Habitat Changes Bring New Species

Habitat Changes Brings New Species
February 01 & February 03

I attended a funeral of an acquaintance two weeks ago who had passed away at the age of 102. My father died at the age of 96, but 102 is an incredible accomplishment. As the minister pointed out, she was still alive to see all her children receive the old age pension!
As I walk up the road past our old farm every morning at daybreak, I realize just how many of the former residents I once knew and who were friends of my parents, are mostly gone now. The farm on which I have so many memories of baling hay, combining grain and not so fond memories of picking tomatoes, has changed, many of the fields on which we grew corn and oats, now dense with red cedars and ash saplings. In retrospect though, we must admit, with current high production costs and low return, it is no longer feasible to lovingly work and care for small, and sometimes unproductive fields as we once did. So they are abandoned.
I don’t lament that change as much as I used to, for I have finally come to accept that our farm has entered a new chapter, and the people we once toiled with and the fields we once worked was another era, as were decades and even centuries before it. Our life was a former chapter, and a new one has been started.
We hear a lot these days about “habitat loss,” and for some, it is difficult to comprehend in view of so many small farms being abandoned, leaving behind fields now overgrown with tall grass, shrubs and trees. One would think wildlife habitat would be enjoying an upswing, not a decrease. But, it’s not that simple, as good habitat is one that requires some management to produce optimum results. Another column sometime.
Dense, impenetrable fields of red cedars and ash trees contribute little to the enhancement of habitat, for they are monocultural, attracting only specific species. But there have been some interesting wildlife changes, at least, on our old farm anyway, so it cannot be viewed as a total loss. I have vivid memories of walking back our lane during summer evenings, and basking in the vibrant songs of vesper sparrows as they poured out their rich melodies along the fencerow. The laneway with its mixture of bitternut hickory, prickly ash and grey dogwood, bordering the hay field in which they nested, was ideal habitat for them. I am not certain what that same field, now grown up with ash saplings and heavy with thatch attracts today, but the vesper sparrows are gone. I haven’t heard a vesper sparrow on that farm in more than 20 years.
However, other species have arrived and settled in. One field which produced some of our best yields of silage corn and hosted the annual return of nesting killdeer is unrecognizable. The butternut trees along the fencerow are gone, consumed by butternut canker long ago. All changes that have occurred through natural calamities and some 30 years of plant succession. The dense crop of red cedars no longer appeals to the killdeer who once nested atop the cultivated soil when tomatoes grew there. But in the open areas that remain where the cedars have not yet encroached, clay-colored sparrows have moved in. They sing their buzzy, insect like songs where nesting conditions are now to their liking. For how long, is anyone’s guess, for this is a finicky species, and it will search for more hospitable abodes elsewhere once the trees exceed six or seven feet, and the open spaces disappear.
There are species that have disappeared for sure, including the loggerhead shrike who used to nest in the hawthorns and wild apple trees. They are gone, but they are disappearing, it seems, all over Ontario, for a variety of reasons. Grasshopper sparrows are still around, because in a few places, the hay fields remain. Here, too, are the bobolinks and the meadowlarks, as for them, nothing much has changed in those fields where hay is still harvested.
A few surprises come along for no apparent reason. The hay field behind our house which is harvested every year, attracted a pair of endangered Henslow’s sparrows 10 years ago, along with over 50 birders from across Ontario, some of whom had never before seen a Henslow’s sparrow. They are indeed rare, and it was only through their metallic cricket-like call one night that I was alerted to their presence. For a short while, they were famous, as was the obscure field in which they appeared. No different from any other field, except the exposure and presence of thatch in this field of brome grass was apparently to their liking. I haven’t seen or heard one since.
It is difficult to say to what extent this new habitat has changed the make-up of wildlife on our old farm. Certainly we see more hawk activity, due to the overgrown fields harbouring more meadow voles. We see more deer, and we now have fishers. I see one occasionally on my walks every morning, and come across their tracks and their scats. Fishers are in the county due to an increase in feral cats, which in turn may be more plentiful because of more meadow voles in the fields due to more unkempt fields being available to them. Nature seems to know what do to keep wildlife in check, no matter what changes occur in the habitat. It is a balancing act that many of us are still trying to understand.