Pennsylvania Game News - July 2021 - 63

Then, in the early 1980s, non-native
gypsy moth caterpillars defoliated all of
our oak trees, and other species except
for tulip trees. They even ate the needles
of the Norway spruces we had planted at
the top of First Field in 1974. Luckily,
we had only one bad year and most of
the trees recovered.
By the 1990s we began to hear more
about invasive diseases and insects coming
from Europe and Asia. At the same
time, the adjacent property of 150 acres
was logged. We managed to acquire it
afterward, but we were not able to stop
the invasion of Japanese barberry, privet,
tree of heaven, mile-a-minute, and Japanese
stiltgrass there, although last autumn
our hunters took a few mornings to
rescue First Field from those invasives.
Still, hemlock woolly adelgids are
sucking the life from the Eastern hemlocks
beside our stream, and emerald
ash borers have killed our ash trees even
more rapidly this last decade.
All of these tree species provided food
and cover for wildlife and, coupled with
changes in our weather patterns, wildlife
food here has been scarce. Last winter,
for instance, there were no wild fruits
and few acorns and black walnuts. Even
the Norway spruces, white pines, and
remaining hemlocks produced no cones.
But our wildflower species mostly
have survived, except for a couple orchid
species that came and went. Our reptile
and amphibian species still are here, including
wood frogs that have developed
and spread over the last couple decades
in a series of vernal ponds on Sapsucker
Ridge. Mark even recorded wood ducks
there last spring.
And then there are my memories. As
I walk our trails, I can recall the animals
JULY 2021
and plants I have seen along each one. In
the hemlock-shrouded, so-called " dark
place " by a neighboring property, I saw
my first fisher, a large male heralded by a
flock of protesting songbirds as he came
down to drink from the stream.
Off Laurel Ridge Trail, where I was sitting
among the mountain laurel listening
to a hooded warbler, I saw my first black
bear come up the ridge, dip its face down
between a double oak tree to drink, then,
unknowingly, head straight toward me.
When it was about 15 feet away, I
stood up slowly and it stopped and stared
as I quietly spoke to it. Instead of running
away, it paralleled my walk along Laurel
Ridge Trail continually peering at me,
before finally running off.
Once I saw a mother bear and four
cubs near the stream, but they never saw
me above them on Rhododendron Trail,
and I quietly watched them until they
wandered off. From across Far Field
I watched a red fox den in consecutive
springs. Another year, I followed behind
four coyote pups as they scampered
along Sapsucker Ridge Trail.
I remember releasing the first Eastern
golden eagle that had been live-trapped
by researchers from a blind on our rock
slide. When I let her go, she flew off
slowly, then landed on a nearby white
pine tree, before flying away.
And then there was the spring morning
when I reached the spruce grove and
something made me look up in time to
see a swallow-tailed kite circling above
the grove, higher and higher.
Never Enough of Nature by Lawrence
Kilham has a title that has been
my mantra throughout my life: There is
always more to learn, and no lifetime is
long enough to grasp even a small understanding
of the natural world of a central
Pennsylvania mountain.
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Pennsylvania Game News - July 2021

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