This morning I noticed large numbers of birds eating sweetgum seeds
on the ground on the walkways and street in front of my house. The seeds
have been out there for weeks and weeks, but this is the first time I've
seen appreciable numbers of birds eating them this winter: maybe forty
juncos, a pair of cardinals, a dozen mourning doves. Perhaps sweetgum
seeds are less desirable than other foods that have diminished by now,
or juncos--who breed mostly beyond the normal range of sweetgum
trees--aren't as keyed into them, I dunno. Goldfinches greedily eat the
seeds from the capsules, and I've had siskins and redpolls on them as
well. Sapsuckers are attracted to their copious resin, of course.
    Anyway, it was the juncos trickling in first, and their numbers must
have attracted locals, who must have seen conditions were safe enough.
Periodically flushed by people walking their dogs--I wonder if many
urban people would ever spend time outside if they didn't have to "walk"
their dogs--the birds quickly returned.
    I don't feed birds, just let native plants do the job. Just for
kicks, I brought in one of the sweetgum balls a few weeks back, and
emptied it.  It had opened, and I can't tell how many seeds had already
fallen out of it. Two sorts of objects were inside, with a total volume
of over a teaspoon. One was a winged seed about a centimeter long,
counting its blackish vane. There were about forty of these. The others,
about 2100 of them, were ~1 mm, pale brownish, and angular, what I
understand to be aborted seeds; they looked like coarse sawdust. The
birds had been eating both.
   How many seeds had two ninety-year old trees produced? Like many
local plants, my sweetgums had no seeds in 2007, their blossoms nipped
by the late April frosts, but in 2008 made up for it big-time. No reason
to think there couldn't be five million of them out there now.
    Martin et al. ("American Wildlife and Plants" 1951 ) say
Liquidambar styraciflua is "used only to a small extent by wildlife,"
principally goldfinches and purple finches. Overall, I agree with this
assessment, with the proviso that in an urban setting the trees' vast
output can make a difference in winter.
Bill Whan
Columbus

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