Springtime Along the Haw River

We drove from FL to NC on April 9 planning to enjoy some of the natural pleasures of springtime at our new home on 36 acres along the Haw River in Alamance County, NC. It is difficult to leave FL in Spring when there may be some amazing fallouts of migrant birds to come, but this year such occurrences were very rare.

The ecological driver of many events in the forests of eastern N America is now the over-population of white tailed deer. It may not be immediately obvious but when you look carefully at the prevalent species of plants in the understory they are primarily species that are NOT eaten by deer. Thus of the approximately 40 species of trees in our dense woods, only a very few young trees are common in the understory which can be reached by deer. Thus buckeye, paw paw, and various toxic shrubs such as spicebush and exotic olive and privet are the predominant plants to be seen. So what will happen in the future when the existing adult trees die? Clearly there will be no forest since there are no young trees replacing the old ones. This is “an inconvenient truth” that poses a far greater danger to the future of forests than global environmental issues. There need to be significant changes to hunting regulations to allow for a much greater harvest of deer- not to be exterminated – but greatly reduced in numbers. “Bambi” has become a monster!

We are fortunate to have found a house on a beautiful river with a tract of land (36 acres) with abundant trees including some very large specimens and considerable biodiversity. For example one of the largest trees is a massive American elm shown here with my daughter Mary hugging it. Surprisingly this huge tree is growing on a sandy dike adjacent to the Haw River which would not seem to be a century old, the likely age of the tree. Perhaps a massive storm in the distant past formed this dike and it has persisted. The understory as shown in the adjacent trail we have built is relatively open with small shrubs.

Two of the interesting flowers we have encountered recently are crossvine and wild ginger (Hexastylis arifolia). Cross vine grows straight up the tall pine trees and provides early season nectar for hummingbirds. Wild ginger is in fact toxic (which explains why it exists on the forest floor with lots of hungry deer around) and may be self pollinating- see this for a fascinating story of how little we know about this common pipevine ( https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1143&context=biology-faculty-publications#:~:text=Wild%20gingers%20look%20like%20they,norm%20for%20these%20curious%20plants. ).

The insects in our forest are legion and constantly provide a source of wonder. As I walk our trails I encounter what appears to be a bumblebee in flight but when it lands its turns out to be a carrion beetle that mimics the fierce bumblebee for protection from predators. A six spotted tiger beetle is a predator on smaller insects and is an astonishingly bright green color, for no apparent reason. Butterflies are less abundant in the forest than in fields but are still diverse enough to challenge my ability to identify them. Several spicebush swallowtails were “puddling” along the river’s edge to obtain fluids rich in salts such as sodium which are deficient in their plant based diet. The red banded hairstreak is an amazing color and is believed to have a false head on its posterior end to fool predators into attacking away from its most vital parts. The hackberry emperor is one of the species with lots of “eye spots” that may confuse potential predators; it is here shown tasting the steering wheel of my ATV for sodium salts.. The comma butterfly also looks for sodium in places where human sweat has accumulated- in this case a work glove but it will also land on sweaty shirts.

We put up a bird house with an opening diameter of 1 inch and attracted a family of Carolina chickadees. Here one of the parents is taking a caterpillar to the five hungry babies. There will be thousands of such visits to raise the babies and a recent book “The Nature of Oaks” by D. Tallamy makes the point that some trees such as oaks have a much greater biodiversity of prey species on them than others such as maples.

As a herpetologist I have enjoyed encountering reptiles in my daily excursions around the yard. Black rat snakes are one of the more commonly seen snakes although tiny cryptic burrowing species such as worm snakes may be much more abundant. My grandson Isaac from Utah is amazed by the tree climbing ability of rat snakes which makes them superb predators. The lowly garter snake has gained more street “cred” since it is now known to be venomous to prey species but hardly dangerous to humans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_garter_snake ). I am especially interested in the male coloration of the fence lizard which during breeding season has a bright blue belly. Perhaps this signals that some of the dinosaurs were also colorful ? The Haw River is full of turtles- the most often seen are yellow-bellied sliders/river cooters which haul out to bask on rocks. The turtle in upper left is a male as you can tell from the longer tail (holding a long penis) and the long fingernails (used in a behavior to stimulate the female to mate). The larger female just below has a short tail and short fingernails.

Despite the numerous negative impacts that humans have had on the environment, there are still great wonders to observe in nature. But do not leave your brain in storage while enjoying a hike- remain vigilant for things we can change for the better and focus on making your own little slice of the planet as healthy as possible. It is clear that hunting deer is one of the major things you can do to improve the future for the natural world in eastern N America.

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