When I walk through the fields and forests in the fall I’m always struck by the great abundance of food that nature provides, from seeds to nuts to berries. Everything from bees to birds to bears relies on it and it’s always good to see a year like this one when they can easily find plenty. Some is saved and not eaten right away but coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) like the one in the above photo always seem to be stripped of seeds almost as soon as they form. Goldfinches especially love these seeds.
If you’d like a photographic challenge try a shot of a single aster seed. If that seems too easy try it when the wind is blowing. Turkeys, goldfinches, sparrows, chipmunks, and white-footed mice all eat aster seeds. There are so many asters that the seed heads last through most of the winter.
There is one oddity in this post and this is it. Though I’ve searched several times for birds, animals or insects that eat milkweed seeds (Asclepias syriaca) over the years I can’t find a single one that does. It’s hard to believe that a plant would produce so many seeds when they don’t get eaten, but milkweed seeds apparently aren’t eaten by anything. Or if they are, scientists don’t seem to know much about it.
Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) grows along rivers and streams and this is the perfect place for ducks and other waterfowl to get at the seeds. Deer feed on the shrub’s leaves and wood ducks often nest in its thicket like branches. Native Americans chewed its bark to relieve toothache pain.
Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) is our only deciduous native holly. Many birds including robins, catbirds, mockingbirds, bluebirds, and cedar waxwings love these berries and will eat them throughout winter. Though the berries are toxic it is thought that their toxicity lessens the longer they stay on the shrub, so that might help explain why many of the berries can still be found in late winter.
It’s a great year for grapes; I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many on the vines. These in the photo are river grapes (Vitis riparia), so called because they grow on the banks of rivers and streams. They are also called frost grapes because of their extreme cold hardiness. The freeze we had finished the leaves on this vine but not the fruit, which probably became sweeter. Many birds eat these small grapes including cardinals, mockingbirds, catbirds, robins, wood ducks, several species of woodpecker, cedar waxwings, blue jays, and turkeys. Many animals also love grapes, including foxes, rabbits, raccoons, skunks and opossums. Deer will eat the leaves and new shoots and many birds use the bark for nest building; especially crows.
In the mid-1800s for several different economic reasons the bottom fell out of farming in this area and many farms were abandoned, with the farmers and their sons going off to work in the woolen, shoe and paper mills that were springing up everywhere in New England. What they left behind is mostly gone now except for many miles of stone walls, an occasional cellar hole, and apple orchards. It isn’t at all unusual when out in the middle of nowhere to stumble upon apple trees that are still bearing bushels of fruit. Of course since they receive no care the apples aren’t very good for much besides cider, but many animals and birds love them. Deer and bears will travel long distances for ripe apples and just the other day I saw two gray squirrels fighting over a half-eaten one. Robins, blue jays, bobwhites, cardinals, cedar waxwings, crows, grackles, downy woodpeckers, bluebirds, grosbeaks, catbirds, hairy woodpeckers, house finches, mockingbirds, orioles, purple finches, red-bellied woodpecker, red-headed woodpecker, and titmice all eat apples.
Though Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) are poisonous to humans many birds love them, including thrushes, woodpeckers, warblers, vireos, mockingbirds chickadees, and turkeys. So do mice, red fox, skunks, chipmunks, squirrels, and deer. I’ve read that birds are attracted more to red fruits than the blue black berries of Virginia creeper, so the vine compensates by having red leaves and stems in the fall. When the birds land amidst all the attractive red hues they find and eat the berries. Since thirty five species of birds eat them it must be a successful ploy.
I don’t know about partridges, but I do know that turkeys eat the berries of partridge berry plants (Mitchella repens) because I’ve seen them doing so. Bobwhites, grouse, red foxes, skunks, and white-footed mice are also said to eat them. This little trailing, ground hugging vine makes a great native groundcover if you’re looking to attract birds and wildlife.
I’ve always suspected that birds or animals were eating poison ivy berries (Toxicodendron radicans) because they disappeared so quickly, but it wasn’t until I visited Grampy’s Goat Sass Farm blog that I saw photos of them actually doing so. By the way, if you’re a bird lover you’d be wise to visit Grampy’s blog; you’ll see some of the most amazing photos of them that you’ve seen, including bald eagles. For example I saw some photos of warblers, chickadees and sparrows eating these poisonous berries and thought Ah ha, I knew it! I’ve since read that vireos, cardinals, goldfinches, woodpeckers, deer, black bears, muskrats and rabbits consider the berries a delicacy. For a human, eating these berries would be a very bad idea. People have nearly died from getting the rash produced by poison ivy inside their bodies.
Unfortunately birds also love the berries of the highly invasive burning bush (Euonymus alatus) and spread the seeds everywhere, so it isn’t uncommon to find a stand of them growing in the woods. I know a place where hundreds of them grow and though they are beautiful at this time of year not another shrub grows near them. This is because they produce such dense shade it’s hard for anything else to get started. The sale and cultivation of the shrub is banned in New Hampshire. There are many native shrubs that make a good substitute.
Another highly invasive plant with berries that are loved by birds is the Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii.) In 1875 seeds imported from Russia were planted at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, Massachusetts. Birds helped it escape and now it has become a very invasive shrub that forms dense thickets and chokes out native plants. These thickets are so thorny that only the smallest animals can get through them so for years the plant was used for hedges.
European barberry (Berberis vulgaris) and American barberry (Berberis canadensis) also grow in parts of New England but each of those has clusters of three or more thorns while Japanese barberry has a single thorn, as can be seen in the above photo. Thorn count is a good identifying characteristic when the plants have no leaves. This is another shrub that is banned in New Hampshire but I don’t think we’ll ever stop its spread.
Rose hips are a fruit that’s good for birds, animals, and humans; they are one of the richest sources of vitamin C known. During World War 2 vitamin C syrup was made from rose hips because citrus fruits were almost impossible to find. The best rose hips for harvesting are found on Rosa rugosa, named for the wrinkled (rugose) surface of its leaves. Personally I like to leave them for the birds and animals. Squirrels, rabbits, deer, bears, moose, and coyotes are animals that are known to eat rose hips. Birds include blackbirds, robins, grouse, juncos, bluebirds, grosbeaks, pheasants, quail, and thrushes.
Shadbush (Amelanchier arborea) is a tree with a lot of historical baggage. The Native American food pemmican was flavored by its fruits along with dried meat and fat. Natives also made arrow shafts from its dense, hard wood and showed early colonists how to use the blue-black berries. The name shadbush comes from the way the trees bloomed in spring when the shad fish were running in New England Rivers. I recently found a spot where many of them grow and they were heavily laden with fruit, which surprised me because bluebirds, cardinals, cedar waxwings, gray catbirds, orioles, red squirrels, and scarlet tanagers all eat the fruit. Beavers and deer eat various other parts of the tree but I didn’t see any signs of them either. It seems odd that there would be so much fruit left and I wonder why the birds and animals haven’t eaten it.
We have many different nut trees here in New Hampshire, including beechnuts, walnuts, butternuts, hazelnuts, acorns, and hickory nuts. We have several hickories here including bitternut and shagbark, like the one in the above photo. Unfortunately most of our chestnuts were wiped out by blight in the early 1900s, but I’ve heard rumors of them possibly making a comeback.
Bears, deer, raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, turkeys, sparrows, white-breasted nuthatches, yellow-rumped warblers, pine warblers, cardinals, rose-breasted grosbeaks, grouse, pheasants, and wood ducks are just some of the animals and birds that eat our native nuts. Without nuts many forest animals and birds wouldn’t survive.
I’ve never seen so many acorns on the ground as we have this year. A single large oak can produce 15,000 acorns in a good year and there are so many on the ground right now that walking the trails is like trying to walk on marbles. The blue jays, pigeons, ducks, woodpeckers, squirrels, mice, chipmunks and other birds and animals are having an easy time of it, thankfully. I ate some red oak acorn meat once when I was a boy and I don’t think I’ll ever forget how bitter it was, but acorns were the main food source for many Native Americans tribes who knew how to remove the bitterness.
If you’d like to try to make flour from acorns as the natives did, choose only those with their caps still on, because when acorns are ripe they normally fall fully dressed. Usually only the added weight of a worm thrashing around inside can make them break free from their caps while still on the tree, and you don’t want wormy acorns.
My little smiling friend seemed very happy to see such abundance in the forest but it isn’t always this way. Plants go through cycles and sometimes a year of abundance can be followed by a year of scarcity. One way to help animals and birds survive the winter is by planting native trees, shrubs and plants. Our natives often have beautiful flowers as well as fruit that animals and bids love, so you really can’t go wrong in choosing them.
Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits. ~Samuel Butler
Thanks for coming by.
It sounds as if the local wildlife will not go hungry this year. You seem to have way more fruits and nuts than we do.
I don’t think anyone will starve this winter. There is food everywhere you look!
I àM always fascinateur by the beautifull subjects you offer us. The vibrant life you share when thé pictures are also escorte with very interesting résumé. I am great full to take your walk and images as a privilège expérience when coming back of à hard working day indoor. It foes take away my time for outdoor. So with happyness I Thank you very much. May many school children or réadaptation people see your treasures.
Long and secure happy moments for you and familly.
Thank you very much Dahlia. I’m glad you enjoy these posts so much and yes, I know that a few school children read them too.
I hope you have the time to get outside and see some of these beautiful things for yourself. Have a great week!
Great photos, as always!
I agree with Josh, I’m sure those are not shadbush berries. It very likely is nannyberry.
Thanks Al! If they are they’re the tallest nannyberries that I’ve ever seen, but you’re probably right. I’ll have to look at the winter buds. That’ll tell me for sure.
Excellent post. I’m very interested in the specific birds and wildlife that are attracted by specific plants. I was interested to read about the apples, I had always thought that birds prefer small fruits that were easy to swallow.
Thank you. I’ve read several times that birds will eat apples but I’ve never seen them do it. I imagine they must peck at them like a woodpecker would. I can’t see how else they’d manage it.
When you said that you were doing a post about what birds and other critters eat, you weren’t kidding, this post is chock full of information on that subject!
I’m a little surprised that you didn’t get a few bird photos of your own to go with this post, hanging out by a food source is a great way to catch them with their guard down. I’m also a little surprised that you didn’t include sumac, as it seems to be eaten by most species of songbirds. But, I suppose that you only had so much room and had to leave a few things out.
I’ve heard the acorn story both ways, that the best ones fall with the caps on, and that the best ones fall from their caps, so it’s hard telling which version is correct. Turkey and deer love acorns, as well as squirrels, I thought about staking out a good patch of acorns to seeing what the critters prefer, with the cap or without. However, the critters may enjoy a little protein from the worm inside if there is one, so that may not be a good way to tell.
Thanks Jerry! I probably missed a lot of opportunities to get shots of birds but my brain isn’t wired to look for them, I guess. I’m usually so interested in the plants that I don’t think of birds unless they happen to land near me, which they do sometimes.
I’ve shown sumac in so many posts that I thought people were probably getting tired of hearing about it but it certainly would have been an easy find.
No, I doubt that animals would care about a worm in an acorn. They’re probably the favorites of the birds that eat them! I don’t know which version of the cap story is correct either. The ones on the ground without caps look perfectly good to me.
Staking out that acorn patch might make for a great blog post!
Wow! It’s good to see the abundance of food for the critters. Here, it will be a bad winter after a summer of drought. The herbivores should be OK but all of the others will have a tough winter.
That’s too bad. I suppose it’s nature’s way of thinning the herd. We have occasional years like that too and were very dry this summer, which makes this abundance even more surprising.
Great post on the abundance of autumn!
Thank you Eliza!
Most everyone I talk mentions the abundance of apples this year. I have also noticed the numerous acorns. I hope this doesn’t mean we are in for another long and snowy winter.
Yes, people are talking about the same things here. It’s been an amazing fall.
I also hope we’ll see a milder winter this year. We deserve one!
Thank-you for this interesting post and all the lovely photographs. The squirrel really looks as though he is smiling! The photo of the aster seed is very good – you must have great patience!
You’re welcome, and thank you Clare. Squirrels and mallards always look like they’re smiling to me. They’re just happy, I guess!
I have more great camera than great patience, I think. Its image stabilization is really fantastic but even so, it still took several tries to get that aster seed. It was a very windy day, as October days often are.
I have been trying to photograph plants on windy days recently too!
It isn’t easy but when you’re trying to photograph nature you have to learn to take what comes!
Yes! 🙂
Wow, fabulous photos! My favorite is the aster seed. There’s something very special about it. Such clarity!
Thank you Paula. It took a few tries to get it that way, so I’m glad you like it!
What a feast. I have been ,looking very hard but I have only seen one acorn this year. I don’t know why they are so scarce.
Oak trees go through cycles like many plants and a heavy fruiting year will often be followed by an almost no fruit year. Nature keeps everybody fed though, by staggering heavy and light fruiting years among different oak species. A white oak might be loaded with acorns while a red oak has just a few.
That was certainly true of our beech trees last year and this.
Great photo of the Aster seeds!
I believe the “Shadbush” you’ve shown is actually Nannyberry (Viburnum lentago). Shadbush fruit is ripe in early summer and is long gone by now.
I’m curious about your acorn info. As someone who has cracked open many Northern Red Oak acorns, I’d say the ones you want to gather for food are those without their caps, not those with. As I understand it, viable acorns fall out of their caps when ripe; acorns still clinging to their caps are either still developing on a tree, or else have been aborted by the tree because they are compromised. Weevils can certainly be present in cap-less acorns, but in my experience, most capped acorns that are on the ground are funky inside.
Thanks Josh. I know that shadbush fruits in summer, hence the name “Juneberry” which is why I was so surprised to see so much fruit on these trees. And they are trees, probably about 15 feet tall, which is why I didn’t think of nannyberry. Also, nannyberry leaf edges are serrated and those on these trees are smooth, which is why I included them in the photo. Everything about these trees is strange, including the amount of uneaten fruit and where they’re growing. I’ll have to check the winter buds. If they are indeed nannyberry the buds will tell the tale!
The acorn info. came from a website called “The People’s Path” which is written by a native Cherokee. It’s a great site that you might like: http://www.thepeoplespaths.net/NAIFood/acorns.htm
The 4th paragraph is the one where he talks about wormy acorns and how to tell. One thing I didn’t notice before is how he is in California. Anyhow, it’s a very interesting article!
I can see some teeth on the leaves in your photo (especially along the bottom and right edge of the center leaf), but it looks like they’re a bit ragged at this point in the year. And the buds pictured seem a good fit for a Viburnum.
As for the acorn cap issue, here’s a video by Arthur Haines. At minute 5:15, he explains a few ways to sort viable acorns from those that are compromised. [https://youtu.be/QitkIGNwUgs?t=5m15s.] In this segment, he says that “acorns of most species should come free of that cap when they are mature.” So, perhaps the person you referenced has gathered a species that differs from the norm.
Here’s a link to an acorn experiment that I documented: http://joshfecteau.com/foraging-wild-nuts-northern-red-oak/.
Thanks again Josh, this is interesting stuff! I’m going to take a long hard look at the viburnum / shadbushes soon to see what I can see. I’m sure you’re probably right and the buds will confirm it. What still bothers me is why the fruits looked so fresh if they appeared in June, and why isn’t anything eating them. If the fruit appeared in June it should look like a raisin now and birds should be all over these trees.
Thanks for your reply. Nannyberry fruit doesn’t ripen until September or early October, and they are pretty dry, so they don’t shrivel all that much.
Really fascinating to think of all the creatures being nourished by these fruits of the forest. Fruits look so beautiful in autumn but I rarely see them disappearing. Amelia
Yes, there seems to be plenty for everybody. By spring they will all have been eaten. We have a lot of hungry birds and animals in the woods!
Your photos are such a wonderful reminder of how amazing life is; I always truly enjoy your image albums and your walks through the woods.
Thanks very much Charlie. Life is amazing and it’s great to be here enjoying it. Now if we could just convince everyone of that!
Reblogged this on Dawn of Divine Rays and commented:
Thank you, Allen. Posting the names of the plants are very helpful indeed. Learning a lot from you, Allen. Happy Wednesday. Namaste
Thank you Agnes. I’m glad to hear that you’re getting so much from these posts.
Have a great week!
This was one of my favorite posts, Alan. Thank you so much for your abundance of knowledge and little bits of interesting history you use to inform and entertain us. I am a squirrel lover, so appreciated the beautiful boy you photographed. Do you ever do articles on porcupines? They also are a favorite of mine. On a trip to the mountains last spring, we counted 8 dead ones on the roadway. The poor guys! Poor us!
Have a great day!!
You’re welcome, and thank you Leslie. I’m glad you’re enjoying the posts. I try to put a little something for everyone in them when I can.
I like squirrels too and love watching them play. I don’t see too many porcupines and when I do I never seem to have a camera ready. The last one I saw was walking right down the side of the road in daylight as I drove past. When I was finally able to stop he saw me coming and took off into the woods.
That’s too bad about all the dead ones on the roadsides. I see them that way too.
I did have a great day and I hope you did as well!
Thank you again. Love all the info about who eats what from our bountiful seasonal offerings. And love the squirrel photo. I’m very fond of squirrels and I used to help foster orphaned baby squirrels at the Center for Wildlife in Cape Neddick Maine. Appreciate the time and effort of your posts.
You’re welcome and thank you Ann. I’ve always liked squirrels too but getting them to pose can be tricky!
Raising baby squirrels must have been interesting work. I hope you still have all your fingers though. I saw a chipmunk shred a friend’s fingers once and I’ve never forgotten it.
Very interesting, as always. I have never seen Juneberries/ shadbush berries and would love to find them. I have seen weevils eating milkweed seeds, but only while they are still in the pod. Your photos often inspire me to go take macros of my own, but I don’t think my camera and I are up to single aster seeds yet!
Thank you Sara.
I don’t see many shadbush berries but for some reason this one spot by the river is loaded with them, and nobody is eating them.
That’s interesting about the weevils eating milkweed. I’ve never noticed them. I’ll have to look a little closer next summer.
That aster seed made me take several shots before I got it right, but the wind was blowing too. You might surprise yourself and get it right on the first try if the wind isn’t blowing!
This years abundance is going to be needed if it is as cold as they say it’s going to be. I have a very large Rosa rugosa hedge with tons of rose hips and I’ve never seen any birds or animals eating them.
I think it depends who you listen to. I’ve heard that it’s supposed to be warmer and drier because of the el Niño.
Some rose hips are too big for birds to swallow but I’m surprised that animals aren’t eating yours.
Thank you for the link to Goat Sass Farm Alan, his photographs are quite inspiring. I enjoyed your tour today and loved the information. I had not realised the acorn caps were pushed off by a worm thrashing around inside!
Thank you Julie. I’m glad you liked Jim’s photos. I think they’re amazing.
I didn’t know that about acorns either until researching this post. I thought acorns always fell without their caps!
A most interesting post, I loved the aster seed and the happy animal at the end especially. What a lot you know about berries, seeds and nuts and who eats which, you are so well informed.
Thank you Susan. I’m glad you liked the smiling squirrel. He was willing to pose for a second or two.
I’ve learned a lot that I didn’t know about seeds, nuts and berries bu writing this blog.