Sorry if I got you excited, but I haven’t invented a time machine though that would be majorly cool. What I have done is stumble across A Preliminary List of the Birds of Shannon and Carter Counties, Missouri by one E. Seymour Woodruff and published in The Auk, Volume 25 in 1908.
Mr. Woodruff was in the Spring Valley area of northern Shannon County from March 10 through May 15, 1907 and then changed locations, staying at Grandin in Carter County from May 16 through June 8. An ardent collector (that’s right, he shot’em!) of birds, he also gives us a nice snapshot of how the logging and deforestation of the area was progressing.
By the time Woodruff made his visit, virtually all of the virgin pine and oak forest had been removed in Carter Count. He states that there were still areas of virgin forest remaining in Shannon County, including the Spring Valley area where he stayed. Even in the areas where the forest was still standing, he could see that they were doomed as the lumber company was busy building a railroad into the heart of what forest did remain.
He described the forest as being stands of pure pine or mixed pine/oak on the ridge tops with Turkeys, Red-cockaded Woodpeckers,
Bachman’s Sparrows and Pine Warblers being the characteristic birds. The pine thinned out with the stands changing to predominantly oak as one moved to the slopes and finally becoming a much more diverse community in the valleys and river bottoms.
Not so coincidentally, his species count for Shannon County, with it’s remaining virgin forest, was much higher than for Carter where thick second growth predominated – 187 for Shannon and 103 in Carter. Keep in mind that his list numbers would be different today after all the lumping and splitting of species that has taken place since his time. For instance, he lists three species of Junco and they have since been lumped, along with a fourth I believe, into one species, the Dark-eyed Junco.
March was warm while Woodruff was in the area. He recorded an average high of 82 degrees during the last half of the month, only to be followed by an extended cold snap in April with the nightly freeze killing off much of the newly emerged growth. Sounds like a pretty typical spring in the Ozarks today.
Birds of note included the previously mentioned Red-cockaded Woodpecker, both American and White-winged Crossbills, Brewster’s Warbler (a hybrid of Blue-Winged and Golden-Winged Warblers,) Red-breasted and Brown-headed Nuthatches, Bobolink, Horned Lark, Dickcissel, House Sparrows (notable only because they were already present!) and Bachman’s Warbler.
The crossbills are birds of the northern coniferous forests that occasionally irrupt and spread to the south. I have not seen either species in the area, though I have seen the similarly irruptive Pine Siskin (also noted by Woodruff) on at least two occasions. The two nuthatches are also occasionally irruptive, but they spread to the north and west, being residents of the southeast. I have seen the Red-breasted Nuthatch in the area, but not the Brown-headed.
I find it interesting that he located Bobolinks, Horned Larks and Dickcissels. They are all birds of the prairies and grasslands and I have never seen either of the three in the area.
And finally, sadly, the Red-cockaded Woodpecker is long gone from the area and severely threatened across it remaining range. The Bachman’s Warbler is very likely extinct, the last verified sighting taking place more than 20 years ago. And, I know it was a different time, but he collected specimens of both species and while the Red-cockaded wasn’t treatened yet, he knew even then that the Bachman’s was in trouble. That just bothers me on a very deep level.
I think that summarizes his article fairly well, but in case you want to read it yourself, here’s a link to it on Google Books:
A Preliminary List of the Birds of Shannon and Carter Counties, Missouri.