For about a year now, myself, Jim Chatfield of The Ohio
State University Extension and the OSU Department of Horticulture and Crop
Science and Department of Plant Pathology, David Wiesenberg, owner of The
Wooster Book Company, Stephen Tomasko, photographer extraordinaire with shows
as far afield as Paris and the Akron Art Museum, and Kenny Cochran, the curator
of OSU’s Secrest Arboretum in Wooster, have embarked upon a project titled the
Thirty-Six Views of Secrest. The idea
comes from the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai and his woodblock prints of
the Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji and Cal-Berkeley’s landscape architect
Joseph McBride’s Thirty Six Views of Mount Tamalpais. We are focusing on the
changing seasons of perspective and time, viewing and photographing nuances of
the natural and nurtured landscape of the Arboretum, from the growth and
senescence of sweet gum balls and the flowering and fruiting of crabapples to
the awakening and overwintering of insects such as tent caterpillars and
bagworms and plant pathogens such as the cedar apple rust fungus.
The views are diverse. This
past November on our weekly walk we enjoyed the overall scenes of winterberry
holly plantings and the distant russet-gold of the dawnredwood grove, the
uprising remnant fruits of tuliptrees, and the exotic reds and salmon fruits of
invasive European euonymus. We were awakened though, to another view of
Secrest. As we took our late afternoon walk we came upon two birders
extraordinaire: Greg Miller (gregmillerbirding.com) and Robert Hershberger, the
editor of The Bobolink magazine.
David Wiesenberg knew them well, but Stephen and I were about to become
enchanted.
First, Gary and Robert were
on a mission. They were in search of Bohemian waxwings, Townsend’s solitaire,
and… the white-winged crossbill (Loxia
leucoptera), a bird of the more northerly boreal forests not usually found
at Secrest. However, pine cone production was sparse up north this year and
they suspected this species had expanded its territory a bit. Secrest had
plenty of cone production and it is also a great environment for birds in general
with many fruiting trees and shrubs, from crabapples to red chokeberry, and a
diversity of habitats. Greg pulled out his iPhone and the Sibley bird guide app
which along with pictures played us crystal-clear versions of the various songs
and calls of the crossbill in question and lo and behold not much later, the
song was heard from the real deal. Or was it?
In truth, we were being
mocked. As David Wiesenberg had pointed out to me and Stephen before, the
northern mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos)
is quite abundant at Secrest, much appreciated by local birders. Soon enough, we
noticed a northern mockingbird regally surveying us, perched on his crown atop
a spruce tree about 50 feet away. His singing was that of: you guessed it, the
white-winged crossbill. Greg and Robert did not on this day find the crossbill
but the mocking call of Mimus polyglottos
proved it has been around.
That nifty nature story got
us all to talking and we learned a good bit about Greg Miller, though David as
a bookman, already knew it well. Greg, a Wayne County native and now a resident
of Sugar Creek in Tuscarawas County, was profiled in the book and subsequent
movie, The Big Year. The 2004 book,
by Mark Obmascik has the subtitle: A Tale
of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession. It details three men, indeed obsessed
by something known to birders as Big Year in which the challenge is to see how
many bird species you can sight in North America in a calendar year.
The year of the book is 1998
and one of the three set the still standing record of 745 species (in 2011 a
Colorado birder came within one of the record). To prevent spoilers for those
who have not read the book or seen the movie I will not tell you the “winner” ,but
suffice it to say that it is a fascinating journey. As noted on the book jacket: “The Big Year shows the lengths to which people will go to pursue
their dreams, to conquer and categorize – no matter how low the stakes. This is
a lark of a read for anyone with birds on the brain – or not.’
The movie came out in 2011
and Gary Miller is played by Jack Black with the other two birders are portrayed
by Owen Wilson and Steve Martin, so you can imagine it reflects the zany,
obsessional but sweet side of birding through the stories of Gary Miller and
his competitors. That week in November 2012 we walked with Greg and Robert for
a while, looking for birds and their identifying the calls, checking out
bagworms on oaks and egg masses of tent caterpillars on crabapple stems, which
Greg has observed, especially with regard to cuckoos that feed on the egg
masses.
All of this hatched or at
least re-hatched an idea that fellow crabarians Erik Draper and Kenny Cochran
and I have dreamed of for some time.
Secrest Arboretum is the premier site for the International Ornamental
Crabapple Society, with great collections of crabapples even after the Tornado
of 2010 that destroyed many crabapples along the Arboretum road circuit. Our
research plot was largely spared and we continue to do studies on disease susceptibility
and ornamental characteristics important to the Ohio nursery and landscape
industry which grows, sells, and maintains tens of millions of dollars of
crabapple trees annually.
Years ago, when Erik and I
did year-round monthly evaluations to develop comprehensive profiles of the
flower, foliage, fruit and form features of crabapples, we noticed how
bird-beloved crabapples are, but not indiscriminately. Certain birds came at
certain times of years on certain crabapple culivars. We noted that Sargent
crabapple fruits seemed to be picked clean in a one or two day period each fall
by cedar waxwings. Why this bird and why at that particular time? Was it when
the sugar concentration in the fruit reached a certain percentage or when the
fruit obtained a certain color or gave off certain aromas? At any rate, we
always wished we could engage a group of birders to make specific visits each
year, say every few days or every week, to report on the specific feeding
habits of different birds on our 76 different types of crabapples in our
replicated, randomized plots.
Enter now into our
imaginations, readers, Greg Miller and your fellow birders. Robert and Greg
already had noted that Secrest was “underbirded”. We thought they meant there
was a paucity of avian species, but not so, Secrest has a great edge effect
supply of bird species. In fact Greg
Miller noted: “You never know what you will see out here.” As David Wiesenberg
noted, Wooster and Route 30 is more or less the dividing line between the
Carolina Chickadee and the Black-capped Chickadee, with both seen there. What they
meant by “underbirded” is that Secrest lacks a corresponding number of regular
birders, visiting and doing their birding. I ask you, and them, what better
attraction then a regular research-driven replicated randomized trial about
which crabapples matter. Stay tuned.
Final note: midday the
following Friday in November, David Wiesenberg confirmed a Secrest sighting of
the white-winged crossbill, along Green Drive at Secrest Arboretum in Wooster.
