Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
likely one of the many
Myotis
species that live here, assisted by its highly evolved
sonar, had no trouble i lling up fast on the fatty isopterans. I also saw green
darner dragonl ies, which remind me of miniature army helicopters, cut rect-
angular circuits among the termites, plucking them from midair with strong
legs and crushing them with powerful jaws. No wonder this darner is the Wash-
ington state insect!
Keeping adequate stores of deadwood, given the foundational role it plays
in ecosystems, is a challenge in neighborhoods. Not everyone enjoys an eve-
ning termite l ight, and it is not uncommon for trees in my neighborhood to
blow down in strong storms, damaging houses and cars. A few years ago my
driveway was crowded with the remains of two great snags felled by a neigh-
bor out of fear or for aesthetic reasons. I had often watched l ickers, hairy
woodpeckers, and pileated woodpeckers work these very trunks. Now they
would fuel my i re rather than enrich the soil and make termites. They deserved
the blow of a woodpecker's bill, not that of my maul. The actions of my neigh-
bor are typical and in some situations justii ed, but our intolerance of dead
vegetation severely limits one of the most creative forces in subirdia.
Woodpeckers are natural engineers whose abandoned nest and roost cav-
ities facilitate a great diversity of life, including birds, mammals, inverte-
brates, and many fungi, moss, and lichens. Without woodpeckers, birds such
as chickadees and tits, swallows and martins, bluebirds, some l ycatchers,
nuthatches, wood ducks, hooded mergansers, and small owls (screech, saw-
whet, and pygmy) would be homeless. Some of these “secondary cavity nest-
ers” are able to excavate nests and roosts in very rotten wood, and others
might i nd a natural cavity, but homes in punky wood are easy pickings for
strong-armed raccoons and opossums. Some also use nest boxes that we pro-
vide. But regardless of what we do for hole users, hole creators still need dead
trees. In Seattle these critical ecological resources, while present in forest
remnants, are nearly absent from built areas, severely limiting the abundance
of woodpeckers. Even in suburban forests where small snags are plentiful,
