Boxelder Bugs Active
You may have noticed ½-inch-long black insects with red markings emerging from cracks and crevices inside or outside your home with the recent arrival of warmer weather. These are adult Boxelder Bugs that have been hibernating all winter and have become active with the warming days. They may disappear on days such as today when the weather turns cold again, but they’ll emerge for good in late April or May, just about the time buds on Boxelder trees are beginning to open.
During the spring and early summer they seek out and feed on low vegetation and seeds on the ground. Starting in mid‑July, they move to female seed-bearing Boxelder trees (or occasionally other maple or ash trees) where they lay eggs on trunks, branches, and leaves. Red nymphs hatch in roughly two weeks, and proceed, like their parents, to feed on Boxelder foliage and seeds by using their piercing-sucking mouthparts. Even if their numbers are large, there is no noticeable feeding injury to these trees. Come fall both adults and nymphs congregate in large numbers on the south side of trees, buildings and rocks exposed to the sun (only adults survive the winter) before settling in a protected hibernaculum. Boxelder Bugs are most abundant during hot, dry summers followed by warm springs. They do not bite people and are essentially harmless to property. (Photo: adult Boxelder Bugs in spring; insert – adults and nymphs in fall) Thanks to Jeannie Killam for photo op.
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Evening Grosbeaks Returning From Southern Wintering Grounds
Until the mid-1800s evening grosbeaks were considered uncommon to rare east of the Mississippi River. Today evening grosbeaks can be found year round in northern New England.
The eastern expansion of evening grosbeaks is mainly attributed to the accessibility of winter food in the form of box elder fruits. These trees were planted as windbreaks on the prairies, and as ornamentals in northeastern cities. Their seeds persist into the winter, allowing erratic winter flocks from the west to overwinter further east. Some overwintering birds remained here to nest, and thus began the expansion of their breeding range. Some ornithologists also believe that the recurring spruce budworm outbreaks in boreal forests facilitated eastward expansion by providing food in the summer months. Feeding birds became popular in the 1930’s, and may also have contributed to this range extension.
In a typical year in the Northeast, many birds migrate south of their breeding grounds to spend the winter. From March to early May, most of these individuals return to northern and western coniferous forests to breed and we have a greater chance of seeing them at feeders (along with hungry bears). (Photo: male evening grosbeak. Note bill is beginning to show the green tint it has during the breeding season.)
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Bud Scales
Much of this coming summer’s woody plant growth is contained in embryonic form inside a tree’s buds. Buds contain an undeveloped shoot, leaf, and/or flower. Formed last summer, these buds must survive the freezing and fluctuating temperatures, relatively dry air and the potential insect, bird and fungal damage that may occur during the fall, winter and early spring.
Bud scales, which are small, modified leaves, cover and protect many of these buds. The number of scales, their arrangement, color, presence or absence of hairs or sticky substances are often distinctive. Willows have one visible bud scale (actually two fused into one), whereas pine and fir buds may have anywhere from 100 to 350. The scales on a bud can either be arranged in pairs facing each other edgewise (American Basswood, pictured) or overlapping like shingles (Sugar Maple, pictured). Colors range from the wine-colored bud scales of Striped Maple to the mustard yellow Bitternut Hickory scales. The texture of bud scales has great variation, including the satiny-smooth hairy bud scales of Box Elder (pictured). Many bud scales, such as poplars, are covered by a gummy substance which serves as added protection.
A few trees and shrubs have buds that lack scales. These are referred to as “naked” buds, and often the embryonic leaves are quite hairy. Witch Hazel, Hobblebush and Staghorn Sumac (pictured) are species of woody plants lacking bud scales.
Most buds have multiple scales which, upon falling off when the bud opens, leave a series of horizontally-elongated scars on the surface of the growing stem. By means of these scars one can determine the age of a young branch, since each year’s growth ends in the formation of a terminal bud which produces an additional group of bud scale scars. Continued growth of the branch causes these scars to be indistinguishable after a few years so that the age of older branches cannot be determined by this means.
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