I’ll talk trees in a minute, but first: merges.
Our city is blessed with dozens of traffic merges, and many are marvels of engineering and design. There’s the entrance and exit to and from Stew Leonard’s and the Home Depot at Ridge Hill, a spectacular test of lane changing reflexes and serene repression of road rage. And then there’s the twisted connections between the Henry Hudson, Saw Mill, Cross County and Yonkers Ave, and the gratifying new interpretations of “Yield” that have evolved within that twisted expression of clover leaf design..
One of my all-time favs is the turn from Tuckahoe Rd at the Sherwood House onto the access ramp to the Sprain Brook, quickly leading to the ramp onto Central Park Ave heading south, then immediately under the bridge and up the ramp to the traffic light on Palmer Rd.. It’s another miracle of traffic engineering.
Noticing A Special Tree along the Merge
This past winter, while negotiating the Mighty Sherwood Merge (as I like to call it), I caught a glimpse of an attention-grabbing tree at the very beginning of the off ramp leading to CPA. You probably know the ramp. It’s the roadway, blasted through the rocky hill below what is now the Palmer House apartments at 615 Palmer Rd. There’s a scenic protective fence to catch boulders that could break away and potentially ruin a driver’s day. Usually, the ramp’s gutters are swimming in trash left by fellow motorists to provoke the rest of us into screaming “PIGS” as we creep along, waiting for our turn to merge.
High up, almost at the top of this majestic tree, there’s an enormous nest, which I believe to be a hawk’s aerie. But I’m not completely sure. I could never get a definitive look. There’s simply no good place to stop without risking death on the highway to observe it more closely.
But I have been determined to at least get some photos. Just before the trees started leafing out this spring, I pulled over onto a marginally safe shoulder and managed to snap a few quick shots. On a subsequent drive, while we were inching along, my wife took a few more from the car, including the photo in the caption of this story.
I believe the tree is either a northern red oak or a tulip. It’s the right size and shape, and there are other fellow species members in the general vicinity. If the tree were located in a real forest, it would be considered a “mother tree,” because it won the race to capture the canopy.
Mother Trees Defined
Mother trees dominate the woods and provide most of the seeds for the next generations. They are usually the tallest, widest and oldest, and leave little opportunity for the saplings beneath them to grow – the mommas block the sunshine required to supercharge the babies’ photosynthesis. Mother trees are the lottery winners of the woodlands, because the odds of any nut or seed reaching mother tree status are millions to one.
Take a look at this mother oak or tulip; it dwarfs the surrounding trees because it had full access to the sun when it was a sapling. It was in the right place at the right time and was spared when a large swathe of the surrounding woodland was clearcut in the name of progress.
From our mother tree’s crown there is an expansive view of the surrounding area, a perfect place for a hawk to keep vigil, while searching for roadkill or a neighborhood squirrel to feed its family.
Whose Nest?
I suspect the nest was built by a red-tailed hawk, because that’s the most common raptor in the eastern U.S. But I can’t completely rule out the possibility that it’s the home for squirrels or crows – but I think not. Squirrel and crow nests are usually the size of basketballs, and not nearly as high up as the colossus in this tree. I estimate this nest is about 70 feet off the ground, and is almost 10 feet across. It has all the earmarks of a hawk nest, or maybe even an eagle’s, but that’s probably wishful thinking.
So here’s to this mother tree and its lofty aerie. It has earned a place as one of The 100 Interesting Trees in Yonkers. I think I’ll call it the Off-Ramp Mama.
