Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 55

instead of destroyed.”
We like to think that our own
younger but mature forest also is creating soil, as we allow our trees to fall
over and rot, creating, as our young
nephew Patrick once cried over and
over, “Dirt, dirt, dirt!” while sifting the
powdery, reddish-brown remains of red
oak branches through his fingers. Those
powdery remains of the heartwood
and sapwood appear to be a nursery
for the downy rattlesnake plantains
I’ve discovered inside and outside our
exclosure. When we first put up the
exclosure, I found a large colony of this
orchid growing on a slope where several
trees had rotted down to heartwood
and sapwood. Another plant that we
found outside the exclosure and fenced
had germinated beneath a stump that
was seeping rotted wood at its base.
Then, a couple years ago, I found
still another downy rattlesnake plantain plant that had germinated on the
decaying remains of a fallen red oak
limb. At the same time, I noticed that
the fenced plant outside the exclosure
was looking poorly. I gathered up more
of the “natural” fertilizer from the trunk
and sprinkled it over the plant, and
once again it is thriving. I haven’t seen
any studies that indicate that downy
rattlesnake plantain needs this material, but I wonder.
As our forest has aged over the
41 years we’ve lived here and now is
nearing 100 years in our hollow area,
our forest bird diversity has increased.
Fallen trees across our first order, headwater stream, attract several breeding
Louisiana waterthrushes and winter
wrens. Barred owls court and nest in
our larger, hollow trees. Scarlet tanagers, worm-eating warblers, and redeyed vireos, among others, are more
JULY  2013 

common than ever. Once we had no
nesting black-throated green warblers,
cerulean warblers, blue-headed vireos,
winter wrens, or Acadian flycatchers,
but our aging forest has attracted them.
All of these bird species and several
more, such as blackburnian warblers,
depending on whether species need coniferous, deciduous or mixed deciduous
forests, use older, mature forests. And
the larger these forests are, the better
the chances are for the birds to fledge
nestlings.
The same is true for many mammal
species. Black bears, raccoons, and porcupines, for example, such as to den in
large, hollow trees. One study of black
bear den trees found that for red and
white oak trees to be big enough, they
had to be between 175 to 280 years old,
which reminds me of the huge oaks
our boys found more than 30 years ago
at the steep base of the mountain on
our property line. They took some box
camera photos of themselves standing
in front of them, and they looked as
if they were as large as California redwood trees. I was amazed and delighted,
but before I had a chance to see those
trees, our neighbor’s logging operation
had them cut down. The boys went to
check on them and said that they were
all hollow inside, so excellent habitat
had been destroyed and not a dollar
earned on those trees.
The same den tree study found raccoons liked hollows in trees from 90 to
164 years old, and gray squirrels 65 to
130 years old. Many bat species, too,
like old trees with cavities and loose
bark. Other opportunities for denning
in older forests include in soil pits created by large root masses of wind-tilted
trees, in the root masses themselves,
and in stumps, logs, large horizontal
55



Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013

Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - Cover1
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - Cover2
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 1
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 2
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 3
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 4
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 5
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 6
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 7
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 8
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 9
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 10
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 11
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 12
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 13
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 14
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 15
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 16
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 17
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 18
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 19
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 20
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 21
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 22
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 23
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 24
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 25
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 26
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 27
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 28
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 29
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 30
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 31
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 32
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 33
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 34
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 35
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 36
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 37
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 38
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 39
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 40
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 41
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 42
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 43
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 44
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 45
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 46
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 47
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 48
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 49
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 50
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 51
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 52
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 53
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 54
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 55
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 56
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 57
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 58
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 59
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 60
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 61
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 62
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 63
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 64
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 64a
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - 64b
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - Cover3
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2013 - Cover4
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