Linda's For the Birds: The Pygmy Pines
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All photos courtesy of Linda Gangi
Since moving to Manahawkin in Southern New Jersey, I’ve been fascinated by the pygmy pine forest that can be seen throughout the Warren Grove area, also referred to as the pine plains. I had my first glimpse of them when I was forced to take Route 539 North home instead of the Parkway one day.
Now you might be thinking that trees are trees, but not these trees. Being only four or five feet tall, or sometimes a lot smaller, they are dwarfs in the tree world. There are not just one or two trees, but thousands upon thousands of them, approximately 12,000 acres in total.
As I drove north, the spectacle of these dwarf trees undulating in the distance as far as the eye could see creating their own horizon was a sight to behold. I was enthralled, knowing that this was truly a botanical wonder that I wanted to witness up close and on foot.
Also growing low to the ground is a variety of shrubs, sub-shrubs, vines, grasses, sedges, herbs, ferns, mosses and lichens. That sounds like a lot, but there are limited amounts of each due to the difficult growing conditions.
Now I feel I must say something about the birds, although we didn’t see many that day. We were treated to a Cedar Waxwing feeding its young along with nice views of a Northern Cardinal. I was so fascinated with what was growing on the ground that I rarely looked up. According to Howard P. Boyd, roughly 161 species of birds are common to the Pine Barrens. It would be interesting to see what species prefer this unique pine forest. I would imagine that the bird list would be limited because of the lack of diversity throughout the pygmy pine forest, but wouldn’t it be fun to find out for sure. I’m going to make a point to return and observe.
I must admit that since I don’t know a lot about this area I had to rely on field guides just to write this article. I highly recommend Howard P. Boyd’s The Ecological Pine Barrens of New Jersey, An ecosystesm Threatened by Fragmentation for anyone interested in learning more about this natural wonder.
Surprisingly, there were not too many entries on the internet for the pine forest which is a great reason to just come out and see them in person. http://www.pinelandsalliance.org/ecology/habitats/pygmyplains/
http://www.pineypower.com/parkspgpg8.html
The Atlantic Audubon Society holds monthly meetings and field trips if you are interested please come join us:
http://www.atlanticaudubon.org/
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Categories: Linda's For the Birds
Tags: pine forests pines trees pygmy pine south jersey
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