The cedar waxwing in the photograph is giving his intended mate a courtship gift, a buckthorn berry. I suppose you could say the berry is synonymous with an engagement ring.
In this case, however, she's not getting a diamond. She's getting cut glass. Worse yet, the gift probably will give her diarrhea. Bad start on his part.
There's nothing good for birds about buckthorn and other invasive plants.
Buckthorn is ubiquitous in the metro area, certainly in my eastern Orono neighborhood. If you look closely at yard edges, it's often all buckthorn.
Birds eat the very abundant berries. They are a "fairly good source of carbohydrates," according to John A. Litvaitis, professor of wildlife ecology at the University of New Hampshire.
But, he wrote in an e-mail, there are ornithologists who consider the berries junk food because they have a low fat content. That would make them poor food for chicks or a pre-migration diet.
Worse is buckthorn's impact on insects.
Chickadees nest in our yard. Their chicks are fed insects, mostly butterfly and moth caterpillars, which are rich in fat and protein. Those nutrients are important to the rapidly maturing young birds.
