Wildlife a garden’s winter gift

It has been a week of conversation about birds, e-mails and schoolhouse discussions prompted by last week’s column on the cardinals in Marjorie’s garden. Way up in Presque Isle, Alice Sheppard and family have been enjoying a trio of the bright red birds for the past month, along with a resident tufted titmouse, another species that may be extending its winter range northward. Climate is changing, observed Alice.

Larry Doughty wrote about the pair of cardinals in his Brewer garden and the squawking blue jays that feast on whole peanuts and to ask about the murder of crows that passed over his garden late one afternoon, at least 332 birds heading north in wave after wave toward Bangor, all within a span of 10 minutes. Were they migrating, he wondered.

My guess is that they were heading to a nearby roost. Roosting in cities has increased in recent years, enhanced by prohibitions against shooting crows and against discharging firearms within city limits. Roosts of thousands of crows are not unusual, usually forming just before dark as smaller flocks that formed an hour or so earlier get together for the night.

Larry and I share a fascination with crows. There is a small resident population in Marjorie’s garden, a dozen or so that come to the garden in late afternoon to help the mourning doves clean up under the bird feeders. They fly into the low branches of a nearby birch when they see me coming, chastise me for disturbing their evening meal.

Pat Felton of Belfast e-mailed about the wild turkeys in her neighborhood, their increasing desperation in foraging for crab apples and birdseed in the deep snow. “Once in a while,” she wrote, “a turkey flies up into the crab apple – perhaps to knock some fruit down.”

“If I want turkeys,” Pat wrote, “I need to rethink some of my plantings.” She asked whether I could offer some botanical thoughts relative to turkeys.

Turkeys and I share a fondness for certain native woody plants, if for different reasons. Chief among our favorites are the shrubby dogwoods native to Maine. The late summer milky-white berries of gray dogwood (Cornus racemosa) are preferred food of both turkeys and ruffed grouse, as are the dull white fruits of redosier dogwood (C. sericea). Both of these shrubs can be planted in mass where their colonizing habit would work to advantage; I have seen gray dogwood maintained as an informal hedge.

Other native shrubs with edible fruits from a turkey’s point of view include common elderberry (Sambucus canadensis), smooth sumac (Rhus glabra), staghorn sumac (R. typhina), and witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana). And let’s not forget the ivory berries of poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), highly favored by wildlife.

The berries of one of my favorite native trees, black cherry (Prunus serotina), provide excellent summer food for turkeys and numerous songbirds. These fruits ripen in August and September, changing from dark glossy red to black before they are eaten. Maine’s other native cherries, chokecherry (P. virginiana) and pin cherry (P. pensylvanica), are also valuable turkey trees, along with mountain ash (Sorbus americana) and, of course, our native oaks.

A landscape planted to these native trees and shrubs would provide food and shelter for numerous species of birds and small mammals, increasing the garden’s biodiversity while enriching our lives. It would give us gardeners something to talk about in winter.

Send queries to Gardening Questions, P.O. Box 418, Ellsworth 04605, or to rmanley@ptc-me.net. Include name, address and telephone number.