Bird Life in Southern Illinois 



411 



A PORTION OF THE CREEK ON BIRD 

 HAVEN— THE LOWER FLOOD-GATES 



As previously stated, the topography of Bird Haven is varied. The only 

 really level land is comprised in the 'bottoms' of the two streams which inter- 

 sect it. The larger of these is known as the East Fork, a tributary of Fox River. 

 This is a stream having, on our property, an average width of about twenty- 

 two feet, and, except during the drier 

 parts of the year, when portions become 

 dried- up, permanently supplied with 

 water, especially our part, in the greater 

 extent of which a depth of at least three 

 feet is maintained even during periods 

 of severe drought, being fed by springs 

 which open beneath the surface. The 

 other stream flows across the western 

 part of Bird Haven, at right angles with 

 the larger one, into which it flows when 

 in flood; but, except in winter and during 

 rains at other times, it is for the most 

 part dry, though, owing to its narrow- 

 ness and the deeply cut channel, this 

 'run' (as such streams are called locally) 

 remains moist, with here and there a little pool, in which birds can bathe 

 and drink. 



From the level bottoms of these streams rise low hills, those fronting the 

 main stream rising steeply, with a broad, and for the greater part, cleared 

 bottom (now converted into meadow) intervening between the hills and the creek. 

 But on the west side, where the bottoms of the 'run' are densely covered with the 

 most luxuriant growth possible of blue-grass, they slope more gently, both 

 sides having the continuity of their slopes broken by occasional shallow, but not 

 rocky, ravines, which drain the uplands, the general level of which is about 

 thirty-six feet above the mean level of the creek. 



Approximately half the area of Bird Haven is wooded, mostly with second- 

 growth trees (the land having all been cultivated some forty to fifty years 

 ago), though a very few trees of the original forest, which was very heavy, con- 

 sisting largely of splendid white oaks and hickories* remain. Owing to diver- 

 sity of surface and central geographic position, the flora of Bird Haven is very 

 rich. This is especially true of the tree-growth, which comprises more than 

 fifty species, nearly all of which grew on the original eight acres. There are 

 eleven species of oaks (exactly as many as grow in the whole of New England!), 

 seven hickories, three ashes, two maples, two elms, two crab-apples, two 

 plums, two walnuts (the black walnut and the butternut), and at least two 

 hawthorns; while of genera represented by a single species each there are per- 



*This information I got from the man who sawed the timber and the one who culti- 

 vated the ground; also from the size of the few old stumps that remain. 



