These birds normally nest in tree cavities, but two aggressive, introduced species, the starling and the house sparrow, often take over all available cavities and prevent bluebird nesting. These houses were especially designed for bluebirds, but we have had no nesting bluebirds yet. The houses have been used, however, by house wrens, chickadees, and tree swallows. Here is a clump of young black cherry trees. In fall and winter, look for the gray, shiny egg masses of tent caterpillars encircling some of the smaller branches of these trees.
Black cherry is one of the commonest early-succession trees.
Japanese honeysuckle, a sprawling vine introduced originally from Asia before the Civil War, has since become a problem plant. It twines around and crowds out more desirable species. Note that its leaves grow in pairs, opposite each other -a characteristic that is very useful in identifying some plants. The large, dome-shaped tree with dark bark that is broken into scaly, squarish blocks is persimmon, a southern tree that like many other southern plants is near its northern range limit here in southern New Jersey. Persimmons, like hollies, have separate male and female trees.