Thanks to Ben Johnson there has been a bird-housing boom at the Scuppernong Springs.  On March 13, Ben put up 26 woodland bird houses and this past Sunday, Pati, Mark Miner and I helped him put up 4 more woodland bird houses and 20 bluebird houses.  He made all of the houses with scrap wood salvaged from work.  Ben captured the GPS locations of all the houses and he is planning to convert the data to GIS so he can accurately display the locations on maps of the Scuppernong Springs Nature Preserve.   By the way, check out the new topo maps of The Springs.  We hope to overlay the trail map from the brochure over one of the topo maps.  That would be cool.

Sunday morning was cold, but that was a good thing because we were able to walk over ice to get to some of the bluebird house sites.  Ben and Pati putting up the first house near signpost #1.

A new house erected between the gaging station and marl pit bridges.

The views of channel restoration work the DNR Fisheries team did last year.

Ben mounts a woodland birdhouse near the Indian Spring.

Mark Miner was interested in monitoring bluebirds and heard about our efforts at The Springs at a DNR volunteer information meeting.  We are very happy to have Mark join us, and he provided invaluable assistance yesterday as I continued burning brush piles in the Buckthorn Alley.

The morning started off cold — what’s new — but I warmed up fast.

The wind blustered occasionally and was steady enough all day to make it relatively easy to start fires.  I was able to light piles all the way around the corner.

Two huge, dead, black oaks caught fire and Mark and I agreed; they had to come down.

Mark worked with the Forestry Service for 8 years and he is very experienced!  He fetched the red buckets shown above that enabled us to put the fires out that were raging in the fallen black oak.  Thanks Mark!

I was too pooped to count the piles, but I’m guessing we lit around 35.  Here are a few parting shots from my evening stroll.

See you at The Springs!