Several years ago, when we were planning to change the way we manage some of our land, I happened to meet Bob Askins, a biology professor at Connecticut College and author of Restoring North America’s Birds: Lessons from Landscape Ecology. As we discussed my projects, he encouraged me to do a baseline inventory before we started our interventions. That way, we’d be able to monitor the effects of the changes. He referred me to a grad student who was able to do scientific point counts. That entails choosing a spot, standing still, and recording every bird you see or hear for a certain amount of time. We conducted the counts in late May, after migration, to focus on birds that breed in the Uwharries.
Since then, we’ve converted pastures to native warm season grasses, restored riparian areas and let some areas go messy with early successional habitat. Even though we haven’t done a scientific follow-up with another series of point counts yet, I’ve noticed differences in my anecdotal observations. I’ve seen an increase in many common species: field sparrows, barn swallows, meadowlarks, indigo buntings, blue grosbeaks and common yellowthroats. On winter evenings, I sometimes hear five or six woodcocks at a time, twice as many as before. Several new species have turned up during migration. Palm warblers now hang around for a few weeks each fall. This spring, a pair of bobolinks appeared on May 21, the first ones I’d ever seen in the Uwharries. They generally breed north of the Mason-Dixon. Because it was so late in the season, I was giddy at the prospect of having a rare occurrence on our land. Alas, they were gone the following day. Still, it’s gratifying to think we provided them with a good place to rest and refuel before the next leg of their journey. That kind of evidence lets us know our changes are having the desired effect.
That said, the primary target of these interventions, the bobwhite quail, has been elusive. I hear them sporadically throughout the breeding season, but I haven’t detected any significant increase in the population. I don’t know what this means. Maybe they’re more numerous in areas beyond my hearing range. Maybe we need to continue to tweak the habitat. Maybe the northern harrier that shows up each fall keeps their numbers in check. Or maybe it’s the arrival of coyotes. Or maybe the coyotes have yet to make a dent in the number of skunks, opossums and raccoons. Even though these aren’t the results I’d hoped for, they let us know we still have work to do.
Plans to remove a relic dam on the Uwharrie River have prompted a similar effort to document and monitor aquatic species. Last spring, a team of scientists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, N.C. Natural Heritage Program, N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, N.C. Zoo, Landtrust for Central N.C., Progress Energy and American Rivers surveyed fish and mussel species around the Lassiter Mill dam.
To get a sense of how productive the habitat might be once the dam has been removed, all they had to do was sample areas on both sides of the structure. They didn’t even have to make the intervention before getting a sense of the results – that’s my idea of immediate gratification. Upstream, where the impounded water resembles a pond, they found 40 fish and seven different species in a brief sampling period. That might sound like a decent catch, but in the free-flowing section below the dam, they found 388 fish and 23 different species in the same amount of time. Those numbers ought to put a smile on any angler’s face. The contrast was even more dramatic for the mussels. Below the dam, they counted more than 130 individuals and nine different species. Behind it, they didn’t find a single one. Restoring this stretch of river is especially important when you consider that the Southeast is home to almost two-thirds of all the freshwater fish species in North America and over 90 percent of its freshwater mussels.
Habitat restoration isn’t for the faint of heart. It can be time-consuming, labor-intensive and expensive. (Please note – government programs are often available to help offset the costs.) These projects require dedication and diligence. There are plans to be developed, forms to be completed, weeds to be sprayed and seeds to be planted. There is earth to be moved. (And heaven, too, it often seems.) Having data from baseline inventories can help to spur us on. They allow us to see the progress we’ve made, and they serve as reminders that it’s worth the time, money and effort.
Many thanks to Lynnette Batt with American Rivers for sharing the data on the Uwharrie River around Lassiter Mill dam.
