Birdhouses | Scuppernong Springs Nature Trail

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!

We must have made over 200 brush piles in the Buckthorn Alley since late November; well, Andy Buchta made most of them. Green and wet as they may be, now is the time to make them go away. I don’t want to look through them for 9 months to see past them. The landscape demands a clear view!

I had two opportunities this past week to light up the Buckthorn Alley and it was my great pleasure to be joined by Rich Csavoy, Dick Jenks and Ben Johnson. On Monday we started with piles right at the parking lot on Hwy ZZ.

Rich and I prepped the piles with chainsaws and I did the lighting. Dick helped the fires burn completely by consolidating the burning piles and fanning them with the leaf blower. The snow was soft and deep, and it was an effort to move from pile to pile, but we managed to get 33 lit.

I worked the fires until 5:30pm and used the technique we recently learned from Gary Birch of disbursing the ash piles with the leaf blower.

The sun was on it’s way to set behind a bank of clouds as I made my way up to the Indian Campground. I really appreciated and enjoyed working with Rich and Dick again!

Yesterday, I heard the whine of Dick’s chainsaw shredding the morning stillness as I arrived around 8:30am.

Last November, Dick suggested we save the “nice” buckthorn logs, cut them into firewood, and offer it to Ottawa Lake campers (donations to the Wisconsin DNR are welcome!) He followed up by creating this brochure to advertise…

… and by actually doing the work. Dick, I’ll bring that sawbuck you gave me to The Springs tomorrow!

The air was moving when I began lighting piles and I made good progress initially. Then, I looked up and saw Ben Johnson carrying a 12′ aluminum ladder and dragging a sled full of birdhouses and tools.