Mountain Meadows

The 150- by 50-foot wildflower garden at Mountain Meadows

Imagine receiving a gift of 113 acres on Tussey Mountain.  That’s what happened to Mike and Laura Jackson back in 1988 when Laura’s parents, Richard and Phyllis Hershberger, gave them a portion of their farm.  The Jacksons named their property Mountain Meadows and built a home with large windows for wildlife viewing.

Part of the land had been pastured.  Twice the woods on the higher slopes had been high-graded — “taking the best and leaving the rest” in forester parlance.  Then a gypsy moth caterpillar outbreak dealt the final blow to most of the remaining oak trees.

But Mike and Laura, who have devoted their lives to educating themselves and others about the natural world, were undaunted by the challenge of reclaiming their land for wildlife.  Experimental and innovative, they have learned from their mistakes as well as their successes.

On a bright, breezy day in late October my husband, Bruce and I bumped over the cattle guard across their driveway and into their three-acre yard, which is enclosed by a five-foot-high fence.  There we joined 20 other members of the Juniata Valley Audubon Society on a guided tour of Mountain Meadows.

Laura showed off the 150 foot by 50 foot wildflower garden they had established primarily to attract butterflies and other invertebrates.  Although they had hoped to find a native wildflower seed mix suitable for their south-central Pennsylvania site near Everett, they had to settle for a northeastern United States wildflower mix that included cosmos and zinnias, both natives of Mexico, as well as coneflowers, lupines, scarlet flax, tickseeds, larkspurs, cornflowers, wallflowers, Shasta daisies, corn poppies, evening primroses, New England asters, foxgloves, and golden yarrow, only some of which are natives of Pennsylvania or even the northeastern United States. The day we visited the garden displayed a colorful blend of cosmos, zinnias, and cornflowers.

Mike Jackson shows off a red mulberry tree

Mike then pointed out a few of the many trees and shrubs they have planted for wildlife.  In the past, they had planted non-natives such as buddleia, Calgary pear, burning bush, and Japanese honeysuckle without realizing they were invasive.  Calling the knowledge of natives versus non-natives “a steep learning curve,” they finally established a rule that “if it is invasive, remove it.  If it is not native and not invasive and provides food and/or cover for wildlife, then we might plant it within our fence,” for example, “blue spruce, holly, and annuals that attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds,” Laura said.

Inside their fence, which is a deer exclosure, they can plant trees and shrubs without protection.  Outside the fence, every tree and shrub has a wire fence or plastic tube around it.  But now they use exclusively wire fencing.  The five-foot-high tubes produce “wimpy trees,” Mike said, because the trees grow too fast in the moisture and heat-trapping devices. On the other hand, in wire fences trees grow slower and stronger. The tubes also attract paper wasps, which bears love, so they tear apart the tubes to get at the insects.

Every spring the Jacksons order tree saplings from a variety of sources.  During our visit, Mike sang the praises of red mulberry (Morus rubra). These wind-pollinated trees produce dark purple, edible berries in July that are eaten by eastern box turtles, and mammals such as gray and red foxes, gray and fox squirrels, skunks, raccoons, woodchucks and opossums, and once the Jackson’s watched black bears mating below the mulberry trees.  More than 20 species of songbirds are also attracted to red mulberry fruit.  In the words of Charles Fergus, from his wonderful and informative Trees of Pennsylvania and the Northeast: “To observe frantic avian activity, stand in a mulberry grove when the fruit is ripening in early summer.  Birds will be everywhere, gobbling down the sweet crop: grackles, starlings, cardinals, robins, catbirds, mockingbirds, thrushes, thrashers, orioles, waxwings, woodpeckers–even crows, clambering about clumsily on the springy boughs.” Unfortunately, such a sight is increasingly rare because red mulberry, which grows across the southern half of Pennsylvania, “has declined greatly in abundance over the last 200 years,” write Ann Fowler Rhoads and Timothy A. Block in their definitive Trees of Pennsylvania.

Laura Jackson leading a tour of Mountain Meadows

Other native trees the Jacksons have planted are not as uncommon as red mulberry, for instance, the 50 to 60 eastern redbuds or Judas-trees (Cercis canadensis), which thrive in the southern part of the state and produce a haze of lavender-rose blossoms in early spring.  The primary larval food for Henry’s elfin butterflies, their small, pea-like flowers also provide nectar for Henry’s elfins, eastern pine elfins, spring azures, duskywings, and other early butterflies as well as for honeybees.

Sweet American or wild crabapple (Malus coronaria) is our only native crabapple tree and another species the Jacksons planted to attract wildlife.  Grosbeaks, foxes, ruffed grouse, skunks, opossums, raccoons, deer, and black bear relish the yellowish-green, sour fruits that mature in autumn, partially fall on the ground and partially remain hanging from the branches throughout the winter.

Washington hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), another tree the Jacksons planted, is one of many confusing hawthorn species. This native produces fruits that furnish food during the fall and winter for deer, rabbits, raccoons, foxes, squirrels, ruffed grouse, and songbirds.

In the former log yard, they have planted a variety of apple trees but, Mike said, they have to pick the apples before they mature and put them on the ground so the bears don’t rip the trees down to get the fruit.

The Jacksons also wanted to increase nut-bearing trees on their property.  Because the American chestnut tree is extinct, they planted Chinese chestnuts (Castanea mollissima) instead.  They also planted sawtooth oaks (Quercus acutissima), an Asian native, because they grow fast and produce acorns much sooner than our native oaks.

Native shrubs that are wildlife attractants on the Jacksons’ property include both red-osier (Cornus serocea) and silky (C. racemosa) dogwood.  These thicket-producing shrubs provide both food and cover for many birds.

Winterberry (Ilex verticillata), still another choice of the Jacksons, has bright red fruits in September or October that often remain on the branches throughout the winter, hence its common name.  Ruffed grouse, cedar waxwings, and other winter birds harvest the fruits.

The Jacksons also put in a hybrid of the American hazelnut (Corylus americana), which produces sweet, edible nuts that are almost immediately harvested by squirrels, chipmunks, blue jays, deer, and ruffed grouse.

In addition to planting trees, shrubs, and flowers to attract wildlife, Mike constructed an enormous, tepee-shaped wildlife brush pile in their woods.  At its base he has a hole big enough for a hibernating bear to crawl into.  Although he set up a trail camera near the brush pile and caught a sow and her cubs on film, so far no bear has hibernated in it.

Mike is an avid deer hunter and has built a huge tree stand in his woods.  During our walk along their woodland trail, we saw many mature shagbark hickory trees, two healthy butternut trees, and an enormous white oak that took three people — their arms outstretched — to reach around its trunk.  Mike also showed us his American Woodcock Habitat Site where he has to remove dozens of invasives to make it viable for woodcocks.

Showing off the woodcock habitat area at Mountain Meadows

Back in 2002, the Jacksons joined the Pennsylvania Forest Stewardship program and, working with their Service Forester, drew up a plan for their property that emphasized attracting wildlife.  They have documented their work to improve their land under the stewardship program in a loose leaf notebook, complete with photos.  More recently, they have added American mountain ash and witch hazel to the tree species on their property.

As former teachers — Mike taught fifth grade in the Everett elementary school and Laura taught advanced biology and environmental sciences in Bedford High School — they have been keeping lists of the plants and animals on their property.  Of the 37 mammal species, a Russian wild boar was the most distressing and a bobcat the most exciting.  They’ve also recorded 117 bird species, 29 shrubs, 13 vines, 14 coniferous trees, 78 deciduous trees, 8 snakes, 4 turtles, 8 frogs and toads, 4 salamanders, and, so far, 92 insects, and 8 spider species.

Mike takes special interest in the eastern box turtles and timber rattlesnakes he finds.  One notebook is devoted to the turtles.  He photographs each turtle’s shell and plastron and files a notch on the edge of its shell.  That way, when he sees a box turtle, he can figure out whether it is new to him or a repeat.  Just before we arrived, he recorded box turtle #90 — an astounding number.  Once he watched a female lay eggs on a path that they planned to dig up.  He moved the eggs into a raised bed in their garden and fenced it. He and Laura kept a close watch on it and saw hatchlings emerge from it late in the summer.

Mike, with the help of Laura, is also adept at handling rattlesnakes.  Each year he captures every rattlesnake he sees and measures it.  So far, the eight he has captured have been between 36 and 45 inches long.  He also sexes and photographs them.  When I asked him why he does this, he said, “Because I’m curious about them. Are any returning? How many do we have? How much do they grow every year?”  And once again, he keeps meticulous records on them.

Did I mention that they were wildlife rehab assistants under a local veterinarian for ten years?  In that time they rehabbed 54 orphaned opossums, 34 gray squirrels, 17 red-phase and 16 gray-phase eastern screech-owls, and 7 American kestrels, in addition to barred owls, a beaver kit that the PGC gave them to raise, and a baby flying squirrel.  Laura particularly enjoyed raising owls, but she told a funny story about the flying squirrel.

“We had it in a bird cage, never realizing that it could squeeze through the bars of the cage.  We searched high and low for three days, but never found it.  On the fourth day, I found it… snuggled in a laundry basket full of dirty clothes.  Fortunately, when I decided to wash the clothes, I sorted them one by one and didn’t just dump them into the washing machine.”

The day of our visit their bird feeders hosted three male purple finches and a female.  Their turkey pen held wild turkeys that they raise.  Water lilies bloomed in a water garden in front of their home, which contained green frogs, a painted turtle, and a bullfrog.

Mike files a notch on a box turtle shell to distinguish it from the others on the property

Laura has taken a part time job, since she retired, as Director of the Bedford School District’s Environmental Center, but both she and Mike have taken on an even more monumental volunteer position. As founders of SOAR (Save Our Allegheny Ridges), they are trying to educate people about the detrimental effects of industrial wind farms on wildlife.  Although they are not opposed to wind farms if they are appropriately sited in states “where the wind comes sweeping down the plains,” and even on such devastated areas as former strip mines, they are appalled that for a possible one percent of the electric power we need, plans are afoot to put them on many of the mountaintops in northern and central Pennsylvania.  These mountaintops contain some of the state’s last unfragmented habitat for wildlife.  Already the Jacksons have documented with photos the problems this so-called “green power” is causing on our mountaintops, namely, erosion, despoiling of Class A wild trout streams, and providing, on land that has been cleared for access roads and around the windmills, ATV trails.

Fishermen and hunters are alarmed to see still more of our wild land and waterways compromised.  Studies by wildlife biologists have already documented incredible bat kills during migration as they are chopped up by the enormous windmill blades.  The blades are also a danger to migrating songbirds and raptors, all of which use our ridges as migratory corridors.  Canada has many industrial wind farms, but they have a law that forbids building them on mountaintops.  Too bad we haven’t followed their example.

Every day, it seems, the Jacksons send us notice of still another problem with the siting of industrial wind farms. The Jacksons always thought of themselves as conservationists, but now they have become environmentalists in defense of wildlife.  Wish them luck in their venture.
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All photos were taken by Bruce Bonta.

Saving the Future

“I’m convinced that something has to be done to keep cows out of the stream,” David Heverly told me. And so he had enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, which is better known by its acronym CREP. A federal program authorized and funded under the current Farm Bill, it is administered by the Farm Service Agency in the United States Department of Agriculture with technical assistance from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

But the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, and its many private conservation partners, as well as our own Game Commission, also contribute to this program, and keeping cows out of streams is one of their major goals. Instead of forested buffers along many of our streams, especially in the valleys, the banks are bare and broken down by watering cattle.

Yet there is a better way, as Heverly has discovered. At no cost to him, Heverly’s stream was fenced, a cattle crossing was constructed over it, and native trees and shrubs were planted on either side of it. By choosing CREP Conservation Practice 22 (CP22), which creates a riparian forest buffer, Heverly has protected 1600 feet of an unnamed tributary of the Bald Eagle Creek from erosion and pollution. All of this fencing and planting had been done in 2005, and already green ash trees were sticking out of his three-foot-tall, plastic grow tubes.

That was back in mid-May of last year when I joined a tour led by Frank Rohrer, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s stream buffer specialist for Centre County, and Daina Beckstrand, a wildlife habitat biologist for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, although Beckstrand’s salary, travel and vehicle expenses are paid for by the Game Commission in an agreement with the NRCS, according to Michael Pruss, the PGC’s Private Lands Biologist. Rohrer’s employer, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, is another CREP partner, along with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever and a host of others, that helps guide landowners through the CREP enrollment process and phases of the project.

CREP first started in Pennsylvania back in 2000, when it was available only in 20 counties in the lower Susquehanna and Potomac River basins, where the excessive nutrients and sediment from agricultural runoff directly impact the Chesapeake Bay. Once CREP reached its goal of 9,000 acres of riparian buffers in those counties, they extended the program in 2003 into the 23 counties in the Upper Susquehanna whose watersheds also impact the Chesapeake Bay. A year later CREP moved into the 16 counties in western Pennsylvania in the Ohio River Basin.

Frank Rohrer likes to say that “Trout grow on trees.”

But the waters of Centre County, like the waters of my own Blair County, are part of the Susquehanna River Basin and thus impact the Chesapeake Bay as well as our local waterways. Whenever we drive from our home along back country roads to State College, we cringe at the sight of so many unbuffered banks and muddy streams filled with cattle. So I was pleased to meet a farmer like Heverly who cared about protecting a precious resource on his land, and, by doing so, was also improving his cattle’s health by keeping them clean and dry.

Rohrer showed me a copy of Heverly’s plan, and it was clear that although the initial work had been done by contractors, it was up to Heverly to make sure at least 70 percent of the trees and shrubs survived. And during the life of the contract–15 years–Heverly is not allowed to harvest any trees or shrubs.

His riparian buffer also has three zones. The one closest to the stream contains only trees, the second zone has a mixture of trees and shrubs, and the third zone is composed of grasses. All tree seedlings had to be protected from deer-browsing by tree tubes buried deeply enough to prevent rodent and heat damage and covered on top by bird nets to keep songbirds from flying down into the tubes and dying.

Altogether, 290 trees and shrubs grow on Heverly’s 2.3 buffered acres including winterberry holly, gray and silky dogwood, shagbark hickory, black cherry, green ash, pin, white, and swamp white oaks, sycamore, and flowering crabapples. While the choice of species is left up to the landowner, with help from specialists such as Rohrer and Beckstrand, they must be native, they must be good species for the site, and less than 20% can be evergreens. Hardwoods are preferred, especially along the stream, because they add more nutrients, in the form of fallen leaves and other detritus, to the stream, which in turn feed the aquatic invertebrates. Eventually, the food chain reaches the fish.

As Rohrer likes to say, “Trout grow on trees.”

Signing up for CP22 makes economical sense as well. David Wise, of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, says that “Forested buffer projects boost income in two ways. First are one-time incentive payments based on the cost of the project, and second are annual rental payments of $67-$200 an acre. In typical projects, these combine to produce profits of $2000 to $3000 an acre over the life of the project.” In other words, not only are landowners reimbursed for the initial cost of CP22, but they make a substantial profit for keeping the forested riparian buffer on their land throughout the life of the contract (10-15 years).

After the contract runs out, they are free to do whatever they like with the land, but the hope is that, like Heverly, landowners will be pleased with their growing forest and shaded stream, and it will remain a permanent part of their overall property. After all, the CREP program wants to improve marginal farmland on highly-erodible slopes and stream banks, which is summed up in Pennsylvania’s slogan, “Farm the best, CREP the rest!”

The rest of Heverly’s 16-acre property is a cattle pasture that attracts singing bobolinks and swooping barn swallows as we discovered that day. It also provides ideal foraging habitat for the eastern bluebirds that breed in the nest boxes he has provided for them.

CP22 is one of 13 conservation practices in CREP, and one of the most popular. Another is CP1, the establishment of permanent introduced grasses and legumes on erodible cropland and CP2, the establishment of permanent native grasses, and we saw excellent examples of both on the 203-acre property of Robb and Lea Ann Kimble. Robb, accompanied by his six-year-old daughter Kayla, proudly showed off their 42 acres of warm and cool season grasses and legumes.

“We did it for habitat,” he told us, and Kimble planted 13 acres in warm season grasses–big and little bluestem and Indiangrass–and 22 acres in cool season grasses and legumes back in 2004. A year later, he wrote a “Field Note” for Quality Whitetails, illustrated with a photograph of him standing in his field with Kayla on his shoulders.

“I am 5′11,” he wrote, “and with my daughter on my shoulders the grass is as high as her head. As we had hoped it [their planting of grasses] has been well received by a broad range of wildlife. We have had the pleasure of viewing red foxes, bobcats, turkeys, many rare songbirds, and, of course, the magnificent whitetail.”

Because such CREP acres are not mowed during the nesting season, not only are nesting birds more successful, but the larger CREP fields support both more species and more obligate grassland species such as eastern meadowlarks, American kestrels, grasshopper, vesper and Savannah sparrows, bobolinks, dickcissels, mallards, and ring-necked pheasants than do similar-sized hayfields, according to recent studies by Margaret Brittingham, Kevin Wentworth, and Andy Wilson of Penn State. American kestrels and eastern meadowlarks were particularly successful on CREP fields.

In our mid-May visit to the Kimble farm, the warm season grasses had barely germinated, but their dried, shoulder-high, winter remains were impressive. Unlike cool season grasses, which begin growing in March and April, warm season grasses grow during June, July, and August. These native bunch grasses grow tall and put down deep roots that help to prevent soil erosion. They also remain standing throughout the winter and provide food as well as shelter for wildlife.

Perhaps his grandfather said it best when he told Walizer, “No man owns the land; you are only the caretaker for your generation. The goal is to leave the land better than you found it.”

The last place we visited was the property of Libby and Jim Walizer. I knew Jim from his work in the Pennsylvania Forest Stewardship program and had been eager to see his beautiful, 250-acre farm, once primarily planted in corn and soybeans, now mostly devoted to a variety of conservation practices, including both CP22, CP1 and CP2.

Walizer is a wiry, energetic man in his mid-seventies who I think of as the experimenter. “I’m in the conservation business,” he told us, as he showed off his 22-acres of warm season switchgrass and wildflower mixture including blooming wild lupines that attract bobwhite quail. He and his family, who did all of the work, also planted another 21 acres not only with wildflowers and switchgrass but also little and big bluestem and Indiangrass back in 2004. After an accidental burn of those acres, Walizer told us that “Indiangrass beat out the bluestem.” That was the first year after the burn, but last year the other grasses also rebounded, according to Rohrer.

At the same time Walizer also planted cool season grasses in 14 field acres that border the warm season fields. His planting makes both conservation and economical sense. If he had rented out the acres to other farmers for growing standard crops, he would have received $50 an acre per year. From CREP he receives $112 an acre.

But as I looked across the road from Walizer’s farmhouse and saw rows of new homes, I realized that by selling his land to developers he could have made millions and retired to Florida with his wife. Instead, he remains on his land, an active farmer who still raises some beef cattle, but who is mostly interested in “giving this area back to nature instead of farming it fencerow to fencerow,” as he said when he and his wife were chosen Northeastern Regional Tree Farmers of the Year in 2006.

After we admired his warm season grasses and especially his lupines, we visited a portion of his forest, specifically his 5.8 acres of CP22 along Little Fishing Creek at the base of Nittany Mountain. There he and his family had planted tulip poplar, sugar maple, black locust, red oak and a tall variety of Chinese chestnut (as closely-related to our extirpated native American chestnut as possible), as well as the shrubs silky dogwood and silky willow.

Dissatisfied with the standard tree tubes, which he had used in his tree farm before his planting of a riparian forest buffer, he had been experimenting with a variety of different sizes and shapes for several years. Finally, he had developed his TIP System (Tree Incubation and Protection System). As an article he wrote in Pennsylvania Forests magazine explains, it “uses a plastic tube 16 inches high along with a 4-foot high plastic fence with 2-inch grids…The 16-inch tube protects the tree from sprays, rabbits, and rodents and still maintains the greenhouse effect [of the standard tubes]. The fencing protects the tree from deer browse, gives the tree wind stability, and eliminates excessive heat around the tree. The cost is less than $2.00 per shelter. There have been no birds in our tubes and I have found only six wasp nests in 600 tubes checked.” Altogether, he and his family built 1000 TIP System shelters, and he proudly showed them off to us.

Walizer, ever the rapid-talking raconteur, kept us entertained with story after story of his experiences in conservation practices over many years, including those in the CREP program. But perhaps his grandfather said it best when he told Walizer, “No man owns the land; you are only the caretaker for your generation. The goal is to leave the land better than you found it.”

No doubt, Heverly, Kimble, and all the other landowners participating in the CREP program throughout Pennsylvania would agree.
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For more information on the CREP program, call toll-free 1-800-941-CREP (2737) and you will hear a recording that will explain the program and direct you to your local CREP coordinator. You can also visit your local U.S. Farm Service Agency office in your county Agriculture Service Center. Information on the Pennsylvania CREP program is here.

Illustrations: “Brook Trout,” by Bob Hines (courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s free image library); photo of tree grow tubes above a badly eroded streambank by Kelly Donaldson of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (used by permission). For more photos (including one of me), see the CBF’s own account of the outing here.

Life at a Vernal Pond

It was not the year to observe our vernal ponds. But how was I to know that? After two years of more precipitation than usual, all the depressions on top of Sapsucker Ridge beneath the oak and black cherry forest had filled with water.

In late March, I counted four ponds. Three of them were clustered near each other. First were two old small ponds that had merged and formed a larger, figure-eight-shaped pond 30 feet long and eight feet wide. This pond was closely followed by a second small pond that was barely six feet in diameter. The last of the cluster, once a small pond, had become the largest of all–40 feet in diameter.

The fourth pond, farther along the ridge, had been the only reliable one over the years and had supported, until a couple dry years, a population of breeding wood frogs. That pond, though, now completely hemmed in by fallen debris from the ice storm, had become the second largest pond at 60 feet long by 15 feet wide.

Vernal ponds, also called “depression ponds,” “temporary ponds,” or “vernal pools,” are ponds of water that are mostly less than 120 feet wide and four feet deep and are created by snow melt and spring rains. Often these ponds dry up in mid-to-late summer or early autumn, which prevents permanent residency by fish. Without such predators, the larvae of some salamander and frog species can thrive.

Once the ice had melted from our ponds, I spent many hours watching not only the activity in them but the wildlife around their perimeters. On the last day of March, as I sat near the largest pond, I heard a rustle in the leaves nearby. Hen turkeys waded through the far end of the pond. A few looked over at me, but I didn’t move. They continued filing past, and altogether I counted 17. On the rise above the pond, and following well behind like an outcast, a tom turkey, sporting a medium-sized beard, silently fanned his tail while keeping a respectable distance. The hens foraged as they moved off through the forest and never seemed to notice him.

On April Fool’s Day, I heard the quacking calls of wood frogs from the oldest pond. I crept up quietly to glimpse them calling and swimming, but I wanted a better view of the action. I crossed to the other side of the pond and the frogs dove to the bottom. Making myself an elevated seat atop two fallen cherry trees wedged against a live chestnut oak, I sat motionless for half an hour, but the male frogs didn’t call. A few froggy heads did appear above the water and fixed their unblinking eyes on me.

Although the frogs provided little entertainment, other creatures did. A pileated woodpecker’s maniacal cry outdid the “pee-wee” song of a black-capped chickadee and calling golden-crowned kinglets and an eastern phoebe made themselves heard above the roar of Interstate 99 traffic at the base of the ridge. The next several days winter returned for what we hoped was its final blast. Terrific winds, cold, rain, and snow sent the wood frogs down into the pond muck, and on the fourth of April, a skim of snow still encircled the vernal ponds while a mica-thin, translucent layer of ice covered the larger ponds. Golden-crowned kinglets and black-capped chickadees foraged around the oldest pond as I sat there. Tufted titmice and a singing winter wren poked around in the tangled mass of ice-felled trees, and live trees creaked and groaned in the blessed wind that drowned out the traffic din below.

A cap of white crowned all the mountains, but the valleys were brown. A hairy woodpecker called, and I heard a singing golden-crowned kinglet. Then kinglets and chickadees landed and foraged on a witch hazel sapling three feet from my head, the kinglets fluttering down around me like animated butterflies. A chickadee bathed in a strip of open water near the edge of the pond. Once I heard a singing brown creeper, and then I watched one hitching its jerky way up a series of nearby tree trunks even as sodden snow plopped down from the tree branches.

Two days later, it was warm again. The largest vernal pond also held about 10 calling, swimming wood frogs, while the oldest pond contained 20 or more and four wood frog egg masses.

By the tenth of April, even the two smallest vernal ponds held large clumps of wood frog egg masses. But all the ponds were shrinking in the spring warmth, and on April 12, I was shocked to find the oldest pond dried up. Only four large gelatinous blobs containing both wood frog eggs and tiny, just-hatched black tadpoles lay in the mud.

The two small ponds had some water, but their egg masses were gone. Turkey droppings around the ponds’ edges made me suspect that turkeys had made a meal of the eggs.

The largest pond still held plenty of water, although it too was retracting. Several egg masses bobbed in its two-foot-deep middle. A sprightly breeze masked the interstate noise, and the brilliant, but drying sun blazed down from a deep blue sky.

Day by day I kept my vigil beside the remaining vernal pond. Soon I was sitting at the base of a large black cherry tree that had previously been surrounded by water. Water striders skated over the pond’s surface, and a dead white moth floated in the water. Looking closely, I spotted a few wriggling mosquito larvae. Wood frog eggs were hatching, and some tadpoles had already swum off. Another egg mass lay marooned on the dried shore. A few eggs wriggled in it, so I threw it back into the pond.

No rain fell throughout most of April and into May, as I watched the incredible shrinking pond. The wood frog tadpoles swimming in the water were losing their race against time. In early May I surprised a mother bear and her three small cubs near the pond. The cubs bounded away, up and over Sapsucker Ridge while the sow paused to watch me. Three days later the vernal pond was as large as a small car and three piles of fresh bear scat surrounded it. The wood frogs had lost their gamble, but their eggs and tadpoles had fed turkeys, bears, and probably other wildlife as well.

Not all vernal ponds met the fate that mine did last spring. Some of those on State Gamelands 176 are much larger, and one April afternoon my husband Bruce, son Dave, and I met Jim Julian there. Julian, a Penn State graduate student in ecology, has been studying vernal ponds, and he gave us a tour of one of them. Many wood frog egg masses bobbed in the water, but a few male wood frogs still hid under the leafy detritus waiting for females to appear. I even found two pink dead females, one of which had been chewed on probably by a raccoon, Julian said.

But, unlike our ponds, the gameland’s pond also supported spotted salamanders. One of three mole salamander species that depends on vernal ponds to breed in, they live mostly underground in holes or burrows dug by other creatures and only appear above ground in breeding season. Spotted salamanders are black with yellow spots and lay both clear and opaque egg masses, the latter resembling giant cotton balls.

According to Tim Maret, a biology professor at Shippensburg University who has been studying vernal ponds in Michaux State Forest, wood frog tadpoles eat spotted salamander eggs, and salamander larvae of the same or different species eat each other. As a result, less than one percent of salamanders and frogs hatched in vernal ponds survive to leave them, even if the ponds don’t shrivel up, as mine did, before summer.

Vernal ponds vary in the creatures they support. Another mole salamander, the Jefferson, comes and mates at a pond on a rainy night in late winter. Having previously visited the pond in November and then burrowed into the ground nearby, it will even migrate to the pond over snow, hence its nickname “snow walker.”

The third mole salamander species, the marbled, mates on a vernal pond’s dry land in mid-September. The female marbled salamander lays her eggs under rocks, logs, or in the leaf litter to keep them moist, and she stays with them until the pond fills up in late autumn or early winter. Under the ice-covered pond, marbled salamander eggs hatch and their larvae eat leaves and leaf fungus as well as fairy shrimp, which are inch-long crustaceans that swim upside down through the water. Nicknamed “sea monkeys,” the shrimp drop their eggs into sediment where they remain dormant for months or even years until the pond refills.

Many other species, such as red-spotted newts, pickerel and leopard frogs, spotted turtles, and spring peepers use vernal ponds, but if the ponds don’t contain mole salamanders, wood frogs, and/or fairy shrimp they are not true vernal ponds.

Even though most people are not aware of vernal ponds because they are temporary, many are incredibly old. Several on South Mountain in southcentral Pennsylvania are 15,000 to 21,000 years old, and another pond, near Lewisburg, is 13,800 years old according to pollen analyses of core borings.

Unfortunately, federal wetland regulatory programs don’t protect vernal ponds because they have no direct connection to navigable water. They are built on, bulldozed, or paved over, and developers sometimes use the depressons as storm water ponds. Then runoff from roads and parking lots flow into them, bringing pollution.

Even without direct destruction, vernal ponds can be ruined by logging. Julian says that it is essential to keep forested areas around vernal ponds intact because trees shade the water, reduce evaporation, and control silt runoff, which can suffocate eggs, into the ponds. Instead of the recommended 100-foot buffer zone, he says it should be closer to 500 feet because ponds with wider buffers usually have more species. The salamanders and frogs that visit the pond also need relatively cool, moist, shady conditions nearby to live the rest of their lives.

Wood frogs and salamanders will seek out new ponds if they must, but they are homebodies. Julian told us about one study of 350 marked adult wood frogs, which live up to seven years, that found they all returned to the same ponds year after year. In another study of those hatched in a single pond, he says, 82% came back to breed in their natal pond. Julian also mentioned that a study of spotted salamanders, which can live up to 20 years, found that they returned to their home pond even after it was paved over.

Applying pesticides and herbicides near vernal ponds is another threat to the creatures that live and breed in them. Roundup has a particularly bad effect on them, Julian says, and there are warnings on the label that landowners should read and heed if they care about preserving the vernal ponds on their property.

Acid rain is also hurting vernal ponds, according to Tim Maret. Some ponds he has been sampling have a pH of 4. While spotted salamanders and wood frogs can tolerate such acidity, the rare Jefferson salamanders die if the pH. reaches 4.5 (7 represents neutrality and lower numbers indicate increasing acidity).

Vernal ponds are now on the radar screen of many knowledgeable people. While Tim Maret and graduate student Joe Wilson are documenting the abundance and survival of amphibians in vernal ponds in Michaux State Forest as part of a Wild Resource Conservation Fund project, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy has received a State Wildlife Grant to find and research seasonal ponds in Pennsylvania, a project that involves a partnership with academic scientists, nonprofit organizations, state and federal agencies and public volunteers. Ongoing studies of these ponds are also being done through the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program by biologists with the WPC and The Nature Conservancy.

With all this work perhaps vernal ponds will gain the understanding and protection they need to survive both on public and private lands. I hope so, because despite my disappointment last year, I’m once again watching my vernal ponds. For me there is no better way to celebrate the return of spring.

Where Have All The Birds Gone?

Where Have All The Birds Gone? ornithologist John Terborgh asked in his book back in 1989. I was reminded of his question early last October when I noticed that the migrants were few and far between and the woods strangely silent.

Then the National Audubon Society released its State of the Birds USA 2004 report. Touted as “the best data available since [Rachel Carson's] Silent Spring to report on their [birds'] overall health,” the report did little to relieve my fear that bird numbers are diminishing. Based on national Breeding Bird Survey data from 1966 through 2003, the report primarily sums up the status of 645 bird species native to the continental United States that use one of four major types of natural habitat–grass, shrub, forests, or wetland/water.

Until the Breeding Bird Survey was launched by Chandler Robbins and his colleagues at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, there was no good data about habitat loss and its effect on birds even though most of the loss of America’s forestlands and wetlands occurred before 1966. Nevertheless, the report concludes, “wetland and forest species continue to suffer from the effects of poor land management.” Furthermore, “poor land use decisions, certain agricultural practices and overgrazing have caused the dramatic decline of grassland and shrub-land birds.”

The Audubon report assigned all species to one of three categories, the green, yellow, or red Watchlists, based on assessments made by four research groups–Partners in Flight, Waterbirds for the Americas, the U.S. Shorebird Council, and the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.

Although habitat loss and mismanagement are the most serious threats to birds, climate change, air and water pollution, pesticides, and collisions with buildings, towers, and wind turbines are also problems.

Grassland birds have suffered the greatest losses. Of 47 species, 10 are on the red Watchlist (those of highest concern), six the yellow Watchlist (those of moderate concern), and 31 the green Watchlist (those of no or low conservation concern). But even some birds on the green list are still experiencing rapid declines, although their survival is not threatened at this time. For instance, both eastern meadowlarks and bobolinks are green list birds, yet since 1966, less than 40 years ago, the former has declined by 66% to about 10 million birds and the latter to 11 million birds, half of its 1966 population. Short-eared owls, on the yellow list, have decreased by 69% to about 2.4 million birds. Dickcissels are also on the yellow list and Henslow’s sparrows on the red. All are grassland birds that live in Pennsylvania, and dickcissels appear on our own state “Birds of Concern” list as a threatened species.

Historically, Pennsylvania was almost entirely covered in forests, but with the clearing of land for farming after the arrival of European settlers, grassland bird species moved in from the Midwest. Today our grassland birds are threatened by overgrazing, frequent haying, invasive plants, and the selling of farm land for development. Ironically, some grassland birds species, such as short-eared owls and Henslow’s sparrows, are finding refuge on reclaimed strip mines.

According to the Audubon report, shrub-land bird species are also in steep decline. Of 107 species, 71 are green species, 24 yellow, and 12 red, giving them the highest proportion of yellow species. Since most of our shrub-land is in the western United States, namely sagebrush and chaparral, most of the threatened bird species are western species. However, eastern shrub-land habitat is also disappearing due to forest succession, overbrowsing by deer, and urbanization, and a few species on the list do live in Pennsylvania, i.e. the blue-winged warbler on the yellow list and the golden-winged warbler on the red.

Birds that need water are also in peril, both in Pennsylvania and in the United States in general. The Audubon list includes wetlands as well as rivers, ponds, lakes, open ocean, and beaches. Of the 268 water and wetland birds, 212 are green, 31 yellow, and 25 red. Once again even many on the green list are of concern, for instance, the northern pintail, which has declined 63% to 7.5 million birds.

Here in Pennsylvania the yellow birds are American black ducks, prothonotary warblers, and American woodcocks, none of which are on our Pennsylvania list. However, nine of our 14 birds of concern–American and least bitterns, great egrets, yellow-crowned and black-crowned night herons, king rails, common and black terns, and sedge wrens–are primarily wetland species.

Nationwide, half of our freshwater wetlands have been destroyed. In Pennsylvania the estimate is 56%. As the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s ornithologist Douglas A. Gross wrote in Birds: Review of Status in Pennsylvania back in 1998, “The loss of emergent wetlands is one of the greatest factors in the decrease in Pennsylvania’s bird diversity and the cause of the decline of many of its most imperiled species.”

Woodland species are also declining, which brings me back to my original question: where have all the birds gone? I see woodland birds in migration on our forested mountain every spring and fall, and many woodland species breed here, but both breeding and migrant bird numbers are down. The Audubon report verifies this. Of 164 woodland species, 71 are green, 24 are yellow, and 12 are red.

Once again, even a green species, such as the pine siskin, is in steep decline, having dropped by more than half since 1966 to 22 million birds. Wood thrushes are on the yellow list–down to 14 million, again half as many as in 1966. The cerulean warbler numbers are even worse, less than a quarter of what they were, at a total of about 560,000. Worm-eating warblers, which also nest on our mountain, are on the yellow list, along with Kentucky, Canada, and bay-breasted warblers and red-headed woodpeckers. Still on the green list, but in declining numbers, are Louisiana waterthrushes and scarlet tanagers.

Woodlands, according to the Audubon report, are threatened by “unsustainable logging, plantation forestry, overgrazing by deer or livestock, new tree diseases, invasive species, conversion to agriculture, too-frequent or too-scarce fire, resource extraction, urbanization, and fragmentation by roads and utility lines.” Most of these threats are all too familiar to those of us concerned about conservation in Pennsylvania. Could it be that the growth of population in nearby valleys, the increase in roads and vehicles, the erection of cellphone towers, and the unsustainable logging by many of our neighbors on our mountain have contributed to declining breeding bird numbers here?

The Audubon report concludes with an estimate of North American bird species that have undergone the greatest population declines from 1966 to 2003. At the head of the list is the rusty blackbird, sustaining an unbelievable 97.9% loss, followed by Henslow’s sparrow at 96.4%. Other birds on the list that breed in Pennsylvania is number 7, short-eared owl (80.3%), followed by cerulean warbler (79.6%). Loggerhead shrike is number 10 (77.1%) and is also on Pennsylvania’s Birds of Concern list. Number 11 is grasshopper sparrow (also 77.1%), number 15 is field sparrow (68.8%) and number 16 northern bobwhite (67.6%).

Some of the declines are bewildering such as that of rusty blackbirds. They have a vast breeding range throughout most of the boreal region of Canada and Alaska so Partners in Flight scientists think that the loss of forested wetlands where rusty blackbirds spend their winters in the southeastern United States might be part of the problem. The cerulean warblers are most threatened by mountaintop mining in Appalachian forests, but efforts by conservation-minded citizens have so far not halted that pernicious practice.

Species that need periodic disturbances to survive include red-headed woodpeckers, prairie warblers, American woodcocks, and Kentucky warblers, and scientists recommend active management to create such habitats in places where they no longer occur naturally. Northern bobwhites have almost been extirpated in Pennsylvania. They, like many grassland species, need farmland with fencerows, habitat that is difficult to find. Loggerhead shrikes also like hedgerows and occasional trees and shrubs in fields and pastures. After a 50-year absence as breeding birds in Pennsylvania, loggerhead shrikes began breeding in Adams and Franklin counties in low numbers. Grasshopper sparrows, like Henslow’s sparrows and short-eared owls, have benefited from grasslands created on reclaimed strip mines in Pennsylvania.

The threats to birds species and numbers are huge, yet the National Audubon Society is confident that we “can help keep common birds common and reverse the decline of globally threatened species.” If you are a landowner, manage it for birds. We’ve noticed, as our forest has aged, that several mature woods’ species, such as black-throated green warblers, blue-headed vireos, Acadian flycatchers, and winter wrens have started to breed here, and every year their numbers increase. Our forest also provides a haven for cerulean warblers, wood thrushes, worm-eating warblers, scarlet tanagers, and Louisiana waterthrushes. Due to natural periodic disturbances and our maintenance of 40 acres of meadows, we have enough early habitat to satisfy such species as eastern towhees, field and song sparrows, and golden-winged warblers.

Homeowners should make their yards havens for birds, the Audubon report suggests, “by creating a pesticide-free habitat of native plants, providing supplemental food and water, and putting out birdhouses…” They also recommend that folks keep their cats indoors, buy shade-grown coffee because it creates important winter habitat for migratory songbirds, and participate in citizen-science projects such as Christmas Bird Count, Great Backyard Bird Count, National Migratory Bird Count and Project FeederWatch, to increase our knowledge of bird populations. We should also support the purchase of public lands and defend those we already have from bad land management practices, for instance, our national and state forests, gamelands, and the 95 million acres of land and water managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In other words, the more wild lands we have, the better for the birds.

Finally, three species appear on the Audubon list with a 0–Eskimo curlews, Bachman’s warblers, and ivory-billed woodpeckers. Last April, as my husband and I sat in a cabin at Raccoon Creek State Park eating breakfast, we heard on our radio the most exciting news for birders in decades–at least one ivory-billed woodpecker still lives in a most unexpected place –the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Arkansas. And it was discovered not by a scientist, but by a kayaker–Gene Sparling–who had posted his finding on his website.

Tim Gallagher, editor-in-chief of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s Living Bird, saw the posting while researching a book he was writing on ivory-billed sightings over the years. On February 27, 2004 Gallagher, veteran birder Bobby Harrison, and Sparling headed into the Cache River NWR, part of a vast, 500,000 acre bottomland forest of old growth and younger trees that also includes the White River National Wildlife Refuge. Paddling canoes into the area under Sparling’s leadership, Gallagher suddenly spotted a large black and white bird that flew across in front of them at close range and in good light, a mere 68 feet away. There was no doubt that it was a ivory-billed woodpecker.

Such a discovery is a “spectacular ray of hope,” Cornell lab’s director John Fitzpatrick said. Since then there have been six more sightings of a male ivory-billed in that area and the hope is that at least a small breeding population of ivory-bills lives in the depths of what is still an almost impenetrable wilderness–wilderness owned mostly by the national government and by private landowners who have kept it wild.

Surely such a fantastic discovery should embolden all of us to re-examine our own priorities and try to do as much as we can to ensure that in another 40 years bird numbers will have zoomed back to at least 1966 levels.

“My dream is that my great, great-grandchildren will be able to see a place like the virgin cypress forests we once cut down–and with the ivory-billed flying through it,” Gallagher said.

My dream is that the United States will be such an incredible haven for large populations of woodland, shrubland, grassland, and wetland birds, that we will no longer need Audubon reports when my great-great-grandchildren are alive.