Ragweed, poison ivy delight birders on Wilbur Wright Trail
Birds feast on plants people love to hate on a trail under construction in Henry County
NEW CASTLE — A flutter of wings in the trees halted a group of birders walking on an unfinished section of the Wilbur Wright Trail on a fresh, cool and sunny Saturday morning.
“I see a beautiful, show-off, yellow-rump,” one of the members of the Robert Cooper Audubon Society said, referring to a yellow-rumped warbler. “It’s showing off that rump.”
By the end of the three-hour walk, the members had observed 32 species, including vultures, hawks, woodpeckers, flickers, phoebes, titmice, song sparrows, kinglets, nuthatches, finches, chickadees, thrushes, towhees, redstarts and other warblers, which are small and fast.
“I am ecstatic,” Annette Rose, president of the society’s Muncie-based chapter, told me. “Today is just fantastic, don’t you think? These little ribbons (of wildlife habitat) are so important, because you’ve got farmland and residential on both sides, and where else are the birds going to nourish themselves on their way back south?”
In the past year, a contractor and volunteers at Healthy Communities of Henry County, Inc., chainsawed and bush hogged their way through a jungle of exotic/invasive bush honeysuckle, fallen trees, trash and other obstacles that had overtaken four-tenths of a mile of undeveloped trail just west of Messick Road.
Sycamore, elm, box elder, dead ash and other trees and shrubs remain standing on either side of the trail — an abandoned Penn Central railroad — creating a tunnel effect.
Poison ivy vines, producing berries in grape-like clusters, climb up the trees, to the delight of the binocular-armed bird watchers, who share observations like:
“I did just see some tail dipping.”
“That’s not a palm warbler.”
“Yeah, I think there are some other things in there.”
“They can look so like leaves floating in the wind.”
“Palm warbler. It has two wing bars and it’s got buff on it, and it’s got brown stripes on its side. Three of them hanging out together, and going after the poison ivy berries. There are places where poison ivy is fine to grow, as far as I’m concerned. And places where it’s not.”
“We have another nuthatch.”
“The palm warblers are all sitting together and pulling those berries. Sometimes they tip back and forth.”
“They aren’t pumping. They are feeding so actively, just too busy pulling those berries off.”
Unlike bush honeysuckle, which originates in Eurasia and likes to shade out everything else on the forest floor, poison ivy is native to North America. Hated by people for the itchy, blistery, red rash it causes, the plant is actually helpful to birds and other wildlife.
Rose said, “I had never seen poison ivy with all the palm warblers on it, the feeding going on. They’re really fattening up for the way south. It’s a diner. This is a diner.”
Referring to poison ivy and another hated plant, ragweed, Rose noted that “nobody wants it” in their backyard.
Also native to North America, ragweed, whose pollen is notorious for causing seasonal allergies, is likewise beneficial to birds and other wildlife. It’s also growing on this section of the trail.
Members of the Indiana Native Plant Society told me that several dozen species of birds eat ragweed seeds, an important food source in the winter. Those species include goldfinches, cardinals, turkeys, indigo buntings, grosbeaks and bobolinks.
“In addition, remember that all plants support bugs of all kinds, and those also provide food for birds, and especially their babies,” one member wrote.
Another wrote, “I’ve been to several workshops on quail management, and in most studies done at DNR sites, 100 percent of quail crops had ragweed seed in them.” Another quoted a biologist as saying ragweed was the most nutritious plant growing in our native meadows.
Jeff Ray, a retired savings-bank controller and volunteer coordinator of trails at Healthy Communities of Henry County, led the Audubon Society members on a sneak peek of nearly a mile of unopened trail.
The society donated $15,000 for the trail through one of its benefactors (Geoff and Josie Fox, of Fox Racing fame). Audubon and Duke Energy Foundation funds have been used for brush clearing; prairie seeding; railing and deck installation on railroad trestle bridges; bird houses, and other expenses.
A one mile section of the trail west of Messick Road has been cleared by the volunteers and by the energy company, whose utility line parallels the path, as does Little Blue River, which the trail also crosses over.
"Today has been a very nice birding morning,” said Catherine Kubo, the group’s field chair, who handed out binoculars to those who lacked them. “There is stuff moving around here. It’s got the sort of things you look for — edge habitats, where fields meet trees, a mix of wetlands — that bodes well for birding. Most of the warblers have moved through, but we’re seeing the late warblers (palm, Tennessee, yellow-rumped and redstart).”
Looking for fruiting vines in the fall can be a good strategy for finding birds, Kubo went on.
Poison ivy is an important food source for birds this time of year, and in return the birds are an important spreader of poison ivy seeds through their droppings, Kubo told me.
“The palm warblers and yellow-rumped warblers were what we mostly saw today eating them, but I think that was what the Swainson’s thrush was after and perhaps the robins,” she said. “We saw chickadees and other finches up in that area. The golden-crowned kinglet was up there, too, but I think it was probably hunting insects, based on its flight movements.”
The group estimated that it saw, and heard the classic wetland songs of, at least 50 red-winged blackbirds.
Other observations shared by the group during the walk included:
“That’s a kinglet. That’s the ruby-crowned. I saw his crown.”
“Oh, good for you.”
“I’ve never seen a crown in the fall.”
“Oh, good for you.”
“It’s so bright in the sunlight.”
“A white-throated sparrow just sang; isn’t that wonderful?”
Eventually, Ray said, the Wilbur Wright Trail will run about 13 miles between New Castle and Losantville, where it will connect to the Cardinal Greenway, the state’s longest rail-trail, spanning some 60 miles between Marion, Muncie and Richmond.
For now, Wilbur Wright starts at the YMCA in New Castle and travels 3.1 miles to the Wilbur Wright Fish and Wildlife Area. Then there is a gap of about two more miles before the trail meets up with the section the bird watchers walked on on Oct. 16. From that segment, which remains under construction, it’s another seven miles or so to Losantville, thus a lot of trail remains to be built.
The trail the group walked is in a remote farming area. It lacks a trailhead and is not yet open to the public.
“Trails have been an important resource for Hoosiers’ physical and mental well-being throughout the pandemic,” Gov. Eric Holcomb said earlier this year. “These projects are a transformational investment in quality of life for communities across our state and a valuable tool for economic and tourism development. We are creating important connections that take us one step closer to becoming the most trail-friendly state in the country.”
Get involved
The Robert Cooper Audubon Society meets monthly, October through June, for programs about nature, natural history or conservation, including children’s activities. The chapter organizes a dozen or more field trips each year, including one coming up on Oct. 23 at Eagle Creek Park and another on Oct. 30 at Mounds State Park.
The Indiana Native Plant Society acts as a champion for biodiversity, seeking “to nourish the web of life through native plants and to form bonds of stewardship for the future by bringing Indiana youth to nature.”
Birding in Indiana is a place for Hoosier birders to post information, pictures and questions about birding in Indiana.
Who’s that singing? Identify the birds you hear with with the free Merlin Bird ID app from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
The Wilbur Wright Birthplace Museum, a 30-minute drive from Muncie, is located between Mooreland and Millville, off Wilbur Wright Road.