What to See This Week

Sugar maples are some of the most abundant trees in our forested areas and also have some of the most stunning fall color! Sugar maples are known for their variable fall color, typically mostly orange with some yellows and reds. What specific colors actually show up is a combination of a few factors including amount of sunlight, genetics of the tree, and weather conditions. 

Dogwoods have beautiful dark burgundy fall leaves. Anthocyanins are the pigments responsible for the reds and purples seen in some species in the fall. Unlike the carotenoid pigments that produce the yellows and oranges, anthocyanins are produced in the fall and build up when sugars are trapped within the leaves. The boldest colors occur with sunny days and cool nights. 

In the pollinator garden, after the flowers have bloomed, the seed heads are very popular with goldfinches! Goldfinches are often seen picking seeds from the left seed heads this time of year, particularly from members of the composite family like black-eyed susans, coneflowers, and sunflowers.

The Bird Watching Garden still has some juvenile cardinals learning to feed on their own. If the parents come by, they stop searching for food and begin calling and flapping their wings in hopes of getting fed, but are able to feed on their own at this point. Aside from their juvenile-like behavior, their less-defined crest and brown bill set them apart from adults.

Tufted titmice visit the Bird Watching Garden regularly throughout the year. They adapt their diet to whatever is available at the time, often going for insects in the spring and summer and transitioning into seeds and fruit as the weather gets colder. Their beak is well suited to picking small insects off leaves but they have to put a little more work into cracking into seeds. Typically, titmice will grab one seed and move to a perch where they can hold the seed between their feet and peck until they get the shell off. This is an easy to observe behavior seen in titmice and chickadees.

The group of old yellow buckeye trees near the stumpery are dropping buckeyes this time of year. Alongside the actual buckeye nuts scattered on the ground beneath the trees, you will also notice the outer husks. Yellow buckeyes have smooth outer husks while Ohio buckeyes have spiky husks.

This coral tooth fungus was spotted growing beneath a log. Coral tooth fungus belongs to the distinctive genus Hericium, the same genus as the popular lion’s mane. Both species are popular edible mushrooms that grow from wood in the fall but coral tooth has more branching and smaller teeth. While lion’s mane is more extensively studied for its medicinal benefits, other members of the genus may share the same properties.

Yellow fairy cups are a wonderful tiny fungus that can be seen growing currently on wood. Cup fungi tend to come in a wide variety of very bright colors and these yellow fairy cups are no exception. Each cup is only about 3 millimeters at most but often grow in large enough clusters to make them noticeable.