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Marjorie Lune is a Wave Hill School Programs Intern this spring. She is a student in the Bank Street Graduate School of Education’s Museum Education Program.
On my third day interning at Wave Hill, I went birdwatching for the first time with Dan Trudeau, a Wave Hill Environmental Educator, in preparation for an upcoming school program. We went over bird identification tools, and he shared a game that we play with the kids to introduce them to the different bird calls. And then we headed out with binoculars.
It was a cold, clear day, just right for birdwatching. Of course, some birds migrate so we knew we wouldn’t see as many different species as we will later on this spring. On the other hand, most of the trees are bare so the birds are easier to spot.
Immediately, Dan spotted a few European starlings up in the top of a tall tree. I could see them, but they were just small, dark figures. I tried to see them through the binoculars, but had a hard time switching between noticing the figure and placing them in my binoculars. I tried several times, but I struggled to focus on the same location.
I lowered my binoculars and looked around hoping to see something that would be easier to focus on. As I turned I saw a big bird flying high up in the sky behind the house. I said, “Look, there’s a bird, what’s that?” Dan turned to look where I was pointing and said, “That’s an American bald eagle!” I put the binoculars up again—and this time I immediately focused on the right place. I guess a bald eagle is more of a motivation than a starling. The eagle was just drifting and turning, floating on the currents of air. We watched him until he was out of our sight; he never flapped a wing. It was incredible. I’ve never seen a bald eagle in the wild before. It was so beautiful. I could clearly see the white head and tail feathers, and the way it turned on the wind.
When we could not see the eagle any longer, we moved on to see what other kinds of birds we could find. We heard some bluejays, and saw a robin, a couple of fat mockingbirds sitting in a bush and a little brown house sparrow hopping on the ground. As I was watching the sparrow, Dan suddenly said, “Oh wow!” I turned around just in time to see the eagle swooping low over the tops of some trees near Glyndor House. Dan ran up the stairs to the upper terrace of Wave Hill House to try to get a better look. I followed, just in time to see it glide up and back over toward the river. It was so exciting. One of Wave Hill’s gardeners told us that three of them had been seen that morning. It made us wonder whether we saw two different eagles or the same one twice.
This was my first official birdwatching expedition. I can’t believe that I was lucky enough to see an American bald eagle. I guess you could call it beginner’s luck.
Marilyn Young is the Horticulture Assistant at Wave Hill.
With the ideal of a garden as a year-round pleasure, it may be easy to delight in summer, but gardeners may be less certain how to sustain interest and color from fall through winter. There are lessons in the Wave Hill landscape to remedy this. All about the gardens and grounds, summer flowers give way to seed-bearing fruits as the warmest season falls away to autumn. Colorful berries are part of the regenerative process of nature and a good way to enliven the garden as winter comes. Feeding the birds, who contribute by digesting the protective shell and then doing a wonderful job scattering seed, provides an added treat.
Begin the berried treasure course in Wave Hill’s parking lot with the Pyracantha ‘Lo Boy’, commonly known as firethorn. Its thorny stems and brilliant orange berries persist almost all winter. In the shrub border by the entrance are two examples of a favorite berried shrub: the winterberry Ilex verticillata. The cultivar ‘Christmas Cheer’ was planted almost 30 years ago, and is paired with the similar ‘Winter Red’. The leafless branches of these deciduous hollies, covered with red berries, make a striking display in a snowy landscape. Three additional cultivars of the winterberry are planted in a colorful array in the semi-circular shrub border before Glyndor House. On the southeast corner of this house, the commanding presence of a pair of tall evergreen Ilex opaca are glorious as their berries ripen to a bright red against the shiny, green leaves.
Staffperson Betsy Ginn took both shots here at Wave Hill this winter. These lustrous yellow beads are Ilex opaca ‘Princeton Gold’. Look for them along the walkway between Wave Hill’s Perkins Visitor Center and the T.H. Everett Alpine House.
Now make your way north past the Perkins Visitor Center. Tucked in around this brick building are several Callicarpa dichotoma and C. bodinieri cultivars. Commonly called beautyberry, their delicate amethyst berries line the branches like clusters of small jewels. Planting several shrubs together in a small group is recommended to ensure cross-pollination and plentiful fruit. Also located here are favorites of Director of Horticulture Scott Canning: a trio of Viburnum nudum ‘Winterthur’ graces the Perkins Visitor Center; in the fall, their lustrous leaves turn red-purple, and their lingering fruits ripening to a dark blue hue.
Across the way to the left is the Viburnum bed. The border is usually alive with twittering birds sheltered and sustained by this stately group of shrubs. Viburnums are attractive in flower, in fruit and in autumn, when the leaves light up with fall colors. The red berries of Viburnum setigerum and V. dilatatum provide a veritable bird buffet.
Rosemary Verey, having seen the red berries of the Idesia polycarpa tree here and other places, notes in her volume The Garden in Winter that “bunches of berries were spectacular against a clear-blue winter sky.” These beauties can be found between our Aquatic Garden and the Shade Border.
Peppered about the Perkins Visitor Center, the Wild Garden, the Shade Border beyond the Aquatic Garden and the Herbert and Hyonja Abrons Woodland are several varieties of hollies, as well as viburnums, spice bushes and shadbushes. One place to search out berried shrubs is the area below Glyndor House—the Elliptical Garden and its adjacent slope with plantings of bayberries (Myrica pennsylvanica), winterberries and the Prunus maritima, commonly known as the beach plum.
This afternoon after a light snow, I took a walk up to the pergola that surrounds the Aquatic Garden, now closed for the season. The path heads around and then down a long corridor lined with several Euonymus japonicus ‘Chollipo’, festive with their variegated creamy yellow and green leaves and lovely little orange berries. This evergreen-lined walkway leads to a grand, red-berried Ilex x aquipernyi next to a pair of our older Idesia polycarpa, trees full of bright fruits the birds don’t seem to like.
There are many more shrubs and trees bearing berries throughout the grounds at Wave Hill, too numerous to mention them all here. Once you start seeking berried plants you will find them often. You may begin to enjoy this part of nature’s process even more than their flowering moment, and welcome some berried treasures into your own garden.
Bibliography for Suggested Reading:
Clarke, Ethne. Autumn Gardens. San Francisco: Soma Books (an imprint of Bay Books & Tapes). 1999.
Kingdon-Ward, F. Berried Treasure. Subtitled Shrubs for Autumn and Winter Colour in Your Garden. London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited. 1954
Verey, Rosemary. The Garden in Winter. Boston & Toronto: Little, Brown and Company. 1988.
Wilder, Louise Beebe. The Garden in Color. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1937.
Daniel Trudeau is a Wave Hill Environmental Educator.
We’re awash in warblers here at Wave Hill. Numerous sightings of Yellow-Rumped Warblers have been among the highlights of our recent bird-watching walks with elementary school students.
These frantic little guys have been going crazy over the plentiful seeds and berries here at Wave Hill for the past week. They typically pass through New York State in huge numbers on their annual migration.
We first noticed the brown and yellow birds thrashing noisily in the bayberry shrubs outside Wave Hill House, and we’ve been seeing them all around the grounds ever since.
The Yellow-Rumped Warbler’s telltale field marking is – not surprisingly – a yellow splash of color on the tail that seems to flash at you as the bird flies away, earning them the nickname, “butter-butt.” Yellow markings on the chest near the wing and on top of the head are also key identifying features.
This fine images comes courtesy of Alan D. Wilson at www.naturepicsonline.com.
When these warblers pass through again next spring, they’ll be sporting different plumage – a classier gray, black and white outfit. But like many migratory species, they don’t stay in one place for long at this time of year. Come out and see them before it’s too late!
It’s never too late to share our connections with nature! This posting from Courtney White, Director of Education & Public Programs, dates from late July.
Early Tuesday morning, I ran into Nancy Talley, a Wave Hill gardener who has done an amazing job on the Conifer Slope, near the Sally and Gilbert Kerlin Learning Center. With a big smile, she shared that she had just come from looking at the work in the woods done by the Family Art Project children at our weekend workshop, A Tiny Village Among Trees. I immediately knew that I needed to head that way before starting the day.
I turned the corner of Wave Hill House to find a Red Admiral butterfly’s beautiful colors standing out in the mist. It fluttered away into the woodland path, and I followed. Determined to find the tiny dwellings, I soon forgot about the butterfly and all of a sudden an American Robin began to call from above. It was not the typical “cheerup, cheerily, cheerily”; instead it was much more demanding, as if wanting all of my attention. I thought to myself that I must be near a nest and should move on to find the children’s work.
I moved, and the Robin moved. I moved again, and the Robin moved again. Finally, I stopped and gave my full attention to the sounds above me, “cheerup, cheerily, cheerily,” “feebee, feebee”, “what-cheer, what-cheer, what-cheer”, “tee-shaay.” Right above my head on the same tree branch, as content as could be, sat the American Robin, along with a Northern Cardinal, a Black-capped Chickadee and a Sparrow. I had never seen such a thing and watched with delight. In time, each flew away. Standing in awe, I looked back down to the ground, only to discover that I was standing among the children’s most amazing work—small twigs supporting a dried evergreen roof, a hammock perhaps for a newborn mouse, itsy ladders to the lowest branches, bitty beds for ants, centipedes or spiders, and so much more.
As I walked away, reflecting on the beauty of the children’s creativity and imagination, I thought how these birds must have enjoyed all the excitement, too. I was glad to see this special place with the birds. I walked back up the hill…and the Red Admiral returned to follow.
Courtney White is Director of Education & Public Programs at Wave Hill.
July 30th, 2009
Today, I walked through the Flower Garden and was most excited to see a Hummingbird Moth–UP CLOSE! The moth’s velvet-looking, sparkling chartreuse, crimson and brown abdomen stood out. I was amazed how it mimicked the ruby-throated hummingbird. Its wings fluttered just as fast as a fan on full speed. Look out for them in the butterfly bushes with many other winged wonders.
One of the first signs of spring for me here at Wave Hill is the appearance of hundreds of robins on the lawns. They descend upon the open grass, peppering the grounds in a fascinating display of movement and industry. I am told by my daughter, who studied this particular phenomenon as part of a dance class in second grade, that the robins’ rhythmic patter sounds like rain to the earthworms below ground and causes them to surface. The robins then snatch up a tasty meal. The Iroquois celebrate this rite of spring in a dance, known appropriately as the Robin Dance, which mimics the robin’s movements. I eagerly await the return of these rust-bellied harbingers on the grounds each year, for I know that not far behind them will be the burst of color and leaf that leaves no doubt as to the official entrance of spring.
Artist and author Maira Kalman’s line of gift and novelty items, created exclusively for Wave Hill and available at The Shop at Wave Hill, capture the character of the robin and other creatures with whom we share the gardens.
Karen Schimmel is Visitor Services Manager at Wave Hill.
