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Home , Forest gardening, Stripey, Vernal (Martian crater)

SUMMER ’15

A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT THE

The Hatch Colonial Candlewood Nine Notable Turtles Creek Dipping, Solar-Powered Oak , Fox Versus Raccoon, and much more on the web WWW.NORTHERNWOODLANDS.ORG

THE OUTSIDE STORY Each week we publish a new nature story on topics ranging from nature myths to burls.

EDITOR’S BLOG “You break an all-time production record like we did this year and you feel really good about it. But at the same time you realize you’ve gotten far removed from a lantern and a steamy shack and a star-splattered spring sky.” From: Dispatch from the Sugarwoods

WHAT IN THE IS THAT? Cover Photo by Jim Block We show you a photo; if you guess Photographer Jim Block captured this what it is, you’ll be eligible to win image last July while on a group hike from a prize. This recent photo showed Bradley Lake in Andover, New Hampshire, to a porcupine-damaged white pine. secluded Wilder Pond in Salisbury. “We were hiking along mostly undeveloped trails, with Sign up on the website to get some bushwhacking,” says Block. “On the our biweekly newsletter way back we stopped to rest briefly, and I delivered free to your inbox. could not resist photographing the sun For daily news and information, coming through this huge old maple.” FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK

VOLUME 22 I NUMBER 2 REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS CENTER FOR NORTHERN EDUCATION, INC. SUMMER 2015 Virginia Barlow Copyright 2015 Jim Block Northern Woodlands Magazine (ISSN 1525-7932) is published Elise Tillinghast Marian Cawley quarterly by the Center for Northern Woodlands Education, Inc., Executive Director/Publisher Tovar Andrew Crosier 1776 Center Road, P.O. Box 471, Corinth, VT 05039-0471 Dave Mance III Steve Faccio Tel (802) 439-6292 Editor Giom Fax (802) 368-1053 Patrick White Bernd Heinrich [email protected] Assistant Editor Mary Holland www.northernwoodlands.org Robert Kimber Amy Peberdy Subscription rates are $23 for one year, $42 for two years, and $59 for three years. Stephen Long Operations Manager Canadian and foreign subscriptions by surface mail are $30.50 US for one year. Todd McLeish POSTMASTER: Send address corrections to Northern Woodlands Magazine, P.O. Emily Rowe Brett McLeod Box 471, Corinth, VT 05039-0471 or to [email protected]. Periodical Operations Coordinator/ Susan C. Morse postage paid at Corinth, Vermont, and at additional mailing offices. Web Manager Bryan Pfeiffer Published on the first day of March, June, September, and December. Joe Rankin All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written Jim Schley consent of the publisher is prohibited. The editors assume no responsibility Poetry Editor Michael Snyder Adelaide Tyrol for unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. Return postage should accompany all submissions. Printed in USA. Chuck Wooster For subscription information call (800) 290-5232. DESIGN Northern Woodlands is printed on paper with 10 percent post-consumer SFI-00665 Liquid Studio / Lisa Cadieux recycled content.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 1 Center for Northern from the enter Woodlands Education C BOARD OF DIRECTORS President Northern Woodlands was founded more than 20 years ago, and the idea back Richard G. Carbonetti LandVest, Inc. then, as I understand it, was to focus on the and forest culture of Newport, VT Vermont. In time, the state boundaries became confining, and we expanded Vice President our reach to include northern New England and New York. There were Bob Saul practical reasons for this, sure, but it was also just an organic thing to do. Creek Capital Management The trees and the don’t acknowledge state boundaries. Pulp trucks Amherst, MA barrel through Vermont and New Hampshire to Maine. There are unique Treasurer/Secretary wrinkles in the various states, but by and large the and conservation issues Tom Ciardelli are similar. Biochemist, Outdoorsman As the years go by, we find ourselves increasingly drawn southward. Again there are practical Hanover, NH reasons – an increasing number of our subscribers live in the “lower” New England states, and Si Balch we’ve been adding readers in Pennsylvania, as well. A number of our writers, photographers, Consulting advertisers, and board members hail from southern New England; this year’s annual board and Brooklin, ME staff retreat will take place in northwestern Connecticut, at the Great Mountain Forest. Sarah R. Bogdanovitch Here, too, the expansion of our geographic reach just makes sense. As noted in Harvard Paul ’s College Forest’s 2010 Wildlands and Woodlands report, while forest cover is declining in every state in Paul Smiths, NY New England, development pressures are greatest in the . For a nonprofit that promotes Starling Childs MFS land conservation and forest in the Northeast, the states of Connecticut, Ecological and Environmental Massachusetts, and Rhode Island present both the front lines of the urban-rural interface, and Consulting Services Norfolk, CT real-world models for keeping forests intact, even as areas become more densely populated. That’s why I’m gratified by our recent opportunity to work with the New England David J. Colligan Colligan Law, LLP Foundation (NEFF). Prompted by the Wildlands and Woodlands vision of large-scale Buffalo, NY forestland conservation, NEFF has launched an ambitious landowner outreach program in northeastern Connecticut and south-central Massachusetts. Through intensive information Esther Cowles Fernwood Consulting, LLC gathering, testing, and analysis, it will explore what methods are most effective for promoting Hopkinton, NH a forest stewardship ethic and forest conservation. From this learning, NEFF plans to create a Dicken Crane model that is replicable across New England. Holiday Brook Farm As part of this program, on NEFF’s behalf, Northern Woodlands recently completed two Dalton, MA new versions of our Place You Call Home landowner guides, focused on Connecticut and Julia Emlen Massachusetts. These 80-page publications are designed to appeal to a variety of interests, Julia S. Emlen Associates from bird nest identification to practical advice on state tax regulations and estate planning. Seekonk, MA NEFF will distribute the guides to landowners in its program area, and they’re also available Timothy Fritzinger in downloadable form on the NEFF website (see “resources” under www.newenglandforestry. Alta Advisors org) as well as under “programs” on the Northern Woodlands homepage. London, UK Elise Tillinghast, Executive Director, Publisher Sydney Lea Writer, Vermont Poet Laureate Newbury, VT Peter S. Paine, Jr. Champlain National Bank Willsboro, NY Kimberly Royar Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department Montpelier, VT Peter Silberfarb Dartmouth Medical School Lebanon, NH

The Center for Northern Woodlands The mission of the Center for Northern Education, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) public Woodlands Education is to advance benefit educational organization. a culture of forest stewardship in the Programs include Northern Woodlands Northeast and to increase understanding magazine, Northern Woodlands Goes to School, The Outside Story, The of and appreciation for the natural Place You Call Home series, and wonders, economic productivity, and www.northernwoodlands.org. ecological integrity of the region’s forests. in this ISSUE

features 26 Oak and Light JOE HERRING 30 Yankee Tarheels: Pine in Colonial America EMERY GLUCK 38 38 Turtles 50 ILLUSTRATIONS BY LAUREN DIBICCARI 46 Creek Dipping in the White Mountains TONY CHASE 50 The Hatch AMES JR. 60 ATVs: Recreation and Conservation MEGHAN MCCARTHY MCPHAUL

departments

26 2 From the Center 4 Editor’s Note 6 Letters to the Editors 8 Calendar 9 Birds in Focus: Small Brown Birds BRYAN PFEIFFER 11 Woods Whys: Acorns and Weather MICHAEL SNYDER 13 Tracking Tips: Skunks SUSAN C. MORSE 14 Knots and Bolts 23 The Outside Story 25 1,000 Words 30 62 Field Work: The Logistics of Exporting Wood PATRICK WHITE 66 Discoveries TODD MCLEISH 70 The Overstory: Striped Maple VIRGINIA BARLOW 73 Tricks of the Trade: Living Fenceposts BRETT R. MCLEOD 75 Upcountry ROBERT KIMBER 76 WoodLit Outdoor Palette 60 46 79 ADELAIDE TYROL 80 A Place in Mind GREG

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 3 EDITOR’S note

By Dave Mance III

A subscriber from southeastern Vermont, Katie Bowen, contacted us in the spring to ask advice about the problems she and her husband, Mark, were having with neighbors who were complaining about the Bowens’ small-scale firewood business. The town was attempting to mediate, and here’s how she recounted a meeting she’d just been to: “It was extremely tense. We had a lot of community support, but the few neighbors who run an artist’s-retreat- business seem unwilling to compromise. They com- plained not only about the firewood production but about our farming in general. They don’t believe our farm is in an appropriate site (despite the land’s long ag heritage). We have a site visit scheduled with the Development Review Board on May 5. Hopefully, when they hear the firewood processor run and see that it is just a part of our diversified farm, they will give us a permit. I worry, though, that without the State laws changing [to recognize firewood production as an agricultural endeavor] this will continue to happen across Vermont as the state becomes more residential. A long- time Putney resident tried to drive the point home that a diversified farm can’t be cherry-picked to include what neighbors think is appropriate. A diversified farm only works when all the pieces are in place. Sorry...I’m not very eloquent this morning. I’m just so saddened that in this town I grew up in that some people who heat with wood just don’t want it produced in their backyard.” I’ve had first-hand experience with this type of thing in the rural Vermont town I grew up in, and my knee-jerk reaction is to use this column as a bully pulpit to call out the NIMBY neighbor. But I have a head full of turtles right now, after reading David Carrol’s book A Swampwalker’s Journey and Greg Lowell’s essay on the back page of this issue. And the nature writing has me seeing parallels between the Bowens’ problems and those that animals face as they try to navigate our increasingly human-dominated world. “We line the wetland with houses, then ask what we can do to help the turtles,” writes Carrol. We fragment the landscape, then ask what we can do to help the farmers and wood cutters. Looking at things this way, turtle-smooshing cars and firewood-allergic NIMBYs aren’t the real issues; they’re merely symptoms of the same problem. Forest fragmentation, the wonky term that refers to the act of carving up land into smaller and smaller parcels, intensifies conflicts between humans and nature, as well as between humans and humans. It’s been in the news in Vermont lately, as conservation groups rally to raise awareness of the problem. According to a lengthy report issued by the Vermont Department of Forest Parks and Recreation this spring – read it at http://fpr.vermont.gov/node/1237 – the rate of development in Vermont is increasing twice as fast as the state’s , a problem compounded by the fact that population growth is occurring mostly in rural areas (defined as communities with fewer than 2,500 residents). U.S. Forest Service data demonstrate that the state lost five percent of forests over 100 acres in size between 2001 and 2006. This is certainly not a problem that’s unique to Vermont – in fact, it’s old news in southern New England, where over the last century the average parcel size has declined precipitously. (In Connecticut, 70 percent of privately-owned forests are under 100 acres.) The satellite image of the Bowen’s property (opposite page) is a perfect illustration of the concept. That’s their farm on the west side of the road, top right – if you look closely you can see the firewood processor in the front field. While those fields and the behind them were once an ecologically intact unit, subsequent parcelization (literally) changed the nature of the place. Each of those house sites is a vector through which invasive and domestic pets invade the forest – biologists say that every building pocket affects an additional 30 acres of woods that surrounds it. Salamanders, goshawks, and flying squirrels suffer from the influx of edge , which include not only humans and cats but raccoons and skunks and other predators that thrive on the fringe between woods and field . . . you’ve heard all this before. What we don’t hear as much about is the damage fragmentation does to human, rural ways of life. Once a parcel gets below about 50 acres it becomes too small for any serious timber management. To pay the land’s taxes with a sugaring lease you’re going to need a footprint of at least 20 acres of intact forest. The Bowens are trying to make a go of it selling pastured meat, hay, and firewood processed on a 10- parcel, but as this case illustrates, when there are neighbors involved, it’s not just a question of what the land can support in an agricultural sense anymore. When field or forestland gets too small to pay its own way agriculturally, the only way it can generate

4 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 income is to be developed, which means more houses, more neighbors, more right-of-way disputes, noise complaints, posted signs – the whole character of the place changes. Robert Frost’s proclamation that good fences make good neighbors is true only if the place is rural; get urban enough and you need good walls. One of the passages that jumped out at me in the Vermont forest fragmentation report was the claim that fragmentation may be linked to “decreased mood and higher blood pressure, faster heart rate, elevated muscle tension, decreased immune response, increased hyperactivity in children, decreased motivation for exercise, and a general decrease in longevity.” It seems like a stretch without context, but as anyone who knows small town politics can attest, what the Bowens and their neighbors are going through will certainly elicit at least the first four items on that list. Development and population growth is going to happen; we can’t build moats around our rural communities, or tell our neighbors to forgo building houses or having children. We all live in houses that sit on land that was once a forest. But we can do a better job managing human . Part of this involves simply considering nature and wildlife as we make our development decisions. In Swampwalker’s Journal, Carroll writes, after seeing wetland after wetland destroyed in the name of human progress: “somehow the solution is never allowed to be a pulling back to a respectful distance from the natural landscape, finding a proper human proportion within it.” But a big part, too, is supporting traditional land uses, even if it means that you have to occasion- ally hear your neighbor’s firewood processor, or tractor, or smell their farm animals. If working lands are not properly valued in a community, then in a best-case ecological scenario the land will simply be gentrified. Instead of a field full of cows, chickens, and firewood (and all the positive ripple effects these products create in a rural economy), you’ll have a field full of goldenrod acting as a buffer around a fancy house that is heated with fuel oil and has a refrigerator stocked with trucked-in produce. In a worse case, you get more houses. The magazine went to press before the Development Review Board issued a verdict in the Bowens’ case. Let’s hope that group had the wisdom to fall on the side of the working landscape. Local political leaders can help limit fragmentation by sending a clear message that forests and farms – even when they’re noisy and messy and sometimes smelly – are what makes the rural Northeast special and this status quo needs protecting. Specifically they should, as Katie suggests in her email, clear up any doubt that forestry is farming and that a farm should have the right to process firewood and sell it. And if the neighbor won, here’s hoping this story can serve as a cautionary tale to other places in the rural Northeast. Biologists have fairly specific metrics that they assign to the habitat requirements of dif- ferent wildlife species. Spotted turtles, for instance, have a home range of about a mile; they need space and connectivity within that footprint that allows them to feed at vernal pools in spring, then travel overland to lay eggs near swamps or small streams. I’ve never seen a metric that expressed this in human terms, but here we have an example that suggests that a 10-acre lot might be too small to sustain a rural way of life.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 5 letters to the EDITORS

Correction fungal material as it grows this area. How did they do it? I suspect they had A point of clarification on a figure cited (the so-called “black-like extremely well laid out roads, going pretty much in the winter moose feature [Spring substance”). Cankers can downhill with an ice surface. I work with a small 2015]: mountain pine beetle and blister also be the source of an exu- horse in my woods. By weight, my horse is a little rust epidemics have killed more than date that can act like a gum over a quarter of the weight of the teams used then. 44,000,000 acres of pines throughout and allow twigs to adhere to So, by inference, I should be able to draw out two- the province of . the stem. and-a-half cords at a time. In reality, it’s one-quarter Kurt Woltersdorf, to one-third of a cord. Those old guys knew a thing We’re Doing Something Right Sanford, Maine or two. They had brains as well as brawn. To the Editors: Arthur Krueger, Shrewsbury, Vermont I recently purchased 88 acres in western New Your mystery photos could show the glue fun- York, and just subscribed to Northern Woodlands. gus, Hymenachaete agglutinans. [Editor’s note: On January 5, it was 14 degrees and very windy now called Pseudochaete corrugate] I remember Jay Walking here; when I arrived home I was greeted by the studying this fungus as a forestry student at the To the Editors: mail carrier with my first issue. I stayed inside and University of Maine 60 years ago. The name is The article “The Great Forest Migration” [Spring read it cover to cover. I find the variety of articles what stuck in my memory (no pun intended) as 2015] overlooks the dispersal of acorns by birds, extremely informative. Thank you. this fungus is not something adversely affecting especially jays. The author refers to an 1899 book Jim Lickfeld, Williamsville, New York my forestlands. by the English geologist Clement Reid. By Reid’s Fred A. Huntress, Jr., Poland Spring, Maine calculations, it would have taken a million years To the Editors: for oaks to have traveled 600 miles after the I discovered your magazine while waiting in a glaciers receded. doctor’s office and have been browsing through The Sting In the book Forest by William some of your back issues online. Well done. To the Editors: J. McShea and William M. Healey, the authors I live and work in the mountains of northern I was intrigued by Benjamin Lord’s comment that show (on pages 187-189) that jays will distribute Pennsylvania, probably the most southern fringe “all stinging nettles sting” [“Foraging,” Spring acorns from 100 meters to several kilometers. Of of the northern forest, so many of your subjects 2015]. As a child growing up in England, I learned particular interest is the reference to post-glacial resonate with this area. that the female did not sting. I remember migration of oaks in Europe, which indicated Glen Yasharian, Wyalusing, Pennsylvania that we girls would pick the female plants of that dispersal by European jays may account for stinging nettles, remove their white flowers, and migratory rates up to 500 meters (.31 miles) per To the Editors: chase the boys with them, who’d run away afraid year. To have traveled 600 miles in England, then, We have been getting your magazine for sev- of getting stung. it would have taken the oaks only 1,932 years. eral years. I have always picked it up and looked Margaret H. Freeman, Heath, Massachusetts My observations from over 50 years as a through it. This last issue, [Spring 2015], I keep forester and landowner have shown me that blue coming back to. I’ve read every article and loved Ben Lord replies: Nettles do have separate male jays are the prime movers of acorns and beech them all. Forest migration intrigued me, the moose and female flowers – sometimes on separate nuts. I am finding white oak and beech seedlings decline worried me, the logger’s journal amazed plants (dioecious), sometimes on the same one many hundreds of feet from any possible seed me. I keep being impressed by the range and (monoecious). The number of stinging hairs does source. This is a far greater distance than could depth of the articles. Thank you for keeping us vary from plant to plant, but at least in the species be possible for squirrels. Without the seed disper- informed and entertained this long, cold winter. endemic to New England, this doesn’t correlate sal by blue jays there would be far fewer oaks in Melissa Dion, Bakersfield, Vermont with their sex. the forest today. Fred A. Huntress, Jr., Poland Spring, Maine Horse Power Clues to the Mystery To the Editors: I was especially impressed with Benjamin Lord’s, In the Spring 2015 issue, we asked for your help The article, “I have Earned My Place, A Logger’s “The Great Forest Migration” essay. On the sub- identifying a mysterious substance on some Year, 1936,” in your Spring issue was wonderful. ject of seed dispersal, here is another account twigs. Several of you obliged with educated (and I am intrigued by the photo on page 52 of the he and your readers will undoubtedly enjoy. I educational) guesses; while we may not have a team drawing out cord wood and the caption received a research fellowship to participate in definitive answer, we’re wiser for the exercise. thereunder indicating that Slim Frank, “King of the an ocelot and jaguar study in the dry of Forest,” drove a load of 10 cords with one pair of ’s west coast, north of Manzanillo. One It looks like the twig may be attached to the maple horses for 4.5 miles. day, while examining numerous collected ocelot stem at the site of a stem canker. It is possible that At 2 tons a cord, that’s 20 tons. This would be feces under the microscope, I noted that several as the canker forms, a twig resting against the a real good load on a log truck today. I have seen of them had many tiny grass seeds within them. maple stem becomes partially contained by the pictures of a team drawing out 7 cords of ash in There were no grass fibers, just the seeds. Those

6 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 scats also had the short hairs and bone fragments It is also unfortunate that landowners are not Role Model Memories from spiny pocket mice. I suddenly realized what only denied a property tax break by voluntarily Dave Mance’s nostalgic recollection of the man was going on. The ocelots had eaten the mice, and dramatically reducing the value of their land, who introduced him to the great outdoors [Editor’s which had previously eaten the grass seeds. I but their only solution to achieve property tax Note, Spring 2015] struck a vibrant chord in my decided to see if the wide-ranging ocelot could be relief seems to be to enroll in current use pro- memory bank: Uncle Rudy. When I was in junior a means of dispersing grass species throughout grams. Unfortunately, most of these current use high school, Rudy would often stop by with trout, the eco-region. I set up a germination project on programs require a 10-year forest management smelt, and rabbit for our dinner table. He taught my windowsill and, lo and behold, the seeds did plan prepared by a forester, and that the land me to fly-fish for brook trout, auger 18 inches sprout! Of course, my Mexican colleagues must be managed for timber. What if landowners do through ice on Lake Champlain to catch tasty have wondered what grass the gringo scientist not want to enroll in a government program, smelt, and wade through the backwaters of from Vermont was really growing. do not want to harvest timber, and do not feel lakes on the prowl for walleye. He often broke-in Susan C. Morse, Keeping Track, Inc., comfortable working with a forester who may beagles for friends to hunt snowshoe rabbits and Huntington, Vermont be interested in the sale of their timber? And yet I would join him on these excursions. I remember participation in a current use program is their only the first hunt when the jumped a rabbit way to achieve fair taxation for the land they have and I went chasing after it, shotgun at the ready. Easements Explained greatly diminished in value. Rudy laughed and told me to stay still because To the Editors: The problem is not with easements, nor with soon both the rabbit and dog would make a loop Chuck Wooster [“Conservation Easements,” current use programs, which are an attractive and return so I could nail the rabbit, which I did. Spring 2015] did yeoman’s work presenting alternative for those who want to manage for One late afternoon when the beagle went off where conservation easements currently are, timber. The problem lies with a dysfunctional and didn’t return, Rudy didn’t worry. He left the and the innovations needed to answer the rap- property tax system that finds it too difficult to dog’s blanket near where we parked and the next idly growing demands of farmers here in the downwardly adjust a property’s value if the right morning we retrieved the weary dog reclining on Northeast. To know that is growing to develop has been permanently extinguished. the blanket. again, and giving renewed life to segments of our The solution is both fair and simple: if develop- We often fly-fished for trout on Furnace Brook “old” culture, is most gratifying. ment rights are extinguished, the residual value in Pittsford, Vermont. Back in the 1950s and Two years ago, in answer to the astonishing for taxation purposes is based on what’s left: land 1960s, the limit was 12 and Rudy nearly always demand coming from consumers for nutritious, and timber potential. How difficult can this be? caught the limit. President Eisenhower once locally grown and available food, and the need David B. Kittredge, Shutesbury, Massachusetts came to the Rutland Fair and spent the night at for farmland, my foundation began emphasizing Mountain Top in Chittenden because he wanted to farmland protection and farmer support. As we work To the Editors: experience fly-fishing in Vermont. He fished a sec- with land trusts and granting entities, farmland, Well, you folks have done it again! Another superb tion of Furnace Brook and I am not certain what farmers, and good food are the primary topics of issue! Of particular noteworthiness for me was luck he had. But, Rudy knew the warden, discussion. Your fine article clearly shows that states the well-written article on self- trees and found out where Eisenhower had fished. We are putting talents together to permanently protect by Mike Snyder and the informative piece on hit that part of the brook a couple of days later beaver and castoreum. But the highlight was the and what a catch we had – they had stocked the both the assets and needs (present and future) that conservation easement treatise. Chuck Wooster brook for the President. must be in place for tomorrow’s farmers. is always great reading, and this one is up near Rudy is long gone – he had a stroke while Gordon , Russell Foundation, the top. Fine research of the topic for all of our driving home from a fishing trip and died shortly New Boston, New Hampshire northeastern states, and truly well presented. thereafter. Aunt Rose insisted I take his fishing As Charlotte Tree Warden, and a trustee of The pole, creel, and auger when she was To the Editors: Nature Conservancy, I thought I knew quite a bit out their house. I often go to the basement where Unfortunately, Chuck Wooster’s otherwise great about the subject, but I learned a lot. If there was his equipment is stored and it brings back fond article on conservation easements in the Spring anything important missing, I thought that there memories of great outdoor excursions with Rudy. 2015 issue perpetuates a myth that “landowners might have been more mentioned on the issue He is the reason why I spend so much time generally do not receive a property tax deduc- of assessment and property taxes on easement outdoors throughout the year sugaring, nordic tion for having an easement on their land, in lands – that is a tough one. skating, biking, and fishing. part because such a deduction would be difficult Larry Hamilton, Charlotte, Vermont David Cioffi, Etna, New Hampshire to calculate . . ..” Really? Listers or appraisers have no problem subjectively estimating the value of my house with a new bathroom or a finished basement, but when it comes to valuing land without development rights, the problem becomes insurmountable? I would think it would We love to hear from our readers. Letters intended for publication in the Autumn 2015 issue should be sent in by July 1. be a simple matter of subtraction. Please limit letters to 400 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 7 CALENDAR

A Look at the Season’s Events

By Virginia Barlow June July August FIRST WEEK On fine mornings, bees may swarm, July 1: Conjunction of Venus and Jupiter. Flickers on the ground are probably leaving the hive with the old queen. A new These two bright planets will be only 0.3 eating ants, their favorite insect prey. A queen will emerge from the old hive and degrees apart. Look in the western sky just researcher once counted 5,000 ants in mate with several drones high in the air / after sunset / Cerceris wasps are flying. the stomach of a single flicker / Most of The Virginia ctenuchid is a day-flying One of their prey items is the emerald ash a dragonfly’s one- to four-year lifespan is moth. Its feathery antennae, orange- borer and watching the wasps can reveal spent underwater as a predatory larva. marked head, iridescent blue body, and the invasive beetles’ presence before they The airborne phase lasts for only a few brown wings make it easy to identify / might otherwise be seen / Young skunks weeks / A birdwatching hiatus, as most The lavender and white flowers of showy are out and about / The first barn swallow songbirds have stopped singing, but orchis are being pollinated by insects fledglings are catching their own food and haven’t yet begun to migrate / Check the with long tongues: some bumblebees, the female is sitting on a new clutch woods for woodland asters, the first of the butterflies, and moths asters to bloom

SECOND WEEK The yellow dust that’s particularly July 14: NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft Aug 12 and 13: Perseid Meteor Shower noticeable on cars and still bodies of is scheduled to arrive at Pluto after a peaks at a time when the moon is a thin water is probably white pine pollen. It’s 9.5-year journey / Partridgeberry is crescent; if the sky is clear, viewing will produced in abundance at this time of blooming. The twin flowers of this little be good / Chipmunks are taking a break, year / Human exhalations have four to ground hugger will produce one , but staying underground and eating stored five percent more carbon dioxide than only if both flowers are pollinated / seeds / Luckily for us, hermit thrushes the surrounding air and mosquitos use cone galls reach full size. Resembling have an extended breeding season and this difference, as well as their heat pine cones, each gall began in late April will continue to sing their lovely song detection system, to find us – some- when a small fly laid an egg in a willow after most other birds have fallen silent / times from more than 100 yards away / terminal bud / Broadwing hawk chicks Though wood turtles are usually seen in Blackflies are among the many insects will soon fledge. They often stand on the uplands, they spend more time in thick that are pollinating flowers nest’s edge vegetation near water

THIRD WEEK Bobolinks will soon fledge from nests in Male bullfrogs have pale to bright yellow Many birds molt after breeding and before fields that have not been mowed. Listen throats; in females it’s pale to creamy migrating. They may look very ratty / for the effervescent song of the male as white. A male’s tympanum is larger than Some tobacco hornworms grow to be four he flies up from the grasses / Loon eggs, the eye; a female’s is about the same size inches long but those that are being fed usually two of them, are hatching. Both as the eye / Roadsides are looking good if on by the larvae of parasitoid wasps are parents have shared incubation duties they are lined by Queen Anne’s lace and small. The numerous little white pupal during the past 28 days / Phoebe chicks chicory / Cedar waxwings are feeding cases of the wasps are often seen on the are leaving the nest. Soon the backdoor their young – mostly on , but they’ll caterpillars’ backs at this time of year / (or barn door, or...) can be used again / take any caterpillars or leaf beetles that After they are pollinated, Indian pipes Bullfrogs are calling from the cover of they see / When submerged, the water straighten up and don’t look like white vegetation at the edges of still or slow- boatman breathes from a bubble beneath pipes anymore. Before long they’ll turn moving water its wings black

FOURTH WEEK Grouse chicks can fly, but they don’t fly It’s four bracts, not petals, that are now Birds are quieter and crickets are noisier / very well / Male gray tree frogs are calling, visible on bunchberry. Later, the bright red Jewelweed seeds are being propelled up mostly at night. They make a racket but fruits of this tiny dogwood may be eaten to four feet from their capsules. They are tend to go to bed soon after midnight / by grouse, veeries, and vireos / Tiny little annuals, unlike the vast majority of wild- Gray fox pups that were born in March or toadlets are leaving ponds to take up a flowers / Red efts, the terrestrial phase of April are now learning to hunt. They might terrestrial existence. As tadpoles they were the eastern red-spotted newt, have grown be climbing trees to escape predators or mostly vegetarians, but from now on they tougher skin, lost their gills, and traded in to catch squirrels / American goldfinches will be mostly carnivores / Monarch their paddle tails for a more rod-like begin building nests. They form pairs in butterflies return, just as milkweed begins version / Reddish hues begin to appear on May but delay brood rearing till the seeds to flower. They will lay their eggs on the Virginia creeper, sumac, and red maple / of thistles and other composites are ripe undersides of milkweed leaves Long summer evenings are no longer long

These listings are from observations and reports in our home territory at about 1,000 feet in elevation in central Vermont and are approximate. Events may occur earlier or later, depending on your latitude, elevation – and the weather.

8 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 BIRDS in focus

Story by Bryan Pfeiffer

Finding Refuge in Reference Birds

Pop quiz: Describe a blue jay. Blue with a crest? Okay, but where So to know and enjoy all the streaky sparrows among us, first exactly is the blue on a blue jay? What’s white on a blue jay? recognize intimately, unequivocally, the reference song sparrow, What’s black on a blue jay? And what’s distinctive about a blue a bird many of us encounter nearly every day except during win- jay’s neck and face? ter. So, is this bird a song sparrow? If so, why? If not, why not? You could argue that we don’t need this kind of detail to Spend time outdoors studying reference birds. But also con- identify a blue jay. We know a blue jay when we see one, in the sult a field guide that illustrates sample birds and their distinct same way we might recognize a tamarack. We may not know feather groups. It is one thing to note that a sparrow has dark how many needles are clustered on a tamarack, but we damn well stripes on its head (or a blue jay is blue with a crest). It is much know a tamarack when we see one. better to know in advance how to look at a sparrow – to note its But we also know that details matter – maybe not for distin- lores, auriculars, malar, lateral crown stripes, and supercillium guishing jays, but certainly for identifying many other birds that (and these are only the head markings). we might dismiss or ignore because, “They all look alike.” I hear The same goes for big brown birds. For some groups, getting from far too many birders: “Uh, it’s a female duck,” or “I don’t do to know the reference bird is easier than you might think. Among immature gulls,” or “What’s that sparrow, anyway?” female ducks, your first stop isn’t necessarily the maelstrom of These worthy brown birds deserve better. To identify them, those mottled brown feathers. On your reference bird – in this your usual birding skills apply. You’ll consider habitat, season, case, the mallard – begin with her bill. Orange with a prominent shape, plumage details, bill structure, vocalization, and behavior. black saddle, that bill is unique among North American ducks But it also pays to know in advance which particular field marks (with only the gadwall coming close). When you see it, you will work best for your otherwise forsaken bird group. Bill and leg know with confidence that you’ve got a female mallard. Then color help us separate the white herons and egrets, for example. you can study and learn her feathers. And then move on to those An eye ring and buff-colored neck wash allow us to distinguish lovely female teal – the ducks with the dark bills. Swainson’s thrush from gray-checked thrush. Relative tail length By the way, our mystery sparrow is an (often overlooked) and head size help us tell a sharp-shinned hawk from a Cooper’s Lincoln’s sparrow, whose ultra-fine streaks on a buffy breast hawk. Without knowing these specifics before you encounter you’ll never see on a Song sparrow, which has heavier streaking those classic birding challenges in the field, you may indeed and a bigger spot on a whitish breast. Song sparrows also have a enjoy the bird yet forgo naming it. whiter supercillium (“eyebrow”), more pronounced lateral throat But I have additional advice (and emotional support) for stripes (the “Fu Manchu”), and a longer tail than Lincoln’s and birders who among these brown birds see pandemonium on most of our other streaky sparrows. the pages of their field guides: Get to know “reference birds.” A reference bird is the most common species among any confus- Bryan Pfeiffer is an author, wildlife photographer, guide, and consulting naturalist who ing group. When you know a song sparrow, one of the most specializes in birds and insects. He lives in Montpelier, Vermont. widespread birds in North America – and I mean really know every field mark on a song sparrow, from every angle, including the idiosyncrasies of its behavior – you will more easily identify similar sparrows that are not song sparrows. In other words, you must crawl among the common birds before you can walk with their uncommon lookalikes. Take the LBB (little brown bird) pictured here. It looks like a song sparrow. It’s brown and streaky with a conical bill and a breast spot. But unlike our casual approach to the blue jay, this basic level of familiarity isn’t enough to determine this sparrow’s identity. Plenty of sparrows are brown and streaky. GLENN BARTLEY

What is this little brown bird?

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 9 10 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 woods WHYS

By Michael Snyder

Last fall when acorns were falling out of the oak trees by the thousands, a neighbor said we could expect a hard winter. Presumably the deer needed lots of acorns to last them through the winter. Well, the hard winter did indeed come, and I’m curious to know

how the oak trees get the advance word and FORESTRYIMAGES.ORG produce lots of acorns?

It seems that acorn production is one of those bits of folklore that was once used to predict the severity of the coming winter. In reality, though, it is a reflection of past weather (and other predators during lean years and overwhelm them with seed factors) rather than a predictor. during bumper years. The lean years keep populations of seed- Research have studied seed events extensively; one eating insects, mammals, and birds low enough that they cannot recent paper, for example, documented that from 2007 to 2011, eat all the seeds during bumper years, so an excess is available for six species of oak found growing on Long Island had between one the regeneration of trees. Supporters of this theory point to long- and three good seed years, and that the one total bust year (2011) term seed production records and note that in some tree species, came on the heels of a significant drought. But while reports like seedling establishment is virtually confined to mast years. They these are long on numbers, they’re short on explanations. How also argue that the tendency for synchrony of seed production do bumper come about, and why is it that so many trees in among trees in the same area is consistent with the theory. That an area often produce bumper crops at the same time? is, genes of trees that produce seed out of synchrony with others The synchronous, periodic production of large seed crops would eventually be removed from the population by the vora- within tree populations is often called “masting.” How it happens cious feeding of the otherwise starving seed predators. can be explained by external environmental (mostly weather- The predator satiation theory has many supporters, and over related) and internal physiological (mostly energy-related) the years they’ve tested it and refined it, adding new elements to factors. Typically, each species responds to a particular set of the case. Some scientists, for example, have suggested that the weather conditions that triggers an expense of energy for seed interval between mast years may also be necessary for trees to production. Often, the weather at the time of bud formation recover their energy and mineral reserves from the last high- (the previous growing season) is critical; it determines whether output year and to accumulate enough for the next one. More buds will develop into vegetative (leaves and shoots) or repro- recently, pollination efficiency has been counted as another ductive (flowers and fruits) structures. When conditions are just advantage of masting. The idea is that masting – especially right (usually some temperature optimum), more reproductive when many surrounding trees are also doing it – increases the buds are formed. Of course, weather conditions may continue effectiveness of wind pollination. The more trees that flower at to influence seed size by reducing the number of flowers once, the better the chance for pollination, and the greater the and fruits that make it to viable maturity. Think late frosts, high proportion of filled, viable seeds that result. It’s an economy winds, prolonged drought, or heavy rains. of scale, favoring large, occasional outputs of seed rather than It might be tempting to leave it there, concluding that it takes frequent, small ones. a lot of energy for a tree to produce flowers and fruits and that, In its evolved form, the predator satiation theory provides a well, gee, the more favorable the growing conditions (climate, satisfying combination of the why and the how. If true, it would moisture, light, nutrients), the greater the flower and seed crop. mean that trees have inherent cycles of seed production that Turns out it isn’t that easy. Why groups of trees exhibit masting have coevolved with seed-eating animals and that these built-in is far more complicated – and it might be connected to deer patterns are modified by the influence of weather conditions on (and all the other critters that eat tree seeds). tree physiology. Ecologists have speculated – and put forth supporting data – that masting is an adaptive reproductive strategy. The so-called Michael Snyder, a forester, is commissioner of the Vermont Department of Forests, “predator satiation” idea holds that trees starve would-be seed Parks, and Recreation.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 11 12 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 TRACKING tips

Story and photos by Susan C. Morse

Nose Probes and Digs

A nesting robin was incessantly scolding something that was moving along the length of a downed log. I knelt and studied the area, and soon saw a flash of white, and thereafter the recognizable profile of a striped skunk. A mother skunk was carrying her infant youngster by the nape of the neck just like a kitten. Eyeing me the whole time, she cautiously maneuvered around me and disappeared. I will never forget the look on her face – best described as vigilant, but docile and downright adorable. Unlike the dangerous black bear and moose mothers I have accidentally confronted, she was in no way dangerous or inclined to be aggressive. People don’t much like skunks, probably because of their capacity to spray us with their malodorous and vile musk. Folks under- standably complain about their depredations in the , occasional carnage in the chicken coop, as well as their unsightly “digs” in the otherwise manicured lawn. Regarding the latter, however, skunks’ feeding activities are actually quite beneficial to us. Digs are evidence of where skunks have excavated and con- sumed -eating grubs, or potentially painful yellow jacket hornets and Clockwise from top: A skunk mother. Nose probe in pine needles. Small- their larvae. scale grubbing sign on rotten log; when you encounter such a scene, look In the forest, espe- closely for fragments of beetle carapaces or evidence of other insect prey cially in pine needle duff, that have been excavated from the log. tiny conical craters called “nose probes” show where a skunk has used its nose to reach skunk is an effective hunter of arthropods, beetles, earthworms, into and sniff its dig, searching for invertebrates. If the earth is caterpillars, crickets, ants, grasshoppers, bees, hornets – and moist, and the sign is really fresh, you can sometimes discern their larvae. Small rodents, rabbits, birds, carrion, amphibians, a smooth nose pad impression inside the probe. Small excava- snails, crayfish, and even fresh water clams are consumed, as tions in rotten logs, and small areas of peeled and rolled sod are the eggs of birds and turtles. Larger eggs are deliberately will indicate the work of a petite . Only the tiny paws of a broken by a vigorous backward throwing of the egg between the relatively short-legged animal could leave sign that is so diminu- hind legs, resembling a football player hiking the ball. If the egg tive – just inches wide at most. Similarly, the distance that the strikes a hard surface, the skunk is rewarded with its nutritious debris or sod is pulled or rolled toward the animal will be just contents. Dozens of species’ plant foliage, fruits, and nuts are a inches long. By contrast, a bear’s grubbing debris may be thrown mainstay in the skunk’s summer and fall diet. Many species of back several feet. add to the banquet. The striped skunk boasts a vast, nationwide distribution, and owes this extraordinary success to its dietary penchant for Susan C. Morse is founder and program director of Keeping Track in Huntington, nearly everything. Both nocturnal and crepuscular, a striped Vermont.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 13 KNOTS & BOLTS

[ FORAGING ]

Sumac-ade

I’m not the type to crave foods, wild or otherwise, but on the hottest days of summer when the cicadas are whirring, I do get a serious hankering for sumac-ade. No wild drink is easier to procure. Nor can I think of one more universally liked. Many non-foraging folks already recognize the long, pinnately compound leaves, velvet- hairy branches, gangly growth, and red, elf-hat seed clusters of the staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina). But on more than one occasion, skeptics have interrupted my foraging to ask, “Don’t you know those are poisonous?” I’m not sure how this common roadside plant earned this reputation, but I suspect it has to do with the fact that it shares a common name with Toxicodendron vernix, the poison sumac. These two plants are in the same family, Anacardiaceae, but the fruits of poison sumac POLLINATOR / CREATIVE COMMONS are drooping clusters of waxy, white ( when unripe) that are not likely to be mistaken for the fuzzy, red, steeple-shaped seed clusters of the staghorn. There are other members of the Rhus that do have similar-looking seed clusters, but fortunately, they are also edible. Still, as with any new food, it is best to begin with caution. People with allergies to other members of this family (like cashews, mangoes, and pistachios) are often allergic to sumac, as well. I look for the sumac seed clusters when they reach their brightest burgundy red; where I live, this usually takes place in July. They can be gathered both before and after their peak, Staghorn sumac bob (above); ready to drink (below) WAYNE MARSHALL / CREATIVE COMMONS

14 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 [ APPS ] but their flavor is not as good. The soluble acids that give the sumac its tart flavor readily wash away in rain, so connoisseurs will watch the weather as carefully as the ripening. To prepare the sumac-ade, I use my hands to break off enough of the sticky clusters to About My Woods loosely fill a half-gallon jar. I crush and bruise the fruit, which seems to facilitate the infu- Developer: North East State Foresters sion. The stems of the sumac contain and a white . Steeping in hot water Association leaches their bitter flavors into the beverage to unpalatable effect. So I cover the berries in cold water instead and leave the infusion in my refrigerator overnight, sometimes longer. What it can do: There are more than 1.3 When ready, the water has a reddish-pink blush and a tart, refreshing flavor. I use a jelly bag million apps available today. Exactly one of or cheesecloth to strain the hairs, and then sweeten to taste with a little sugar syrup that these has been designed specifically to help I boil on the stove. I serve it cold and in a wine glass, a flamboyance that the best sumac educate and inform woodland owners in infusions have definitely deserved. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New Of course, none of this fussing is necessary. My first experience with sumac-ade was York. Want to know the soil type, get water- much simpler: I was 16, and a friend and I popped a few of the red seed clusters into a shed information, or see a satellite view of water bottle while out on a hot day-hike. Later, we strained out the hairs with a T-shirt and any precise point on your property? Need help took turns sipping the tart pink liquid at an overlook. I was hooked from that first sip, and identifying a tree, animal, or invasive plant? every July since I’ve gotten a craving. The app can help you with all that, and also help Benjamin Lord you find foresters, landowner organizations, and other forestry resources in your area. “This app is pretty cool – showed me a bunch of stuff about some land I own in New Hampshire, including soils (which I have been looking for, but is way too complicated in other sources). I really like the photos of plants and animals, and can’t wait to get out and use it in the woods.” catfishjohn1968, posted on App Store

Cost: Free BENJAMIN LORD How to Get it: Download through the App Store (Apple) or Play Store (Android) – just type “About My Woods” into the search bar. BENJAMIN LORD

Half-fill a jar with broken-up sumac clusters, add cold water, and refrigerate the infusion at least overnight, before straining.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 15 KNOTS & BOLTS

[ STEWARDSHIP STORY ]

Stewardship Out in the Open at Hidden Valley

Tracy Moskovitz and Bambi just can’t seem to stop buying land. It started innocently enough in 1978, “when Bambi went down to the Post Office and talked to the clerk and she came back with a farm to buy,” as Moskovitz tells it. The farm was supposed to be 60 acres, but turned out to be 100. There were more purchases after that, 40 acres here, 60 there, all contiguous to the first. Their biggest single acqui- sition was 600 acres. Their total now stands at about 2,000. Most of it is forestland, straddling the Jefferson-Whitefield town line in the mid-coast area of Maine, only a few miles from the sea. The couple joke that they don’t have kids so they don’t

have to pile up college savings, and they’ve got to spend their JOE RANKIN money on something, so why not land? They still operate an organic farm on part of property in Whitefield. But about six years ago, at the urging of Gary Hayward, a friend and neighbor, they spun off half of their acreage into the non-profit Hidden Valley Nature Center, which offers recre- stone walls and cellar holes. It’s never been farmed,” said Moskovitz. “We’ve ational trails, woodland educational programs, and gives visitors the oppor- found old camps with potbellied stoves and bed frames, piles of tunity to see sustainable forestry in action. Hayward became Hidden Valley sawdust, and the occasional old horseshoe.” Nature Center’s first director. One of his first steps was to erect and donate a Some of the land was logged not long before the couple bought it, with yurt, today the Center’s most popular overnight facility. some parcels cut harder than others. “It’s all fairly young stands, and as a result Once something of a hidden gem, Hidden Valley is becoming better known our practices are almost all geared toward timber stand improvement,” said and today draws thousands of visitors a year. In 2014, Moskovitz and Jones Moskovitz. won the Maine Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year and the Northeast Harvesting takes place on a single 15- to 20-acre parcel each year. The Regional Outstanding Tree Farmers of the Year awards. They were also work is generally done using a bulldozer to pull trees to the trails, where named Maine’s Best Remote Winter Retreat by Downeast Magazine. they’re loaded onto a log trailer that’s pulled by a big farm tractor. Moskovitz Hidden Valley is a big chunk of woodland, mostly white pine and oak and Jones are intensely interested in “mid-size” harvesting equipment, and – white and red. There are rocky ridges, a kettle bog with pitcher plants, even made a trip to Sweden to see equipment in action. beaver ponds, and Little Dyer Pond. “This is typical of what we do,” said Moskovitz, pointing off into the woods “Almost all of this 1,000 acres has been continuously logged. There are no as we walked along the Big Rock Loop Trail through a stand of pine and oak. In 2007, a operation on the 15 acres around us generated some 30 cords of firewood, another 30 cords of , and 4,200 board feet of . And the woods road is now a trail used by skiers, hikers, dog walkers, and runners. Hidden Valley’s mission is three-pronged: outdoor recreation, education, and sustainable forestry. “Recreation was the driving force at the beginning,” said Moskovitz, though sustainable forestry was a close second, since the couple had always worked in their woods. (Jones is a devoted pine pruner; she’s pruned an estimated 15,000 white pines – 500 or so a year.) Education followed naturally. Their first grant, applied for in cooperation

HIDDEN VALLEY NATURE CENTER with the Chewonki Foundation, was to buy snowshoes for kids to use on trips into the woods. In 2014, a large barn was erected to help host educational offerings. Other structures have also been added, but if there’s one thing stitching the three prongs of Hidden Valley’s mission together, it’s the trails. They are sited not just to efficiently pull out wood, but for how they can be integrated into the trail system post-harvest. “When we move into the next 15-acre

16 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 HIDDEN VALLEY NATURE CENTER

area, we move into there thinking where the trails are going to go. We’re Left: Tracy Moskovitz and Bambi Jones have made the 1,000-plus-acre Hidden going to use them once or twice for forestry and they’re going to be used Valley Nature Center into a nonprofit educational and recreational destination. Right: hundreds of times for everything else. We’re constantly mindful of ‘this would Harvesting is done in-house using “mid-size” equipment. be a neat place to go’ and then take the road that way,” Moskovitz said. Most people come to take a walk or ski in the woods. While they’re there tion and balance them,” he said. they learn about forest management being done – that the thinning produces Hidden Valley’s appeal, McEvoy believes, comes from a combination of its healthier trees, that the brush piles left behind benefit wildlife. “Not everyone size (at 1,000 acres it takes a while to explore) and its commonplace com- wants us to do as much cutting as we do, but they all have an appreciation position. “There’s nothing really sexy or glamorous about this property,” he for it anyway,” said Jones. said. “It has some nice features, but they’re not big mountains or huge timber Today, Hidden Valley is an organization with a $100,000 budget (the or old growth or rare plants. They’re funky wetlands and granite ridges and money comes from memberships, donations, grants, and wood sales). It beaver bogs. It’s something that people can relate to when we’re talking has nearly 500 members and sees some 7,000 visitors a year (everyone is about forestry.” welcome, donations appreciated), most of them in the winter when 20 miles Consulting forester Barrie Brusila of Mid-Maine Forestry has worked with of groomed (but not tracked) ski trails beckon. It offers some 40 workshops Moskovitz and Jones for eight years and recently completed melding all the on about 20 subjects, from timber framing to pruning, white pine ecology to various forest management plans into one plan. chainsaw safety, improving wildlife habitat to building water crossings. For The interesting thing, she said, is that Moskovitz and Jones are bucking three years now it has offered one-day Women and their Woods workshops a trend toward subdivision by reassembling properties “into a coherent for female forest landowners. There’s a kid’s cross-country ski clinic, an whole” with the vision of keeping it undeveloped. From a forester’s point of annual Live Edge Music, and full moon hikes. view that’s an increasingly rare thing. “The opportunity for really long-term For the future, expanding the educational offerings and events is a prior- management in the midcoast area is rather uncommon, and a great thing to ity, particularly involving more school groups, said current executive director have in this part of the state,” she said. Andy McEvoy. He started as a Hidden Valley volunteer helping with logging Perhaps what most excites Jones, Moskovitz, and McEvoy is that they may two years ago because, “I was interested in the woods and in the mid-size have found a way to expand and replicate the model they have created. “We logging machinery and in multiple-use forestry.” recently joined a discussion with a group of four surrounding conservation McEvoy is the only paid employee, and he does it all: from logging in winter organizations and are exploring the possibility of merging,” said Moskovitz. “If to fundraising, public relations, trail work, hut maintenance, membership successful, the result will be a much larger land trust with a broader mission mailings, grant writing, developing new programs, coordinating volunteers. that includes Hidden Valley Nature Center’s successful model of land steward- “One of the best things we’re doing at Hidden Valley is giving equal weight to ship, community outreach, sustainable forestry, education, and recreation.” different forestland values, such as non-motorized recreation, improving and Joe Rankin growing timber, protecting and enhancing certain types of wildlife habitat and providing public access to the community. We give them all great atten- Joe Rankin writes on forestry, nature, and from his home in central Maine.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 17 KNOTS & BOLTS

[ SCIENCE ]

On the Mosquito Trapline

I’m out hunting an unlikely target: mosquitoes. Coast and in the northern At each stop along the road, I pull on a bug net Midwest. It is rarely con- and gaiters, wrestle a cylindrical vacuum and tracted, but is often lethal battery pack onto my shoulder, and head to if it is, and can cause my assigned swamp. I return with my bounty severe brain damage in (there’s no bag limit, incidentally) and store it on survivors. In 2014, a total dry ice in a giant cooler in the trunk of my car. of eight human cases The fog rolling onto the road combined with my were reported across the Ghostbusters-like getup is surely a strange scene United States. No one in GRAHAM ALAN to cars passing by. Vermont became ill, but Each summer in Vermont, field technicians there were three cases from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture visit in New Hampshire, two in swamp sites across the state to get a represen- New York, and one in Maine. Why this disease is tative sampling of two mosquito-borne illnesses: so rare is not well understood. West Nile Virus and Eastern Equine Encephalitis The EEE virus is primarily found in birds, par- (EEE). The study has helped put together maps ticularly passerine, or perching, birds. Mosquitoes detailing the distribution and spread of these catch the virus when they feed on birds and viruses. can then transmit it to people, horses, deer, and

Less commonly talked about than West Nile WWW.PHSOURCE.US Virus, EEE can be fatal to humans and horses. Top: Vermont State Entomologist Alan Graham vacuums First identified in the 1930s, the virus is present mosquitoes out of a resting box trap. Inset: Culiseta mainly along the eastern coast of the United melanura is one of the species most likely to test States, with sporadic occurrences along the Gulf positive for EEE.

[ NATURALLY CURIOUS ]

Fox Versus Racoon

While observing the antics of a litter of red fox kits, I witnessed an encounter between the kits’ mother and a very large raccoon. The vixen started barking incessantly when she saw the raccoon, and slowly moved closer and closer until she was within 10 feet of it. (The male wanted no part of the fight – that’s him in the upper left corner.) After a short standoff, the raccoon lunged toward the fox, which ran a few feet away and then turned and chased the raccoon in the opposite direction. They took turns chasing each other until the fox eventually drove the raccoon away from her den and kits. While raccoons are omnivores, and a large part of their late-spring diet is animals – mainly frogs, fish, crayfish, and invertebrates, but also mammals, including squirrels, rabbits, and young muskrats – I have never heard of raccoons preying on fox kits. But the mother fox’s behavior indicated that she was not comfortable with the raccoon being so close to her litter. The following day, I noticed that the nose of the runt of the litter had been bitten multiple times. Perhaps a coincidence, perhaps not. Mary Holland

18 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 [ ECOLOGICAL ETYMOLOGIST ] moose. These are all “dead-end hosts,” which All these steps happen after the mosquitoes means they cannot transmit the virus themselves. have been caught – but the first challenge is sim- So, if a horse contracts the disease, its owner ply to create a trap that will attract mainly mos- Dear E.E.: need not worry about catching it. quitoes (especially those species in which we are I am a teacher who loves Monitoring this disease is trickier than it may interested). While traps using light are available taking my class outside to seem. Testing mosquitoes for EEE and West Nile and effective, those traps collect many different observe birds, especially in the Virus requires that they be kept at sub-zero tem- types of insects, and sorting through them would spring and fall, but every time peratures. They must be alive until the moment waste valuable time in the lab. titmice come up my students they are put on ice, otherwise the virus denatures So we use three different types of traps that don’t and cannot be detected. Samples are kept chilled, rely on light. The first uses carbon dioxide, in the dissolve into laughter. I’d love even while under the microscope. And since form of dry ice, to attract the mosquitoes, tricking to be able to explain this weird each lab test is an expense, only those species them into thinking that there is an animal exhaling name to them, but I just don’t most likely to catch the disease are tested. (Of nearby. The ice is put into a small thermos that know how. Do you? the 45 species of mosquitoes in Vermont, only hangs from a tree, and the carbon dioxide gradually 10 are tested.) Each collected mosquito must be releases through a hole. When the mosquitoes buzz identified and sorted, which in turn means the by for a tasty meal, they are gently sucked up into The tufted titmouse has to be the cutest mosquito samples must be handled very carefully a net by a battery-powered fan. eastern bird that teachers hate to men- so as not to disrupt any identifying features. The The second type of trap also uses an auto- tion, but the name is completely innocent. loss of antennae, legs, wings, or even the delicate mated fan and net, but attracts the mosquitoes Tit is a fairly old word meaning, simply, scales on the sides of the thorax and abdomen with a different appeal. Certain species like to small animal. It’s been around in English can render an individual mosquito unidentifiable. lay their eggs in dirty water, especially puddles in since about 1500 and seems to come For example, one of the mosquito species most cow pastures. By mixing manure with water, one from Norwegian, where it was applied to likely to test positive for EEE, Culiseta melanura, can create an attractive breeding habitat. When all kinds of small objects. (As a variant on is identified by microscopic bronze scales hidden pregnant mosquitoes land on the water, the fan teat, it’s an even older word – probably where the wing meets the body. again captures them in a closed net, where they dating to 1100 or so – but you can assure will buzz around until a field technician collects your students that the word has nothing to them the next morning. do with these birds.) The third kind of trap is called a resting box Considering that titmice are little, fuzzy trap. Once a female mosquito has gotten her fill gray birds, mouse would seem the more feeding on birds, she searches the forest floor for self-explanatory part of the name, but a dark, sheltered space. We set up black plastic in fact mase was an Old English word boxes with one side open and use a gentle, cylin- meaning tiny or small, making a titmase drical vacuum with a nylon stocking on the end to a small, small bird. The word mase fell suck up those satiated mosquitoes. The resting out of use, though, and the pronunciation box trap and the carbon dioxide trap are set up evolved to titmus. Mus was an old word in prime habitats for Culiseta melanura: lowland for mice and rats (and is still the name of acidic swamps with primarily softwood trees. their genus) so it was really only a matter Though Eastern Equine Encephalitis can be of time until the titmus became the tit- deadly, it is rare. (The State tested 3,245 batches mouse, and school children throughout of mosquitoes last year; each batch ranged from the English-speaking 1 to 50 mosquitoes; of those batches, 8 tested world began to giggle. NATURALLYCURIOUSWITHMARYHOLLAND.WORDPRESS.COM positive for EEE.) Risk increases in swampy areas of the Northeast and the northern Midwest. Simply applying an effective insect repellent will signifi- cantly reduce that risk. Monitoring programs are conducted to keep people alert to the presence of insect-borne diseases and to track changes over time. Check out the U.S. Geological Survey’s dis- ease maps to learn more about the frequency and geographic distribution of EEE, West Nile Virus, and other similar mosquito-borne diseases. Sophia Veltrop

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 19 KNOTS & BOLTS

[ MANY MILES AWAY ]

Community Forestry in

The view from atop the great Mayan pyramids of Tikal, in Guatemala’s Petén region, reveals something that is increasingly difficult to find in the tropics these days: unbroken natural forest as far as the eye can see. The ancient city of Tikal – once one of the largest in pre-Columbian America – sits in the middle of a national park that makes up just one part of the much larger Maya Reserve, which totals more than 5 million acres. Created in 1990, the Reserve is managed not unlike New York’s Park. But it

is not your typical protected area. Rather than CHARLIE WATSON forming a single block of strictly protected habitats controlled by the state, the Reserve is a network of more than two dozen different management units. Nine of these units are 25-year concessions, managed by local communities for timber and In addition to timber, communities harvest non-timber products such as xate (pictured), which has strong demand in other forest products. the U.S. for floral arrangements and religious services. The decision, in 1997, by the Guatemalan government to allow for community management to a third of the world’s tropical forest is under 14 concessions have been cancelled, those that of natural forest in a protected area was and some form of community control. This change has remain active have near-zero . This remains controversial. It was also prescient: over come about for a number of reasons, including is startling in an area like northern Guatemala, the last decade there has been a marked trend moves to decentralize governance more broadly, where conversion of forest – typically for across the global tropics toward devolving forest as well as a recognition that strictly protected operations and often tied to narco-trafficking – is management authority to local groups. Today, up conservation areas – a model conceived in the higher than almost anywhere else in the Americas. vast and thinly populated American West – have While some strictly protected units, such as Tikal, not performed well in the tropics, where “wilder- have successfully kept deforestation at bay, others ness” tends to be home to a lot of people. The have deforestation rates above regional averages, logic behind is that when local people are given the right to sustainably harvest and sell forest products, the forest will be more effectively protected, while providing income and CHARLIE WATSON development opportunities for people who are often marginalized and impoverished.

But does it work? Over the past year, I have been collaborating with colleagues in the Alliance, the Guatemalan government, other NGOs, and the concessions themselves to evaluate the environ-

MANUEL MANZANERO mental, social, and economic effects of commu- nity forestry in the Reserve. Fifteen years into this management model, the results are positive. Looking at forest-cover trends since the year 2000, we found that the concessions have been at least as effective as protected areas in keep- A big-leaf is marked as a seed (“semillero”) ing the forest standing. While three of the original tree in one of the concessions.

20 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 mainly due to illegal land clearing for cattle ranch- typically less than one tree per acre. Annual plans for most silvicultural decisions and account for the ing. We’ve recommended the creation of new prescribe which trees are to be harvested, and lion’s share of income, the concessions have been concessions, and the expansion of existing ones, which will be left for future harvest or protected working to diversify production. Sharply increasing to better control forest conversion. as seed trees. Enrichment planting is required, market demand for less-utilized timber species The concessions operate following sound prin- as well, although it is not always done and many like santa maría (Callophylum brasiliense), pucté ciples of forest management and . All question its effectiveness. Historically, timber har- (Bucida buceras), and machiche (Lonchocarpus concessions must have a long-term management vesting has been focused heavily on big-leaf castilloi), among others, is helping. During my last plan corresponding to the length of the cutting mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) and Spanish trip to the Petén, on a visit to a community cycle (25-40 years), prepared with assistance cedar (Cedrela odorata), which together still make near the border, I saw a dozen species on from a professional forester. These plans are up around 75 percent of the volume harvest and offer, most with buyers already lined up. This is updated every five years, refining the next five the vast bulk of forest profits. an about-face from just a few years ago. Markets harvest years by estimating tree volumes using In other tropical forests, over-reliance on a are changing fast; there is now sharply increased a 3 percent-area sample. Each year, in order to small number of species has led to high-grading, demand globally for such exotic, dense species, receive harvest permits, annual operation plans even where forest management controls are in especially in niche markets in the furniture and must be prepared based on a geo-referenced place. Cognizant of this, we recently did a sys- building sectors. census of all commercial trees greater than 30 tematic assessment of regeneration in a sample Beyond timber, the concessions are also devel- centimeters (just under 12 inches) DBH. Beyond of concessions. Working with communities, the oping enterprise activities around a number of species identification, the inventory records tree government, and a Costa Rica-based research non-timber forest products, such as xate (a palm height, stem quality, and basal area. Annual plans organization called CATIE, we found that under that has a strong export market in the U.S.), Maya must include tree maps, skid trails, roads, and current conditions, mahogany populations should , and . And interest among some niche landings. Crucially, thanks to heavy investments recover their initial densities and volumes by the buyers in provides some hope that the by the U.S. government and others in the form of end of each cutting cycle. This stands in stark industry may be revived. Before synthetic technical assistance, community members are not contrast to the situation in countries like Brazil alternatives were invented in the 1950s, tapping only involved with these steps but actively guide and Mexico, where mahogany stocks in managed trees for chicle was the economic lifeblood of them. In this way, the benefits extend beyond the forests are slowly being depleted. The difference Petén, with companies like Wrigley buying thou- immediate protection of forest resources, as com- in Guatemala is above all attributable to volume sands of pounds of latex per year. munities develop strong local capacities in forest harvest calculations being tied to biological reality. management and operations. To win and maintain Allowable cutting is based on expected growth Benefits to the community a concession, the government also made it a and recruitment rather than simple diameter-limit requirement to comply with the standards of the cutting, which is the norm in most of the tropics. The rarity and laudability of such a sustain- Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The Petén region’s highly favorable site conditions able, diversified forest management system in The silvicultural approach is single-tree selec- for mahogany regeneration also helps. the tropics cannot be understated. Ultimately, tion. Harvest volume per unit area is very low, Although precious woods still form the basis however, forest management is the easy part. For community forestry to be truly successful it The forest canopy of Guatemala’s Maya Biosphere Reserve, as seen from atop the ruins of Tikal. must produce a host of benefits equitably, for a

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 21 KNOTS & BOLTS diversity of people, and those benefits must be compelling enough to make forestry a competitive choice. Here again, the concessions are performing well. On average, timber sales from all concessions top $12 million every year, with sales from non-timber forest products adding another A community-run sawmill in the Reserve. Inset: This map shows deforestation trends in the Maya $5 million. Each year, forestry activities result in Biosphere Reserve during the period 2000-2013; hashed areas are certified forestry concessions. about 3,000 permanent and seasonal jobs being created overall, with most paying well above the nal governance systems that require rotation of drying kiln, for instance, has created significant Guatemalan minimum wage. enterprise leaders every two or three years. While new product offerings and demand. In an average community, this translates to this helps avoid power accruing to a few, it also One of those new markets we’re working to about 50 jobs created every year, and about creates a lack of continuity and, in some cases, a the concessions with, I’m happy to report, is $35,000 in wages paid. Dividends paid to families “time to get what’s mine” mentality that can result located right in my home state of Vermont. Living after forest products sales – averaging around in mismanagement, internal conflict, and soured here but working mostly outside the U.S. can be $400 per household, no small sum in the Petén business partnerships. Furthermore, in such a disorienting at times, so it’s nice to have a local – add to the economic incentives. In addition, in remote area of Central America, where access to connection. My hope is to one day see wood from years where certain profit thresholds are reached, basic services and infrastructure remains scarce, community forests on display in hotels and res- or when there is a community-defined urgent the human and technological capacities to run a taurants – telling the story of places like the Maya need for investment, concessions dedicate up to twenty-first century business need strengthening. Biosphere Reserve in the same way restaurants 30 percent of the profits from sales to projects Like a lot of forest products businesses in the today advertise the farms where the food they such as school upgrades, rural infrastructure, northeastern U.S., communities in Guatemala have serve is grown. healthcare assistance for the old and infirm, and found that one of their best options is to invest in Benjamin D. Hodgdon scholarships. value-added. A second-tier business owned by a Big challenges remain, however. Achieving an number of the community concessions – called Benjamin D. Hodgdon works with the Rainforest Alliance efficient, competitive business around the man- FORESCOM – now has a full-time, paid profes- supporting community forest enterprises globally, with agement of a common property resource is a sional team and the kind of high-quality infrastruc- a focus in Mesoamerica and Southeast Asia. The Maine daunting task in any context. It complicates mat- ture and trained workers needed to compete in native holds degrees in anthropology and forest science; ters that Guatemalan communities have inter- today’s global markets. The installation of a wood- he lives in Richmond, Vermont.

22 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 [ THE OUTSIDE STORY ]

Awkward Adolescent Eagles

A deer died by the river near my home. The crows found it, as did other nests will be “pretty shoddy,” he said, “but they learn to do better next time.” scavengers – a bald eagle, and two big brown raptors that were hard to Another critical aspect of a young eagle’s education is learning how to get identify. Both had white flecking on their heads, wings and bodies, but the along with other eagles. While all eagle species are social, said Katzner, bald markings didn’t match up, bird to bird. They looked unkempt and more than eagles take it to an extreme. They roost and forage in groups, and this means a little disreputable. that they also get into more conflicts. “They’re sort of like humans that way.” It turns out these were also bald eagles, but young birds, dressed in At a food site, or when crossing another bird’s territory, an immature dark plumage. In common with some other long-lived species, eagles have eagle has to figure out how to assert itself, and how to back down from an extended adolescence. They require about four to five years to mature. a fight. Typical of many bird species, “eagles do a lot of posturing, a lot of During this period they don’t find mates, establish territories, or conform to wing spreading and showing their talons,” explained Katzner. Learning this the adult dress code. language is important to avoid getting wounded, or even killed, and it can be “They can really look a mess,” said Chris Martin, a senior raptor biologist a hard won skill. “Some of them never learn,” said Martin. at New Hampshire Audubon. At the time an eagle fledges, its primary and They must also master the diplomatic art of circling. If you have ever secondary wing feathers – the big feathers along the back edge of the wing noticed a pair of eagles performing what looks like a series of lazy rotations – are longer than they’ll ever be again. This extra length makes the wing across the sky, what you may have witnessed was one eagle chasing the area greater and likely provides more lift for rookie flyers, although it lessens other away. Katzner calls this behavior “escorting a bird out of your territory,” aerial grace. and it’s a common way that mature eagles rid themselves of younger birds. As the fledgling wing feathers molt, beginning when the eagle is around If the escortee doesn’t understand the cue, or perhaps is a four-year-old bird nine months old, they grow back at the slightly shorter, adult length. The that is feeling its hormones, then this circling can escalate into full out com- result is a jagged appearance that persists for about two years, until all of the bat. (In some cases, these fights result in interlocked talons and two giant original set of primary and secondary feathers have been replaced. (Eye and raptors falling out of the sky. Yes, this really happens.) beak color also change during adolescence; they start off dark and slowly All told, learning to be an eagle is hard work. So the next time you see transition to yellow.) a scruffy brown raptor lurking among the crows, go easy on the kid. Don’t Although immature plumage is mostly brown, it’s highly variable among mock his messy coiffure. He’s still growing up, and has a lot on his mind. individuals, which explains my birds’ haphazard white markings. According Elise Tillinghast to Todd Katzner, a wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey, there’s some thought that this dark color has a signaling purpose. It may tell adult birds that youngsters aren’t fully mature and thus not a threat to a breeding territory. What is certain, he said, is that in nesting season, when mated eagles are intolerant of adult eagle intruders, they’re much more likely to let young birds linger nearby. This tolerance is helpful, because unlike adults, immature eagles often travel hundreds of miles during nesting season, which begins in early spring and extends through summer. “They bounce around a lot,” said Martin. So what are these youngsters doing, other than flying around and looking messy? “They’re experimenting,” Martin explained. “They’re learn- ing how to make it in the world.” One of the ways they do this is by tailing mature eagles. From these elders, they learn where fish are concentrated, where to scavenge, what roosts offer the best thermal cover on cold nights. They also play house. Katzner described how an immature eagle may join up with a bird of the opposite gender to practice building a nest. Often these

The Outside Story is sponsored by the Wellborn Ecology Fund of New Hampshire Charitable Foundation: [email protected].

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 23 24 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 1,000 words

Photo by Frank Kaczmarek One August morning while hiking a trail in Crawford Notch, New Hampshire, I came upon a small cluster of the shiny polypore (Coltricia cinnamomea). Upon closer examination I noticed a nursery web spider (Pisaurina mira) resting on one of the caps. The nursery spider does not spin a web to capture prey (it actively hunts), but females build “nursery webs” to suspend and protect their egg sacs. Slowly and carefully I placed my camera with a macro lens onto a tripod, positioned it, and took the shot.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 25 EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY

26 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 On Space Probes and Oak Seedlings

By Joe Herring

n November 12, 2014, an unmanned European spacecraft by the name of “Philae” landed on a comet named Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G) as it was hurtling across the galaxy at a speed of roughly 84,000 miles per hour. The culmination of more than 10 years of research and planning by the European Space Agency (ESA), it was the first time mankind has ever attempted such a feat. Scientists hoped that the probe could collect data on the comet’s physical makeup and teach us about how comets may have played a role in the origins of our solar system. Unfortunately, Philae (which weighs 220 pounds and is roughly the size of a washing machine) didn’t quite stick the landing as cleanly as the scientists had hoped. Instead of touch- ing down softly and anchoring itself in place, the landing gear on the probe malfunctioned and Philae bounced off the surface, skipping along slowly under the comet’s low-gravity conditions. A few hours and a half-mile later, Philae finally came to rest in the shadow of a nearby cliff. Although unharmed, this little complication posed an unexpected problem for mission control: Philae was designed to operate on solar power. In its shaded location, the probe was only receiving about an hour-and-a-half of direct sunlight during the comet’s 12-hour day; a mere 20 percent of the solar energy it needed to sustain itself. Within three days, the sophisti- cated Philae space probe fell silent. Oak trees, we are told, can relate to this crisis: they need a lot of sunlight in order to survive. Without the frequent natural fires that historically kept competitors in check, oaks as a group have found themselves in a chronic and steady decline across most of their natural range in the eastern U.S. Stands that originated over a century ago are now being slowly succeeded by a mixture of shade-tolerant hardwoods such as black birch, sugar maple, beech, and yellow poplar. The change is so gradual that many landowners never notice until it’s too late – like the unwitting frog in the pot of water that’s slowly being heated up. Given the importance of oaks for wildlife, timber, and their simple beauty, it’s a trend that has many people concerned. While scientists can precisely calculate the amount of sunlight needed to power a space- craft, it’s more difficult to determine just how much sunlight oak trees really need. Most foresters consider oaks shade-intolerant and recommend even-aged management techniques (shelterwood and clearcut harvests) that will afford “full sunlight” to young oaks. Silvicultural guidelines for the genus Quercus generally suggest canopy openings at least twice as large as the height of surrounding trees, or a half-acre minimum. Some recommend two or three acres as the smallest practical size to minimize shading from the edges and to help dilute the effects of deer. And yet other sources of literature cite oak as being “intermediate” in shade tolerance. Some even describe oaks as being somewhat shade-tolerant as seedlings, but becoming intolerant as they grow and develop into saplings and poles. This suggests that landowners could get seedlings started in the shade, and then gradually increase the amount of sunlight over a period of years as the regeneration advances. “There seems to be a lot of lore, as in folklore, regarding the shade-tolerance

Sunlight is important, and not just on earth. Philae was supposed to touch down in an open area, as this rendering shows. Instead, the solar-powered spacecraft ended up in the shadow of a cliff, where it proved to be extremely shade-intolerant.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 27 ratings of various tree species,” said Dr. Mark Ashton, professor of silviculture and at Yale University. “For one thing,” he said, “there are differences among co-occurring species within the oak genus itself. Red oak, for example, seems to be quite a bit more shade-tolerant than black, scarlet, and white oak.” “And,” he added, “It’s not just about the total amount of sun- light a tree gets, but also about how that sunlight is exposed.” Ashton went on to describe experiments he has conducted using what are essentially Venetian blinds positioned above hundreds of potted oak seedlings. The blinds are aligned MARK ASHTON/YALEUNIVERSITY from north to south with varying thicknesses and gaps between the slats. As simulated sunlight passes over from east to west, the trees receive intermittent periods of direct light punctuated by flecks of shade. “The red oaks in our studies actually performed better with six hours of sunlight than they did with nine hours,” Ashton reported. “It has to do with the way plants balance photosyn- Dr. Mark Ashton’s research at Yale provided different oak species with varying levels thetic activity with respiration, and what optimizes growth over of light in order to evaluate shade tolerance. the long run – the same way an athlete performs better with brief periods of rest.” In other words, it’s interval training for hemlock, and yellow poplar, becomes more severe. trees. “You have to be much more opportunistic in waiting for and More interesting, though, are the ongoing studies that capitalizing on a large acorn crop on these mesic sites – time is Ashton’s team is conducting in the field at the school’s 7,500- decidedly not on your side. Here, over 90 percent of the 1993- acre Yale Myers research forest. In that setting, Ashton said, it’s 1994 cohort oak seedlings were gone after five years.” evident that local environmental conditions such as soil type, So, obviously, sunlight is important, but in visiting with Ashton slope, aspect, and depth to bedrock are the most determining it becomes clear that we’d be wise to remember which is the cart factors for oak seedling survival – not sunlight. and which is the horse. And with up to 10 or even 15 years before “In this part of New England’s undulating glacial terrain, we major acorn crops, it would seem that timing is everything. don’t have problems regenerating oaks on the drier ridgetops Meanwhile, on a comet up in outer space, Philae sits in the with thin soils and shallow bedrock. On these sites, oaks have a dark of a towering cliff much like the oak seedlings competitive advantage. We have seen oak seedlings that are still of ’93, persisting in hibernation mode. Lucky for Philae, there hanging around in the understory from the ’93-’94 cohort (a are no deer, rabbits, brush, and weeds to compete with … but a generation that originated after that year’s acorn bumper crop).” bit more of the gravity that oaks enjoy here on earth might have However, Ashton noted, as soon as one leaves the dry ridges been beneficial. and progresses down into the valleys, the soils become rich, moist, and deep – what ecologists call a mesic growing environ- Joe Herring is a professional forester. He writes in his spare time from his family’s ment. Here, it becomes much more difficult to maintain oaks as remote cabin in the wooded hills of southern Iowa. the competition from species such as black birch, sugar maple,

Sun Versus Shade Oak Species of the Northeast Shade Tolerance Notes BLACK OAK Intermediate It is less tolerant than white and chestnut oaks and about the same as northern red oak and (Quercus velutina) scarlet oak. SOURCE: U.S. FOREST SERVICE/SILVICS OF NORTH AMERICA POST OAK Intolerant Because of its slow height growth, it often is overtopped by other trees, including most other oaks. (Quercus stellata) PIN OAK Intolerant It is less tolerant than elm, boxelder, sweetgum, hackberry, and ash but more tolerant than eastern (Quercus palustris) cottonwood and black willow. NORTHERN RED OAK Intermediate Among the oaks, it is less shade tolerant than white and chestnut and about equal with black and scarlet. (Quercus rubra) SCARLET OAK Very intolerant Except for reproduction under older stands, it is usually found only as a dominant or codominant. (Quercus coccinea) Its absence in suppressed or intermediate positions is indicative of its intolerance. CHESTNUT OAK Intermediate Among the oaks, it is similar in tolerance to white oak, but more tolerant than northern red, (Quercus prinus) black, or scarlet oak. WHITE OAK Intermediate It is most tolerant in youth and becomes less tolerant as the tree becomes larger. White oak seedlings, saplings, (Quercus alba) and even pole-size trees are nevertheless able to persist under a forest canopy for more than 90 years.

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Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 29 YANKEE TARHEELS REMEMBERING THE PITCH PINE INDUSTRY OF COLONIAL AMERICA

By Emery Gluck

one are the days when many in the Northeast relied on pitch pine, and in many cases, gone are the trees themselves. But you can still find this historic tree with the alligator-scale- like bark if you know where to look. It persists in twisted bonsai form, clinging to ledges in coastal New England. Away from deadly shade cast by taller trees, it puts down in the scant pockets of soil the bedrock offers. Brendan Galvin’s poem “Pitch Pines” captures its standing well: SOME TREES LOFT THEIR HEADS LIKE SYMMETRICAL GREEN BELLS, BUT THESE, BLOWN ONE-SIDED BY WINDS SALTED OUT OF THE NORTHEAST, SEEM TWISTED FROM THE GERM. NOT ONE WILL LEAN THE SAME WAY AS ANOTHER.

The tree’s stature is less diminutive when it grows on sand plains and downright stately when its roots can tap into ground water. There was a time when pitch pine forests were prolific through parts of the Hudson Valley in New York and the Merrimack Valley in New Hampshire. In Maine, the tree accounted for 43 percent of the pine south of Penobscot Bay. Almost all the pines on Cape Cod were pitch, and present day Springfield and Chicopee, Massachusetts, sit on what was the largest known pitch pine plain in the Connecticut River Valley. Today, pitch pine forests are largely gone throughout the region, save for a few oases: The Albany Pinebush in New York, Ossipee Pine Barrens in New Hampshire, outer Cape Cod, and Waterboro Barrens in Maine spring to mind. Connecticut is estimated to have lost 95 percent of its pitch pine and scrub oak barrens, making it JIM LUKACH / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS the most decimated terrestrial in the state.

Pitch pine was once prolific throughout southern New England and New York. Today, the New Jersey Pine Barrens represents the largest contiguous stand of pitch pine remaining in the Northeast.

30 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 31 An excerpt from Galvin’s poem perhaps best evokes how the enter winter without hay as without pine.” Candlewood was sold tree was cut and burned relentlessly in the early days: to villagers for between 6 and 10 shillings per cartload in western … TILL THE DESERT FLOUNDERED Massachusetts. It reportedly lit rural homes in New Hampshire, OUT OF THE BACKLANDS AND KNOCKED Vermont, and Maine into the nineteenth century. Candlewood ON THE REAR DOORS OF TOWNS Hill in Francestown, New Hampshire, and Haddam, Connecticut, AND THIS PENINSULA DRIFTED were probably named for the presence of the pine. IN BRUSHFIRE HAZE. In the seventeenth century, New England colonists started to produce from pitch pine. The tar was crucial for the But, ironically, pitch pine decline can be pinned on forest shipbuilding industry, serving as a preservative for the rigging protection as well as exploitation. It’s a species that plays well and probably for oakum, a fibrous material that was caulked with fire; between planks to make the ship water-tight. It was said that AND, CLENCHING THEIR CONES ships never left port without a barrel of tar for use during the UNDER CROWN FIRES, THE GRANDFATHERS voyage. Tar was made by burning pitch pine logs, stumps, and OF THESE PINES HELD ON UNTIL deadwood in an earthen kiln. A sloped gutter at the bottom of HEAT POPPED THEIR SEEDS the kiln directed the oozing tar to a collection barrel. One cord TO THE CHARRED GROUND. of pitch pine could yield roughly 40 to 60 gallons of tar. In some cases, a further boiling process was used to turn In the absence of fire, its population eventually suffers. It also tar into pitch, which hardens when spread out and was used to suffers from competing trees, a trait that David Thoreau protect and make ships’ hulls more water-tight. On land, both picked up on in his journal, once writing: “To my surprise I find pine tar and pitch sometimes protected wooden roof shingles. that in the pretty dense pitch pine wood … Where there are only The townspeople of Rindge, New Hampshire, voted in 1773 to several white pine old enough to bear … there are countless white cover their meetinghouse roof’s wooden shingles with pitch and pine springing up under the pitch pines (as well as many oak) and sand. Tar was also used for axle grease and to tar and feather very few or scarcely any little pitch pines and they are sickly.” scoundrels and British loyalists (often one and the same). U.S. Forest Service data corroborate the absence of new gen- Another valuable product from pitch pine was , erations of pitch pine seedlings in Connecticut and a substantial which could be extracted from the knots. The tree was also mortality rate of older trees. Documented pitch pine/scrub oak tapped as part of turpentine production; the trunk was scarred ridgetop and sand barrens are down to around 0.04 percent of with a series of chevron slashes, and a depressed compartment the Connecticut forest, and the conifer now comprises less than or “box” was cut into the tree where the sap could collect. The one percent of the pines. sap, called crude gum or raw turpentine, was spooned out into a container in a process known (at least in the South) as “dipping CANDLEWOOD, PINE TAR, TURPENTINE gum.” By distilling the gum, you could make of turpentine, a product still used in solvents, cleaners, antiseptics, insecti- Pitch pine was a godsend to the early colonists. They called it cides, flavors, fragrances, and synthetic . The gum itself candlewood and, lacking tallow for candles, burned the resinous was used for making adhesives, sealants, coatings, fluxes, print- pine knots and shivers for illumination. Connecticut Governor ing inks, emulsifiers, and . Towns throughout early John Winthrop wrote, in the 1660s, that pine New England granted licenses for individuals to box or “milk” knots were often all that remained from gen- thousands of “turpentine pines” on their ungranted or common erations of fallen trees in fields that had been lands. A ₤5 fine was levied for violating a 1719 New Hampshire burned clear by the Indians; these knots act that prohibited the cutting of more than one turpentine box were “provided without any labour but per tree unless the trees were private property. the gathering together.” The use of candlewood in the A STAPLE OF EARLY COLONIAL COMMERCE Springfield area was mentioned in an April 14, 1652, treaty between Pine tar was a major export to England (a country that had the Agawam Indians and settlers. largely deforested itself by the early 1700s). The first known It was said that “a prudent reference to commercial production was made in Connecticut farmer would as soon around 1643 when two business partners, John Griffin and Michael Humphreys, started making tar in Windsor. Griffin, a trader, also sold pitch, turpentine, and candlewood.

A cut-away diagram from the late 1800s shows how tarn kilns worked: mounds of pitch pine logs were burned in an earthen kiln to produce tar, which ran down a drain trench and was collected in barrels.

32 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 Of course, it wasn’t long before gov- ernment capitalized on these capitalists. Plymouth Colony passed a June 1661 act that imposed “an export duty of six pence per barrel on tar made within the lands of any township, and 12 pence per barrel for any tar gathered on the Countryes Commons.” As the industry grew, tar production became so widespread in some Connecticut River towns that it became a problem. Some Windsor residents made a court complaint on October 21, 1653, asserting they suf- fered inconveniences by the burning of tar near the town. Tar burning was outlawed in Windsor in 1696, Glastonbury by 1700, Hartford in 1709, and Deerfield in 1715. A 1699 order in Northampton prohibited candlewood collection within seven miles of the meeting house on forfeiture of the same. The rush on pitch pine also led to pine EMERY GLUCK poaching, an act prompting legislation by the general court of Massachusetts to protect the owners of the pines, decreeing: “No person or persons may presume to cut or carry off any tree, trees, or timber, bark or box any pine tree or trees for the drawing of turpentine … without leave or license from the owner or owners thereof: on pain of forfeiture and pay- ing the sum of 25 shillings for every tree cut removed barked or boxed and the turpentine drawn from them to be alike forfeited.” Farther north, pitch pine was also a val- ued resource. Maine’s pitch pine forests along navigable rivers were viewed favor- ably in a 1699 report to England’s Board of Trade for a potential naval stores (tar, turpentine) industry. Casco Bay and the mouth of the Kennebec River were specifi- cally mentioned in the recommondation. A 1704 New Hampshire law allowed taxes to be paid in tar instead of currency. A barrel offset 20 shilling’s worth of taxes. Prior to 1722, the inhabitants of Massachusetts also had the liberty of paying their taxes in tar, pitch, and turpentine at rates set by the Great and General Assembly. American tar was often besmirched by the English as poor quality, as it frequently was made from deadwood instead of live

Top: Prescribed fires, like this one at the Hopeville Pond State Park Natural Area Preserve in Connecticut, are being used to help sustain and promote pitch pine populations. Bottom: A post-burn photo shows pitch pine regeneration is taking place.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 33 trees. It was characterized as “too hot” for its potential to burn known there as “Boston Turpentine” long after the industry left the rigging it was supposed to preserve. In 1685, Springfield New England. imposed a fine upon persons who prepared tar “not marchant- The industry also left its legacy in New England place able.” In 1696, the Navy Board sent Commissioner John Bridger names. There are still at least three Tar Kiln Hill Roads (in to address the problem by instructing the colonists on how to Voluntown, Connecticut; Raymond, Maine; and New Bedford, make a quality product. Apparently, the colonists didn’t listen Massachusetts), not to mention variations like Tarkiln Road very well, as Bridger reported in 1700 that “he prepared a great (found in Orleans and Duxbury, Massachusetts) and Tarkiln many thousand trees in order to make tar for use of his Majesty,” Hill (in Wareham, Massachusetts). Burleyville, Rhode Island, but … “malicious and unthinking people have felled many of has a village of Tarkiln, a Tarkiln Road, and a Tarkiln Pond. And the trees which I prepared…. Such little and litigious actions there’s Tarkiln Path on Martha’s . make not doubt but the trees were burnt by design.” That incident may have led to the inclusion in the Parliament A SECOND BREATH OF LIFE Act of 1704 of a “10₤ fine for the offence of wittingly or willingly firing any woods or forest in which there were trees prepared Pitch pine resurged following the widespread abandonment of for the making of pitch or tar without first giving notice to the farmland in the second half of the nineteenth century, espe- person who had prepared the trees for the making of pitch or tar cially on droughty outwash plains, and trees once again grew in any of the said colonies.” large enough to be harvested as logs. In 1910, the Connecticut Agricultural Experimental Station reported 1.5 million board THE FLAME GOES OUT feet of the pine was cut. (That’s more than was estimated by the U.S. Forest Service to exist in the state in 1998.) The lumber was In some places, it took only about 20 years for the supply of used in barns and for floor boards, as well as to heat houses (at pitch pine to suffer. In 1665, the Massachusetts General Court the homeowners’ peril) and by industry to make ink and fuel restricted tar production to 16 barrels a year, maybe due to rap- locomotives. idly diminished forests. The Plymouth Colony followed suit in Today, almost none of Connecticut’s pitch pine/scrub oak bar- 1668 and limited its proprietors to 10 barrels a year. To conserve rens are sustaining themselves under natural conditions. A major its source of tar, England imposed the Act of 1705, which forbid reason is the absence of . Historically, fires were relatively the colonists from cutting pitch pine and tar trees under 12 frequent, at least near Native American villages. When there was a inches in diameter from Nova Scotia to New Jersey. fire epidemic in the early twentieth century, as much as one out of As production dropped off in New England, it increased in every 33 acres burned annually. Now, just one out of every 4,000 the southern colonies with their abundant longleaf and slash acres burns annually, and the fires are generally less intense. pineries and slave labor. Tar and turpentine production was a In areas where the state of Connecticut is trying to restore leading cause of the decimation of the South’s longleaf pine eco- disturbance-dependent ecosystems, the Division of Forestry systems, critical for the threatened red-cockaded woodpecker. compensates by using both prescribed fires and harvests in Though North Carolina later dominated tar production (as order to sustain pitch pine. Severe fires create a good seed their nickname “the Tarheels” implies), New Englanders were bed by devouring pine duff and exposing mineral soil. The the original tar burners. They kept their hands in the trade as harvesting of white pine sawtimber makes the restoration of their sloops transported much of the tar produced in the South. pitch pine with fire more feasible. (Since larger white pines devel- In this way, they were able to collect the bounty of £4 per ton of op thick, fire resistant bark, they generally do not succumb to tar or pitch, which was authorized only for colonies from New controlled burns. Additionally, the shade from their large crowns Jersey north. Turpentine was also shipped to England. It was keeps the pine duff beneath from drying enough to burn well.) In other barrens, masticators grind up the smaller

RAGESOSS, KEYSTONE VIEW COMPANY / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS scrub oaks – another fire-loving, sandy-soil tolerant species – and prescribed burns are used during the growing season to maintain the open vegetation structure. Prescribed fires are also sustaining the open pitch pine/scrub oak barrens in the Albany Pinebush, Ossipee Pine Barrens, Waterboro Barrens, Montague Plain, Cape Cod, and the islands of southeast Massachusetts. While promoting growth, these controlled blazes also reduce the likelihood of a catastrophic crown fire, such as happened when a sea of pitch pine fueled a 15,000-acre Plymouth,

In many southern states, and some parts of New England, trees were “tapped” for the production of turpentine.

34 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 Pitch pine at Pinnacle Rock in Connecticut, with a closer look at the tree’s alligator-scale-like bark.

Massachusetts, wildfire in 1957. A string of on April 20, 1963 (known as Black Saturday) in the New Jersey Pine Barrens blackened 113,000 acres, consumed 186 houses, and was responsible for seven deaths. Pitch pine cones have historically required fire to open. But as fire becomes infrequent, at least one population in Connecticut has adapted to opening its cones without fire. This change provides foresters with an opportunity, as the pine can be sustained near a parent tree by scarifying the ground RAGESOSS / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (usually with logging equipment) to expose mineral soil. Surrounding trees are har- vested, since the seedlings will not tolerate shade. Where there are no parent trees, seeds can be shaken out of recently opened cones taken from other areas. Unfortunately, forest managers trying to restore pitch pine forests have an insect to worry about. The Southern Pine Beetle, which has been infesting the Jersey Pine Barrens – by far the largest contiguous stand of pitch pine in the northeastern U.S. – was recently found in Connecticut. This native pest will likely affect at least the older, stressed trees. Pitch pine populations in the Northeast today represent just a fraction of the bounty that existed when Europeans arrived. While the tree is no longer relied upon for the myriad uses that caused it to be exploited centuries ago, it now faces other challenges. The conditions that create its preferred eco- system are, for the most part, no longer occurring. And it is difficult for some to accept the management activities, including judicious tree harvests and/or intentional reintroduction of fire, that are needed to sus- tain diverse forest ecosystems and habitats. As a practicing forester in Connecticut, I find the current trajectory of pitch pine and other disturbance-dependent ecosystems of concern. Without additional land protection and mindful intervention, pitch pine and scrub oak in New England may continue to melt away.

Emery Gluck has been a field forester with the Connecticut DEEP Division of Forestry for the past 35 years.

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36 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 37 200 MILLION YEARS AND COUNTING

Illustrations by Lauren diBiccari

An illustrated introduction to some of our region’s turtles

Turtles are rock stars in the animal world, noteworthy not because they’re pretty, but because they’re weird looking. Rather than appealing to our fondness for beauty or grace, they speak to something older and more primal. To watch a snapping turtle lumber along the edge of a swamp is to look to the earth’s ancient past and a time when reptiles ruled the world. With its mossy carapace and wartlike tubercles, a snapper is the closest thing we’ll ever see to an ankylosarus. There’s also something attractive about a turtle’s even disposition and deliberate nature. These qualities make them seem timeless; more than one poet has suggested that we might glimpse eternity in their wildly colorful eyes. This sentiment transcends western culture, as exhibited by the Native American belief that the earth was created on the shell of a giant turtle. Artist Lauren diBiccari’s illustrations on the following pages, and the accompanying observations, speak to our human passion for these animals, a passion we know to be a double-edged sword. While most states in the Northeast have made notable strides in the past two decades to protect turtles from commercial exploitation, a quick Internet search will show you how established the pet market is. A major turtle poaching ring, which was selling endangered wild turtles to the pet market and snapping turtles to the meat market, was busted in New York in 2009. Last fall, turtle poaching again made national news when a man tried to cross the U.S. border into Canada with 51 live turtles stuffed down his pants. Seven of the nine turtle species profiled here are listed as either threatened, endangered, or a species of special concern in at least one state in the Northeast. (The two not listed are snapping turtles and painted turtles.) So if you come across a rare turtle this summer, let someone know. The non-game biologists in any state Fish and Wildlife Department would be interested in a rare turtle sighting, and most states also have amphibian and reptile atlas projects where you can add to our understanding of turtle distribution. At the very least, if the thousands of people reading this story each stop and help a turtle across a road when they see one, we’ll have collectively accomplished some small bit of good. – The Editors

Lauren diBiccari is a wildlife illustrator and field ecologist currently working as a bird bander with the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.

38 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 7HPU[LK;\Y[SL Chrysemys picta picta

“One of the rewards of enduring a long, snowy winter is a long, leisurely bake in the warm summer sun. Warm-blooded or cold, hibernators or not, creatures of all shapes and sizes who remain in New England year-round observe this ritual. In all likelihood the painted turtle, also known as the sun turtle, devotes more time to this endeavor than any other animal, including human beings.”

MARY HOLLAND, from Naturally Curious

*VTTVU:UHWWPUN;\Y[SL Chelydra serpentine

“The likable thing about snapping turtles is that they are, in a word, trouble. But they are interesting trouble — tough, reclusive, and fiercely independent, unhuggable in a culture determined to make all animals cute, paragons of the ‘Don’t tread on me’ spirit in a society that thinks nature ought to be approachable. Snapping turtles are throwbacks not merely to the dinosaurian epoch during which they evolved, but also to our own past as a nation. They are hardheaded American originals.”

RICHARD CONNIFF, from Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 39 )SHUKPUN»Z;\Y[SL Emydoidea blandingii

“Blanding’s turtles approach the size and shape of a football, but their allure comes not from their physical appearance, a black shell with yellow markings and a bright yellow chin and throat, but their personality…. Big brown and yellow eyes look right at you, unafraid yet nonthreaten- ing. Looking into the eyes of a Blanding’s turtle makes you wonder if it feels it has chanced upon a recent evolutionary visitor to the world but does not want to be rude or judgmental about your presence.”

WHIT GIBBONS, Professor Emeritus of Ecology, University of Georgia

>VVK;\Y[SL Clemmys insculpta

“The wood turtle is one of a few reptiles that is not noted for its appearance, but rather, its intelligence. Among turtles, they show an environmental awareness that is well beyond most other species. Tinklepaugh (1932) reported that wood turtles tested in a maze exhib- ited the learning ability of a rat. Wood turtles in captivity will also learn pertinent parts of the human daily routine; a wood turtle held in captive by one researcher learned its way around the house and associated the kitchen with food and the bathroom with swimming.”

MALCOM L. HUNTER et al., from Maine Amphibians and Reptiles

40 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 5VY[OLYU4HW;\Y[SL Graptemys geographica

. . . you think of her patience, her fortitude her determination to complete what she was born to do and then you realize a greater thing she doesn’t consider what she was born to do. She’s only filled with an old blind wish. It isn’t even hers but came to her in the rain or the soft wind which is a gate through which her life keeps walking. She can’t see herself apart from the rest of the world…

MARY OLIVER, from “The Turtle”

*VTTVU4\ZR;\Y[SL Sternotherus odoratus

“The turtle I pluck from his solarium at once lives up to his common and Latin names – musk turtle, stinkpot, Sternotherus odoratus – projecting a noxious smell from glands under the border of his carapace. Though not as proficient and powerful a self-defender as the snapping turtle, these small turtles can inflict a determined and painful bite on the unwary captor. As with snapping turtles, I have never met a musk turtle who did not appear heavily overfed. Her glossy flesh bulges roundly from beneath her carapace as she tries to pull her head and limbs into her shell.”

DAVID M. CARROLL, from Swampwalker’s Journal

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 41 :WPU`:VM[ZOLSS;\Y[SL Apalone spinifera

“In the fall, these turtles burrow under the lake bottom to hibernate. Using transmitters, each turtle’s location is determined within a few feet. A diver then descends to the quiet and featureless lake bottom to search for the turtle’s hiding place. When the diver finds a likely lump, he carefully digs up the large, often unhappily thrash- ing turtle. In an instant the peaceful dive becomes a heart pounding wildlife wrestling match. Fortunately, the turtle’s disturbance is swift; a few measurements and a fresh transmitter, and it gets released back into the lake for its winter sleep.”

ADAM KANE, former co-executive director Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, from Vermont Public Radio interview

:WV[[LK;\Y[SL Clemmys guttata

“There were spotted turtles, too. Smaller than painted turtles, jet black and peppered with bright yellow spots, they spend most of their time hidden among the grass humps and sloughs of marshes. But in spring they come out of hibernation and make for vernal pools to recharge their batteries with wood frog and salamander eggs. Unlike other turtles, they seem to realize the perils of asphalt and move quickly. I learned to recognize their sprints....”

GREG LOWELL, from the back page of this very magazine

42 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 )LZ[;\Y[SL4HUHNLTLU[7YHJ[PJLZ

Each state in the Northeast is home to at least one threatened or endangered turtle species, and wetlands are among the more threatened ecosystems nationwide. As such, it behooves all of us to pay special attention to turtles in our land management endeavors. The first step to good turtle management involves learning the habitat preference of various turtles. As a general rule, snapping, painted, musk, and Blanding’s turtles like slow-moving or still water with soft bottoms and emergent vegetation (cattails, for instance). Wood turtles are primarily river turtles that prefer streams with moderate slopes and speeds; they feed in the upland and field sites adjacent to the stream systems and rely on the streams for refuge and wintering sites. Similarly, spotted turtles are both terrestrial and aquatic (though not to the same degree), traveling between uplands and wetlands. Map turtles are a lower river/lake species that eat mollusks. Spiny softshell turtles are entirely aquatic and found in larger lakes and rivers. Eastern box turtles are land turtles, and while they’ll bathe in puddles or small bodies of water, they prefer deciduous or mixed woods with a moist forest floor. Most female turtles lay their eggs in May to early June and the young hatch in late summer or early fall. Because some hatchlings may overwinter in the nest, these sites must remain undisturbed all year. Turtle eggs are a popular food for raccoons, skunks, and opossums. Landowners can provide nesting habitat by creating small sand or gravel piles in sunny places near ponds or lakeshores. A slightly elevated site will help prevent flooding of the nest. These piles need to be kept free of all tall vegetation. Turtle eggs can tolerate grass roots, but other roots will kill them. Because some aquatic turtles spend the winter on the bottoms of lakes and ponds, the sites must not freeze to the bottom in winter. Lakes and ponds with depths of five feet or more are proven wintering habitat for aquatic turtles. Eastern box turtles dig into the leaf litter and hibernate in forests. Many species of turtles need to bask in order to raise their body temperatures. Leave downed trees along the edges of ponds, rivers, wetlands, and lakes to provide adequate basking locations. Vernal pools are important to many species of turtles, which use them as feeding areas in spring and summer. In areas where timber is to be harvested, a 100-foot buffer around a vernal pool is recommended to maintain shade. An additional limited buffer is recommended to 600 feet, in which timber is harvested carefully to minimize soil disturbance and at least 70 percent crown closure of the tree canopy is maintained.

Management information adapted from: A Landowner’s Guide – Wildlife Habitat Management for Lands in Vermont, by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. Copies are available at www.vtfishandwildlife.com

,HZ[LYU)V_;\Y[SL Terrapene carolina carolina

“A fortunate Eastern box turtle can lead a very long life, very slowly. Records of individual turtles living well past 100 are not uncommon. One such creature was caught and marked on Martha’s Vineyard in 1861, and recaptured several times through 2006. It was a hatchling before the Civil War.”

DAVE TAFT, from The New York Times

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44 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 45 “The harmony between our minds and the world is due to the fact that the world is responsible for our minds.” SIMON BLACKBURN

46 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 walking up here is a form of yoga practice, in the basin is about chest-deep, but to reach it you have to wade I suppose – call it the practice of being upstream, through the water’s own carving. perfectly content. I’m descending today, It is an ordinary day in late summer, in the region of down a steeply sloping ridge on the eastern-most edge of the Pemigewasset. My legs are tired from a week of climbing, and Pemigewasset . The trail follows a buckling and I have read that athletes use ice baths now to help their muscles cool impression in the rocky soil. A while back there were frost recover, but that has nothing to do with what happens next. A particles, cracked and sun-softened and dropping down onto strange Pemigewasset sort of fit comes over me. In less than a my neck. minute my pack is down. My nasty BO clothes are on the ground. But at this elevation, perhaps a thousand Barefoot, first on the sponge and then feet below, enough weather in various forms “A Solo on the icicle rocks, I am wading up into the has accumulated so that I am descending rock vulva. It’s so cold that my feet can’t feel alongside, or in the company of, a stream. how sharp the rocks are, so that’s a help. Few know its source because, technically, Traverse Then I’m chest-deep in the basin, and all there isn’t one. The boundary condition below the neck line has frozen shut. And between weather and waterfall is a subtle of the then – final penetration into the earth mys- and chaotic thing to trace. The stream tery – I’m in the waterfall itself. Gasping in begins as a humid wind, a rainfall, or a White the loud weather; entering the stream. softened plate of snow, and it ends, or dis- ” Knowing your country in this way is a solves, into a lake with a Native American Mountains direct transmission: it is more than we are. name or the North Atlantic, passing from Like the stream, the land is what we are from the rock channel to an outer nowhere, just By Tony Chase and where we are going. I sort of “know” as we all do. this in a quick illumination; and then, of The stream in these woods makes excellent company. course, even the knowing mind goes numb. The rainfall-river interface is vague. The rocks maybe darken, Wading back out through the flume channel, my eyes have the lichen and algae maybe become just a bit more luscious, and opened. The coloring of the stones is so beautiful. Grey ones, then there is a collection of minor tricklings, a merging of the chalky white ice-colored stones, some that are the color of weather and the dew. At some point you have something called barley, some black as night. There is no sound at all but the a stream, where a foot uphill there wasn’t one. On the sturdy and waterfall, but wait, no: it is waterfall blended with wind, and the waterproof maps of the Appalachian Mountain Club, the water wind itself is blended with the fragrance of the pine. It is total courses appear as thin blue lines. Up above a certain altitude the contentment. Maybe the practice works. lines become thinner and then dotty, as if to symbolize the shift- For thousands of years, in hundreds of cultures, water has ing nature of their source in clouds which themselves cannot been held in highest esteem. even be represented. How vague they are: you’d need a new map I am completely and totally and originally alone. This is why every morning, and then another edition at lunch. But anyway, I have come up here, to the White Mountains, and even setting the clouds spill, and they certainly spilled last night, and the out to come here I wouldn’t have known. Maybe I have been stream here is mappable and loud. A billion variations of bub- drawn, or pulled. bling and foam cascade, and all along the banks the vegetation The stream’s movement is also called being moved. It is very is dripping and donating more water to the cause. A mile below emotional, in a calm way. Either that or I am psychotic, which is the summit this channel runs all year. And it has run, according certainly possible. In the words of a Cree shaman: to the flume’s basin structure, maybe millions of years. “When the water hits the rock, it goes up in steam, fills the First there is a loud and white waterfall, lashing its way down air and unifies everything. through a boulder trough and granite ledges. In places it is diffi- At that moment we are connecting ourselves to the cult to see, shielded by the overarching canopy of birch and pine basic elements of life, and that brings out trees, and the luscious channel on either side. I get glimpses the greatest good. of the splashing, and when the trail is close enough, I can taste We are connecting to the movement that is all the spray on the wind. around us, that we are part of, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg said of the mind: “We should and cannot be separate from.” say it thinks, just as we say it thunders.” Or, as we say: the stream runs. But just exactly here, for some reason, in this secret and Dry my shivering cadaver with my wool cap. Ten minutes of I would like to say sacred spot, the waterfall, in the course of walking and I am more or less myself. Except I feel very clean its aeons of more or less steady falling, has gouged a small, and very strange and very happy. round basin in the rock. The action of the weather-water has also polished and arranged a floor of stones. And then by some Anthony Chase has lived in rural Pennsylvania for many years, in a hut where he has preposterous beauty, the water drilled a channel for itself in 50 worked as a laborer in fields and forests while writing and illustrating the world close feet of solid granite, creating what is called a flume. The water by. His collection of essays, entitled “Hut,” is forthcoming from Green Writers Press.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 47 48 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 49 The Hatch

Story and photos by Thomas Ames Jr.

The evening was warm, even for August, and the pitcher for the home team Lowell Spinners was having trouble finding the plate. Millions of white mayflies, disoriented by the bright lights of the baseball stadium, had emerged from the nearby Merrimack River and swarmed over the field like a January blizzard, forcing the umpires to suspend the game. Insects courted and coupled in the air, then fell to the grass and into the seats, where the fertilized females discharged twin canisters of caustic, buttery-yellow eggs and then expired. Within 45 minutes the air had cleared, the grounds crew preened the field, and play continued. The Spinners’ fans had just witnessed what fly-fishers know as a white fly “hatch.” Biologists call it an emergence of the Ephoron leukon mayfly. Mature larvae tunnel out of their burrows in the substrate – that variable composite of rocks, sand, silt, and organic material that lines the beds of rivers – and swim to the water’s surface. There, they cast off their larval casings, inflate their wings, and take to the air. The white fly’s adult flight period, brief even by mayfly standards, underscores the name of its order, Ephemeroptera. The males cast off a final membranous layer prior to coupling with the females. Ironically, the fly-fishers’ jargon for this mating form of a mayfly is spinner. You can witness the same phenomenon by standing waist-deep in Connecticut’s Housatonic River at dusk in early August as you vainly try to attach a fly to your tippet without a flashlight. It would pass unnoticed were you to park your car at the side of U.S. Route 7 where it parallels the Housatonic only 10 yards away. When news of the white fly hatch spreads, dedicated fly-fishers change their evening plans and flock to the river.

At Home on the River The rivers and streams that network through our northeastern woodlands include some of the most historic proving grounds of American fly-fishing. The Catskills rivers of the Delaware drainage, the placid lakes and roaring rivers of the Adirondacks, the limestone corridor of the Battenkill and Housatonic Rivers, and the fishing camps of western and central Maine all have their rich fly-fishing traditions. Each region provides an optimum and specialized aquatic habitat for a unique set of insects.

50 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 A golden Acroneuria stonefly emerges as a winged adult directly from its larval skin. Imitating the life cycles of insects on the river is the mission of fly-fishers. Inset: Caught-and-released fish like this brown trout rarely swallow artificial flies, resulting in greatly reduced mortality.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 51 Most rivers begin under the canopy of forested hillsides, and aquatic beetles, among others, metamorphosis is complete where leaf-shredding larvae chop up deciduous litter for food and passes through a cocooned pupal stage. For mayflies, stone- and shelter and send nutrients downstream in the form of flies, and dragonflies, metamorphosis is incomplete; the winged smaller particles and their own waste. As rivulets collect into adult or sub-adult climbs directly through a split in the larval streams and then rivers, and sunlight reaches the substrate, exoskeleton. Many aquatic insects are sexually mature upon light-loving plants and algae appear. Grazing, collecting, and emergence. Some lack mouth parts for eating or drinking, and predatory insects process an ever-richer food supply into their adult lives last only minutes, hours, or days. Like the larva, increasingly finer particles. For each environmental niche along the adult has a single mission, which is to return fertilized eggs the way, an insect has evolved to exploit it. to the larval habitat. Fly-fishers have created their own colorful nicknames for the As aquatic larvae hunt or forage for food on the stream bot- most prevalent, “fishable” insects, along with artfully designed, tom, and compete for living space, the current inevitably carries hooked imitations. Among the many emergence and egg- them downstream. Without upstream flight, the entire insect laying events by which fly-fishers set their calendars are the fauna of a watershed would eventually wash out to sea. Many Hendrickson mayfly (Ephemerella subvaria), the green drake aquatic insects – including most of the mayflies, caddisflies, and (Ephemera guttulata, known in its spinner form as the coffin midges so often imitated by fly anglers – emerge directly from fly), and the alder (Macrostemum zebratum, a caddis). the water as winged insects and return upstream to the habitat The prime opportunity for fly-fishers is “the hatch,” when where the previous generation deposited its eggs and where the aquatic insect larvae or pupae rise to the surface of water and next generation is best adapted to thrive. Mayflies in the family transform into winged adults. Many of these bugs thrive in the Ephemerellidae, for example, avoid drowning by emerging on same cold, fresh, oxygen-rich water that is home to the region’s smooth surfaces. The fertilized female, however, lays her eggs salmonid fish, which include all species of salmon, trout, and upriver in choppy water over stony riffles where her sturdy, char. The hatch is the golden moment when the survival strate- crawling offspring are most likely to prosper. gies of aquatic insects and this family of freshwater fish synthesize Mayflies are singular in emerging as sub-adults with an extra, to make fly-fishing possible. The conditions are often repeated water-resistant membrane. For centuries, fly fishers have called when these same insects return to the water to lay their eggs. the newly hatched mayflies “duns,” based on the semiopaque, grayish appearance of their two pairs of wings. Male and female duns alike shed this final skin to prepare for aerial mating. Struggling to Emerge The stripped-down adult has a sleek body supported by glassy, The life cycle of an aquatic insect resembles that of a moth or hyaline wings whose shimmer gives the appearance of an insect butterfly. It can last from a few days to a few years, but for most spinning in flight. Entomologists use the labels subimago and the cycle is annual. An adult female lays eggs near, on, or under imago, respectively, to describe these sub-adult and sexually the water, and within days or weeks larvae crawl from the eggs. mature mayflies. A larva has just one job: to gather all the energy it will need for At the moment of transition to a winged adult, an insect the transformation to its adult form. For caddisflies, midges, is vulnerable to predators and to the shifting landscape of the

Peak Flight Periods for Insects in the Upper Housatonic Trout Management Area COMMON NAME SCIENTIFIC NAME ORDER MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV Little Brown Stonefly Taeniopterix species Stonefly Hendrickson Ephemerella subvaria Mayfly Green spotted caddis Hydropsyche morosa Caddisfly Grannom/Olive Dun Caddis Brachycentrus americanus Caddisfly March Brown Maccaffertium vicarium Mayfly Sulfur Ephemerella dorothea Mayfly Light Cahill Stenacron interpunctatum Mayfly Golden Stonefly Perlid family Stonefly Brown Drake Ephemera simulans Mayfly Fly-fishers set their calendars by hatch Alder Fly Macrostemum zebratum Caddisfly charts, which vary greatly from one Housatonic Quill/White Fly Ephoron leukon Mayfly aquatic habitat to the next. The chart Trico Tricorythodes species Mayfly shown here includes the most significant flight periods of insects for the lime- Slate Drake Isonychia bicolor Mayfly rich Housatonic River near Cornwall, Tiny Olives Baetid family Mayfly Connecticut. Dot-winged Sedge Neophylax fuscus Caddisfly

52 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 Fly-fishing the West branch of the Westfield River in Massachusetts.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 53 currents. It can be a struggle to break through the surface ten- sion and climb out of a pupal or larval skin. Many drown in the attempt. Others fall prey to fish of all kinds. Those that succeed in taking flight must escape the birds that swoop out of the sky to pick off newly hatched adults as they seek the safety of trees. To beat these long odds, insects of a single species emerge from the water and return later to lay eggs, in overwhelming numbers and at the same time. Each species has its appointed flight window on the yearly calendar with some variance accord- ing to geographic and meteorological conditions. Although insects emerge from the stream throughout the year, the succes- sion of major, fishable hatches gets underway just as streamside and trees are leafing out in the spring and ends when the last autumn leaves have fallen. Emergence is a response to the right combination of heat energy and light, as if these fac- tors were programmed into each species’ DNA. When the water has been warm enough for long enough, and enough light has reached the stream bottom for the correct number of hours, the hatch begins. Thousands of insects of the same species ascend to the water’s surface to become flying, air-breathing adults. A great many get eaten, but enough escape to perpetuate the species. The spectacle repeats over a period of days at roughly the same hour until the entire species has run the gauntlet and the survivors are resting in the streamside foliage, preparing for the second half of their ordeal. Mayfly spinners mate over the water in mid-air. Caddisflies, stoneflies, and others mate at the water’s edge and in the privacy offered by trees and shrubs. Most will return to the water to lay eggs. This, too, is a synchronous event with a similar set of perils.

Insect Imitation Salmonids have their own survival strategy of selective feeding. For much of the year they have foraged in the substrate or waited until hapless insect larvae pass by in the drift. A fish typically does not reflexively recognize food by sight, but it can taste-test for edibility and either swallow the object or spit it out. During the warmer months, when insects are active, salmonids concentrate their feeding on insect emergence and egg-laying events. Some intercept the nymphs – pharate or preemergent adults – as they swim to the surface. Others seize the moment of eclosion, when the insect is temporarily straight-jacketed by its shedding skin, to feed. With so many insects of a single species available during a hatch, a trout need not waste time with oral sampling. It instead keys on the characteristic size, shape, color, and behavior of the prevalent insect and eats nothing else. This guaranteed return on its energy investment offsets the risk of exposure to predators that a fish runs when it rises to the surface. If a trout can feed safely beneath the surface on ascending dark blue sedge (Psilotreta labida) caddisfly pupae, it may avoid rising to the much larger (and more nutritious) egg-laying coffin flies that litter the surface of the water. For fly-fishers, these survival strategies complicate what might otherwise seem like a pretty straightforward proposition of presenting the right fly in the right way at the right time. An

54 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 The ghostly, black-and-white pallor of the large Ephemera guttulata mayfly spinner inspired the nickname “coffin fly.” Catskills fly-tier Walt Dette reportedly originated the nickname, and fashioned the associated artificial, after attending a funeral.

Nicknamed the “alderfly” or the “zebra caddis,” Macrostemum zebratum is often found in streamside alder bushes. Bill Thompson’s Pheasant Wing Caddis pattern is a life-like imitation of the zebra caddis.

The Hendrickson mayfly, the female Ephemerella subvaria, is the first major hatch on the calendar of most eastern fly-fishers. Roy Steenrod designed his classic Catskills imitation of the female E. subvaria during a hatch and named it after his fishing partner, Albert Hendrickson.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 55 Choosing just the right fly during overlapping hatches of spring insects on the fertile Housatonic River is the key to a successful evening of fly-fishing. Inset: Siphlonurus mayfly spinners swarm over the Battenkill in southern Vermont.

56 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 understanding of the rhythms and cycles of the season, com- bined with astute powers of observation, can make the differ- ence between a satisfying evening on the stream and hours of frustration and disappointment. Mayflies of different genera, to offer one example, are more likely to share the same flight period than two distinct species of the same genus. If you arrive at the water during a sulfur mayfly hatch (Ephemerella dorothea) with a matching, size-18, bright yellow emerger pattern tied onto a gossamer 6X tippet, you may catch your limit of trout many times over. (Of course, you will comply with regulations by gently releasing them.) If your pattern is a size too large, or a shade too brown, or doesn’t sit just right on the water, you might wish you had stayed home. The exact timing of emergence varies with both latitude and altitude. Spring arrives sooner in southern states and at lower elevations, as the degree-days accumulate more rapidly. The advantage is slightly offset by the greater number of daylight hours in the farther north at midsummer. As a result, the sea- son of greatest insect activity compresses, and the density of the insect hatches increases as one travels farther north. Even within New England, the calendar can shift dramati- cally. The Hendrickson mayfly that swarms over the Housatonic River in mid- to late-April waits until early June to appear over the Kennebec in Maine. A few naturalists have attempted to account for these regional differences by correlating the emer- gence of particular insect species with the flowering of local plants. Whether or not such pairings of flora and fauna are consistent from one locale to another, I have noticed that when the Hendrickson mayflies first appear, the honeysuckle shrubs along the riverbanks are beginning to leaf out. The dark blue sedge swarms when maple leaves shift from the yellow-greens of spring to the blue-greens of midsummer, and the pumpkin caddis (Pycnopsyche) starts gathering under my porch light just as the same maples exhibit the first reddish hues of autumn. If you are a fly-fisher, there are few greater pleasures than connecting to a fish with your hand-tied counterfeit fly, but you need not take up the sport to experience the thrill of the hatch. I have witnessed clouds of Brachycentrus caddisflies backlit by the setting sun over New Hampshire’s Pemigewasset River, and sat in stunned silence on the shores of Vermont’s Black River to stare at wave after wave of dark blue sedges rushing upstream. Under a hailstorm of coffin flies descending from the towering trees above Tamarack Stream, I’ve caught the insects with a net instead of the rising fish with my fly rod. I’ve watched in won- der when a swarm of golden stoneflies darkened the evening skies over the upper Connecticut, and I’ve driven through a downpour of dying Hexagenia mayflies along the shores of Cape Breton’s Lake Ainslee. At times like these I am reminded that the prospect of catching a fish is often what draws me to the water, but it is rarely the only reason that I am there.

Thomas Ames Jr. is the author of three books on aquatic entomology for fly-fishers, including the Hatch Guide for New England Streams and Fishbugs, as well as numerous articles for fly-fishing magazines. He is in the sixth year of his second career as a teacher of fifth graders in Canaan, New Hampshire.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 57 58 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 59 Conservation and Recreation ATV Users and Conservationists Find Common Ground

By Meghan McCarthy McPhaul

he jagged spit of New Hampshire’s Coos County sands of additional acres are held in conservation easements. reaches north to Canada, with Vermont at its west- The crown jewel of the region’s protected lands is the Lake ern border, Maine to the east, and the White Mountain Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge. Established in 1992 with National Forest stretching along its southern edge. Small 128 acres, the refuge has grown to over 25,000 acres, reaching towns along rural highways interrupt the landscape of beyond Coos County into western Maine. thick forests and tall, craggy peaks. The open fields of old farms Juxtaposing the tranquility of Umbagog and other quiet appear sporadically. Remote lakes dot the topography, some places is the development of trails for motorized vehicles, with shorelines bordered by cabins and luxury homes, others commonly called ATVs (all-terrain vehicles) or OHRVs (off- primarily the domain of the wilderness that has defined and highway recreational vehicles). In 2005, the state acquired 7,200 supported the northernmost reaches of the Granite State for acres in Berlin – New Hampshire’s northernmost city, once at generations. the center of the logging and paper mill economy – to create Once the domain of timber barons and paper mills, Coos is Jericho Mountain State Park, which is dedicated to motorized the only county in New Hampshire to have seen its population vehicle use. The summer of 2013 marked the much-anticipated decrease since 1970, the economy and populace decimated by opening of Ride the Wilds, a system of more than 1,000 miles of the closure of all but one of the county’s paper mills and the connected trails crisscrossing Coos County. subsequent gradual loss of some 4,000 jobs. The creation of Ride the Wilds has been a collaborative effort In light of these economic hardships, Coos County has of ATV clubs, local municipalities, state and federal agencies, worked to develop its tourism economy, promoting itself as a and land conservation groups. And despite the seeming improb- spot where birders, hikers, hunters, and paddlers can find a bit ability of hosting both non-motorized recreational pursuits and of quiet solitude. The area’s wild-land rich – more than 300,000 an extensive OHRV system on the same site, the two seem to acres in Coos County are publically owned, and tens of thou- operate harmoniously in Coos County, thanks mainly to the

60 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 willingness of various parties to compromise and collaborate. Ride the Wilds was important “ATVs are an important “We have some beautiful places that should be a draw for to the community, and that portion of the economy. people to come from around the country. But they’re not going continued protection of wild- to come for one thing,” said Harry Brown, president of both the life habitat and access to non- We recognize that if you North Country OHRV Coalition and the New Hampshire Off motorized recreation were also put them in the right Highway Vehicle Association. important. place, they’re not going A Vermont native whose resume includes working on the “Our core mission is con- to bother what we’re Appalachian Mountain Club’s hut “Croo” as a young man, a serving land for people who career as an alpine ski racing coach, and another as owner of enjoy the outdoors. Usually in doing at the refuge.” a road construction company, Brown retired to northern New northern New England that PAUL CASEY Hampshire several years ago. He was drawn to the area by its means focusing on hiking, paddling, mountain biking, cross- remoteness and unpopulated land, and he’s spent a good por- country skiing, hunting, fishing, and other traditional uses,” said tion of his retirement drumming up support for and working JT Horn, senior project manager at the Trust for Public Land.

N.H. DEPT. RESOURCES & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT out the logistics of Ride the Wilds, which he considers a “new “However, we have learned through hard experience that we factory” to boost the flagging economy of Coos County. will get broader public support in many rural Northern Forest “I’m not an OHRV recreationalist,” said Brown, who rides communities if we also address the needs of responsible motor- only occasionally. “I’m a catalyst to try to do good things in the ized trail users.” North Country. The goal of Ride the Wilds is to allow consum- And so the Trust for Public Land helped broker a compro- ers to ride door-to-door, go out to dinner, get to the gas stations mise. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gave a 233-acre piece and lodging – all on their machines.” of the refuge (and $6,200) – which included the road to Seven There were plenty of bumps along the road to creating Ride Islands Bridge – to the state. In exchange, the refuge gained a the Wilds, including gaining permission to access town and conservation easement over 280 acres in Big Island State Forest, state roads (a dozen Coos towns now allow OHRV travel on providing habitat that supports the migratory birds and water- their roads) and creating new trails to connect different sections fowl the Umbagog refuge aims to protect. of existing trails. The biggest impasse, however, was securing Brown said the Ride the Wilds network could not have been access to Seven Islands Bridge – the only Androscoggin River completed without the land exchange. While the exchange was crossing for several miles. not finalized until January 2014, Casey issued a special use per- To access the bridge, motorized users would have to cross mit to allow motorized access to Seven Islands Bridge so Ride through a small portion of the Lake Umbagog National Wildlife the Wilds could open for the summer of 2013. As Casey sees it, Refuge, whose conservation plan does not allow OHRV use. the exchange benefited all parties. Without that connection, Ride the Wilds could not link its eastern “I think it’s important for the North Country to offer a mix- section to the rest of the trail network. And that eastern section ture of recreation opportunities, land ownership opportunities, held a big draw for OHRV users: Jericho Mountain State Park. and business opportunities. We all have to be willing to com- With a focus on protecting wetlands and uplands and the promise,” he said. “The refuge is not going to be open for ATV migratory birds that rely on those areas for breeding, Umbagog’s use. It’s open for other activities that people might want to do. conservation plan allows for regulated winter snowmobile use, As long as we work together, the eventual outcome is going to but no motorized use during warmer (breeding) months. be diverse opportunities for recreation and business, with a high “We consider the economic impact of our [conservation level of conservation.” plan] on the local communities, and we want to be benefit- ting the communities,” said Paul Casey, manager of the refuge. Meghan McCarthy McPhaul lives in Franconia, New Hampshire, where she writes on a “ATVs are an important portion of the economy. We recognize variety of subjects and maintains a blog: Writings From A Full Life. that if you put them in the right place, they’re not going to bother what we’re doing at the refuge.” Casey understood the economic importance of the Ride the Wilds system and knew motorized access to the small tract needed to access the bridge would have a minimal impact on the refuge. But his hands were tied by the plan. Cue the Trust for Public Land. Having recently completed BEAR ROCK ADVENTURES/NH GRAND the six-year, $17 million Androscoggin Headwaters Project, Trust for Public Land representatives were well versed in local issues, including the Ride the Wilds project. They knew

Top left: Ride the Wilds opened in 2013, after a land exchange helped to complete the 1,000-plus-mile trail system. Right: Motorized recreation has become a big draw in northern New Hampshire.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 61 FIELD work

By Patrick White

that exported). Between the two of them, they possessed a At Work (Exporting Wood) with wealth of knowledge about exports and shipping. Ally Global Logistics In the early 1980s, as part of his job to solicit cargo for the shipping company he was working for, Stephen attended a Wood has been moved by water for hundreds of years. But these National Hardwood Lumber Association convention in Boston, days the quest isn’t to move logs downriver to the mill as much where he had a chance encounter with Ted Rossi, owner of the as it is to float them to Pakistan, Vietnam, China, or Europe. Rossi Group in Connecticut, which was exporting about 100 That requires ships – ships so big their scale is mind-boggling. containers of wood annually at the time. “He was way overpaying And it takes contacts, and coordination, and at least a little bit for his ocean freight,” is what Zambo recalls thinking during the of the same nerve that used to display on log drives. conversation. Zambo was able to get Rossi a better price, but The physical dangers may be less today, but the financial stakes more importantly, he and Cindra saw an opportunity to help and the logistical hurdles are arguably greater. others in the same situation. In 1984, they formed a company For all of these reasons, most woodlot owners, loggers, and called Aces Limited, which eventually became the largest lumber mills tend to look to local, or at least American, markets first. freight-forwarder in the U.S. Or, if they do choose to take advantage of international demand, The Zambos sold that company to a multinational exporter they sell wood outright to traders, who take ownership and in 2008, “retired” briefly during a five-year non-compete responsibility for exporting. But for those with the willingness window, and then re-entered the market with Ally Global – and the right lumber – to search out foreign buyers directly, Logistics. Large multinational third-party shipping companies, the potential profits are there. like the one they sold their first company to, rely on volume and Navigating, literally and figuratively, the turbulent waters of the export of many different products and commodities. AGL international exports isn’t for novices – that’s where Ally Global focuses on the export of only one product: wood. “We tend Logistics (AGL) comes in. The family-owned “third-party logis- to know a lot more about our customers’ products than our tics” company, headquartered in Norwell, Massachusetts, assists competitors,” said Zambo. those who want to sell wood to markets around the world. Like AGL doesn’t handle finished products, such as flooring, PriceLine or Orbitz does with flights, AGL gives its customers but rather specializes in helping sellers ship either lumber or a range of options for exporting wood, with different prices for raw logs. “We work for a wide variety of exporters,” explains different ports and time frames. Cindra. “They might be a logger in the woods with a cell The company doesn’t own forestland, run a mill, buy or sell phone; they might be a mill, like the A. Johnson Company in wood, or operate its own trucks or ships. Yet last year it played an Vermont; or they might be a huge, multinational company, like integral role in shipping more than 6,000 cargo containers of wood Weyerhauser.” from sellers in the United States to buyers around the world. “Our Currently, about 25 percent of the wood that AGL handles only assets are our computers, our phones, and our personnel,” comes from the Northeast; because the company deals almost said company president Stephen J. Zambo, who operates AGL exclusively in hardwoods, much of the rest originates from along with his wife, Cindra, and son, Stephen A. Zambo. elsewhere in the eastern half of the United States. The company Stephen and Cindra met while they were working in the also operates an office in Portland, Oregon, to help handle wood shipping industry (he for a Taiwanese steam ship company and leaving from ports on the West Coast. Wood that’s less than a she as a cargo broker and later a traffic manager for a company 10-hour drive from a port is usually sent by truck, while longer hauls are done by rail. “We use basically every railhead in the United States,” said Zambo. Ironically, ground transportation expenses often outweigh the costs of shipping overseas. For a recent shipment that AGL handled it cost $1,500 to get the wood from northern Vermont to the port in New York, and then just $900 to get it the rest of the way to China. Most

WIKIPEDIA COMMONS of the wood that AGL helps to export is hardwood destined for furniture-

This maze of worldwide shipping routes shows why logistical assistance can be helpful when exporting.

62 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 ALIFAZAL / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

The CSCL Globe, one of the largest container ships in the world. And trucking wood to the ports, whether it’s done by the client or contracted through AGL, takes time, too. Then there is the making. That doesn’t mean, though, that only high-quality wood paperwork required by foreign countries; while there is some warrants exporting. “We ship some products, like southern standardization in the export business, each country has its own yellow pine, that are worth $4,000 a container,” said Cindra. particular requirements. “The freight and all of the charges can end up almost 40 per- When the Zambos first got involved with wood exports, cent of that. But it’s still worthwhile shipping it.” A container of the volume coming out of the U.S. was much lower than it is hard maple out of Vermont, on the other hand, might be worth today, and most of it was headed to Europe. “There was really $30,000 or $40,000 to an international buyer. Other commonly no Asian market to speak of; we couldn’t even trade with China shipped species include red oak, white oak, walnut, and cherry. in 1984. Everything went through Hong Kong,” says Zambo. As At the heart of the services AGL provides is the basic ability the Asian market began to boom, the volume of wood exported to get cargo on a ship. The company purchases space from 10 rose dramatically. Some of that demand has tapered off recently, different shipping lines operating out of ports up and down the but new markets, like Pakistan, have opened up. The current East and West Coasts, as well as along the Gulf of Mexico; it emerging market is the Middle East. “They’re in a big building then sells that space to those exporting wood overseas. It takes boom right now, similar to where China was several years ago,” some quantity of scale to be able to purchase this space – the said Stephan A. Zambo, who traveled to Dubai in April to build largest modern cargo ships, like the CSCL Globe, are twice the contacts there. length of the Titanic and can hold 19,100 standard (20-foot) While most of the time it’s smooth sailing, life on the high cargo containers; that’s enough capacity to transport 38,000 cars seas can be unpredictable. Rogue waves can knock containers or 300 million laptop computers in a single shipment. overboard. Storms can cause delays. Armed pirates can hijack It turns out that crossing thousands of miles of ocean is the ships. “There are always going to be problems, but we’re very easy part. It’s everything else – the scheduling, trucking, phone good at fixing things,” says Cindra. For example, sometimes a calls, inspections, more phone calls, paperwork, more paper- buyer overseas might reject a load of wood, or refuse to pay the work, and yet more paperwork – that presents the real challenge. agreed-upon price once the wood arrives. Because it specializes And that’s where AGL really earns its fees. “Whenever some- in hardwoods, rather than 100 different commodities, AGL thing is exported, there’s a lot of documentation that has to go knows this particular market and usually is able to help the seller with it,” says Zambo. “We handle all of that.” find a different buyer who might be interested in the wood. Challenges can arise both in the U.S., and overseas. For starters, Global trading requires long work days. “Arranging logistics the wood needs to get to the port on a precise schedule. In is very labor intensive,” said Cindra; “you’re dealing with a lot of order to prevent the spread of forest insects and diseases, different time frames and there’s a lot of stress involved. We want wood products must pass U.S. Department of Agriculture to make sure that things go smoothly and our customers can phytosanitation inspections; boards need to be kiln-dried to grow their business, because their business is our business.” a maximum moisture level of 8 percent, while logs need to go through a USDA-controlled fumigation procedure. The Wagner Forest Management, Ltd., is pleased to underwrite Northern Woodlands’ series inspections take time, and that must be built into the schedule. on forest entrepreneurs. www.wagnerforest.com

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 63 64 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 Just what is SFI®?

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative is a program with tough stewardship objectives that are practiced and promoted by many landowners in the Northeast and across the country.

Performance of these objectives is certified by an independent third party. If you have questions or concerns about any forest practices in Maine, New Hampshire, New York or Vermont or if you want information about forestry tours being offered, Please call 1-888-SFI-GOAL (1-888-734-4625)

www.sfiprogram.org

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 65 DISCOVERIES

By Todd McLeish

Grain Gene Fights Fungus conducting a series of field tests to assess “Beavers feel safest in the water, so such factors as leaf litter decomposition, the farther they can stretch the water The American chestnut may be on the the feeding habits of insects, the growth toward their food in the forest, the bet- verge of a comeback. More than 125 years of ecologically important fungi, and the ter it is for them,” Anderson said of the after Asian chestnuts arrived in the United composition of the nuts. They say that canals beavers construct to reach their States carrying a fungus that caused the all of the results so far are normal. They food resources. “It’s easier for them to near eradication of one of the most com- achieved an important milestone last year float logs to their lodge than it is to drag mon Eastern forest trees, scientists at when the trees with the wheat gene were them across the land.” the SUNY College of Environmental inoculated with the blight and remained At his study site at Miquelon Lake Science and Forestry are growing healthy as healthy as a group of control trees Provincial Park in Alberta, beavers have American chestnuts again. that were inoculated with only water. dug canals that average a meter deep and According to researchers William The next step is to seek approval from a meter wide, and are up to 200 meters Powell and Chuck Maynard, spores from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the long. Walking the natural shorelines of 14 the fungus that causes chestnut blight Environmental Protection Agency, and ponds and along their affiliated beaver- infect a wound in chestnut trees; the the Federal Drug Administration for the constructed canals, Anderson found fungus forms oxalic acid, which eventu- public to grow and plant the trees, a pro- nine times as many wood frogs along the ally kills the vascular tissue of the tree. cess the researchers expect will take about canals as along shorelines that were not Between three and four billion American five years. By then, their field testing will modified by beavers. And in late summer, chestnuts were killed by blight by 1950. be complete and they will have produced after placing drift nets at varying distances Just a few million are believed to have about 10,000 American chestnut trees for from the canals, the number of young-of- survived. Since the late 1980s, Powell and distribution, after which they hope the the-year wood frogs he encountered was Maynard have been working to develop nursery industry will take over production. highest at the canals and declined farther an American chestnut that is blight- American chestnuts were once promi- away from the canal edge. resistant, as the Asian variety is. nent enough to earn a place in American “Wood frogs are vulnerable to dehy- With funding from the American culture – think of how many Chestnut dration as they move away from their Chestnut Foundation and numerous Streets remain long after the trees disap- pond after metamorphosis, so they tend to other agencies, including campfire clubs peared. Its wood is rot-resistant, making move along moist corridors that connect and the Wild Turkey Federation, Powell it suitable for use in construction, and its the pond to the forest,” Anderson said. identified a gene in wheat that combats abundant nuts were once a dietary staple “As long as there was water in the canal, the oxalic acid produced by the fungus. for wildlife. A crowdfunding campaign that’s where most of the frogs were.” After “The wheat gene encodes an enzyme that raised more than $100,000 to grow the a canal went dry, however, frog abundance breaks down oxalic acid into hydrogen first batch of blight-resistant chestnuts. was no longer linked to the canal. “Perhaps peroxide and carbon dioxide, both of “People just love this tree,” Powell said. the surface water was providing some which trees need to grow,” explained Powell, a molecular plant biologist. “It detoxifies the acid, taking the fungus’ Pathways to the Ponds weapons away. It doesn’t kill the fungus, so the fungus doesn’t evolve a way to Beavers are well known for damming overcome it.” streams and creating ponds, forging new By inserting this one gene into the habitat for a wide range of wildlife. In the embryos of American chestnuts, the absence of streams, however, these eco- scientists are producing trees that are system engineers often dig networks of 99.9993 percent identical to the native canals emanating from ponds. A wildlife species. “No one has done this for a biologist for the Canadian province of COURTESY OF NILS ANDERSON forest tree before,” said Maynard, a tree Alberta has found that these canals are improvement specialist. “We hope this used by amphibians as travel corridors resistance gene will get passed on to to and from the forest. Nils Anderson surviving trees and their offspring will observed that beavers and wood frogs carry it on.” often share space in the same combina- To ensure that the blight-resistant tion of pond and forest habitat, and he trees do not have a negative effect on the wondered how the frogs use the habitat Beaver canals are illustrated on this aerial photo of test environment, Powell and Maynard are modifications of the beavers. ponds in the study.

66 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 A stump collage shows the varying heartwood sizes and tones of some sugar maples studied security to the frogs,” he added. Anderson speculates that the frogs were concentrated on the beaver canals not only for the safety of the water but also because the edges of the canals provide good places for basking and overhanging vegetation provides places for them to hide. He still wonders, though, whether the canals may be doing more harm than good for the frogs: the canals proved attractive not only to the frogs, but also to garter snakes, raccoons, herons, and other species that prey upon frogs. In addition to wood frogs, Anderson encountered several other species of amphibians using the beaver canals, including boreal chorus frogs and tiger salamanders, but they were much less conspicuous and found in much lower densities than wood frogs, so he could not draw conclusions about their preference for the canals. Anderson concluded that by linking ponds to adjacent forest, beavers are pro- viding a boost to amphibian populations. “Ultimately, this research is a great illus- tration of how the impact of an ecosystem engineer like a beaver can vary so widely from one place to another,” Anderson ANDREW MISHLER concluded. Hearts of Darkness sugar maples need to know how valuable Trees at the site with the least acidic soils The wood of sugar maple trees is highly it’s going to be, which you don’t know had the smallest hearts, totaling just 12 valued for its even grain and creamy light until you cut it down,” said Ruth Yanai, percent of the stump diameter. At all sites, color, making it one of the Northeast’s who led a study that became the cover trees with what was described as “flaky most commercially important hardwood story in the in January. bark” tended to have larger dark hearts, species for use in furniture, flooring, “The foresters trying to decide how much as flaky bark is a sign of slow growth in and other products. But the heartwood a tree is going to be worth have come up sugar maples, and slow growth appears to in the center of sugar maples often has with methods for determining whether exacerbate the spread of the discoloration. a dark discoloration that is considered it’s got a big heart.” But those methods Lower-grade trees and those growing on a defect by the forest products industry had not been scientifically evaluated. steep slopes were also found to have large and can reduce the value of the wood Yanai and her research partners sam- dark hearts. Contrary to previous stud- by as much as 10 times. Because it is pled 265 sugar maple trees graded one or ies, which found proportionately smaller difficult to determine whether an uncut two prior to harvest at 10 sites throughout hearts in larger trees, no pattern was found tree will have a dark heart just by look- New York, and then studied their stumps linking tree diameter to heart size. ing at it, a professor at the SUNY College after harvest. They also examined soil and “Our results suggest that forest man- of Environmental Science and Forestry other site characteristics and evaluated the agers should not prematurely harvest examined what visible factors might be history of land use and natural disturbanc- their sugar maple crop trees for fear of used to predict the size of a dark heart. es at each site. At the site level, the stron- increasing percentage of dark heart with “People who are buying or selling gest predictor of heart size was soil acidity. age,” concluded the study’s authors.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 67 68 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 69 THE OVERSTORY

Story by Virginia Barlow Illustrations by Adelaide Tyrol

Striped Maple Acer pensylvanicum

Most of the time striped maple is scarcely more than a and in shaded conditions it grows only to about 15 feet high. But unlike most other woody plants that we call shrubs, striped maple has a single stem and is long-lived, often hanging on for 100 years. That’s why foresters are not overly fond of it. Though its preference is for moderate light conditions, it can survive in heavy shade, and if it is abundant in the understory before logging is done, it may flourish afterwards. Trees that have been treading water in a darkened understory for 35-40 years spring to life when given more light and may shoot up as much as three feet per year, to over 30 feet in height when they get to see the sun. Because trees in the overstory protect it from damaging winds, this species saves money by having a shallow root system. In happy times, striped maples are able to shade out seedlings of the overstory species that overtopped them for so long. Sometimes when the meek inherit the earth, they cease to be meek. Slightly acidic, cool northern slopes are the preferred habitat of Acer pensylvanica, and it is most often found among a mix of softwood and hardwood species. In New England it does best at 1,800 to 2,600 feet in elevation and does not do well at the high- est elevations. Its range extends through much of southeastern Canada, most of New England and New York, and south to South Carolina in the mountains. Striped maple buds are big, the terminal ones about one-half-inch long, and they perch on short stalks. They have two visible bud scales that just meet each other and in winter, when the bright rosy buds are wet or coated with ice, they shine luminously. Up close, the buds make identification easy, but chances are you will have pinned a nametag on the tree before you see the buds, for no other tree has such striking lon- gitudinal white stripes on a smooth greenish-brown bark. Snake bark maple is another name, and I expect that is inspired by the garter snake, far and away the most stripey snake in the striped maple’s range. In summer, the leaves are nearly as distinctive as the buds are in winter and they give the tree another of its many names: goosefoot maple. First of all, they are big – big- ger than most gooses’ feet – at five to six inches long, with a rounded or heart-shaped base. Above the middle there are three forward-pointing lobes with long nar- row tips. The margins are evenly serrated, with fine, sharp double teeth. In autumn they turn yellow. The greenish-yellow flowers open in May, when the leaves are nearly full-grown. They are borne in long, pendulous racemes, and nice enough that I’ve sometimes brought them home to put on the table. They would be lovely as earrings on a woman with a longer neck than mine. Like other maples, the seeds are in two joined samaras. Sporting a pretty reddish color early in their development, they change to tan as they ripen in September and October.

70 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 A striped maple will often produce female flowers one year and male flowers the next, and perhaps flowers of both sexes on the same tree another year. This switching around is rare in plants. Jack-in-the-pulpits and several orchid species also do it but striped maple takes androgyny to an extreme. Seed produc- tion is expensive and only healthy, large Jack-in-the-pulpits become females, reverting to the male state when seed-bearing or other factors have depleted the plant’s resources. This does not appear to be the case for striped maples, for here, oddly, the trees bearing female flowers tend to be less vigorous. If changing gender has an advantage, why don’t more plants do it? And if it doesn’t, why do striped maple and some other plants opt for this strategy? A striped maple as young as 11 years old and only three feet high can flower and produce seeds. The seeds ripen early in the fall and the samaras set sail in October and November. A striped maple’s stem isn’t big enough to interest most woodwork- ers but the wood is fine-grained and cabinetmakers sometimes use it for inlays. In spring, the bark and pith can easily be removed from small branches to make a whistle. Whistlewood is another name for the tree. The most important use for striped maple is as food for wildlife. The seeds are eaten by ruffed grouse, but it’s the bark and buds that make this tree so valuable. It is heavily browsed by moose and deer, although in winter the net energy derived is relatively low. It is a favorite food for snowshoe hare, and porcupines frequently eat it, too. When poplar is not available, beavers seek it out. In the early eighteenth century, farmers fed dry striped maple leaves to cattle in winter and green ones in the summer, and both horses and cows were sent to browse the young shoots in the spring. Honey bees and other bees gather nectar from the flowers. The species is relatively free of diseases and insects. Some com- mon fungi, such as tar spot, mess up the leaves if the summer is wet. Agrilus politus, a flatheaded borer, may cause stem galls. Striped maple: a beautiful tree – the moose’s favorite – or a persistent weed whose oversized leaves shade out the seedlings of more valuable tree species? It’s both, of course. I’ve felt discour- aged by its abundance on occasion, but more often grateful for its loveliness.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 71 ersosimo Lumber Co., Inc. Family owned and operated for 61 years! Our experienced Woodlands Staff is available to assist you in achieving your goals in managing your woodlot. Contact our Woodlands office in Brattleboro, VT today for more information. 1103 Vernon Street, Brattleboro, VT 05301 Tel: (802) 254-4508 Fax: (802) 257-1784 Email: [email protected]

72 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 TRICKS of the trade

Story and Photos by Brett R. McLeod

The Living Fencepost 1 2

Fenceposts have always baffled me. Why would any- one take a perfectly good tree, cut it down, dig a hole to set it in, and then spend the next 20 years watching it decay? In my early days of work in the tropics, it was assumed that all fenceposts should be living as a hedge against termites and decay. To be fair, farmers in the Northeast have long used trees as fenceposts, much to the chagrin of the sawyers (and loggers and firewood cutters) who discovered embedded fence hardware decades later. In fact, the common and haphazard approach of stapling a spool of barbed wire to trees at the edge of the pasture is partly to blame for the dismissal of living fenceposts as an appropriate fencing option. Fortunately, a couple of tricks can help to ensure both the health of the tree and a long-lasting fence. To prevent your fence hardware from being con- sumed as the tree grows, you can attach a pressure- treated board to the trunk of your living fencepost using either ring-shank galvanized nails or polymer-coated deck 3 screws, and then attach your fence hardware to the board. As the tree grows it will push against the board instead of growing around your fence hardware. Another common concern with using living fencepost is that you’re inviting branches to fall on the fence. In Europe, this is addressed by , or aggressively pruning the crown of the tree to keep it low and small. While many shudder at the thought of pollarding a tree, I have seen pollarded fencepost trees in Europe that are more than 100 years old. The tops of these trees are trimmed every couple of years, with the young shoots (known as pollard hay) used as livestock fodder. Finally, it goes without saying that you should avoid nailing or screwing any sort of hardware into a tree that might someday become lumber. Not only does it create a potential safety hazard, it also generates a wound that can promote decay and jeopardize the value of the log. On the other hand, using undesirable trees with poor form can serve as an inexpensive, effective, and long-lasting living fencepost option.

Brett R. McLeod is an associate professor of Forestry & Natural Resources at Paul Smith’s College and the author of The Woodland Homestead (Storey Publishing), available summer 2015.

1. The crown of this young beech tree has been pollarded, allowing it to be used as a living fencepost without worry of falling branches. 2. Barbed wire was stapled to this white pine approximately 40 years ago. Always consider future safety and timber uses before introducing metal hardware into a tree. 3. The board method prevents the tree from growing around the fence hardware.

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74 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 up COUNTRY

By Robert Kimber

Northern

Last summer was downright sodden here in western Maine. built decades ago as a layover shelter at the far end of his winter When it wasn’t raining, it was hot; not dry hot but wet trapline up near the Canadian border. I didn’t expect to find it in hot: humid, tropical, sticky, sweltering. Stuff grew and grew. tiptop shape. It had not been built for the ages, and I hadn’t been Bottomland ostrich fern and tansy shot up tall as I am, not that back to it for at least one of those decades. I did, though, expect I’m all that tall, but still. Joe-pye weed went way over my head. to find it. But when I reached the northeast corner of the pond Branches of a young red maple that had been reaching out to where I could have sworn the camp had been, it wasn’t there. I’m grab our clothesline for the last couple of years finally got hold old enough to know that memory is not always to be trusted, so of it. Rita, for the first time in her life, hired some help to battle I made a complete circuit of the pond but had no better luck. weeds in the garden. The water in Temple Stream never got low Back where I had first thought the camp to have been, I drew enough that I could take a tractor across the ford and bushhog a mental grid back from the shore of the pond; and feeling a bit our back field. like an amateur archaeologist, I started walking its lines, looking Indoors was nearly as wet as out. The white and green heads for a rusted-out bucket or stove lid, probing the ground with a of strike-anywhere matches in our kitchen match holder got so stick for shards of wood or tar paper. mushy they turned into strike-nowhere matches. The humidity’s Halfway through my sixth or seventh traverse, the ground all-present tongue licked the flap of every envelope we owned under my feet didn’t feel quite like the forest floor. It sagged and left it glued shut. If I wanted to mail a letter, I had to pry an slightly under my weight and rebounded when I backed off. A envelope open with my pocket knife (yes, I still send some let- little scraping with my stick revealed a span of tar paper and dis- ters by U.S. Mail) and then reseal it with transparent tape. integrating boards, whether roof or wall I couldn’t tell, nor did Hot, drenched summers like this last one often moved my that matter. I was glad to have found the camp’s remains, sad to father to call our forested corner of Maine “the northern jungle.” know this fragile little structure where Don had found warmth Plants ranging from molds to mighty oaks thrive in that kind of and shelter on many a sub-zero winter night was no more. weather. Something there is in the rain-and-sun-driven surge So be it. This ravenous land with its crushing snows and jun- of summer vegetation that doesn’t love the works of man. “Get gle summers may be bent on taking down whatever we put up, the hell out of our way,” it says. “We were here first. You want to but it’s also those cycles of decay and lush new growth that give grow your potatoes and and peas in this 50x50-foot plot us our bumper crops of raspberries and keep the trees growing you’ve cleared? Fine. It will cost you eternal vigilance. You can up toward the sky. Not such a bad trade-off after all. weed and and cover crop this patch of dirt all you like, but leave it alone for as little as a year, and you’ll be lucky if you Robert Kimber has written often for outdoor and environmental magazines. He lives can find it again the spring after that.” in Temple, Maine. How little time it takes for alders to close in on a neglected hayfield and shrink it out of existence, how little time for fir seedlings to grow in so thickly on an old woods road that it’s easier to walk on either side of it than on it. And buildings, wooden ones? They fare no better. Alternately soaked and baked, their paint blisters, flakes, and peels; their clapboards once spanking white are soon a weathered gray, soon shrinking and curling, soon hanging from a last rusty nail. Subarctic winters inevitably follow these seemingly equato- rial summers. Roofs left unshoveled – buried hip deep, waist deep in snow – cave in under one too many March storms. The upstairs then the downstairs floors rot; the walls fold in to the center. What once was a house is soon a tangle of splintered rafters, studs, shingles, and sheathing. In far less than a man or woman’s short lifetime, nature can chew an abandoned build- ing up, spit it out, and leave nothing but the rock foundation behind. A year or two ago, I went to revisit a small two-bunk tar paper camp that my old friend and woods mentor, Don, had

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 75 wood LIT

Farming the Woods woodlot, and get started cultivating them in an thing – my great-great-grandmother’s journal By Ken Mudge and Steve Gabriel ecological (and economical) way. is one of my cherished possessions – the point Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013 The text is lavishly supported by photographs is, simply, that most first-person writing doesn’t and diagrams. Frequent sidebars offer case studies, reach the level of art, which makes the stuff that What does one do with a forest? step-by-step skill guides, resources, and recipes. does noteworthy. For the past few centuries, North Americans The chapter on cultivating mushrooms is particu- Mike Freeman is one of those noteworthy writers have typically answered that question in one of larly well done, with excellent graphics that illus- who can use their own experiences to show some- three ways. One answer was preservation, to trate every step of the process. Other sections, on thing bigger, something universal. When he’s on, leave the forest alone and enjoy the valuable sugaring and managing forests to harvest fire- his writing can buckle your knees it’s so good. things it provides just by being there. A second wood, for example, offer thorough introductions to Mike first came to my attention in 2009, when approach was forestry, to manage the forest for these crafts with enough new tricks to keep more he submitted a piece to Northern Woodlands for its most obvious resource – timber. A third possi- experienced hands satisfied. our Place in Mind section. I was an assistant bility was to cut the forest down to make way for As a forager, I took particular interest in editor at the time, charged with winnowing out a farm, an ecological redesign that replaced the the authors’ treatment of crops that are more the good submissions from the bad, and I passed original ecological community with a community commonly gathered wild. They suggest that many his submission along to my boss with a note that of human choosing. In Farming the Woods: An of these wild crops are more vulnerable to over- said: “this guy’s the real deal.” I just finished Integrated Approach to Growing harvest than they first appear and that cultivation reading his 224-page memoir, and looking back, I Food and Medicinals in Temperate Forests, Ken of them is also a practice of conservation. think if anything I undersold him. Mudge and Steve Gabriel offer another approach This book is not the first of its kind. Readers The book, entitled Neither Mountain Nor River, and argue persuasively that it ought to be more who have enjoyed books on permaculture follows Mike’s journey as a kid coming of age in widely employed. design, agro-forestry, forest , and other the woods of Pennsylvania and Connecticut, to The central idea of Farming the Woods is that conservation-minded approaches to living with a 20- and 30-something living in Vermont and farms and forests are not mutually exclusive. the woods will find much that is familiar. But , to a 40-something father living in Queens, “Forest farms” can produce a wide range of crops Farming the Woods makes a unique contribution New York, and finally Newport, Rhode Island (with besides timber. Fruits, nuts, syrups, mushrooms, as a comprehensive guide that brings a wide stops along the way in Florida and Arizona and and forest-grown provide food. array of practices together in one probably a few other places I’m forgetting). The and mushrooms provide medicine. Forests can useful and attractive resource. It’s a book that’s universal thread is recollections of time spent with nurture livestock. Woody trees and shrubs can be sure to find a home on the shelves of those who his father hunting, fishing, and trapping – if you’re cultivated for products other than timber, such as love forests. into this kind of stuff, you’re going to love the firewood, crafting products, and . And, Benjamin Lord book. But these endeavors, and the details of his the authors argue, farms based on these non- life, are merely the frame on which larger stories timber forest products can be both economically Neither Mountain Nor River about the natural world and what it means to be viable and ecologically sustainable. By Mike Freeman human unfold. (Though the life details are quirky The primary purpose of this book is not to sim- Riddle Brook Publishing, 2014 and interesting in their own right, especially the ply advocate for more forest farms. Rather, it is to part where practically overnight he goes from guide prospective forest farmers, both hobbyists As an editor I see a lot of first-person writing being single and living in backwoods Alaska to and those with commercial aspirations, who want cross my desk, and the majority of it is the written living in New York City with a woman he hardly to turn their woodlots into productive forest farms. equivalent of a selfie. The compulsion to report on knew who was carrying their child.) Comprehensive in its scope, Farming the Woods oneself goes back millions of years, and is only People who go to school for writing and get will be a valuable tool for people who want to reinforced by the Internet blogs that everyone advanced degrees in the craft usually end up pol- compare forest crops, determine which suit their seems to keep these days. None of this is a bad ished and clean – the musical equivalent would

76 Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 The Skinny be an orchestral musician. While Mike mentions in which we lived with a recently shot buck or At a pool and rapids near home that he went to college, most of the decades that doe tied securely across the hood, roof, or trunk; my father once stood followed were directionless. (“. . . my ostensible cars that in some cases were headed toward naked before the Queen of England. career path from high school forward looked the grocery store where my uncle worked as the He’d dived from a bridge rebuilt every bit like I’d never planned anything in my life, butcher, and where he would neatly and quickly after the ’27 flood, which had also ripped out and professionally speaking that remains true.”) transform one large animal into several dozen High Bridge three pools down, and had shredded As a result he came to write like a bluesman small, white-paper-wrapped parcels ready to be miles of railroad tracks, whose decade-old or a jazz musician from the streets, his prose a put into a freezer. repairs he stood below. More than a hundred years before that mish-mash of styles that you could never teach. No one we knew would have found any of this a miller wanted more of a head of water odd; it was just one of the many facets of ordinary He quotes from Melville, and Frost, and Dickinson. to turn his grist wheels and thought he’d add On one trapping trip he reads the bible, and com- life in our little town – just as it was in little towns Long Pond to the headwaters pares two of the old Alaskan guides he knows to all across the country. All this, of course, was prior of the Barton River. His men dug Esau and Ishmael. to the rise of the “Deer Industrial Complex.” six feet down through the clay bed If there’s a criticism to be made it’s that Mike The Deer Industrial Complex is a phrase I very of the perched pond, hit quick sand sometimes gets a little too carried away with big much wish I had coined myself to describe the and the mile-and-a-half long body words and complicated sentence structure – a bewildering array of businesses and government of water plowed through its shore jazzman with a muted trumpet reaching for tones agencies that now surround the lives of deer in and began its hell-bent roar down the entire valley to Lake Memphramagog. between the notes. There’s an example on page 5, the United States. From their well-being, to the One man ran six miles and saved where several neighborhoods wend diluted eth- ways in which they are hunted, to the production every resident of Glover where it sits and sale of the myriad items of equipment used to nic redoubts amidst broken-windowed industrial in a narrow defile, but the flood senescence – it’s the kind of writing that can make hunt or watch them, the Deer Industrial Complex cleaned every village and bridge your brain leak out your ears a little bit if you’re not affects everything deer related in the country. off the valley floor ready for it. But read the book and don’t let these Al Cambronne, the author who created this in its twenty-mile sweep north. minor lapses sidetrack you. His love of words is perfectly descriptive phrase, recently published Vestiges remain: a delta built at the river’s mouth infectious, and you’ll come to see that it’s ambition, a book called Deerland: America’s Hunt for on which cattails grow far out into the lake not pretention. Besides, the upside of this restless Ecological Balance and the Essence of . making sepia walls that remind me of the wallpaper in the unusual curved walls vocabulary is that when the lines hit, they’re differ- Regardless of whether you are a deer hunter, an in my grandmother’s house; a changed course ent and fresh. I can promise you that you’ve never anti-hunter, a naturalist, conservationist, envi- now through denser black willow, black ash, ronmentalist, or some mix of more than one of read anyone who writes quite like him. and silver maple forests where the bottoms It’s the quiet moments of Neither Mountain Nor these, Deerland should be considered a must of huge trees often lie submerged River that shine the brightest. At one point he’s a read. Never before in the known history of the like some river-bottom bayou far to the south; doubt-addled teenager, skinning a mink with his land now encompassed by the boundaries of the many sandbanks; and a gravel and hardpan surface father. “My God,” he thought sitting next to him U.S. have there been so many white-tailed deer; on the alluvial lands. by the fire. “I’m not alone.” That passage – which quite an ironic thing to state considering that little this simple quote gives no justice – caught in my more than a century ago there were well-founded My father’s mother’s land was sandy as she and her boys struggled to farm throat. I haven’t been moved by a piece of writing concerns that the species would become extinct. through the Depression and abandonment, like that in years. Cambronne covers how many deer there are in and the town’s factories and production shops, the U.S., where they live, how they are managed, Dave Mance III though driven by the river’s cheap power, shut. and what proportion of them will annually meet All this just before the war, before an older Deerland: America’s Hunt for their earlier-than-natural demise. Interweaving a brother would escape to war in England. Ecological Balance and the wealth of information about the biology, life, and The threat of war brought the new Royal Couple natural histories of deer with the results of his on a goodwill tour. And when their train, traveling Essence of Wildness investigations, Cambronne illuminates relation- from Boston to Montréal for embarkation home By Al Cambronne ships between the deer, the land, and human passed on schedule Globe Pequot Press, 2013 beings. over the granite arch At times funny, often eye-opening, occasionally near where my father and uncle swam Back when I was a boy, despite the fact that my nauseating (let’s just say that after the section nude in an early heat wave, they stood and waved and thought or pretended the Queen responded, father wasn’t a deer hunter, I’d always know discussing the annual national sales of deer urine at a window the sweep of a hand when it was deer season. Even though we lived – yes, deer urine – you’ll likely never look at an a pleasant face in a town where the largest industry was com- Olympic-sized swimming pool quite the same moving away at considerable speed. mercial fishing, a fair number of people were way again), Deerland is a book that should at the The water, the train, and all attendant either duck or deer hunters (sometimes both). very least be read by all those whose lives its rushing toward some accounting. Thus, every deer season, cars could occasionally subject touches. be seen driving down the main street of the town John E. Riutta LELAND KINSEY

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 77 78 Northern Woodlands / Spring 2015 the outdoor PALETTE

By Adelaide Tyrol

Spring Migration. 9 x 17 inches, pastel on mounted paper, 2008

Aerial landscape art includes paintings and other visual arts that depict or evoke the appearance of a landscape as it might be viewed by a bird or from an aircraft. This kind of art hardly existed before the twentieth century; its modern manifestation coincided with the development of human air transport, which allowed artists to take in and draw inspiration from such sights. Prior to this, the earliest depictions of aerial views were con- jectured maps and map-like art works, pieces that were drawn from the imagination. Maine artist Kathleen Galligan’s work encompasses both traditions. Working primarily with oil paints and pastels, she conjures landscapes that are imaginary, though grounded in reality. Galligan says that she is seeking to gain a broader perspective of our earth. She explains that she likes to contemplate fictional shorelines and unknown estuaries using light and color to explore the magic and mysteries of the land. “Creating places of inter- est that are both familiar and unfamiliar simultaneously might invite the viewer to begin their own exploration of uncharted shores,” Galligan said. Spring Migration shows the aerial view of a coastline. The fingers of landscape are not specific; it could be an ocean coastline or the shoreline of a fresh water lake. There are indications of farmland, of cliffs, and forest. What is important here is not the delinea- tion of an actual geographic area, but rather an indication of atmosphere. The clouds are lightly rendered, softly obscuring the horizon line, enhancing perspective and subtly revealing the terrain. Galligan uses pastels masterfully to impart the feeling of muted light. Moisture and mist seem to pass through the clouds and visually unify land, sky, and water. When looking at Spring Migration it is easy to imagine the seasonal transition of birds as they move on toward their summer breeding grounds.

Kathleen Galligan lives on the coast of Maine. She is represented by Greenhut Gallery in Portland and Littlefield Gallery in Winter Harbor, and George Marshall Store Gallery in York. She has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally. She can be reached through her website at kathleengalligan.com or by email at: [email protected]

Call for entries: Send us your Outdoor Palette submissions. Contact Adelaide Tyrol at (802) 454-7841 or [email protected] for details.

Northern Woodlands / Summer 2015 79 A PLACE in mind

Greg Lowell

Confession of a Turtle Killer

Motorists who run over turtles were nothing to me but cold- than 100 houses had been added on my now paved road. Things blooded killers. I took their inattention for indifference to the got even worse for the turtles when a 60-home subdivision natural world. That is, until I became one of them. was constructed nearby. I was gladdened by motorists who My hubris was tempered while driving one late-spring day. stopped to let the turtles pass, but they were far outnumbered I was distracted by children riding bikes on the shoulder, and I by those who did not. swung out to give them a wide berth. Only at the last second did Short of quitting my job for two months and keeping 24- I see the small black shape between the double yellow lines. The hour vigil, there was little I could do to stop the slaughter. But sickening pop under my tire sent a jolt through me. I tried. I marked their nesting sites, mowed my lawn cautiously Returning, I saw the crushed body, then noticed the small as I watched for young turtles in the grass, and tried to educate woodland stream flowing under the road from which the turtle my neighbors on the turtles’ ways. Once I attempted a clumsy had emerged. From then on, I held my anger at the drivers of turtle- Caesarean on a dead spotted turtle, thinking I could salvage her killing cars, chastened that I had joined the criminal element. eggs and become a surrogate parent. Turtles, perhaps more than any other New England animal, Turtles have adapted countless times over the millennia, but are threatened by our roads, our cars, our pets, and our they’re having an especially hard time with automobiles and subdivisions. Low, slow, and driven by ancient impulses, they asphalt. I’ve seen cautious deer on roadsides and bears that look follow the same routes year after year, regardless of the changes both ways before crossing. But I’ve never seen a turtle do any- in the land around them. thing but charge, stubbornly and slowly, into danger. For many years, I had a front row seat to the difficulties Blanding’s and spotted turtles are listed throughout their turtles have navigating our modern world. Our yard, a popular northern range as endangered or threatened species. Habitat loss turtle nesting site, was bounded on two sides by a large marsh, and collection as pets have contributed to their demise, but road with a country road on the front. At the end of our property a mortality is the most obvious culprit. I don’t know how to undo, small pond, a dip in the road, and an active vernal pool on the or even if we should undo, what’s considered human progress. opposite side, made for a turtle super highway as turtles began I only know that there’s something noble in the persistence of a to wander to feed or lay eggs in May and June. turtle. Creatures who follow the tilt of the sun or the wood frogs’ Painted and snapping turtles were the primary travelers, song to a place that has sustained them for thousands of years but the rare Blanding’s turtle, with its high-domed shell and deserve some small measure of accommodation. distinctive yellow throat, was also a regular part of the parade. When we sold the house after nearly 30 years, I worried who Blanding’s are highly nomadic and as slow and cumbersome on would watch out for the turtles. I left the new owner a carefully land as piano movers, which can be a deadly combination of written instruction sheet on where the turtles nest in the yard, traits around roadways. and a rough guess on when the quarter-size hatchlings might There were spotted turtles, too. Smaller than painted turtles, emerge. I still think of these turtles each spring, and when I jet black and peppered with bright yellow spots, they spend drive roads near water, I take care, my eyes always on the road most of their time hidden among the grass humps and sloughs surface for the glint of the sun off wet domes or the dusty gray of marshes. But in spring they come out of hibernation and of a basking turtle. It’s the only penance I can do. make for vernal pools to recharge their batteries with wood frog and salamander eggs. Unlike other turtles, they seem to realize Greg Lowell has spent a good part of his life in the woods and on the water of his the perils of asphalt and move quickly. I learned to recognize native New Hampshire, and has shared his experiences in local newspapers and their sprints and quickened my own step to try to save them conservation publications. before the next car came along. Many times I ran down the road from my home to help turtles complete their crossings. I saved a few, but as the number of houses on my road increased, so too did the traffic and the body count. In 1980, there were 1,500 residents in my town LIZA MCELROY and the road by my house was dirt. Thirty years later, the town had swelled to 5,000, and more

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