An environmental question: I live on a 60 acre property in Upstate New york near

[hedgehog]

Lake Ontario. This used to be a dairy farm back before about 1950. For the last 25 years, we haven't used pesticides except for wasp nests in the eaves and haven't used herbicides except for poison ivy on the side of the barn. We have planted a lot of hardwoods over the years, kept the lawn mowed and pretty much let every thing else go back to nature.

For years we might see a snake on a very rare occasion. Last summer we saw snakes almost every day. These would be garden variety New York snakes, nothing unusual except that snake sightings were pretty rare before. Yesterday I found a painted turtle. Again, first turtle ever.

The other changes I have seen are more song birds and a wider variety of song birds. I never saw lightning bugs 25 years ago, now I see quite a few.

So, what has changed that we are seeing snakes and turtles now? We've always had cats around, and there is a large feral cat and some foxes out back, so i don't think it's a lack of predators. Is this an aspect of climate change, the way we're using the land, some combination?

[Angry Dragon]

1. I would say you have created an environment

that is more natural for wildlife. Just good conservation on your part.

[BeFree]

2. Actually called habitat

Instead of a cow habitat, it is now a wildlife habitat.
Think of it as having a home, a home for wildlife.

[hedgehog]

3. It just seems odd that it took 25 years to see the snakes and the turtle show up.

[Angry Dragon]

4. It was a dairy farm for many years

and they may have lost the address and they walk slow

[Booster]

5. I don't have an answer; just wanted to say I'm proud of you.

[doc03]

6. A dairy farm is not good habitat for snakes, since trees

and brush has replaced open fields it has produced a great habitat for snakes and turtles. The area I live in was surrounded by dairy farms back in the 50's and 60's then the government for some reason bought up all the dairy herds back in the 70's. Back in the day the wildlife was mostly rabbits, Pheasant and quail. Now we are overrun by deer, coyote, raccoons, wild turkey, squirrel and snakes.

[KT2000]

7. you have created an environment

where the critters are surviving. Your hardwoods are providing habitat.
When it was used as a farm, not very many likely survived. Killed as eggs, as young ones and as adults. Organophosphate pesticides are often used on farm animals to control pests.

I think they go where they feel safe and apparently they feel safe being visible to you on your property. That is a happy thing, no?

We have lots of deer. They avoid the yards that are well maintained and sprayed. They like the vacant house's yard and mine, which is all natural. They have gone from skittish and scared to running off my cat if she stares at them!

I usually get about a dozen barn swallows returning (the same family), but this year it was just four.

[XemaSab]

8. You're doing a good job

Snakes are predators, so clearly the prey base is healthy. :)

[hedgehog]

9. Not to boast - mostly left everything alone except for gathering cherry pits,

acorns and black walnuts from my in-laws and tossing them back into the woods!

[Viking12]

10. Has the amount of rainfall been anomolous this season?

Water levels in local ponds and wetlands may force reptiles and other animals to move either in search of water (dry years) or better cover because the vegetation is flooded and no longer provides adequate shelter (wet years).

[hedgehog]

11. We used to have snow cover from early November to late April.

In recent years, it's more like late December to early March. It has been very wet this spring.

[happyslug]

12. Common in my area, a lot of farms were abandoned in the 1930s.

Western Pennsylvania was always marginal farm land, those areas where farms could produce a good crop are still farms, but the farms that use to be owned by subsistence farmers (Who in the summer worked on the bigger farms) tend to be abandoned starting in the 1930s. This was driven by the move from horse draw equipment to tractors. With Tractors a farmer did NOT need as many workers so many of the older subsistence farmers lost employment and then moved to the city for employment. No one wanted their old homestead for the land was NOT that good so they slowly returned to trees. I remember going Hunting with my Father and seeing all the old abandoned houses in the Mountains, abandoned 30-40 years before and left to rot. There tend to being in a state of Collapse by the 1970s and gone by the 1980s but we have to remember they were lived in and maintained till the 1930s. The only reason I bring it up it shows HOW the areas have changed since the farm was abandoned in the 1930s.

Now, just 30 years earlier timbering hit its stride in Western Pennsylvania and the Mountains of Pennsylvania. When I hike the local mountains you run across old railroad beds (no tracks, no bridges, just the bed) hat date from that time period. When my father came of age in the 1930s (he was born in 1919) he remembers the Bobwhite in the fields he was working as a farmer. The trees had been cut down around 1900-1910 and by the 1930s the land had started to recover. This was an time period where such abandoned farm was dominated by Bob-Whites and other small birds and had Bison existed in the Appalachian Mountains, Bison would have thrived.

Now, Right after a farm land is abandoned (Or an area is timbered) the first stage of recovery starts. This time period is about the first Five to ten years after the area had been abandoned or timbered. In this period you see grasses and strawberries and other similar plants. Pheasants tend to like this type of growth but given that Eastern North America was NOT known for Grasslands, there are NOT that many grasslands animals native to the Eastern North America (This Pheasants had to be imported from China). Bobwhite is also know in this type of environment, but mostly along fence rows where additional protections exists.

The next step starts about five to 15 years later (Yes you have a huge overlap in times when you are talking about recovery). In this second period the berries come into play, i.e. huckleberries, blackberries, Raspberries. These grown taller then grass and slowly push out the grass. Birds like these and when you find birds you find snakes. This sounds like the recovery stage your farm is at right now. Pigs like this type of growth for they like snakes (Pigs find snakes delicious). Black bears will go after the berries when ripe but prefer mature forests. If Grizzly bears are around (Black Bears can climb trees, Grizzlies can not, but Grizzlies are 2-3 times the size of Black Bears) Grizzly bears tend to dominate such areas (Grizzly bears are NOT native to the Eastern US, some evidence that they did exist but only when the Great Plains extended into the Eastern US at various times since the last glacier retreated.

After about 20 years the Berries start to give way to what is called second growth trees, Locust and Aspen trees are the most common tree at that stage of recovery. At this stage Deer start to appear, deer are a trig eater and need small trees to eat. Locust and Aspen are fast growing trees thus tend to take over from the berries, but that fast growth comes at a price, roots are not as deep thus limits to their size. The Berries hold out among the Locusts and Aspens till we get to the next stage, so the birds and snakes stay around.

After about another 20-40 years, Maples start to take over from the Aspen and Locust, these are taller trees and just tend to outgrow the Locust and Aspen which are squeezed out. The American Chestnut would be the dominant tree is such a forest, it grow fast (Through not as fast as Aspen and Locusts) but has deep roots and thus could grow to compete with dominate trees of the mature forests. Please note I am talking of the American Chestnut, the European and Asiatic Chestnuts are NOT as tall and more the size of American Locusts. The Maples and Chestnuts produce low branches for deer to thrive on so deer thrive.

The final Stage of the Forest, is the Mature stage. Oaks and Cherries dominate such a forests. Chestnuts can compete but Maples slowly lose out. Deer disappear, this is a Turkey and Black Bear dominate area.

When Gifford Pinchot (Theodore Roosevelt's Chief of Forestry) started to set up the National Forest service about 1905 he purchased as much of the timbered out mountains as he could. He continued this after he left Federal Service and really pushed it during the two non-consecutive terms he was Governor of Pennsylvania in the 1920s and 1930s. Allegheny National Forest was set up by him, as was the even Larger State Forests (Each Pennsylvanian State Forest is smaller then the National Forest but taken together the various State Forest take up almost three times of Forest lands of the National Forest in Pennsylvania). Over the last 100 years my father and I have seen the slow return of the old growth forests in Pennsylvania. None of these new mature forests are as tall as the original forests were in the 1800s (Before they were cut down) but we are seeing the affect of having a mature forest. Took almost 100 years but we are seeing the affect and at the same time we have a lot of forest in all of the above stages.

Right now Allegheny National Forest has the reputation as being the only National Forest making money when it permits trees to be timbered. All the rest of the National Forests Congress has to provide funds to help pay for the roads so that the trees can be timbered. Pennsylvania Department of Forests also make money when it permits timbering. The State Game Commission has more land then held by the Federal Government in Pennsylvania but it is spread all over the state (West of the Appalachians and south of Allegheny National Forest, the State Game Commission is the largest single land owner).

I bring this up for when I talked to my father while hunting, he would talk about the changes in the woods since he was a teenager and first really saw and had enough maturity to understand the forests. I have seen the old pictures of the areas he grew up in AND I have seen what they are today, 80 years later. The difference is amazing but it was a slow process. The above stages do NOT begin or end at the intervals I mention each tend to flow into the next. Deer, exist in Mature Forests, even if the food is scarce (Deer over the last 40 or so years have moved from the Mountains and the Forests areas do to the forest being to mature for them and moving into suburbia which is more like a second growth stage that Deer tend to thrive in).

One last comment, the above time period reflect the fact in my area, the forests tend to be on Mountain sides and thus takes longer to mature then on flat lands that farmers like. Thus you should do better then the above, but it is still a slow process.

One last comments, given that the dominate type of natural land use in North America was tall Mature Forests, reptiles (Turtles and Snakes) and Frogs, Toads and Salamanders tend to be of the type that thrive in Mature forests OR in one of the various stages of recovery of such forests (Trees to do die of old age and collapse, fires can destroy huge areas, thus recovery has always existed in Eastern North America). Grass lands have a huge problem, birds of prey have very good eyesight at a distance and with grasses they is no real cover. Most grass lands in eastern North America is surrounded by tress where such predators and sit and wait for something to move (Crows are while know for this). Thus when it comes to creatures in Grasslands they tend to be animals that borrow for protection or are to large for birds to take on. Thus small creatures tend to avoid grasslands preferring scrubs. Thus as the land converts to Berries you start to see snakes for the berries provide "Cover" from birds (Cover is something that blocks an attack from above, thick berry bushes and trees does that, grass does not). Thus until you had cover for turtles and snakes they were NOT going anywhere near your property. Thus many people tend to plant Berries to provide such cover.