By Staff
We're soon to be in that most gorgeous time of year. All the woodlands with their big maples and oaks, cherries, hickories and beeches will be ablaze with color. The adjacent green pastures and brown corn fields will neatly frame the brilliant, glowing woodlots like huge pictures ready to hang on some giant wall. If you look at an aerial photo of this area you will see a patchwork quilt made almost entirely of mature woodlands and agricultural fields. Humans by nature are neat-niks. We insist our world be nice and tidy. We don't like woodlands to be turned into slash piles so under the guise of conservation we gave up intensive logging in preference for selective cutting. We go into a woodlot and take out only the most mature trees, leaving the woods intact and unsullied, almost as if nothing happened. We don't like overgrown, brushy fence rows and farm lanes so we keep them neatly manicured. We don't like scruffy, shrubby wasteland so we till the fields right up to the very edge of the woodlots, creeks and wetlands. It is all very pleasing to the human eye. What do the animals think of this nice, tidy artwork, though? Quite frankly, most think it really sucks.
With only a few exceptions the birds, insects and animals native to this area are edge creatures. They thrive in the brushy transitional areas that naturally occur between openings and woodlands. While we find them enchanting, a mature forest is essentially a biological desert. Every animal on earth has three basic needs to survive: food, water and safe shelter. The dense canopy of a mature forest shades out the underbrush. The barren forest floor provides little food for animals such as deer, rabbits and grouse. Nor does it provide safe cover. Other than cavity or tree dwelling species, such as woodpeckers and squirrels, there's no place to hide. With two of the three basic needs of most species absent the area is uninhabitable.
Agriculture fields also lack the critical survival elements. Corn, soy bean and wheat fields provide food for many species but only for a short period of time. These fields are like candy stores. If you're overcome with a craving for a treat they satisfy the craving. However, we can't live on candy alone. To fulfill all our day in and day out needs we shop at the supermarket, not the candy store. Water from these fields, if it ever was present, has been drained off. The neatly aligned, open rows do not provide enough safe cover for any species. Again, the three basic elements of life are missing, leaving the field uninhabitable.
Only in the shrubby, overgrown transition areas are all three elements found. The low, dense brush, wildflowers and tall grass provide cover for everything from mice, rabbits, woodcock and grouse to deer, turkeys, butterflies and songbirds. This is nature's supermarket. Seeds, fruits, nectar, insects, tender shoots and accessible buds offer bountiful food sources year around. Brush lined streams, ponds and marshes provide both cover and water.
When left to its own devices nature is never static. Over time openings become brushy transition areas. Brushy transition areas become woodlands. Woodlands die off or are blown or burned down and the area reverts to openings. It's a continuous cycle that ensures food, water and shelter for all species regardless of their specific needs. We have stopped that cycle, though. Selective timber cutting keeps a forest mature and sterile forever. We never allow fields to undergo the natural process of reverting to brush and then young, healthy forest.
We sit back and wonder what happened to all the grouse, woodcock, quail, rabbits and pheasants. Grouse and woodcock only inhabit young stands of timber, preferably poplar and aspen. Once the trees grow larger than your wrist it's useless to them. How many such stands of young trees have you seen lately? Where are the brushy fence rows, overgrown field edges and fallow areas that once provided food and cover for butterflies, songbirds, quail, pheasants and rabbits? It's not hard to see why many species are declining. We're loving the habitat to death. Carpe diem