I’ve always loved the swamp white oak, Quercus bicolor. I remember first encountering ancient ones in northeast Ohio when I went away to college, and I just kind of fell in love with them. I love the foliage that is shiny and dark green on one side, white and soft and fuzzy on the other. I love both textures and the contrast. I love how the foliage looks from a distance. I love the shape of the tree. I love the rugged trunks and branches. I love how habitats look when there are these huge swampy forests filled with swamp white oaks, especially when you visit them in late winter when the snow is melting and it’s just this totally impassible, human-unfriendly terrain with standing water everywhere, and the trees just love it.
There are swamp white oaks near where I live now but there are no really massive ones the way there are in northeast Ohio. There are some small bottomlands in the northern piedmont where there are a lot of them, like floodplains of small streams and such.
I still really love them and I get excited whenever I see them.
I think in general I am a huge fan of bottomland oaks. I am also a huge fan of swamp chestnut oak (Quercus michauxii), and water oak (Quercus nigra). Incidentally, my girlfriend’s favorite tree is willow oak (Quercus phellos) and I always think it is a sign we are a good match haha…compatible but not exactly alike!
Other favorite organisms of mine include fish crows (I love the sound they make), hermit thrushes (probably favorite bird song ever), black-throated green warblers (possibly my favorite warbler song), and bluebirds (I just find them really pleasant).
And then among insects I love the spotted cucumber beetle, and also love the false potato beetle. They are both so cute!!! I tend to like cute, round beetles that eat plants and that I find in my garden but that do not “infest” my garden, i.e. they just show up as isolated individuals and/or have a preference for eating non-food plants.
Another favorite organism is surf clam, which I like to eat as food. I enjoy it because people always make fun of how gross they are and how would anyone like them, they’re so rubbery, blah blah blah. And then I get to order them and eat them and people are like wow I have been proven wrong, someone actually likes them. I pretty much like all bivalves (love eating the edible ones, appreciate the non-edible ones for their ecosystem services too.)