Sometimes when an organism is named, it’s for a discrete feature. I’ve spent half of my spring days prancing about their limbs, photographing their changes, bursting with joyful spouts about “bursting buds” and “unfurling racemes,” and “listen, there’s a Black-throated Gray Warbler up there!” She’s tolerant, sometimes even inviting of my jabbering, but I may have found her limit with the endless talk of maples. My partner through this stay home, stay healthy order knew without a doubt what tree I aimed to tackle next. With all the shade they create, bigleaf maples hold their own against the tide of conifers, firm resistance against newcomers, gripping strong to boulder fields and deep river valleys alike.Īs with red alders, I need only lift my eyes out the window to alight on a bigleaf maple, Acer macrophyllum, quite literally the “maple with large leaves.” Since we moved to Vashon Island, I’ve been peeking at a specific tree that fills one of our windows, anticipating every perceivable change through the long dark gray into the sunshine. They are cool islands of moss, layered canopies of lime green halflight. Maybe not as a specific species, but certainly as shelter.
If you have spent time along the Pacific coast of North America, you’d probably recognize bigleaf maples. Where have you sought respite to eat your lunch or read a book? We’ve nearly all done this at one point or another, spread out in cool grass beneath a shade tree. Seventy feet up in the canopy of a bigleaf maple.Ĭast your imagination to a hot afternoon. This tree was the maple of my mind’s eye, the archetypal tree with a spreading crown and cool shade. Something felt different about the licorice fern frilled branches of one particular giant on the southern boundary of Discovery Park in Seattle. How many times have you stopped to gaze at one individual tree? I’ve lost track of the trees I’ve admired over and over, or I was never counting to begin with. But that is far from the reason I chose bigleaf maples. What comes after? Well, by design or chance I chose the next tree in the standard understanding of forest succession. I offered up experiences with the red alder, those ever-cycling nutrient bombs, the first wave. But, I don't think they require the presence of the plant for nesting.Last week I laid out a plan to pontificate on Pacific Northwest trees, a storied appreciation of the most prominent of plants. I only mention these birds because they seem to be in softwood stands with striped maple present in thickets. And according to Audubon it habits thick tangled woods and spends much of its time on the ground like a field mouse.
There is one other bird I find quite common in those stands and I have not identified it yet, but it spends alot of time on the forest floor and you'd almost think it was a chicken scratching the ground, it works so feverish at it. Also vireo's can be found nesting in these in hardwood stands.
They are blue-grey on the back and head with rust on its chest. For a tiny bird they sure make a big noise, and get a flock of them together and its like your in a petshop surrounded by churping finches. These birds are also common in upland hardwoods in migrating flocks in spring. I've noticed Northern parula, in old growth moist softwood stands beginning to breakup with stripe maple throughout. I know alot of warbler type birds nest in it because of its branching habits and again those big leaves are nice to repell down pours away from the nest. Also, its good to maintain diversity in the tree canopy. I like it mainly because of its form and huge leaves. Mine is electric, so it won't have much application there. But, I've heard that wood this fine can warp the kitchen stove. But some people have been know to burn alders, so they may burn it.
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