This Burn is for the Birds

On May 3rd of this year we conducted a burn on the open area out back between the house and Silver Creek.   

This constitutes the habitat planted with native grasses and forbs almost two decades ago. This is also where my pal Sid manifested his nocturnal powers.  But I digress.  Having established warm season flora it is best managed with periodic burns.  While most individuals might be put-off by setting something afire - prescribed burning is an accepted and ecologically sound mechanism of improving wildlife habitat.  It maintains wet prairies that provide sustenance for pollinators and nesting areas for non-game and game birds as well as cover and food for other critters.   

Man’s use of controlled burns is recognized as a suitable surrogate for the forces of Ma Nature's naturally-occurring wildfires that throughout millennia have maintained nature's balance.  Native Americans used fire to both sustain and manipulate their ancestral hunting grounds.  

Fire acts to reduce the intrusion of trees and shrubs that shade-out warm-season grasses and forbs.  Following a burn the blackened earth is a nutrient-rich stockpile of charred plant remains that quickly absorb the spring sunlight.  These warming soils are receptive to the germination of dormant seeds and the growth of established native plants with root networks deep underground.  

The girls and I checked it out yesterday afternoon - same location.

Before:    

And after:  

click on images to enlarge

In the short period of seven weeks this pollinator habitat has greened-up into a thick and rich growth of green potential with all sorts of good things for the birds, butterflies and everything else populating nature's circle of life.

Raising a toast to the scientific management of wildlife habitat.