Vernal Pool Field Trip

Trip Leader: Phillip DeMaynadier

Red maple, green ash, and American elm grew within shallow portions and on hummocks in some of the vernal pools. Often the trees over time form a complex microtopography within the pools, creating mounds where they fall and deeper pools where the root balls tip-up.

This photo is of a hardwood floodplain off Twentyfive-Mile Stream in Unity. The large tree in the foreground is a bur oak, which has a high wildlife value and is a unique tree in Maine, occurring mostly just in the Sebasticook watershed. This population is thus "disjunct" from the main part of its range to the southwest of Maine.

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Canoe Report from the Upper west Branch

Submitted by Alan Haberstock

On Saturday April 20, 2002, I canoed the upper West Branch in Cambridge and Ripley from Dexter Road to Route 152. There is no development through the whole four-mile (as the crow flies) stretch and if you like hardwood floodplains and bogs, this is a very nice paddle. It was all deadwater except for a short riffle at the downstream end, just above the Route 152 bridge. There was plenty of perfect wood duck habitat (hardwood floodplains and old or dead trees/snags with holes), and lots of waterfowl in general. The hardwood floodplains were dominated by red maple, American elm, green and black ash, and silver maple. Red maple must make up 2/3 of the total forest biomass. Indian poke (or false hellebore), trout lily, sensitive fern, cinnamon fern, and ostrich fern dominated the herb layer. As with many floodplains the shrub layer was usually sparse. Silky and red osier dogwood and willows occur in shrub-dominated bands between the river and the hardwood floodplains. There was one extensive bog on the east bank of the river about half-way into the paddle. Here, the vegetation changes completely, and species like leather-leaf and bog rosemary dominate. There is a wildlife management area on the west bank. Good paddle to get solitude!

Note: I left a green plastic canoe paddle at the bridge by mistake while loading the canoe. This lead me to a great discovery: A business called Don's Paddles and canoe repair located on the Sebasticook on the east side of Route 100 just above the Pittsfield/Burnham line and just below the dam sells home-made wooden paddles cheap. I bought two paddles made of popple for $20 apiece. Don also sells more high-end paddles and some even cheaper than mine and he'll custom make whatever you want. There is a sign on his barn that says paddles and his phone # is: 487-3165. He promotes the popple as best paddles for your money. He makes all his paddles and oars from one piece of wood. He can't understand why people pay $75- $125 for paddles in places like LL Bean. Popple is very light - need to make the shafts a little bigger to compensate for less strength but they are still lighter than pine, hemlock, or hardwood paddles. Well I'll try them and see how they hold up.

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Sandy Stream Floodplain Trip

On April 21 with brisk winds and morning temperatures in the 30s, two SRWA members (Phillip DeMaynadier and Alan Haberstock of the Land Trust Committee) joined forces with a group of five members of the Freedom Land Trust, including their President Lisa Widoff, for a hike into some exemplary hardwood floodplain forests flanking the Sandy Stream near the southwest portion of Unity Pond. The objective was to explore some of the unique hardwood floodplain habitat so prevalent in this part of the watershed, and to walk the adjacent Sunkhaze National Wildlife Refuge, which is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The wetlands in this area are at the eastern edge of a large, unfragmented (e.g., relatively undeveloped and roadless) habitat block that includes much of Unity Plantation. This area has been identified by the Maine Natural Areas Program as significant since it is one of the last remaining unfragmented habitat blocks in central Maine, and also as an area with some rare, threatened and endangered species and exemplary natural communities. The SRWA Land Trust Committee is interested in investigating ways to preserve this tract of land. This site visit was intended to facilitate informed decision making (like which parts of the habitat block are priorities for protection) and foster an appreciation for the ecological integrity of the area.

We were not disappointed by the botanical diversity and uniqueness of this floodplain. Several spring ephemeral wildflowers were in bloom including bloodroot, spring beauty, trout lily, and purple trillium. Sensitive fern, ostrich fern, and cinnamon fern fronds were just beginning to unfurl, even as last year's fertile fronds persisted. Several herb layer species could be recognized by leaf and stem characteristics and/or last year's remains, including wild cucumber (or balsam apple), false hellebore, wood anemone, Dutchman's breeches, nettles, meadow rue, purple leaved willow herb, and purple avens. Wild cucumber was ubiquitous in alder thickets as evidenced by last year's twisting dead vines and fruits. This uncommon (Flora of Maine, by Haines and Vining, 1998) vine of streambanks and rich soils is an annual that depends entirely on the prior year's seed crop and germination success to persist. The shrub layer consisted primarily of various willows, alder, red-osier dogwood, viburnums, and elderberry. The tree stratum included primarily red and silver maple, American elm, and ash (black ash occurs in this habitat type but the ones we looked at were green ash). We also found bur oak and possibly swamp white oak or hybrids of the two. Both of these oak species are extremely interesting features of this floodplain since both are at the extreme northeast edge of their ranges in the Sebasticook drainage. Bur oak is actually quite common in some sections of the watershed in floodplains, but it is disjunct here from the floodplain forests and uplands (in Maine this is a floodplain tree only) hundreds of miles to the southwest of Maine where it is more common. Swamp white oak is a Maine threatened species with very few known locations north of Massachusetts. Red oak and white oak also occur in drier parts of the floodplain. White oak, swamp white oak, and bur oak are very closely related and are known to hybridize. Together the oaks provide a very valuable mast crop food source (acorns) for wood duck, turkey, and other species.

It was interesting to note that the community on the immediate steambank or stream levee was different from the floodplain interior and included species like basswood, red oak, black cherry, and blue cohosh. Phillip scooped up a handful of soil and we could see it was very sandy with dark silt and organics mixed in. The floodplain interior undoubtedly has finer-textured soils. The heavier sediments (sand) tend to settle at the immediate river bank and the finer particles suspended in flood waters are carried further away. Often the levee was several inches or even feet higher than the floodplain interior due to the sand settling out quickly. It is also interesting that many of the species in this community (both floodplain interior and levee), such as basswood, blue cohosh, Dutchman's breeches, bloodroot and wood anemone are indicator species of rich soils and upper floodplains. Sediments deposited during periodic flooding create rich soils. With further searching it is very likely we'll discover other more rare indicators such as wild leek (Maine threatened) in these systems.

We also walked the wildlife refuge, where evidence of prescribed burns or fire management was obvious. We wondered if the hardwood floodplain forest that would develop here in the absence of burning might not be as valuable to wildlife as the open habitat created by burning, at least in some parts of the refuge. If swamp white oak/bur oak were encouraged here, wood duck, turkey and other species would benefit, but the grassland and scrub-shrub nesting birds that rely on the open canopy habitat created by the prescribed burn would loose this excellent habitat. As fewer abandoned farms occur in Maine's landscape and more and more of the land area is forested or developed, open habitats maintained through management might be very important for grassland birds. The difference here between most woodland versus prescribed burn habitat management decisions, however, is that the specific type of woodland that would likely develop in this particular low-elevation flat is very unique and productive (i.e., hardwood floodplain community). We found a dead garter snake (likely burned during habitat management) and Phillip explained to the group how to differentiate between this common species and the less common ribbon snake and maritime garter.

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