I’ve been having trouble keeping up with the pace of spring this year. Maybe it’s the birthdays that keep piling up, maybe it’s climate change. Maybe it’s a bit of both. Every day I walk these five acres we’ve worked with for 32 years something — usually more than one thing — merits my attention — and my camera. Native deciduous azaleas seem to transform from swelling buds tinged with color to full-blown explosions of flowers and fragrance. As I type this, blooming azalea colors range from yellow to orange-red to pale pink, deep pink, lavender, and white. I am so glad we’re entering a bit of a cool spell tonight. I am hopeful that the blooms will last a bit longer in cooler weather.

Believe it or not, I’m less focused on flowers these days than usual. Animal antics have grabbed most of my attention. I’ve got a pair of bluebirds feeding five nestlings in one of the new boxes we added a few weeks ago, and that is exciting. However, the wood ducks win the prize for captivating us. 

I’ve read up on wood ducks lately to try to understand what we’ve been seeing. Did you know wood ducks will nest in tree hollows as high as 50 feet off the ground? The day after the ducklings hatch (up to about 14 usually), mama duck gives them a signal and one by one they leap from the hole and tumble to the ground. Seriously! My reading tells me that the ducklings sort of bounce when they hit the ground. As soon as all are out, mama duck leads her babies to feeding grounds, which can be as far as a mile from the nest. As you might imagine, a lot of ducklings are picked off by predators before they get there. Even if the ducklings make it to the water, predators including large fish and snapping turtles may grab them from beneath the water. 

We always see and hear the wood ducks this time of year. Male-female pairs swim up and down our creek. We suspect they feed in the beaver-built wetland on the other side. When the females are startled, they shriek loudly. It’s quite a disconcerting sound when they see you before you see them.

We thought it might be nice to offer a pair a nice new wood duck house, which we mounted about 8 feet off the ground right next to the creek. We figured the ducklings could jump out and land either in or right next to the water, minimizing risk from at least some predators. The box, however, has been ignored. Instead, a mama duck appears to have laid her eggs in a dying old oak in our back yard. Thirty feet up there’s a sizable hole where a branch once grew. One day a few weeks ago just at dusk, I watched a pair of wood ducks fly toward the tree. The male flew right past, but the female dove straight into the hole, barely slowing to soften her landing. It seemed clear that the male’s role was to divert attention while the female dove into the hole as fast as possible. Binoculars in hand, I watched for some time, but she did not emerge before the sun set. 

I read that females sitting on eggs fly out at dawn and dusk to feed before returning to the nest. Males don’t incubate the eggs at all. I’ve never managed to see her leave the nest in the morning, but I’ve seen her dive into the hole at dusk several times. Lately, the male hasn’t been with her. I’ve read that after the females begin incubation, the males go off and hang out together elsewhere. 

Wonder Spouse and I are trying not to worry too much about the ducklings. The distance from the tree to the creek is about 100 feet. The terrain is overgrown with massive boulders on the far side of the tree. Wonder Spouse removed a section of the fence between the tree and the creek (there to deter beavers), so that the ducklings won’t pile up at the fence trying to get to the water. A pair of red-shouldered hawks is nesting in the area; they sit in trees near the oak often, looking for their next meal. Theoretically, I am supposed to be dispassionate about the fate of the ducklings, but they are in our backyard. Somehow we feel responsible for them. You can bet that if we are around when the ducklings take their big plunge, we will be out there trying to run interference for them.

Today, however, the wood duck drama took yet another turn. A few days ago, we saw a male-female pair loitering in an ash tree about 50 feet from the oak tree. Using our binoculars, it appeared that the couple was conversing back and forth while looking intently at the nest hole. This afternoon, they returned to the ash tree, again conversing. Suddenly, the female flew to the nest hole in the oak. I am fairly certain this was not the female I had seen diving into the hole on several occasions. This one clung to the edge of the hole and stuck her neck inside, peering in. Liking what she saw, she disappeared inside, briefly stuck her head back out to say something to her mate still sitting in the ash tree, then disappeared again. About ten minutes later, she appeared again at the entrance to the hole, paused a moment, then flew to join her mate in the ash. They soon flew off together. I believe we had just witnessed wood duck egg-dumping behavior. I’ve read that instead of making their own nest, some wood duck females find another wood duck nest and simply add a few eggs of her own to those already on the nest. Apparently the owner of the nest incubates them as her own. The experts aren’t sure of the adaptive value of this behavior, beyond the obvious notion of literally not wanting to put all of one’s eggs in one metaphorical basket.

Wonder Spouse was able to grab his long lens and grab a few photos. The male was sitting quite still in the afternoon sun, providing a nice photo opportunity. The female never stopped moving at the entrance hole, so her shots are more blurry. Still, I think you’ll get the idea.

I confess I am emotionally invested in what happens next. If I’m lucky enough to witness how this story ends, I’ll be sure to let you know.

For my North Carolina Readers:

Audubon North Carolina is encouraging all native plant and animal lovers to register their support for a bill currently before the NC Senate that would ensure that native trees, shrubs, and flowers are used to landscape all state properties and state-funded projects. If you’ve read my blog much, you can imagine how much positive impact this could have for our native flora and fauna. You can read more details and sign their petition supporting this effort here.

This past week, mornings have been misty, some days even downright foggy. Canopy giants on the floodplain loom indistinctly, shadows of their normal selves. Much like falling snow, swirling mists quiet the landscape. Birds remain silent as a growing moon sets in the west while Venus shines brightly in the eastern sky. Lingering leaves on branches hang limp as fingers on a relaxed hand.

Golden light tinges the eastern horizon, coloring the mists that begin to rise as the sun’s rays touch them. A tall sourwood growing beside my window is set ablaze. Its vivid scarlet and gold leaves always make me gasp. 

As autumn colors are awakened by the rising light, I breathe more deeply, pulling the light and dancing mists into my heart, my lungs, until my toes tingle with energy.

Birds begin to talk among themselves. A murder of fish crows currently residing on the adjacent wetland takes to the air, first in ones and twos, then dozens. Their familiar “uh-oh” calls echo through the rising mists. On the beaver-built pond, I hear the high whistles of the green-winged teals that claim it as their winter water. A belted kingfisher makes its first pass above the creek seeking breakfast; its raucous rattle call is better than any alarm clock.

This place, these mornings tether me to earth, sky, and water. Despite human-made turmoil, despite ongoing climate-change catastrophes that hurt my heart, golden morning mists and the final colors of autumn give me hope, remind me to breathe, and to trust that life will go on.

Peace to one and all.

Wonder Spouse and I celebrated 35 years of marriage this week. As you can see in the photo taken by my brother that day, we have never been fancy folks. I wore a dress I considered to be too nice for work, and he didn’t even put on a tie. It was the marriage that mattered to us, not the outer trappings.

The ceremony was on the front lawn of the first house we bought together — a little starter home in a new neighborhood. The attraction was the lot size — almost an acre. As is typical of new home construction here, all topsoil was removed. Red clay subsoil was compressed into near impermeability. But that did not deter our young selves as we eagerly began transforming the yard. 

We both always grew vegetable gardens, so Wonder Spouse set to work digging out the clay in the area we set aside for food-growing. I don’t know how many different kinds and quantities of soil amendments we added, but it was enough for me to be able to grow food by the next year. We only stayed in this house until early 1989. Here is what the vegetable garden looked like in 1988.

We both wanted more land. In 1989, we found a house, then out in the country, on five acres. The house was fine — it wasn’t our focus. Even in January when we first set eyes on it, the land looked like heaven to me. I knew enough about the ecology of my region to see that the property possessed a diverse area of microenvironments just waiting to be exploited. I recognized the active floodplain and mature ash forest growing on it. The creek that bordered one side of the property was another big draw for us, and the soil — which I sampled on our first visit — was sandy loam. All I had to do to sell Wonder Spouse on this site was utter one sentence: “On this land, we can grow potatoes.” And so we have.

The previous owner of the property maintained it as if it were a public park. He eradicated all understory trees except a few mature native dogwoods but retained the magnificent canopy trees, including enormous river birches, tulip poplars, sweet gums, red maples, red cedars, several oak species, and loblolly pines. Beneath the trees grew only grass. His use of herbicides must have been extensive, judging by how quickly native plants returned after we moved in on April 1, 1989. Yes, we were fools in love with this property. Here’s what the floodplain looked like from the back deck during one of our winter visits before we moved in.

And here is a similar view taken in December of 2018. Frequent floods have cut channels across what was a nearly always dry floodplain in the early years.

By the summer of 1990, we were hard at work creating a vegetable garden, and I was adding as many native understory trees and shrubs as our budget could afford. My mother-in-law visited that summer and took this photo of us.

In those early years, we only needed a single-wire electric fence powered by a solar battery to protect the garden. As suburbs overran our once-rural area, displacing wildlife, we surrounded the vegetable garden with a sturdy deer fence.

The front of the house was obscured by a hodgepodge of mostly non-native trees and shrubs when we first moved in.

I don’t have an exact shot of this perspective that is more recent, but this one of the front pollinator garden is close. In the intervening years, Wonder Spouse changed the driveway, and we removed all the vegetation you see up front except for the magnolia on the far left, and had a Wonder Spouse-designed system of decks and walkways erected at the front entrance. A few years ago, we installed a pollinator garden that continues to flourish.

There are probably a few keys to the success of our partnership. We were always two like-minded souls, who were fast friends long before our relationship deepened. But it is our Green World collaboration, I suspect, that keeps us flourishing, as we continue to grow and laugh together.

Happy Anniversary, Wonder Spouse.

Hi, folks. I am beginning to see a number of new subscribers signing up, and I’m delighted to have you here. Welcome!

I promise to add a new post here very soon. WordPress changed the underlying editor tool I use here, and I need some study time to figure out how it works.

Meanwhile, I’ve been adding posts here since 2011. I’ve made a point of adding keywords to most every post, so if there’s a gardening topic or a plant you’re curious about, trying typing that into the search box and see what I might have written on it in past posts. I also occasionally mount what I call my green soapbox; search on Earth Day to see some of those.

Thanks again for stopping by. I’ll be adding new material here just as soon as I figure out the nuances of the new WordPress editor imposed on me.