[TN-Bird] Lewis County: freeze impacts
- From: Bill Pulliam <bb551@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Tennessee Birds <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2007 17:01:39 -0500
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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