Rufous Hummingbird
Forest condition: Unique Forest Habitat
Habitat Attribute: Nectar-Producing Plants
Habitat Objectives
Sites: Where ecologically appropriate in any forest stage or condition provide >20% of the shrub/herbaceous understory cover as nectar-producing plants (e.g., salmonberry, rhododendron, currant).
Habitat Conservation Strategies
- Allow unmanaged early-successional habitat to regenerate naturally, particularly where there is the potential for a well-developed deciduous component of flower (nectar) producing plants.
- Retain and/or plant flower (nectar) producing shrubs and trees such as salmonberry, currant, and snowbrush, and herbaceous plants such as penstemon, columbine, and paintbrush
- Maintain deciduous vegetation in areas where conifer seedlings are not planted or difficult to establish such as along logging roads and landings: on unstable, steep slopes; and in moist depressions, gullies, and stream courses.
- Where vegetation management is conducted, use selective control of deciduous vegetation (e.g., immediately adjacent to conifer seedlings) by manual thinning or limited herbicide application.
- Where vegetation management is being conducted, retain small, untreated patchily distributed plots (e.g., 0.1 ha, Marcot [1984]; 10 x 20 m, Morrison [1982]) of deciduous vegetation throughout the conifer plantation.
- Discontinue use of herbicides for deciduous tree and shrub control for species associated with early-successional deciduous shrub-layer vegetation.
- Lengthen time in early-successional condition by planting a lower density of conifers in conjunction with limited or no competing vegetation management.
- Harvest entries should be carefully designed, and logging systems tailored to site-specific conditions to minimize ground disturbance and site productivity.
- Beneath transmission powerlines where vegetation is maintained at shrub/sapling heights, selectively retain flower and nectar producing shrubs and trees.
Cited Plan