[Steven Swensen, Director of Conservation, Aldo Leopold Foundation]

Good morning, everyone. It’s my pleasure to welcome you here to out next talk: Songbirds of Your Woodlands.

I’m Steve Swenson with the Aldo Leopold Foundation in Baraboo, Wisconsin. And it’s my pleasure to introduce our next two speakers, Yoyi Steele and Mike Mossman.

Yoyi is a wildlife biologist and a natural resources planner with the Wisconsin DNR and serves as the Important Bird Areas and Southern Forest Coordinator for the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative.

The Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative is a statewide partnership of over 180 groups working to advance bird conservation across Wisconsin. She has worked on bird conservation and forest management issues in the driftless for the past 10 years.

Mike Mossman is a newly retired DNR ecologist who has studied the effects of forest management and land use on birds, amphibians, and small mammals. He often works with landowners and land managers and has a special interest in the relationship between human history, landscapes, and wildlife populations. Mike lives on a retired farm near where he grew up in the Baraboo hills.

And on a more personal note, I know both of them very well through our own important bird area around Leopold’s Shack called the Leopold-Pine Island Important Bird Area. And Mike and Yoyi have been extremely influential in helping us make the most of that land. So, with that, I welcome Mike.

[Mike Mossman, Forest Community Ecologist, Retired, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources]

Thanks, Steve.

Let me get right onto the slides here. Youve probably heard a lot of things we’re going to talk about today will be things you’ve heard already today.

Our – our – our – our – our goal here is basically to familiarize you with – with – with birds, their habitats, and how you can help understand your woods more by – by looking at the birds and using the birds to engage you and draw you into that forest more and your management.

Birds depend on habitat entirely. Anything that happens with the habitat, whether it’s succession or things that we do to it, purposefully or not, affects what the bird community will be. And we’re going to talk about some of the processes and the sort of principles that – that govern that, and not so much about what to do on your own land. As you’ll see, there’s many factors that can be involved in how you want to manage your own land and how it would affect the birds or what birds you might choose to manage for or – or – or not.

We do have a couple handouts. We have one on principles of land management for birds over there, and another one that’s one some resources that might be useful to you for managing land. And a third one that’s a little bit more technical on birds of different sorts of habitats in the driftless area.

So, there’s a great richness of birds in the driftless area, and a lot of them really need help, conservation help. Their populations are declining. And for many of those species, the driftless area is one of the best places in the world to manage for them. So, we’re going to focus a little bit more on those. But when we talk about birds we’re also really talking about whole plant/animal communities and the birds, kind of, represent those. We know a lot about bird biology, about the effects of management on birds, but we also know that, what’s good for a particular bird is good for a whole suite of other species where they’re talking about plants, small mammals, or insects. So, weve in our selection of birds to talk about and to emphasize, those are birds that generally represent entire communities.

So, just keep that in mind.

Here’s the principles I mentioned, and I’m not going to go through those now, but our slide show will follow those. And, again, they’re – theyre in that handout, and there is a kind of a little explanation for each of these.

The primary kind of most – most important point is birds respond to habitat, and birds within a forest, theres – birds sort of assume different niches or niches in the forest. And this is an example of this. If you just look within a particular stream gorge in the Baraboo hills, for example, where I did studies in my – for my Master’s long ago, looking at flycatchers. So, this is one group of birds, one family of birds. They look a lot alike. They feed a lot alike. They perch on a limb, fly out, grab an insect, come back, or fly up to a a leaf, fly next to the leaf, grab and insect, and come back to perch.

So, they’re very similar ecology in a lot of ways, but certain woods have different species than other woods would have. And here’s this sort of a schematic representation. First of all, there’s a difference in the heights that they feed at.

You can see the crested flycatcher, is the largest of the flycatchers, tends to feed up above the canopy or in big openings in the canopy. They’re sort of adapted to – because they’re the biggest, they fly the farthest, get the biggest insects. They’re more adapted to openings and I guess, because of that, they nest in cavities. They’re likely to occur in places where there’s dead trees.

Eastern pewee is the next largest, and it’s a species that – that tends to feed in this layer, lower layer of the canopy. Then you have least flycatcher and Acadian flycatchers feeding and nesting and successively lower levels, and the Phoebe, which is more generalized, but is always limited by nest site, so it’s always near a cliff or a building.

If you look at the kind of structures that favor each species, you can see here, let’s assume these are oak trees here, it’s fairly open canopy, some space between the canopies, some light coming down. The pewee loves these oak, lower oak canopies where there’s space between the – the branches where they can forage and build their nest on sort of a horizontal oak limb. It’s a typical place for them. And, actually, their their nest looks like a they decorate it with lichens. It looks like a knob on a white oak limb.

In this case, the understory that’s responding to this gap here is low. It creates – it still creates a lot of feeding space for the pewee. If you get to a situation where it’s a little more farther along in succession from the – from the disturbance or whatever or the fire that has allowed this canopy opening to be there and it starts – some of these trees grow up higher, you get these saplings invading that space, pewees tend to either disappear or just get lower density.

Least flycatchers love those spaces in the sapling layer. So, that’s where we get the Least flycatchers. Acadian flycatchers occur more on the right there where you see the Hemlock maple type canopy, full canopy, almost no vegetation on the ground, and some scattered Witch Hazel shrubs or Sugar Maple saplings that they nest in.

And so, you know, these birds – you can find a woods that has all these birds, if it – if it has all those kind of variety of structures.

And the Phoebe has very – because it’s so limited to its nesting site, it really doesn’t have very many requirements for what sort of a canopy there is. They’ll be where there’s full canopy, they’ll be where there’s open canopy, but they pretty much need that nest site. So, that’s what limits them.

Some of these habitat niches that the birds take, they can be broad or they can be very narrow according to the species. In Wisconsin, the Black-capped chickadee would be an example of a bird that has a very broad niche. Just about any wooded or semi-wooded habitat would have chickadees. Whereas something on the other end of the spectrum, the Yellow-throated warbler on the left, which occurs in Wisconsin only in a few sites, like the Baraboo hills and Wyalusing area, where there’s mature oaks with super canopy white pines.

Some species respond to specific – to specific characteristics of the habitat. Woodpeckers, or cavity nesters, are one. We’re talking about a pileated woodpecker that needs these large trees to nest and feed in, where the Prothonotary warbler, down on the lower right, that lives only in flood plain forests and nests only in broken off snags that are either in the water or right next to the water.

Or, on the left, the Winter wren, which occurs especially in old growth forests where the where the large trees have fallen over, and it needs those large trees to nest in, and that’s where they – they feed in those kind of complicated understory of stilt roots and – and fallen large – large trees.

Some species will respond to kind of general habitat structure. Two examples here, this is in northern Wisconsin, but we have the same sorts of structures here. In the upper left, an old pine stump with a Sugar maple forest that’s – thats grown up in an even-aged structure all at the same time, very simple forest. You have kind of a small set of species living in there because the structure is so so simple, but the Red-eyed vireo does fine.

Down in the lower right, you have the wood thrush, which requires a lot more kind of a diverse pattern of understory structure, like this, which shows another tree that’s fallen down. It could be a site that has been managed and the canopy opened and some structure in the understory that’s developed. And usually the wood thrushes won’t be in that opening until those – that understory gets to be sapling age.

Canopy openings are really important part of our management. They’re created, of course, naturally. They were created by lightning strikes, windthrows, old age of old canopy trees, et cetera – and – and now mostly by management, but also by disease and windthrow. These are very important for a number of birds that like openings within woods. And a lot of times a species there that are benefited by this don’t care that much what that understory is. Say, the grouse is probably more, cares about aspen, perhaps, more. But these other species would be, like the Blue-winged warbler, Hooded warbler, and Chestnut Sided on the top, Indigo Bunting and Eastern Towhee on the bottom. They’re responding more to that structure.

So, whether you’re creating an opening and it’s coming back to oak or whether it’s coming back to sugar maple might not make a lot of difference, but, of course, it makes a huge difference in the future with where that forest is going.

Let’s not forget oak savannas. Armund talked a lot about this this morning. And there’s a whole suite of birds that are adapted to the pre-settlement oak savanna that now oftentimes will do fine in grasslands with scattered trees, such as the Bluebird Red-headed woodpecker, Orchard oriole, Field sparrow, and Brown thrasher. Let’s not forget that some places that we might be able to convert into forest also have a special place for a lot of these birds and other wildlife. A rare community worldwide.

But oaks, in general, are really important component of the forest, whether its – whether we’re talking savanna or woodland or oak forest. Here we have an example of a site in the upper left that is succeeding to – to maple woods, a site on the lower right which is oak woodland managed by cutting and burning. And these all these species illustrated here are – are some that either require or do much better in oak forest rather than central hardwoods or maple forests, like the Blue-gray gnatcatcher down the left, feeding during the pulse of, during migration, during that pulse of catkins emerging. They love, like a lot of – a lot of warblers, a lot of migrant songbirds, their migrations are pretty much timed to that emergence of catkins and all the caterpillar larvae and eggs and so on that are associated with those.

Oaks are especially diverse with – with – with prey items like that, more so than the other hardwoods that we have. There’s the Eastern pewee then to the to the right of that in that nest that I said looks like an oak knob. Worm-eating warbler that basically is a very rare bird. It occurs only in the driftless area in Wisconsin and is specific to stream slopes and kind of stream gorges in the upper stretches of them where you have really mature oaks and a lot of oak litter. Cerulean warbler in the center right is a species we’re very concerned with. Yoyi will talk more about that. A species that likes really mature trees, but it also really like oaks. So, there’s a big of a dilemma there in terms of it needs these mature, big trees that like sort of a semi-open canopy, but if we’re going to keep the oak trees it really loves, we have to think about where we’re going to destroy its habitat, temporarily perhaps, to let it – and hope there will be something for it somewhere else.

So, when we’re talking about management like this, a lot of these – our discussion is – you know, everything – these systems are all dynamic and theyre – we’re talking about having space for these species on the landscape one place or another, and sometimes to manage them the habitat will become unsuitable for some of the species that we’re actually managing for, at least for a while. Tanager is another example of a species that just likes oak trees or maple woods as well, but there’s more of them in oak woods.

Down in the bottom, we have a blue jay with an acorn because there are some of these species that really do, you know, focus in on acorns. Blue jay being one, at least during the fall and winter, and Red-headed woodpecker being another one.

Another reminder that what we do for one species to favor will disfavor others, and it’s nowhere more obvious than what to do with that hay field on the – on the ridge top. Do we want to keep it as a hay field or do we wanna, on the upper left, or do we want to plant it to oaks or something else on the lower right? It’s a great opportunity to plant it to oaks. That’s one way we can maintain oaks on the landscape to some extent. But, again, you’re trading the Bobolinks for – for other birds eventually.

Bobolink being another another bird that needs help, but a grassland specialist.

And we can just look at that, on – on the same concept, in a local spot in the woods where we have something like this Acadian flycatcher nest on the right, right above the lady’s hand, in a Witch Hazel in what you can see is kind of a typical Sugar maple woods with very little understory. And that’s a thats a threatened bird in Wisconsin, and the driftless area is its home.

Another bird whose home is the driftless area in Wisconsin is the Kentucky warbler on the left, which will never live in the woods on the right, but if you were to open that up and if it was a large enough woods, rich enough, you might get a Kentucky warbler to come into that opening, which is its preferred habitat.

One more example of the same thing. Oak dominated woods or woodlands that are invaded, like on the lower left, by ashes and hickories, Yellow-bud hickories, and exotic shrubs are great for Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. But whereas that woods had it and Rose-breasted Grosbeaks don’t need a lot of help, they’re doing fairly well, whereas, on the right, you’ve got an oak woodland that’s been managed by fire and cutting, which is open on the understory and is is the sort of habitat that we need to maintain Whip-poor-wills, which are really in – in need of help.

We also need to think about the context and size of the habitats or of your land. If your land is – if your woods – you may have two woods that are very similar in nature. A 40-acre piece, for example, whether it’s situated in a large forest makes a big difference for the birds and other wildlife than if it’s isolated among agriculture.

And, as an example for how birds respond to this, the Great Horned owl is pretty much an edge species and would – would almost certainly be in that landscape in the upper left. Pretty agricultural but there’s some scattered wood lots. It’ll find a place to nest, and it has plenty of edge to feed in, in open areas. Whereas the Barred owl, in the lower left, likes extensive forest, has a big territory, like the Great Horned does, but that territory has to be wooded. So, in that sort of typical driftless area scene in the middle, you might get both Great Horned and Barred owls. But if you go down to the Baraboo Hills, on the lower right, with these massive extensive forests, there’s no place for Great Horned owl there, although it may exist on the edges of some of these woods. But it’s basically Barred owl habitat.

So, that’s an example of context and size, but it also applies to birds that may have a really small territory, like an Indigo Bunting or a Hooded warbler whose territory may only be an acre or two centered around an opening in the forest. These are both species that like that shrubby response to canopy opening.

You may have that same structure of, say, a half-acre opening in each of these three woods that looks very similar. The Bunting would be in all of them. The Bunting is generalized. It’s in all openings, edges in the driftless area. It’s a bird that doesn’t need help because it does have such a general habitat. Whereas the Hooded warbler is one that likes these shrubby openings but only in extensive forests. Even though, again, its territory doesn’t go much beyond that opening.

So, up in the upper left, you’d never have a Hooded warbler, that center landscape maybe, and that lower right-hand almost every opening of a quarter acre of more with scattered with semi-thick shrubs in the Baraboo Hills will have a Hooded warbler in it.

So, I’m going to leave it up to Yoyi next.

[Yoyi Steele, Important Birds Areas Coordinator, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources]

So, I’m actually going to go back a minute, start my talk, my part of the talk here.

This concept of sort of the – the – the site and the neighborhood is one that may seem unusual, especially for little birds like this that they actually are affected by what may be outside the specific site that they’re occurring. And so, the best analogy, I think, that I can – that I can make for this is – is the example of real estate. I mean, if you think of the little site where a bird might nest as the house and what exists outside of that is the neighborhood, anybody here that’s going to buy a house would never just look at the house. You’d always look at the neighborhood, right? Because you want specific characteristics in your house, but it also has to be in the right neighborhood, right? It’s got to be next to schools or close to your job or close to family or whatever your your needs are, your desires. You would – you would never – you’d probably never be interested in a gorgeous house that was in a crappy neighborhood.

Probably.

So, the same goes for birds. If you’re a Wood thrush, say, and you’re – youre looking for a – youre looking for some property and when, you know, when – when bird conservationists, you know, think about habitat, what we’re interested in is – is maximizing production. Is really making sure that the species not just occurs there and not just nests there but nests there successfully, is able to raise young successfully, and that those young can survive to the next generation.

So, it isn’t just enough that the bird is there or that the bird is nesting there but that it’s productive and that it’s reproducing successfully. So, in order to – to provide habitat for a bird like this, you really need to look at all these different scales. You need to look at the landscape. And what this shows, the map with the weird colors on it, is a habitat suitability model showing where are the best places in the Upper Midwest where you might want to manage for Wood thrushes. Where, basically, where’s the forest?

And then this photo up here showing sort of a local forested landscape where Wood thrushes might occur. And then the little forest patch in the middle is, similar to what Mike said, the kind of habitat at the site scale that they’re attracted to where they need, you know, little patches of saplings in a larger forested context. And it’s really important to have all three of these together in order to successfully produce populations of birds. Especially birds that we’re concerned with, like the Wood thrush.

So, this is why we – you know, again, the only rule of real estate is location, location, location. The same is true for bird habitat.

So, we always want to think global and act local or set our priorities from the top down. It’s its really useful to do this, super informative for – for you as a landowner to situate yourself in a larger context and figure out: Where am I on the landscape? What are my opportunities here? What are the unique opportunities that exist here that maybe do not exist elsewhere? And so, that’s kind of what this slide is about. You know, I think Rick said something very similar in his talk, and Armund Bartz did in his talk as well. This concept of figuring out where you are on the landscape and what that might tell you about what’s likely to be successful for your – for your management, what you might want to do with your property.

So, when we think about birds, there are, like Mike said, a – a great diversity of birds in the driftless area. The species that you see here are special because they’re of high conservation concern. Many of these species are in trouble.

Actually, they’re all in trouble. All of these here are in trouble.

But, the – the key thing about this particular grouping of birds is that they only occur in our southern forests in Wisconsin. We have a lot of northern forests. These birds really do not have any opportunity up there for the most part. There are a couple of exceptions here on the slide.

But if we’re going to keep these species in Wisconsin, we’re going to have to keep them here. We’re going to manage for them here. And when you think about forests in southern Wisconsin, there’s a little forest in the southeast. We still have the kettles out there, but the driftless has the most, the greatest, and the best.

So, if we’re going to keep these species, we got to manage for them here. As I said, these species are not doing well. This is a bulleted list of some of the species you saw on the previous slide. And this is population change over a 44-year period, 1970-2014. This just came out in the latest revision to the Partners in Flight Landbird Conservation Plan for North America.

This is the proportion of the global population of each of these species that’s been lost in that time. Some pretty shocking numbers ranging from, you know, 25% for Kentucky warbler, you know, 67% for Whip-poor-will, 73% for Cerulean warbler. So that’s a tremendous amount of the population that’s been lost.

So, this is – this is why we’re concerned with these species.

And so, you know, getting back to understanding where we are on the landscape, we’ve got this map of the driftless area. It is a four-state area, but Wisconsin has the most of the driftless area. We also have the biggest, best, and most connected chunks of forest that are – that are remaining in the driftless area. And so, we have the best opportunity. We also have the highest responsibility.

I also want to make the point, just getting back to Mike’s ridge top field example with the Bobolink versus the Oven bird, we also – the driftless also has a lot of great grassland opportunity. Most of that is down here in this part where there really some very extensive wide-open landscapes, working landscapes, primarily, that are great for grassland birds. So, there’s where you see the differences is – is in terms of situating yourself on a landscape and thinking: Gosh, what are the opportunities? You know, if I’m down here in the southwest grasslands, I mean, that’s really, should be pointing you in the direction of, gosh, you know, savanna prairie, you know, maybe – maybe a nice little woodland in a draw.

Whereas, if you’re up here, maybe primarily sort of north of the – of the Wisconsin River, that’s really a great forested landscape. So, that’s how you can use sort of landscape context to help you make decisions and figure out, you know, what you might want to do on your property for birds.

Another thing to realize is that birds’ needs change throughout their life cycle. Up here, in the – in the north, we get them during the breeding season, but if you notice, in the red, that’s just a very, very short period of time in the yearly life cycle of a bird. It is a very important time in their life, of course. They’re breeding. They’re producing young. This is the next generation. But, of course, most of these birds do not stay here. They come, they breed, they raise their young, and they leave. And so, it’s very important to understand that a lot of the birds that we’re concerned with have to make these very long journeys. They spend the winter in other places where they can run into many different conservation problems.

And, you know, that – that passage back is very important, not just for birds that may breed, that stay to breed in the driftless area, but think of all of those, you know, neotropical warblers that pass through the driftless area and they don’t nest here. They nest in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota and Canada. But as they’re passing through, and Mike mentioned this, the food resource that oaks represent in the spring for these birds is extremely important.

It’s important for the birds that stay to breed here; it’s also important for the birds that are passing through that are making, in many cases, just fantastic journeys. You know, one-night migrations across the Gulf of Mexico. Then they – then they get to the coast, and they got to cross the corn and soybean desert to get up here. Or they’re coming across the Great Lakes. And so, these birds are wanting to reach their breeding grounds in as best condition as they possibly can. As soon as they get there, they got to defend a territory, attract a mate, and raise young. And so that food resource that they encounter here, in the – as – as they’re moving through, is very, very critically important. And so, the prospect of losing oaks on the landscape is frightening. It really has conservation implications, again not just for the birds that breed here but for all of our birds that pass through here and – and require that food resource in the spring.

[Mike Mossman]

So, you’ve seen this basic instruction, I guess, many times today, probably, about having goals for your property. And, you know, our – what – what we hope is that wild – wildlife in a broad sense and plant/animal communities are part of that and – and – as represented by birds.

But it’s very important when – when we’re ask – asking people to think about birds in managing their – their property that – that partnerships are really essential and multiple goals. I mean, to have clear goals but to have management that is going to fulfill as many of your goals that you might have as possible. For us to ask someone to, or even on our own property to – to manage it specifically for birds is not going to happen.

I mean, that has to fit in with – with the finances. It’s got to fit in with – with other things that you want for your property. And so this is where it’s really important to sit down with – with someone that can help you and figure out – you know, do some reading, get to know the birds, get out there, see what’s out there, get together with people that can help you plan, and – and try to make goals that are going to work.

And, then, you know, if – if – if you’re managing with goals, this – no matter what your goals are, this is sort of what you – makes sense to follow this sort of cycle of planning, implementing your management, going out there and monitoring it, using whatever you want, whatever is important to you and – and useful as a gauge for the success of your management, and then adapting.

And if you’re monitoring birds or other plants and animals, it – it – it really helps draw you into – into the land. It helps you understand more of the complexities, not just what you’re monitoring, but the other things that you learn along the way. And there’s help for this, if you’re interested. In learning how to do it and interpreting it.

Oops.

Also, remember that in our goals, our goals aren’t necessarily for an end result, you know. All these – these woodlands and – and landscapes in the driftless area are dynamic, so your goal should be for a process as much as for an end result. And I just use this as an example of savanna restoration. Of all the phases that a piece of land might go through, from a – a – an oak woods there on the upper left and you want to get to that center place where it’s a – a – a savanna or a woodland, you know, it has to go through all these – these what may look like horrible expressions of – of – of land change. You may be cutting down entire pine plantations, like in the lower left. Burning, cutting. And, actually, all these phases have have benefits for – for birds. I mean, there’s a lot of cool birds that’ll exist in just about every phase of this.

And if your end goal is a savanna and know that’s going to be there for a while, who knows how long it’s going to last, what storm is going to come knock it down. Something – all – always be ready for change and embrace that change as best you can.

There’s also things that happen that are just basically beyond your control around your landscape. You may be in a site where you’re fairly isolated. Your – your wood lot may be fairly isolated. Well, maybe over the next 20 or 30 years we start getting more abandoned fields growing up to woods around you. It changes your options. It makes it more – maybe you can bring in more woodland-loving wildlife as a result of that on your piece. Or opposite, if the woods start disappearing around you or changing in some way with time, you may want to adjust your goals to fit into that.

Finances, you know, the economy of – of, you know, the region. They all make an influence, and so our goals need to be adaptable.

But, still, goal is something that you want to adhere to as best you can.

You know, on the lower right is an example of Baraboo Hills openings up on top of the – the bluffs, which would have been formerly forested and savanna but had been turned all to agriculture in the 1800s. Well, this field in the lower left, that guy died. And you can see – I don’t know if you can see the shrub encroachment that’s happening there, a woody encroachment. That’s going to be a woods eventually, which is going to change the value for grassland birds for the neighbors. And it also will improve the – the forest capacity of the woods right around where that field is now.

So, last thing to leave you with, I guess, is just that appreciating birds, using them as a way to draw yourself into the land and – and – and see the effects of your management. Birds are a really good way to watch the effects of management or of – of non-management. Whatever happens on the landscape or doesn’t happen. So, we encourage you to give that a shot.

And, as an example right at the end, we want to give you two woods that were managed sort of using these principles in part but in different landscapes with different goals and how they both had desired effects but quite different ones.

We’re going to compare the John Nielsen tract. Some of you know him, a former DNR forester. His – his 80 – or 200 acres is in a really heavily forested area of Richland County. The Mossman-Hartman tract that I own with my wife is at the edge of the Baraboo Hills but in an area that was naturally prairie and savanna. A much more open landscape.

We developed different goals. We have slightly different histories on these tracts, but kind of different potential that we’re trying to – to meet. On our tract, it was, as I mentioned, savanna, marsh and prairie. A history of – of pasturing everywhere, of course, and some cropland. And our goal was savanna, ecosystem restoration, and some forest products.

We’re limited to what we can get in forest products. It’s not very conducive to it. Steep slopes, not real fertile soils, and some of it’s wet and a lot of it’s rocky.

The Nielsen tract, that 240 acres was pre-settlement maple/oak forest, and the history was high grading. So, a lot of forestry that John wanted to sort of recover the woods from, as well as pasture and cropland. His goal was more forest oriented. He wants sustainable forestry, wood products and wildlife.

So, we’ve worked with – with John on his plans and monitoring his property. And his goal, basically, is, he’s not really concerned with grassland birds. He wants – he want some deer, turkey. He wants good forest, good productive forest. That’s, I think, kind of his main thing. And so, his – his fields are being planted to oaks. That’s all – thats a big oak plant – plantation where he just overplanted, you know, seeded acorn and got way above the deer browse right away.

And that field will be an oak – oak – oak forest before too long.

Lower left, he’s letting some of his, representing sort of central hardwoods. He’s letting some of his oak woods go, or what would have been oak woods, to central hardwoods just in places where it’s too going to be too hard to maintain oak on these north slopes, et cetera.

In the center is an area where he is trying to regenerate oaks with more open, you know, more extreme logging and opening it up. And lower right, this shows sort of these young forests recovering from – from the forest, from the high grading in the past.

And so, also, he has to, like on any piece of land, cut and treat invasives is also an important part. You can see the other forestry practices he’s done on the list there.

Our tract is much more geared towards open habitats. But again, oak is one of the main goals. And so, we’re burning. We’re cutting off cedars. We’re cutting out basswoods and – and mesophytic species. We’re leaving almost all the oaks.

We have some oak woodland, white oak woodland, down in the lower left. We have savanna on some of the more extreme sites. Some goat prairies here on the lower right. This – this woods, when we bought the property in ’95, was – was covered with white or red cedars and buckthorn, and you didn’t – you didnt even know there were hardwoods in there hardly until we got going.

And then, you know, this – this is, you know – these, for example, thats – these are all hardwoods, almost all oaks that – that were hidden by the cedars.

So, different goals. We both used birds to help us gauge the success.

You see in the Nielsen tract on the left, he has Acadian flycatcher, Hooded warbler,

Whoops.

Acadian flycatcher, Hooded warbler, Cerulean warbler, Red start, Wood thrush, Forest interior, a large block forest species. Whereas, for us, instead of increasing the forest species, when we bought the property, we thought about can we ever get these species that Nielsen got? It’s like, no, not unless we really, really spent a lot of work and we still wouldn’t be guaranteed to get it because the landscape isn’t right around them.

So, we went to the savanna because there was still lots of opportunities for that savanna restoration there, lots of oaks. And we’ve been getting what we want as a result. Red-headed woodpeckers, Field sparrows, Orchard oriole, Whip-poor-will. We’ve been able to at least keep them, keep them there, keep one there. And Willow flycatchers down in the shrubs along the – the stream, and Eastern King bird, for example.

And we both have a lot of the general – generalized forest species on – on both of our properties, like the Red-eyed Vireo, Scarlet tanager, Eastern pewee, and Blue-gray gnatcatcher.

So, two landscapes, two sets of goals. Trying to match your goals to the capability of the landscape and trying to match your bird goals to the other – what – what you’re into, what’s important to you. And use the birds sort of as a – as a method of gauging your success and also to – to get you more involved in the property.

So.

And, of course, you know, theres a whole lot – whole lot of other birds out there that aren’t on this slide as well.

So.

Any questions?

[applause]