Week two

Whew! What a week to be out working in the Pine Bush! It's been quite a week. Long, hectic, and lots of new things going on.

Much of my time is spent in areas that look like this:

The "classic" Pine Bush is comprised of a mixure of pitch pine and scrub oak. It makes for a beautiful landscape, though the scrub oaks can be very difficult to move around in. The Pine Bush is a fire-dependent ecosystem, and if it isn't burned regularly, the scrub oak will take over entirely and almost nothing else can grow. Unfortunately, only about 25% of the preserve looks like this. The other 75% is deciduous forest. Which in some cases can be a good thing, but in this case it's not. Within five years, the preserve hopes to reverse those numbers. However, the variety of habitats means that many birds breed in the Pine Bush. This is a Field Sparrow nest with eight eggs, the most I've ever seen in a sparrow nest (look sideways).

Some of the other common birds around here are blue jays, crows, chickadees, towhees, prairie warblers, common yellowthroats, chipping and field sparrows, indigo buntings, and bluebirds.

I find the mixture of pine bush and woodlands to be pretty interesting, though a little disorienting at times. One of the sites I had to visit this week started with a trail through a very nice patch of woods, covered in pretty flowers like this one.

Suddenly, a second later I emerged into a clearing that was completely Pine Bush, lupines and all. Most of these sites were woodland originally, but were restored to Pine Bush through clearcutting, mowing, and herbiciding the landscape, then replanting lupines and other native Pine Bush plant species.

The Pine Bush is unique because it sits atop a series of sand dunes. The sand is left over from when this area was covered by glacial Lake Albany. The wind then scuplted the sand into many small dunes, which makes this region a litte hilly.

This means the plants that grow here are pretty unique. They are able to grow on sand, which is very difficult to do. Sand doesn't hold nutrients very well.

Sometimes you can even see leftover bits of shells from the ancient lake.

There are dozens, maybe hundreds of plant species that grow here, including some really beautiful ones like this wild columbine.

This week we began doing some of the real work. Monday was spent counting lupines at a few of the smaller sites. It's EXTREMELY difficult and time-consuming.

Tuesday through tomorrow we've been alternating between surveying for Karner blue butterflies and frosted elphin butterflies. Wednesday was exciting because it was the first day any of us saw a Karner. We each have different sites that we survey, and one of my sites happens to be where the preserve released Karners last year. They're really excited that the butterflies are still there.

Wednesday was also the day we became acquainted with the Prairie Warbler work that's going on. Apparently this species is more indicative of prime Pine Bush habitat than any other bird species that occurs here. So the preserve has been catching, banding, and following the warblers for the last couple years. Over fifty individual birds are banded now. This year, it will be our job to try to relocate some of those individuals (which can be told apart by the color bands on their legs). By seeing how many warblers are still around this year, the preserve can attempt to estimate the survivorship of this population. Pretty cool stuff.