Habitat Piles in Action: A West Side Perspective

By Ken Bevis, DNR Stewardship Biologist,
ken.bevis@dnr.wa.gov
And
Tom Terry, Volunteer Land Steward for Capitol Land Trust, Olympia WA

“Food. Water Cover. Food. Water. Cover.  Food. Water. Cover.” Repeat. That is what wildlife needs to survive and thrive! Kind of like the famous line, “Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!” (I think I am the scarecrow . . . ).

In our myriad forest management activities, especially thinning, we generate mounds, piles, stacks, and a vast plentitude of woody material that offers great potential for wildlife habitat in the form of cover.

Figure 1. This is an example of a stump root wad pile with additional old logging deck materials laid on top which created a pile with several openings and a sheltered interior. Having access to heavy equipment makes these types of structures possible (we had an excavator on site). Photo: Tom Terry, Capitol Land Trust (CLT).

Natural forest systems have numerous habitat niches involving shrubs, down treetops, logs, and other sources of dense woody vegetation. These collections provide excellent hiding, denning and even feeding cover for lots of wildlife. Birds, such as song sparrows or winter wrens; mammals, such as Douglas squirrels, chipmunks or weasels; reptiles, such as alligator lizards or garter snakes; insects in their myriad forms; and even amphibians, such as salamanders or western toads, all will use these habitats when they are available. And we can create these habitats deliberately.

In the February 2023 issue of Forest Stewardship Notes, we published a piece on habitat piles featuring work by Tyler Larsen, near Cle Elum Washington.  In this article, Larsen notes the abundance of wildlife documented using piles on his east side study site.

Figure 2. This pile was made with one stump root wad with additional woody material placed up against it. There is an open cavity area under the stump portion due to the downward extension of the large roots. Photo: Tom Terry, CLT

Do piles in Western Washington get as much wildlife use as Larsen demonstrated in Eastern Washington? I found just the person to generate some answers to that question. Tom Terry is a retired Weyerhaeuser Forest Research Scientist, and now works as a tireless volunteer with  Capitol Land Trust (CLT) in Thurston County. He and his CLT colleagues have had some remarkable success with habitat piles, documented with strategically placed trail cameras. Tom has photographed mice, songbirds, coyote, raccoon, porcupine, chipmunks, rabbits, gray squirrels,  Douglas squirrels, a northern flying squirrel, a weasel,  and even a barred owl moving in and out of these piles.

Tom and colleagues have created a variety of piles using different sized pieces of wood, including some stumps and root wads, all arranged in a manner to provide cover for target wildlife. I met Tom and toured project sites on the Inspiring Kids Preserve, a CLT property near Olympia. I was tremendously impressed and asked if he would like to collaborate on an article.

 

Tom sent me the following write-up on his work.

Wildlife Pile Background Material by Tom Terry, Olympia WA:

The materials for piles can include:

• Stump root wads removed from landings or temporary logging roads
• Log-end butts that were cut off to improve value of a log
• Stem bolts cut from precommercial thinned trees
• Logging slash
• Old log deck cull hollow logs left over from previous harvests
• Strategically placed branches and finer material

In general, locate piles away from human and dog-use areas.  Piles on the edge of forested areas and in open areas tend to attract a lot of birds in addition to the typical animals found in our forests.   Piles inside forested areas will be used by many animals that explore them for food and use them for shelter.

Wildlife piles should be designed based on intended target wildlife. For example, garter snake hibernaculum can be simply constructed using two small diameter limbs (2-3 inches in diameter) laid in parallel with larger stems laid touching each other at right angles across the entire length, then covered with branches.  Snakes and other small animals and insects can crawl under the structure and get protection. 

Figure 3. This is a tepee type pile with pre-commercial thinning cut bolts stacked around a clump of maples with a couple entrance locations. A raccoon, opossum, three squirrel species, rodents and a barred owl have been captured on a game camera video using this pile. The barred owl went inside the opening of the pile on one occasion and it attempted to catch a rodent on the edge of the pile on another occasion. Photo: Tom Terry, CLT. 

These piles act like “cover boards” that are typically used to sample and provide habitats for garter snakes and salamanders, insects, etc. (Cover boards are pieces of untreated plywood or lumber laid on the ground to attract and shelter lots of small creatures. Here is an example article on this topic).

For other animals, pile materials should be placed so there are multiple openings of appropriate size for ingress and egress of the large animals likely to use the piles, e.g., rabbits, weasels, raccoons, and opossums.  Create larger den cavities in the center of the pile.   For example, when stump root-wad piles are made place three root wads with the stumps pointing upwards in a triangle and then place a stump root wad on top that creates a hollow in the center and a “roof” over the top.  Additional wood can be piled up on the side to stabilize the structure.

Figure 4. A hollow western redcedar log piece recovered from an old log deck with some short wood pieces protecting the entry where the materials for this wildlife pile structure. Photo: Tom Terry, CLT.

Use your imagination!  Think like the critters you are trying to attract!  Where would you go to hide or seek shelter in harsh weather?

The pile shown below (Figure 5) was made by placing small limbs on the ground and then placing cut sections of logs (24 inches in length) upright and close together on top the limbs.  Tree branch limps were then placed over the cut log sections like a tepee, which provided cover board type habitat (underneath upright log sections) as well as openings for small animals.

Well placed wildlife piles are generally not a wildfire hazard (away from drip lines of trees) and small ones can be created and maintained without a loss of forest productivity.  And if you are wondering if anything is using the pile set up a game camera and you will be surprised how many animals are using the structure!  Here is a video taken by Mike Melton showing a porcupine going into the hollow western redcedar log constructed pile.

Figure 5. A habitat pile created using small limbs and 2’ length logs to create a “teepee” with openings and cover for wildlife (Photo: Tom Terry, CLT)

Thanks to Tom Terry for the wonderful input and examples.

Trish Otto, wildlife enthusiast and landowner up near Bellingham, once told me; “the quickest thing you can do to benefit wildlife is build a pile.” I concur. And possibly one of the most effective habitat enhancement techniques easily available to our small forest landowners.

Send me pictures of your habitat piles in action!

Figure 5. A barred owl is looking for a meal down in a cavity of the large root wad habitat pile previously described. Photo: Tom Terry, CLT.