09/14/2022
Conservation Practices
GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLERS
at Berriedale Farms in the Cowpasture River Valley
by C. Nelson Hoy Forester, Rancher & Conservationist
The Golden-winged warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera) population here in the Appalachian Mountains has declined precipitously, perhaps more alarmingly than any other songbird species, over the last half century. This decline of the golden-winged warbler population is primarily due to losses in quality breeding habitat which requires small patches of early succession vegetative tangles mixed among more expansive areas of mature Appalachian hardwood forests.
At Berriedale Farms, our 100+ years old Forest Stand E includes 33 acres of Appalachian hardwoods (oaks, hickories and poplars) that offer excellent foraging habitat for the fledgling and adult golden-winged warblers, and where these warblers feed in the tree canopy upon caterpillars, moths, spiders and other insects. But Berriedale Farms lacks the early successional habitat – thick tangles of vegetation close to the ground in an open park- or Savannah-like setting – required for successful nesting and hatching the young birds. So at Berriedale Farms, Nelson and Lizzie created the special micro-habitat necessary for successful nesting in the form of a warbler patch that features:
(1) Two to six acres in size;
(2) Fifteen mature, dominant and healthy hardwoods per acre with “blue sky all around”; and
(3) A vegetative tangle on the forest floor with grasses, fobes, shrubs and woody debris.
This conservation challenge on behalf of golden-winged warblers was much easier said than done. In Forest Stand E the terrain was in places steep with slopes approaching 45 percent. Mechanized equipment such as a Timberjack or a bulldozer could not be safely used. Thus a skilled woodsmen got this job done with an old-fashioned pair of oxen and a portable winch plus a lot of man-muscle and sweat. The woodsman felled and limbed every eastern white pine from 12” to 28” DBH and a couple of dozen large white oaks. He girdled and treated with a herbicide another 60 smaller white pine and oak trees. As byproducts of this forestry initiative and with the aide of a portable sawmill, we produced high quality white pine lumber for a new home, pine posts and beams for a barn, and white oak slabs for tabletops.
Above and beyond the creation of golden-winged warbler nesting patches, The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service provided cost share monies that made possible the financing for three years of invasive species control efforts to eradicate autumn olive, Japanese stiltgrass and barberry, and eastern white pine saplings. The release of older-aged Appalachian hardwoods advanced an important forest ecology goal of The Nature Conservancy our conservation easement holder. Promoting the growth of quality Appalachian hardwood timber – white oaks, shagbark hickories and tulip (or yellow) poplar speaks to Nelson who is a Syracuse-schooled forester. Thinning the forest which allows more sunlight and water for the remaining trees benefits other wildlife – the endangered Indiana, northern long-eared and Virginia big-eared bats, black bears, white tailed deer, wild turkeys, American woodcock and ruffed grouse. Girdling large white pine and oak trees creates dead snags that function as vertical insect larva-infested smorgasbords for downy, hairy, pileated, red-headed and red-belied woodpeckers, northern and yellow-bellied flickers. And accumulating debris on the forest floor instead of feeding a biomass furnace benefits the forest soils and turtles, snakes, lizards and salamanders.
At Berriedale Farms, forest management decision-making about individual tree retention or removal and about the forest stand as a whole is made within a 50 to 100-year future time frame. The forest shelterwood harvest, a classic silviculture technique applied by Berriedale Farms, has two distinct and time gated purposes – first, to create golden-winged warbler habitat with a 10-15 year useful life time horizon; and second, to create an older-growth and uneven-aged Appalachian hardwood forest with a 50 year-to-forever time horizon. Counter-intuitively, an overcrowded Appalachian hardwood forest with 200 plus stems per acre benefits enormously from a drastic thinning (i.e., logging) because the remaining trees (in this case 15 trees per acre) subsequently benefit less competition and thus more sunlight and more water.
References:
(1) Cornell University, Ornithology Laboratory, Golden-winged warbler, SEE: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Golden-winged_Warbler/lifehistory
(2) NRCS Field Office Technical Guide (FOTG) for Virginia.
(3) Roth, A.M., R.W. Rohrbaugh, T. Will, and D.A. Buehler, editors. 2012. Golden-winged Warbler Status Review and Conservation Plan. www.gwwa.org
(4) Michael Lacki, John Hayes and Allen Kurta, Editors “Bats in Forests: Conservation and Management” (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 352 Pages.
(5) MacNeil, MacGowan, Currylow, and Williams; “Forest Management for Reptiles and Amphibians: A Technical Guide for the Midwest”, Purdue University Extension, June 2013, 24 Pages.
(6) Virginia Forest & Wildlife Group, “Timber Cruise Report for Forest Stand E of Berriedale Farms, Highland County, Virginia”, September 28, 2021.
(7) C. Nelson Hoy, “Berriedale Farms FOREST MANAGEMENT PLAN for the Years 2021-2031”, Highland County, Virginia, January 1, 2022, 8 Pages.
Contact:
C. Nelson Hoy
BERRIEDALE FARMS
10245 Cowpasture River Road
Williamsville, Virginia 24487
(540) 925-2308
[email protected]
