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Wildlife Management Notes

Wildlife Management Notes and Observations
April, 2001

Woodland pond at Birdsong.

Weather We're experiencing one of those rare late spring cold snaps and today is gorgeous - very clear and cool, breezy, with a bright blue sky. No humidity. We're enjoying it while we can.

Enough rain has fallen in the last two months to substantially raise water levels in the ponds, swamp, and creeks but we're still experiencing a deficit due to the last two years of drought. In response to the rain Birdsong is in full springtime regalia - every imaginable shade of green - and looks fresh and lush and beautiful.

Prescribed Burning We're finished! We worked very hard to complete this season's burning to avoid any potential drought-related delays later on, such as those we experienced last year. With the many freezes this winter, very low humidity, and therefore dry fuel, we did some very hot burning and made progress in areas that got missed last time. Our thirteen different burns were scattered spatially and sequentially to provide different stages of emerging vegetation across the property. This patchiness provides a wonderful variety of food and cover for wildlife through the burning season and the rest of the year. With the recent rains, burned areas have greened up rapidly and there is a nice mosaic of different colors and growth stages across Birdsong.

Linton's Corner surprised us this year. Normally not particularly rich in wildflowers, the whole area filled up with blooming white wild indigo - it was gorgeous. We also got a good hot burn into the acid flatwoods area, so we are looking forward to the sundews' and pitcher plants' response. The longleaf pine restoration area (formerly Big Pasture) was burned cool according to prescription to avoid harming our planted seedlings, and hotter where we want to push back wax myrtle. We burned the Mill Field and Big Bay Field as hot as reasonably possible in an effort to control small pine growth and brush. These were very interesting burns - both look effective, yet we're going to need to supplement with bush-hogging fairly soon. We kept several small areas unburned so we can use them as demonstration burns and experiment with some hot season burning later this summer.

Every burn always provides a meaningful learning experience for us all. Birdsong is very fortunate to have a very dedicated, hard-working team to help us accomplish this big task. Sincere thanks to every person who served on a crew this year. Completing our objectives on time was a challenge, and we did it and it feels great!

The Gin House Field had a spectacular showing of crimson clover this spring. The red flower heads look like great patches of strawberries out there - lovely. The clover attracts huge numbers of insects, especially honeybees. Right now the clover is giving way to a sea of daisy fleabane. Turkeys are loving it - a male and three hens have been seen browsing regularly. The bluebirds are in brilliant color and are courting and singing everywhere. Several pairs of kingbirds are dominating perches, and a variety of elusive sparrows make frequent, though brief, appearances. There is already a huge population of grasshoppers, ideal for feeding to baby bluebirds.

Next time you come out, examine a square meter of ground in the Gin House and see how many different kinds of plants you can count. The diversity is impressive. No wonder this field is such a rich source of food for wildlife year-round, as different plants emerge, bloom, and die back in waves throughout the growing season. The Gin House Field, with its curving terraces, is like a 60-acre 4-dimensional sculpture that changes in color, texture, flowers, plant height and so on throughout the year. It was the ideal place for the nature artwork installed by students of Terri Lindbloom of the FSU Art Department. Hope you got to see it.

Big Bay Swamp is very rich in sound and activity in the springtime. There are five or more active anhinga nests, two great blue heron nests, bluegray gnatcatchers nesting in their tiny lichen and spider web cups, and lots of red-winged blackbirds, grackles and great-crested flycatchers, all visible from the bank in front of the Listening Place. Of great interest is the hawk nest easily seen from the dam trail. The identity of the elusive adult is yet debated - it is either a Cooper's or a red-shouldered. As of yesterday a fuzzy-headed chick could be seen so perhaps we'll have a better opportunity to identify the adults when they are feeding their young. An American bittern was spotted in February and again in March, making itself look just like the rushes it was hiding in.

After the last rains ceased, the water is no longer flowing over the dam spillway and the beavers are apparently happy with the current water level in the swamp. They have done no damming in recent weeks, but occasionally add new branches to the exterior decor of their lodge.

Two weeks ago, when the water was rushing through the spillway, Larry Herring found two beautiful gar swimming upstream, blocked by the spillway boards. He tried to escort them over the dam by net, but they weren't cooperative.

Just while writing these notes at the Listening Place a racoon walked by at the water's edge, a fox squirrel - all silver with a black face - came by and ate a nut, a pileated woodpecker with the sun illuminating its red crest foraged along the edge of the roof, and the largest alligator I've ever seen at Birdsong made an unsuccessful lunge at something and slowly swam off.

If you have the opportunity to come out and explore the edge of the swamp and spend some time at the Listening Place, you can't help but have a very rich visual and auditory nature experience.

Purple Martins The martins have been actively building nests. We've seen them collect pecan leaf stems, grasses, pine needles, and hardwood leaves and carry them back to their gourds. They are also using the red clay we supply near their pole - after it gets dampened every day you can walk out and see their little foot and beak prints where they've been collecting.

Last week a female martin emerged from her gourd with a large leaf she was apparently not satisfied with, flew off and dropped it. It began to flutter down and a male sitting in the neighboring gourd shot out and caught it before it reached the ground, vocalizing loudly, and took it straight back to his gourd. One martin's trash is another martin's treasure? They are a lot of fun to watch. Come out and sit on the nearby benches and just observe or take photos - they are fairly unperturbed by our presence. They seem to be sitting on eggs these past few days.

Courtship and Nesting Birds are singing and nesting everywhere! The early nesters such as chickadees and brown headed nuthatches have already successfully fledged their first broods out of several of the boxes on the Bluebird Trail. Cardinals have built in a nandina next to the office door; wrens built a beautiful nest in the ladies room wastepaper basket but were evicted for their own safety; a red-bellied woodpecker is excavating a cavity in one of the garden pecan trees; and many bluebirds are now sitting on eggs (see Bluebird Update, Pg. 4). The chorus of singing is ongoing - a first-year orchard oriole just arrived; and chickadees, cardinals, mockingbirds, brown thrashers, titmice, parula and pine warblers keep us entertained all day.

Berries The trees of choice at the moment for cedar waxwings are the red mulberries, which continue to produce a multitude of fruit. Flocks of waxwings have been moving from tree to tree for several weeks. They are now also consuming wild cherry, even though the berries are mostly green. The excellent fall and winter berry plants such as yaupon holly, wax myrtle, dogwood, and cherry laurel have already bloomed and are beginning to develop next fall's fruit. Sparkleberries are in full white bloom and attracting lots of insects, as are the summertime berry producers like blackberries and elderberries.

With the warmer weather we have begun to see lots of anoles, skinks, fence lizards, and rarely, a snake. Our first of the season was a really large garter snake out on the trail, minding his or her own business. We're also beginning to see butterflies again and look forward to enjoying the Butterfly Garden in full flower, covered with butterflies.

Come out and enjoy this beautiful spring weather at Birdsong while it is still cool!

    From Betty
    My love to you all.
    Praise and thanks!
    Blessed be.
    - KDB

"Wildlife Management Notes" appears regularly in our bi-monthly Newsletter. Below is an index of links to previous wildlife management articles:

• February 2001
• October 2000
• August 2000
• June 2000
• April 2000
• December 1999
• October 1999
• April 1999
• February 1999
• December 1998

Copyright © 1999, Birdsong Nature Center
Revised -- May 17, 2001