Sands of Time: Retreat of Glacier Leaves Pine Bush Barrens Teeming With Rarities
At the western edge of Albany, where Colonie and Guilderland come together, is the Albany Pine Bush. It is one of the best remaining examples of an inland pine barrens ecosystem in the world. Once a 25,000-acre expanse, just 6,000 acres remain undeveloped today. Still, the sand plain is home to a diverse array of animals and plants, including 20 rare species, among them the Karner blue butterfly.
Read on for a primer on the geological phenomenon that created the Pine Bush and some of its distinguishing characteristics.
In the beginning
The origin of the Pine Bush is a story of glaciers, ice up to a mile thick and a powerful river created as everything melted.
Some 20,000 years ago, the latest Ice Age reached its peak in North America, with the ice sheet extending as far south as Long Island. In the Capital District, ice was deep enough to cover today’s 44-story Corning Tower in downtown Albany nearly nine times.
During the glaciers’ advance, the sheet scraped, eroded and ground the earth into a mixture of boulders, gravel, clay and sand. Glacially transported boulders — called erratics — are a common sight today in many parts of New York.
It took about 5,000 years as the great ice began to melt and retreated northward to present-day Albany. Blocked by receding ice, melt water accumulated in the Hudson River Valley, forming a massive glacial lake spanning from present-day Glens Falls southward to Newburgh. This lake was later named Lake Albany.
Several powerful glacier-fed rivers emptied into Lake Albany, among them the Mohawk River, carrying millions of tons of suspended sediment ground by the glacier. Where the Mohawk River joined Lake Albany, large amounts of sand were deposited close to the shore, forming a large delta. This sandy delta underlies the Pine Bush.
The land, freed from the immense weight of the glacier, slowly rose and the lake gradually drained, leaving the sand on the surface. Wind swept sand into dunes that were later held in place by scrub pines and unique plants of the Pine Bush.
The largest remaining dune, known as the Great Dune, is located at the east end of Willow Street in Colonie. It reaches up to 50 feet high and extends for more than a mile.
Flora and fauna
Sandy, well-drained soils are home to plants ecologically adapted to dry conditions and periodic fires, like pitch pines and scrub oaks. Other species include blueberries, black huckleberry and sweet fern, as well as grasses like big bluestem, little bluestem and Indian grass.
This area’s unique assemblage of species was shaped not only by well-drained sandy soils, but also by periodic fires started by lightning. Most Pine Bush plant species depend on fire for survival and flourish in its aftermath.
Pitch pine is unusual in often having shoots sprout directly from the trunk. This is an adaptation to fire, enabling trees to re-sprout after fire has killed the crown. Thick bark protects the trunk from damage. Burned trees are often stunted and twisted with multiple trunks as a result of the resprouting.
On some trees, cones open soon after maturity; at the other extreme, some cones remain closed for many years, until the heat of a fire opens them or until the trees are cut.
Open sunny areas left behind after fires offer ideal conditions for wild blue lupine, a beautiful wild flower critical to the survival of the federally endangered Karner blue butterfly, another Pine Bush native. This pale blue, tiny creature only lives in its adult form for one to two weeks.
The butterfly’s annual life cycle is tied to the lupine. About mid-April, wild lupines form clumps of flowering stalks. About the same time, eggs laid at the end of last summer begin to hatch, and tiny larvae crawl up lupine stems to feed on the new leaves. They metamorphose into adults starting in late May through early June. Those butterflies lay more eggs on the lupines, with a second batch of larvae feeding into mid-July. Those adults lay the late-summer eggs, which form the next spring’s crop of Karner blues.
Once present in a dozen Northeastern states, numbers have fallen drastically, with most of the losses occurring in the past 15 years.
Global warming and milder winters could also threaten the Karner blue. A 1994 study by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found that the butterfly’s eggs need a continuous winter snow pack to help insulate the eggs from cold and the drying effect of the sun.
Scrub oaks are important in the survival of another rare insect called the inland barrens buckmoth. Aside from these two insects, the Pine Bush supports many other species of wildlife including the eastern hognose snake and spadefoot toad.
Who lived in the Pine Bush?
Early Americans started living in the Pine Bush about 10,000 years ago. By the time Europeans arrived in the 1620s, the area was occupied by two different tribes: the Mahicans who held land to the east and south along the Hudson River, and the Mohawk Iroquois who lived west along the Mohawk River.
American Indians hunted, fished and collected wild berries and nuts. They also started fires as way to increase the growth of nuts and berries which occurred after a fire.
European settlements of Albany and Schenectady were connected by a road called the King’s Highway that crossed through the Pine Bush, which had a reputation as refuge for smugglers, thieves, and during the American Revolution, English loyalists. Few Colonists wanted to live there.
By the early 19th century, some farmers had settled, including German immigrant Theophilus Roessle who grew about 5,000 fruit trees. He also was known for cultivation of white celery, which he featured on the menu at his Albany hotel.
The neighborhood of Roessleville near Central Avenue and Fuller Road is named for Roessle, who in 1875 founded the Theosophical Society of America, which continues to this day as an international group dedicated to free thinking and open inquiry on faith and science.
An early real estate scam
Florida swampland has nothing on the Pine Bush. In 1858, con men sold 860 plots at very high prices to distant buyers misled into thinking the area was developed. Some of the duped purchasers tried to sell the land again at even higher prices to another round of victims.
Sources: Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; "A Natural History of the Pine Bush" by Jeffrey K. Barnes