Hudson River Audubon Society

Nature Walks 2024

Upcoming: Sunday, July 14 at 9:30 AM Register with walk leader Debbi Dolan. Meet at the Lenoir Nature Center (photo at page bottom). We’ll check on the changes at the preserve and in the garden. Birds are nesting, plants are growing. Summer will be in full swing.

What are walks like? Read on.

Report on Nature Walk May 26 We had a fine morning jaunt in the preserve with 22 bird species seen/heard. We had witnessed some avian drama upon arrival as blue jays mobbed an American crow that appeared to have some prey in its beak. A Baltimore oriole was seen in the tulip tree in full flower in the Butterfly garden, and an Eastern tiger swallowtail was also flitting about in its canopy. We observed house wrens and tree swallows who have taken up residence in nesting boxes, and we are thrilled to see the new bat nesting boxes. A single-chamber house can shelter 50 bats! The tree swallows, chimney swifts and bats will help control the mosquito population. A visit to the Butterfly garden impressed the 16 of us on the walk with its abundance of colorful blooms including Blue wild indigo, a pollinator magnet, and Queen Anne’s lace, a host plant for eastern black swallowtail caterpillars and many butterflies and adult bees and beneficial insects utilize the flower nectar. Gracing the fence was Coral honeysuckle, nothing like the invasive Japanese honeysuckle. It regales us with bouquets of gorgeous scarlet red flowers for months on end, and is cloaked in attractive foliage throughout the year. If that isn’t enough to endear it to us, the vine requires little or no care, it is drought tolerant and it provides food and shelter for wildlife. It is visited by a variety of nectar-feeders such as butterflies, moths and bees. It is a favorite nectar source of ruby-throated hummingbirds. Golden Alexanders serve as the primary larval host for the black swallowtail butterfly. Golden Alexander also attracts and hosts a number of beneficial insects that are predatory or parasitoid on many common garden pest insects.

We came upon brown headed cowbirds on a terrace arch. Females forgo building nests and instead put all their energy into producing eggs, sometimes more than three dozen a summer. These they lay in the nests of other birds, abandoning their young to foster parents, usually at the expense of at least some of the host’s own chicks. Once confined to the open grasslands of middle North America, cowbirds have surged in numbers and range as humans built towns and cleared woods.

After a verification look up, the caterpillar we observed was actually a Mourning cloak butterfly caterpillar. The adult butterflies hibernate during the winter months. Typical locations of overwintering include tree cavities and on the ground underneath loose tree bark. It is one of the first butterflies to take wing in the spring.

A Hornet nest was also found. Its nest is a closed architecture nest, meaning it is enveloped in an outer layer of paper. Hornets, the largest of the social wasps, make their nests similarly to the paper wasps. They also create nests out of the paper-like product of maceration. However, hornet nests have only one entrance. A paper wasp nest is an open architecture nest, meaning the hexagonal cells are openly displayed.

Q: Is Smokebush native?

A: American Smoke Tree, Texas Smoke Tree, Wild Smoke Tree, Smoke Tree, Smokebush, Chittamwood (Cotinus obovatus) is native to our country and usually found in rocky, mountainous terrain down south. The floral panicles wave in the breeze, giving the illusion of clouds of smoke. It is drought-tolerant, disease-resistant, well-adapted to the stony soils of its native habitat, and should not be over-watered or over-fertilized.

— Debbi Dolan

About Debbi Dolan, Conservation Chairperson, leads Nature Walks at the Lenoir Nature Preserve. She knows the birds, the plants, the trees to be found there. She even knows which plants - like boneset - have been used for traditional medicines. She also leads walks at Van Cortlandt Park, in the Bronx.