There are good days and not such good days to head to the woods to do some habitat work. The past few days, with temperatures below zero and wind chill temperatures well below zero, were not good days! But as things warm up a bit and we return to more comfortable conditions; it will be time to pick up the chainsaw and head to the woods. Corn fields have been picked, and fields that normally provide clover or alfalfa for deer are often snow-covered this time of year. As the last of the acorns are being consumed by deer, they will be seeking other food sources. A predominant source of nutrition for deer throughout the winter months are buds and the tender branches of hardwood trees, and this is where you and your chainsaw can be of help.
Hinge cuts:
Most often, when felling a tree, you cut completely through the trunk using one or two cuts to drop the tree to the forest floor. Instead of cutting completely through the trunk of a tree, when you do a Hinge cut, you make a cut at a downward angle and do NOT cut completely through the trunk but stop short leaving a portion of the trunk still attached to the trunk. As the tree falls, this slab of trunk, or hinge, remains intact and allows water and nutrition to continue to flow to the downed tree. Thus, the tree is able to continue to live for years and provide several years’ worth of buds and nutrition for deer.
Hinge cuts do not work well on large mature trees and provide minimal benefit on small immature trees, but they work very well on medium-growth trees. Deer will not consume all of the buds and tender twigs, and what remains can function as cover and block or direct the direction of travel of deer. By correctly felling medium-sized trees using the Hinge cut method, you can actually create funnels and travel routes. These funnels can be created between bedding areas and feeding areas or can establish desired entry points into food plots.
Brush piles:
Rabbit populations seem to rise and fall over the years in a cyclical nature. When you are in the woods over these winter months, you may be able to discover that there are rabbits inhabiting your hunting area. If so, while you are in the woods this winter cutting your supply of firewood, consider making a few brush piles to benefit the local rabbit and songbird population.
Place 4 or 5 logs — 6-8 feet in length — on the ground, parallel to each other, with about 12 inches of space between them. On top of these logs, place heavy branches crosswise and then pile on the brush on top of these branches. Songbirds will use the brush as a nesting site, and rabbits can run in between the logs to escape from aerial predators. When these brush piles are initially made, deer will browse on the buds and twigs of the freshly cut branches. These brush piles can be placed on the outside of funnels you may have created using the Hinge cuts mentioned above, placed strategically along logging roads or located around the outside edges of food plots. In future winters, you can pile on more fresh brush, which will re-establish the cover of the logs below and provide some fresh buds and twigs for the deer.
As always, whatever you can do to improve the habitat for one animal or bird ends up benefitting multiple birds and animals. The living treetops that occur after hinge cutting and the brush piles that you add to your property will also be used by hen turkeys as they secure a nesting site for their clutch of poults.
