What Is An Early Successional Habitat?

Early-successional habitat is a young forest made up of small, dense tree and shrub stems with an open canopy. Each phase of succession is categorized by the specific vegetation and wildlife found at a given place. Very few forests manage to evolve into mature forests because of disturbances. A distrubance can be something as simple as mowing your lawn, where you are essentialy preventing that land from reverting back to its natural state by continuously cutting it. Other disturbances may be: ice storms, wind damage, flooding, or drought, to name just a few. Here at the Audubon Center, small sections of land are cut (disturbed) every 7-9 years to ensure the continual availability of early-successional habitat.

Why Early-Successional Habitat Important?

Two hundred years ago, Vermont was full of fields ideal for ground nesting and foraging birds. But after many farms were abandoned around the turn of the last century, these fields grewback into a wooded landscape. Although the abundance of mature forested areas is good for many wildlife species, for the birds that depend on early-successional habitat, development of young forests into more mature forests means they're getting squeezed into fewer and fewer places. At the Audubon Center, maintaining enough early-successional habitat to support breeding populations of species such as chestnut-sided warblers is an important management goal.

Pictures


Fall 2013
The three sections of the Early Successional 
Left: Overgrown section
Right: Recently cut section
Top Right: Sparsely forested section

A wall of vines

Vines and Hawthorn trees

The recently cut part of the Early Successional

The detritus covering the ground in the Early Successional

Winter 2014



Gray Squirrel Tracks

 Tracks of  multiple mammals
 Mouse Tracks
Red Squirrel Tracks

SPRING 2014

 Plant life in the spring
 Bear scat found on site

Tall plants that inhabit the early successional

A nest in a birdhouse in the field

Early Successional Habitat

IN FALL 2013
    
Hi this is the Early Successional Habitat group. In this group there are four group members Alexa, Ethan, Hunter, and Haley. The Early Successional Habitat is a field that is slowly becoming dominated by shrubbery and small trees. We were at the recently cut part of this area. We also found many types of mushrooms. One type of mushroom we found was the Stink horn. We found this mushroom with many of pores on the underside of the cap. We found these mushrooms because this cut section gave air and light and room for the mushrooms to grow. Hunter and Ethan both walked into the uncut section of this Early Successional and it was super hard to walk because there were very low lying plants and vines. These vines and plants were all tangled together and this was making it even harder to walk. Haley and Hunter walked up the hill to another part of the Early Successional, this part had a lot of dead trees and near it there was a clearing around that spot. They found this mushroom named the Poisonous Pig Skin Puffball mushroom. This mushroom has a rough outer side (like pig skin) and a dark grey/black inside.  The Stink horn we found was exactly like the pictures. It had a gel sack and some green slime around the cap of this mushroom. Some evidence of animals that live here; we found some deer scat (poop), we also saw a birds nest. When Hunter and Ethan went into the uncut section and Ethan saw a bedding area for maybe a deer or bear. One thing Ethan observed was that there were a lot of green plants in the uncut section. Alexa helped with a lot of the observing, with scat, stink horn, pigskin puffball. Everyone had helped with finding mushrooms and observing the area.

IN WINTER 2014

This time we came to this sight it was covered in 2 feet + of snow. We were looking in a different lens. Before we were looking for mushrooms, now we were looking for tracks. On the edge of the forest at the top of the site we found coyote tracks. These tracks came out of the woods and just when back into the woods they came out of the woods into the clearing and when back into the woods. This is because domestic dogs have a lot of energy and come outside to go to the bathroom and go back into the house. These dogs have two or three meals a day. They don't have to hunt for their food. On the other hand coyote has to hunt for food and can go a couple of days without food. They have to conserve energy. Domestic dogs have a lot of energy and will walk all around the yard. Coyotes have to beeline to where they want to go and go in a straight line. We also found grey and red squirrel tracks. These squirrels came down from trees and just ran all around. We tracked them all around, they probably when up to another tree but they ran around so much we didn't follow them up to a tree.

IN SPRING 2014

When we came to this site we were welcomed by plants ranging from 1-3 feet tall. There were varied plants from stinging nettle to pricker bushes. Down lower to the office barn there was an abundance of pricker bushes. And up towards the top of the site there was more ferns and small plants. When I was walking through the plants every step I took, 3 grass hoppers jumped from the plants. From down low towards the office barn to the top of our site there were still many grass hoppers. We heard yellow warbler, common yellow throat, black-throated green warbler, american robin, oven bird, black capped chickadee, red eyed vireo, and the wood thrush. Although we heard all these birds we did not see any. Hunter saw woodpecker holes on the upper half of the site. These holes were pea size and they were all over the tree. We do not know the type of woodpecker but we think it might be downy or a hairy woodpecker. Around a red oak we found one pile of bear scat. Haley stepped in another pile that was on the trail, then we found our 3rd and final pile around another tree. The scat was very green and had many seeds in it. The scat was a couple days old.

The Early Sucsessional Changes Over the Years



The cut field during fall


The early sucsessional is covered in a blanket of snow

                                         The early sucssesional blossoms with new life in spring



Bird Habitat Eval.

We have evalulated that the early successional is an good place for birds to live, but not a large diversity can live there. There is not a large mix of different tree types (90% deciduous and 10% coniferous), so the diversity of species that can live there isn't as high as it could be. There are plenty of nesting sites, and food is abundant. I would rate it a six out of ten for ability of diverse bird species to live there.

Birds in the Early Sucessional

When we returned to the Early Successional this spring, we found evidence of many different birds.
Some of these included:
Yellow warbler
Common yellow-throat
Black-throated green warbler
American robin
Ovenbird 
Black-capped chickadee
Red-eyed vireo
Wood thrush

Grasshoppers and Birds in the Early Successional

The early successional habitat provides a great habitat for grasshoppers. There is an abundance of plants which grasshoppers can eat. As well as this there are many small insects that some grasshoppers are known to eat. These grasshoppers fit in to the food chain at the level of primary consumers. They also provide a great food source for the yellow warblers and common yellow-throat which nest in the woody shrubs that border the field section of the early successional. These grasshoppers are one of their main food sources and help to keep the population alive.
Yellow Warbler
The small black and white dots in the bottom left corner are grasshoppers

Tree Inventory

The trees in the Early Successional are:

Red Oak
Yellow Birch
Balsam Fir
Sugar Maple
White Ash
Black Cherry
Crab apple
Service berry
Liberty apple
Hawthorn

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