Habitat Design for Fernhill Park

I recently met with Lori Hennings, Senior Natural Resource Scientist at Metro to talk about habitat restoration for my site. I was encouraged to find that my concept for the site design is not only feasible, but, frankly, pretty cool.

Connectivity

Due to my site’s semi-urban location, it is mostly suitable for bird habitat (unless some charismatic megafauna* start traipsing around northeast Portland, but I think that’s another story entirely). Given that 2/3 of native vertebrate species in Portland are birds, that’s pretty good news. Because many native birds are migratory, the ultimate importance of my site as habitat relies on its connectivity to greater habitat areas. There is considerable habitat to the north of my site along the Columbia Slough. Much of the linking neighborhoods have enough tree cover to allow birds to move between the sites, but cover needs to be improved north of the highway. To address this, I intend to have as part of my building program a resource and outreach center that provides members of the local community with information and resources to rebuild habitat in their own yards.

Prairie & Oak Savanna Restoration

Native prairie is a very rare, and therefore very valuable habitat in this region. As a an early successional ecosystem, it is vulnerable not only to later successional native species (such as firs and the less desirable poison oak), but non-native invasive species such as himalayan blackberry. Because the community may not look too kindly on controlled burns in their neighborhood, intensive mechanical management (read: hand-pulling weeds) will be necessary to keep the prairie healthy. If only we had a steady supply of kids around to help… oh, wait!

Oak savannas are another rare ecosystem that once covered much of the Willamette Valley. Like native prairies, oak savannas require considerable monitoring and maintenance. Oaks release chemicals into their environment that make it inhospitable for certain species to grow, so care must be taken when choosing companion species; snowberry is one example of a compatible species.

Forest Restoration

While the north end of the site is well populated with trees, a healthy forest ecosystem needs more than just a tree canopy. A major part of the restoration work in this part of the site will be planting of native shrubs and allowing woody debris to accumulate. Planting non-invasive edibles (even if they are not native) helps provide better habitat as well.

Within this part of the site is a considerable depression that could be transformed into a wetland for stormwater management, planted with oak, oregon ash, and other wetland species. This will not only help with stormwater, but provide habitat for amphibians, insects, and other species.