FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Lewis County: freeze impacts

[Bill Pulliam <bb551@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I'm not sure of the situation to the east and west, but from what I  
am seeing here in Lewis County and the rest of middle Tennessee we  
may be heading into some serious trouble for this year's nesting  
season.  Tulip poplars are black; oaks are scarcely better.  All  
flowering trees and shrubs have been blitzed.  In the second day of  
our three days of hard freezes, low temperatures this morning  
(4/8/07) in this region ranged from the lower 20s down into the  
teens; here at our farm in a sheltered deep hollow we hit an almost  
unbelievable 13 degrees.  These are some of the coldest temperatures  
EVER recorded in April in over a century of records, coming just a  
few days after a long spell of record warmth.  The impacts on food  
resources for birds and other wildlife in the coming months are  
likely to be severe.  The loss of about 50-80% of the canopy foliage  
might make spring migrants easier to see, but they will have nothing  
to eat.trees already used up the bulk of their reserves for the spring  
flush, leaf area may well be reduced for tmuch of the summer.  Scanty  
leaf biomass means scarce canopy insects, on beyond the direct kill  
that doubtless happened (I haven't seen a single butterfly in spite  
of warmer sunshine today).  Wild fruit and seed crops are also going  
to be devastated.  I'd be surprised to see any acorns at all in many  
areas, as the oaks were in full bloom and those blooms are now brown  
and crumbling.  Dogwoods, wild plums, blueberries, black cherries,  
and other early bloomers will probably set virtually no fruit at all  
this year.  Later-blooming trees and shrubs may do better, depending  
on how well their buds survived these astoundingly low temperatures.

There's not a lot that can be done to mitigate an event of such broad  
extent.  We birders can mostly just be alert during the nesting  
season to see what the effects on bird populations and nesting  
success have been.

Hope for warmth and rain!

Bill Pulliam
Hohenwald TN 
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