Author Archives: Schuylkill Center

The Amazing Monarch Migration: A Status Report

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How are this year’s monarch’s doing? Join us and National Monarch expert Dr. Chip Taylor for our free, virtual event to find out.

The monarch butterfly, that large insect perfectly decked out for Halloween– or a Flyers game– in its orange and black cloak, undergoes one of the most extraordinary migrations in the animal kingdom. Butterflies across America and even Canada.

The monarch butterfly defies logic, for embedded in a small collection of nerve cells generously called a brain is a GPS directing the insect to fly from Roxborough all the way to a mountain valley near Mexico City, where it joins every other monarch from east of the Rockies (western monarchs head to the Pacific coast). As you read this, monarchs across the eastern US and even Canada are flying south, many along the eastern seaboard; most are near or even in Mexico already.  

Once in Mexico, they gather in large groups to coat fir trees with millions of their bodies, a remarkable sight visited by thousands of eco-tourists annually. The butterflies wait out the long winter, living five months—Methuselah territory for an insect.

In early spring, they begin heading north, make it into Texas, lay their eggs—and die. It takes another generation or two for monarchs to make it back to Pennsylvania, not until early summer. So the butterflies hatching in my garden will start flying more than a thousand miles to a place they have never been. How’s that for Mother Nature’s planning?

If you’d like a treat, drive to Cape May point soon and watch clusters of them funneling down New Jersey hop across the Delaware Bay to get to the mainland and continue their journey south. 

While it’s remarkable that an insect can make this migration, I’m saddened to report that this phenomenon is endangered as monarch numbers have plummeted in recent years, compromised by climate, pesticides, Midwestern “milkweed deserts,” and over-logging in Mexico. 

So how are this year’s monarch’s doing? How is the insect holding up? Should it be declared an endangered species?

We hope to answer this question on Thursday, October 21 at 7:00 p.m. with our Thursday Night L!VE presentation, “The Monarch’s Amazing Migration: a Status Report.” National monarch expert Dr. Chip Taylor, founder and director of Monarch Watch, the organization that has helped place 35,000 monarch waystations across the country, joins us from his Kansas base to share the creature’s story and its status. Monarch Watch started in 1992 as an outreach program dedicated to engaging the public in studies of monarchs, and is now concentrating its efforts on monarch conservation. 

“In real estate,” Dr. Taylor says, “it’s location, location, location. And for monarchs and other wildlife it’s habitat, habitat, habitat. We have a lot of habitat in this country, but we are losing it at a rapid pace. Development is consuming 6,000 acres a day, a loss of 2.2 million acres per year. Further, the overuse of herbicides along roadsides and elsewhere is turning diverse areas that support monarchs, pollinators, and other wildlife into grass-filled landscapes that support few species. The adoption of genetically modified soybeans and corn have further reduced monarch habitat. If these trends continue, monarchs are certain to decline, threatening the very existence of their magnificent migration.” 

Female monarchs are exceptional botanists, laying their eggs only on one family of plants, the milkweeds. She tastes plants with her feet, laying eggs on the undersides of milkweed leaves. Caterpillars hatch from eggs, and immediately begin munching on milkweed—the only food they are adapted to eat. The creatures have evolved to take the noxious chemicals found in milkweed sap and use it to make themselves—both caterpillar and adult—bad-tasting for any bird that may try to eat it.

A very clever “Got Milkweed?” campaign was started years ago, and more and more home gardeners like me began planting milkweed– and the Schuylkill Center has been selling milkweeds for years.

To address these changes and restore habitats for monarchs, pollinators, and other wildlife, Monarch Watch is initiating a nationwide landscape restoration program called “Bring Back the Monarchs.” The goals of this program are to restore 20 milkweed species, used by monarch caterpillars as food, to their native ranges throughout the United States and to encourage the planting of nectar-producing native flowers that support adult monarchs and other pollinators.

This program is an outgrowth of the Monarch Waystation Program started by Monarch Watch in 2005. “While these sites, mostly habitats created in home gardens, schoolyards, parks, and commercial landscapes, contribute to monarch conservation, it is clear that to save the monarch migration we need to do more,” Taylor said. “ We need to think on a bigger scale and we need to think ahead, to anticipate how things are going to change as a result of population growth, development, changes in agriculture, and most of all, changes in the climate.”

According to Taylor, we need a comprehensive plan on how to manage the fragmented edges and marginal areas created by development and agriculture, since it is these edges that support monarchs, many of our pollinators, and the many forms of wildlife that are sustained by the seeds, fruits, nuts, berries, and foliage that result from pollination. “In effect,” Taylor argues, “we need a new conservation ethic, one dealing with edges and marginal areas that addresses the changes of the recent past and anticipates those of the future.” 

Dr. Chip Taylor has been pioneering in butterfly conservation for decades. Meet him by joining me in a Thursday Night L!VE virtual lecture this week. Register for the free event.

By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director 

Goldenrods and the Last Chance Cafe

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Goldenrods, an autumn bloom, are one of the last sources of nectar and pollen before winter.

As summer slides into fall, a wonderful transformation begins happening in meadows across the area—summer flowers give way to classic autumn blossoms like goldenrod and asters. These are hugely important plants, as they represent the very last shot that thousands of species of insects have for pollen and nectar before winter settles in.  

For bees and butterflies, a goldenrod field is essentially their Last Chance Cafe. 

There’s a great example of this here at the Schuylkill Center. At the corner of Hagy’s Mill Road and Port Royal Avenue, a field of goldenrod is at its peak flowering right now, and its cousins aster and snakeroot are nearby– and the flowers there are literally abuzz in bees, flies, wasps and more. 

In the co-evolution of insects and flowers, something remarkable happened. As the weather cools, it gets harder and harder for bees, wasps, and butterflies to fly from flower to flower searching for nectar—as the mercury drops, it is difficult for cold-blooded insects to move. So nature responded by evolving composite flowers, plants that have bundled their flowers in massive clusters, allowing a bee, say, to efficiently walk across hundreds of flowers without needing to fly.

Take dandelion, for example. Pull one “petal” out of the flower, and you’ll find the toothy-edged petal has some fuzz clinging to it.  That fuzz, oddly enough, represents a complete but greatly reduced flower, and that one petal is actually the product of the ancestral flower’s petals fusing into one. So one dandelion is actually—literally—hundreds of flowers. That’s the concept, the bundling of huge floral clusters to create a target-rich environment, and the family that performed this trick is the composites, a huge and sprawling clan of wildflowers.

Goldenrods and aster are composites, offering clusters of nectar-packed flowers standing cheek-to-jowl, allowing for hyper-efficient nectar collecting. And in the yearlong parade of blossoming flowers, goldenrods and asters are the tramp clowns that bring up the rear of the parade, the absolutely last chance for honeybees to collect pollen and nectar.  They’ll keep blossoming into the first frost. 

In addition, in early fall monarch butterflies are in the middle of their migration to Mexican mountain valleys, an extraordinary phenomenon. Nectar-rich goldenrod’s bright yellow beacon pulls monarchs down to refuel for their extensive journey. If you are a monarch flying south, goldenrod is a critical rest stop on the highway.

But despite their ecological significance, goldenrods are reviled in our culture because just as they bloom, so does ragweed, a flower with microscopic pollen that wafts into the wind—and into our noses. So when showy goldenrod blooms—achoo!—so does ragwort, and goldenrod gets all the blame for the ragweed’s problems. It’s also at this time of year you’re treated to TV commercials of people standing in goldenrod fields waving a white flag with an exhortation to buy their hay fever medication. Memo to allergy sufferers: goldenrod’s pollen is just too heavy to get launched on the wind; instead, it sticks to the legs and bodies of insects like bees and wasps. It’s wind-pollinated flowers like ragweed that make us sniffle.

Of course, because goldenrod fields attract so many bugs, you’ll find many predators there too, like praying mantises and crab spiders hiding among the petals waiting for an unsuspecting wasp. Swallows and dragonflies cruise above the flowers—and hawks above them, waiting to grab a bird. Peacock flies lay their eggs in goldenrod stems, the eggs rubbing the flower the wrong way to produce a tumorous swelling that surrounds and cradles the egg. Look for goldenrod ball galls dotting the stems of plants in a field, fly larvae sleeping the winter in their safe little home. But downy woodpeckers know about galls, and land on the stems to peck open the galls to grab the tasty larva tucked inside.

For honey bees, butterflies, and more, goldenrod fields are the Last Chance Cafe, the last flowers of the fall season, the last chance for nectar and pollen. As such, they are critically important plants– and ecological gold mines filled with important pollinating insects.

Here at the Schuylkill Center, we’ve got goldenrod in several locations besides our Port Royal corner, like the Grey Fox Loop and down under the PECO power lines close to the river. Our butterfly meadow doesn’t have goldenrods, but may other composites are there to lure happy bugs, as daisies, sunflowers, black-eyed Susans, purple coneflower, and Joe-Pye-weed are all composites– it’s a big and wildly successful family of flowers. Morris Arboretum also has a great goldenrod field at its entrance; goldenrod even loves waste areas so you’ll find them growing in vacant “weedy” lots.

“The Secrets of a Goldenrod Field” kicks off our new season of Thursday Night Live on Thursday, October 7 at 7 p.m. via Zoom. Go to our website to register, and we’ll see you on Zoom– and next time you visit the Schuylkill Center, stop in at the Last Chance Cafe.   

By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director

Our Native Wildflower Seed Packet Design contest Winner is: Monica Smith!

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Monica Smith’s winning seed packet design

We are thrilled to welcome new members to the Schuylkill Center every day! Starting October 1, all new members will receive in their welcome kit our native wildflower seed packet designed by one of our very own Schuylkill Center members, Monica Smith. The contest ran from July 28, 2021, to August 20, 2021, and was open to creatives of all ages and skill levels. We were overwhelmed with the great response and received several beautifully designed submissions that made the decision very difficult. We want to send a special thank you to everyone that participated in the contest!

Monica’s design was inspired by the wildflower patches her husband planted on their farm this past year. She shared with us that the wildflowers provided them with “cheer and beauty” during the pandemic. As they continue to plant their gardens with native flowers, scrubs and trees, Monica hopes that the native wildflower seed packets will “inspire everyone to give them a try!”

Monica also shared that the reason she started receiving the Schuylkill Center’s Quill newsletter was that her dear friend, an artist who passed away last October, requested that memorial donations be made to the Schuylkill Center. Monica found our website and loved what she saw, so she sent a memorial donation. Monica has been a part of the Schuylkill Center community ever since!

Liz Ellmann: A Warrior for Wildlife

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Liz Ellmann helping a turtle

The Wildlife Clinic at the Schuylkill Center, the city’s only wildlife rehabilitation clinic, is located on Port Royal Avenue in Upper Roxborough and staffed by an extraordinary group of dedicated workers, both employees and volunteers, who handle thousands of injured, sick, and orphaned animals annually. It’s a labor of love.

Separately, the Schuylkill Center this summer unveiled our mudhif, a traditional Iraqi guesthouse built of reeds– the first one ever built outside of Iraq. In memory of this year’s 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Center last weekend offered “Reconciliation: A Healing Encounter,” where veterans, Iraqi immigrants, and the public gathered to heal from the injuries of war and the socio-political unrest in Iraq and adjacent countries.

Our clinic and mudhif came together at Reconciliation, as Liz Ellmann, the clinic’s assistant director and an Army veteran, led nature walks for the event.

Liz, who uses “they” and “them” pronouns, has been with us for almost three years now, one year as a volunteer and intern and the last two as an employee. A resident of Roxborough-Manayunk, “Liz has been a vital part of keeping the clinic going through our tough COVID months,” noted Chris Strub, the clinic’s director. “Their care and compassion for our patients, along with their incredible organizational skills, help keep everyone on track with keeping our patients cared for and our clinic running smoothly.”

For Liz, it has been quite the journey from the Army to a wildlife clinic in Roxborough. “I was in the active Army for eight years,” they told me as we drank coffee outside the mudhif. While stationed mainly in Fort Hood Texas, Liz was deployed to Kuwait, South Korea, and Germany. They were assigned Patriot missiles: “we would place them, fix them, reload them; I was this little person next to a huge canister of missiles.” They were also “armor for my unit, in charge of all the weapons and ammo. I loved it, was good at it, and in South Korea I was asked to lead workshops on this.”

They accompanied a medivac full of injured servicemen from Kuwait to Germany, and was also assigned funeral detail, accompanying coffins on their sad journeys home. “My first one was a 19-year-old kid just married with a newborn kid and only there for two weeks,” Liz shared. “These are your brothers and sisters, you know why they did what they did. They made the ultimate sacrifice, and you can’t take that away from their families.”

But they blew out their knee in Kuwait on their last deployment, “where I had no ligament left and tore my meniscus in half. There were complications from my surgery, giving me bad migraines. I had wanted to stay in and do my 20 years; I had dreams, things I wanted to do, but they could not figure out what was wrong. So I got medically retired out as a sergeant.”

From Ashland, Virginia, Liz grew up in a small town 45 minutes north of Richmond that had “tons of farmland; we had a cornfield in front of the high school.” After the Army, wanting to get back to the East Coast closer to their roots and work on a college degree, they enrolled in Drexel (“what they do with veterans is absolutely amazing”) which brought Liz to Philly. Now armed with a Bachelor’s in psychology and a Master’s in spatial cognition, they were looking for an entry into the psychology field, which isn’t easy. But their wife showed Liz an announcement for an internship at the Wildlife Clinic. “You’ve always loved animals,” she told Liz. They agreed. The internship “really clarified things for me.” Rebecca Michelin, the previous clinic director who first hired Liz, “was huge in helping me figure it out, being an amazing mentor in helping me decide. And this was the right decision.”

“I absolutely want to be doing this, and feel a passion and purpose. I see such a lack of good information and knowledge that our industry”– wildlife rehab– “even exists.” Liz also sees so many well-intentioned people finding an injured animal, or one they assume is orphaned, and doing the wrong thing. “They Google solutions– and Google is like the death of everything. It’s not malicious, people are trying to help, but they end up not helping so much.” Like by taking a baby that one assumes was abandoned away from its parents, when they might have left it alone.

When Liz heard first about the mudhif coming to the Schuylkill Center, “I was so excited. There is such a stigma and stereotype with people from the Middle East; people assume everyone there is an extremist or a terrorist. So the mudhif is a healing point, and everyone has a lot of healing to do, especially veterans, as we have our own issues. To have a place like this, it’s sacred. There needs to be a bridging point not only within the community but with the world. The September 11 event is so important,” they continued. “There needs to be an opening of arms.”

The loss of soldiers last week in Afghanistan is “devastating, just devastating. Once again they’re all kids who made the ultimate sacrifice trying to save innocents. It’s gut wrenching.” To memorialize the loss, Liz has “tied yellow ribbons on my front porch for each of the fallen, and added one for the innocent Afghan people. They feel like we abandoned them– and actually we did.

“At day’s end,” Liz finished, “we all bleed the same blood, and need to protect each other.”

That fierce protectiveness is exactly what the Wildlife Clinic needs in a rehabilitator, someone who will move heaven and earth to save even the tiniest mouse or sparrow. For me, the Schuylkill Center is so proud of Liz’s service to the country, and so honored to have them on our team. Thank you, Liz.

Mike Weilbacher directs the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Upper Roxborough.

Unknown Illness Affecting Songbirds

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Following up on our post last week about the unknown illness affecting songbirds, the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PAGC) has released more information on cases in Pennsylvania. The full news release can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/3rax5s36

We’ve had several questions about this outbreak, and hope we can help clarify a few points for our bird-loving friends:

Where is this happening? To date, reports of ill birds have come from 27 counties, including Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery and Chester. While not all reports of ill or deceased birds may be related to the same unknown illness, we advise the public to follow all recommendations and report suspected ill birds using the following link: http://www.vet.upenn.edu/research/centers-laboratories/research-initiatives/wildlife-futures-program

Do I have to stop feeding birds? The Wildlife Clinic and the PAGC are recommending that the public remove all seed feeders and bird baths, clean them with a 10% bleach solution, and not put them back out until further notice. At this time, hummingbirds do not appear to be affected, and nectar feeders can still be used. As always, ensure they are thoroughly cleaned and refilled with fresh sugar water daily to prevent bacterial growth.

Can I remove my feeders but still put out seed on the ground or on my deck? We recommend not feeding birds at all, including scattering seed on the ground or other surfaces. Since we don’t know how this disease is transmitted, we don’t want to encourage birds to congregate in large groups where they may come into contact with sick individuals. Any food that is put out will encourage animals to gather and could increase the risk of spreading disease.

If we suddenly stop putting out seed, won’t the birds go hungry? What will parents feed their babies? Birds will not struggle or starve if feeders are removed, even in urban areas where natural food sources may appear scarce from our perspective- birds are experts at finding what they need! In the summer months, there is plenty of natural food available to sustain birds including insects, berries, and seeds from native plants. Most songbird species feed insects to their growing babies, as they are higher in protein and fat than seeds.

The best way to support baby birds is to reduce pesticide use and to encourage green spaces with native plants.

This Independence Day, Plant A Liberty Tea Garden

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New Jersey tea in full bloom

Independence Day is one of the quintessential summer celebrations, replete with good food, (hopefully) enjoyable company, and citywide displays of fireworks.

Here at the Schuylkill Center though, and indeed in many wild corners of our city, a very different kind of fireworks display has been happening for the past few weeks.

Milkweeds burst with pink globes and sprays of orange. Red and lavender beebalm florets arc across the meadow. Yellow sunchoke flowers shoot up and fade into brown seedheads. Fields progress from lush spring green to a crescendo of summer color, punctuated by a dance of bumblebees, flittering moths, and the iridescent otherworldly buzz of hummingbirds. Early July is the moment of Nature’s midsummer abundance.

It may come as a surprise, then, that many of the wildflowers that contribute to this yearly symphony of color and scent were once, themselves, a powerful political statement.

On a cold December evening in 1773, a group of angry Bostonians heaved tons of imported black tea into the harbor in protest at new taxes placed on it by Britain. Many American colonists who supported this action were suddenly faced with a moral dilemma: how can we still enjoy our tea if we’re boycotting it? Tea was culturally foundational in a way that is hard for us to imagine today. An empty teapot was out of the question, even for the most ardent supporters of independence. 

The answer? Look to the forests and fields.

For people in the Carolinas, there was yaupon (the unfortunately named Ilex vomitoria) – a native holly whose leaves brew a delicious, caffeinated beverage. But for northern colonists, who did not have access to any native caffeine-producing plants, it was the flavors and aromas of native wildflowers that appealed most.

‘Liberty Tea’ became the term given broadly to a number of native wildflowers and shrubs whose aromatic foliage and flowers made sumptuous, spiced teas. Colonial women coursed the countryside, harvesting and cultivating flowers and wild herbs for their now-politicized teapots. The use of these herbs was a clear signal to neighbors, friends, and family as to which side of the political divide they stood on. To find the best species for this purpose they followed the example of Native peoples who had enjoyed brewing with the best native plants for millennia.

Sweet goldenrod (Solidago odora) was one of these favored plants. Leaves harvested before the plant blooms can be dried and stored for long periods, and used to brew an anise-scented tisane. Unlike its weedier relatives, sweet goldenrod does not spread aggressively in the garden and still supports incredible numbers of native pollinators with its late-season spray of yellow blossoms. 

Ruby-throated hummingbird sips on scarlet beebalm

Another popular Liberty Tea was scarlet beebalm (Monarda didyma), also known as wild bergamot or Oswego tea. A host for orange mint and hermit sphinx moths, its shock of red tubular flowers burst forth in late June, providing an irresistible sip of nectar to hummingbirds and butterflies. Hummingbirds, indeed, seem to have good taste: a small handful of those same flowers can be added to a teapot to make a refreshingly aromatic summer beverage.

Colonial women favored a wide range of brewable wild plants to support the boycott and create a new culinary culture of resistance. New Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus) got its common name during this time because of its popularity as a Liberty Tea. This nitrogen-fixing plant is a low shrub, only growing a couple feet tall, with wintergreen-flavored leaves and creamy white flower clusters that are particularly attractive to moths and butterflies. 

The plants that our forebears imbibed are not just an historical curiosity to make into a tisane or herbal iced tea – they are also crucial food sources and waystations for some of the most sensitive creatures that we share this land with. 

Whether or not you are of the patriotic bent, planting a Liberty Tea garden is a great way to ensure that you have delightful, historic wild brews available for your July 4th cookout each year, while also providing year-round habitat to native pollinators and a sumptuous sip for migrating hummingbirds and butterflies looking for a rest and a snack on their intercontinental journeys. Early colonists reframed these native plants into a political statement about an independent future. For us, planting native species is an equally powerful statement: one that speaks of our commitment to a livable future in a world that relegates these lifegiving plants to the margins. So this Independence Day weekend, after the guests leave and the food coma wears off, consider planting a Liberty Tea garden for next year. After all, what better way to honor our country’s birth than by celebrating its natural splendor, and perhaps yield a tasty brew in the process?

By Max Paschall, Native Plants Assistant

Fate of the World Hinges on a Pickup Truck

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Two news stories appearing on the same day last week were remarkably well timed. 

In one, Ford unveiled the all-electric Lightning, the latest in its bestselling F-150 truck series, the world’s most popular vehicle for the last, unbelievably, 43 years, selling more than 900,000 of these monsters. And that truck alone rakes in $42 billion in revenues, twice the revenue of McDonalds, three times that of Starbucks. 

And it’s well named. Its twin electric motors take the heavy duty vehicle from zero to 60 in 4.5 seconds. “This sucker’s fast,” noted President Biden in a test spin the day before, of course decked out in his trademark aviators.

But on the exact same day as the launch party, researchers determined that a significant portion of Hurricane Sandy’s $62.7 billion in damages, as much as 13%, were caused by climate change, allowing a higher sea level to inundate far more homes. Our contribution to climate change from the burning of fossil fuels has raised the ocean by four inches in the New York area in the last century, offering Sandy more targets to slam.

Here’s the beauty of this. While climate change has irreparably fallen in the chasm between the two political parties, paralyzing the possibility of our government playing an important role in solutions, the private sector is stepping forward in a huge way. Ford, the iconic automaker named after the founding father of the modern auto industry, sees the writing on the wall—thank God!—and wants to beat the competition to the punch. A little competition never hurts, right? 

Because frankly, the future is electric. Ford understands that, and they don’t want to be eating Tesla’s dust.

One of the most anticipated introductions of a new car in a very long time, many auto experts compared Lightning to the Model T, the game-changing vehicle that brought cars to the masses. “Ford has a lot at stake in the new vehicle’s success,” wrote the New York Times, but truthfully, the entire world has a lot riding in the back of this pickup. If Ford can sell electric trucks to Philadelphia carpenters, Pennsylvania dairy farmers, Texas oilmen, and, heck, suburban homeowners would love trucks, it will greatly accelerate the move toward electric vehicles, central to any solution to climate change.

Carbon dioxide emitted from the tailpipes of our cars and trucks represents the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. You and I can turn off all the light switches we want to conserve power, but that just won’t move the needle on carbon emissions. We need to transition as quickly as we can away from fossil fuels across transportation, building, agriculture, and industry, and the Lightning will help immensely. 

Through April, automakers sold about 108,000 fully electric vehicles in America, twice the number from the same period last year. While that’s only 2% of vehicle sales, it’s a start; there are 18 electric vehicles offered for sale in this country now; by year’s end, the number will almost double to 30. 

Not only is the Lightning fast, but its battery is finally transcending the weakest link in the electric car story: its battery. This truck can happily travel 300 miles on one charge: you can finally drive from Philly to visit your cousin in Pittsburgh without stopping to recharge. Plus it is powerful, as exhibited by Ford’s wonderful commercial of the truck towing a long train weighing like a million pounds, the train loaded with other F-150s. The truck will be loaded with options, including a generator that allows you to plug in your power saw to the truck itself, and the price starts at $40,000. It will also be made in America, preserving union jobs. 

Oh, Ford won’t stop building gas-powered cars and trucks for years. But if the Lightning does well, it will hasten the long-awaited, much-needed, and very overdue transition to electric vehicles.

“It’s a watershed moment to me,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said at the Lightning’s unveiling. “It’s a very important transition for our industry.”

It’s a watershed moment for the world, too, hopefully an inflection point in the race to slide through the narrow window of time we have in front of us to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.

Speaking of timing, the mercury hit the 90s this week not only here but across a broad swath of the Southeast, and it’s still only May. And the hurricane season’s first named tropical storm—Ana—formed Friday in the Atlantic near Bermuda. While the hurricane season doesn’t start until June 1, this marks the seventh year in a row that a named storm formed before the start of the season. The subtext: the ocean is warming earlier, giving us named storm systems sooner than historically expected.

Welcome to the New Abnormal. Since we need a lightning-fast transition to a post-fossil fuel world, let’s hope the Lightning delivers on its promise. Because there’s a lot riding in the back of this pickup truck.

—Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director

 

Reviving the Prairies of Philadelphia

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Shop online for native plants: tinyurl.com/SCEEnativeplants

There are few better ways to learn plants than by working in a nursery. Assisting with the Schuylkill Center’s annual Native Plant Sale—now in its 17th year—is a truly unique experience for employees and volunteers alike. With over 200 species of native plants being offered to the public annually, even the most experienced botanists and gardeners encounter fascinating plants that they have never seen before. In my work with the sale this year, two plants in particular have caught my eye.

Rattlesnake master and purple coneflower are both wildflowers with wonderful names that are native to southern parts of the now rare eastern prairie ecosystem, landscapes that once existed from the Mississippi River to Pennsylvania, and Florida to New Hampshire. The eastern prairies are relegated to tiny out-of-the-way patches today, but at one time they contained an astonishing diversity of species: asters, orchids, and false indigos. Switchgrass and bluestems. Blazing stars, goldenrods, milkweeds, and mountain mints. Miles of flowers, grasses, shrubs, and trees dotting a savannah humming with life. 

Of course, when we hear the word “prairie,” the first place that comes to mind is the Great Plains of the Midwest. With trees eagerly popping up every place they can in our area, we like to imagine that the native ecosystems of the past here were all woodland and forest. Early accounts of this region, however, reveal a far more nuanced picture. Descriptions abound from the 15th to 18th centuries of broad meadows, savannahs, and grasslands tended with fire by indigenous communities across the Atlantic seaboard. 

Were any prairies present here in Philadelphia? Local Lenape place names, which often encode ancient environmental information, give us a clue: while Wissahickon means “catfish creek” and Wissinoming is “a place where grapes grow,” Southwest Philadelphia’s Kingsessing is the Lenape word for “place where there is a meadow.”

The pre-urban environment of Philadelphia was a diverse, managed mosaic of old growth forests, vast fruit-laden woodlands, and networks of tall prairies—a far cry from the concrete barrens that we see around us today. This is, sadly, all too common across the continent. Eastern prairies have disappeared throughout their range in the face of farming and development. The removal of native people and their millennia-old relationships with the land—particularly, the seasonal controlled burns that held back trees and regenerated the grasslands—have further ensured the decline of these unique meadow ecologies. But despite this familiar story, all is not lost.

What if Philadelphia’s concrete-encased small yards could be transformed into the same diverse landscapes that once existed here—every container garden a pocket prairie, every yard a micro-forest? What if all it took to return biodiversity to a neighborhood is a gardener with a trowel, the right plants, and a little gusto? Just as was the case in the past, it is human care and stewardship that can create and preserve these endangered ecosystems. The dazzling beauty and biodiversity of the eastern prairie can be recreated in any backyard—even if it’s as small as a postage stamp of grass or a few pots on a balcony. With their diminutive size but exuberance of color, scent, and form, prairie and meadow plants can pack a punch in a small garden in a way few others can.

Rattlesnake Master. Photo by Frank Mayfield

Rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium) is one of the most charismatic of these plants. With light powdery blue, tropical-looking foliage and a spray of flower orbs emerging like a constellation, this is a plant that looks far more at home in the Caribbean than in the prairies of the Mid-Atlantic where it has grown for millennia. Its flowers are irresistible to many native pollinators, particularly the same wasps that can help control pests in the rest of your garden. It also grows just as easily in containers as it does in the broad expanse of its original prairie habitat. With its ethereal charm and distinctive name, rattlesnake master is a wildflower that would be at home in any Philadelphia garden, big or small.

And what better to complement it than a patch of one of its prettiest prairie companions, purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)? This wildflower is a treasure to people and pollinators alike. Along with a handful of other Echinacea species, coneflower is foundational to herbal medicine, being widely available for its purported immune-boosting properties. Its color and elegant form in the garden have led to its popularity in native landscaping, and it is available in a wide range of cultivars with unique colors, from eggshell white to green and purple. Its true power, however, is in the life that it brings to the garden. From fritillaries and swallowtails to bumble bees and beetles, watching a blooming coneflower in July is truly a sight to behold. As a late bloomer, it provides rich nectar and pollen at a crucial time for pollinators, when little else is in flower. 

A patch of coneflower and rattlesnake master is a lifeline to your neighborhood’s bees and butterflies every summer. Paired with other now-rare plants that once existed in the long-gone ecosystems of our region, plantings like this can become a foothold for the return of beauty and biodiversity to any neighborhood in this city. 

Working with the amount of acreage we have at the Schuylkill Center is a blessing, but the true future of our city lies in the spirit of stewardship that we all can cultivate in whatever space we have to work with. Bringing biodiversity back to your small patch of this world is a deeply empowering act that pays dividends far beyond what one imagines at the outset. 

I invite you to see what kinds of plants can become a part of the ecosystem that you steward in your space: the Schuylkill Center’s Native Plant Sale offers a wide range of plants for any garden or taste. Rattlesnake master and purple coneflower are easy and lovely to grow, and may just yet inspire you to imagine the lost landscapes that we could enjoy yet again.

 

—Max Paschall, Native Plants Assistant

 

A Tale of Two Birds

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While planting trees over the last two weeks at the Schuylkill Center, a familiar sound echoed through our Roxborough woods, something like an ethereal organ being played in the forest. I smiled: the wood thrush is back.

The wood thrush—a cousin of the robin and about the same size, but with a cinnamon coat and dramatic black spots on a bright white chest—is widely considered the best singer of all songbirds. No less an observer than Henry David Thoreau agreed. “The thrush alone declares the immortal wealth and vigor that is in the forest,” he wrote. “Whenever a man hears it, he is young, and Nature is in her spring. It is a new world and a free country, and the gates of heaven are not shut against him.”

Doesn’t that alone make you want to go hear one? The “ethereal” piece is because, almost uniquely, the bird uncannily can whistle two notes simultaneously, harmonizing with itself to produce the ringing that is so entrancing. Even better, it often sings at both sunrise and sunset, making it one of the first as well as one of the last birds you might hear during the day.

A creature of the interior forest and an important indicator of forest health, the thrush has become a symbol of the vanishing American songbird; one study estimated that its population has declined 62% since 1966 in eastern North America. Forest fragmentation is often cited as a chief reason for its decline, as it requires more than small suburban woodlots, and fragmented forests offer fewer places to escape predators. The brown-headed cowbird, a social parasite that lays its eggs in other birds’ nests, will stay out of deep interiors, but can easily find thrushes in smaller forests—and lay its eggs in the nest, its nestling outcompeting baby thrushes for parental attention.

It’s also a victim of being migratory. While North American forests are fragmenting, Central and South American forests—its winter home—are disappearing too, so, like many birds, the wood thrush is being hit at both ends of its migration.

But the first time I hear one every April at the Schuylkill Center, I stop and savor the sound: the gates of heaven have just opened. Please come and hear, maybe even see, it yourself.

And there’s a second bird I’d love for you to hear, this one the most common bird you’ve never heard of. If you have ever walked through a summertime forest anywhere in the Philadelphia region, you have heard this bird—and heard it, and heard it, and heard it.

Red-eyed vireo

Because the red-eyed vireo may just be the most abundant forest bird across Pennsylvania. Warbler-small and usually gleaning insects high up in the treetops, the bird sings incessantly, holding an ongoing monologue of usually three-noted sounds, some rising, some falling, as if it were asking and answering its own questions: “How are you? I am fine. Doing well. Pretty good. Are you sure?”

And it does have a red eye, but while I have heard thousands of vireos sing, I can count on only one hand the number of times I have actually seen the red eye—and the first time made me scream with delight. If you can see the red eye, you’ll also catch the two black stripes sandwiching a white one, slicing right through the red eye.

The name vireo is Latin for “I am green,” which its body feathers are—sort of. Its species name olivaceus only drives home that point in case you missed it the first time.

It builds one of the smallest non-hummingbird nests, a petite cup that dangles from the crotch of a high tree branch, held together with a number of fibers—and spider silk. These nests are even harder to find than the vireo’s eye.

The red-eye may be the most prominent member of a clan of songbirds, others of which drive even expert birders batty. There’s currently a solitary vireo hanging out behind the Schuylkill Center’s preschool classrooms that one of our teachers—an ace bidder herself—has been hearing. So consider the red-eye your gateway into the vireo kingdom. If you’ve heard one, challenge yourself to see the eye; if you’ve never heard of this bird, here’s a wonderful assignment for you.

Go for a walk this week, and listen for both the organ pipes of the thrush and the chatty monologist, the red-eyed vireo. The gates of heaven will open for you too.

—Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director

 

Climate as an Infrastructure Issue

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“If we act to save the planet,” President Joe Biden told a masked and distanced joint session of Congress last week, “we can create millions of jobs and economic growth and opportunity.” 

Words I have been waiting my entire adult life to hear a president say. Without apology. Without speaking in code. Without soft pedaling. Necessary words that address the unique moment we find ourselves in. 

You know this column is rarely political. Instead, I more typically offer updates on how the environment is doing in Philadelphia and Roxborough, or share the extraordinary natural world in which we live. But not this week. So walk with me out onto a political limb, and let’s talk climate.

Because, frankly, there is no more important issue. Yes, more important than COVID, because we are finally coming out of this pandemic—at least it seems at the moment—and in the last year, climate change has just not gone away, and underpins and supersedes all other issues. 

Ane because Philadelphia is already hotter, wetter, and weirder. Hotter: springtime is 2.7 degrees warmer than it was only 50 years ago in 1970, and getting warmer. Weirder: remember only last week temperatures toyed with hitting the 90s—in April!—and then suddenly dropped while weirdly high winds began blowing through. 

So I’m thrilled to have a president who doesn’t blink or hedge on climate change, but is all in, labeling it the “existential threat” it deserves to be called. He even dared to sprinkle climate change proposals throughout his infrastructure plan, which of course isn’t a universally popular move. OK, it’s actually reviled in some quarters. But think about it for a moment.

When the Delaware River—a tidal waterway, by the way—rises, as it already is, it threatens Penn’s Landing and I-95 through the city; it threatens South and West Philadelphia, Fishtown and the river wards. It threatens the major chemical and energy facilities along the river. It especially threatens a massive low-lying airport built on fill from previous dredging of the river. Projections show the airport to be underwater in coming decades: to where will we move the airport? In the alternative, how will we make the airport resilient to sea level change? 

Infrastructure questions all, without a doubt.

And combating climate change requires energy-efficient buildings that are solarized and connected to a smarter energy grid. Public transportation that more readily moves more people more smartly through the region so we can wean ourselves off of our overlong reliance on cars. And making streets and neighborhoods more resilient to the ravages of stormwater from more powerful storms.

Infrastructure again.

Biden also correctly connects the climate issue to justice, and is not afraid to talk about climate justice, as underserved Americans in low-income neighborhoods will especially feel the impacts of a supercharged climate. 

And yes, Biden also recommitted the country to the Paris Agreement, the world’s agreement on wrestling with climate change. Remember, when President Trump withdrew America from the treaty, we joined Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries to do so—and both have since that time signed on. Is this the company we wish to keep? All of us know climate change is a global concern, and we need to be at the table negotiating the terms for how the planet solves the crisis. We have a ton of skin in this game.

Biden outlined what Scientific American, an apolitical science-based magazine, called “a transformative vision of muscular government, with climate policy driving both domestic and international affairs. He cast decarbonization as an engine of his economic plans. And he framed competition with China as a struggle over the future of clean energy.”

“There’s no reason,” the president continued last week, “the blades for wind turbines can’t be built in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing. No reason why American workers can’t lead the world in the production of electric vehicles and batteries.” Hard to imagine why anyone would have a beef with those last two sentences.

But he didn’t stop there. His plan is intent on “replacing 100% of the nation’s lead pipes and service lines so every American, so every child—can turn on the faucet and be certain to drink clean water.” Lead in drinking water leads to permanent loss of IQ among people who consume it; certainly his intention to purify water cannot be problematic.

“We are at an inflection point in history,” Biden said. We are. We’re the first generation to feel the effects of climate change—and the last who can do anything meaningful about it.

George H.W. Bush ran on a climate change platform in 1988, but the issue quickly fell in the chasm between the parties. Intelligent people need to pull it out of the chasm—and handle it.

Because, as Martin Luther King, Jr. noted many decades ago, we are facing “the fierce urgency of now.” There is urgency in the pandemic, in racial justice, but especially in climate

“Look,” Biden says whenever he wants to make an important point. For me, it was long overdue that an American president talked like a rational adult about this critical issue. Finally.

—Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director