 Hi folks, my name is Andy Schultz. I'm with the Maine Forest Service and I'm going to focus in on the left hand elements, the so-called live elements that Amanda mentioned before. So we're standing here in a mixed wood stand, mixed meaning there are softwood trees and hardwood, particularly behind me is a hardwood stand and that's a good illustration of several of those elements. Let me first mention though starting from the bottom up with the left hand and I'm going to go like this. That's the riparian area, that's water. We're standing on a hill so you won't see water here but water is important. Any number of bird species need the water, they need the vegetation that's around the water, the usually shady aspects of that. And by the way that shade that protects the temperature is also good for brook trout and other fish, which illustrates that when you're managing your forest for birds you're also managing it for other species as well. So this is really one way to work with wildlife in general by working with certain birds in particular. So moving up from the riparian area we have the understory which as you recall is the first six feet from the ground up. So if you look here you'll see that we have some sapling trees in that zero to six foot range. And when we assess this we tend to look, what we want to look at is see how much vegetation is in that layer. There's a term called closure so if you were to stand there and look up how much of what you saw would be covered by leaf material. In this case there wouldn't be a lot but there's some. The next layer up is the mid-story that is from six feet to thirty and you'll see that some of the trees here are in that range. Again there's not a lot of them so the closure is not high but there is some. And then of course the third layer up the overstory above thirty feet. As you look into the background you'll see there are trees in that strata and there's probably more of that still than the other layers right here. So not just some but maybe more than some. Now that's the quick and dirty assessment that you do with your handy tool. Sometimes though you might ask a forester to go out and measure that in a little more detail and put that in some sort of a plan or something like that. But for the purposes today we're just going to go with the handy method. So that fifth piece on the hand on the left hand is gaps and that would refer to the openings in that upper layer above thirty feet. We're standing in an area that is relatively small gap but still is going to be used by birds like flycatchers. Something else to think about when you're looking at the live stuff are your tree species and the mix and I mentioned this is mixed wood. What we have nearby is a softwood inclusion of pine and hemlock amongst a greater forest of mostly hardwood and certain bird species really look for that particular feature. So these are some of the things that you can walk through the woods and notice write it down or you can have a forester do a more formal assessment or inventory of these features. Another feature that you want to look for is what we call legacy tree. These are bigger older trees usually they have bigger fuller crowns. They were here at a time when they had more light they could open up. We're standing next to one here that provides yet another element of wildlife habitat in general and bird habitat in particular. So here's another example of the three elements of habitat that we talk about on the left hand the so-called living side and the three elements are the understory the midstory and the overstory. Understory is from ground level to about six feet and you'll see right here we've got a pine hemlock we've got a softwood understory filling in here. Basically somewhere where you can't really see through the woods that means that there's understory there blocking your view. Now if you look up above that six foot level six feet to about 30 feet that's what we call the midstory that would be the middle finger of those three. And you can see up here that includes some of the lower branches of taller trees as long as they have leaves on them and they're filling in that space. Then there is a layer there that some birds need or use. And you'll see that that's filling in a little bit in this part of the woods. And the third is the one that as far as I'm always looking at and it's really important to look all the way up. And that's above 30 feet so more than a three-story building 30 feet and above is what we call overstory. And there are a lot of birds that require either a very dense closed-in overstory or a mostly closed-in overstory with small gaps. So that overstory layer is also very important. Thank you Andy for that great review of the live elements of the forest that birds and other wildlife really depend on. And I invite you back for the next section where I'm going to be talking about how great dead wood is. Please join us. Thank you.