As you see, there still are many burning bush berries available. However, the birds are finally starting to eat them because virtually all the native winterberry and choice native fruits and their seeds have been consumed by wildlife during these cold days.
That’s a sign of the problem with one of the most popular fall-color plants, a problem that has to be reluctantly admitted: burning bush plants (Euonymus alatus) are bad actors. Burning bush plants, non-natives, are extraordinarily invasive. Not so much in well-attended back yards, but in the woods where birds deposit their berries’ seeds, complete with bird fertilizer.
Dense thickets of burning bush crowd out native plants that produce more nutritious foods that wildlife prefer and need – if they can get it. With climate warming encouraging migrating birds to stay here longer, the availability of good food for them and for the overwintering wildlife is becoming an issue.
For long flights or for enduring cold weather, energy-producing (especially fat-containing) foods are life savers. Burning bush reportedly contains very little compared to the fruits of many native plants that it is replacing. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on January 17, 2025.)