Butler Field Beauties

Shared by Melissa Donahue

Naturalist

melissa.donahue@nashville.gov 

Photos courtesy Melissa Donahue unless otherwise noted

I’ve been away for a while.  Happy family obligations at the first of the summer pulled me away from Nashville and I’m just getting back to Warner Parks.  I feel a bit out of sync.  Missed seeing the first tiger swallowtail, tasting a ripened blackberry and hearing the first cicada call.  To reconnect with the season and the Parks I hiked around Butler Field.  Will Chamberlain, a co-worker and wildflower enthusiast, was kind enough to join me.  We met on a foggy morning in August.

One of the first flowers we observed was Fogfruit - Phryma lanceloata.  This herbaceous perennial plant is ½–2' tall.  It’s a small plant but once you notice it, it seems to be everywhere.  Many different pollinators are attracted to the flower. The largest group of pollinators are a small to medium size flies which hover motionless in the air.

Fogfruit in bloom in Butler Field

We also noticed this pretty little Virginia buttonweed – Diodia virginiana-- at the edge of the field.  A native flower, it grows low and mats close to the ground.  Do not plant it in your garden, as it is quite invasive.

Virginia buttonweed in Butler Field

Although this plant is better known for the frost flower seen in November, it produces white flowers in August.  Known as White wing-stem, crownbeard, or frostweed, Verbesina virginica, it stands 3 – 7 feet with winged stems.  A native species, the little white flowers attract honeybees, butterflies and migrating monarchs.  Frost flowers form around the first frost. These flowers are formed around the stem and just above the ground during cold autumn nights.  This is caused when water is forced out of the stem during the first hard freeze resulting in ice formations.  

Frostweed in bloom in early August in Butler Field

Frostweed/"frost flower" in November

Passionflower vines, Passiflora incanata, were also blooming.  This is the state wildflower of Tennessee.  Once used to treat anxiety, it the host plant of the Gulf and Variegated Fritillary butterflies and nectaring plant for many other butterflies. The seed pod gives the plant its other name, Maypop.  This seed pod may pop when opened, revealing delicious seeds and giving this plant the name Maypop.

Passionflower or Maypop in Butler Field

Brown Eyed Susan – Rudbeckia triloba – is a Tennessee native of the sunflower family.  These plants bloom from mid to late summer. Although self-pollinating, the flowers attract bees, wasps, small butterflies and other insects.  It is a traditional Native American medicinal herb used by several tribal nations, believed to remedy colds, flu, infections and snake bites, among other things.

Brown-eyed Susan in Butler Field

Towering above our heads was the Ironweed – Vernonia Gigantea, a member of the Aster family which grows 3-10 feet tall. This showy native is a host plant for several moth species.Native Americans used the leaves and roots to make a tea used during pregnancy, childbirth and to relieve postpartum pain. 

Tall Ironweed in Butler Field

Ironweed is especially striking when a Swallowtail butterfly is drinking nectar from it. Photo credit Charlie Curry

Finally, the plants most of us are very aware of this time of year: Great Ragweed, Ambrosia trifida and Common Ragweed, Ambrosia artemisiifolia are coming in strong!  Common Ragweed grows 1-4 feet tall and Great Ragweed grows 3-12 feet tall.  Although known for causing hay fever, this plant has other uses.  Native Americans cultivated Common Ragweed as a source of food before maize, using the stalks to manufacture ropes and the leaves to prevent bleeding.  Common Ragweed effectively removes lead from the soil. The flowers of Great Ragweed can be crushed to make a red dye.  Today it is a seed source for many birds.

Great Ragweed

Common Ragweed

To visit Butler Field, park near picnic shelter #9 in Edwin Warner Park.  Head out for a stroll and let us know what you see.

Map of Edwin Warner Park to help you find Butler Field

 

No Holds BARS

No Holds BARS

Shared by Perri Haga
Warner Park Nature Center BIRD (Bird Information, Research and Data) Intern 
wpnc@nashville.gov

Photos courtesy of Laura Cook unless otherwise noted

My dad likes to say that if he ever wrote an autobiography, he’d call it “Mowing with Swallows,” because of the Barn Swallows (BARS) that love to swoop around him as his lawnmower stirs up insects for them to eat.  They’re fairly easy to spot in flight: just look for the characteristic forked tail silhouette and their graceful, swooping movements. 

Courtesy of Cornell Lab of Ornithology. If Barn Swallows were in the circus, they’d be acrobats for sure! 

Barn Swallows are a migratory species that spend their breeding season in North America during the summertime and head to Central and South America for the wintertime.  They nest in Warner Parks with the largest colonies at the Steeplechase barn and at the Nature Center. The next time you are at the Learning Center, turn your eyes upwards and you can see their nests made of mud on the sides of the building.

This nest is in the middle of a stall at the Steeplechase barn, and the babies are only a few days old!

Because of their choice of nesting location, some people don’t enjoy the presence of Barn Swallows, especially when nestlings start leaving huge messes behind… it can get gross!

However, I think that we should LOVE these birds! Not only are the adults majestic and the babies adorable, but they also are insectivores, providing us an amazing ecological service in the summertime by consuming incredible amounts of insects: around 34,000 insects per nestling!

Courtesy of Charlie Curry. Begging nestlings are a common sight at the Nature Center in the summer. You can hear them even before you can see them!

This summer, I was so excited to be the Warner Park Nature Center BIRD Program Research Intern through support from my college, Lipscomb University.  Because Barn Swallows are so reliant on man-made structures for their nests, depend on insects and are incredibly interconnected to us, they were a perfect species for me to study.  

How could you resist that little face!? This nestling is seven days old. His eyes and ears are open, and feathers are just about to emerge from the spines on his tail.  

This little guy wouldn’t stay away from his sibling!

There are three research techniques I used this year to get to know Barn Swallows better.  The first is when a federally permitted bander from the BIRD team places a lightweight numbered band on a nestling. Our hope is that one of these banded nestlings will be recaptured in South America and as they return to Nashville. This can help us learn about survivorship and migration. 

Before banding nestlings, we have to climb a ladder and bring everyone down in a basket.  These nests are high!

We use special pliers to put the band on so the nestling can’t even feel it. 

The second thing we do is assess survivorship from the time they hatch until they fledge (leave the nest). We do this by checking the nests regularly with a tool that looks like a suspiciously large dentist’s mirror! I do this three times a week to count eggs or nestlings, determine hatch dates, and track nestling growth. 

Using a mirror lets us see inside the tall nest without scaring the babies inside. 

The last aspect of my research is something that anyone can do: observation! I spend a lot of time watching the behavior of these birds, looking at how adults interact with each other, with their nestlings, with other birds, and more.  It’s fascinating how complex Barn Swallows are, and I discover new mysteries every day! 

Courtesy Charlie Curry. This bird hatched this nesting season. It has a paler face and hasn’t grown the long tail feathers typical of adults: a fun thing to observe! 

Most Barn Swallows will begin their migration south within the first couple weeks of August. 

 Keep an eye out for the last of these birds or look for the nests that they’ve left behind.  They’ll be back next spring and might even reuse these nests for a new year!