Some days in winter, when driving here and there in southeastern Pennsylvania, I don't see many birds or mammals. It is then I concentrate on the beauties of deciduous and coniferous trees.
In winter, when they are bare, one can easily see that deciduous trees are sun worshippers; their stately limbs are held aloft as if in praise of the sun, which powers green chlorophyll in leaves so they make food for the trees' lives and growth. Delicate twigs on those branches also reach upward to get their leaves into as much sunlight as possible. And trunks of deciduous trees are solid pillars of strength that support the trees' upright weight to get sunshine. Some of those limbs and trunks are gnarled, adding esthetic beauty to the pragmatic trees.
Each kind of deciduous tree has its own majestic shape, which adds to its beauty, and helps us identify the various species. Tulip trees grow straight up and have trunk shapes like roadside poles. Flowering dogwood trees have short trunks and gnarled limbs.
Some deciduous trees have interesting, even pretty bark, which is most easily seen in winter. The bark of American beeches is gray and smooth. River birches have thin bark that peels off in papery curls. Sycamore bark is patched dark and lighter, while the bark of shagbark hickories peels off in large, vertical slabs, making hickories look quite rustic.
Some older deciduous trees, including American beeches, sugar maples, white oaks and sycamores, are massive. Young saplings, on the other hand, are thin and flexible. But all stages of growth in these trees are attractive in their own ways.
Some deciduous trees bear pretty nuts, fruit or berries through winter. Many nuts are consumed by white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, blue jays, deer mice and a few kinds of squirrels. Some fruits and berries are eaten by a variety of birds and mammals, including American robins, cedar waxwings, white-tailed deer, red foxes, deer mice and other species. Crab apple trees bear fruits, while hackberry trees, black gum trees and American hollies have berries on them most of each winter.
Many of the big, older deciduous trees have hollows where wind ripped limbs from their trunks, or woodpeckers chiseled out nesting cavities. A host of birds and mammals, including screech owls, barred owls, American kestrels, raccoons, opossums, a small variety of squirrels and deer mice use those holes as shelters, and to raise young. I have seen many screech owls dozing in the entrances to hollows during winter days through the years.
Rows and stands of coniferous trees mark the presence of suburban areas in southeastern Pennsylvania. This part of the state has some wild eastern hemlock trees in wooded, cool ravines, some white and pitch pines on wooded hill tops and red junipers on the shoulders of expressways.
But most conifers here are planted northern white cedars, Norway spruces, white pines, eastern hemlocks and blue spruces, in that arbitrary order of abundance on lawns. They are all commonly planted for their evergreen beauty, magnificent shapes and as wind breaks.
I would also recommend planting more red junipers on lawns. They are hardy, attractive and produce lovely, pale-blue, berry-like cones that mice and berry-eating birds like to eat in winter.
Conifers grow differently than deciduous trees. Their needles cling to their twigs through each winter, making these trees, seemingly, forever green. And conifers are cone-shaped, with the point on top of each tree. Lower limbs on evergreens are older and had more time to grow outward than younger limbs near the tops of conifers.
Most evergreen trees have decorative, biege-colored cones, each one of which produces winged seeds. The seeds fall out of the mature and opening cones and flutter away on the wind. Many of those seeds, however, are eaten by mice and a variety of small birds, including two kinds of chickadees, American goldfinches, pine siskins and two species of crossbills. Crossbills have crossed mandibles on their beaks that allow those birds to more easily pry open the scales of the cones and extract the seeds with their sticky tongues.
Red-tailed and Cooper's hawks, mourning doves and dark-eyed juncos are some of the birds that shelter in conifers each night through winter. And great horned owls, long-eared owls and saw-whet owls roost in them by day, because of conifers' breaking the force of wind.
The beauties of deciduous and coniferous trees are enhanced by sunsets and sunrises, moonlight or artificial, outdoor lights that illuminate cloud covers. Every twig, limb and trunk of bare deciduous trees is silhouetted black against the illuminated sky. And each pyramidal shape of conifers is a solid, dark mass against the same lightings in the sky. These are beauties like no others.
Snow, ice and frost also enhances the beauties of both these major kinds of trees. Wet snow clings to each needle, twig and branch, outlining their lengths. That heavy snow pushes evergreen boughs down tight against each other, making better wind breaks for birds.
Freezing rain coats every bit of the trees with ice that glitters more than jewelry when the sun "comes out". And frost makes every twig or needle white in what looks like thin layers of downy, white fluff.
During succeeding days after a storm, the snow, ice or frost on deciduous and coniferous trees melts in the afternoons and freezes again during nights, causing icicles that gradually get longer and longer on those trees as the days go by. Those translucent icicles are also quite decorative on the trees until they melt completely off.
Deciduous and coniferous trees have many beauties in winter, both in themselves, and in the elements and wildlife around them. One can see some of those beauties anytime in winter, just by keeping an eye out for the possibilities.
No comments:
Post a Comment