Magpies and Creeper Berries - Arapahoe / Denver

[Jared Del Rosso]

I recently encountered a line from Walt Whitman, in which he describes "frost-mellow'd berries." I'm wondering if cold has this effect on creeper berries. The vines around Centennial and Denver are laden this year. And yet many of the berries have hung around, untouched until this week. Twice in the past few days, I've watched magpies hopping from sidewalks to collect the berries from vines. It's a fairly endearing method of feeding.

- Jared Del Rosso

Centennial, CO

[Charles Hundertmark]

In a journal article some time back, biologists postulated a coevolutionary relationship between fruit-bearing plants in the rosaceae family and birds. The fruit, particularly berries, of different rosaceae species become “mellow’d” at different times of year.This allows birds to find fruit throughout much of the year fostering the relationship with birds as seed dispersers. I have noticed this with some of our fruiting trees at home. In June or July as our serviceberry tree’s berries are beginning to turn red, the robins and House Finches hit them like mad, denuding the tree of berries in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, crabapples ripen more slowly and, unless the squirrels get them, may survive into winter being suddenly discovered by robins and waxwings in late winter. Mountain ash berries are not favored until late winter or early spring when robins migrating north find them and strip the tree of berries in short order.

Chuck Hundertmark

Lafayette, CO

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