Andrews Forest Burns as Birdwatching Magazine Ends with Nina Ferrari’s Story

The article I wrote for Birdwatching on Nina Ferrari climbing towering trees and studying birds in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest came out this month: Treasures in the Canopy. However, a new company bought the magazine and the owners promptly fired the staff, and ended this important and wonderful publication. My piece had long been scheduled, but the last issue where it appears digitally only is the result of a makeshift fill-in staff without experience. While my text is intact, some of the photos and captions are problematic. The good news is that the former editor Matt Mendenhall has moved on to edit American Birding Conservancy’s magazine. They are lucky to have one of my favorite editors and a strong voice for birds and habitats in trouble.

As I post this update, the Lookout Fire burns through the ancient forests of the Andrews. Here’s to their resilience. Wildfire is a natural force of renewal, yet it’s hard right now when I’ve come to know individual trees as friends. I think of salamanders on mossy nurse logs where Pacific wrens sing arias to the tune of trickling springs. I remember the most stunning moment of my life–175-feet-up in a tree called “Traverse” with Nina Ferrari as red crossbills flew not above but below me. (See my blog, Tall Tree Climb).

Here I am this past June hugging one of Nina’s study trees– a Douglas-fir, equipped with thick spongy bark to fend off the flames, yet the drought of summer and extremes of climate change will be difficult for the centuries-old trees. Here’s to rain, please!

I hold out hope, because our centuries-old trees are best equipped to withstand fires and the way of burning often forms a mosaic of burned and unburned places. The biggest danger comes after wildfires if the forests are “salvaged” for timber. Then, fragile mycorrhizal connections underground break, soils wash away, and we lose the standing dead and often the burned living trees that are critical to wildlife and for storing carbon. At least, I know that the dedicated long-term research sites will be honored for natural ecological renewal. We will continue to learn. The forest still breathes.

For a time-lapse of the Lookout Fire, please see this link.

Meanwhile, my heart is with all the researchers and graduate students conducting long-term studies, critical for our knowledge of “old-growth” forests and biodiversity. I’m grateful to the firefighters for keeping local communities safe and going the extra mile to help protect vital research sites. For my blogs on the Andrews Forest, please see: What do Birds Ask of Us? and Tall Tree Climb.