One of the questions that Dr. Ben VanderWeide, our township Natural Areas Stewardship Manager, hears periodically is, ” I know what you do in the summer…but what do you do in the winter?”
Well, I thought, a reasonable question. Gardeners finish their work in the fall and spend dark winter days dreaming about next year’s flowers or vegetables or perhaps tending to seedlings under a grow light. Crop farmers finish reaping, sowing and tending the soil before it freezes solid. Or some of those same people fly off to warmer climes like migrating birds.
But natural areas stewardship involves restoring the land to as much health as possible year ’round. I’ve mentioned the winter work going on in our 1500 acres of natural areas in several winter blogs. Maybe you remember the images in this short slideshow?
So I randomly picked a week this February to tag along with Oakland Township Natural Areas Stewardship Manager, Dr. Ben VanderWeide , Stewardship Specialist Grant Vanderlaan, our seasonal contractor Ethan Teranes from Six Rivers Land Conservancy/Lake St. Clair CISMA and volunteers to see what they were up to from February 12-16 – a busy week!
Monday: Stony Creek Ravine
Last November, Ben contracted to have a forestry mower clear invasive shrubs from about 25 acres of the western section of Stony Creek Ravine Nature Park. The area was then seeded with native grasses and wildflower seed like Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), False Sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides) and others. November is a great time to seed since it’s nature’s seeding season. Many native seeds do best when just tossed on the surface, because that’s what plants have been doing with them for thousands of years.
Here’s what my husband Reg and I saw on the fields and trails of this park in 2016-17 before Ben began restoration.
Here’s what I saw when I arrived on Monday, February 12 after invasive shrub mowing last November and seeding in January. Quite a transformation! Notice how you can see the rolling landscape now that the walls of invasive shrubs are gone and the trees stand free.
The seeds planted this year won’t reach full bloom for up to three years while they grow deep roots – as much as 15 feet deep! Research at University of California Davis found that prairies – where carbon is stored in long roots underground – are a more reliable place to store carbon (called a “carbon sink) than a forest, where wildfires can periodically release all the carbon stored in trees. (An aside: Consider the fact that the roots of the turf grass in our lawns is 1-2 inches deep! Not much carbon stored there.)
So on Monday, Ben and Grant were working with different machines. Grant was in the south end of the park when I showed up. Since many dead ash and elm trees killed by disease had created a maze of pickup-sticks, follow-up work in this area to treat invasive shrubs and plan prescribed burns had become very difficult. Grant was creating a large pile of “deadfall,” logs and limbs which had fallen naturally over many years. Fallen logs can profitably be left on the ground in some habitats, so that their stored nutrients can slowly be returned to the soil. But piling them in an open area like this meadow makes it safer and more efficient to do the prescribed burns and the other follow-up work necessary to help native plants flourish here in the future.
The large pile created by Grant’s work in a meadow in the south of the park will also provide a refuge for small animals at night, during rain or snow storms, or when chased by a predator. If the pile needs to be removed in the future, the wood can be safely be burned when there is snow cover in the winter since there will be no canopy overhead.
Ben used a brush mower at the edge of the woods and later in a meadow to remove invasive shrubs, like non-native Honeysuckle, that could spread back into these areas. (If on a laptop or phone, scroll up to see the whole screen!) The meadow hosts shrubby St. John’s wort (Hypericum prolificum), wetland black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia fulgida), mountain mint (Pycnanthemum virginianum), monkey flower (Mimulus ringens), and other native wildflowers that were being choked out by common buckthorn and autumn olive. Now they’ll have another chance to grow and spread!
When I left in the late afternoon, Ben’s mower still hummed in the distance.
Tuesday: Thinning the Woodland Near the Wet Prairie and an Evening Meeting at the Township Hall.
Ben and the stewardship crew spent the day continuing the work of the previous week along the Paint Creek Trail at the Wet Prairie. They’d been thinning the canopy and the understory of invasive shrubs near Silverbell Road to encourage more native wildflower and grass generation beneath the trees.
Invasive trees and shrubs, or even fast-growing native trees like Cottonwoods (Populus deltoides) and Quaking Aspens (Populus tremuloides) that seed heavily, create thickets that shade or crowd out the saplings of slower-growing native trees like oaks. They also make the woodland floor too shady for woodland and savanna wildflowers to thrive. So standard practice is to thin the canopy and eliminate the invasive shrubs to create dappled sunlight. Native Bur Oak seedlings (Quercus macrocarpa) have started to appear in these areas!
The crew then neatly stacked the logs along the trail and arranged the cut shrubs in piles for the next day’s work.
After a busy day cutting and stacking, Ben and Grant had a quick dinner and attended a township Board of Trustees meeting at the Township Hall. The Parks and Recreation Commission had commissioned a study for Fox Nature Preserve, our latest park addition, from the Michigan Natural Features Inventory (MNFI). Parks and Recreation Commissioners, Parks Director Mindy Milos-Dale, Ian Ableson of Six Rivers Nature Conservancy and residents like my husband and I also were there to hear the results, which were very detailed and interesting. It was a long day for Ben and Grant, but a very productive one.
Wednesday: An Early Morning Bird Walk and Then a Day of Chipping Deadfall and Invasive Shrubs
The day began with Ben leading the weekly Bird Walk, this one at Cranberry Lake Park. (See the “Stewardship Events” tab at the top of the home page for a schedule – and join us!). At this time of year, we mostly hear or see our hardy year ’round birds. In spring and fall, migrants from all over the world add to the flutter and color in our fields and forests. And later in summer, or course, we’re enjoying the antics of young fledglings that emerge from their nests to begin exploring our parks.
The bird walks serve several purposes. They offer a chance for anyone (township resident or non-resident) to learn more about the birds in our natural areas. Ben or Grant also note the number of each species we see or hear as we walk and report the results to Cornell University’s eBird website which collects such data from all over the world for its research. And later that morning, they send the results to any participants with an eBird account to add to their personal lists. I love having a record of the birds I’ve seen over my years as a volunteer. And of course, the Parks Commission will have a running list of the birds in our parks for future reference as well.
In the afternoon, I followed the sound of a wood chipper down the Paint Creek Trail to the Paint Creek Heritage Area – Wet Prairie and found Ben, Grant, Ethan and two volunteers – George Hartsig and Bob Schrader – working steadily. Fortunately they all wore ear protection and other safety gear! I stood at a safe distance to avoid deafness and flying sawdust and had to smile at the machine’s loud and somewhat rude-sounding noises. Here’s a 5 second mini-video of the action.
Ben and Bob were gathering wood around the edge of the Wet Prairie. Grant, Ethan and George were carefully feeding the chipper’s maw, wearing magnetic bands that stop the machine if they get too close. Everyone working near the chipper gets full training, including regular safety reminders before the work starts each day.
Notice how bare the berm is behind them. Back in the fall, Ben got a good, clean prescribed burn on the years of thatch that had accumulated there. The area was seeded after the burn in November to help bring back native flora that had been lost to decades of invasive shrub cover. We’ll all be looking for the emergence of more flowers and grasses there this summer.
With the slow, steady thinning of the tree canopy, combined with dead ash and elm trees killed by disease, the Wet Prairie parcel had become very thick with dead wood. Ben hopes to use his trained volunteers to do more frequent prescribed burns at the Wet Prairie. Sites with too many dead logs on ground or standing dead trees are very difficult to burn in a populated area like southeast Michigan since the crew has to extinguish anything burning and smoking before they leave for the day. With so much dead wood, it’s been necessary to always hire a prescribed burn contractor with the capacity to stay late into the evening putting out smoking logs and dead standing trees if necessary. So reducing the amount of dead wood at Wet Prairie, while leaving plenty for wildlife habitat, was a useful winter project.
THURSDAY: Cutting and Transporting Logs, Some Desk Work, and Then an Evening Public Presentation about Paint Creek
Thursday was another long day. Once the chipping was done, larger logs had to be cut into manageable sizes and transported from the Wet Prairie to the pick-up site on Buell Road. (Residents can get a free permit at the Parks Office on the 2nd floor of the Paint Creek Cider Mill building to take wood and chips from the pick-up site.) When I arrived at the Buell Road site late that afternoon after the snowfall, I saw a hill of wood chips and the impressive log pile. I heard, however, that by the time I got there, some of both had already been picked up by township residents! Evidently it doesn’t last long!
Part of many weeks, of course, is taken up with desk work. Ben meets with contractors, attends staff meetings, fields phone calls, and completes computer work during the week as well. For example, Ben writes detailed annual reports and draws up stewardship field work plans for every township park every year. He also does a plant survey and natural areas mapping of at least two parks each year, recording each plant species, native or non-native, that he comes across. He plans to survey all of them within a ten year period. That data is entered into an ongoing database, creating a useful historical record of the habitats in our natural areas over time. What a resource for future work!
Each winter, Ben hosts two nature-oriented presentations. Thursday evening, Ben and Grant, hosted Joe Bruce, the conservation chair of the local chapter of Trout Unlimited chapter. He shared the group’s process in learning to successfully restore trout habitat in Paint Creek using natural materials like logs, rocks and plants. It was a cold, snowy night but over 20 people came in-person (and more online) and found the talk fascinating – including me, a non-fisher! The audience, mostly men, had many good questions and seemed very engaged the whole time. A successful evening! Here’s my photo of Ben and Grant talking with current members of Trout Unlimited at 8:15 after the audience had dispersed. A lot of questions got answered that night!
Friday: Using Brush Cutters Along the Paint Creek Trail
Our township Parks and Recreation Commission has responsibility for taking care of the section of the Paint Creek Trail that traverses our township. So on Friday, I set off for the work site with Grant, Ethan and experienced volunteers Jon Reed and George Hartsig.
Ben had chosen a spot between Gunn Road and Adams Road where he’d spotted some invasive shrubs that were threatening to crowd out some interesting native prairie plants that he’d noticed there.
Years ago, the property owner along that stretch of the trail had erected a fence at the property line, so the crew knew exactly where to work – in the area from the fence to the trail edge. They unpacked their gear which included brush cutters, each with a whirling, circular blade, and applicators filled with dyed herbicide .
The crew worked in teams, one member cutting shrub trunks close to the ground and the other using the applicator with a sponge on the end to carefully daub the herbicide treatment on the stumps to prevent re-sprouting from the roots. The blue dye in the herbicide allows the workers to be sure they’ve covered the entire surface of the stump. Volunteers Jon and George are trained on the brushcutters to the same level as stewardship staff, allowing them to contribute in big ways to our natural areas stewardship work!
When I arrived at the site again later, an impressive amount of shrubs had been piled neatly along the trail. After sunnier days harden the trail surface, the crew can return with a chipper to clean up the area.
Why the Work Done this Week Delights Me
The work done in this one week may not seem terribly important or exciting at first glance – but it is both. Because what these workers and volunteers are doing is healing. It may look like destruction as things are mowed down and hauled away, but it is healing. Let me explain…
I have lived in Oakland Township off and on since 1951. My family and I watched aghast at forests mowed down to build shopping malls, rows of huge Sugar Maples (Acer saccharum) felled to make way for a housing development, wetlands once humming with dragonflies and serenaded by frogs now tamed, treated and turned into a sterile pond. We opposed and mourned those losses…but what we didn’t notice was the invasion that occurred after their demise. I bet your family didn’t either.
Farmers abandoned their fields for factory work and invasive shrubs from Europe and Asia like Autumn Olive, Privet and Glossy Buckthorn moved in. We only noticed that the landscape was still green.
An abandoned farm field at Charles Ilsley Park at the time of its first prescribed burn in 2014. Note the proliferation of Autumn Olive! Photo by Ben VanderWeide
Around ponds where I spent summer mornings, Cattails (Typha latifolia) disappeared as invasive Phragmites filled in every moist space and edged every wetland. We only noticed something tall still grew there.
Aggressive non-natives like Crown Vetch (Securigera varia) colonized fields where a crazy quilt of native wildflowers once flourished. Lovely but invasive flowers like Vinca/Periwinkle (Vinca minor), Lily-of-the-Valley (Convallaria majalis), and Forsythia (Forsythia suspensa) spread from gardens into natural areas forming dense mats in shady woodlands where shy natives like Hepatica (Hepatica americana) and Wood Anemones (Anemone quinquefolia) could no longer compete for space and sunlight. And we were simply pleased to be surrounded by flowers!
Lots of factors and entities played a part in this scenario – but blame isn’t very helpful. What IS helpful is the kind of stewardship work going on last week and every week in our township. Thanks to the foresight of inspired residents, we have the Land Preservation millage. With it, we don’t just preserve the land; we work to restore it. We now employ people with the knowledge, passion and tools to heal what was harmed by our naive lack of attention, our unexamined assumption that as long as the landscape was green, everything was fine.
As public awareness grows, the healing can begin. Sturdy native plants that feed pollinators and their young are beginning to emerge in our gardens, our parks and our natural areas. Native saplings and woodland wildflowers have a chance to thrive in the dappled light of a forest. Single wildflowers or native seed once buried under dense non-native thickets can now sense the warm sun and cool rain and begin to flourish, carpeting our landscapes in native beauty.
The challenges are many. And the mental and the physical work to make it happen, as you can see in this one week, must continue month after month into the foreseeable future. But here in our township, we’ve already made remarkable progress! And that’s why I find this week’s stewardship work important and exciting. I hope you can feel it, too!
