THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 15, 1994 TAG: 9406140125
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
DATELINE: 940615 LENGTH: Long
The American Heritage Dictionary.
{REST} Sounds simple, doesn't it?
It's not. Several conversations recently brought to mind how easily we toss the word ``habitat'' around and how little we think about what the nature of a habitat really is.
A reader called very upset because a woodpecker had pecked a hole in a shingle and built a nest in the insulation of her house. It was the first time anything like that had ever happened, she said, and she had lived in the house for almost 50 years.
Why would the bird do that when there were so many trees around her house, she asked.
I asked her if any lots had been cleared for construction in the neighborhood and she said, yes, right down the street. She had answered her own question. Woodpeckers naturally build their nests in dead tree cavities but the neighborhood's dead trees had been cut down when the lots were cleared. The next best nesting spot, of course, was the dead wood in her old house shingles.
I went to Blackwater with a group recently to see the silky camellia, a rare Virginia wildflower, that grows in the high ground along the North Landing River. We heard that day that the land where the silky camellia grows is going to be logged.
But it will grow back, won't it, someone asked me later. Probably not.
The silky camellia's habitat is in the filtered sunlight provided by tall, leafy trees growing high overhead. A logged area would most probably be planted with pine trees which themselves would be logged well before they provided the shady habitat that would allow the silky camellia to grow back.
Not long ago another reader was confused about why environmentalists bemoan the loss of habitat that causes problems for so many of our wild species, not just silky camellias. Like the woman besieged by woodpeckers, he didn't understand how anyone could talk about loss of habitat when we still have woods around.
But it's not just any woods. It's woods with tree cavities for woodpeckers, it's woods along freshwater rivers with tall shade trees for silky camellias. Forest area that has been logged and replanted with pine trees might make a fine home for the pine warbler, but the other two are displaced.
Dead trees and the woodpeckers' need for them got me thinking about just simply the role dead trees play in certain species' habitat. Osprey are dead tree lovers. Their nesting site of choice is at the top of a tall tree where their flight and view won't be obscured by branches, near the water. The beautiful wood duck also nests along the water's edge in tree cavities and the bluebird is a cavity nester, too.
But we homeowners, creating our own habitats, cut down trees along the water's edge to get a view. And we are loath under any circumstances, naturally, to keep dead trees in our yards. On the other hand, we ask, where have all the bluebirds gone?
And that's just dead trees. Think of all the very special requirements of an individual animal's habitat. They go on and on and include such things as the availability of clean water, uncrowded conditions and the presence of not only food but the right food. We all know these things but we don't think about the complicated web they weave very often.
Once I did start thinking, I was fascinated by what I began to understand about my garden and yard. For example, I had been trying for years to get a little wild partridge berry wreath that I get for Christmas from New Hampshire to take root in my yard. I love the partridge berry that grows along the trails in Seashore State Park.
Each year, I planted the wreath in a wooded spot in my yard, thinking I was giving it its natural, park-like conditions and each year it died. That's when I really started thinking: Partridge berry grows along the trails in the park which means it gets a little sun.
So year before last, I planted my wreath out toward the edge of the wooded area. Like magic, it took root and last year, it did too.
But it wasn't magic. It was those two feet that put it closer to the sun. Habitat is not just a place to live, but the right place to live.
P.S. SEE THE DOLPHINS' HABITAT off Virginia Beach on a dolphin watch boat trip with the Virginia Marine Science Museum. Trips run from 9 to 11 a.m. and 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, June 20 to Sept. 5. The cost is $12 for adults and $10 for children, 11 and under. Call 437-4949 for information.
KIDS CAN MAKE THEIR OWN NOSEGAYS with fresh flowers from the Victorian garden at a workshop and story hour at 11 a.m. Saturday at historic Hunter House, 240 W. Freemason St., Norfolk. The cost is $5. Call 664-6283 for reservations.
FEAST ON BARBECUE with the Virginia Beach Ruritan Club, the Beach Borough Volunteer Fire Department and the Beach Borough Fire Station from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday on the picnic grounds at the entrance to Oceana Naval Air Station, Oceana Boulevard. Tickets are available at the fire station, 20th Street and Arctic Avenue, or at the gate on Saturday.
by CNB