WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT NOTES
June 10, 2007
Weather
What peculiar weather we have had this year. It was painfully dry through most of April and all of May. Betty Komarek used to say that once hurricane season started, the drought would break. That held true this year. Tropical Storm Barry came through June 1 and 2, bringing great relief. We’ve recorded 1.39 inches of rain so far in June. The day after Barry went by, our staff actually watched the back lawn green up from 9 AM to noon. It was amazing. A few additional showers have helped the vegetation revive, but now, a few weeks later, things are drier than ever. I’ve never seen the ponds and swamp this low.
Wildflowers
In more normal instances we typically have a wonderful peak of wildflowers
in May. This year it was quite disturbing to see the usual expanse of daisy
fleabane spring up in the Gin House Field, bloom hopefully, and then die.
The same thing happened with the goat’s rue, a wildflower we look forward
to seeing every year along the road to Bill and Cyndi Parrish’s house.
It too managed to bloom profusely, but then the flowers just died and dried
on the stalk and no seeds were set. There was an abundance of purple twinflower
or Dyschoriste, and some patches of yellow Tetragonotheca that bloomed, but
there was very little other color to observe. We are very concerned about
this lack of successful flowering and what it will mean for fall fruiting.
We fear there may be a real lack of seeds and berries for birds and other
wildlife.
Since the rains came, there are now a few butterfly pea vines in bloom, some
small purple Polygala, and some daisy fleabane that is trying to make a comeback.
In the Bog Garden, orange candyroot is everywhere, which is surprising.
The first Spiranthes has been spotted in the middle of the Frog Pond trail.
This tiny white orchid will soon appear all over Birdsong, right in the middle
of our roads. The rest of the year we never even know it is there.
Trees
A lot of trees have suffered in this dry weather. The magnolias look extremely
stressed although they are managing to bloom. A number of oak trees lost their
new leaf growth on the tops of branches, which died and turned brown and fell
off. Pecans were clearly stressed because many mistletoe clusters died and
fell off or lost their leaves.
The young longleaf pines in our planted restoration area and in the naturally
seeded-in areas are thriving. They have put on 1 to 2 feet of growth this
year. This may be less than in years past, but at least they look robust and
healthy. Their long taproots are a great advantage in years like this.
Ponds and Swamp
With the early rains that came this winter and spring several of the ponds
developed beautiful patches of floating water lily pads and began to bloom
intensely. Over the last two months these ponds and Big Bay Swamp have lost
most of their water and the dead and dying lily pads collapsed against the
bottom look sad indeed.
At Upper Pond a Little Green Heron is watching over things. We can almost
sense the pine trees marching in on the exposed Holly Woods bank. In the Farm
Pond, Brasenia has spread from bank to bank now that the water level is so
low. The little gator has not been seen recently.
Anhingas are visiting the Farm Pond. Yesterday one was sunning itself with
wings outspread, perched on Eddie’s cement canoe, a flotation experiment
from long ago that is usually submerged. Now it is an excellent perch, high
up the bank, filled with a garden of grasses and other plants.
Along the Farm Pond bank, buttonbush is loaded with sputnik blooms and attracting
a multitude of tiny bees and tiger swallowtails.
Big Bay Swamp is a changed place without water. There are a few puddles and
deeper holes scattered among the exposed root networks of water tupelo trees.
The beaver lodge looks twice its original size with its sides exposed. One
large gator is claiming a hole back along the buttonbush. The gator has been
spotted twice this week, is good sized, and looks crowded into that small
still-wet space. We haven't seen or heard any Wood Ducks for a month. The
Great Blue Heron has been taking advantage of the shrinking puddles, hunting
tadpoles, its huge footprints patterning the swamp floor.
Land Management
Now that turkey nesting season is nearly over we’ll get started on some
mowing projects. The Live Oak Hammock, always shady and hard to burn, needs
a good bush-hogging to control an undergrowth of sweetgums. We’ll do
some selective mowing of brush patches in Linton’s Corner this summer
and begin our annual mowing of the terrace tops in the Gin House Field.
We are extremely pleased to have gotten all our burning done before it became
impossibly dry. The hot burning and dry spring appears to have inhibited the
growth in a few worrisome brush patches. In spite of an extraordinarily hot
burn and dry conditions, the shortleaf pines in Big Bay Field look as if they’ve
been fertilized. They are tenacious.
Our hearts really went out to all the people affected by and attempting to
contain the fires in south Georgia/north Florida. What an impossible task
under those conditions. We all endured those uncomfortable days of haze and
that acrid smell of woodsmoke - from our safe positions miles and miles away.
Clearly our large-scale land management policies need to include regular prescribed
burning to avoid disastrous fires in a naturally fire-adapted ecosystem like
ours here in the southeast
Purple Martins
As of this week all of our martin pairs have successfully fledged their broods.
We were very concerned about them in the hot dry weeks prior to Tropical Storm
Barry. The hatchlings were panting from the heat and looked parched and scrawny.
The parents worked very hard keeping the young ones fed. Last week there was
a wonderful din from the colony as parents cajoled their offspring to get
out of the gourds and fly. By then the babies looked sleek and healthy. Now
we see them all at the gourds in the morning, and then the entire colony takes
off for the day.
You can find them, loud and active, at the west end of the Gin House Field
perched in the old fencerow sweetgums and cherry trees. Parents are urging
their young to get flying, the young are still begging to be fed. The Farm
Pond is close by and the martins are training their young and taking advantage
of the pond’s open water for drinking and bathing lessons.
We will be watching closely to determine what day the martins actually leave
for their long trek to Brasil. Prior to Hurricane Andrew, their departure
occurred like clockwork: Betty had kept records for decades and the martins
always left on the 4th of July. In recent years, they have left from a few
days before the 4th to a week later. We shall see.
The mornings have been very pleasant for walking recently. Chris Borg’s
birding class saw or heard 40 species of birds this past Saturday. We hope
you’ll come out and enjoy Birdsong too. We also hope to see you out at
the Butterfly Festival on July 21st - we’ll provide the butterflies and
the fans!
-KDB
Butterfly Garden and Bird Window
Large numbers of birds have come to the Bird Window to drink and bathe at
the pond and mister during the drought. While the corn and sunflower seeds
are readily eaten the suet is also very popular, attracting small flocks of
Grackles, Red-winged Blackbirds, Blue Jays, and two enormous Fish Crows. Common
residents, including Red-headed, Red-bellied and Pileated Woodpeckers are
also raiding the suet to feed their babies. In addition to our usual residents,
summer visitors have included Northern Parula Warblers, White-eyed Vireos,
Great Crested Flycatchers, male and female Summer Tanagers and male and female
Indigo Buntings. Some of our Cardinals, Tufted Titmice and Carolina Chickadees
are now bringing their young to the Window. Male and female Ruby-throated
Hummingbirds can be spotted sipping at our feeder and checking out the garden
flowers all day long.
Our Butterfly Garden has been struggling during the drought despite our weekly
watering. We were seeing very few of the common butterflies but as soon as
we had a few days of rain the butterfly population seemed to increase exponentially.
We are seeing large numbers of Pipevine Swallowtails, and a few Tiger, Black,
Zebra and Giant Swallowtails. Other butterflies spotted include Spring Azure,
Red Admiral, Variegated and Gulf Fritillary, Red-spotted Purple, Great Purple
Hairstreak, Red-banded Hairstreak, Carolina Satyr, Pearl Crescent, American
Lady, Hackberry Butterfly, Hackberry Emperor, American Snout, Viceroy, Cloudless
Sulfur, Southern Dog Face, Common Buckeye, Silver-spotted and Long-tailed
Skippers, along with numerous small grass Skippers.
-Chris Bittle, Naturalist
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