Safe Harbor Program Workshop Planned in the Albany Region
Private properties provide habitat for over 90% of the rare species found in the United States. Rare species on private lands have often led to some contentious battles, but a number of new programs now exist that benefit rare species and property owners collectively.
The Safe Harbor Program is one such program enjoying great popularity in the Red Hills region. The program is designed to promote growth of the imperiled Red-cockaded Woodpecker without infringing on private property rights. Over 140,000 acres are now enrolled in the program in the Red Hills region. The Red Hills woodpecker population has grown by about 15% as a result, and provided enhanced security for this iconic symbol of southern forests.
Tall Timbers is partnering with the Jones Ecological Research Center and Georgia DNR to host a special workshop to introduce landowners in the Albany region to the Safe Harbor Program. The number of reasons landowners sign up for the program are as varied as the landowners themselves. The goal of the workshop is to outline program mechanics through a field tour and short presentations. The many positives that often accompany this rare woodpecker will also be discussed.
The workshop takes place at the Jones Center at Ichuaway on Thursday, October 10 from 9-1. Registration is required to help plan for logistics and distribute materials beforehand. To register, please email Amy Allen; or call 850-893-4153 x249.
By Scott Pokswinski and Kevin Hiers, Fire Science Lab
Carbon Flux Tower
Forest productivity and fire go hand in hand in the Southeast. The burning of live and dead fuels and the rate at which forests can incorporate the resulting atmospheric carbon will be a key to understanding the role of fire in the carbon cycle. This is particularly interesting for second growth forests on old agricultural lands, which dominate forest cover in the Southeast U.S. Dr. Kevin Robertson at Tall Timbers documented that, when burned, these recovering forested lands provide critical ecosystems services, including carbon sequestration.
To better understand the ebb and flow of carbon in forests, the Tall Timbers Fire Science lab has partnered with Dr. Gregory Starr of the University of Alabama to install an eddy flux tower over the canopy of a second growth loblolly pine on Tall Timbers to measure ecosystem productivity.
A carbon dioxide infrared gas analyzer paired to a 3D sonic anemometer can detect minute changes in air flow and concentration of carbon dioxide as air moves in an out of the stand. These sensors will log the flow of carbon above the canopy of the forest for the next decade 10 times a second. The data that the tower collects will be integrated with data from several towers throughout the Southeast that Dr. Starr manages to create a region-wide dataset encompassing several forest types, including native groundcover and longleaf pine plantations of a similar age. Relating how climate cycles drive changes in productivity of recovering southern pine forests is important to modeling future climate-fire interactions in the Southeast.
Birds Eye View of Loblolly Pine Canopy on Tall Timbers
Tall Timbers’ continued partnership with Yale School of Forestry
For a few years the Fire Ecology Program has interacted with the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, first through an invitation to program director, Dr. Kevin Robertson, to present at the Yale Forest Forum, facilitated by board member and Yale alumnus Redmond Ingalls. That meeting led to the joint Yale-Tall Timbers Fire Ecology Conference and Journal of Sustainable Forestry special issue titled The Fire Ecology of the Northeast in 2014. Since then students from the School of Forestry have annually visited Tall Timbers as part of their Southern Forest Field Course. Last year one of the students (Charlie Faires) returned to do field work and help write a paper on longleaf pine regeneration on the Wade Tract (see Winter 2019 eNews issue), which is now published in the journal Forests.
Kevin Robertson at the Wade Tract Preserve as he and his team begin a prescribed burn.
In April, Dr. Robertson was invited back to Yale to present results from the longleaf regeneration project at another Yale Forest Forum. Charlie Faires also arranged a special gathering of three Yale special interest groups — the Western Group, Fire Group, and Southern Group — for a presentation by Dr. Robertson on competing fire history paradigms in North American. He outlined differences between the anthropogenic fire versus lightning fire explanations for pine savanna origins, and presented examples of research using a comprehensive approach that considers both. The presentations were well attended and enthusiastically received, resulting in more students wanting to work with Tall Timbers in the future. Charlie and others hope that this association will contribute to a trend of more focus on the South by the School of Forestry, reflected by land management fellowships offered to Yale Forestry students on other properties in the Red Hills Region.
Red-cockaded Woodpecker nest discovered on Dixie—the first in 50 years!
Red-cockaded Woodpeckers are nesting on Dixie Plantation in Jefferson County, Florida. Eight sub-adults were translocated to the property last fall, and a nest with four eggs was discovered today by Woodpecker Conservation Specialist Rob Meyer. This is the first nest on the property in over 50 years! We’ll be scheduling a special trip to band the young once they appear and reach an approach age (probably in early June). The restored woodpecker population on Tall Timbers also reached a new high in 2019—16 nests underway at this point with about half the nestlings banded.
Bobwhite Breeding Season Begins with High Optimism
By Dr. Theron M. Terhune, Game Bird Program Director
As the final smoke plumes dissipate in the springtime air, birds are pairing off hard and dispersing in search for mates over the past few weeks. As of this writing, 15 May, we have confirmed 25 nests being incubated in the Red Hills region and already a few managers have reported seeing a brood or two. We expect to begin seeing good numbers of chicks hitting the ground by late May and early June. As such, if not already done it would be a good idea to begin wrapping up woods work, if possible, to minimize negative impacts on early broods — many of these early broods will likely be roosting in unburned areas and using the recently burned areas for bugging grounds.
Quail Roosting
In looking back, over-winter survival was about average to slightly above average this year based on our radio-tagged birds. We’ve also had good spring rains so far resulting in a quick cover response following burns on many properties. The raptors left in a hurry around mid-March, which has further benefited adult survival, rendering good numbers being carried into breeding season. In addition, we have been seeing and hearing a lot of reports of a high number of cotton rats. In our small mammal sampling this past month, we also observed a large uptick in cotton rat numbers compared to previous years at this same time, and very comparable numbers to that of 2002-03 seasons. We are hopeful that this boom in cotton rat numbers continues and that this will result in good breeding season survival for adult bobwhite, yielding good production, good chick survival, and that this results in excellent fall recruitment.
Speaking of chicks and recruitment. One of our PhD students, Brad Kubecka, is studying various aspects of chick ecology, and he recently analyzed spatial daily movements for broods and developed this nifty animation for six chicks (radio-tracking of single members of different broods) from the 2018 breeding season.
Figure Above: Grey represents recently burned (3 month) areas, whereas white represents areas burned the year before (15 months). Beige colors are fallow fields and dark green are hardwood bottoms, or drains. Feed lines are blue.
What you can see is that broods are using both burned and unburned areas with a preference toward recently burned areas for foraging. You might also notice that some broods make bigger movements than what you might think. Also, chicks have a propensity for the feed line, especially as they mature, with some broods using the feed line as early as two weeks of age, which is slightly earlier than what we have previously thought. Stoddard suggested that we do not know if the chicks are consuming insects or milo or both along these feed lines, but our future analysis of chick feces will shed light on the diets of chicks. The take-home message is simple: feed, feed and feed!! The adult birds, rats and chicks all benefit from feed being on the ground year-round, and this time of year is a major pinch-point in survival for bobwhite, so keeping the feed abundantly available will help to mitigate the taxing conditions of breeding/mating.
The M-CORES program, which includes the proposed Suncoast Connector Toll Road in Jefferson County, passed through the Florida Legislature at breakneck speed with little review or analysis. Tall Timbers has a number of concerns given the potential for significant and wide spread impacts. These include fragmenting public and private conservation lands, robbing business from Main Street Monticello, impacting our rivers and other water resources, and making prescribed fire more difficult and costly.
Join us in asking the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners to OPPOSE the Suncoast Connector toll road and its path through Jefferson County.
Take action now with our easy email form.
Send an email to all five Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners with one click!
Selected Publications authored by Wildland Fire Science staff.
Educating and guiding the next generation of fire researchers and managers is a key goal of Wildland Fire Science and a resource for testing new ideas in fire research.
Tall Timbers hosts the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium, a national network of researchers and managers who promote integrated research and management to advance next generation tools for fire practitioners. https://arcg.is/1DSjDT
Working with partners in the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium, the program is building nexgen 3-D fuel beds using terrestrial LiDAR and novel sampling techniques to power new fire behavior models for prescribed fire managers. This work links to Tall Timbers work in wildlife habitat usage and ecological forestry.
Tall Timbers is leading an effort to map fire regimes at the landscape scale. Staff work with numerous agencies to evaluate fire records and satellite imagery to build this critical conservation database. https://skfb.ly/6DqOY
We are linking physics and field observations to understand the fluid dynamics of fire behavior surface fire regimes. Our work combines field observations using advanced thermal imaging techniques, laboratory studies, and coupled fire-atmospheric modeling to help managers improve outcomes of managed fire regimes.
Burn prioritization modeling seminars and fire modeling tools are supported by Wildland Fire Science to train managers in the important planning stages of prescribed fires.
The conserved lands of the Greater Red Hills region are found on working, income-producing properties that support agriculture, forestry, and recreational hunting. These properties contribute $272 million annually to local economies and support 2,300 jobs. [link to Planning & Advocacy section] The landowners’ strong stewardship ethic preserves their working lands while replenishing drinking water supplies, protecting water quality, and providing wildlife habitat for dozens of rare and endangered species. Tall Timbers’ conservation easements on these working properties encourage landowners to retain their traditional livelihood by keeping farms in family ownership.
Home to world-class wild quail populations, the Greater Red Hills region contains the largest concentration of gamebird preserves in the United States. These preserves also support the largest community of Red-cockaded woodpeckers on private lands. Indicators of high quality habitat found here include the gopher tortoise, Bachman’s sparrow, fox squirrel, and many amphibians. Tall Timbers’ conservation easements identify and protect the critical habitats of these species.
The region also boasts outstanding aquatic resources. Large river systems, like the Flint/Apalachicola, Ochlockonee, and Aucilla, flow from Georgia and feed into the Gulf of Mexico to support some of the world’s most productive estuaries. Large disappearing sinkhole lakes, like Iamonia, Miccosukee, and Jackson, provide habitat for an array of aquatic species and migratory birds. Tall Timbers’ conservation easements protect these vital watersheds and wetlands that are the lifeblood for the ecological health of the region.
Once dominated by longleaf pine, our pine woodlands support abundant wildlife and local economies. These forests need prescribed fire to stay healthy. Herbert L. Stoddard and his associates Ed and Roy Komarek were pioneers in this emerging scientific field during the mid-20th century. Tall Timbers continues that legacy with applied research on prescribed fire and land management. Today, there is a tremendous need to expand prescribed fire use beyond the Red Hills to ensure ecosystem health and reduce wildfire risk. Additionally, Tall Timbers uses conservation easements to permanently protect private woodlands while balancing the need for economic return from selective timbering.
Tall Timbers hosts the premier fire technology transfer organization—the Southern Fire Exchange. This JFSP funded effort helps connect research to management through webinars, workshops, and support of the Prescribed Fire Science Consortium.
The Longleaf Legacy landscape prescribed fire burn team arm of Wildland Fire Science works directly with landowners and partners to effectively put fire on the ground and promote prescribed fire throughout the region.
Staff and researchers support Federal fire training by serving as a cadre for NWCG training courses, ranging from basic wildland fire to advanced fire effects.
(PFTC) specializes in training fire fighters the principles and techniques of prescribed fire through practical hands-on experience. https://www.fws.gov/fire/pftc/
Private land owners are the largest source of prescribed fire in the country. These land owners and the culture of fire that was maintained by them during decades of suppression are a part of why Tall Timbers is a world-wide center for prescribed fire science. Workshops and fire training are a critical focus of the Longleaf Legacy Landscape Burn Team and our support of the Georgia Forestry Commission Prescribed Fire Center in Marion County.
Private properties provide habitat for over 90% of the rare species found in the United States. Rare species on private lands have often led to some contentious battles, but a number of new programs now exist that benefit rare species and property owners collectively.
