[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

strange bedfellow



I went to Joyce Kilmer Forest for the first time in many years 
yesterday.  What a beautiful place!  Bird-wise three things struck me:
1.  This is the only place in the mountains where I have heard and seen 
Golden-crowned Kinglets and Acadian Flycatchers right next to each 
other.  Usually the kinglets are somewhat higher elevation birds and 
the flycatchers somewhat lower elevation.  But the habitat, evidently, 
was just right for both of them, wet and low enough for the Acadians 
and plenty of hemlocks for the kinglets, that they were both happy.  I 
guess that shows once again that for some birds, especially those that 
we think of as more high elevation species,  it's more habitat than 
elevation that matters.
2.  The really big, old trees were ringed by several hundred years of 
sapsucker sapsucking holes.  Quite interesting to see.  Some of those 
holes may have been drilled before Columbus arrived.
3.  I was surprised by some of the birds that were still singing at 
this late date, including several Blue-headed Vireos, some Hooded and 
BTBlue Warblers, N. Parula, GC Kinglets, Acadian Flycatchers, and a few 
others, and not just a few notes, but rather persistent.
Every now and then I need to go back to see what the forest looked like 
before we cut it all down.  I wish there were more places like this.
Marilyn

--------------------------------------
Marilyn Westphal
Environmental Quality Institute
University of North Carolina-Asheville
One University Hts
Asheville, NC  28804
phone:  828/251-6823
email:  mjwestphal@unca.edu