Forestry Plan

On Monday of this week, we were able to have Certified Forester, Joan Nichols out to look at our forest. She is a crack at identifying trees and quickly told us that we have a lot of red maple which is really one of the succession trees in a forest. We showed her our prized tulip poplar which she thought may be about 150 years old. When we got to the east edge of the logging path, Joan identified a black oak which was covered with invasives. We need to clean this beauty. All the while that we were walking in our forest, I heard a lot of birds chirping, a veritable mellifluous cacophony.
We walked to the north end of the field where I saw our hunter's stand, very cleverly disguised and his camera which has captured some shots of a bobcat and foxes in the past. On this path, Joan excitedly pointed out a beautiful, old sugar maple. She showed us her prism which she uses to count the trees that are of a certain diameter. We left Joan to do her work and then went home to finish up some other tasks.

In the early evening, Joan called us to say that she ran into a clutch of woodcocks in our forest and that was quite exciting. Also, in the same area that she first identified the sugar maple, she saw another stand of sugar maples! We didn't know what a woodcock was, so we searched on the Internet and I found the Cornell Ornithology Lab, where I found some excellent information and this photo.
We've always valued the forest and the balance of life there, and it was nice to learn about the woodcocks and whatever else might be there. Our plan for the forest was to created a walking path where we do not unduly disturb the balance of nature. I'm a little fastidious and I wanted to clear the fallen trees and branches, but Joan explained that those fallen trees, while they may look a little unsightly, are homes and hiding places for the creatures that live there. I have a new appreciation for our forest.