When Shadbush (Amelanchier sp.) is in bloom, I know that American Shad are migrating up Connecticut’s rivers to spawn.

The Eastern Shadbush (Amelanchier canadensis) is one of 10 species of this native shrub in New England. Other names for Shadbush are Shadblow, Sarvis, and Serviceberry. In the past, when Allegheny Serviceberry (Amelanchier laevis) was in flower, it signaled circuit preachers to ride through Appalachian coves and “hollers.” It was also a sign that the ground was thawed enough for people to hold funerals and bury their dead. I really feel for those who cannot gather for memorial services for their loved ones now. But I also think about spring as a time for re-birth and the return of life.

Shadbush’s white flowers are pollinated by small, solitary ground-nesting digger bees (Andrena sp.), mason bees (Osmia sp.), and queen bumble bees (Bombus sp.) who are establishing new colonies. Once pollinated and fertilized, very tasty red to blue berries form in June, hence another common name, Juneberry. The fruits are very tasty, that is if you can beat the birds to them! Quite a few shadbushes have been planted around Yale University’s Central Campus. Each June I walk by these trees and grab berries to eat, much to the puzzlement of passersby. Shadbush fruit helped Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery Expedition to survive when there wasn’t much else in the St. Louis area in May 1804.

Shadbush is a great 20- to 30-foot (6- to 9-meter) native tree to plant in your yard. It is quite tolerant of light, flowering best in part-sun to sunny locations in a variety of soils. Just make sure to water it once a week in its first year.

The American Shad (Alosa sapidissima), a member of the herring family, is also very tasty. The species name means “most savory” or “most delicious.” Shad were an important seasonal part of Native peoples’ diets. Captain John Smith, exploring near the Great Falls of the Potomac River, observed in his The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England & the Summer Isles in 1624 that Shad were “lying so thicke with their heads above the water, as for want of nets…we attempted to catch them with a frying pan.” The shad that Smith saw were migrating from the ocean up the river to spawn. A fish with this life cycle is anadromous. Other anadromous shad relatives are the Alewife (Alosa pseudoharangus) and Blueback Herring (Alosa aestivalis).

American Shad feed on plankton, small shrimp, fish eggs, and occasionally small fish. They in turn are food for ospreys, herons, other fish, and seals, as well as humans.

Since the 1950s, two festivals along the Connecticut River have celebrated the return of the shad from the sea: the Windsor Shad Derby Festival in mid-May and the annual Essex Shad Bake during the first week in June. These events were created to raise awareness about pollution in the Connecticut River and the decline of shad populations. Visitors are treated to cookouts with planked shad smoked on open fires.

Shad populations had also dropped steeply because of dams in many rivers. New Haven-based Save The Sound, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and other organizations have been removing many of the 4,000 dams in Connecticut and the American Shad is rebounding. In this Anthropocene epoch, in which humans have drastically changed our planet in many negative ways, that’s a positive environmental story.

They are so secretive, most people don’t even know they exist. In their more than 30-year lives they have little or no contact with humans. If you were to tell your neighbors that 9-inch-long black salamanders with yellow spots live in the woodlands of their town, they might well be surprised.

Recently, I was walking by a vernal pool at a nearby state park and noticed a sign that salamanders had been there: a small, round egg cluster in the water. If you spy an egg mass in a vernal pool, it may be from a Spotted Salamander. Weeks ago, on a day when the first warm rain started and continued through the evening, 6- to almost 10-inch (15 to 25 centimeters) salamanders emerged from the ground and migrated en masse to shallow, often temporary, pools to mate. Most people don’t know about these amphibians, in a group called mole salamanders, because they are fossorial, spending most of their time below ground except when they emerge on rainy nights to mate or feed on crickets, spiders, slugs, and other invertebrates.

During the brief mating time, males arrive at the pools first and form a gathering called a congress. Jonathan Twining of Eastern Nazarene University has filmed this rarely seen underwater phenomenon (see his video here). When a female arrives, she and a male “court.” The male will rub the upper and lower surfaces of the female and she will nose the male’s back during the height of activity. This stimulates the male to deposit a sperm packet, a spermatophore, near her. She will pick up the spermatophore (or one nearby) with her cloaca to fertilize her eggs. A few days later, she’ll lay up to 200 eggs in that rounded cluster. The eggs will hatch in one to two months.

Spotted Salamander egg masses can be confused with the egg clusters of the Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica), which are also found in vernal pools. But the Wood Frog’s egg masses don’t have the clear jelly-like covering on the entire cluster like the eggs of the Spotted Salamander. Within the same pool, some Spotted Salamander egg masses can be clear, and some can be opaque. This is because of certain proteins in the clusters. Researchers are not clear what advantage one has over the other. I’ve often noticed green algae covering the egg masses. Scientists have discovered a symbiotic relationship between this alga, Oophila amblystomatis (the name means “loves salamander eggs”), and these eggs. This alga is found nowhere else in nature. It provides oxygen for the developing eggs, and the eggs in turn make carbon dioxide for the alga.

When the salamander larvae hatch they feed on small invertebrates in the vernal pool, like zooplankton, isopods, and amphipods. Two to four months after hatching, the larvae will lose their gills, develop lungs, and transform, or metamorphose, into young salamanders. They are then ready to live on the ground. It’s always a race to leave the water before the vernal pools dry up in mid to late summer. There are some years when the larvae don’t make it in time.

Many conservation issues surround these creatures. It is unclear how climate change might affect water levels in vernal pools through time. Habitat fragmentation, especially in places where salamander migration routes cross the asphalt roads that humans use, can be disastrous. A salamander that can live to be 32 years old may be killed in an instant by a passing car. Many amphibians are slaughtered each year by vehicles during warm spring evening rains. Some town residents, donning reflective clothing and flashlights, form “bucket brigades” and stop traffic temporarily to help crossing salamanders and frogs. In response to a local road kill area in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1987 the Hitchcock Center for the Environment, Amherst Public Works, the Massachusetts Audubon Society with the help of volunteers created one of the first salamander tunnels in North America. Such tunnels funnel the amphibians under a road. The Amherst amphibian population seems to be holding steady.

Something perhaps for your own town to consider? At the very least, when driving near wetlands on a rainy, warm spring evening, please be extra cautious and slow down.

In Spanish, they are rightly named joyas voladoras, “flying jewels.” A group of them is called “a bouquet,” “a glittering,” or “a hover.” They are hummingbirds and it is not too early to put up a feeder for the only species we see here in the Northeast—the Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris).

The migration map provided by the citizen science program Journey North is showing that hummingbirds are now mostly arriving in the Washington, DC area, so they’ll be here soon. Not long ago, these one-tenth ounce (3 gram) bundles of energy were wintering from southern Mexico to Panama. Some birds migrate north to the Yucatán, where they gain up to twice their weight in body fat. Then, at speeds up to 50 mph they make a non-stop, 600-mile, 20-hour flight across the Gulf of Mexico! As you can imagine, they arrive from Texas to Florida quite famished, weighing as little as 2.5 grams.

Banding studies suggest that individual birds follow a certain migratory route every year, not only arriving in the area where they were born, but within a day or two to the same feeding grounds. That’s an amazing feat of memory for an animal with a brain the size of a BB pellet!

Most people see hummers at their feeders for a few weeks from April to May, and then again in July, when some birds begin migrating south. Most birds return south in August and September. But you might be lucky enough to have a nesting pair nearby and see them throughout the summer.

Males arrive first in the spring to establish territories, and females come along about a week later. You’ll know the males from the ruby red gorgets (throat patches) they flash to attract females. This red is not a pigment, but is structural color created by the microscopic arrangement of the feathers reflecting the red wavelength of light back to the viewer. We consider the iridescent feathers of both male and female birds to be beautiful, and birds may think so too. This fascinating theme is explored by Yale ornithologist and Peabody Museum curator Richard O. Prum in his book The Evolution of Beauty (Doubleday, 2017). For an extraordinary look at hummingbirds, I highly recommend noted cinematographer Anne Johnson Prum’s Nature episode “Hummingbirds: Magic in the Air” (Coneflower Productions/THIRTEEN/WNET.ORG, 2009).

You can create a good feeding ground for hummers by being among the first in the spring to put up a nectar feeder or two. There are many styles to choose from. Get one that is easy to clean. Make your own nectar by adding one-part white sugar (no honey or corn syrup) to four-parts water and heat until dissolved. Let this cool before filling the feeders. Don’t add red dye as it can be harmful. The red of the feeder will attract the birds. This sugar water can be stored in the fridge for up to two weeks. Place the feeder on a pole or hang it from a branch, but not too close to a window. Be sure to clean the feeder, including feeding ports, at least once a week in the cooler spring and fall, and twice a week in hot weather. A one to ten vinegar/water solution works well.

Along with feeders, it is even more important to provide hummingbirds with natural sources of nectar. A variety of red, orange, and blue tubular flowers blooming in your garden throughout the season will really bring them in. Right now, Red Columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) and native willow (Salix spp.) catkins provide nectar for hummingbirds. It also seems that hummers arrive when Red Buckeye (Aesculus pavia) is blooming. Don’t forget native vines, such as Trumpet Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens) and Trumpet Vine (Campsis radicans).

Trumpet Vine, even though native, can really spread, so I prune the branches of mine back to two or three nodes or buds every winter (also making sure it does not go to seed) and it hasn’t caused me any problems.

Other nectar plants visited by hummingbirds throughout late spring and summer include Pinkster Flower (Rhododendron periclymenoides) in May, Foxglove Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) and Bee Balm (Monarda didyma) in June and July, and Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) and Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica) in mid- to late summer.

One of the most important nectar plants for hummers during the fall migration is Jewelweed or Touch-Me-Not (Impatiens capensis). I have this plant throughout the borders of our yard and keep quite a few growing for hummers. Plants in unwanted places are easy to pull.

It’s been said that hummingbirds feed on nectar plants just for the carbohydrates they need to fuel their carnivory. Like us, hummers need protein and they get it by eating spiders and insects. It’s what they feed their young. So, this week celebrate the 50th anniversary of Earth Day by planting an oak tree that will attract up to 500 insect species, or a native shrub or vine that provides nectar for hummers. Find many more ideas and activities on the Yale Peabody Museum’s website Peabody at Home . Happy Earth Day!

Just missed it! I was hoping to take a photo of a queen bumblebee gathering pollen on the wildflower Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria). As I looked away for one moment, the bee flew onto the plant two feet in front of me and flew off just as I saw it. I have heard that these flowers are an important early nectar source for queen bumblebees, who need to gather pollen for their new broods. I look forward every spring to seeing these wildflowers and their pollinating insects again, but there aren’t as many of either as there used to be.

Wildflowers such as Dutchman’s Breeches are called spring ephemerals. They emerge through the leaf litter here in Connecticut in March and April to take advantage of the short window of spring sunlight and flowering before leaves in the tree canopy above grow to shade them out. By summer, you would never know that they had been here.

The flowers of Dutchman’s Breeches look like upside-down pantaloons, hence the name. Walking along the nearby Farmington Canal Greenway this week, I came upon a nice patch in full bloom. It’s amazing to me how many people walked or rode by and didn’t look down and see them. Two researchers in 1998 called this “plant blindness,” for our inability to notice plants in our environment, which has consequences for conservation and human health.

The Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) is another ephemeral found in the eastern United States. Also called Fawn Lily, its leaves resemble a speckled brook trout, or a fawn’s mottled fur. Another name is Dogtooth Violet for its pointed bulbs, although the plant is a member of the lily family and is not a true violet. Look for paired leaves because those will be the plants that will flower. It can take up to seven years for Trout Lily to flower, and only about half a percent of the plants in a patch will do so. Some patches, though can be up to 300 years old!

Blood Root (Sanguinaria canadensis) isn’t a true ephemeral. Its leaves often don’t die back quickly, but it’s flowers last only a few days. However, the plant shares its seed dispersal strategy with many ephemerals. Blood Root, Trout Lily, and Dutchman’s Breeches all develop elaiosomes, fleshy structures full of lipids that are attached to seeds. Ants are attracted to these fatty structures and take them underground to their colony to feed on them. The seeds are then deposited in their subterranean waste pile, where they are fertilized and grow. This strategy is called myrmecochory. Blood Root gets its name from its scarlet sap, once used as a dye by Eastern Woodlands peoples.

How important are plant–pollinator relationships! Many of our insect pollinators, so critical for our own survival, are also vital for our spring flora. Among these are small solitary bees in the genus Andrena. There are specialist bees that are dependent on certain plants and the plants on them. The Trout Lily Bee (Andrena erythronii) only gathers pollen from the Trout Lily and the bee Andrena erigeniae only visits the flowers of Spring Beauty (Claytonia virginica).

Unfortunately, many native wildflower species are decreasing, and with them their specialist pollinators. Habitat fragmentation plays a big part in this. But increasingly significant are the introduced, invasive plants that are taking over. On a recent walk, I found a few patches of Blood Root completely surrounded by thousands of Garlic Mustard (Allaria petiolata) seedlings. Garlic Mustard not only can choke out our native plants, but research has shown that this invasive has allelopathic chemicals that can kill important soil fungi, preventing many plants from growing near it. Each Garlic Mustard plant can produce more than 5,000 seeds that can remain viable in the soil for five years or more.

I see more Mugwort (Artemesia vulgaris) and Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica) around too. These introduced plants do not contribute to our local ecosystems. They don’t have insects who co-evolved with them to eat their leaves or who are specialists to rely on their nectar and pollen and they can choke out native plants. As entomologist Doug Tallamy observes, “this is a growing problem for humanity because it is the plants and animals around us that produce the life support we all depend on. Every time a species is lost from an ecosystem, that ecosystem is less able to support us.” So, one way for you and your family to exercise during COVID-19 social distancing and help the environment is by removing these plants from your yard or neighborhood and putting them in the trash. Garlic Mustard’s mature, second year plants can be hand-pulled fairly easily.

You can add many of these spring ephemerals to your garden after removing invasive plants. But please don’t dig them from the wild. Many local nurseries are now carrying these wildflowers, but be sure to ask whether the plants are nursery propagated. Plant them in a soil enriched with compost where they will receive light shade and part sun in the summer. Make sure they don’t dry out in the spring. You only need add a thin layer of ground-up leaves (your mower works well for this) in the spring or fall. The bees will thank you.

When I was a kid growing up in northern New Jersey, my friends and I often explored the wilds of the neighborhood. Many of the forests and fields where we found box turtles then are now suburban lots and corporate headquarters. My friend Rick and I would tromp through slick, muddy swamps and fens to hunt frogs and occasionally chase each other with the torn, foul smelling leaves of the Skunk Cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus).

Leaves that smell like a skunk—an interesting strategy for a plant to keep from being eaten. Although I have heard that bears, when they emerge hungry from their dens, will eat the young leaves.

The leaves are not the only part of the plant with a scent. Weeks ago, I headed to nearby wetlands to see this “first wildflower of spring.” The red and yellow mottled hoods of the Skunk Cabbage, which are modified leaves called a spathe, had emerged through the snow and ice, looking like they melted the area around them. That’s actually what happens. Remarkably, as the plant uses starches stored within it in respiration it can heat itself up as much as 36 degrees above the air temperature!

The flower cluster inside the spathe is the spadix, a rounded head of tightly packed flowers. This flower head also puts out that skunky smell, and the heated air spreads it around to attract carrion-feeding flies and gnats to encourage pollination. It’s amazing that there are flies out pollinating flowers in February and early March.

Pollinators are really important. More than 90% of flowering plants need them to spread pollen from one flower to another to fertilize those flowers so that fruits can form. We often think of only bees and butterflies as pollinators, but in fact flies are the second most prolific pollinators behind bees.

Right now, the large, dark green leaves of the Skunk Cabbage are about at half their full size. When fully developed, the broad deep green leaves look like cabbage. They are spongy and full of water. When the trees above are fully leafed out, Skunk Cabbage leaves begin to fade. Because no woody material is left behind with this true spring ephemeral, by late summer you wouldn’t even know that Skunk Cabbage had been there.

But their spreading roots are still below the ground. Those roots have pulled the stem downward. As the plant ages it grows deeper and deeper into the soil, waiting for late winter and early spring to begin the cycle all over again.

Many of us have taken to the outdoors recently. I don’t have to tell you why. It’s a great way to get exercise and still maintain social distancing. So if you’ve been out walking, you might be asking yourself, “What’s all that quacking going on?”
No, Daffy is still safe in cartoonland and mallards are not quacking in the middle of woods. For one thing, it’s not their usual habitat.
You are hearing the mating call of the male Wood Frog, Rana sylvatica, a brown, dark-masked amphibian with a fascinating life history. In the early spring, sometimes as early as February, when the first “warm” rains come with a temperature above 44 degrees F (7 degrees C), wood frogs crawl out of the leaf litter and head for vernal (literally meaning spring) pools. These often temporary and usually shallow pools are found in forests in the Appalachians, New England, and most of Canada and Alaska. By using these temporary pools, the frogs avoid being eaten by fish.
These frogs have been semi-frozen in the leaf litter all winter. In the late fall when temperatures drop to freezing, special proteins cause the water in the frog’s blood to freeze first. This pulls out most of the water in its cells. While this is happening, its liver is pumping sugar (glucose) into the cells. This “anti-freeze” keeps the cells from freezing. Everything then shuts down—no beating heart or other functions!
This unique adaptation has enabled wood frogs to survive as far north as above the Arctic Circle. Scientists are studying this freeze-and-thaw cycle and hope what they learn can help with human organ transplants.
Back to the quacking. Check out the Wood Frog’s call and others on the Yale Peabody Museum Vertebrate Zoology Collection’s Online Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Connecticut. After attracting a mate with its calls, the male Wood Frog externally fertilizes her eggs in the vernal pool. A female will lay an average of 1,750 eggs. Once the eggs have hatched, it’s a race for the tadpoles to develop into froglets and get out of the water before the vernal pool dries up in the heat of summer.

Click here to see the interesting findings that David Skelly, Peabody Director and Frank R. Oastler Professor of Ecology, and his graduate students have made in their study of wood frogs. Photo by Peter Paplanus from St. Louis, MO/ccby http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0