Forest Creatures: Hummingbirds

 

Every May the hummingbirds return to our area, and every May our feeder is out to greet them. Because of these busy, tiny birds, it is a joyful time of year.

The males come back first, setting up territories that they vigorously defend. 

Our feeder can be seen from our kitchen sink, and when we are cooking or doing dishes there is endless entertainment just outside our window.

It is said that hummingbirds open the heart. 

When we connect with hummingbirds, we delight in the sheer joy of living. 

Life is a wonderland of sensuous delights, and we exist in its beauty, delighting in spring flowers, aromas, early sunrises, and the taste of fresh wholesome foods. 

Hummingbirds remind us to laugh and enjoy creation, to appreciate the magic of being alive and the beauty of nature all around us.

Sure the world can be a messed up place, but that should not blind us to the infinite beauty around us at all times.

This is the vision, and gift, of heart-opening Hummingbirds.

Studying Orange Jelly Fungus

I photographed this bizarre looking life form recently and wanted to identify what it is, and what planet it comes from. Some light studying leads me to believe it is Orange Jelly Fungus (Dacrymyces palmatus).

This edible but tasteless orangey-yellow glistening growth was living on a fallen Douglas-fir, doing its job to slowly break it down. Decomposers perform an important function as nature's recyclers.

Decomposers, or saprotrophs, recycle dead plants and animals into chemical nutrients like carbon and nitrogen that are released back into the soil, air and water.

I can see someone perhaps giving this amazing growth a little poke with a finger or stick, but it boggles the mind to think of eating it. 

Unless you have bought your mushrooms in the grocery store you should proceed with extreme caution.

Whether they look like day-glo boogers or not.

Earth Day Quotes

Save a tree - Save the Planet

Happy 43rd Earth Day. In this post I am sharing some Earth-related quotes that inspire me to live more harmoniously with nature, and make every day Earth Day.



"He that plants trees loves others beside himself."

- Thomas Fuller

"There is a great need for the introduction of new values in our society, where bigger is not necessarily better, where slower can be faster, and where less can be more."

- Gaylord Nelson

"It is possible for a nation to have high well-being with a low ecological footprint."

- The Happy Planet Index

"For 200 years we've been conquering nature. Now we're beating it to death."

- Tom McMillan

"If we aim for what is no longer possible, we will achieve only delusion and frustration. But if we aim for genuinely worthwhile goals that can be attained, then even if we have less energy at our command and fewer material goods available, we might nevertheless still increase our satisfaction in life."

- Richard Heinberg

"We can pay the ecological debt by changing economic models, and by giving up luxury consumption, setting aside selfishness and individualism, and thinking about the people and the planet Earth."

- Evo Morales

Douglas-fir Stumps Healed By Helpful Neighbours

A capped Douglas-fir stump in an old growth forest

One of the curiosities of Vancouver Island's Douglas-fir forests are stumps that have healed over completely such as the one shown above. These capped stumps make one wonder how a dead tree can continue to grow in this way. If you could peer into the darkness underground you would find answers,  because it is all about the roots.

Several species of trees produce root grafts including Douglas-fir and the true firs. Grafting happens when the root systems of two trees come into contact and grow together. Trees joined in such a way become in effect one organism.

This scenario is common in Douglas-fir forests, and stumps adjacent to live trees may grow over and heal completely in a strange mushroom-like bark cap.

Douglas-fir roots graft together where they cross each other

In the Douglas-fir forest, a single tree could be connected with most of its neighbours. When a tree is cut or broken off, adjacent trees treat the stump as if it was a part of themselves and will send help through their connected roots.

This starts with resin soaking into the exposed wood to prevent pathogens and decay from entering, much as a tree responds to any insult to its bark or branches. Once soaked with resin, the cambium (active growth layer just under the bark) starts to form a callus in order to heal the wound. Sometimes this goes on until the stump is fully capped.

But it is not all selfless action that is occurring in the tree community. Grafted roots can also be responsible for spreading vascular diseases from one tree to another, so a cut or damaged stump can be a way for disease to enter and spread throughout the connected trees.

A damaged or cut tree can introduce disease to surrounding trees
through grafted roots

Fully capped stumps remain connected to their neighbours, and while Douglas-fir can not sprout a new tree from the stump like some deciduous trees, the capped stump can continue to increase in girth over the years. 

Big Tree Art: Thin Air Trees, Stuart McMillen

The big tree art of Australian artist Stuart McMillen's Thin Air Trees is beautiful, but his connection to trees goes far deeper than his stunning visual representations.

McMillen has a deep respect for trees, and writes, "Once hidden before my eyes, I am now drawn to the sight of trees wherever I look. I marvel at the defiant way they erupt from the ground, pushing towards the sky. I rave over the precarious way they hold their mass above our heads. What I once ignored now forms a focal point of the way I appreciate the world around me."

"A major aim of Thin Air was to make readers appreciate the elegance and brilliance of a familiar, yet overlooked neighbour: the humble tree."

The Thin Air cartoon describes the 17th century experiments of Jean Baptista van Helmont. His 5 year experiment with a willow tree aimed to figure out from where plants got their mass.

The cartoon goes on to describe the natural engineering of big trees that are built with little more than air and water.

The author/artist believes that humanity would be better served if we conducted our business in a more natural, sustainable manner, like the trees.

"To the enlightened person, McMillen says, "trees are no longer just ‘things’ that fill the space between the important, man-made structures of the world. They are incredible in themselves!"

See More

McMillen's work goes far beyond trees, and his cartoons on science, society and ecological sustainability are as thought-provoking as they are wonderful to look at.

See Thin Air Trees at: http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/thin-air/#page-1

Stuart McMillen's other work can be found at: http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/en/

The Wonders Of Big Trees

"The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe
about us,the less taste we shall have for its destruction."
- Rachel Carson

During winter I usually do more big tree hunting online than I do in the field. Every once in a while a really big specimen emerges from the digital background, like the one above. It is a monumental big tree that was not identified, although I had some good ideas as to its type and location. It was a big tree mystery.

It was not difficult to find other photos of the giant. As I suspected, the tree is a Coastal redwood. Several other pictures of the tree on the web indicate that it is in Jedediah Smith State Park in California.

California has the largest trees in the world. If it weren't for them, Vancouver Island would hold this distinction.

However, size doesn't matter so much - it is all about paying attention to the wonders and realities of big trees, wherever they are.

Watershed Trees

Desert erosion creates beautiful tree-like forms

Do trees look like watersheds, or do watersheds look like trees? 

When water flows the resulting erosion on the landscape can form shapes similar to trees. The 'trunk' of the main river is fed by smaller and smaller 'branches'. The overall form gives the appearance of the canopy.

It is another example of the repeating patterns expressed in nature. If you watch closely you can spot such patterns everywhere.

Natural Capital: Save A Forest, Fight Climate Change, Get Paid

"Canadians are coming to understand that the national environmental agenda can no longer be separated from the national economic agenda. Sustainable development, therefore, demands that we integrate social, economic and environmental considerations into decision-making in a way that enhances productivity and prosperity without compromising the integrity of the environment." - Natural Resources Canada

Intact, pristine, natural systems contribute over $33 trillion dollars of 'value' to our economy every year, as calculated in 1997. Traditional economics does not take these contributions into account, even though all life (and the economy) depends on them. The current biodiversity crisis, rapid deforestation, and global climate change is beginning to change that.

'Natural capital' is increasingly being acknowledged and  taken into account, and conservation, restoration, and sustainability are concepts that we are likely to hear a lot more about in the near future. This bodes well for all our forest lands including the precious, and dwindling, old growth.

Forests are one of the Earth's great atmospheric regulators, and they store more carbon than any other biome on the planet. In most cases our forests, especially pristine, untouched areas, are more valuable standing than cut for lumber or other uses.

Forest carbon projects recognize the value of the carbon-storage capacity of forests, and pay out credits to keep trees growing and sequestering to help mitigate industrial greenhouse gases.

The largest  to date in North America, and the first deal of its kind in Canada, was launched recently in Vancouver, BC. The Nature Conservancy Of Canada (NCC) signed a deal that saw them receive carbon credits worth $4 million dollars that mitigates 700,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

A forest is worth far more standing than it is when cut down to make stuff

The NCC is receiving the cash for its 55,000-hectare piece of land known as Darkwoods. The area, which has extensive virgin forest including trees over 500 years old, is on Kootenay Lake near Nelson, BC. The deal represents the beginning of a process that promises great benefits for the environment, biodiversity, trees, and forests.

The concept of natural capital is just beginning to take off, and there will be bumps in the road as it progresses. One complaint is that it is difficult to measure the value of nature's systems without some agreement on methods of valuating and auditing at least the global forms of natural capital (e.g. value of air, water, soil). We have not yet arrived at such agreement.

But we are moving in the right direction as we change how we think about, and value, nature. It may very well save what is left of our once vast forests, and reclaim and restore degraded forest lands so they may thrive again.