What s Alive in the Forest? VFF s Latest Landowner Workshop Explores Forest Biodiversity

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1 What s Alive in the Forest? VFF s Latest Landowner Workshop Explores Forest Biodiversity The deer mouse clung like a barnacle to the inside of the metal trap. A firm shake from mammal researcher Nick Tepper loosened his grip, and he dropped into the folds of a small laundry bag. Nick held the scruff of the mouse s neck through the mesh fabric, careful to avoid the sharp incisors. He held the mouse high as he walked around the circle of landowners who had gathered to learn about forest biodiversity. The mouse was one of several small mammals Nick had trapped over the past few days, in anticipation of this morning s gathering a special workshop offered by Vermont Family Forests (VFF) to the forest landowners the organization works with. Nick Tepper shows workshop participants a male Peromyscus he live-trapped. In the workshop, What s Alive in the Forest?, landowners explored VFF s Abraham s Knees forest in Lincoln through the eyes, ears, and expertise of Marc Lapin (botany and ecosystems), Barry King (birds), Jim Andrews (reptiles and amphibians), Nick Tepper (small mammals), Greg Borah (wildlife tracking), and Kristen Underwood (hydrology). All six researchers are part of VFF s Colby Hill Ecological Project (CHEP), an on-going research project that has monitored ecological processes and biodiversity on 710 acres of private land in Lincoln since Lester and Monique Anderson, who initiated and funded CHEP on their land, bequeathed the land and project to VFF in Greg Borah teases apart a pile of scat along the forest trail, looking for clues about the animal who left it. During Saturday s workshop, the wildlife researchers (Barry, Jim, Greg, and Nick) described how they go about monitoring wildlife for CHEP and how landowners can explore and encourage wildlife biodiversity in their own forest land. Barry tuned our ears to the cadences of forest birds, and we heard 23 different species during our morning outing. Part of the beauty of the day was experiencing the cumulative, overlapping knowledge and enthusiasm of the researchers, as they recalled favorite mnemonics for remembering bird songs, pondered tricky songs together, and generally shared their exuberance for the natural world. Nick and Greg each shared their expertise in observing and identifying mammals Nick through live-trapping and observation, and Greg through tracking. Greg described how tracking involves attuning to forest patterns and noticing changes in those patterns tracks, broken or nipped twigs, nests, claw marks in bark, and so on as happens when an animal passes through. Black bear print

2 This wood frog was one of several amphibians found in a wetland area during the workshop. Jim and Nick scrambled along a little stream that flowed through a wet depression in the land, and emerged with an American toad, wood frog, eastern red-backed salamander, northern dusky salamander, and northern two-lined salamander. Jim described how to construct cover-boards and snake-covers as he does for his CHEP research to attract salamanders and snakes. He spoke about the importance of buffering wetlands like this one from any tree cutting and road building to safeguard wildlife. A forest community is only as healthy as the soil it s rooted in. CHEP team leader Marc Lapin dug into forest soils to show landowners how ph and soil structure varies in the forest, and how those soil characteristics affect the forest s plant communities. Kristen Underwood further explored how the forest s topography affects the flow of water over land, and how such forest practices as building access paths and cutting trees impact the land s hydrology. Our reason for being at Vermont Family Forests is help people connect more deeply with the forests of home and interact with these forests in a way that puts their health and wholeness first. In workshops like this one, we are guided by the idea of learning from the forest, rather than learning about it, as author Robin Wall Kimmerer puts it. We learned a bundle from the forest on Saturday. We met some of the many wild members of this beautiful piece of land, which VFF purchased in December as a place to walk the talk of conservation forestry, and we look forward to meeting many more as the years go by. Marc Lapin points out the thick layer of topsoil that has accumulated in this wetland depression. If you weren t able to be there on Saturday, don t worry we ll surely be having more workshops like this one on the Abraham s Knees forest. Looking forward to seeing you in the forest sometime soon. Nick Tepper met up with this black bear and her cub during a pre-workshop walk in the Abraham s Knees forest.

3 ing and Encouraging Forest Wildlife Biodiversity: Tips and Resources for Landowners Birds: Connect with your local Audubon chapter. o Attend birding outings to expand your identification skills. o Host an Audubon outing on your land. o Ask if there s an Audubon member who would be willing to bird with you in your forest. Use a Smartphone app for ID assistance in the forest (particularly songs) o Merlin (free, produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology) o ibird Pro o Sibley eguide to Birds Contribute your data to ebird ( a world-wide citizen science monitoring project) o upload the data you collect on bird species in your forest to contribute to this world-wide effort. You generate a new list for each outing, thus showing species presence across time and seasons. Maintain diverse structure in your forest. Different bird species use different layers of the forest from forest floor to understory to highest canopy, from shrubby young forest to mature forest to feed, nest, and hide. Allow the forest to be messy, with plenty of downed wood, standing dead trees, wind-felled tip-ups, and so on. Mammals: Get to know the patterns of your forest and look closely for signs of change (broken or nipped twigs, excavated holes, wildlife paths, etc) Tracking: Cultivate awareness of animal signs (tracks, scat, claw marks, etc) Wildlife camera: VFF currently uses the Bushnell Trophy Cam, but we don t yet have enough of a track record of photos to offer an opinion about its quality. Same as for birds allow the forest to express its natural structural diversity. Amphibians and Reptiles (herps) : Walk where no one has walked before. If you re with someone who s walking on the left side of a path, walk on the right that way you re more likely to scare up an amphibian or snake. Carefully turn over stream rocks and roll back logs to check for amphibians. Replace rocks and logs carefully when you re done. Create cover-boards for woodland salamanders. Jim s design is four rough-cut white oak boards (or other rot-resistant wood) 6 x 12, plus two wood spacers (1/4 x 1 x

4 10 ). Lay two boards side by side on the ground in a shady, moist wooded area (pull away the humus so the boards rest on the bare mineral soil) with a 3/8 gap between them, so that they form a square. Lay the two spacers along the outer edge of 12 length of the two bottom boards. Place the remaining two boards on top of them and at right angles to the bottom boards. You will have a ¼ gap between the two sets of boards. Check for amphibians periodically under both layers of boards. Create snake-covers. A similar idea to the salamander cover-boards, but made of stone and placed in a sunlit spot, since the stone s warmth will attract snakes. In Jim s CHEP monitoring, he uses roofing slate (24 x 14 x ¾ ), but any thin stone slab that you can easily tilt back will work. Jim uses 2 slates per snake-cover, one on top of the other, with a small wooden spacer (roughly ¾ x ¾ x 10 ) placed about ¼ of the way in from the outside edge to create a small space of varying height between the slates. Check for snakes periodically by carefully tilting back the upper stone. Contribute your data to the Vermont Reptile and Amphibian Atlas, Jim Andrews runs this state-wide citizen science monitoring project, which collects data on the distribution and abundance of reptiles and amphibians in Vermont. Create fish-free small ponds for amphibians. The three ponds that Jim monitors for CHEP are all human-made, and they each support a wealth of aquatic life, including wood frogs, spotted salamanders, spring peepers, green frogs, pickerel frogs, and eastern newts. If you want to encourage amphibians, don t stock your pond with fish. As with forest habitat, allow aquatic habitat to be messy submerged branches make good hiding cover and sites for laying eggs. Ditto for cattails.

5 Species lists for Abraham s Knees (for June 9 only) Below are the species we saw, heard, or saw signs of at Abraham s Knees on June 9, Nick Tepper visited the site three other times previously and generated more extensive lists. He has entered his bird data for Abraham s Knees into ebird a total of 52 bird species! To see his list, visit Birds Chestnut-sided warbler Black-capped chickadee Brown creeper Ovenbird Field sparrow Blackburnian warbler Alder flycatcher Red-eyed vireo Common yellowthroat White-throated sparrow Mourning dove American robin Broad-winged hawk Hairy woodpecker Indigo bunting Cedar waxwing Yellow-bellied sapsucker Black-throated blue warbler Black-throated green warbler Blue-headed vireo Scarlet tanager Veery Hermit thrush Herps Eastern red-backed salamander Northern dusky salamander Northern two-lined salamander American toad Wood frog Mammals Black bear White-tailed deer Deer mouse Masked shrew Red squirrel Short-tailed shrew Eastern chipmunk Red-backed vole