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Photo: Kellen McCluskey

Thursday, September 26

It's a great time to add to the fall landscape! Trees, shrubs, and other woody plants planted now benefit from cooler temperatures and have a chance to become established before the heat and stress of summer. 

Beginning today, a nice selection of native plants is available to order for fall planting. In addition to woody plants, you'll find asters, goldenrods, and other late-season bloomers that offer a critical source of nectar for monarchs and other butterflies. Membership discounts apply. Orders will be accepted online through October 3 and will be scheduled for pickup October 9 and 11. 

There are new species that weren't available last time, so it's worth a look even if you placed an order last month. Those who place orders will have access to bargain-buy items available at the time of their pickup appointment. We'll also keep the Visitor's Center patio stocked with a few new species added in the coming weeks.

CLICK HERE TO SHOP FOR PLANTS

As always, we greatly appreciate the support of our members. If you're not a member, click here to join. An Arboretum membership also makes a wonderful gift. Click here for more information. 

Join us tonight, either in person or online, as we launch a new podcast in partnership with Beech Works. In this podcast series, Anthony Cohen—historian, Menare Foundation president, and explorer of the American past—sets out to find the stories of the Underground Railroad. Visiting well-known and overlooked sites, Rooted Wisdom reveals the people and places that shaped our history and considers how their stories continue to shape our lives today. 

Building off the 2022 Rooted Wisdom: Nature’s Role in the Underground Railroad Guided Experience, which explores how freedom seekers used their knowledge of and connection to nature to aid in escaping enslavement, the Rooted Wisdom podcast will extend to investigate the larger history of the Underground Railroad.

Join us in person tonight at the Avalon Theatre in Easton for the launch of the podcast. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.; the event will run 7–9 p.m. The event is free, but advance registration is encouraged here for the in-person event.

The program will also livestream at rootedwisdom.org; click here to register for the virtual event.

The program will include the presentation of excerpts from the first three episodes of the new podcast and a panel discussion and Q&A with the series host, historian Anthony Cohen, and episode guests Mecca Lewis and David Greaves. Project collaborator George Burroughs of Beech Works will moderate the discussion.

Click here to donate to the Rooted Wisdom program.

Tony Cohen (right) and David Greaves.

Abby Lorenz of Millington was recently hired as the Arboretum's first director of public engagement. More than ten years of experience in horticulture, strategic development, communications and other fields make her a valuable asset to the Adkins team.

"Having grown up on the Eastern Shore, I’ve developed a lifelong love for this region’s natural beauty and the people who live here," said Lorenz. "Combining my love for this area with my experience in public gardens and community engagement feels like coming full circle. I’m excited to contribute to the incredible work being done at Adkins."

Before joining the Arboretum staff, Lorenz completed a 13-month Longwood Fellows Program at Longwood Gardens, a leader-development program that focuses on public horticulture. During the program, she collaborated with peer leaders to produce a comprehensive toolkit and presentation focusing on mission impact. She has additionally served as the Plant Records Manager for Mount Cuba Center in Hockessin, Del., the Manager of Plant Records and Horticulture Programs at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago and as a landscape designer for Unity Landscape Design/Build. She holds a B.S. in Horticulture from Virginia Tech and a BFA in ceramics from the Chicago School of the Art Institute.

Throughout her career, she has been driven by a desire to create spaces where people can find a sense of belonging and connection. She believes that public gardens are not just places to visit but spaces where people can find a sense of community, healing and inspiration.

"Abby brings a broad and unique perspective to the Arboretum team with education, skills and experience in horticulture, the arts and building community," said Adkins Executive Director Ginna Tiernan. "We are thrilled to have her join us as we seek to reach broad audiences, promote native plants and foster love and appreciation of the natural world. Abby has joined us at an exciting and critical time as we embark on a new Master Plan—the last one was completed in 1999—and our 2025–2030 Strategic Plan. She will play a vital role in developing both of these important documents."

The director of public engagement designs, facilitates and supports a broad range of programs, events and guest engagement to provide exceptional experiences in nature and promote native plants. Be sure to welcome Abby when you see her!

Beer Garden with Serene Green is THIS WEEKEND!

Kick off fall with an afternoon of live music, great beer, and tasty food in one of the Eastern Shore's most beautiful outdoor spaces. Our big fall fundraiser, the Beer Garden takes place on Saturday, September 28.

What could be better than enjoying the sounds of award-winning bluegrass band Serene Green and sipping drinks from Ten Eyck Brewing Company, Bull and Goat Brewery, and Cult Classic Brewing Company, all while supporting the Arboretum and its lineup of programs for adults and children? Refreshments from Blue Monkey Street Tacos, the Red Shef, and Beltway Bistro will also be available for purchase.

In commemoration of the Arboretum’s dedication to hosting live music outdoors, a beautiful SE Custom 24 guitar generously donated by PRS Guitars is up for auction, which closes at the event. The winner will be announced that day. Click here to bid and for more information.

Tickets are available online now! Registration is capped and the fee increases the day of the event, so register today!

Beer Garden is generously sponsored in part by the Maryland State Arts Council and the Caroline County Council of Arts.

If you are like me, you woke up Saturday morning (September 21) and said to yourself: "Hmm. I wonder how many birds migrated over Queen Anne’s County last night?" You might not have known how to get an answer, but I can help you with that. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Colorado State University, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst have collaborated on a website called Birdcast.

I went to the Birdcast site for Queen Anne’s County (QAC) and found this: 289,300 birds flew over QAC on September 21, from 7:10 p.m. to 6:50 a.m., at an average altitude of 2,500 feet, at a speed of about 17 miles per hour, with a peak of 40,900 birds at 9:40 p.m. The next night, Saturday night, with storms moving across the area from northwest to southeast, the numbers dropped to 85,100 birds. Birdcast uses radar ornithology, developments in machine learning, cloud-based computing, and big data analytics. You can read more about how this works at this website.

The disappearance and reappearance of birds in the fall and spring has puzzled inquiring minds for centuries. Aristotle believed that birds transformed into other bird species like caterpillars transformed into butterflies. In 1555, Olaus Magnus suggested that swallows hibernate in the mud at the bottom of lakes and streams. This misconception persisted into the 1800s. In the 1680s, Charles Morton theorized that birds migrate to the moon for the winter. 

A breakthrough came in 1822 when German villagers found a White Stork that had a spear made of African wood going through its neck. They called it the "pfeilstorch" or "arrow stork." This unfortunate bird gave some of the first evidence of migration between continents.

This is the actual White Stork that was shot and preserved in 1822.

Photo courtesy of Wikinmedia Commons.

And, I am not making this up, there have been 24 subsequent recorded Pfeilstorch that have successfully migrated to Europe with an African spear embedded in their flesh. The White Stork is one tough bird!

In 1880, an ornithologist at Princeton happened to visit the astronomy department during a full moon. He looked through the telescope and was astonished to see hundreds of birds flying, not to the moon, but across the bright face of the moon. For many years, counting migrating birds passing in front of the moon was state of the art. Another breakthrough to track migrating birds came in 1899 when bird banding began by placing a metal band on a bird’s leg with information on it.

Bird bands that are currently used for waterfowl. Photo courtesy of Twin Cities Pioneer Press.

Radio transmitter tags were first used in 1957, and the technology has advanced so much that an electronic transmitter can now be applied to large butterflies and dragonflies.

A stunning breakthrough came in 2002 when Michael O’Brien (a Maryland native) and Bill Evans published a CD-ROM, "Flight Calls of Migratory Birds." Birds make night flight calls to help stay together when migrating. If you learned the half-second night flight calls, you could sit outside at midnight on a quiet night in September and identify the birds migrating overhead. The CD is no longer available, but the recordings are online for free at this website.

Scientists have made tremendous progress in tracking bird migration, but even more mysteries remain to be solved. One example is the migration of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. How does a bird born this year know to migrate south to southern Mexico and Central America by flying along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and then heading south into Mexico. The same bird returning north in the spring will fly from the Yucatan Peninsula across the Gulf of Mexico.

I briefly touched on a few aspects of the history of bird migration. If you are interested, I encourage you to dig into any of the myriad mysteries of migration.

Please contact me with any questions at wlsngang@verizon.net.

Jeobirdy Answer: This bird’s southward migration in the fall is a nonstop flight from Alaska to Tasmania and New Zealand over the open waters of the Pacific Ocean.

Jeobirdy Question: What is the Bar-tailed Godwit? A juvenile Bar-tailed Godwit known as B6 set a world record by completing a non-stop 11-day migration of 8,425 miles from Alaska to Tasmania.

Jeobirdy Answer: These birds have been shown to fly over 55,000 miles annually as they meander and migrate from the Arctic to Antarctic and back.

Jeobirdy Question: What is the Arctic Tern?

Jim Wilson

Arboretum volunteer/Birder

The bog turtle is the smallest and rarest turtle in North America. Only half as many bog turtles live in Maryland now as in 1980, and they are considered a threatened species. They are victims mainly of vanishing wetlands. Photo: courtesy of The Maryland Zoo at Baltimore.

Photo: Daniel Traub, courtesy of Longwood Gardens.

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