Preserving unique relationships with unexpected disturbances

As I sit in bed social distancing, I pick up the scrapbook two friends and I made in seventh grade science class. To hold the glittery nature-themed book in my hands again, all the memories swarm back and I feel beyond proud and nostalgic. The cover reads “Albany Pine Bush.” I turn the page and virtually enter the Preserve, one of the world’s few remaining inland pine barrens ecosystems.

Between the pink and white cutouts of an owl and a tree on the first page are the large block letters characteristic of my best friend’s handwriting. The words introduce the Albany Pine Bush, a rare habitat that was once tens of thousands of acres of land. Today, only a fragmented few thousand remain untouched from human development, putting in danger the species that rely on the area for their livelihood.

Each page was intricately planned out in layout, complete with color schemes and embellishments. I smile at the sight of this feat, remembering our perfectionism and diligence, which I realize parallels the unique and intricate creation of the Pine Bush itself.

At the end of the last Ice Age, around 18,000 years ago, the Wisconsin Glacier covered much of the northern United States and all of present-day New York State. As the glacier started to melt, the meltwater beneath the ice sheet had nowhere to go, so it formed Glacial Lake Albany. Rivers that flowed into the lake deposited sediment, which formed sand dunes across the region of the Albany Pine Bush when the lake dried. Recurring disturbances of fires and human activity — first Native Americans, then Dutch settlers — contributed to the formation of the pine barrens. Perfectly designed by nature, a beautiful landscape took shape.

The next two purple patterned pages, complete with a display of seven multicolored seeds, are devoted to the very heart of the Pine Bush: the rare Wild Blue Lupine and Karner Blue Butterfly. The nickel-sized Karner Blue depends on lupine, one of many native plant species in the preserve, for survival.

The beautiful deep blue male and his violet and orange spouse live their entire life cycle around the towering blue plant — eggs are laid on the lupine stems, larvae live on and exclusively eat the leaves and adult Karners drink the nectar of the flowers.

Considered an endangered species in New York State since 1977, the Karner Blue suffers from habitat loss, due primarily to development of this distinctive region. The protection efforts set forth by the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission seem to be working, as the first significant spike in the local Karner population took place in 2013, a graph in a Pine Bush brochure shows.

For thousands of years, the region evolved to tolerate and depend upon fires and other disturbances. Mimicking the natural wildfires that once frequented the region, the Commission began its periodic controlled burns of the Pine Bush in 1991.

Tyler Briggs, the fire manager at the Pine Bush, said the fires add nutrients to the soil and clear out overgrowth, making room for the many rare species that live there.

“No life stage of the Karner butterfly will survive a fire, but it needs fire to live,” Briggs said. “Without it, the vegetation will overshadow the lupine and in the end it will cease to exist.”

Were it not for the fires safely prescribed in the forests between the city’s highways, railroads and shopping centers, one of the Karner Blue’s only remaining habitats in the world would disappear. We would lose our sandy nature trails and the verdant land that brings the local community together.

Perhaps the inevitable natural disturbance, the coming and going of friends as we go through life’s seasons, brings us closer to one another and makes us appreciate the memories of time well spent. Because of our years-worth of shared experiences, my friendship with these two girls will stand the test of time and disturbances.

While these weeks of isolation may make us feel alone, I can still cheerfully flip through the scrapbook we created — its thorough descriptions of 14 of the Pine Bush’s native species and beautifully curated pages — and feel connected to my friends and our past, as if the book itself is a preserve I can hold in my hands.