Category Archives: Environmental Education

Northeast Creek Streamwatch provides environmental education opportunities and programs

Environmental Education, Landuse Changes

Beautiful hibiscus

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This is based on an article I wrote for the July issue of the Parkwood Inside/Out. There were some website issues, so I haven’t posted in a few months. Hibiscus are probably still blooming; they were still in bloom in the Coker Arboretum last week, but it is getting late in the season for them, so now is the time to go to your local pond.

Parkwood Lake Hibiscus

Hibiscus or mallows are the showiest natives growing along the margins of Parkwood Lake and local beaver ponds in midsummer. The most common species is a small bush with soft, dark green leaves and huge white 5-petalled flowers with dark red or purplish centers, each flower lasting one day. I think this is Hibiscus moscheutos, or H. palustris, but they seem to be considered the same species now. The other Hibiscus is a rare species with bright red flowers, probably H. coccineus, native to Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, but apparently introduced in North Carolina relatively recently, since it doesn’t appear in the comprehensive Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas written in the 60’s. There were some small Hibiscus at the Clermont end of the Lake before it was deepened last year, and I thought they were killed, despite the ribbons I tied on them, but there are still a few small Hibiscus there. They aren’t flowering, possibly because they get too much shade, or they were cut back, or maybe they sprouted recently. Elsewhere in Parkwood there are rose-of-Sharon (H. syriacus), a tree-sized Old World Hibiscus. Hibiscus are in the mallow family (Malvaceae) with marsh mallows (Althea officinalis, a European plant found in North Carolina whose roots were used to make the first marshmallows), okra, hollyhocks, and cotton.

I’m not completely sure what the white Hibiscus are. Both H. moscheutos and H. palustris have been called swamp rose mallows, and the former has also been called wild cotton (but don’t look for a cotton boll), breast root, and crimson-eyed rose-mallow. Both can have pink flowers, but H. moscheutos is usually white and I only see white flowers around here. The name would make more sense if the rose in rose-mallow just means rose-like. The Greek word for mallow is hibiscus and moscheutos refers to the smell of musk roses, another relative. These plants are perennials, but their tough stalks seem to regrow from the base each year. I usually see hibiscus growing around 2 to 4 feet tall, but they can reach 8 feet. They have oval to three pointed, red maple-like leaves alternating along the stalks. The leaves don’t look particularly fuzzy, but they still have a soft texture. The large flower buds are surrounded by an array of needlelike, but soft green bracts and larger sepals that extend after flowering to protect the developing fruit. The petals have a soft, pleated appearance and the male and female parts are united to form a structure like a radio tower jutting from the center, like other Hibiscuses. The flower gives way to a dry capsule that opens in the fall or winter, releasing many seeds. Hibiscus don’t produce fibers, but the fruit resembles an unopened cotton boll. These mallows like to grow in marshes and beside ponds in full sun, but yards with moist soil and those around Parkwood Lake should be able to grow them.

H. coccineus is called rose, scarlet, or brilliant mallow, and scarlet mallow comes closest to describing the color. Supposedly it is also called Texas star, but it shouldn’t grow there naturally. This species can grow up to 10 feet tall and has palmate, or hand-like, leaves with three to five points. There must be some red Hibiscus in yards around the Lake, and they self-seeded into the marshy ground along Clermont, or someone planted them there, because I’ve never seen them naturalized elsewhere. These plants seem more lofty and airy than the white Hibiscus and very tall examples can be seen waving over the flowerbeds along the central brick path at UNC’s Coker Arboretum.

Hibiscus are supposed to attract butterflies and ruby-throated hummingbirds, but I mainly see bees visit them. I also don’t see many insects eating the leaves, but Japanese beetles and the spiny caterpillars of Io moths, one of the smaller giant silk moths, can eat Hibiscus, and common checkered-skippers, painted ladies, and gray hairstreak butterfly caterpillars, eat plants in the mallow family and this might include Hibiscus. Cooks can use Hibiscus leaves as a thickener like okra and as cooked greens. Hibiscus, especially H. moscheutos, leaves and roots are mucilaginous and were used herbally to soothe and soften tissue and H. moscheutos was used against breast cancer.

If you look for Hibiscus at the Lake, you will probably notice the color of the water. At the start of July the Lake was opaque yellow with silt eroded from the Meadows at Southpoint construction site at the corner of 54 and Barbee Road, the headwaters of the stream feeding the Lake. Durham Stormwater Services investigated and said there weren’t any big problems with the erosion controls and the contractor was very cooperative. This is how the Lake fills with muck, but soil also bleeds from yards with every rain and much of Parkwood drains into the Lake, so when people pile leaves and logs in the streams, this is also usually where they are heading. I’m not sure how much of a problem the recent runoff is for aquatic life, but excessive siltiness is harmful for some organisms. Further downstream a beaver pond bordered by Hibiscus, roses, dogbane, spotted jewelweed, and beds of brilliant green knotweed is still the color of tea, naturally dyed by decaying vegetation. Northeast Creek turned brown with the recent storms, hopefully not only because of the massive grading at sites just north of RTP. The poor water quality tolerant carp are jumping in the Creek, and they are the subject of my article in the latest issue of Chatham County Line (www.chathamcountyline.org).

Environmental Education

Eastern Cottonwood: the Rarest Tree in Parkwood

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Below is an article I wrote for the April issue of the Parkwood Inside/Out.

The rarest tree in Parkwood

The big tree between the Parkwood Athletic Association field and the Masjid Ibad Ar-Rahman mosque might seem unremarkable, the quintessential tree, but it is the only Eastern or Carolina cottonwood I know of in Parkwood. Until recently it was the only one I knew of anywhere, but a year or two ago I was at the intersection of 54 and 55 and realized that the tall tree beside a stream between Walgreens and McDonalds is a cottonwood, and I saw a cottonwood of some kind at the Rollingview area of Falls Lake. River Dave once told me there are some along the Eno River and closer afield at New Hope Creek. Next to Parkwood’s cottonwood there used to be a pile of ballfield gravel, which resembles rocks along the Eno, so I wondered if the cottonwood might have come with a load of gravel, but since there is another arone around, maybe it came from this area after all.

Cottonwoods (Populus deltoides) are real poplars (“tulip poplars” are in the magnolia family) and resemble famous relatives like quaking aspens. The name poplar might come from a Latin phrase, arbor populi, the people’s tree, and the deltoides probably refers to the leaf shape. Eastern cottonwoods have large, spade-shaped leaves ending in a long point and with hook-shaped serrated edges. The leaf petioles are long and compressed, and there are glands at the leaf end. With these long stems, the thick leaves flap in a breeze, making a lot of noise. The yellowish twigs have a lumpy profile and have a squarish cross-section where there is a lot of growth. The terminal buds are covered by 6-7 scales and are supposed to be sticky or resinous, but not fragrant. Cottonwood leaves fall early in the season and without much color. Cottonwoods put on height quickly, as much as 13’ their first year, getting about 100’ tall (but higher in the West), sometimes after only 15 years, and develop an ever spreading form similar to broccoli, as can be seen in Parkwood. Our cottonwood has a stout trunk with strong branches starting near the ground and sweeping around, ending in twigs with an upward turn like claws. Cottonwoods have thick bark, but young trees are not very fire-tolerant, one factor limiting where they could grow out on the prairies. As with many fast-growing trees, cottonwoods don’t live very long, only about a century.

Other poplars grow in NC, including swamp cottonwoods (P. heterophylla), but I think our tree is an Eastern cottonwood. The only other poplars I know of in Durham are the very columnar Lombardy poplars, European ornamentals planted in yards, and white poplars, naturalized European trees which have an overall white appearance and form thickets, such as the one behind the former Triangle Nursery.

Long, wind-pollinated catkins (thus the name necklace poplar) emerged on Parkwood’s cottonwood in early March, while the leaves were still in large, conical buds. Each tree produces only one sex of flowers. On female trees small cottony seeds mature later in the spring, and fill the air. Wind dispersal allows cottonwoods to find rare open ground, such as bare banks of streams. The seeds have to drift to suitable ground fast, because they don’t remain viable very long.

In tree-rich Durham, cottonwoods are just another deciduous tree, but they could be called a Laura Ingalls Wilder tree, and were valued out on the prairies, where they were one of the few large trees, usually growing near water. The outer sapwood is wide, whitish, and lightweight, while the heartwood is dark brown. Cottonwood is easy to carve, but inflexible and warps a lot when drying, so it is mainly used for crates, plywood, excelsior (shredded wood, like the mulch on the path to the Hidden Playground), matches, and paper pulp. Indians in the Midwest used cottonwood for poles and started fires with the roots, and reportedly teepees relate to the shape of cottonwood leaves and children played with various tree parts. Cottonwoods are planted as windbreaks and to reclaim mines.

Deer, beavers, rabbits, and mice chew on the twigs and livestock can eat saplings if hay runs out. One guide says tea of the inner bark was used as a “female tonic” and to relieve scurvy, and cottonwoods produce aspirinlike salicin. Purple finches and other birds and squirrels eat the buds and catkins. Bees sometimes harvest the pollen, though the trees don’t rely on animals for pollination. Mourning cloak and red admiral caterpillars might eat the leaves, but around here they have many other choices, so cottonwoods seem to have few herbivores. Cottonwoods frequently develop internal rot, creating cavities for owls and squirrels.

To find out about the black locusts blooming at Parkwood Lake Dam this month and the honeylocusts on the Tobacco Trail, check out my article in the April issue of the Chatham County Line) newspaper.

My article in the May issue covers catalpa trees, such as the southern catalpa on Revere Road and others blooming in a few weeks.

Creek Critter Puppet Theater, Durham Creek Week, Environmental Education

Durham Creek Week Kickoff features Northeast Creek Critters and Puppet Theater

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The 2015 Creek Week Kickoff at Durham Central Park on March 21, 2015 saw the creek critters from Northeast Creek march in the parade with people from the other watersheds in Durham County.

One of the highlights of the event was the Northeast Creek Critter Puppet Theater featuring Woodrow the beaver and Clyde the raccoon and puppeteers Barry Archer and John Apel.

Durham Creek Week, Environmental Education, Event Notices, Stream Clean-ups, Uncategorized

The elms are flowering

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This is an article I wrote for the February issue of the Parkwood Inside/Out. We are planning trash cleanups on March 28th and a hike, and will be participating in the costume parade downtown on March 21st and other events for Durham Creek Week 2015. Check this website for announcements and all events will also be posted at:

Creek Week Events

Parkwood’s elms are blooming

Red maples dotting the still bare landscape with blots of crimson are one of the first signs that spring is here, but elms are among the first trees to flower. These prominent trees might be less appreciated because an elm in flower is stormy grey or lime green. Winged elms are the most common species, especially in central Parkwood, but there are slippery elms along the streams and probably American elms, and there are scattered Eurasian ornamentals. The most prominent and beautiful elm I know of in the area is the classically fountain-shaped tree on Highway 54, across from . Because its limbs are all high above the ground, it is hard to identify the species.

Elms, especially American elms, are beloved for the fountain or vaselike shape of mature trees, and there is a graceful symmetry to elms generally. Their leaves and branches alternate, creating an airy lattice effect. The straight veins in their oval leaves, double toothed like a pruning saw, are straight and parallel, but elms also have a very unsymmetric feature – the leaf bases are lopsided, especially in American and slippery elms. Elms have thin, elegant branches, strengthened by very tough wood, and the bark of some species can be twisted into rope. They produce wind pollinated bisexual flowers in early spring, developing into small seeds with a circular flange that drift with the wind several weeks later. The elms generally like moist soil, but winged elms seem to grow in drier soil as well.

The massive, spreading elm in front of Carrboro’s Town Hall could be an American elm (it is big enough for a plaque, yet nothing identifies the species), and I think there are labelled American elms in the Coker Arboretum at UNC. American or white elms are around, but are less common after the arrival of Dutch Elm Disease, a fungus that came to the US around 1930, and is spread by introduced and native beetles that bore in elms. Many elms have been killed, especially American elms, but this seems to be a little less catastrophic than the introduction of chestnut blight and emerald ash borer beetles, and the disease can be managed. American elms are large trees with furrowed bark, brownish leaf buds, and their leaves and stems aren’t very hairy, or less so than slippery elms. Their seeds have some hairiness, while the seeds of slippery elms lack hairs. Both American and slippery elms have large, sandpaperlike leaves, but American elms have greenish flowers, unlike slippery elms. Because their wood is so strong and resistant to splitting, and grips screws tightly, American elms have been used to make things like sports equipment, boats, flooring, crates, and kitchen cutting blocks. Many were planted for landscaping in the northeast, though they grow throughout the eastern USA. In A Natural History of Trees, botanist and nature writer Donald Culross Peattie wrote “If you want to be recalled for something that you do, you will be well advised to do it under an [American] Elm – a great Elm, for such a tree outlives the generations of men; the burning issues of today are the ashes of tomorrow, but a noble Elm is a verity that does not change with time. And although Elms too are mortal, great ones are remembered as long after they are gone as are great men.”

Slippery elms are similar to American elms, but smaller and less vaselike. They have been called red elms, having hairy, reddish leaf buds and reddish flowers, as well as hairy twigs. Their inner bark is slippery and becomes mucouslike when chewed. This inner bark was used to make tea and flour and was used for a variety of internal and external problems and still has an FDA approved medical use. American elm bark was used medicinally by Native American groups.

Winged elms are named for the cork flanges that line their twigs to varying degrees. Sweetgums usually aren’t as winged as elms and their leaves are very different. Winged elms leaves are smaller, smoother, and more symmetrical than those of other elms, and large trees have light brown bark. I think these are the first elms to flower, with brownish flowers that turn into silvery, hairy seeds. As with most trees, winged elms grow a lot when they first leaf out in spring, delicately etched leaves surging forth from the twig tips at a fast clip. The tiny, silky looking new leaves hang as if limp, but are actually strangely stiff. Snow, ice, and maybe hurricanes smashed many of the spindly young loblollies behind the Fire Station around 2002, leaving winged elms, ash, and a few surviving pines as the dominant tall trees, to be replaced themselves by oaks, hickories, and beech in coming decades.

Many animals chew on elm branches, leaves, and seeds, including opossums, rabbits, and bobwhites. The caterpillars that fed on elms are like a who’s who of moths and butterflies, including many of the moths you might see at your porchlights this spring. Double-toothed prominent moth caterpillars feed only on elms. They bite into a leaf and then rest there, so their jagged backs appear like the missing leaf edge. It is surprising that this camouflage works, since elm leaves are emerald green, but the caterpillars are pale seafoam blue and green.

Environmental Education, Landuse Changes

English Ivy: Coming to a woods near you

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This is an article I wrote for the January issue of the Parkwood Inside/Out, serving the Parkwood community, next to Northeast Creek in southern Durham.

English Ivy: Coming to a woods near you

Now that Parkwood’s green areas are bare, the full extent of the English ivy problem is plain to see. In places behind Newhall, Euclid, Revere, and between Highway 54 and Euclid ivy thickly covers the ground, smothering native vegetation, including the next generation of canopy trees, creating what might best be called “ivy deserts.” A few native and non-native plants do sprout through the ivy, including poison ivy, but the spring beauties, trout lilies, bluets, pink wood sorrel, pussytoes, and other flowers and forbs that should gild the forest floor are excluded. Ivy might affect invertebrates living in streams flowing through an ivy-filled woodland and change the soil, because ivy has nitrogen-rich leaves, a vital plant nutrient. It can carry bacterial leaf scorch, which infects trees such as maples, elms, and oaks. Ivy vines thickly festoon trees, which might make them more likely to fall, though there is some controversy, and less able to get to sunlight.

Once in the canopy, ivy gets enough sun to flower and produce clusters of black fruits, which birds spread into new areas. In my yard there is some ivy kept under control in pots, but in the last 10 years a lot of ivy has crept in through seeding. Without pests or diseases, cold weather is probably the main factor limiting ivy here, by preventing fruit production and temporarily stopping photosynthesis, an advantage evergreen ivy has over deciduous plants. For this reason, ivy is not a major problem further north, but it is rampant in the Pacific Northwest.

As its name suggests, common or English ivy (Hedera helix) is native to the continent of Europe, as well as the Middle East and north Africa, but it was introduced here starting in the 18th century. In its native range it is kept in check and is a valuable food source for birds, some of the species that have become problematic introductions here, such as European starlings and house sparrows.

English ivy is in the same family as ginseng, so it is not a relative of poison ivy or Virginia creeper (in the cashew and grape families, respectively), but I thought it was related when I took a large cut stem and pressed it to my wrist to see what would happen, and my skin blistered, but less intensely than it would with poison ivy. I’m pretty sure it was an ivy stem, and not Virginia creeper, and some people do react to ivy, but from a different toxin than that in poison ivy.

Ivy has evergreen, palm-shaped leaves with three to five points in shade, but they become more lance-shaped in the sunny treetops. The vines appear hairy because of glue-producing roots, while vines high in the treetops lack roots. Stems can be almost a foot wide, and reportedly a 433 year old vine in Europe was more than 20” across. Ivy has tiny and inconspicuous yellowish flowers that appeal to insects with a short proboscis, such as flies, wasps, and moths. The resulting fruit, technically called a drupe, contains a few hard seeds and a toxic glycoside that sickens humans and can make birds vomit. Still, the fruits are nutritious and fatty, and are often eaten by robins, mockingbirds, and cedar waxwings. As with some other non-native plants, human disturbances, such as new roads, give ivy inroads into new areas. There is a lot of ivy in Parkwood now, but it is rare or nonexistent in intact woods nearby. Livestock and deer can apparently eat the leaves, but don’t appear to be making much of a dent in the problem. Non-native rats might be the main animal that can use an ivy desert.

Other than landscaping, people have used ivy for its antifungal and antibacterial properties and in dyeing, tanning, and varnish resin.

Controlling English ivy and other non-native plants is a good New Year’s resolution. Many non-natives can be grown without causing too much trouble for native vegetation and the neighbors. There are more controllable non-natives, such as the groundcovers Vinca minor and Vinca major (they are similar, but V. major is larger and possibly more difficult to keep in check), which only spread vegetatively, but they spread a lot in shade. There are also many native alternatives. Crossvine is an evergreen vine with showy spring flowers that attract hummingbirds. Yellow jessamine is also evergreen and showy. Virginia creeper is a pretty deciduous vine with red fall foliage and dark blue berries. There are several evergreen groundcovers, such as doghobble, Galax, and partridgeberries (common in Parkwood).

Environmental Education, Event Notices, Landuse Changes

Fish to watch

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This is from the June issue of the Parkwood Inside/Out. It might be past time for some of the behaviors described, but all summer the daily lives of fish are easy to observe, or easier than in winter.

Our next meeting is scheduled for July 13th at 3pm at the Parkwood Volunteer Fire Department. [The meeting has been moved up Seaton Road to the Parkwood Village Pool.]

NECSW was represented at a community consultation in June about a proposed apartment development at the intersection of 54 and Revere Road, but no neighbors attended.

Fish to Watch

June is a good time for fishwatching in the many waterways in Parkwood, as many species enter shallow water to spawn, often in bright breeding colors and exhibiting complex behaviors.

In Parkwood Lake there are swirling black masses of cute baby catfish, guarded by their parents, camouflaged in the murky water. The babies, or fry, are tadpolelike, with big heads and fins, but short tails. They are a species of bullhead catfish, probably black bullheads. In summer a pair swims in circles to excavate a round nest among plants or under a log. The parents guard their many eggs for the few days until they hatch and then stay with them until they grow to about two inches. Later in the summer light-colored fry can be seen darting alone over the bottom to deeper water when a person approaches the shoreline. When caught, bullheads hold their front pectoral and dorsal fins rigid, exposing sharp spines. Small madtom catfish inject painful venom through these spines. Bullheads grow to around a foot and a half long, but the Lake’s channel catfish can grow to around four feet. Channel catfish are grey, slender, and have sharply forked tails. Both channel catfish and black bullheads were probably introduced to this part of North Carolina from the Mississippi River basin.

The nests of sunfish species honeycomb the shoreline of the north Euclid Pond. There are many species, often lumped together as panfish or bream, but these fish are probably bluegills and/or pumpkinseeds. Their colors are hard to see in the water, but bluegills are blueish with stripes and males have red throats now while pumpkinseeds are reticulated with orange and blue. Most sunfish have a black opercular lobe behind the eye, and this is plain black in bluegills, but bordered with orange and white in pumpkinseeds. Males use the motion from their fins to create nests, where they court females. Smaller males try to get in to fertilize the eggs by mimicking females or sneaking in when the owner is distracted. Males guard the eggs and fry until they leave the nest. Sometimes sunfish will even nip at feet placed close by, if they don’t know a human is attached! Surprisingly large sunfish can live in Piedmont brooks and in summer sunfish travel far upstream from the Lake. Largemouth bass are a species of sunfish, and they create correspondingly large, isolated nests.

The minnow family, the biggest family of fish, seems more abundant in clear rocky streams than in suburban lakes, but there are some species in Parkwood. Common carp are gold-colored minnows with short barbels on the corners of their vacuum-like, down pointing mouths. There are carp three feet long in the Lake. To breed, groups of one or a few females and several males enter weedy areas and carry on with splashing and jumping. Carp were introduced from the Old World as a food fish. Japanese koi are colorful, long-lived, and sometimes expensive domesticated carp. Carp tolerate poor water quality and are eaten by predators like otters in Northeast Creek, but they degrade habitat for native fish by uprooting aquatic vegetation and muddying the water. In late summer large carp can be seen gulping at the surface of deep pools in the Creek, such as below the American Tobacco Trail bridge. There are or were large goldfish in Parkwood Lake. Wild goldfish are drab and can grow over a foot long. They are non-native and can hybridize with carp. Small shiners, of which there are many native species, can be found in Northeast Creek and possibly in Parkwood Lake.

The Lake’s ever-present, nondescript grayish “minnows” are actually mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis, basically a wild guppy, and have black spots and a neon violet sheen up close. The large females have a large black spot and give birth to live young. If you look closely, their mouths are turned up, to pick off insects such as mosquito larvae, breathing at the surface. The Lotus Pond doesn’t have much flow in the summer, so some guppies are afflicted with a white fungus on their fins.

In nearby weedy beaver ponds, if not in Parkwood Lake, there are toothy bowfin, also called dogfish, living fossils that can breathe air and make bass scatter. Males guard schools of young until they grow to about four inches. It would be cool to see a prehistoric-looking longnose gar, but I have only heard of them being seen at Westpoint on the Eno and maybe in north Raleigh. Chain pickerel with ducklike snouts also lurk in weedy beaver ponds and wetlands. Pickerel are lunging predators, cylindrical, with fins set far back, so they can dart out at prey. On the other hand, sunfish have a pan-shape that lets them catch small prey up and down the water column. Shoals of filter-feeding shad sometimes ruffle the surface of Parkwood Lake. In Northeast Creek there are many small species, such as darters and mudminnows.

Environmental Education

Get to know some local pines

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This is an article I wrote for the April issue of the Inside/Out. The loblolly pines are done ‘flowering,’ but yellow jasmine is still blooming in pinewoods and there is more to see under the pines.

Parkwood under the pines

I used to discount the pinewoods that are so abundant around here as pretty dull and barren, but pines can grow on you. This month the sky will be hazy with clouds of pollen (winged, like the seeds) for about two weeks, much of it probably wafting from loblolly pines. Their glistening needles seem so green in the intensifying sunlight, before the softer greens of hardwoods emerge. There are three or four pines native to Parkwood and another two that aren’t quite native.

The most abundant pine is the loblolly pine, Pinus taeda (taeda refers to torches). Their seeds sprout wherever there is bare, sunny ground, but loblolly probably refers to temporary puddles. Loblollies have relatively long needles, usually three in a fasicle, a bundle of needles that is actually a tiny branch, and rough dark gray and reddish bark. The cones are large and prickly. Most of Parkwood’s pines are still relatively small, but loblollies can grow 115′ tall, five feet across, and live more than 200 years. There used to be some around three feet across behind Racliff Circle, and there are still some very large pines on low ground by the Ball Field and behind Ace Hardware.

Shortleaf pines are common, but their ranks are much fewer than the loblollies. Shortleaf pines usually grow on hills and have short needles, two or three to a sheath, the smallest cones, and smooth brownish bark furrowed into large rectangles. They have small, but spreading dark green parasol-like crowns, reminding me of a Japanese painting, supported by sturdy, angular branches. Unlike loblollies, shortleaf stumps can re-sprout when young. Shortleaf pines can grow up to 150′ tall and 3-4 feet across, and like loblollies are an important timber tree. Their scientific name is P. echinata, probably referring to the hedgehog-like spines on their cones.

There are a few Virginia pines (P. virginiana) around, but they are more common west and north. They are also called scrub pines and often form thickets of small trees, though they can get 60′ tall. The needles come in twos, and curl. The cones are small and cling to branches years after the seeds have all fallen out. Overall they have a bristlely appearance with weathered and broken old branches and flakey brown bark, but their airy branches arch gracefully. There are a few behind Parkwood Elementary’s ballfield.

Pond pines resemble loblollies, but have slightly shorter needles on easily broken twigs and small, round, and not very prickly cones. There might be some around here, but they are more common east. They are called pond pines because they like moist ground and their scientific name, P. serotina, meaning late, probably refers to how the pinecones are held for years. Virginia pines and pond pines aren’t often cut for wood.

North Carolina’s state tree, the longleaf pine, is typical of the Sandhills and might never have grown in Parkwood naturally. They have needles so long they are woven into baskets and saplings have a strange, grasslike form. Longleaf pines are adapted to survive fires, so they form pine savannas when periodic fires are allowed to burn, killing the hardwoods. These majestic pines aren’t limited to wet soil, but P. palustris refers to marshes.

Eastern white pines are common Christmas trees and can last at least several years if planted here, though they are native to the Appalachians and north, where old growth trees grew over 200′ tall. They do grow naturally in one spot nearby, the White Pines Preserve in Chatham County ( triangleland.org/what-we-do/nature-preserves/white-pines-nature-preserve ), where they found shelter on a north-facing slope along the Deep River after the ice ages. White pines have soft bluish needles coming in fives and unusual long thornless cones (and they are called P. strobus, strobus meaning pinecone). The branches form whorls around the trunk. White pines are cut for timber, but are softer than southern yellow pines like loblolly.

Pines are a prominent feature of the landscape because they are among the first trees to grow. Loblollies are the main pioneering pine around here, sometimes with shortleafs, and Virginia pines are first in other places, often on bare clay. These pines can’t stand shade, so if not disturbed by logging or fire, hardwoods eventually take over. Some flowers are common under the sighing and creaking pines. The flowers of yellow jasmine vines bedeck pine forests now. I have often found rare pink ladyslipper orchids shaded by pines [these flower in May], as well as downy rattlesnake plaintain (another orchid), yellow-eyed grass, Pipsissewa, pencil flower, and wild roses. Brown-headed nuthatches, talkative little birds that sound like squeak toys live in pines, as do pine warblers, and birds of prey nest there. On hot, dry days of late summer, the raspy, treefrog like calls of Robinson’s cicadas often resonate out of pines. Around the same time, it becomes hard to walk barefoot under the pines, because squirrels sit in favorite branches to eat green cones like corncobs and rain down thorny scales.

Notices: We met April 13th and our May meeting will be next Monday, the 5th, at the Mediterranean restaurant in the Parkwood Shopping Center, time TBA.

This week we are looking at the umbrella magnolias and pinxterflower azaleas, but see the listserve for those announcements.

Environmental Education, Event Notices

Strange winter waterfowl

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We are meeting Sunday, February 16th at 4pm to plan for Creek Week, and our regular meeting will be February 23rd, at 4pm in the same place.

Below is another article I originally wrote for the Parkwood Inside/Out.

Strange winter waterfowl

Many unusual water birds winter in North Carolina. My favorite place to look for them is Crabtree Lake in [Cary], which is large enough to attract many birds, but also small enough to find them and easily accessible. It can be hard to see migrants, because they are wary and often stay far from shore but they usually swim from danger rather than flying. Parkwood Lake is also a convenient place to look, and even small ponds attract migrants, in addition to the Canada geese and mallard ducks that live here all year. It is not very easy to see the waterfowl staying at the Jordan and Falls reservoirs.

Geese and mallards aren’t supposed to breed here, but captive birds that didn’t learn to migrate were released, creating resident populations. Migratory geese swell the local population in winter, and in the mid-90’s there were many migrants with neck tags in Parkwood, making it easy to get to know geese as individuals.

The first unusual migrants I saw were small black ducks in a tight flock in the water at Clermont one cloudy winter day years ago. They were black scoters; the males being jet black with bright orange bills and the females paler with dark bills. We are used to puddle or dabbling ducks like mallards paddling around, eating plant matter from the surface or as deep as their necks will reach, but many migrants, such as scoters are diving ducks, and swim underwater. Scoters dive for foods such as mussels and barnacles.

Other diving ducks I have seen outside of Parkwood. At a nearby beaver pond about the size of the Lotus Pond I saw what I thought was a long-tailed duck, but it took off fast when it saw me, and long-tails are one of the fastest flying ducks. Long-tailed ducks, or oldsquaws in older guides, are white with black wings and black and gray patches. Like penguins, they swim with their wings, and venture to great depths, after molluscs, crustaceans, and fish. Last winter I frequently saw buffleheads at a wastewater treatment lagoon at Falls Lake. Buffleheads are the smallest duck in the US, and have big heads and striking black and white plumage. They were with wood ducks, and both species nest in tree holes, unlike mallards. Wood ducks are here year-round, and winter is a good time to search for these very wary and colorful ducks, but they prefer creeks and swamps. Buffleheads resemble hooded mergansers, one of three mergansers that winter and sometimes breed in NC. These unducklike ducks have rakish crests and pointed bills they use to catch fish underwater. I’ve seen them at Crabtree, but they are uncommon and wary. A week ago I noticed that there were four ducks, as well as a large flock of geese, at the large stormwater retention pond across Renaissance Parkway from Southpoint Mall. I didn’t have binoculars, but one of the ducks had a white patch, so there could be a pair of hooded mergansers there right now.

The most abundant winter visitor in the Triangle is the double-crested cormorant, which is not a duck. A few usually visit Parkwood Lake. Cormorants are dark and sit low in the water, with their orange bills up. They eat fish and, to make diving easier, their feathers are not very waterproof, so they periodically get out and hold their wings open to dry. There are flocks at the large reservoirs and they can be seen flying just above the water in ragged lines.

Handfuls of pied-billed grebes can be seen on most lakes. They are small ducklike birds with nondescript grayish fuzzy feathers and a dark bar on their bills. They also breed in NC and readily dive for prey such as crayfish.

American coots are pretty common. Coots are rails, chickenlike waterbirds, and are black and gray with stark white bills. They nod their heads as they swim in tight groups, and when they come on to the land at Clermont to eat vegetation and seeds. Coots sometimes breed in NC and are a prey of bald eagles, which have been seen at the Lake.

Vast flocks of pure white tundra swans and snow geese winter on the coast. One icy morning I saw a V of white birds in the cold blue sky far above Fayetteville Road, and they might have been swans or geese.

Now is the time to look, because the migrants will probably be all but gone by mid to late February.