KANE — The rain held off and the weather was cool and cloudy – perfect for finishing up a massive planting project on Collins Pine Company lands with Seneca Resources on the border of Elk and McKean Counties.

Seven volunteers with the Ruffed Grouse Society showed up on Sunday despite the threat of rain, to plant shrubs for wildlife on a former water impoundment on a Marcellus gas well site.

Unique to this particular planting day is that Bryan Parana, the “chestnut man”, brought fifteen of the back-cross American chestnut seedlings to plant at the site. The hope is that over time birds and small mammals will move the chestnuts to other areas on the mountain and continue to benefit wildlife far away from the planting site.

On Sunday, volunteers planted scrub oak, black chokeberry, and graystem dogwoods inside the fenced planting area. White pine, which creates a shady understory, was planted outside the fence for evergreen cover. Previous plantings inside the fence include highbush blueberry, highbush cranberry, American hazelnut, crabapple, apple, winterberry, pincherry, balsam fir, aspen, and mountain ash – a true cornucopia of soft and hard mast food for wildlife.

“Seneca Resources is proud to partner with the Ruffed Grouse Society to complete this planting project for wildlife,” said Mike Hancharick of Seneca Resources.

The next big habitat project in 2024 for the Ruffed Grouse Society here in northcentral PA will be crib maintenance in McKean County near Clermont. Contact John Dzemyan at jdzemyan@verizon.net, or Christopher Beaver at cbeaver2@verizon.net, if you would like to help this summer; dates to be determined, yet.