Know Your Forest, My Forest

My forest is around 30 acres in size, give or take. The property is a government lot so it's size can actually vary over time. I usually refer to it as my place. I was originally going to build a house on it and pasture some cattle. Things didn't work out that way.

You might find the following post a rather long slog but you might also find out some interesting things. I have been finding out interesting things about this place since I bought it.

I bought my place in 1988, or at least I started making payments on it then. A friend of mine built a house in stages when he was a teenager by saving money that he earned by working after school and, when he had enough to build a certain stage of the house, he built it. By doing this, he managed to build his own house while he was still in high school. This inspired me to buy a place of my own, and build a house.

I saved a lot of money during my first hitch in the U. S. Navy. I had an opportunity to get into a program that paid me extra every month for meals. The catch was that, instead of eating at the Navy galley or chow hall for free, I had to pay to eat there. I figured out that I could about double my income every month by eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which was quite a bit cheaper than paying to eat at the galley, which, in itself, was a lot cheaper than eating off base.

For almost three months straight I had two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and two for dinner. I didn’t eat breakfast. After three months, I got a promotion and was able to upgrade to deviled chicken and ham. Another nine months or so and I got promoted again and finally had the wherewithal to eat at the galley and still save the amount of money I wanted to. To this day, I really don’t care much for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Deviled meat isn’t a big draw for me either. On 28 May, 1987, when I got out of the Navy, I had saved 14,000 dollars. My salary when I started out was only about $700 a month. I forgot to mention that I was stationed in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor on Oahu. It might have been Paradise off base but that first nine months wasn't a lot of fun. In order to save money, I pretty much stayed on base and didn't go out much. 

I was initially looking for a piece of land cleared for pasture that I could run some cows on. Several prospects fell through and I finally ended up buying a place across the road from my grandpa’s house from an old family friend. In and interesting twist, she had actually lived for a while in the house I grew up in which was six miles up the road from my grandpa's place.

I wasn’t really enthusiastic about the place in the beginning. It had been most recently logged in 1984 and, except for a leave strip along the highway and one or two other trees, there wasn’t a truck load of merchantable logs on the place, just a lot of brush. To clear for a house and pasture was going to be a lot of work.

About a year after I bought the place, I went back into the Navy for another three years. When I got back out of the Navy again, this time for good, I started making plans to work on the place. After paying it off, I laid out an area to clear for pasture and started clearing an area to build a house. Before I finished clearing a spot for a house, I lost my job when the logging company I worked for went out of business due largely in part to the Northwest Forest Plan implemented by the Clinton Administration.

As part of the Northwest Forest Plan I was able to get into the TRB (Timber Retraining Benefits) Program which provided for two years of College or Technical School. Since I have always liked working outside, I chose a program called Environmental Conservation Technology at Skagit Valley College. I was also able to take some photography classes with the idea that I could combine this with my high lake project and hopefully make a career of it.

I used my place to do several wildlife studies for coursework while I earning my degree and learned some pretty interesting things about it. The place has two distinct soil types, Barneston Cobbly Loam on an upper bench and Pilchuck Sandy Loam on a lower bench where there is a floodplain, though, judging from the presence of large Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) stumps, some of which are six feet in diameter, the river has not occupied this area for hundreds and hundreds of years.

During the course of my studies I found and interesting species distribution that seemed to be based on these two soil types. I only encountered Trowbridge's shrews (Sorex trowbridgii) on the upper bench and Vagrant shrews (S. vagrans) and possible Pacific shrews (S. pacificus) on the lower bench. I also encountered a lot of shrew moles (Neurotichus gibbsi) on the upper bench but not on the lower bench. In addition, there seemed to be a lack of lungless salamanders such as ensatinas (Ensatina eschscholtzii) on the lower bench but this wasn’t as clear cut. Other species such as deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) were encountered on both benches.

I don’t know the reasons behind these distribution patterns but someone suggested to me that the distribution of shrew species might be related to differences in the insect communities on the two benches. Shrews are insectivorous so certain species of shrew might prefer or be dependant on certain species of insects, whose distribution might, in turn, be related to plant species distribution. There are differences in vegetation between the two benches. Most plant and tree species are found on both benches but there are some that are restricted to one bench or the other. This is likely to have some effect on animal species distribution between the two benches. I didn’t look at bird species distribution between the two benches but I have a hunch that some interesting patterns would emerge there as well.

The two benches are separated by an old slough which is utilized by juvenile coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) as off channel habitat when the river floods and the slough becomes connected to it as a kind of backwater. Coho salmon spend a year and a half in fresh water before smolting and migrating to sea. Off channel habitat where they can get into still water and out of the main stream flow is very important because it helps prevent them from getting washed to sea too early in their life. One year I also saw a chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) in the old slough during a flood.

Unfortunately the old slough on my place loses connection to the river when it goes down after a flood and the juvenile fish are usually trapped in it at that point. One year, the spring of 1996 or ’97 we had some pretty big spring floods around smolting time and the coho got out. I remember watching several smolts moving down through a shallow area.

I have tried several times to get an enhancement project done to keep the slough connected to the river year round. Unfortunately the mouth of the slough, where it flows into the river, is in a depositional area and most agencies who have looked at it think it would just fill back in almost immediately so a project of this type would be a waste of time and money. The slough also provides habitat for several amphibian species, northwestern salamanders (Ambystoma gracile), red legged frogs (Rana aurora) and Pacific tree frogs (Hyla regilla) to name a few and quite an interesting community of wetland plants.

In 1997, I earned my Associate’s Degree and embarked on my new career. I soon found out that many starting positions in resource management don’t pay very well. I ended up working seasonally for North Cascades National Park and we also did a lot of contract work for the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. My wages were less than half what I made working for the logging company and the job had no benefits.

My big hope was that the photography would start to pay off, but, at the moment it was very expensive. I looked at the photography expenses as an investment in the future. Ironically, to make ends meet, I worked as a logger during the six to nine months that I was laid off from the park. The wages weren’t as good as in my previous logging job but they were significantly more than at the park ($14/hour versus $8/hour) and there were a few benefits.

Eventually I worked into a job with the park that had benefits and better wages and that was more reliable year round employment. A few years ago, the job I was in at the park started becoming less workable for me due mostly to obligations during the summer field season and it also became less reliable year round. I moved to another job within the park which also became less reliable. During this time, it had become readily apparent that the photography was never going to be a paying proposition and would be an expense that I would have to bear every year if I wanted to continue with it. From the very beginning I lost money on the photography, and some years this was a significant part of my income for the year. So, it was a hobby, not a business. Again, I turned to logging to make ends meet during the times I was laid off.

Two years ago I was lucky enough to get a job with a hydroelectric project nearby. This job not only has very good wages and benefits, it is probably the most reliable job you can get at this end of the valley, though nothing is sure in this world. I don’t see myself willingly leaving this job before I retire.

During all this time, my place was in a kind of limbo. I had still planned to build a house when my economic situation improved. Only it never did. I invested a lot of time and money into the photography, foolishly I now know, in the hopes that it would, at some point, provide enough income to get a house built and pay the bills. Instead, the money that could have gone into a house, probably enough to have built a house, went into film, processing, digitizing and other expenses. So now, I have closets full of various media that are pretty much worthless as far as being able to convert the photos that are on them into anything that I can use to meet my practical needs.

During late 90’s and early 2000’s when economy everywhere else was booming, I could have split up the land and sold or developed it, probably for significantly more than I paid for it. I chose not to do this. At some point I abandoned the idea of a building a house and clearing for pasture.

I developed forest plan for place with the help of a forester and later made some additions that were my own to the plan. The plan now calls for practicing sustainable forestry on the place with a focus on maintaining as much wildlife habitat as possible while still helping people meet their practical needs of, among other things, jobs and building materials. It also includes provisions for use of the property for education. Since I have abandoned the plan to build a house here, I decided to put my place into forest reserve, which gives me a break on my property taxes.

To date, I have not posted any “No Trespassing” signs on my place. This is a throwback to my youth when this place (eastern Skagit County and maybe pretty much the whole state) was a much different place and people were more laid back. When I was younger, I pretty much had the run of the land around me. Nobody cared if I was on their forest property. About the time I was ten or twelve, I saw my first “No Trespassing” sign. Now these signs are the norm.

As a kid, I valued the freedom to run around on other people’s forests because, quite often, these were the most accessible to someone with only a bicycle for transportation. I hope to pass this on to future generations of local people. I also respected other people’s property and didn’t go around stealing things or lighting fires. To date I haven’t had too many problems with trash dumping, irresponsible fire use or thievery, any of which could change my attitude if I feel I need to protect myself.

Logs, snags and stumps, or large woody debris, is very important for forest health. The list of functions large woody debris provides for forest health is long but here is a short list of some of the things it does: It provides food and habitat for many species of fungi, many of which are beneficial. So dead wood helps maintain healthy populations of these organisms, especially after disturbances kill a lot of trees and the resulting large woody debris "lifeboats" organisms from the forest that was to the forest that is just getting established. Insects eat and live in dead wood. These insects provide food for woodpeckers which also eat insects that are harmful to living trees. Some of the insects that live in dead wood also eat harmful insect species as well. Large woody debris provides substrate for smaller plants and some species of trees to take root in. Logs provide runways for small mammals and amphibians that are protected from predators. These small mammals spread seeds and beneficial fungus spores through the forest. Amphibians use dead wood in logs and stumps for protection from the elements when they overwinter. 

My forest plan is based on retention of individual Douglas-fir and western red cedar (Thuja plicata) trees, snags and logs, or large woody debris, for long periods of time, ideally for several or many human lifetimes. Logs, stumps and snags of these two species of trees persist for long time and the larger they are, the longer they persist. So allowing trees of these species to grow to larger sizes and leaving them in the forest may provide a lot of habitat not found in forests where everything is logged every 50 years or so.

In my plan, the trees that grow in underneath the older dominant canopy “leave” trees could be logged at different intervals, many within an average human lifetime. I think that over several human lifetimes some pretty interesting plant and wildlife communities might develop, ultimately, some species may be present that are found in natural old growth forests.

The trick will be to pass it to the future in some way that it will be able to be utilized by future generations to meet their needs without having some individual along the line cashing it out. I know this is an ambitious plan and, realistically I can’t control what happens after I am gone. Ideally my plan would be followed as well as possible in the future by those come after me. Obviously, I can’t know everything and I can’t see into the future so it is quite possible many situations may develop in the forest on my place that I didn’t anticipate and for which I couldn’t provide guidance. My hope is that it can be continued to be used far into the future not only for open space but also to meet people’s more practical needs. 

I think there is a common misconception that, if you own land, you are wealthy. To some degree this is true because land has value. The trouble is that property is not liquid cash. I can't get a loan on bare, undeveloped land. So, if my place had a value of, say 100,000 dollars, I would have to sell it in order to get that cash. By keeping my place and doing smaller, select logging operations on it over long periods of time I can never hope to realize the amount of money I would get by just logging it and selling it. There is a lot of pressure out there to do just this. However, I think that through sustainable forestry, over the long term, this place can produce a steady, if small, revenues for generations untold into the future and this will create more wealth than short term liquidation. The only thing is, to make this work, no one person in all of those future generations will see a huge windfall of cash from it. It will have to be for them as it is for me, a small contributor to my overall income.      

In the end, I would hope my heirs would use it, preferably for forestry, rather than turning it into some kind of hands off park for looking only. This area has been logged several times. It was logged in 1920’s or 30’s, then select logged in the 1950’s and finally select logged again in 1984. A forest grew back after every one of these timber harvests.  The forest that exists here today will, at some point, be gone whether it is at the hands of humans or by a flood or forest fire or pests and disease. And, as long as the land isn’t converted to some other use, another forest will most likely grow back just as the forest that was logged in the 1920’s or 30’s grew back after a forest no white man ever laid eyes on had been destroyed by some fire or flood.

Upper bench. One of the larger second growth Douglas-firs (Pseudotsuga menziesii) on my place. This is in a leave strip several hundred feet wide left between Highway 20 and the main area that was logged. All of the trees in this leave strip seeded in after the original timber harvest  in the 1920's or early 1930's. So this tree is 80 to 90 years old. 

Bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) in the same leave strip area. The smaller trees in the photo either seeded in immediately after the initial logging event and didn't grow as fast or they seeded in after a forest canopy had been established and have grown very slowly because they have been perpetually in the shade. This is almost certainly the case of the very smallest trees in the photo. 

Another photo of the leave strip area. To the left of me (my right side) is a road that I pioneered in from Highway 20 to the site where I had hoped to build a house. This crude road is now mostly hidden under fallen leaves and sword ferns (Polystichum munitum).

Upper bench. Part of the site where I had planned to build a house. I had cleared this spot to mineral soil in 1994 when I stepped away from this project for (I thought) a little while. I never got back to it. So the red alders (Alnus rubra) here, which seeded back in naturally, are about 20 years old. 

Another part of the site where I had planned to build a house. I had not cleared this spot by 1994, when I dropped the project. The alders here are about 30 years old. The soils here on the upper bench are not as good for growing alder as the soils on the lower bench. 

Upper bench. Douglas-fir stump from the first timber harvest in this area. Note how tall it is. The guys who cut this tree down stood on spring boards several feet off the ground in order to get to a spot on the tree above the root swell which is tough and stringy and harder to cut through with an axe and crosscut saw. Also not the Douglas-fir snag in the background to the right of me near center frame. 

Upper bench. Western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) windfall felled by Annosus (Fomes annosus) root rot. This root rot spreads by root contact between trees and by spores infecting wounds or barked areas on standing trees. If the barked area is far enough from the roots, the tree can compartmentalize and isolate the fungus in the bole and prevent it from reaching the roots. If the wound  is within about 4 feet (I think I heard or read this height somewhere but can't seem to find the reference at the moment) of the ground though, the fungus can spread down into the roots. Spores can also land on freshly cut stumps and the fungus can grow down through the stump and infect nearby standing trees in root contact with the stump. Fresh cut stumps can be treated with (believe it or not) borax to help prevent the stump from acquiring the fungus. I have noticed this fungus to be most problematic in western hemlock though it infects other conifer species as well.  

Root mass or root wad of hemlock shown in previous photo. Annosus conks (fruiting bodies) are visible on the root wad but are hard to see in this photo. The reddish brown mass in the foreground at center frame is an old Doulgas-fir stump. The now fallen hemlock probably germinated on top of this stump and continued growing there until falling over. Western hemlock along with western red cedar (Thuja plicata) and Pacific silver fir (Abies amabilis) don't need contact with soil in order to germinate. All of these species have the ability to germinate on top of dead wood, logs and stumps. All three of these species are also shade tolerant so they will grow in the shade of a forest canopy where access to soil may be limited while logs and stumps are abundant. 

                                                

Close up view of annosus conk (fruiting body). The white stuff on the soil below the conk is made up of the spores from the conk. These spores have been wetted down by recent rains but, when dry, they can become airborne and spread through the forest to infect new stumps or newly barked trees. 

Upper bench. Annosus doesn't always kill a tree outright. The hemlock behind me and Vashti fell over because it roots were rotted out by (I assume) annosus. However, it got hung up in the maple so it didn't go all the way over. This was at least 5 or 6 years ago and, as the reader can see, it still has green foliage. The foliage has declined every year and the tree will be dead in probably a few more. This is quite amazing since the root system in this tree is probably virtually non existent. I have seen many trees fallen over with what appear to be good healthy green crowns and almost no roots. 

Upper bench. Western hemlock. When I bought this place in 1988, this was one of the few trees that was big enough to be merchantable (have any value for lumber). Now the majority of the trees in the forest here are merchantable.

Upper bench. Stand of mostly western hemlock. Western hemlock is one of our fastest growing tree species. So these trees that were less than 1 foot dbh (diameter at breast height) in 1988 when I bought the place are now about 2 feet dbh. One of the problems I have with the stands of timber on my place is that, the last time it was logged, most of the Douglas-fir was removed. This was because Douglas-fir is more valuable. Douglas-fir is also not shade tolerant so this species can't be established here again until some large openings are made in the forest canopy (one acre or more). This is basically a climax forest where shade tolerant species that can regenerate in their own shade make up the majority of the dominant trees in the canopy. Climax forests were once equated with old-growth forests, the idea being that, over time, the shade tolerant species would take over the stand because they could regenerate in their own shade while the shade intolerant species that can't regenerate in the shade of a forest canopy would slowly die out. It was found however, that this almost never happens because, before this forest state is reached, some disturbance, most often a forest fire, kills most or all of the dominant canopy trees, allowing shade intolerant species to seed in again. In this case a climax forest condition was artificially (and probably unintentionally) created by removing most of the shade intolerant species and leaving most of the shade tolerant species. This is also not an old growth forest by any stretch of the imagination. 

View about 180 degrees out from the previous photo. This a lot of western red cedar in this particular spot. When this was logged in 1984, these cedars were pretty small and not worth much so they were left. Note the mossy log in the foreground. This is a Douglas-fir log left from the first timber harvest in the 1920's or 1930's.  

Upper bench near area of previous photo. Stumps and logs (large woody debris) left over from the first timber harvest in the 1920's or 1930's. Note the log at center frame running from the right side of the frame towards the center of the frame and the large snag behind it right of center frame and the large stump at the log's far end, left of center frame. These are Douglas-fir stumps and logs which can persist for hundreds of years. A lot of wood was left behind in those days which isn't a bad thing from a forest health point of view. Logs from fallen trees occur naturally in all kinds of forests, even forests that have never been logged. Small animals are important for spreading seeds and beneficial fungi through a forest and these small use these logs to hide from predators so the logs become runways by which seeds and fungal spores are spread. The logs also provide food for insects which in turn feed species like woodpeckers who also eat insects that are pests in living trees. So if there aren't many insect pests in living trees, the woodpeckers have a food source available and may remain in the area and be available if there is a pest outbreak. Logs also provide substrates for many plants species, huckleberries and blueberries, to name two that important food sources for wildlife and humans. They also serve as cover for amphibians to over winter or remain moist during summer droughts. Dead wood serves as food and habitat for fungi, including many that are beneficial, helping to maintain healthy populations of these organisms, especially after disturbances that kill a lot of trees. And, as they are decay over time (quite often due to fungi), logs provide a slow release of nutrients back into the soil. When she was going to Western Washington University, my sister took a bunch of fungus samples in this forest for a mycology class and found a species that was well outside its recorded range. The various macroorganisms like fungi, insects and plants and microorganisms like bacteria, fungi and protozoans are also important players in forest food webs. My forest plan will hopefully help maintain an adequate presence of large woody debris in this forest well into the future. 

Same location as previous photo with me and Vashti in it for scale reference.

Old slough between the upper bench and the lower bench. Most of this slough dries up during the summer months but a pond with standing water persists year round where the log is spanning the channel. This pond gets very low but there are Northwestern salamanders (Ambystoma gracile) in it. Since this species needs 2 years to develop and metamorphose from water dependent juveniles to air breathing terrestrial adults, this indicates that there is adequate water year round for them. Unfortunately, this is not true for the juvenile coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) that sometimes get into here during winter floods. I am treating this slough as if it were fish bearing year round in my decisions for leave trees around it, though a few exceptions may be made in order to improve habitat for amphibians.  

Lower bench. This is a large bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) about 4 feet dbh that has a small western red cedar growing on it  about 20 feet off the ground. The cedar is visible at side to side center frame with its base starting a little above up and down center frame. As I state earlier, western red cedar is a species whose seed is capable of germinating on dead wood. In this case, the cedar may have germinated in rotten wood in the hollow of the maple or in some cracks in the bark or in a crotch formed by large limbs. I have never climbed up to take a closer look at it. 

Zoomed in view of previous photo with outline around cedar tree. 

Zoomed in view of cedar tree. 

Lower bench. Large bigleaf maple. This tree is at least 100 years old, if not several hundred years old. There is no way to tell for sure because it is completely hollow with a thin shell of living wood less than a foot thick around a rotted out center. It's a little bigger than the bigleaf maple in the previous photos. This maple and several others survived all of the previous timber harvests because they had no commercial value and it would have taken more effort to cut them down than they were worth for either saw logs or firewood. My dad, who ran around in this area quite a bit as a kid remembered many of these trees. They are great for the purposes of my forest plan because most of them have a lot of cavities that many different native species of birds and animals need for habitat. The small leaning tree immediately behind me and the big maple is actually a limb that started from the base of the big maple and grew its own roots. One of these roots grew through the rotten center of the big maple and is just visible in the big hollow area to my left. These older trees also provide an important substrate (or structure) for epiphytic plants like mosses, ferns, lichens and many species of forbs and even trees (the cedar on the other maple). In the floral and decorating industry, there is a market for the heavy moss covering these trees but I have heard caution should be exercised in harvesting this moss because it can take up to 100 years to grow. I have seen a thick covering of moss grow back on such trees in 5 to 10 years but it may take much longer for the rest of the plant and animal community to get established. I have planned to leave a certain number of younger trees in perpetuity to be recruited as wildlife trees to replace these old trees as they finally die out. Bigleaf maple is often selected against in many forestry operations because they tend to hog a lot of light from other trees (these light hogging trees are called "wolf trees") and they aren't usually the most valuable species in a stand. However, I can see a lot of wildlife habitat potential in this species as long as it can be managed so other tree species are present as well. . 

Lower bench. This is a skidder road used to log the area in 1984. There is virtually no trace of the road any more. When I bought the place in 1984, the red alders here were only a few inches in diameter, maybe ten feet tall and so thick you could barely push your way through them. Note that these are bigger than the alders of the same age on the upper bench. The soil on the lower bench is sandy loam and evidently more suitable to growing red alder. 

Lower bench. Large Douglas-fir snag. This tree was probably dead when this area was first logged in the 1920's or 1930's so it was left because it had no commercial value and would have taken a lot of effort to cut down. Snags like this fell on and killed or injured a lot of people in the early days of logging. In the 1960's or 1970's Washington State Industrial (I think) rules changed to require cutting such snags down. This saved a lot of lives but left less wildlife habitat. Snags like this serve many of the same habitat purposes that I outlined earlier for fallen logs as well as many other purposes. Another important function of snags is cavities. Many bird and animals species native to the Northwest need cavities for nesting. There tend to be fewer cavities in large Douglas-fir snags like this because, if they are still standing, they are usually solid all the way through. Though woodpeckers certainly create cavities in them on occasion, these cavities are often shallow. Cedar snags are more often hollow and often seen cavities created by woodpeckers in cedar snags and trees are much deeper because they extend into the larger hollow inside the tree. That being said, I have seen tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) use the large cracks in the rotting wood in a similar Douglas-fir snag to nest in. Large raptors like bald eagles  (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and osprey (Pandion haliaetus) often build nests in the tops of taller snags. 

Lower bench. Large western red cedar tree. Though this tree is pretty big, it is second growth 80-90 years old. It actually has two tops or is two separate trees that have grown together. The two separate trunks are growing around each other, twisting as they do so. This is undoubtedly why this tree hasn't been harvested up to this point. It has very little, if any, commercial value. However, it has the potential for a great wildlife tree. Over time, tops will die and cavities will be made in it. Also bark on large old tree that is very furrowed or hanging in large strips are used by many species of bats for roosting. The bark and furrows of this tree are nearly at that point. Part of my forest plan involves retaining Douglas-fir and western red cedar trees for long periods of time because these species are two of our more decay resistant conifers so they should provide wildlife habitat over very long time periods. If my plan is followed, these trees will never be harvested and, at least some of them will, in theory, live hundreds of years, grow to large diameters, become snags and then become logs on the forest floor. Of course the key is "If my plan is followed". I obviously won't have any control over the person who ends up with this place after I am gone. As I stated earlier, I also don't want this place to become some "hands off" park. This tree has been identified for long term retention. Because of its growth form, the tree in this photo stands a good chance of surviving future harvests after I am gone. 

Lower bench. Large Douglas-fir stump. This stump is about 6 feet in diameter (one side is partially hidden by the mossy limbs) and it was cut during the first timber harvest on this place in the 1920's or 1930's.  Douglas-fir and western red cedar are two of our more rot resistant conifers so their snags and stumps persist for long periods of time, sometimes for hundreds of years, providing wildlife habitat similar to downed logs as I described earlier in this post (the 8th photo back from this one). Note how low this stump is. Evidently there was not much of a root swell on this tree.  

Large cut Douglas-fir stump with western red cedar growing on it. This tree was cut during the first timber harves on the place in the 1920's or 1930's. This photo illustrates the importance of stumps as substrate for other organisms to grow on. In this case, a small cedar tree is growing on it, though the cedar will probably fall over and die once the stump finally rots away, though note the numerous roots the cedar is sending out. I have seen other cedars and western hemlocks standing on numerous large vertical roots with a hollow in the center where a log or stump has rotted away. There also mosses and lichens growing on the stump. Some species like vacciniums (blueberries and huckleberries) have an affinity for growing on dead wood. Evidently, a mutualistic relationship with certain fungi allow these species (and many in the Ericaceae family to which they belong) to survive on nutrient poor sites like stumps and logs. The fungi bring water and nutrients that would otherwise be unavailable to the blueberries and huckleberries growing on the dead wood. Whether this is due to the fungi breaking the dead wood down and providing nutrients derived from that process or whether the fungi extends into nearby soils for nutrients, I don't know. There is also a species of twisted stalk, clasping twisted stalk (Streptopus amplexifolius), that I have never seen growing anywhere but on stumps on this lower bench. I don't know the reason for this. Almost everywhere else I have seen clasping twisted stalk, it is growing in the soil. I have also never seen this species on the upper bench. 

Lower bench. This is an area on my place ended up clearing when he got carried away and went over the property line. This was before I owned the place. The previous owners managed to get him stopped after he had cleared several acres. I had initially planned to plant some shade intolerant shrubs and forbs in this clearing and I may still do that though I am also considering just reforesting the whole thing. 

Lower bench. Part of the clearing in the previous photo that I have already planted with trees. I planted this from 1996 to 1998. I planted mostly Douglas-fir because it is not shade tolerant so it needs large openings to survive, when it reaches larger sizes and dies, it is more decay resistant so will provide wildlife and forest health habitat for longer periods of time and most of the Douglas-fir was removed from this forest during the last timber harvest. I planted a lot of Douglas-fir on the upper bench in small openings but the dominant trees nearby filled in the open spaces in the canopy in a very short time and almost every Douglas-fir I planted died from being shaded out. 

Same area as previous photo. I am standing by one of the larger trees. Your can see that there are also smaller trees here that were either planted at a later date than the large ones or were smaller than the large trees when planted. 

Lower bench. Stand dominated by larger western red cedar. This spot is bordered by an old field on my neighbor's property. I had planned to leave one or two acres in this area as a no harvest zone in perpetuity. Time will tell if this will happen. There is a species of fern here, oak fern (Gymnocarpium dryopteris), which is a fairly common species but which I haven't seen anywhere else in the vicinity. It only seems to grow in this one small grove. Note the large Douglas-fir snag just to the left of center frame. 

180 degrees out from the previous photo. The old field is visible in the background as well as some of the area that I planted in 1996-1998.

Lower bench. Nurse log with several western red cedars growing on it. This is a Douglas-fir log left after the first timber harvest in the 1920's or 1930's. The cedar trees which have the ability to germinate on dead wood or soil have germinated on this log and are growing in a row along its length. They are now nearly 2 feet dbh (diameter at breast height). 

Different view of nurse log in previous photo. 

Different view of nurse log in previous two photos. 

Upper bench. Western hemlock and red alder snags. The large square holes excavated in these snags are foraging cavities probably made by pileated woodpeckers (Drycopus pileatus) in their search for insects. These snags will likely rot away to small stumps in a few years. If they were larger and more decay resistant, the excavated cavities might have provided nesting habitat for a number of birds and animals. 

Upper bench. Western hemlock snag. I happen to know the exact history of this snag. It died in 1996. I remember because I had just taken a wildlife biology class that year where the importance of snags for native wildlife was explained. Prior to this, I had the idea that snags and downed logs were a waste of valuable logs that could be made into lumber or firewood and made every effort to use any snags or logs before they rotted. I now know that they are also important for forest health and, though I may still cut up a downed log or two, I try make sure that I leave plenty of downed logs alone. I leave all of the snags alone. 

Close up of snag in previous photo. The top came out of this snag in several sections at intervals several years apart. Those parts of the top on the ground rotted away quickly. This lower part has persisted quite well, ten years or so, which is probably comparable to a Douglas-fir snag of this size, depending on what killed it.  I had expected the whole thing to be gone in a few years.  My forest plan is based around Douglas-fir and western red cedar retention but other species are most likely very important as well. Maybe hemlock's tendency to rot easy actually makes it more important because wood becomes softer more quickly or has other wildlife benefits. I don't know what kind of woodpecker made the cavities in this snag. The knowledge is out there. I have heard people describe the different kinds of holes different species make but I can't seem to find anything in my references or online. The larger shallow, almost rectangular hole may have been made by a pileated woodpecker but I don't know if the rest were. Other woodpecker species I have seen here are: Hairy woodpecker (Picoides villosus), Downy woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) and northern flicker (Colaptes auratus). On an interesting note, from my observations, it seems that most woodpeckers species will excavate cavities in second growth snags of all species of trees and in the thick bark of species like old growth Douglas-fir but not very often in large old growth Douglas-fir snags that have lost their bark. I don't know if this is due to some property of the wood or due to lack of food gotten by excavating cavities or some other unrelated cause, including my own imagination. I have seen western red cedar of all sizes with woodpecker excavations, though in larger cedars, most of the excavations seem to be in smaller snag tops. 

I was by myself when I took most of the pictures for this post. Vashti accompanied for the last trip to take a few final photos. We saw quite a few interesting things on this trip but the highlights were a deer bed, deer pellets and snail shell (right handed). Vashti also got her first taste of walking off trail through the woods, though here she is pictured standing on the access road.