Monk Parakeet
Spend some quality time with mom on Sunday while enjoying nature during the BCAS’ Annual Mother’s Day Walk at the Ridgefield Nature Center. They’ll be looking for warblers, spring migrants and stop to visit the monk parakeets! The Center is located at Shaler Boulevard at Ray Avenue, Ridgefield.
Information: greatauk4@gmail.com or 201-230-4983
While many have a not so high opinion of the Tent Caterpillar – they can defoliate trees and make a mess of people’s patios, it does have environmental positives. Jim Macaluso sent this photo of a Baltimore Oriole at DeKorte feasting on the fuzzy critters. Jim writes: I know that everyone hates the dreaded Tent Caterpillar, but most people don’t realize they are an important food source for newly arriving migratory birds.
As we were winding up a nature walk at DeKorte Park a few weeks back a very nice woman stopped to ask me, “What are those plants that look like little green umbrellas growing alongside the building?” “You mean the turtle umbrellas?” I asked with a smile. While they may not actually be turtle umbrellas they are a great native perennial that, by the way, really are an important food source to turtles.
Blanketing the forest floor in places like Losen Slote Creek in Little Ferry and even in shaded areas of DeKorte park, Mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum) are an early woodland wildflower that stands about a foot tall with palmately lobed umbrella-like leaves that typically colonize to cover large parts of the forest floor.