The Commission recently had aspen trees cut along Old State Road in Guilderland as part of restoring habitat back to pitch pine-scrub oak barrens.  Residents in the area have been contacting the Commission to find out if they can cut and take the downed trees for firewood.

Preserve regulations do not allow for the removal of anything from the Preserve, including this wood for firewood, by the public (ECL 6 NYCRR Part 648.4(a)). In addition, because of liability and safety issues the Commission cannot allow the public to cut and remove this wood for personal use.

Because Aspen is a softwood these trees will rapidly decompose over the next several years.  In addition, with increased sunlight on the forest floor resulting from the tree cutting, shrubs, grasses and wildflowers will rapidly grow in these areas over the spring and summer, making the trees less obvious while they decompose.  Additionally, the tangle of branches at ground level will provide a temporary habitat for a variety of animals both this winter and next spring and summer.

Wildlife habitat restoration work can be unsightly at times.  However, over the long term these areas will be transformed back to the beautiful pine barrens that they once were.

~Joel Hecht, Stewardship Director

Dear Preserve Stewards,

I hope that you all had a lovely holiday season!  I was on vacation the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and then spent the short week after that catching up on e-mails and getting myself organized so I don’t have much to report from that time period.

Since then we’ve been working hard on both indoor and outdoor projects!  Indoor work has included things like working on the production of a new trails map for the preserve, organizing all of our GIS files, and completing the budget for next fiscal year (beginning April 2012).  By this point in the year, we typically would not be able to do  much more outdoor work, but with the relatively warm weather (this weekend excluded!!!) and the lack of snow, we have been able to continue working on outdoor projects.  Dave and Tyler have been continuing right along with “drill and fill” aspen herbiciding work, and last week I was able to finish installing split rail fences and signage at Blueberry Hill to keep preserve visitors on the new trails system and off of the recently closed trails.  Although the ground was frozen, I was able to dig post holes anyway with our tractor powered post hole digger.  We purchased this implement last spring, and what a great tool it has turned out to be!

We will begin laying out the next iteration of preserve trail changes in the next few weeks, will continue to tackle the aspen herbiciding project, and plan to finish up some late season mowing in the near future.  It’s kind of fun to get some “bonus time” to keep working outside, we’re getting a lot accomplished which feel good!  Hope all is well with you, talk to you again soon!

Sincerely,

~Jesse Hoffman, Preserve Steward

Over the next few weeks, National Grid will be accessing their power lines, which run through the preserve, to conduct routine maintenance work. Crews will enter the preserve through the Willow Street Trailhead (#8). You may see bucket trucks or other heavy equipment near the Willow Street trailhead or in other areas of the preserve adjacent to power lines. Minor tree pruning, digging, and grading work are expected to occur.

Aspen tree species, while native to the Albany Pine Bush, have become massively overabundant throughout the preserve in the absence of sufficiently frequent fire.  These species are clonal, meaning that they spread rapidly and grow quickly through root suckering, and are able to out compete other less common and more desirable pine barrens species like scrub oak, pitch pine, blueberries, and wild blue lupine.  Additionally, their dense closed canopies create a micro climate that is less attractive to important pine barrens wildlife species of concern, including the federally endangered Karner Blue Butterfly.  Once mature aspen trees have taken over an area, they preclude fire from being able to be used for restoration because the fire will not burn under the damp closed canopy.  Aspen trees must therefore be eliminated in other ways before the habitat can be returned to a true pitch pine-scrub oak pine barrens ecosystem comprised of all of the rare plants and animals that make the Albany Pine Bush Preserve such a unique and special place.  After restoration is complete, aspen trees will continue to be present in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve, although in much smaller numbers.

For many years the task of removing aspen trees has been accomplished throughout the interior of the Albany Pine Bush Preserve using a mechanical technique called girdling.  Please visit our website for more information on aspen girdling.  Girdling is not an appropriate methodology to use near roads or preserve property boundaries because this procedure results in standing dead aspen trees which will eventually rot in place and then fall down unpredictably.  In order to remove roadside and boundary aspen trees, this year we have hired professional contractors to cut these trees down.  This accomplishes our goal of restoring habitat back to pitch pine-scrub oak barrens in a more controlled way.

While the changes that you’ll see along the preserve roadsides might look abrupt, they are being made with the Albany Pine Bush Preserve’s ecological goals and ideals foremost in mind.  The late fall and early winter is a time of year when birds and other animals are least likely to be harmed by these activities as nesting and young rearing activities are complete, and in fact, bringing nutrient rich tree buds down to ground level will provide a temporary additional food source for many animals.  Additionally, the tangle of branches at ground level will provide a temporary habitat for a variety of animals both this winter and next summer before the branches and trunks rapidly decompose in place.

Restoration is an often messy and at times unsightly process, but one that is critical to the protection and advancement of the globally rare inland pine barrens ecosystem that we are so fortunate to have here in our own backyards.  We hope that you recognize that this is a necessary process and will grow to enjoy the beauty and majesty that the long term results of our restoration in this special place will bring.

If you’d like more information about our current management practices please contact Stewardship Director, Joel Hecht at jhecht@albanypinebush.org

The trail system in the Blueberry Hill area of the Preserve has changed.  A new trail map of this area can be found at the Discovery front desk and at both the Blueberry Hill East and Blueberry Hill West trailhead kiosks.

Dear Preserve Stewards,
This cold weather sure gets me in the mood for some snow! Which reminds me – before we get any serious weather, it would be a good idea for everyone to get out there one more time to check over the trail system to make sure that there are no serious issues (like big trees down). It’s a lot easier for the crew and I to deal with things now rather than waiting until there’s a ton of snow covering everything up! We have had some significant wind lately and you never know what might have come down. Over the past few weeks Dave and Tyler have been primarily focused on continuing along with the drill and fill aspen herbiciding project. We have hired contractors who are also working on drill and fill and between their crews and our crew we will have several hundred more aspen free acres for potential burning come spring! Very exciting! I have primarily been working on organizing and planning for the winter season, as well as dealing with seed (lupine has been brought to Saratoga for cleaning, and the rest of the seed is now being stored in the basement of the Discovery Center to avoid the ravenous chipmunks in the barn) and mowing. I have mowed two out of three sites for the year with the goal of stimulating lupine growth, flowering, and seed set. Last year we noticed a positive correlation between mowed sites and lupine performance, so it will be interesting to see if the correlation hold for this year as well. That’s it for now, I will be off next week for Christmas break and will talk to you all after the New Year! I hope that your Holiday Season is joyous and filled with much wonder and love.

~Jesse Hoffman, Preserve Steward

Dear Preserve Stewards,

It hasn’t been too long since my last update, so there is not too too much to report, but here goes!  First and foremost, I had a lovely Thanksgiving break with my wife’s family near Detroit, MI, and I hope that you all were well fed and well rested too!  The week after Thanksgiving, seasonal employees Dave and Tyler attended a Chainsaw Training course all week (S-212, Wildland Fire Chain Saws) and I attended a CPR/First Aid/AED training course put on in-house by our very own Jackie Citriniti!  A very safety oriented week for all!  In addition to the training, I worked quite a bit on organization and winter clean-up of our field facility at 1219 Kings Road.  I dealt with an entire pick-up trucks worth of recyclable metal and between Dave and Tyler’s work previously, and my work last week, we are now all cleaned up and ready for winter to hit!  Finally, I met with Bob O’Brien, Invasive Species Control Field Director at Minnewaska State Park, to discuss invasives management in the Pine Bush going forward.  It was a great opportunity to strengthen connections made previously at the 2011 Invasive Species In-Service (conference I told you about last week), and as a result of our meeting, I am likely going to do a site visit to Minnewaska later this summer to watch cutting edge bio control of the invasive plant Spotted Knapweed in action.  That’s it for now, hope you all are well and are enjoying the wintery weather!

~Jesse Hoffman, Preserve Steward

All last week I was in Ithaca, NY attending an invasive species conference!  The conference was really great with excellent, intelligent, well-spoken presenters with lots of on the ground knowledge and experience.  Topics covered included early detection and rapid response; emerald ash borers and how to prepare for their arrival; deer and their impact on invasive plants; the status of feral hogs in NY; new invasive plants, insects and pathogens on the horizon; climate change and invasive species;  pathways of invasion; using The Nature Conservancy’s decision tree to prioritize treatment; conducting surveys and inventories; invasive species prevention zones; using logic models for strategic PRISM (Partnerships for Regional Invasive Species Management) planning; citizen science and volunteer recruitment; iMapInvasives training; and several case studies.  In addition to all of the formal training, there was lots of time for informal discussion and to meet with colleagues.  I met a lot of people who will become good resources to bounce ideas off of in the future, and feel much better connected to the NY invasive species community.  All of this will help big time as we begin to implement an invasive species management program in the preserve that extends beyond black locust.

While I was away, seasonal employees, Dave and Tyler, continued to hold down the fort here focusing on seed collection,  finishing up clip and drip of black locust re-sprouts, cutting new black locust posts for use as trail marker post next year, and general clean-up of our field facilities at 1219 Kings Rd.   A bit of good news to share regarding Dave and Tyler – they are both being kept on as seasonal employees through the end of March!  We have not had seasonal staff here through the winter months before and it will be a great help to have them.  One of their main winter tasks will be to begin tackling our GIS data files in order to organize and restructure them, a long neglected task!

Hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

~Jesse Hoffman, Preserve Steward

Another lovely day in the pine bush and what a week last week – it seems like the nice weather is making up for lost time!  The new trails out at Blueberry Hill are officially open.  Yay!  Everything is marked and most of the split rail fences (to close off the old trail system) are in place.  We ran out of split rail fencing before we could close everything off that we need to, but I will order more fencing tomorrow and hopefully we’ll be able to finish off the closures soon.  In the meanwhile though, the new trails are open, so go and check them out!  There are still a few swampy wet areas, but they are shrinking each day, and once it gets dry enough to get vehicles in there we will be attempting to fill in some of the low spots to prevent trail puddles in the future!  Seed collection is wrapping up…we have tons of bush clover collected (thanks to Farnsworth Middle School, and the Albany Academies!) and we just need to finish up with the big grasses and horsemint over the next few weeks.  Seasonal Staff members, Dave and Tyler, have been continuing along with “clip and drip” herbiciding the black locust re-sprouts, and they recently attended a training course on running pumps for prescribed fire use.  For the next few weeks we will be putting the finishing touches on the  Blueberry Hill trail system, finishing seed collection, continuing with clip and drip, stockpiling new trail marker posts, and cleaning up the field facilities at 1219 Kings Rd. for winter.  Lots to do!  Hope that you all are having a great time out there in the preserve, and do go and check out Blueberry Hill!

~Jesse Hoffman, Preserve Steward

Now this is the kind of Fall weather that I love!  And what a delight to be working outdoors!  The new trails in Blueberry Hill are partially marked and we are on schedule to have them officially opened up by the end of the month.  Seed collection is in full force with all species being ripe and ready to collect – we have been finishing up the Desmodium collection and will be moving onto Horsemint and the big grasses next.  Additionally, the new “Hungerkill Barrens” Trailhead Kiosk has been installed and that area of the preserve is all finished up for now.  Feel free to go check it out.  Dave and Tyler (our seasonal staff) did a really nice job building the kiosk from scratch!  Finally, we have re-entered burn season here at the preserve, and will be attempting a prescribed burn whenever the weather permits.  Lots going on!  Thanks so much to Rosemarie who is leading one of the upcoming seed collection weekend events, and thanks to everyone who volunteered to help out if needed.  Our volunteers are the best!  Have some fun out there and enjoy this gorgeous weather!
~Jesse Hoffman, Preserve Steward