celebrate but April brings the promise of warmer days and nights filled with the calls of breeding amphibians.  The Mute Swans have already started their family.  Mrs. Swan is sitting on eggs back in the Smiling Pool while Mister patrols the pond with wings up looking for any Canada Goose who dares land.  He doesn't seem to mind the Mallards.
 
     Our resident mammals in the Briar Patch have all started or finished their courtships.  Mrs. Jimmy Skunk, Mrs. Bobby Raccoon, Mrs. Happy Jack Squirrel, Mrs. Reddy Fox and even Mrs. Jerry Muskrat are all awaiting the arrival of little ones.  Late April finds the Briar Patch population greatly increased with many mammals having their first litters.

   With this flurry of activity comes the opportunity for viewing signs of animals.  Animal droppings are great ways to know who is about.  Although we never handle droppings, SCAT, there is a story to be told.  Reddy Fox has been frequenting the Upper Briar Patch Trail or so says his scat.  Peter Rabbit has been very active along the top of Fairy Hill according to his "Cocoa Puff" droppings.  Bobby Raccoon has been exploring up on White Pine Hill.
 
     A great book to check out is Tracking & the Art of Seeing by Paul Rezendes and published by Camden House Publishing Inc.  I was lucky enough to take a workshop with Paul one late April in Rowe MA.  We were able to find the thawing scat of Black Bear filled with the husks of beech nuts devoured the previous fall.  The beech trees were all scarred with the five clawed paws of bears climbing up and down.  His book has great photos of animal signs, track patterns, even close up views of feet.
 
    Wood Frogs and Spring Peepers have just started calling in the vernal pools.  Check out the April vacation week activities for adults, families and children.  I hope to see some of you on the afternoon of Saturday April 25th for my Amphibian Romp Program.
 

Birding with Phil by Phil Kyle
 

Being a Birder is an activity that is often lumped with  being a philatelist (stamp collector) or numismatist (coin collector). Most birders are unique!  But what they all have in common is an underlying love of birds. More than 20 million people in North America enjoy bird songs or have them come to their bird feeder. Birding is now more popular than gardening!

What other animals are that conspicuous ? OK ...... Insects, but there is no comparison in terms of entertainment quality, birds win hands down. The thing about birding is all one needs are Binoculars and a Field Guide, and hopefully someone who knows a bit more about birding than you do. Cape Cod alone has over 400 species of bird species that have been seen!

Every time one goes out into the field one can run into an accidental species, a rarity or an uncommon bird. The mystery awaits! Then of course if you visit different habitats you'll observe different birds! So find out what all the excitement is about! Join the crowd and discover what is lurking in your town if you go out and look!

So come along with Phil Kyle, a past President of the Cape Cod Bird Club, and Bird every Monday Morning-  Starting May 25- Leaving at 8am sharp in our comfortable van and back at Green Briar Nature Center by 11am. 

The Thornton Burgess Society
appreciates the support of the
Massachusetts Cultural Council

webmaster@thorntonburgess.org

Thornton W. Burgess Society
6 Discovery Hill Road
East Sandwich, MA 02537
508-888-6870