
Photo of the Day

LIFE IN THE LOWER SUSQUEHANNA RIVER WATERSHED
A Natural History of Conewago Falls—The Waters of Three Mile Island
County Conservation District Tree Sales are underway throughout the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed. Now is the time to order for pickup in April. The prices are a bargain and the selection is fabulous. For species descriptions and more details, visit each tree sale web page (click the sale name highlighted in blue). And don’t forget to order bundles of evergreens for planting in mixed clumps and groves to provide winter shelter and summertime nesting sites for our local birds. They’re only $12.00 for a bundle of 10—can’t beat that deal!
Cumberland County Conservation District Annual Tree Seedling Sale—
Orders due by: Friday, March 24, 2023
Pickup on: Thursday, April 20, 2023 or Friday, April 21, 2023
Dauphin County Conservation District Seedling Sale—
Orders due by: Monday, March 20, 2023
Pickup on: Thursday, April 20, 2023 or Friday, April 21, 2023
Lancaster County Annual Tree Seedling Sale—
Orders due by: Friday, March 10, 2023
Pickup on: Thursday, April 13, 2023
Lebanon County Conservation District Tree and Plant Sale—
Orders due by: Wednesday, March 8, 2023
Pickup on: Friday, April 7, 2023
Perry County Conservation District Tree Sale—(click on 2023 Tree Sale Brochure tab when it scrolls across the page)
Orders due by: March 22, 2023
Pickup on: Thursday, April 13, 2023
You probably know that fall is an excellent time for planting. Roots continue to grow in the warm soil even after the air becomes cool and leaves change color, setting the stage for your new trees and shrubs to sport splendid foliage and flowers in spring.
But did you know that autumn can be the best time to visit your local nursery/garden center to select the native trees and shrubs that produce berries for attracting and feeding overwintering birds and other wildlife? Here are three of our favorites. Each is looking its best from now through at least the first half of winter.
There’s still time to get the shovel dirty, so visit your local native plant dealer this week and invest in some fruit-producing trees and shrubs. Fall is also a good time to plant pines, spruces, and hemlocks. Who knows, you might just get a good end-of-season deal.
With the gasoline and gunpowder gang’s biggest holiday of the year now upon us, wouldn’t it be nice to get away from the noise and the enduring adolescence for just a little while to see something spectacular that isn’t exploding or on fire? Well, here’s a suggestion: head for the hills to check out the flowers of our native rhododendron, the Great Rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum), also known as Rosebay.
Thickets composed of our native heathers/heaths (Ericaceae) including Great Rhododendron, Mountain Laurel, and Pinxter Flower (Rhododendron periclymenoides), particularly when growing in association with Eastern Hemlock and/or Eastern White Pine, provide critical winter shelter for forest wildlife. The flowers of native heathers/heaths attract bees and other pollinating insects and those of the deciduous Pinxter Flower, which blooms in May, are a favorite of butterflies and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.
Forests with understories that include Great Rhododendrons do not respond well to logging. Although many Great Rhododendrons regenerate after cutting, the loss of consistent moisture levels in the soil due to the absence of a forest canopy during the sunny summertime can, over time, decimate an entire population of plants. In addition, few rhododendrons are produced by seed, even under optimal conditions. Great Rhododendron seeds and seedlings are very sensitive to the physical composition of forest substrate and its moisture content during both germination and growth. A lack of humus, the damp organic matter in soil, nullifies the chances of successful recolonization of a rhododendron understory by seed. In locations where moisture levels are adequate for their survival and regeneration after logging, impenetrable Great Rhododendron thickets will sometimes come to dominate a site. These monocultures can, at least in the short term, cause problems for foresters by interrupting the cycle of succession and excluding the reestablishment of native trees. In the case of forests harboring stands of Great Rhododendron, it can take a long time for a balanced ecological state to return following a disturbance as significant as logging.
In the lower Susquehanna region, the Great Rhododendron blooms from late June through the middle of July, much later than the ornamental rhododendrons and azaleas found in our gardens. Set against a backdrop of deep green foliage, the enormous clusters of white flowers are hard to miss.
In the Lower Susquehanna River Watershed, there are but a few remaining stands of Great Rhododendron. One of the most extensive populations is in the Ridge and Valley Province on the north side of Second Mountain along Swatara Creek near Ravine (just off Interstate 81) in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Smaller groves are found in the Piedmont Province in the resort town of Mount Gretna in Lebanon County and in stream ravines along the lower river gorge at the Lancaster Conservancy’s Ferncliff and Wissler’s Run Preserves. Go have a look. You’ll be glad you did.
The emergence of Brood X Periodical Cicadas is now in full swing. If you visit a forested area, you may hear the distant drone of very large concentrations of one or more of the three species that make up the Brood X event. The increasing volume of a chorus tends to attract exponentially greater numbers of male cicadas from within an expanding radius, causing a swarm to grow larger and louder—attracting more and more females to the breeding site.
Each Periodical Cicada species has a distinctive song. This song concentrates males of the same species at breeding sites—then draws in an abundance of females of the same species to complete the mating process. Large gatherings of Periodical Cicadas can include all three species, but a close look at swarms on State Game Lands 145 in Lebanon County and State Game Lands 46 (Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area) in Lancaster County during recent days found marked separation by two of the three. Most swarms were dominated by Magicicada septendecim, the largest, most widespread, and most common species. However, nearly mono-specific swarms of M. cassinii, the second most numerous species, were found as well. An exceptionally large one was northwest of the village of Colebrook on State Game Lands 145. It was isolated by a tenth of a mile or more from numerous large gatherings of M. septendecim cicadas in the vicinity. These M. cassinii cicadas, with a chorus so loud that it outdistanced the songs made by the nearby swarms of M. septendecim, seized the opportunity to separate both audibly and physically from the more dominant species, thus providing better likelihood of maximizing their breeding success.
The process of identifying Periodical Cicadas is best begun by listening to their choruses, songs, and calls. After all, the sounds of cicadas will lead one to the locations where they are most abundant. The two most common species, M. septendecim and M. cassinii, produce a buzzy chorus that, when comprised of hundreds or thousands of cicadas “singing” in unison, creates, when heard from a distance, a droning wail that can carry for a quarter of a mile or more. It’s a surreal humming sound that may remind one of a space ship from a science fiction film.
Listen to the songs of individual cicadas at close range and you’ll hear a difference between the widespread M. septendecim “Pharaoh Periodical Cicada” and the other two species. M. septendecim‘s song is often characterized as a drawn out version of the word “Pharaoh”, hence the species’ unofficial common name. As part of their courtship ritual, “Pharaoh Periodical Cicadas” sometimes make a purring or cooing sound, which is often extended to sound like kee-ow, then sometimes revved up further to pha-raoh. M. cassinii, often known as “Cassin’s Periodical Cicada”, and the least common species, M. septendecula, often make scratchy clicking or rattling calls as a lead-in to their song. Most observers will find little difficulty locating the widespread M. septendecim “Pharaoh Periodical Cicada” by sound, so listening for something different—the clicking call—is an easy way to zero in on the two less common species.
To penetrate the droning choruses of large numbers of “Pharaoh” and/or “Cassin’s Periodical Cicadas”, sparingly distributed M. septendecula cicadas have a noise-penetrating song consisting of a series of quick raspy notes with a staccato rhythm reminiscent of a pulsating lawn sprinkler. It can often be differentiated by a listener even in the presence of a roaring chorus of one or both of the commoner species. However, a word of caution is due. To call in others of their kind, “Cassin’s Periodical Cicadas” can produce a courtship song similar to that of M. septendecula so that they too can penetrate the choruses of the enormous numbers of “Pharaoh Periodical Cicadas” that concentrate in many areas. To play it safe, it’s best to have a good look at the cicadas you’re trying to identify.
Visually identifying Brood X Periodical Cicadas to the species level is best done by looking for two key field marks—first, the presence or absence of orange between the eye and the root of the wings, and second, the presence or absence of orange bands on the underside of the abdomen. Seeing these field marks clearly requires in-hand examination of the cicada in question.
To reliably separate Brood X Periodical Cicadas by species, it is necessary to get a closeup view of the section of the thorax between the eye and the root (insertion) of the wings, plus a look at the underside of the abdomen. Here’s what you’ll see…
Magicicada septendecim—“Pharaoh Periodical Cicada”
Magicicada cassinii—“Cassin’s Periodical Cicada”
Magicicada septendecula
There you have it. Get out and take a closer look at the Brood X Periodical Cicadas near you.
On a snowy winter day, it sure is nice to see some new visitors at a backyard feeding station. Here at the susquehannawildlife.net headquarters, American Robins have arrived to partake of the offerings.
For this flock of robins, which numbered in excess of 150 individuals, the contents of this tray were a mere garnish to the meal that would sustain them through 72 hours of stormy weather. The main course was the supply of ripe berries on shrubs and trees in the headquarters garden.
Their first choice—the bright red fruits of the Common Winterberry.
After cleaning off the winterberry shrubs, other fruits became part of the three-day-long feast.
Wouldn’t it be great to see these colorful birds in your garden each winter? You can, you know. Won’t you consider adding plantings of native trees and shrubs to your property this spring? Here at the susquehannawildlife.com headquarters we mow no lawn; the lawn is gone. Mixing evergreens and fruit-producing shrubs with native warm-season grasses and flowering plants has created a wildlife oasis absent of that dirty habit of mowing and blowing.
You can find many of the plants seen here at your local garden center. Take a chunk out of your lawn by paying them a visit this spring.
Want a great deal? Many of the County Conservation District offices in the lower Susquehanna region are having their annual spring tree sales right now. Over the years, we obtained many of our evergreens and berry-producing shrubs from these sales for less than two dollars each. At that price you can blanket that stream bank or wet spot in the yard with winterberries and mow it no more! The deadlines for orders are quickly approaching, so act today—literally, act today. Visit your County Conservation District’s website for details including selections, prices, order deadlines, and pickup dates and locations.
County Conservation District Tree Sales
Consult each County Conservation District’s Tree Sale web page for ordering info, pickup locations, and changes to these dates and times.
Cumberland County Conservation District Tree Seedling Sale—deadline for prepaid orders Tuesday, March 30, 2021. Pickup 1 P.M. to 5 P.M., Thursday, April 22, 2021, and 8 A.M. to 2 P.M., Friday, April 23, 2021. https://www.ccpa.net/4636/Tree-Seedling-Sale
Lancaster County Conservation District Tree Sale—deadline for prepaid orders (hand-delivered to drop box) 5 P.M., Friday, March 5, 2021. Pickup 8 A.M. to 5 P.M., Thursday, April 15, 2021. https://www.lancasterconservation.org/tree-sale/
Lebanon County Conservation District Tree Sale—deadline for prepaid orders Thursday, March 11, 2021. Pickup 9 A.M. to 6 P.M., Friday, May 7, 2021. https://www.lccd.org/2021-tree-sale/
Perry County Conservation District Tree Sale—deadline for prepaid orders Wednesday, March 24, 2021. Pickup 10 A.M. to 6 P.M., Thursday, April 8, 2021. www.perrycd.org/Documents/2021 Tree Sale Flyer LEGAL SIZE.pdf
York County Conservation District Seedling Sale—deadline for prepaid orders Monday, March 15, 2021. Pickup 10 A.M. to 6 P.M., Thursday, April 15, 2021. https://www.yorkccd.org/events/2021-seedling-sale