Birches and their Neighbors - Day 29

Red-polls and Catkins 

Acrobatics in the Branches   

- and it's all out in the open   

In the winter, without the leaves in the way, you can see a lot of what goes on in the branches of trees.
All day today, a flock of red-polls has been making its way through these trees - fifteen or twenty tiny acrobats perching right-side up and hanging up-side down and pecking out seeds and insects as they go.
Spend some time to watch it now, because in another few months, all this activity and entertainment will be hidden from view by spring greenery.

Birches and their Neighbors - Day 27

Catkin Rosettes

(This is the jpg - 100kB - is there a perceptable difference?)

(This is the png8 - 373kB - is this one that much better?)

Tiny pieces of birch catkin mulch, or could it be breakfast cereal?   

- or maybe a jigsaw puzzle?    

We haven't had snow now for several weeks, and the catkin detritus is drifting into piles along the surface of what snow there is, accentuating rises and falls on the ground.
These cross-section exposures of the centers of catkins show the geometric layering of three-lobed nutlet upon nutlet in the catkin, nature's redundancy.
Let them accumulate! In the spring, these piles of organic matter will provide a rooting material for newly-sprouting birch seeds.

Birches and their Neighbors - Day 24

Touseled, Tattered and Torn

Winter Catkins  

- starting to show signs of wear  

As the birds and the wind and weather have their way during the winter, the catkins will give up more and more of their seeds, and the geometrically-ordered array of nutlets on the stalk will gradually fall off.

Birches and their Neighbors - Day 22

Look Up! Red-polls Overhead

Red-polls Feeding on Birch Catkins  

- and a shower of nutlets 

I'm standing still taking photos of catkins in the early morning golden light, and I hear a whistling whoosh, and then I get a shower of something - and I look up.
It's a flock of about a dozen red-polls in the trees above me, digging into the birch seeds, and making quick work of the job.
So, picture your head cranked way back as you look a this photo, and marvel at these tiny birds - these two could spread out quite comfortably on the palm of my hand - who have to find, and are able to find, vast quantities of food to keep themselves going throughout the winter.

Birches and their Neighbors - Day 17

Sunny Birches with Catkins

Catkins  

- silhouetted against birches in the sun  

Catkins are a birch's way of making another birch.
In summer, the fertilized female flower ripens and develops a stack of tiny tri-lobed nutlets, the tree's seeds. Over the fall and winter, these miniature gliders gradually separate from the core of the catkin and drift to the ground. There, the nutlets provide food for birds, mulch for other plants, and where conditions are right, some of the seeds sprout and grow into baby birches.  

Birches and their Neighbors - Day 14

Golden Birch Catkins

The Colors of Birch Catkins

- winter decorations for the garden 

Every few years, birch trees will produce a bumper crop of seed-bearing catkins. This year the birches are filled with dense clusters of these ochre-colored pendants.
The catkins create vertical patterns that look like golden chandeliers in the tree branches, moving gently in the wind.

Birches and their Neighbors - Day 13

Winter Dawn

Sunrise through Trees  

- brilliant color to start the day

There is a drama in watching a sunrise. From the full darkness of night the sky gets paler, gradually brighter, and then, more intense light starts to show. It may be a colorful sunrise, or the sun may present itself in a neutral gray light.
But actually, the light from the sun is always the same. The color effects of a sunrise or a sunset are due, in fact, to clouds at different levels in the atmosphere and from particles of dust or moisture suspended in the air, and to how the sun's light is refracted and reflected through them.
So, a glorious "sunrise" is actually the colors a viewer sees in the clouds between him or her and the sun.
Somehow it's nicer to think that it's the sun giving us a brilliant start to the day.  

Birches and their Neighbors - Day 12

Winter Dawn Silhouette

Birch Branches in Early Morning Light  

- against a bright dawn sky

What can I say?
All I could do was sit back, catch my breath and enjoy the scene as I got ready for the day.

Birches and their Neighbors - Day 8

Birch Catkins

Birch Catkins

- gone to seed 

Catkins. Such a cute word. The origin of the word is, yes, exactly what you think... cats.
Catkins are the flowers, male and female, of the birch tree and its relatives. They are called "catkins" because they do look like a tiny feline tail. On a birch tree, in spring and early summer, the female flowers stand upright on their stems, and the male flowers hang down heavy with pollen. Even before the trees are in full leaf, the female flowers have been pollinated by the wind, and by late summer a crop of tiny triangular birch seeds come whirling to the ground.