Cliffs, tropical water and tree work
- Thread starter pantheraba
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woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
Bermuda looks pretty arid, not much rain, Fiona, like a rainy season?
gf beranek
Old Schooler
Real cool, but I am left to wonder what contingencies are in place to prevent the invasive species from growing back?
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
Job security!!!
gf beranek
Old Schooler
Expert invasive extractor. "I'll be back".
MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
Yes, that's a fort, 'Devonshire Redoubt' circa 1600's. The enclosed body of water is Castle Harbour and used to be the anchorage for the fleet back in the day. The roots of the trees were breaking them apart.
It is a bit dry at the moment, haven't had a decent rain for a couple weeks, but that island is one of the outer ones and is smack on the south shore with nothing between it and the US in one direction and Europe in the other so it is typical windswept rocky coastline with coastal hillside, typically trees are low stature with prostrate shrubby understory. Would have been small bermuda cedars, palmettos, buttonwood and one or two other small trees, then snowberry, sea-ox-eye, goldenrod, prickly pear (found lots of that!) and a limited range of other stuff. The tall trees there now are all casuarinas, invasive and do not respond to windshear hence the proclivity to blow over in storms and take chunks of cliff with them. I was kicking slabs of loose rock into the water all the time!
I treated EVERY stump with Garlon herbicide to prevent regrowth, but there is so much duff and seed still on the cliffs that there will inevitably be some seedlings coming on in a few years, I'm starting to think about how we can treat them with less effort, not let them grow so big will be one! Spot application of herbicide pehaps, when the seedlings are still very small, or just pull the little buggers out, if you get 'em early they do come out.
They are also going to remove all the mature casuarinas from the top of the island to remove the seed source, that will take another summer at least. The boat landing was the volunteer group from the local power company, they were there to drag brush to the chipper for the other crew that was cutting up top and did a great job too.
Thanks for having a look, thanks to Gary for sending the saw, it was a fun summer job, hard but fun!
It is a bit dry at the moment, haven't had a decent rain for a couple weeks, but that island is one of the outer ones and is smack on the south shore with nothing between it and the US in one direction and Europe in the other so it is typical windswept rocky coastline with coastal hillside, typically trees are low stature with prostrate shrubby understory. Would have been small bermuda cedars, palmettos, buttonwood and one or two other small trees, then snowberry, sea-ox-eye, goldenrod, prickly pear (found lots of that!) and a limited range of other stuff. The tall trees there now are all casuarinas, invasive and do not respond to windshear hence the proclivity to blow over in storms and take chunks of cliff with them. I was kicking slabs of loose rock into the water all the time!
I treated EVERY stump with Garlon herbicide to prevent regrowth, but there is so much duff and seed still on the cliffs that there will inevitably be some seedlings coming on in a few years, I'm starting to think about how we can treat them with less effort, not let them grow so big will be one! Spot application of herbicide pehaps, when the seedlings are still very small, or just pull the little buggers out, if you get 'em early they do come out.
They are also going to remove all the mature casuarinas from the top of the island to remove the seed source, that will take another summer at least. The boat landing was the volunteer group from the local power company, they were there to drag brush to the chipper for the other crew that was cutting up top and did a great job too.
Thanks for having a look, thanks to Gary for sending the saw, it was a fun summer job, hard but fun!
woodworkingboy
TreeHouser
One for the scrap book, Fiona. Nice going. I could probably get you some more island work, how about a steaming jungle this time?
Bodean
Cali dreamer
Rad Pictures, Fiona. Super Stoked.
Finished the last of the coastline yesterday...12hr day, DONE! I was pretty sure I would not have any more time for them before I left, so we said, let's push it and get it finished. Finding it a bit hard to get going this morning though...
One interesting thing was stumbling upon a shrubbery nest with a baby longtail in/on/under it. This is a cliff hole nesting seabird species and this 'nest' was at least 50' into the forest on the ground under a branch that had some asparagus fern growing over it...highly unusual to see a ground nest that far away from the cliffs and shoreline. He looked pretty good though and was certainly making himself heard, I almost stood on him before he skwaked! the Conservation Officer took pictures of him and will go back to band it later. We could see the parents circling off the coast later. That was cool.
One interesting thing was stumbling upon a shrubbery nest with a baby longtail in/on/under it. This is a cliff hole nesting seabird species and this 'nest' was at least 50' into the forest on the ground under a branch that had some asparagus fern growing over it...highly unusual to see a ground nest that far away from the cliffs and shoreline. He looked pretty good though and was certainly making himself heard, I almost stood on him before he skwaked! the Conservation Officer took pictures of him and will go back to band it later. We could see the parents circling off the coast later. That was cool.
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