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Posted by Bryant Roberts on 19:44:52 05/25/11
In Reply to: Re: A New Bird for My Palm Beach County List posted by John Boyd
The Big Cypress of the era when Bachman s Sparrows were likely year round residents and may have nested isn t the same as it is today. From what I gathered from a botanist who led native plant field trip in Picayune Stand a few years ago aerial photographs of the Big Cypress area taken in the late 1940 s showed much less woody understory and more open grassy prairie beneath the pines and cypresses. With the spread of exotic Brazilian Pepper, Melaleuca, and increased profusion of native woody plants much of this grassland has been lost or degraded and fire control probably has had much to do with this. We were shown the difference between an area that had previously been burned by a late dry season wildfire and one that had been burned by an early wet season prescribed fire. Late dry season wild fires like the recent Jarhead Fire burn much of the woody vegetation to ground level allowing rising water levels to submerge and kill it. In this area small trees and shrubs were sparse and grass species that had not been found in the area for years suddenly appeared. Prescribed burns in the early wet season while beneficial and much safer and easier to control don t suppress the woody vegetation and promote the growth of grasses nearly as well. While it is a stretch to attribute the withdraw of the sparrow from the southern limits of its range to one or two causes, fire and water are two of the most important environmental factors in the Big Cypress and the Everglades and shouldn t be discounted.
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