Despite the mess of invasives, the old fence row has
maintained a nice collection of native species.
This Wild Plum has put on a good display of blooms, but it’s been
several years since any of the Blue Jay Barrens plums have produced ripe
fruit. Late freezes are rough on this
tree, so early warm weather just sets it up for failure.
It would be nice to see all of these lovely flowers turn
into bright yellow-red fruit. We’ve had
a hard mid May freeze each of the last three years and Wild Plums have dropped
their fruit after each freeze. It’s hard
to imagine that we’ll make it through to summer without at least one more
freeze this spring.
A Brown Thrasher entertained me for an entire morning. It produced quite a variety of mimicked
songs. Many of the songs were unfamiliar
to me, so I’m guessing these were learned somewhere far from Blue Jay Barrens.
Despite the abundance of Japanese Honeysuckle, many native
flowers are showing themselves in the old fence row. Several colonies of Mayapple are
present. I’ll be sure to leave enough
native trees and shrubs to give the Mayapples the shade they prefer.
Bluets are common in the areas that hadn’t been completely
shade covered. It’ll be interesting to
see if these persist or if they become overwhelmed by other sun loving species.
Spring Beauties have covered large sections of the fence
row. These plants seem to compete well
against many invasives.
Adder’s Tongue Fern has colonized the entire fence row. I originally found this plant growing in
limited colonies in the fence rows. It
has since spread across the old crop fields.
It’s definitely a species that’s on the increase.
I’m still finding Olive Hairstreaks everywhere I look. This guy was using one of my marking flags as
a perch from which to fly out to chase other butterflies crowding into its
territory. The abundance of these
butterflies makes me optimistic about finding some of their larvae feeding on
Eastern Red Cedars. I see the adults
each year, but I’ve never seen a larva and I would really like to enjoy all
stages of the butterfly life cycle.
