A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident 

The dogs were interested in the back of our neighbor’s shed. They did not bark, but were staring with ears up. They knew there was somebody there and wanted to meet them. I knew there was somebody there and did not. 

The next day our neighbor told me it was a momma red fox and kits. For a week we avoided the shed, which was not easy, requiring of me some strength with the leashes that I usually have and some leadership in where we go, which I usually have not. 

I repeatedly looked toward the shed and never saw a stirring. Then one morning I saw her through the kitchen window. Momma held watch about five feet from the hole she had dug under the shed. One kit crawled and tumbled around her. After a few minutes two more joined. For a half hour they frolicked around and over each other, while momma stayed alert and kept them from straying. We had heard the mournful, banshee-like cry of a lone coyote in our part of the forest of late, and certainly she had, as well. 

Foxes are not usually prey to coyotes, but competitors, and momma would fight to protect her kits. A lone coyote could find plenty of prey much easier than heading for that shed. The kits would be ready to leave in a couple of months or so, but might stay. Foxes often gather in large holes as extended families, though I surmised that this would be unlikely, as they, like everybody who tries to make a home around here, would run into solid shale about three inches below the surface. That’s why they went for the shed. The foundation and basement had already been prepared. 

This photo makes the shadowy images of Big Foot look like they were taken by Ansel Adams, but it was the best we could do, as momma went hunting one morning. I didn’t want to venture closer or disturb the kits. This was one kind of social distancing I was happy to accommodate.

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident 

Here is Topaz the mini Aussie looking through a large glass slider on our deck. Last week I was upstairs when I heard a definite but indeterminate “thud” followed by a loud barking frenzy. Topaz and Violet the Corgi had been disturbed by an event more interesting than a UPS delivery and less threatening than a bear. 

As I approached the sliders I saw nothing until I looked down. There was a beautiful, large pileated woodpecker, chest down on the floor of the deck, breathing heavily, blood escaping his mouth and nostrils. Soon the breathing stopped. 

He had flown into the glass slider. I wept. I fetched a shovel and a cardboard box, placing the bird carefully within. I carried him to the base of a tree far from where the dogs run. Digging was not easy, but I excavated sufficiently for the occasion. I placed him carefully, covered the grave with dirt, leaves, twigs and rocks, as secure as the shale allows. 

I was sad.  There are more woodpeckers this year, perhaps because of the mild winter. More at the bird feeder in winter. More recently chipped away fallen trees. More rat-a-tats in the air. I loved seeing them, hearing them, discovering their handiworks. 

This was the third bird that met his demise at those sliders over the eight years we have intruded ourselves into the forest. The others were small, a finch and a chickadee. I mourned them also, but perfunctorily. This woodpecker by comparison seemed a tragedy.

 I knew the sliders were a threat to birds. The little deaths proved it years ago. Now, finally, I was moved to act. Several web sites agreed that vertical pieces of cord about four inches apart would dissuade birds from flying into the glass. Soap or a pen that works on glass could be used to draw vertical lines. Birds will still see their reflections in the glass as rivals to attack, especially in spring, but will perceive the vertical lines as difficult to fly through and will turn away.  I ordered a pen.

 

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident  

Last week I saw two wasps on the laundry room floor. One was dead; the other injured or tired. They were brown paper wasps. I wrote about them in the fall. Only the females sting. They are not aggressive and sting only when the nest is threatened. 

While wasps in the fall do not survive the winter, these have most of their year’s life span ahead of them.  I found two small pieces of cardboard. I used one piece gently to nudge the struggling wasp upon the other. The wasp cooperated, sat quietly while we approached the door, and flew away as soon as she could. 

The next day there were more, and the next. I lost count of the days and the wasps. Most flew away immediately, others crawled away slowly onto the sidewalk. They were always gone the next time I looked. 

Only fertilized females survive the winter in their nests, which are often built in nooks and crannies of human abodes, under sills or in eaves. There must be nests nearby. Some wasps get lost and find themselves in our basement, not a good place for them to live and prosper. No wonder they not only did not sting me, but seemed actively to cooperate with their rescue. Once on the cardboard, they never tried to fly away while indoors, only when they found themselves outdoors. Even those that appeared traumatized or took some time to find themselves to the cardboard, eventually righted themselves and escaped. 

Social isolation is wearying. In this war it appears I am a hostage. Helping the wasps, as trivial as that may sound, bestows a kind of agency. I was contributing to the world, even as I was withdrawing from it. This is not trivial to the wasps. 

There may be a great many more paper wasp nests in our part of the forest this spring. They will eat a lot of insects that prey upon our garden. I hope they remember that I am not a threat to their nests, but the guy who helped them through a difficult spring.

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident

The first daffodil shoots bursting above ground are usually a welcome sign of spring. But when these appeared on February 15, I was disturbed. That is way too early, disturbing rather than reassuring. I feared a return to seasonal post-freezing temperatures would doom them. The freeze never came and we had blooms on St. Patrick’s Day, weeks ahead of other years.

One of my favorite websites, howmuchwillitsnow.com, says that our part of the forest has received 70% less snow than normal. Our treacherous driveway needed only two plowings instead of the normal six or so. While I root for as little snow as possible, I found it difficult to feel good about a winter this warm.

Now I’m sitting in what we call social isolation, which, except for avoiding the new virus and constantly being reminded that my age and lungs make me particularly vulnerable, is not that different from my ordinary lifestyle. If my life were a bad novel, which I suspect it is, the way-too-early green shoots would be a foreshadowing of the virus. The same ecological disruptions that skipped winter in the Poconos enabled a virus to jump from bats to humans, like the Chinese butterfly with wings flapping causing a hurricane in Texas. This virus appears to be a hurricane that swirls everywhere at once.

My forest meanderings often focus on parts of the great cycle of life: a caterpillar that may or may not survive to fly, an acorn’s very small chance of becoming an oak tree, the invasive plants and the fragile ones, the heroic migration of the monarch, the stolid march of the wooly worm, deep slumbers of bears and chipmunks. Always behind my observations are the unvoiced questions, “Where do I fit in? What of my species?”

For many centuries, starting with Aristotle, humans put themselves at the top of The Great Chain of Being. Medieval Christianity built a penthouse for God and angels. I suspect the other species never saw us that way, but rather as just another hungry mammal trying to survive and best to avoid. They were right.

 

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident 

This is the biggest snail I’ve ever seen in the wild, if the sidewalk behind the Kalypso Bar in Honalei, Kauai can be considered wild. It was moving rapidly, by snail standards, across the sidewalk. Did it need help? It was about 8 inches long, not likely to be ignored.  As I bent down for a better look, it seemed to look up at me and say, “No problem, buddy, I got it together.” A snail with an attitude. 

The attitude is justified. It is a Giant African Snail, introduced to Hawaii in the 1930s by Japanese immigrants to decorate gardens and become pets. It is among the most invasive species on the island and in fact, the world. It is a tireless and voracious eater of all kinds of plants. Indoors it will eat plaster and other construction material, weakening buildings. It is on high quarantine in the US. 

I was wise not to touch it. Its slime can cause meningitis in humans. Its variegated shell is among the hardest on earth. It is a hermaphrodite, able to manifest both genders. When mating, the larger snail becomes female to accommodate the extra energy needed to reproduce. It has been kept in many cultures as both food and pet because they can live as long as ten years, and, as I discovered when face to face with this guy, can have quite a personality. 

Invasive species, both plant and animal, are a terrible problem on Kauai. Only about five percent of the plants on the island are native. Many new species adapt to the environment and are not problem, but others, like this snail, eat everything or overwhelm the environment, destroying the natives.  Complicating the process is that many invasive species are, like the giant snail, quite beautiful and exotic. One sees some places where all the trees have been cut for many acres, after invasive trees have completely obliterated the native. 

The Giant African snail illustrates the theme of every film noir ever made: that which is beautiful may also be deadly. 

The Naif returns to our part of the forest next week.

 

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident 

I have returned from another part of the forest, the Hawaiian island, Kauai. We stayed five miles west of the coastal village of Honalei. 

Honalee was where “Puff the Magic Dragon” of the 1963 Peter, Paul and Mary hit song frolicked. For many years I thought it was a mythic place. When I discovered it was real, I had long wanted to visit. I wanted to meet Puff. I assumed he would be alive and well in Honalei’s marketing, as Anne of Green Gables is for Prince Edward Island, or the Monster at Loch Ness. 

I found the village charming, but no sign of Puff. I dug deeper. Peter Yarrow was only nineteen when he wrote “Puff,” based on a poem by his friend Lenny Lifton. While there are suspected drug references in the song, Yarrow maintains that at the time he had no drug experiences to convey, and that the song was about the passing of childhood. He also had no idea that Honalee was a real place, regardless of spelling. He used it only because it sounded right and rhymed with “sea.” 

When Yarrow discovered, to his amazement, there was a real Honalei, he visited and found Puff! The northern shore of Honalei Bay is a small mountain range that rises from the sea and protects the village from storms. It looks like a dragon’s head. The head tapers into a series of ridges, like a dragon’s back. It ends with an evergreen copse, like a dragon’s spiked tail. 

I took this photo through the mist and returned on a sunny day for a better view. On a sunny day, the mountains are clearer, but Puff disappears. He is more easily seen in the mist, as the song describes. 

Yarrow and Lifton thought they had imagined Puff and Honalei. It appears the mythic beast merely used them as a way of revealing himself. Puff the Magic Dragon for me was no longer a story only about losing the magic of youth. It was now also a story about its recovery.

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident

Sometimes you can’t see the trees for the forest. My eyes have glanced over this eastern red cedar countless times without really seeing it, until Topaz the Aussie gave it special attention. 

I noticed that it was unlike other trees nearby. Its bark was hairy and thin, revealing the wood beneath. That wood was reddish-brown and cedar, familiar from chests, shingles and closet fresheners. It has many limbs and these also have many, all pointed upward and bereft of needles except for its very top. 

It appeared to be dying and if it were, it might take some time, as these have been known to live more than nine hundred years. According to botany, it’s not a true cedar, but a juniper. Its berries feed birds and deer and are used in making gin. 

It is a pioneer species, among the first trees to repopulate damaged land, though this ability sometimes causes it to be considered invasive. Native Americans used cedar poles to mark territories and fashion bows and other implements of hunting and war. The Red Stick Creek Native American tribe, who fought Davy Crockett and Andrew Jackson, took their name from the wood of this tree. Its later uses include pencils and building materials, as it is both lightweight and durable. 

It contains oil that freshens the air and in old rituals drove away evil spirits. It is a powerful allergen and causes the tree to burn easily, which makes it sometimes hazardous. 

This time of year, with leaves gone and snow intermittent, individual trees like this emerge. In sunlight while its neighbors are brown it is the deep red of a good ruby port. Its many branches are arranged in a complex harmony of angles. This may be an old or dying tree, but it is beautiful. 

Every day in the forest I walk by so many trees it is hard to notice any. When I lived in the city I walked by many people with a similar lack of focus. Overwhelmed by the vastness of both forest and city, I occasionally stumble upon beauty. 

The naïf will be on hiatus for a time and looks forward to his return.

A Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident 

Until recently the dogs and I have been taking our morning constitutional in darkness. Last week was the first time the dawn greeted us. While the darkness was exquisitely quiet, the dawn brought a simple sound, “fee-bee.” For several minutes the bird had the entire forest as an audience for a solo. 

Then a different, more complex song joined in, and another and another. Soon the “fee-bee” was submerged by the pleasant cacophony of bird breakfast. The “fee-bee” singer was the early bird. In January he might not have gotten the worm, but perhaps the prime seat at the feeder. 

After our walk I searched for what bird sang “fee-bee.” This was as difficult as finding out which band did “Yesterday.” It is the simplest song of the Black Capped Chickadee, one of the most friendly and common of birds in our part of the forest. 

They are unafraid of humans and are among the most frequent visitors to bird feeders. Even I was able to get a photograph of a couple of them. They don’t migrate but lower their body temperatures to make our winters tolerable. They may not eat all the seeds they take from feeders, as they store food like squirrels and have a similarly excellent memory at finding what they hide. They often become the residents of holes created by pileated woodpeckers and also enjoy birdhouses. 

“Fee-bee” is the Black Capped Chickadee equivalent of doing scales. They have thirteen different calls. They cover a wide area and are often out of sight of each other, so they need a variety of calls to communicate. There is a danger call of “chick-a-dee-dee.” The more “dees” the greater the danger. The more complex calls are mating calls. The males have singing contests to decide dominance and mating rights. Chickadees raise or lower the pitch of their calls so as not to blend with ambient sounds. 

The Black Capped Chickadee shows that it is possible to be cute but formidable, friendly but not vulnerable, able to sing many welcoming tunes while also knowing when to sound an alarm.

Have you seen tall, bamboo-like plants growing on roadsides and by the banks of a river near you and wondered what that weird plant was? That is most likely Japanese knotweed. Sad to say, but this plant is extremely invasive, growing up to 12 feet tall (Dyer at al. 2009). Japanese knotweed is virtually unstoppable, taking over what ever is in its path, not even to be stopped by asphalt. So far, no 100% effective solution has been found (Gerber et al. 2007). People have tried chemicals, burning, and cutting it. If the plant roots are moved and placed on the ground in any other location, it can grow (Pysek and Prach 1993; Weston et al. 2005). This invasive plant is extremely determined to grow and as a result it does not allow other plants to thrive, reducing the diversity of plants that can grow in their original, native habitat. If Japanese knotweed is not stopped, it can take over banks along rivers and streams and even our roadsides where they tend to grow (Dyer at al. 2009). Does it affect anything besides other plants? What about when the leaves fall into the streams nearby? That is one question that has not been readily explored. In a recent study done in the Susquehanna River, it was found that native American sycamore leaves decomposed at a significantly faster rate than Japanese knotweed (Fogelman et al. 2018). This may be an indication that the organisms responsible for the decomposition of the organic leaf matter, may be able to better decompose native species than non-native species. Aquatic organisms such as insects and bacteria play an important role in such decomposition (Webster and Benfield 1986; Cummin et al. 1989; Fogelman et al. 2018). In this research, we explored how much these insects and bacteria are actually affected by the presence of Japanese knotweed in the Delaware River, a river with invaded banks.  Three different kinds of leaf packs were submerged in the Delaware River, within the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River, for 29 days. Leaf packs were made of mesh produce bags that contained dried leaves within them, simulating a natural gathering of leaves against a rock in the river (Benfield 1996). The three different types of leaf packs consisted of only Japanese knotweed leaves or only native tree leaves, or a mixture of both. The leaf packs were randomly placed in two locations of the Delaware River. After the 29 days, the leaf packs were collected and from them, we gathered bacteria samples and counted the different types of macroinvertebrates (aquatic insects) found in them.

Made Possible By:

This research was fully funded and supported by the Alliance for Watershed Education and the Pocono Environmental Education Center, approved by the National Park Service, and supported by Dr. Kagle and Dr. Moyer of Mansfield University of Pennsylvania.

References

Beguin P, Aubert JP. 1994. The biological degradation of cellulose. FEMS Microbiology Reviews. 13: 25- 58.

Benfield EF. 1996. Leaf Breakdown in Stream Ecosystems in Methods in Stream Ecology. Academic Press.

Bottollier-Curtet M, Charcosset J, Planty-Tabacchi A, Tabacchi E. 2011. Degradation of native and exotic riparian plant leaf litter in a floodplain pond. Freshw Biol. 56:1798–1810.

Callaway RM, Ridenour WM. 2004. Novel weapons: invasive success and the evolution of increased competitive ability. Front Ecol Environ. 2:436–443.

Cummins KW, Klug MJ. 1979. Feeding ecology of stream invertebrates. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. 10: 147-172.

Dyer JM, Cowell CM. 2009. Invasive Species and the Resiliency of a Riparian Environment. Invasive Plants and Forest Ecosystems.

Fogelman KJ, Bilger MD, Holt JR, Matlaga DP. 2018. Decomposition and benthic macroinvertebrate communities of exotic Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) and American sycamore (Platanus occidentalus) detritus within the Susquehanna River. Freshw Biol. 33(1): 299-310.

Gerber E, Krebs C, Murrell C, Moretti M, Rocklin R, Schaffner U. 2008. Exotic invasive knotweeds (Fallopia spp.) negatively affect native plant and invertebrate assemblages in European riparian habitats. Biological Conservation. 141: 646-654.

Meddeb- Mouelhi F, Mosian JK, Beauregard M. 2014. A comparison of plate assay methods for detecting extracellular cellulase and xylanase activity. Enzyme and Microbial Technology. 66: 16-19.

Medina-Villar S, Alonso A, Vazquez de Aldana BR, Perez-Corona E, Castro-D ıez P. 2015. Decomposition and biological colonization of native and exotic leaf litter in a Central Spain stream. Limnetica. 34:293–310.

Mohanta YK. 2014. Isolation of Cellulose- Degrading Actinomycetes and Evaluation of their Cellulolytic Potential. Bio engineering and Bioscience. 2(1): 1-5.

Pysek P, Prach K. 1993. Plant invasions and the role of riparian habitats: A comparison of fours species alien to central Europe, J. Biogeogr. 20: 413.

Webster JR, Benfield EF. 1986. Vascular plant breakdown in freshwater ecosystems. Ann Rev Ecol Syst. 17:567–594.

 

 

Naif in the Forest by Darrell Berger

Wing Tips to Hiking Boots: Musings of a New, Full-Time Poconos Resident 

I walk through the same part of the forest almost every day. I noticed that the higher portion of this tree had fallen. I saw the fresh, clean area where it had broken, and the part that was still upright. There has been little new deadfall since the big storm two years ago. 

Deadfall had been a new word to me when I started writing this blog. I didn’t know the forest. I would not have recognized the woodpecker’s fresh drilling upon the log, or appreciated the new environment for fungus, insects and small mammals it will provide. I examined the fallen tree. Why did it fall in this direction? Was there structural weakness, storm damage? 

To my surprise, I may no longer be a naïf in the forest, that is, an innocent or ignoramus, depending on the kindness of one’s judgment.  After more than a year of observing the forest my perception has sharpened. I no longer see the forest with completely new eyes. The seasons are more apparent to me, the interdependent lives of forest dwellers more meaningful. 

I am far from an expert. Perhaps I have gone from ignorance to what Zen Buddhism calls “beginner’s mind.” Suzuki Roshi said, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” The naïf doesn’t see the path. The beginner sees it and has just begun the journey. The expert knows the path so well the beauty of the journey is diminished. Beginner’s mind helps sharpen one’s perception, challenges prejudices and obviates the tendency to quit in the face of new challenges. I’ll keep the name of the bog, however, as my capacity to get lost even in familiar territory, literally or figuratively, is vast. 

The forest provides endless variety to those who have eyes to see. Beginner’s mind is useful whenever we find ourselves incapacitated by the limits of our experience or expectations. The path through the forest helps me awaken to possibilities elsewhere in life. A newly fallen tree is notable, and any moment teachable.