My Peculiar Project

I have a peculiar project underway.

For the last year I have been collecting bird droppings of a sort.  Very specific droppings.  Before you run off in shock and disgust, allow me to explain.

I am collecting seeds from Russian olives that have been “processed” in the digestive tracts of birds.

I am not sorting through bird poo with a stick to find the seeds.  I am, instead, always scanning the ground and concrete surfaces around the outside of my house to find them just sitting there on display.

The seeds, you see, handily survive the digestive tracks of the mid-size to large birds that gulp down the olives for lunch and dinner.  The seeds soon pop out on the ugly end of the birds in an intact and rather polished condition.

My plan is to collect enough seeds to string together lengthwise on a fine fishing line for a necklace or some such.

I looked online.  You can purchase several hundred Russian olive seeds for, like, two bucks.  But where is the story or challenge in that?

So, for now, I am looking for the seeds.  Yesterday, I found another near my hot tub.  At the end of this blog, I have posted a photograph of my collection thus far.

As a final note, I should mention that Russian olive trees have been designated as an invasive species in some places.   Native to Southern Russia and extending into Turkey, the trees thrive in bitter cold, intense heat, dry climates, poor and even salty soils.  On the downside, the trees tend to create monocultures in riparian areas if given the slightest opportunity.  Here in the West, thousands upon thousands of Russian olive trees were planted from New Mexico to Canada in the wake of the 1930s Dust Bowl era.  Now, in some areas, the olive trees are on the march.

In Montana, along many of our rivers, our native cottonwood trees are ceding real estate to the olives.  Some jurisdictions have begun cutting down and eliminating the olive trees along the rivers in efforts to promote the growth of cottonwoods.

I will admit to liking the trees outside of riparian zones.  They offer a sweet scent when filled with blossoms.  The birds like the olives.  I like the seeds.

—Mitchell Hegman