I found Lefty

I took a short walk through the bush near the house this morning. The snowshoe trails that I created last weekend made an excellent path to walk on since I did not sink into the snow on the crusted and hardened snowshoe track. Off the tracks however was another story. There the snow was still deep and quite soft.

Just as I was about to arrive at the house I found Lefty, the porcupine that I had spotted earlier in January – see Jan 30th report. He or she was now sitting in the snow and was not moving much. Lefty is in pretty bad shape. Looks like a very old porcupine. It is blind in the left eye and its nose is heavily worn. It has two very significant orange coloured incisors, like a beaver, and the characteristic claw on its left front foot was bent upwards. Its fur is very matted. I thought that its foot might be stuck in a branch but that was not the case as I was able to move it away with a stick.

Renfrew Chapter AGM

I attended the Renfrew Chapter of the Ontario Woodlot Association at the Legion in Eganville, 2 hours and 156 km. drive from here. The group only recently joined OWA but were in existence for at least nine years as the Renfrew Woodlot Owners Association.

The meeting began with normal AGM business including President's reports etc. followed by two presentations.

Wade Knight, Exec. Dir. of the OWA gave a presentation on an update on MFTIP. There are plans by the Province, Minister of Finance, to revisit the assessment of Woodlots and to treat them the same as farm properties.

Dave Gallagher and Vincent Csunyoscka then gave a report on a new initiative entitled The New County Private Woodlot Stewardship Committee. It was quite interesting since it promotes a volunteer approach to promoting woodlot management. I think a lot can be learned from that presentation that can be helpful for the City of Ottawa.

The Chapter is doing some excellent work with respect to educating youth on forests and woodlot management.

Flushed a Ruffed Grouse

After completing my set tasks for today I rewarded myself with a walk in the woods. I started walking but the snow was quite difficult to walk through so back the house I went and put on my snowshoes. The snow by now has a good crust on it but with today’s warmth the snow softened considerably. In clearings the snow was easily half a metre (1½ feet) thick. In the woods it was quite a bit less ranging around 15 cm. (½ ft.) thick. There was lots of activity according to the tracks. The porcupine tends to plough through the deep snow and create paths that it sticks to. These paths often sink down 15 to 20 cm. down in the snow. There was lots of snowshoe hare activity, coyotes have been scouring the area, and the fisher seems to have a hard time hobbling through the deep snow. There are some solitary deer tracks. On my way into the woods I flushed out a ruffed grouse. This was probably the closest I have ever come to one. Snowshoeing in that thick and heavy snow was a good workout.

Changes with the end of winter

Our daughter left us with a white spruce seedling last fall. It was part of a cancer fundraiser at Loblaws (a local super market) with the tree provided by Ferguson Forest in Kemptville. It was too late to plant it so we put it in some water in a cup and kept it on a windowsill for the winter. It is wrapped in a narrow plastic sleeve. Recently the plant started to produce moisture or condensation on the inside of the plastic. Might it be that the seedling has awakened and is starting active photosynthesis? All winter there was no moisture to speak of as there is now, and there has been no temperature change inside the house. The only real difference is that the days are getting noticeably longer, that must be the trigger.

The dozen turkeys are becoming regular visitors. When we are not near the windows to spook them, they even just hang out in our door yard.

Ontario Woodlot Association Conference and Annual General Meeting

Today Carroll and I attended the OWA Conference and AGM in Acton Ontario. Acton is a lovely small town just west of Toronto. The conference consisted of five presentations.

The first was entitled Land Trusts and Conservation Easements. I found it interesting as is spoke about the legal vehicles that exist by which one can ensure that one’s property is preserved in a particular way with certain conditions. For example a common wish is to conserve the property for perpetuity. This usually means that an agreement is established with a recipient stewardship organisation such as Ducks Unlimited or the Nature Conservancy.

Several excellent examples i.e. Mud Lake in or near Oak Ridges Moraine north of Toronto were presented.

It was an interesting talk since the content was well balanced and realistic demonstrating the advantages i.e. potential income tax benefits etc. as well as the risks.

The second paper was on Tree Marking. By Martin Streit of Domtar, Cornwall (soon to close apparently).
This was a very practical and informative session. It was basically an introduction to forestry practices and touched upon what I would call rules of thumb about timber harvesting. It was an ideal paper for the small woodlot owner who would not normally be able to hire a forester.

The third presentation was about Old Growth Forests presented by a very enthusiastic Bruce Kershner, Botanist from Manhattan who has been studying and seeking old growth trees for over 20 years. Near Niagara Falls he found 280 year old trees in Clifton Hills. As we go north we tend to find more old growth trees. He distinguished primary old growth from secondary, secondary being forests than have grown where land was once settled. He found OG pine trees that generated seed that grew faster and healthier than seed from younger trees, leading to the argument that preserving OG protects the gene pool and also has economic benefits.

The fourth presentation was entitled Building a Case for Sustainable Management of Private Woodlands.
This was quite revealing with the most prominent point being that a well managed forest can provide considerably more income per acre per year than farming. Several actual case studies were presented and the economics of each woodlots harvest compared to comparable farms in the area.

The fifth and last session was on Forest Health. The more prominent recent pests and diseases were presented. These included:
The emerald ash borer – a devastating pest to all ash trees, of which I have many
The Long horned beetle
Pine shoot beetle
Beech Bark disease
Hickory Bark beetle,
Pine false webworm
Spruce budworm,
Redhumped Oakworm
Ash anthiacnose (spelling not sure)
And the Butternut Canker.

The conference and AGM was interesting with a very good turn out, apparently more than in previous years.

There you have it. Carroll and I took Friday off to travel down and made a long weekend of it.

Turkey's and local seed supplies.

We had the pleasure of another visit of 12 turkeys. This is great - the numbers are increasing. Last year it was 8, now we have 12. In the past we were not able to discern any males among them, but this year there is definitely one tom with the characteristic "beard". This beard is a rather odd looking tuft of stiff thick hairs , sort of like the tip of a big paintbrush. He is also quite a bit larger than the others whom I presume are all hens. The turkeys love the cracked corn that we spread out on the snow for them.

We used to get our birdseed, - usually sunflower seeds and cracked corn - from a local feed store called Agri-West in North Gower, about 6 km distant, but unfortunately it is now permanently closed. The Agri-West store in Kemptville has also been closed but was bought out by a new owner so the service is still there, but 16 km away. A 50lb bag (yes this was still measured out in imperial units) of black sunflower seeds is a reasonable $19.95 ea. Fifty lbs is 22.73 kg. Now a 40KG. (88lb.) of cracked corn is $9.65. We found that these two types of seed were the most popular with the birds so we do not buy the mixes anymore since many of the other seeds remain behind in the feeder.

For the best price in town for these two seeds see Kemptville Feed & Seed Ltd. 306 Van Buren St. Kemptville, ON, K0G 1J0. (613) 258-0585.

The Gray Owls In Wisconsin

My thirteenth cousin, - yes that is true, found this out through a genealogy study on the internet - and name sake, brought to my attention this link to an interesting website describing the unusually high number of sightings of the subject owls in Wisconsin and the reason for this unusual migration.

A Grey Coloured Owl

Arriving into a clearing in area 10A I heard an owl launch from a branch, that is I could hear the claws releasing the branch - it may be that it was attempting to turn on its perch to fly in a direction away from me. Once aloft it flew ever so silently away. The body was a noticeable and strikingly even grey. It was too far away to detect any better detail. The body was about 30 cm (1 foot) long but other than that there was insufficient information to confirm which species it was. I have heard that there have been more than normal sightings of Great Grey Owls in the area. The Great Grey was previously quite uncommon in this area 20 odd years ago and existed in more northern latitudes in western Canada.

The Large Tooth Aspen

Huge aspens heavily wood the areas 10A and 10B at the very back of the property right next to the swamp. There are many fallen trees that have either blown over and have most of their roots pulled out of the ground or have the trunks snapped off. These create many obstructions and make the area quite difficult to walk through. The diameters of these trees are quite considerable. I released a white spruce by cutting one of these giants. With the setting sun I had to quit for the day, and tomorrow I plan to return and get the age of the tree by counting the rings and measure the length; and yet this was not the tallest of the trees - others were easily 6 metres (20 feet) taller. It seems that once trees reach a certain size then tend to slow down in growth in crown and height. These trees tend to exhibit an increase in girth and yet have a very small size for its canopy, as did this tree.

I was puzzled as to why there were almost all aspens in this area and no maple trees. There is one huge maple tree in the 10D area that is extraordinarily large in girth and very tall. This maple was noticeably tapered while the aspens tended to maintain the smaller decrease in girth with the height. One would think that this maple tree would have provided a suitable seed source for the area. According to a forester this is likely that a past farmer on this land had let his cattle graze in the forest. Since maple shoots are sweet and poplars bitter, the maples were selectively picked while the poplars remained untouched. This would be a prime example of unintentional genetic cleansing.

So with yellow hardhat, goggles, ear protectors, trusty Model 026 Stihl Chainsaw, and steel-toed boots, off I went clearing several hundred metres of trail along the snake rail fence I was at last weekend, as well as in the back. The back area remains very difficult to walk through for the dense underbrush made up of mainly glossy and European Buckthorn, and some ash saplings.

Sensitive Fern and Hoarfrost

In area block D10, picked some fertile leaves (also called frondes) of the Sensitive Fern, [Onoclea sensibilis L.] that were sticking out of the snow. The ferns have either infertile or fertile leaves. Infertile would be like regular leaves of any plant, and the fertile leaves are like a seedpod but in this case bearing spores rather than seeds. Indeed this " fertile leaf" which looks more like a brown stick with a bunch of beads stuck to its branches in rows. It drops small brown specks, which can be seen when taped onto a sheet of white paper. I presume that these are spores.

This morning we have ice fog that leaves hoarfrost on all the trees. Looks like lacework among the branches, quite beautiful really. I imagine that this is caused by high humidity, and indeed it is currently at around 95% relative humidity outside, and the temperature well below the freezing mark which is now at –10 degrees Celsius or 14 Fahrenheit.
For an example of hoarfrost that is very similar to what we are looking at today see:

http://flickr.com/photos/oubliette/3340857/

Reference: A Field Guide to the Ferns and Their Related Families of Northeastern and Central North America with a section on species also found in the British Isles and Western Europe by Boughton Cobb, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1963.
This is Number 10 in the Peterson Field Guide Series at the time of printing.

Speckled Alder and Cattails

Took a walk all the way to the far property line, which is across the old riverbed. This is area D10 in the grid plan described earlier. The whole area is frozen over and thus easy to walk. The snow was only about 4 to 6 cm (2-3 in.) deep over the ice. The entire river bed section that I walked was covered in cattails which indicates that the swamp is shallow. Cattails do not tend to grow in deep water. I also came across speckled alder [Alnus incana ssp. rugosa] along the shoreline where the water is too deep for the buckthorn. Otherwise buckthorn tended to dominate. Came across tracks in the snow of man [Homo sapiens] on foot following the shoreline of the swamp. There were two sets of tracks and one was much larger than the other.

Came across frequent Fisher tracks even near our house right up to the bird feeder wich is no more than a dozen metres from our door. It was probably in pursuit of the red squirrel that enjoys the sunflower seeds in the bird feeder. There is still one red squirrel feeding today, so it is one (life) for the squirrel and zero (meals) for the fisher, this time.

“Lefty” and the Snake Rail Fence

Parts of the fence line along the north side boundary are sections of either post and wire fence or snake rail fence. Snake rail fencing is quite simply the stacking of usually cedar logs split to a 7 to 10 cm. (3 to 4 in.) diameter and layed in a zig zag pattern. Each log would be stacked alternately with the log in the ajacent section until it reached a height of about a metre (~ 3 feet.) The length of the logs were generally less than 2.5 metres, (~8 feet) long. Although not very sophisticated, it is quite an old practice used by the pioneers in Canada.

While walking along the snake rail portion of the fence I came across scratch marks on a trunk of a cedar tree that closely resembled scratches left by a cat sharpening its claws. Figuring that there must be an animal nearby, I looked up, obviously and saw above me a 15 to 20 kg. (33 to 44 lb.) Porcupine high up in a clump of cedars. One digit on the left front paw of the poor animal was bent upwards as though it was broken and set wrong. The creature had pretty impressive claws on its front paws that were easily 2 to 3 cm. (+/- 1 in.) long.

The Layout of this Property

This woodlot is a remenant of a 200-acre lot from which parcels were severed off. A condition for a severed parcel is minimum 200 feet front on a county road. What remained was a property with virtually no access to serviceable and maintained roadway. So to occupy this lot required an extension to the current road, which would provide 60 metres today now in metric (196.9 ft.) of road frontage; and to township and provincial standards. The upside of this arrangement is a relatively private lot set back in the bush.

In the mid 1790’s this township, then called North Gower, was surveyed and partitioned into equal lots of 200 acres each. Lots were normally rectangular measured in units called chains of 66 feet. The dimensions of all lots here were 100 chains long by 20 chains wide. If you did the numbers you would find that this is ¼ of a (statute) mile by 1¼ miles exactly. For the metrically inclined, this is roughly 400 metres wide by 2 km. long.

Each lot is layed out side by side in rows running north to south called concessions. Each concession is numbered. Both ends of these lots would front on a road or road allowance called a Concession road or “Line” named to match the concession to its west. We are in Concession Two, which is thus between Second Line Road and Third Line Road.
Within the stack of lots there is also a 66 feet wide (1 chain) road allowance every 5 lots. So a map here would show a grid pattern of roads separated by 1¼ miles as a rule.

This remenant lot is too odd a shape to describe simply. If one were to lay out a grid of rectangles numbering 1 to 8 across the top from left to right and four divisions marked A to D down the side, you could say that the lot comprised blocks A4 to A8, B4 to B8, C1 to C8, and D2 to D8. All other blocks were outside of the property.

Using this system of positioning it is then possible to verbally describe the relative locations of forestry management areas that were partitioned in the management plan of October 29th. They are very generally located as follows;
Partition A is blocks C2, C3, D2 and west half (W½) of D3.
Partition B is C4 and W½ of D4
Partition C is B5, C5 and E½ of D4, W½ of D5.
Partition D is A5 and W½ of A6.
Partition E is mainly D5 and C6
Partition F is mainly E ½ of A7, B6, B7, W ½ of C7, and W ½ of D7 and E ½ of D6
Partition G is E½ of A6 and W½ of A7.
Partition H is A8, B8, C8, D8, most of D7 and half of D6
Partition I is all of C1.
The residence acre is within Block C2 inside Partition A.

From here forward I will use this grid to locate findings in general.

A Cloud of Small Chickens !!

Driving down Third Line Road South (Rideau Township) at dawn, near Steven Creek I saw what at first looked like ducklings, and when approaching I flushed a covey of more than a dozen small chicken-like birds. The only indigenous and wild chicken-like bird I know of around here is the ruffed grouse [Bonasa Umbellus] http://www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=62 which are also at home in our woodlot. After discussions with more informed family members it turns out that it is most likely the Hungarian partridge [Perdrix perdrix]. The ruffed grouse does not flock like these birds did.

A description of the Canadian forests in 1820's

John MacTaggart authored a book entitled: “Three years in Canada: an account of the actual state of the country in 1826-7-8, comprehending its resources, productions, improvements and capabilities, and including sketches of the state of society, advice to emigrants, &c.”
The publisher was H. Colburn, out of London and the book was published in 1829.

John MacTaggart was an engineer engaged by Lt-Col By to do an engineering survey of the proposed route of the Rideau Canal. Mr. MacTaggart was a man who tended to "think out of the box". He was very concerned about preserving the natural environment. He is also observant in that he noticed the impact of clearing land – as was by this time of writing already done extensively in the Eastern Townships of Quebec – and compared it to the still forested and untouched lands.

The author devotes one chapter to forests. I offer the following pertinent excerpts from the chapter and decided to confine the excerpts to the descriptions of the trees and bushes that he provides.

p.94.

. . . The oak is not so endurable a wood as that of Britain; the fibre is not so compact and strong. It grows in extensive groves near the banks of some of the large lakes and rivers.

p.95.

There is another kind of oak, called scrubby oak, which grows on rocky hills:-the wood of this is much like the British gnarly oak; it is difficult to work with the hatchet, but of a very durable nature, . . . The worst species for art or commerce seems to be the swamp oak: it grows in marshy places, is full of branches, soft to work, and irregular in form: the butts are often found very thick, and when water-soaked, that is in certain state of decay, . . .

p. 96.

The quantity of good oak in Canada is great, and might furnish navies for Britain as often as she requires them; ...

The pine grows on sandy soils, which are considered not good for agricultural purposes; ...

White Pine is the most common timber in Canada for Mercantile purposes; it is found chiefly in large quantities growing together, called Pineries.

p. 97.

The pitch-pine is the same with that well-known tree called the scotch-fir: it has much resin, . . . Sometimes in Canada, this wood goes under the name of the Norway-pine: it is seldom wrought into any thing. Besides all these pines, there are various firs and larches of small growth met with, according to their soils. The spruce-fir is very common, and furnishes materials for spruce-beer, a beverage in high request amongst the Canadians; and spruce knees, which are the roots of this tree, are found to be a good substitute for crooked oak, in ship-building.

The pine is the loftiest tree that grows in the forest; it looks down on the oak, and is often to be seen nearly a hundred feet high before a branch appears. I have seen it tower to near two hundred feet in height. . .

p.98

The fir species is more numerous than that of any other tree.

There are many kinds of ash-the swamp ash, white ash, and prickly ash, all varying according to soil: it is not a very serviceable wood. The prickly ash is ornamental, of a wavy nature; tables and furniture made of it . . . look very well; . . .

Black and white birch are very useful timber, and tolerably plentiful. It is the bark of the white birch that the Indians make their beautiful canoes.
The beech, elm, sleek-skinned and shaggy hickory, are very common on the fertile soils, along with maple, curly and sugar maple.
The curly or bird's-eye maple makes beautiful house furniture, . . . highly prized . . .

Butter-nut is also a tree which furnishes ornamental wood: it is not a large tree, and has many

p99.

branches, knots, and holes, in which squirrels lodge. The nuts are as large as hen-eggs, rough skinned, of an olive colour, and taste something like butter. Iron-wood may also be accounted one of those which grow on what is called hard-wood land: it is neither a thick nor a tall tree, about the size of hickory, and may be converted into a useful wood for many purposes.
In the deep gullies we meet with the white sycamore and button-wood tree. In the marshes, alder, spotted, alder, willow shrub, and a variety of thorn appears; and in the swamps, red cedar, tamarack, hemlock of many shades. . . . the hemlock grows large, but with a hollow heart; . . .

There are great many varieties of shrubs; the shumack may be accounted one, and also the leatherwood tree, of which beautiful hats are manufactured. The briars are of numerous kinds, as wild raspberries, black-current and gooseberry.

Wild plumb, apple, hazel, walnut, and cherry trees are in abundance; while the vines, like the ivy twine luxuriantly round the aged cedar of the loamy marsh.

Clearing the Trails

Lucky me, Santa Claus (Carroll) left me a "D" axe (Lee Valley) or Swedish Clearing Axe according to the catalogue (see link), for small brush clearing and it is an excellent tool for that purpose. It is great for limbing small branches. For larger branches that are greater than a 2 cm. (3/4 in.) diameter, a small hand axe is still better.

So with new axe in hand off I went to clear the trail. There were many more sad looking prostrate cedar saplings across the trail, and in some areas entire groves of 7 m (22 foot) cedar trees had their tops broken off also because of the snow. Managed to snowshoe and clear the trail all the way up to the end of the established trail, which ends at the northern boundary of the property.

There are many more obstructing branches in the trail, likely in part because the branches are weighed down by snow, but also because the hiker is raised as much as 30 cm. (1 foot) by the snow under foot.

One of the two bird feeders that we hung up, was spent and full of empty sunflower shells. Looks like the handy work of the red squirrel. The other has not been found by neither bird nor squirrel, yet.

It was overcast and warm today, -1 deg. C (30 deg. F), and by 4:30 p.m. - the days are already seem to be getting longer, yay! - it started to get dark and it was time to head back. Good thing that I wore a brimmed hat that kept the snow on the shaken trees from falling into my collar.

Snowshoeing as far as we could

Carroll and I snowshoed into the woods today. We managed to walk several hundred yards when we came across many small cedar saplings bent over into the trail making the trails barely passable. After a heavy snow, we have had wet snow and then rain followed by a sudden hard frost that pretty well solidified and weighed down the snow on the trees. The snow on the ground was still not solid enough to walk on so we still needed our snowshoes. The heavy snow has caused many cedars to bend over. We hung up some extra bird feeders along the trails. Last night we has a very light dusting of snow on top of the hard snow base creating an ideal surface to examining animal tracks. There were male white-tailed deer tracks of a good size, fresh fox tracks, again along the driveway and lots of snowshoe hare tracks, some red squirrel [Tamiasciurus hudsonicus] and field mice, all common wildlife for this area. We have yet to see fisher tracks this year, but I am quite sure they will be found if we went further east on the property.

It has been a beautiful day otherwise with a clear blue sky and cold. A beautiful Christmas Day.

Winter wonderland

This weekend we have had a large snow fall accumulating in at least 20 cm of snow on the ground. Every night a little more snow would fall adorning the trees, especially the conifers creating a veritable winter wonderland. Detected fox tracks along the driveway showing considerable activity in what looked like a pursuit of a mouse. Also noticed several snowshoe hare tracks.

Turkey Visit

This afternoon a small rafter of wild turkeys [Meleagris gallopavo] , seven in all, strutted into our yard. Like any chicken-like animal they poked around the flower beds and the bushes while the two cats and I stealthily spied on them from behind the curtains. After they sauntered into the woods nearby, they became engaged in a rather complicated discussion, and emitted an most unusual series of sounds with many intonations and expressions. I since found this link which provides a fairly thorough description of the various turkey calls.
There is a good picture on http://www.outtakes.com/birds/wildturkey.html

Eastern White Cedar

There are concentrations of eastern white cedar [Thuja occidentalis] trees throughout the property and particularly in the old river bank part F, and part C as well as the western end of part A. This is a popular food for deer in winter.