Notes from Ted Watt's Presentation

March 10, 2020

Snow Leopard https://snowleopardconservancy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/I-Snow-LeopardB.pdf a very beautiful and lengthy mind-meld with the wild cat…with such a poignant message to us humans. I read it first in Orion a number of years ago.

Link to National Audubon bird plantings web site: enter your zip code and get a list of recommended bird-friendly plants for your area. www.audubon.org/native-plants
Ted Watt List of Bird Friendly plants
Doug Tallamy's List of Trees and Shrubs - and the insects they support.
More at Valley Forge Audubon Society

2. Nick Fleck: Poems, Notes, Replies to Questions:

Hurt Hawks, Robinson Jeffers
http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/jeffers_hurthawks.html

Snake, D. H. Lawrence
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/148471/snake-5bec57d7bfa17

Invasive species - An unclear distinction; yet all too clear. H. sapiens is the best example, in my mind, of a truly invasive species by almost any definition.

I have been browsing through F. Schuyler Matthew's "Field Book of American Wildflowers." The edition I have and used since a child is the 1912 edition. He identifies a number of flowers as either naturalized or adventive. Under the former are such as Water Cress, Poison Hemlock, Wild Parsnip, Loosestrife. Under adventive: Mallows - High and Marsh. With Musk Mallow he comments "from Europe." Are these invasive? Certainly not commonly so called.

And of course some of the grasses planted by the Pilgrims came from either England or Holland and are still grown in New England. I wonder if this is not unlike the Marino sheep that were stolen from spain and introduced into such places as Colrain, Heath, and even Northfield. Is the marino sheep invasive. It sure became the dominant grazer in the N.W. part of Franklin County and north into VT. and N.H.

Recently, my sister visited (a couple of springs ago), saw the yellow iris (psuedocorus) in the wet area on our lot and exclaimed with disgust: INVASIVE! They sure are beautiful and I cannot see that they have replaced anything -- but I truly cannot say. They were imported into this country in the 18th century. She sure was disgusted. And I do know that New York State considers this species a pest.

And I like squirrels and am glad to feed both red and gray.

Coloring of Immature Cardinals
In response to a question during Ted Watt's talk on March 10, Nick Fleck looked into the coloring of Cardinals and reports, "The immature (both sexes) are without red and have black upper and lower mandibles. They will pass through stages of redness as they mature into adult males and females. By immature this means from May to Sept." (permanently archived at Members Birding Notes page)

Nick