Pennsylvania Game News - August 2020 - 62

Still, I'm grateful to be alive and reasonably able on this, my 57th wedding
anniversary, as I sit on the bench and am
serenaded by a pair of red-eyed vireos
as they engage in counter-singing, the
second singer repeating each phrase
exactly as the first chorister sings it.
Farther down Ten Springs Trail, I
found a couple native shrubs - a redberried elder on the steep forest bank
and a smooth blackhaw hidden behind
a tree on the logged side.
Reaching Ten Springs Extension, a
footpath our hunters made 25 years ago
through an uncut forested hollow, I was
challenged more than I'd expected. Its
trailhead and a slope were smothered in
stiltgrass. I ended up carefully crawling
along on the trail, which had been dug
into the mountainside and had eroded
badly from storms.
As I inched my way, I encountered
an enormous red oak that had fallen
recently. I crawled under the tree, then
turned where the trail doubled back.
There, my progress was stopped by an
even-larger red oak that had fallen across
the trail.
I pushed my way through the upper
half of the tree, which had broken off
downslope, then worked my way back
up to the trail. Faint deer trails led the
way there and down to the road.
I decided this hike would be my last
time on the Ten Springs Extension, and
we'd close the footpath to protect the
deep forest from invasives.
I still had a mile-long walk up our
road, but this is my favorite part of our
property.
The steep road bank is covered with
several dozen wildflowers and native
shrubs, and the surrounding forest has
62

many native trees, such as basswoods,
cucumber magnolias, American beeches
and several oaks.
Horsebalm, white wood asters and
blue-stemmed goldenrod were blooming. Spikenard, Indian cucumber-root,
yellow mandarin and jack-in-the-pulpit
were fruiting. Many wild hydrangeas,
red-berried elders and maple leaf viburnum shrubs grew in beds of several
fern and clubmoss species. I also found
healthy patches of partridgeberry in fruit.
Unfortunately, the "partridge" namesake - the ruffed grouse - suffers declining numbers due to West Nile virus.
We've heard only a few grouse drumming on our property over the last couple
years, and haven't seen them as we used
to, displaying on our road and flushing
with chicks at the edges of cover.
Our hemlocks that line the darkest
part of our road have been besieged by
hemlock woolly adelgids. But most,
although thinning, are still holding on.
Over half of our mountain laurel
that once blanketed Laurel Ridge, has
succumbed to a leaf fungus or blight,
most likely Diaporthe kalmiae or possibly, according to a paper I can't read
in Japanese, Cercospora kalmiae, also
called brown-leaf spot.
The mountain laurel used to provide
excellent cover for wildlife, and wood
thrushes and yellow-billed cuckoos
favored it for nest-building.
Unlike rhododendron and other native
shrubs white-tailed deer eat, they only
eat mountain laurel when they are starving. However, they also use mountain
laurel for cover and shade.
Farther up the road, I stopped to look
at a large basswood stripped of its bark.
It had fallen in a fierce storm earlier in
the month, bringing down a large red
maple with it.

Pennsylvania Game News - August 2020

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