Final Breeding Bird Census for 2011

Sunrise, crossing a meadow en route to the census tract

This morning I completed the last of eight censuses of the birds breeding in the largest woodland in my preserve.  This marks the end of the 17th season I've walked through the woods, stopping for ten minutes at each of 19 stations, watching and (mostly) listening for birds.  As the breeding season progresses, the birds generally become increasingly subdued, and that was certainly the case today--except for the ever-raucous Gray Catbirds.

Overnight haze yet to burn off the pond at Crossroads Marsh, en route to census tract

Dawn's haze lingers over the creek as well

Black cohosh, or bugbane (Cimicifuga racemosa) blooming in a woodland gap

A tuliptree embraces a boulder of gneiss...

 

 ...and sends its branches into the canopy

The breeding bird census trail, opened by yours truly with hand clippers,

and kept open by the passage of countless deer hooves

The breeding bird census woods, mostly mature tuliptrees and white ashes

Three stately tuliptrees; despite appearances, the furthest in the distance is actually the largest

 

 A red maple barely hanging on; the right side is still alive,

while the left provides haven for woodpeckers

Breeding bird census gridpoint B-13

Trail blocked by a fallen tuliptree

Each spring when I return to complete another year's census,

I'm surprised to find that new trees have fallen across the trail over the winter

Bark of a mature tuliptree

Widowmaker at gridpoint B-9

Bright yellow fungus on a rotting log

Mossy tuliptree buttress at gridpoint B-7

A cadre of volunteers or sprouts hoping to take the place of a fallen comrade

A spring run naturally blocked by woody debris

Based on footprints in mud, the pool provides water for birds, deer, racoons and,

today, for a frog, who squeaked as it sought cover

 The trail and woods uphill from the spring run pool

 

Spicebushes are loaded with berries this year

Migratory (and resident) birds will eat well come autumn

A robin's nest in a multiflora rosebush immediately above the census trail

The nest was occupied when I began the census in May, but the mother abandoned it
(with one egg) after I repeatedly walked through her territory.
By today, even the egg was gone.

Quarry Woods

Reclaimed hard rock quarry

Yesterday, taking advantage of a glorious October afternoon, I inspected an old hard rock quarry in my neighborhood that had been filled with clean fill. The four-acre site will be donated to a local land trust to be incorporated into the 33-acre preserved forest that surrounds the quarry. The site's owner did a good job of refilling, recontouring, and reclaiming the quarry, but the fill was seeded with a non-native grass mixture to stabilize the soil. Stabilizing the soil is a good idea (especailly considering how much rain we've had lately), but it makes for poor wildlife habitat. Eventually, the land trust will reforest the site.

The land trust already has a nice one-mile trail that leads through the 33-acre woodland above the quarry.
The trail leads to a large patch of Southern arrow-wood (Viburnum dentatum). This probably should be the most common shrub in the woodlands, but it's also a favorite of the large white-tailed deer herd, so it's among the first plants to disappear from the understory and be replaced by spicebush (Lindera benzoin), which the deer don't find particularly palatable. This patch of arrow-wood was growing near the edge of the quarry, so perhaps it escaped because it was relatively inaccessible.

This was the dramatic evening sky at sundown last night.