The Ecology Walk
Resilience & Recovery
Writings & photographs from Ecology at the Edge by Deborah Perkins
There is something achingly beautiful about a harsh, exposed landscape. The emptiness and the edges bring everything into sharp focus. The plants have so much to teach us. We just need to slow down, be quiet, and listen with reverence.
01 Ecological Succession
The Queen Oak
Red Oak · Quercus rubra
How did this big Red Oak get here, and how is it growing so successfully out of what looks like pure sand? I would guess a Blue Jay or a squirrel planted an acorn around the time of World War II, some 80 years ago.
When we study the form and shape of this oak, we can clearly tell that it has grown in the wide open with no crowding. The crown has grown unusually wide and spacious, branches spreading in all directions to capture the sun. She is the picture of success and strength, like a regal queen.
A likely planter. A Blue Jay or squirrel probably buried the acorn that became this tree. Photo by Neal Kupferschmid.
02 Native Pollinators
Gentle Bees
Cellophane Bee · Colletes inaequalis
The bees that nest on the dunes in early spring are native to Maine, co-evolving with our flowering plants over thousands of years. Although they nest alone, they form aggregations, groupings of nests in one area. That is why we fence off an area of the Desert in spring: to let these gentle, docile bees complete their life cycle.
Consider thisBees form the basis of an energy-rich food web. They are vital to the health of our natural areas, our food systems, and overall biodiversity.
03 The Recovery Zone
Pathfinder Plants
White Pine, Pitch Pine & Gray Birch
The overgrazing by too many sheep was the injury, the intense disturbance that exposed this raw layer of land. Now nature is working to heal the wound with pathfinder plants.
Out on the dunes there is a long, skinny area dense with plants. This is a "seep," a special wetland where groundwater comes to the surface. Here the pathfinders lead the way: rapidly growing White Pines, rugged Pitch Pines, and Gray Birches that produce hundreds of seeds. They are the frontlines of reforestation, and the proof that all landscapes transform continuously.
04 Ancient Plants Lead the Way
The Magic of Moss
Common Haircap Moss · Polytrichum commune
None of the vegetation here would exist without lichen and moss. Lichens are curiously complex organisms, fungi and algae working together. The fungi provide shelter; the photosynthetic algae provide food. This is symbiosis: coexisting for the benefit of one another, as one organism.
These mosses are actively replacing the topsoil stripped from the farm long ago, trapping dirt and organic debris to create a moist nursery bed for wildflowers, shrubs, and trees to grow in.
The Desert depends on these lichen for its recovery: Pixie Cup, British Soldier, Reindeer, Pink Earth, Old Man's Beard, and Lung Lichen. Their adaptive abilities represent true resiliency in the face of great challenge and uncertainty.
As Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in Braiding Sweetgrass: plants know how to make food and medicine from light and water, and then they give it away.
05 Seasonal Waters
The Vernal Pool
Eastern Newt · Notophthalmus viridescens
A vernal pool is a low, wet area vital to an array of species, especially amphibians and reptiles. In Maine, vernal pools are used by 15 different species, including the Blue-Spotted and Spotted Salamander, Eastern Newt, Spring Peeper, Wood Frog, Snapping Turtle, Painted Turtle, and Blanding's Turtle.
Dozens of birds and mammals benefit from this seasonal water source. Small crustaceans called Fairy Shrimp also reproduce in these temporary pools.
06 Patience & Hope
Seeds & Seedlings
An abundance of acorns beneath the Queen Oak
Overfarming was devastating to the local ecology. Yet the landscape is recovering, and one day this will all be forest again. We can be part of that recovery. We are not separate from nature; we are very much a part of it. That is the beauty of ecology: it invites us to step outside our narrow human perspectives and see the greater whole.
We cannot forget the role of patience, and of hope. A seed will wait as long as 32,000 years; scientists found and grew one that old in Siberia, buried by an Ice Age squirrel. Is there anything more hopeful than a seed?
In Wildness + Wonder, Deborah, Your Personal Ecologist
The full field guide
Ecology at the Edge
These writings and photographs are an excerpt from Ecology at the Edge, a field guide written by Desert of Maine ecologist and CAE board member Deborah Perkins. The full guide is now available as a downloadable PDF.