Newsletters
September 2015 - Great Horned Owl, Chaga
WELCOME TO GREEN FUTURES !
SEPTEMEBER, 2015
“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.”
- Socrates
“Do not pursue what is illusory ...property and position: all that is gained at the expense of your nerves decade after decade and can be confiscated in one fell night. Live with a steady superiority over life. Don't be afraid of misfortune and do not yearn for happiness; it is after all, all the same. The bitter doesn't last forever and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.”
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
A FEW ITEMS EMAILED IN THIS MONTH THAT YOU MIGHT FIND INTERESTING
C-SPAN's video of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy on the Obama administration's “Clean Power Plan.” McCarthy, at the start of her talk, also comments on the damage and clean-up from the EPA contractor caused release of mining waste into the Animals River in Colorado.
http://www.c-span.org/video/?327580-1/epa-administrator-gina-mccarthy-power-plant-emissions
Urban farming? http://nypost.com/2015/08/07/theres-actually-a-gorgeous-farm-under-the-williamsburg-bridge/
More gas attacks on New England's public forest land. http://www.recorder.com/readerservices/businessxml/18090783-95/anti-pipeliners-eyes-turn-to-otis-taking-of-state-protected-land-could-set-precedent
Messing with DNA. Caution indeed! From “Nature:” http://www.nature.com/news/caution-urged-over-editing-dna-in-wildlife-intentionally-or-not-1.18123
A good read. From “Salon:”
Hydro power grab. “The Hill” http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/248363-states-tribes-lose-big-in-federal-hydro-power-grab?error_code=100&error_msg=picture+is+not+properly+formatted#
BIORESERVE FLORA OF THE MONTH – Chaga (Inonotus obliquus)
Fungi are in their own kingdom separate from the plant and animal kingdoms. Not being plants, fungi cannot “technically” be flora ...however we're making an exception for chaga this month as we have for a few other Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve *(SMB) fungi in the past.
Chaga is a polypore (fungi that release their spores through pores on the underside of the fruiting body) usually found growing on various species of birch (Betula) in northern Europe, Asia and North America. In the SMB it is found on yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis).
Brewed as a “tea” chaga has been used as a tonic and medicine for centuries by the indigenous peoples of Scandinavia, Russia and Siberia.
The West “discovered” chaga in 1968 when Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's autobiographical Cancer Ward was published. In his novel Solzhenitsyn's Dr. Maslennikov notices how cancer-free Russian peasants are. Could this be due to their habit of drinking chaga tea? He makes the connection and patient ...and main character ...Oleg Kostoglotov (Solzhenitsyn) benefits from his discovery.
Today, chaga is in demand worldwide. A celebrity fungus among us. Like ginseng it is touted as a cure for hundreds of ailments and conditions. Is chaga potent medicine? What are its therapeutic effects? Is it just an old, dried hunk of fungus? Much ado about nothing? Maybe something in between? We don't know.
Chaga extracts are still being tested and studies being done at leading medical facilities and research labs around the world. Chaga extracts contain the polysaccharide beta-glucans and the terpenes sterol, inotodial and betulinic acid. A Russian cancer treatment, Befungin, is made from chaga extract and cobalt salts stabilized in alcohol.
Those wanting some chaga tea no longer have to go off into the woods hunting for it. Today, chaga tea, chaga capsules and other chaga products can be found for sale by simply doing a “Google” search. Checking around on the internet we even found Befungin for sale. Chaga products can be also be found at your nearest health and nutrition store, pharmacy and some supermarkets
As can be seen in the chaga photo, below, chaga is a brown to black woody perennial mushroom with deep cracks, here and there, showing the lighter yellow-brown interior. It is very hard and dense and difficult to remove from the tree.
Chaga is usually found growing ...protruding from the trunk or from a large branch of older trees. It can be found and observed during any season of the year, but is easiest to spot during winter when the trees are bare of leaves and the dark mass of chaga stands out against the light bark of the birch and winter snow.
Chaga is also known as one of the tinder polypores. These polypores are perennial mushrooms, dense and woody, used to start and carry fire. Otzi the 5,300 year old “iceman” found in the Alps was carrying a belt pouch that contained a sophisticated fire starting kit and pieces of a tinder polypore, related to chaga, to hold the spark when Otzi wanted fire.
*Other SMB fungi that have been “Flora of the Month” - Hen of the Woods 9/2011; Chicken Mushroom 1/2013; Blue-Green Elfcup 6/2014 can be checked out by going to greenfutures.org and accessing the newsletter of the year and month in which they appeared.
BIORESERVE FAUNA OF THE MONTH – Great Horned Owl (Bubo Virginianus)
Photo – Greg Hume (Creative Commons 2.0)
At the top of the avian food chain is the largest bird of prey in the Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve (SMB) ...the bald eagle. As large, fierce and rapacious as eagles are, they often back off and flee from a bird half their size and weight. What bird is that? That bird is the totally fearless great horned owl.
Most forest creatures flee and hide when great horned owls are out and about hunting. Common and found throughout wild America, right up to where the trees run out up against our largest cities, the great horned owl is our largest owl with long ear tufts (horns) and big yellow eyes. Our other common forest owl, the smaller barred owl, does not have “horns” and has black eyes. The barred owl was out August SMB “Fauna of the Month.” If you missed it, you can read about the barred owl here: http://www.greenfutures.org/?content=ifGquv7aPn48UAWp
Great Horned owls hunt at night for anything they can subdue, kill and eat. Anything from fawns to grasshoppers. Rodents are a favorite. Other small mammals, such as rabbits and hares, are popular prey items too. And, even stinky skunks they find delicious.
Great horned owls are, along with cars and trucks, the chief predator of striped skunks. The skunks potent defensive spray fails in protecting them from motor vehicles and great horned owls. Like other owl species, great horned will eat smaller owls.
Great horned owls are very vocal in mid to late winter when courting, mating and nesting. Two to five hoots, deeper and less rhythmic than those of barred owls, can often be heard in thick wooded swamps and bottomlands.
In the SMB great horned owls begin mating and nesting in January. Most nest in tall white pine trees. They also nest in abandoned and expropriated nests of other birds. Crow, hawk and heron nests are favorites.
Males perform courtship flights to impress females and bow and curtsey to their mate from nearby tree branches.
After mating, 2 to 5 white eggs are laid in early February. Male owls bring to the incubating female small mouse and vole snacks. Winter storms may cover the female owl with snow, but she stays the course. Eggs hatch in late February or early March. This early in the year breeding and hatching gives the new owlets an advantage. Great horned owlets are not competing with the young of other birds of prey for food items. Other owls and hawks are spring breeders and will not have hungry babies to feed until March, April or May.
Both great horned owl parents hunt each evening to feed their rapidly growing owlets. After spending 4 or 5 weeks in the nest the downy white owlets begin to get restless and often leave the nest to climb and clamber about the adjacent trees and shrubs using their feet, wings and beak, like a parrot, to navigate around their neighborhood. The parent owls continue to feed their young and teach them how to hunt until fall when the youngsters start out on their own.
“Oh, it's a long, long time from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September” – Summer leaving, winter coming!
Is that okay with you? Whether it is or not, September brings us the last of summer.
September, our 9th month of the year contains only 30 days. “September” comes from septem “seven” because it was the 7th month of the Old Roman Calendar which began in March.
This year's Autumnal (fall) Equinox will occur at 4:21 a.m. on September 23.
Lots of changes take place this month out in nature. Here are some notable things you may notice this month while exploring your natural environment:
*Acorns, hickory nuts, hazelnuts reach their full size and begin to fall from trees naturally or are dropped by foraging squirrels.
*In our New England forests and woodlots those foraging squirrels are joined by chipmunks, woodchucks, opossums, raccoons, black bears mice and voles storing away food supplies for the coming winter or eating, eating, eating to get fat enough to survive almost half the year in hibernation.
*The last of the blueberries, huckleberries, blackberries ripen. Rose hips and beach plums ripen by the seashore.
*Hummingbirds leave. Blue wing teal are the first ducks to head south. Swallows and shorebirds began migrating through in August and continue through September.
*The last brood of 2015's monarch butterfly caterpillars miraculously turn into butterflies and gather at the coast in preparation for their journey south.
*Sturdy milkweed seed pods split open releasing thousands of little silky parachutes each carrying one seed.
*New England asters, goldenrod, Joe Pye weed, tansy, yarrow and a bouquet of other fall wildflowers bloom in old pastures and along roadsides.
*Muskrats and beavers are busy fortifying their lodges with grass, sticks and mud to insulate against the coming winter.
*Leaves are beginning to show color other than green. Along swamp edges and other wetland areas swamp maple, blueberry, tupelo are turning red.
Before you know it, it's October. Check our Calendar. Enjoy!
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