Yesterday I took a drive through the west half of the recently-contained High Park Fire west of Fort Collins. My route took me e to w thru Rist Canyon on Larimer CR52E (due w of Bellvue), south on the Stove Prairie Road (Larimer CR27), the w on Larimer CR44H into Buckhorn Canyon for about 5 miles, then back to Stove Prairie Road, north to Poudre Canyon (SR14) and east to LaPorte. There was a private sign at the mouth of Rist Canyon stating, "Please - No Looky-Loos"). I tried not to be one and considered the visit a mostly-rolling, anecdotal "biological assessment" and promised myself I wouldn't gawk or take pictures of burned homes.
Expecting the worst, I must say I was pleasantly surprised. Certainly, there is plenty of human heartbreak and tragedy within the almost 90,000-acre burn area. A lot of people suffered damage (directly from the fire, indirectly from smoke and other issues). Some lost a friend. Thousands experienced worry, severe inconvenience during evacuations (and threats of same), etc. And there will be plenty more human and ecological impacts in the weeks, months, and even years, ahead. If we get strong rain events, the erosion of ash, sediment, and slurry could be very problematic for the Poudre River and other tributary streams. Predictions of the "river will die" or "dry up" could happen, and with minimal flush from snowpack melt yet this summer, recovery and renewal could be painfully slow. If the aquatic invertebrates die, every thing that eats them will die, too, or must leave. Things like fishing and other water-dependent recreation, plus spinoff economic benefits, will be depressed for a while. I certainly don't mean to minimize the tremendous pain and costs of this fire, and the other "big" fires. Maybe emotion is still too raw, but........... there is still plenty of green up there. The High Park Fire, despite being a bunch of light fires that could/should have occurred over the last century rolled into one, still burned in a patchy fashion. Plenty of ecological benefit in the form of diversifying the landscape, giving early succession organisms a new start, cleaning out some over-crowded closets, and just shaking up the system in general, will happen. Immobile birds (eggs, nestlings, individuals caught by surprise while sleeping, or slow ones), no doubt perished in many areas. But the great, great majority of individual birds survived. My guess would be the survivors adapted, and will continue to adapt, in myriad ways, most of them involving relocation to sites providing what they need: food, water, and shelter. Some small passerines may renest, locally or elsewhere, yet this summer. Some may call it good and meander, east, south, who knows? Woodpeckers should be happy for years to come. Olive-sided Flycatchers will have plenty of lookouts. Cavity-nesters of all types ought to be in good shape. The next decade should be prime for understory-loving and "shrub" birds. Hummers should like the flowers that sprout, if not yet this summer, next spring/early summer, for sure. Ant-eaters rejoice. One negative will be the profusion of many exotics like knapweeds and pernicious thistle species we'd be better off without. Old growth/late succession bird species still have plenty of habitat and may benefit from renewed, food-rich, early-succession areas now occurring nearby. It is no profound statement to say the future of how well the repair and renewal proceeds depends on rain and snow, and how/when these forms of moisture are delivered. We shall see. My primary reason for going into the fire area, besides general curiosity, was a personal concern for one particular place, a USFS-owned section formerly-Picnic-Area-since-closed in lower Rist Canyon. This area is special and a lot of ologists know it. It has 5+ orchid species including Yellow Lady's Slipper, and Wood Lily, has had 3 species of small owls nest, low elevation American Three-toed Woodpeckers nesting in aspen, breeding Ovenbirds, etc. Although I am a firm believer in the genius and inevitability of the marvelous manifestation of evolution called "succession", the High Park Fire admittedly put the strength of these beliefs to the test. And I must also admit it was great to round the bend and see the old Picnic Area mostly in tact. It will burn someday, and that's as it should be, but I selfishly was glad to see that postponed for a while. Lastly, besides the extent of green, the biggest surprise, and maybe it shouldn't have been if one thinks about it, was seeing that the hottest, nastiest, won't-recover-for-a-long-long-time places were north-facing slopes clogged with 100-year-old thickets of Douglas-fir. This tree likes the north side of mountains where the norm is more moisture and cooler temps. When such sites get dry, and the trees get dry, the thinner bark (compared to Ponderosa Pine) and the finer needles of Douglas-fir make for a combustible, vulnerable, intensively-hot combination. It is worth mentioning that it appeared the worst areas (remember this was a rolling, anecdotal "biological assessment" and not a proper, long-term study of transects and plots) were NOT necessarily those heavily populated with old pine beetle trees. Certainly these areas burned, if and when the fire got to them. But unlike the skinny on the street which places blame for the initiation and intensity of the recent fires squarely on the elytra of the pine beetle, my take would be this brunt is largely misplaced. Yes, the tree hit by lightning which started the High Park Fire happened to be an old beetle tree, but I think its being "chosen" could well have been a factor of its size and location as much as what killed it. Fire scientists, at least most of them, point out that overlaying a map of old beetle outbreaks with one of fires shows little correlation. Beetle trees which still have red needles on them (the period of 2-3 years after they were attacked) are somewhat more likely to ignite than moist, green trees. But more likely to ignite than red, recent beetle trees are very dry but still alive trees. Least likely are old gray ghosts with no needles. On another subject, the active Broad-tailed Hummingbird nest in Grandview Cemetery in Fort Collins has two babies being well fed that should leave the nest around 11July. The babies, at least some parts of the bills and tails, should be visible above the nest rim from here on out. If anyone wants to see this nest, let me know. I would rather not post the exact location because "The Owl People" still have their big cameras and are no doubt woefully bored until next spring. Dave Leatherman Fort Collins -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en-US.
