...five, six, pick up sticks

As we have previously noted, Audubon South Carolina is creating grassland habitat for birds on land previously used to grow Loblolly Pines. The sites had been bulldozed, but large pieces of trees (limbs, trunks, stumps) still remained scattered throughout the three 2-acre plots. Today, the staff from the Francis Beidler Forest scheduled a workday to manually remove any debris that might get trapped in the harrow, which would be used to prepare the site for seeding.

The original plan called for the dump truck to be driven through the site with staff and volunteers tossing the woody debris into the truck's bed. Unfortunately, the site was saturated due to the heavy rain that fell last Friday. Stump holes were hidden quicksand-like traps that momentarily caught everyone at some point during the day and almost permanently kept a loosely-tied shoe. The truck surely would have become trapped. The combination of leg-sucking mud and repeatedly bending over for debris promised plenty of sore muscles for young and old alike!

We'll let you know if the birds appreciate the hard work!

Images by Mark Musselman