Three years ago, a friend and I conducted a bird survey at Wexford Sand Company south of Mesick. We were astonished to find nearly 50 nesting species of birds on the property.
The mine, and its wealth of birds, was the subject for one of my columns. Shortly after the piece appeared, a reader sent a letter expressing doubt that the mine could provide habitat for so many species. He believed that the birds we found were visiting from an adjacent state forest.
The reader was mistaken; birds like spotted sandpipers, orioles and eastern kingbirds do not nest in a monoculture of pine trees.
Since that visit, the company has carried out an incredible amount of habitat improvement.
I went there this past spring to help mine employees host visiting school kids. Afterward, Mick Pfeiffer, shift supervisor for the site, took me on a tour of the property. Mick also heads up the environmental efforts there.
I was astonished to find that virtually all of the autumn olive had been eradicated, as had the lion's share of the Phragmites australis (an invasive wetland grass). Best of all, an 18-acre prairie has been established. These improvements have led to an increase in the mine's bird list, which has grown by more than 50 percent. Included among the new nesters is the upland sandpiper, a fascinating shorebird of open inland areas whose numbers are declining.
Wexford is a subsidiary of Fairmount Minerals, a corporation dedicated to sustainable development -- the guiding principle of which is to "meet the needs of the present without compromising the future."
If that sounds like so much fluff, consider this: All of its mining sites work to retain as much healthy bird habitat as possible, and to improve those areas that have been degraded by invasive plant species.
I have visited all but one of Fairmount's Midwestern locations and have found significant numbers of nesting birds at each. Of three other Michigan sites, one is partnering with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to create shorebird habitat; another plants native marram grass in its dune areas and a third has hosted nesting trumpeter swans. A fourth site, where mining has been completed, was restored entirely to native plants and turned over to the state for parkland.
At each of Fairmount's sites, an employee has stepped up to oversee habitat improvements. Two years ago, Best Sand in Chardon, Ohio, had masses of autumn olive. Now, not only is that nasty plant gone, it has been replaced with life-giving natives. Bill Nevison, who heads up the environmental work there, is currently working to control phragmites.
An entire team manages environmental issues at the largest Fairmount site in Wedron, Ill., where two areas have been planted in prairie grasses. An osprey nest platform has been mounted near the Fox River and there are plans to partner with a neighboring private individual to increase purple martin nesting structures. Here, too, phragmites are on the team's radar.
Fairmount has three sites in Wisconsin, one that proudly hosts a roosting area for a couple hundred thousand bats. At about 40 acres, it is one of the smaller sites, but it still supports more than 40 nesting species of birds. A recently created berm along the interior road will be planted with native prairie grasses. Another Wisconsin site is considering installing a demonstration prairie garden.
By far the best Fairmount site is in Pennsylvania, where I heard or saw more than 45 neotropical species in less than two hours. The company footprint on this roughly 200-acre property is less than 10 acres. The rest is a rich woodland/wetland complex that hosts not only birds, but also many amphibians and reptiles. Bobolinks nest there. So do black-billed cuckoos.
Fairmount Minerals and its employees are setting an example for everyone who cares about the future of our planet. If each individual who considers himself or herself to be a conservationist did half the job this industrial sand mining company is doing, we'd be much further along in the battle to protect and create habitat needed by the creatures we love.
Kay Charter, of Omena, is executive director of Saving Birds Thru Habitat, an organization that teaches people how to help migrating birds whose populations are declining.
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