A meadow is a terrible thing to waste

The Pound Ridge Land Conservancy owns or holds conservation easements on 17 preserves in Pound Ridge, NY. The biggest - at 70 acres - is the Clark Preserve, on Autumn Ridge Road. This preserve is a fair representation of Pound Ridge's ecology; up high its got patches of exposed bedrock where oaks hang on for dear life, down low its got wetlands full of red maple and ferns, and everywhere in between grows a dry forest over hilly, rocky terrain. A unique feature of the Clark Preserve, and one that draws many each week, is its beautiful meadow. In the simplist terms, the Clark meadow is a refreshing change of pace; it permits a grand, open view and induces a feeling of expansiveness that the forest can not. Likewise, in ecological terms, the meadow refreshes the landscape; the open, grassy habitat supports mammals, birds, insects and reptiles that the forest does not. The bounty of the meadow interacts with the bounty of the forest to support those animals - such as the fox, hawk or box turtle - that rely on both ecosystems. An ecologist would say that 'the meadow increases landscape diversity'.   

Here, in the eastern part of the U.S., meadows don't usually stay meadows for long. This is really a tree's world and before long, every meadow will become colonized by woody plants. While on one hand this change is totally natural, on the other hand we have a limited amount of meadows left and, without active management, they would simply go away. Essentially, if we want meadows (which a lot of people like for a lot of different reasons) then we must mow them to keep out trees and shrubs. This is exactly what we did at the Clark Preserve last week.

 

A mower at the Clark meadow in late September. 
  



In this picture, half of the Clark meadow is mowed.  By the end of the day, the entire meadow was mowed. 

By mowing the meadow we killed the small shrubs that were starting to grow in the meadow.  The meadow's non-woody plants - grasses, flowers, ferns, etc. - will grow again next year.  In meadow management, different mowing cycles are used to benefit and attract different animals.  See this pamphlet, put out by the Mianus River Gorge, on the frequency and timing of meadow mowing. 


If meadows naturally turn into woodlands and forests, why should we keep a meadow open? 
Or, asked a slightly different way...
Aren't we interferring with natural succession when we mow a meadow?
Eastern meadows - when left a lone - usually become colonized by woody shrubs and trees through a somewhat predictable series of vegetation changes.  The following graphic depicts how a place's plants may change through time. 

A very general depiction of 'succession', the change in vegetation over time. 

So yes, it is well known that meadows turn into forests, but this does not mean that meadows are somehow less 'natural' or less important than forests.  As landscape features, meadows have always been right alongside forests.  If we consider the entire eastern forest - from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean - before it was dominated by industrialism, there were thousands of meadows dotting the forested landscape.  Fires would burn and open up forests to create meadows.  Beaver dams, after being breached, would drain their ponds and leave a wide open meadow.  Disturbances such as these were always making meadows out of shrublands and woodlands.  So at the same time as natural succession was turning meadows into forests, the forests themselves were being converted into meadows.  Within this simple equation, there was always a place for meadows in the eastern landscape and, thus, many animals evoloved to live within their open, grassy vistas. 

Today, its a different ballgame: fires are squelched and beavers are a mere fraction of their former abundance.  No meadows are being created while the remaining meadows proceed through succession into forests.  Given enough time, we will simply run out of meadows - hence the need for meadow management.  When we manage for a perpetual meadow we secure habitat for all the butterflies, birds, dragonflies and turtles that rely on them. 

Becuase of their ecological and cultural history, meadows are the focus of conservation in Westchester County.  Many uncommon birds and insects flock to these areas, attracting naturalists with binoculars and cameras.  The following are managed meadows open to the public:
Westchester Land Trust's Pine Croft Meadow  
Ward Pound Ridge Reservation
Bedford Audubon's headquesters is surrounded by fields
Marshland Conservancy

 

 

On a side note, I can reccomend two good books on the subject of America's historic landscape. 

1491: New Revalations of the Americas Before Columbus

Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery