The Snor'eastercane/Frankenstorm

It's rather a nice day here, and forecast to be a very pleasant day tomorrow. After that...one local forecast that has seemed fairly accurate suggested 8 inches of rain on Monday and Tuesday next week as Hurricane Sandy sweeps in and merges with colder weather systems from the West and Canada. The media and coffee -room discussions are full of advice and alarm - it's all rather exciting. What we actually get here is still somewhat uncertain - it looks now fairly certain that a very (possibly record-breakingly) destructive storm will hit the coast between Delaware and New York, timed nicely for a full moon to maximise storm-surge damage. At 1200' here there is even a possibility of significant snow. I'll let you know what happens.

I've been learning some more about the experimental work here in the Harvard Forest - particularly noted for its long term ecological studies. There's some cool experiments going on, like the several acres of forest where the trees were winched down to artificially simulate hurricane damage (ah, the irony), and then monitored - now in the 20th year of monitoring. A more recent experiment has set out heating cables in the soil to simulate the effects of warming on soil structure and composition. The electricity bills are substantial...

In the oldest part of the forest there is a stand of 200 year old eastern Hemlocks. These probably survived because the site is poor and the trees weren't particularly valued for domestic use nor for the lucrative market in masts for sailing ships.

The pictures show the stand and the research tower used to collect information from various levels in the canopy. Its a wobbly 25m climb to the top, but terrific views over the treetops where the oaks stand out in russet tones against the pines and hemlocks. 




















In any discussion of the great northeastern forests the story of the American Chestnut looms large. Once a major component of the forest, valued for timber and nuts and simply for its impressive stature, it was lost to a blight disease imported from Asia. Knowing the story, I must confess I was surprised to find it everywhere. Rather like elms in the UK it re-grows from root systems and grows rapidly to 10m or so, after which it is killed again, in a kind of auto-coppicing process. There's a major effort to reverse the damage done by the disease through cross-breeding with Chinese chestnuts - rather like elm breeding, the confident press releases are not (yet) backed up by results. Given the depressing news about Ash dieback in the UK, one thing stands out - if there were resistant chestnut trees, they were probably felled in a great wave of 'use-it-or-lose-it' anticipatory fellings. It may not be clear which, if any, ash are resistant for some time, and perhaps tidying diseased ash is a short-sighted thing to do...



Above: Chestnut understorey in the oak forest

End of the Fall colours

21st October

The last week has seen madly oscillating weather - a couple of hard frosts interspersed with days that we'd appreciate as warm summer days in the Highlands. Last Saturday it was 3C when I set out to take part in a charity bike ride for a local family whose young son has a brain tumour - 50 miles with 3800' of climbing - so VERY hilly. I came in last, but that was only because I went slower than everyone else. The following day I was in shorts again. Fall is definitely passing with many bare trees and the red colours ebbing out of the pallette as the maples finish and more sombre oaks turn. However, this does allow views into the woodlands, rather than a green wall which rather closes down any roadside views.

I've been chained to my desk for most of the week, trying to understand the approaches in Canada and the US to climate change impacts on forest trees. The focus seems to be almost wholly on planting tree species further north, or at higher altitude than where they're currently found - either to maintain timber productivity or 'rescue' rare species likely to be left behind by changing climates. The latter includes Torreya, a small evergreen tree from Florida which is being rescued by a group called the Torreya Guardians by new stands much further north. I'm detecting a degree of 'official' anxiety at such unilateral, almost vigilante action happening outside any official coordination! I haven't found any work on what I consider to be our problem -    not the moving of threatened species, but the maintenance of woodlands where the trees maybe threatened - that is, not endangered species but endangered sites. One paper mentioned this as a theoretical approach but one where no work had been done - a simultaneously frustrating (because there's nothing to learn from) and cheering (because the work hasn't already all been done) piece of news. I need to explore this more - for example even if the forests have enough species to guarantee their continuation, what is the response of managers to the loss of keystone species - like the (probably) doomed whitebark pine in the Rockies whose nutritious seeds feed grizzly bears and a host of smaller wildlife?

I finished early one sunny afternoon to walk around Harvard Pond (above) as a colleague had reported seeing moose tracks. No moose visible - they're very hard to see given their size - but lots of signs of beaver activity and a host of red and grey squirrels active before winter sets in. This site was a major industrial centre with a series of lakes dammed to power sawmills a century ago. The dam is still here, but a family of beavers evidently is critical of humanity's efforts, and has built a complete duplicate dam 10 feet back from the main rock dam.

Advert of the week in our local paper: 'House cleaning - done in your own home. Call...' 

To Canada

11th October
The last few days have been dominated by a trip north into Canada, partly to visit my aunt and uncle for Thanksgiving (in Canada, Thanksgiving is 6 weeks earlier than in the US - simply because harvest time is so much earlier further north), and partly to take up an invitation to visit the Canadian Forest Service headquarters in Ottawa.

This has also been about the peak weekend for the Fall colours, and in the sunshine the effects were really breathtaking - particularly on the maples which give the impression of a glowing ember - yellows and reds within the canopy, darkening (as if they were cooling) to crimson and almost purple on the outermost leaves.

The visit and my presentation at CFS seemed to go well. They've just completed a large project on Assisted Migration (AM) which relates closely to my own project here at Harvard - but of course the scale and structure of their forests and landscapes has many contrasts with UK or Scotland. In particular, the continuity of forest from south to north means that most of the AM response to climate change is focused on adjusting seed zone regulations by fairly modest distances, or allowing certain species to be planted a little further north, or higher up. A lot of information, links and contacts to follow up after this visit, including some researchers in Waterloo, Canada who are studying public perceptions of changes in forests - perhaps a very interesting lead.

I drove back to Harvard Forest via the eastern Adirondacks of northern New York State. This is an Amish area, and it's fascinating to see horsedrawn buggies on the roads and a farmer ploughing with 2 horses. The buggies are hard to see in dim conditions being black and deliberately free of any reflective 'adornments' - unlike the similar Mennonites in southern Ontario which do allow reflective triangles on their buggies. This part of NY State was very attractive, with evidently fertile farmland in a mosaic with forest, rock and swamp - a pattern perhaps ideally suited to small scale non-industrialised agriculture, and maybe part of the reason the Amish are here.

This week's useful information:
 - Black bears in the Fall are stocking up for winter. That means they are eating around 20000 calories a day.

Arriving...

This is my first post in a blog to keep friends and colleagues abreast of my activities as I spend 9 months away from my work at Scottish Natural Heritage, taking up a Bullard fellowship at Harvard University.

The view from my kitchen window

I'm based not in the main campus in Boston, but 70 miles west at the Harvard Forest, a research institute and experimental forest a few miles from the town of Atholl. Our nearest neighbours include an alpaca farm, a monastery, and thousands of hectares of woodland. Lots more about that later.

The first week was a blur of organising administrative things, including buying a car - yes, that flash-looking beast in the picture - and tedious things like bank accounts and ID cards. I'm learning to love American bureaucracy. Take a ticket from the armed guard, go past the sign noting that it's a Federal offense to 'Kill, maim, injure, kidnap...' their employees, and wait. After some more waiting for your number, you eventually meet a charming person who, endearingly, because it's Fall/Halloween, has a tiny pumpkin on her counter. She solves your problems (for a fee), and after a serious 'Homeland Security' glare from the guard, you're released back into the wild.

I've also been settling into my apartment, which is one of 4 carved out of the original 1763 farmhouse. Some of the floorboards are almost 50cm wide, cut from the original old growth cleared for farming - and also so warped that they resemble traffic-calming measures. It's rather rustic, but perfectly livable...

But I've also found time to put my bike together, with the reward of a great ride at the weekend, exploring the local roads and fall colours.

Navigational problems - this is a road on my map...