gooseberry winter

Walking through the woods in snow.

Some plants display interesting winter personalities, very different from their growing season garb.

The Eastern Prickly Gooseberry Ribes cynosbati reaches out its long curving canes to call my attention to their defense of juicy berries this coming summer.

bird feeder garden

The veggie garden has been transitioned to a feeder garden for birds and pollinators.  This year --  among the tomatoes, beans, peas, and squash -- I planted more native flowering plants.  We watched as the nesting birds nearby brought their juveniles to the feeders and taught them how to feed themselves rather than gaping and begging.  Now, with seed feeders and suet cages loaded, we'll start FeederWatch in a few weeks; we'll enjoy watching the birds that gather here and report our counts for ornithology research.

baneberry

  

Red Baneberry, also known as Toadroot and Chinaberry, grows in shady damp areas.  The white flowers grow in spikes that bloom during May in the wild wild woods.  Through the summer months, Baneberry Actaea rubra  ripens its fruits, which are egg-shaped berries, one-half inch long, shiny, containing several seeds.  In late summer, the berries turn bright red with a black dot on them. The berries are bitter and very poisonous, except to birds that disperse the seeds.

A few trees in the woods are doing better since some clearing last summer.  This Black Cherry tree, with more open sunlight, is blooming this Spring. Prunus serotina is native in southern and central Minnesota.  It provides  drooping clusters of small very tart cherries  -- good food for birds!

viburnum

A very few of last year's berries remain on the American cranberry bush as colorful background for the new buds of this year's leaves.  This Viburnum trilobum 'Hahs'  produces high-pectin berries that hold well into winter and provide nourishing food for birds during cold months when insects are scarce.

gooseberries

wild berries

The birds are not the only wildlife
enjoying berries in the wild woods. 
The squirrels hang upside-down
in the mulberry tree to reach
the berries as they ripen.

wild berries

At the edge of the woods, where sun shines on them part of the day, wild raspberries grow each spring.  The birds love the juicy berries so much that they usually don't get a chance to ripen fully to their darkest black-red. 
This year, I covered these with a net for a while in order to see them ripen. And, I got to taste them too!

winter berries

At the edge of the woods, I found some raspberries that did not ripen before frost.  These berries are evidently too dessicated for the birds to enjoy, but the fruits on nearby black chokeberry and dogwood are nearly gone.

berry buffet

This flock of Cedar Waxwings browsed through the viburnum, bayberry, black chokeberry, and dogwood shrubs looking for berries.  They gathered for a few minutes high up in the trees before taking off to find another buffet.

gooseberries

Gooseberries Ribes hirtellum blossomed in the wild woods early June.
The berries developed but did not last long with so many hungry birds in this dry summer.

deep in the wooods . . .

The Red Baneberry Actaea rubra finished flowering in June and set berries (left).  When the berries are mature, usually by September, birds forage deep in the shady woods to enjoy them (right).

Cedar Waxwings

Flocks of Cedar Waxwings Bombycilla cedrorum wander together to find berries, their main food year around.  They typically feed while perched on a twig, but they’re also good at grabbing berries while hovering briefly just below a bunch.

These seven announced themselves mid-morning with high whistles and sat up in the elm trees to rest a while.  When no berries are available, they'll do acrobatics in the air to catch and eat flying insects.  Here, they may have been finding insects or larvae among the tree buds.

According to Cornell Lab of Ornithology's allaboutbirds.org, the Cedar Waxwing’s name comes from their appetite for cedar berries in winter.

dogwood

This fall has been warmer than normal; sunny and mid-50's most days even into November. The Cardinal Dogwood shrubs have mostly turned to their autumn colors and set berries. But a few branches on the sheltered side have sprouted new buds and blossoms. I've heard some lilacs are also trying to bloom, thinking it is Springtime.

raspberries

The new row of raspberry brambles we put in last year are bearing fruit -- delicious red, black, and golden raspberries. The three are a wonderful mix of real intense berry flavor, but even better with a few of the little wild blackberries we find tucked in between the buckthorn and honeysuckle along the old fence row in the wild woods.