Seeing the smiling faces of daisies on a sunny day reminds me of a lazy summer day. But like a lot of pretty things, the Ox-eye Daisy isn’t a native wildflower but was brought over from Europe in the 1800s, escaped into the wild and is now common along roadsides and fields. It is considered a noxious weed in many states and countries, as it decreases crop yields and can take over a pasture as cattle do not readily eat the plant. So once again, I guess there can be too much of a good thing including “pretty flowers”.
Today is the Cranberry Blossom Day in Warrens and last weekend was the Cranberry Blossom Festival in Wisconsin Rapids so it gives you a hint that the cranberry vines are blooming in Wisconsin this time of the year.
Cranberry flowers are not capable of self fertilization so pollinators, like bees, are required to move pollen from one flower to another. Cranberry blossom do not offer the same nectar appeal that other crops offer so the bees might fly off and find other flowers to pollinate, such as area weeds or lily pads, but hopefully the bees will pollinate the blossoms in the shape of a crane head so I have my cranberry juice and other cranberry treats.
There was only a few native wild rose blossoms left when I walked by the shrubs last evening so their pink colors have faded for the summer and won’t appear until early June next year.
These Yellow Warblers are busy feeding their young chicks which is extra work with a cowbird chick in the nest too who is so much bigger than the little warblers. So a majority of the insects the parents bring to the nest are given to the bigger mouth of the freeloader.
Brown-headed Cowbird females skips building nests and instead put all their energy into producing eggs, sometimes more than three dozen a summer. They deposit their eggs in other birds nest to raise their young, often though at the expense of the unwilling foster bird’s own chicks. But the cowbirds don’t just dump and run but keep an eye on their eggs and young and if their egg are removed, they retaliate by destroying the host chicks eggs in a term called “mafia behavior”.
The nests of the Yellow Warbler are frequently parasitized by the Brown-headed Cowbird so the warbler often builds a new nest directly on top of one containing the cowbird egg along with their own eggs. Sometimes there may be up to six layers if the cowbird keeps redepositing eggs but it appears this nest is only one layer.
Yellow Warblers Feeding Their Young
The video has some clips of the Yellow Warblers feeding their four chicks and the extra cowbird (but I was mad at the freeloader so I cut out most of the clips where the big mouth was getting all the food).
The small streams are flowing with the melting snow and other frozen rivers are beginning to melt and eventually people will enjoy the rivers on a warm summer day again.
The leaves were blowing on the tree yesterday, but not pretty autumn colors or summer green maple leaves, as it was only some hardly brown oak leaves on one small tree refusing to let go and join the blowing snow.
Meteorological spring started yesterday and even though it is sunny today, it definitely is not spring yet as the pond is frozen and no dragonflies buzzing around. And it won’t look or feel like spring the next few days with the predicted snow and below zero temperatures so winter hasn’t released its hold yet.
When I woke this morning, it was -13ºF outside so even though it is sunny out, I don’t think I will be wearing shorts and swaying in the breeze in the hammock on a Sunday afternoon.
The field is white, but not white with clovers or daisies since the brilliant white is provided by a layer of snow and ice reflecting the sun instead of open water on a very chilly morning.
The month is coming to a end, typically the coldest month of the winter season but it was a warmer January this year even though most days were still below freezing so not warm enough for summertime yellow flowers.
