Conservation-minded birders share Haan's concerns for quality native
habitats and, like Haans, may wonder what can we done? This is a very good
question and a timely topic of discussion because birders rush special
places like Headlands during migration. First, Edward O. Wilson, noted
evolutionary biologist, has suggested a simple acronym to guide concern and
action. The acronym, HIPPO, prioritizes global patterns impacting
biodiversity and is applicable at all scales, from broad ecoregions, to your
favorite local birding patch, Headlands dunes, for example. H.I.P.P.O.
stands for five heavy-hitting factors; Habitat loss, Invasive species,
Population growth, Pollution, Overharvest. Obviously, they all are
inter-related, a destructive synergy. The first two are most immediately
destructive and are the most accessible to YOU and ME. We can do something
immediately about habitat loss and invasive species (Think big, too: Read
Wilson's book "The Future of Life").

Habitat loss is attributed to developers (and our demand for them), but we
may contribute to habitat loss even when we go birding. Headlands is a great
example: each footfall off trail onto Headland's unique dune vegetation
causes compaction and fragmentation--you can stop in you tracks, kneel down,
and see the damage real-time. Headlands plant communities depend on keystone
species, beach grass, switch grass, and other root mat-forming species that
hold sand among roots below, and catch sand saltating with the wind, above.
These essential plants send up wind-breaking stalks like the wide open spray
at the tip of a switchgrass seed-bearing stalk. Wind moves sand, plants
break the wind, sand falls into the plant clusters and is held by networks
of roots, until we break up the root mats by stepping over and over again
off trail. Next time you are at Headlands, look how the trails become
excavated by wind as the root mat is separated. The dune plant community is
resilient, but it is not adapted to resisting casual human trail networks
that are torn by rigid synthetic-soled boots, it's adapted to small hooves
and soft-stepping quadrupeds, and mostly, wind.

Birds are not to blame for invasive species, people are the cause, bush
honeysuckle is a good example. We still buy it and plant it frequently! The
bush honeysuckle at Headlands, as everywhere, is alelopathic. It chemically
suppresses many other species of native plants that would grow in its
absence. The berries are really poor bird food, but they are abundant! The
stewardship professionals at Headlands are not thoughtless and bungling, and
they are not cutting and hoping, they are making-way for natives, an
essential precursor to natural and anthropogenic processes for restoration.
It's not easy and it's not always successful, so, there is always a little
hoping ,too, I confess. I work in habitat restoration, I've been there, it's
an ongoing battle.

What can YOU do?

Stay on the trails, or if you feel you must leave the trail, don't walk in
other's footsteps, and avoid sensitive habitats.

Buy native plants from your region, not exotics, or at least not invasive
exotics (www.invasivespeciesinfo.org)!. Use local native species in your
flower garden.
Use native plants for all your home landscaping. Coincidentally, this
morning, I bought additional native plants for my propagules beds from the
OSU Marion campus prairie plant sale held annually on this Saturday. All
their plants are greenhouse starts from seed originating in the Sandusky
Plains, the ecotype set I maintain. My money will help them do what they do,
there. YOU can source native species by searching the internet and asking
questions. Your local insects, like butterflies, will thank you. The birds
that eat the insects will thank you, too, by showing up in your yard.

As Haans suggested, you can press your local parks, at all levels, to
support professional and volunteer efforts to actively remove invasive
species from natural areas. Further, ask them to use only non-invasive
species for landscaping and to pursue restoration in place of landscaping.

Demand that your legislature put funding back into the defunded Natural
Areas and Preserves Division. It's still there, without money.

Last, support you local land steward in the fight against invasive species,
get your hands dirty!

Tom Bain
Delaware County
Chair, OOS conservation committee

-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio birds [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Haans
Petruschke
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2012 4:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [Ohio-birds] Headlands cutting- invasive plants and Ohio birds

Hi,

First let me say there are no bird sightings in this post.  If you feel the
list serve is only for sightings you can either ignore this missive or go
here:

http://www.ohiobirds.org/site/emaillist.php#guidelines

and carefully READ the guidelines.

That said...

The cutting at Headlands dunes has stopped, for now.  Thank you ODNR for
listening, being responsive, and delaying the removal of the invasive
honeysuckle.  However this incident brings up a major issue the entire Ohio
birding community should be concerned about and involved in.  That is
invasive plant species in our natural areas, preserves, and state parks.

Why should birders care?  The Headlands incident is a prefect example.
 While invasive plants provide needed forage cover for birds, they are non
native and do not provide the best possible habitat for attracting birds.
 People in charge of  keeping natural areas in a natural state, hate
invasive plants and seek to eliminate them. Further they see our beloved
birds as a primary vector in spreading these invasives.  The attitude of
land managers is get rid of it and hope something else comes up, if it comes
back get rid of it again.

From the bird lover's perspective this seems like insanity, that is, doing
the same thing and hoping for a different result.  We ask: Why not plant
native stock rather than using the strategy of cut and hope?

Here is the crux and where birders need to get involved.  The simply is no
native stock available.  It is not gown by nurseries or greenhouses.  So
there is not an alternative to cut and hope.

What can we do?  I don't know, I have some ideas, but during this biggest
week in American Birding I am hoping this becomes a topic of discussion
among all the birders who are gathered in our state.  What do they do
elsewhere?  What might work?  How can efforts to create native plant stock
be funded?

If there is something all birders agree upon it is that we want high quality
habitat for our birds.  The next question is: Are we as a community willing
to put up the brain power, the time, and the money to create or restore that
habitat in our state's natural areas and preserves our birds depend upon?

So when you see that Garlic Mustard, Honeysuckle or Glossy Buckthorn, ask
what can we do?  While we don't want these invasives in our favorite bird
habitat, we do want plants so we have bugs to feed the birds.  There must be
a solution.  What is it?

Haans Petruschke
Kirtland

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______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.

You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]