The Old Ranger Ponders Changes in the Forest August 19, 2011

Once again the Old Ranger wakes up to the whine of lumber company saws.  It was much more pleasant when she awoke to the calls of birds and squirrels.  For most of the summer, logging crews have been thinning the forest for habitat improvements and fire safety.  The saws and grinding equipment continue their whine and rumble.  There have been two or more crews working in the National Forest on both sides of camp.  Sometimes she could hear and almost feel the WHUMP! of a tree being felled. Camp El-O-Win has also completed tree thinning in camp over the last 3 years.  The Old Ranger noticed changes after this.  There are fewer chickarees (or Douglas Squirrels) and she only saw one phoebe, a dark gray and black fly catcher, this summer.  There were several nests in past years.  The catchfly and white veined wintergree along the road to Arapaho are gone.  "Is the noise, the heavy equipment moving under the trees and lost/thinning of trees the reason for these changes?" she wonders. Maybe not all is forlorn.  She surprised a chickaree at the kitchen this morning.  Up in Iroquois on the hill there is quite a collection of white-veined wintergreen.  The plant called catchfly is coming up near the dining hall and by the old canoe pond. With the trees not so overgrown or the brush so dense, the Old Ranger can see new views.  Poohland has a few fewer mosquitos.  In places blue sky shows through the trees on the ridge.  Time will tell whether the changes are good ones and soon, the Old Ranger hopes, the logging will be done. "Oh, for bird songs in the morning."

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