Old Red Spruce

The Atlantic Salmon of the iconic Miramichi were assessed as endangered by COSEWIC last week. Nobody should be surprised as the decline is well known. Why is nobody talking about this?

This wetland-fed brook is down to a trickle in a drought that lingers on. Normally these banks are full in October. The upstream wetland continues to slowly release water keeping small fish alive but concentrated in the small number of scattered pools.

A thinning in a 32 year old spruce stand. Half of the canopy was harvested for small lumber and pulp. The remaining canopy now has room to grow. This job was completed with a special machine and a very skilled operator.

Charred snags and burnt leaves after a wildland fire moved through this young plantation a few weeks ago. Fire breaks made with a bulldozer is what eventually contained the blaze before nearby homes were threatened.

An old sugar maple snag in a mixed wood forest. This has been dead and standing for at least two decades (the time I have been walking the site) and has survived many wind events.

A clump of Jack O'Lanterns on a red oak root mass. These look good enough to eat but that would be a bad choice. This is a temperate species at the northern edge of its current range in N.B. They don't seem to mind the drought.

One of the oldest documented red spruce trees. 388 growth rings counted in a core at breast height and estimated to be at least 405 years old. Growing slowly in an open coastal site showing no evidence of prior harvesting. Medicine bundles had been recently tied to the tree.

A recently documented-400 year old red spruce growing effectively roadside in Lorneville has me questioning how many more ancient trees may be going unnoticed. Properly aging very old trees is hard. It takes field skill, discipline preparing the core, magnification, and luck. Few take the time.

Yesterday's work included a survey of an old growth site of significant size in the upper reaches of the Keswick watershed. Extremely large living and dead trees including coarse woody debris. A complete absence of prior logging evidence and not a single aspen or white birch present. Wonderful.

Trouble for this white ash tree. The characteristic D-shaped emergence hole of the emerald ash borer.

A barred owl keeping a close eye on the forest floor in an old hemlock stand.

This 40 year old stand of yellow birch is a product of heavy clearcut harvesting in the 1980s and a 1990s thinning program. This year it will be thinned again to supply the best trees with more light, moisture, and soil nutrients.

A stream protected by a buffer of forest 60 meters wide that separated it from a harvest that occurred several decades ago. In the height of an August drought I've never seen this run dry.

This sugar maple likely lived more than 200 years given its massive size and it has likely remained standing decades following its death. A slow decay process providing habitat for many animals and other organisms and a rare feature in working forest lands.

Large ironwood in a stand of Appalachian hardwoods This rich and diverse forest type is scarce now due to land clearing for settlement and agriculture. Some conservation organizations are doing great work to identify and protect remaining examples of this forest.

A stand of very old softwood on a steep granite hillside. No evidence of historical harvesting present in an otherwise disturbed landscape. Tinder dry on a windy, hot spring day. The large white and red pine would be able to survive a fast moving fire and maybe germinated after a fire long ago?

A vernal pool in a red spruce stand along the Fundy coast.

The false morel... the most disappointing of all the fungi.

The silver maple floodplains of the lower Wolastoq.

The flowers of a red maple 🍁. Because these trees bloom before most flying insects have emerged they are wind pollinated. Soon the leaves will flush and the forest will start pulling immense quantities of water from the soil, dumping moisture into the atmosphere.

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

States Lake, New Brunswick

Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0320665&utm_source=pr&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=plos006

A new study shows that the environmental legacy of DDT is not yet fully known. High levels of DDT persist in brook trout nearly 60 years following it's last use at multiple tested locations. It was considered a miracle product at the time.

The buds of the butternut tree. The distribution of this tree is so interesting. In NB it is found in Appalachian hardwoods, the floodplains of the Wolastoq system, and the Miramichi. Are these glacial remnants or were seeds traded to among indigenous people? Birds probably didn't fly them here.

YouTube video by AirForestry AB AirForestry - The drone design

This changes forestry by solving many problems simultaneously. Zero wasted growing space in thinnings. Zero compaction or rutting. Surgical herbicide application. Digitalization. Zero float trucking (folds into a van). Electrified. Start thinking about efficiency in KWH/m3... these Swedes are!

The Moon's shadow, is pictured covering portions of the Canadian provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick and the American state of Maine in this photograph from the International Space Station as it soared into the solar eclipse from 261 miles above.

Full res : wikiarchives.space/picture.php?...

Wow!

A female hairy woodpecker. She was pretty large and it's the right time of year so perhaps she's looking for a suitable place to excavate a nest cavity?

Maple sap running is the first sign that the forest is waking up for spring. The Wolastoqiyik called sugar maple trees sonaw. Every Canadian should know that tapping maple for sap started with indigenous knowledge that was shared freely out of friendship.

Bobcats are beautiful animals. I snuck up on one today on a trail through the Woolasook protected area and got within 20 feet of it before we both noticed each other. It took off like a ghost on the hard crusty snow. If it weren't for a dusting of powder on top it may not have left a track at all.

Will hurricane track forecasting for the Maritimes be impacted by cuts to NOAA?