The ecoregion extends a great distance from north to south, more so that any other ecoregion in eastern North America. It essentially constitutes the piedmont area, intermediate between the higher Appalachian ranges to the west and the coastal plain ecoregions\u00a0to the east and to the south. It reaches the Atlantic coast in eastern MD and eastern VA. It is the largest ecoregion within the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests major habitat type.<\/p>\n
From the north it begins with a most minute extension into Pennsylvania, and then continues south through Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and just barely extends into Louisiana (reaching the Mississippi River in MS and LA), and Tennessee.<\/p>\n
Adjacent ecoregions include the following (proceeding clockwise) : i) at the extreme northern end, in Maryland and in Pennsylvania, the ecoregion transitions into the Northeastern Coastal Forests (NA0411), the boundary a few km north of my home in Montgomery Country, MD; ii) the adjacent coastal plain of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina is the Middle Atlantic Coastal Forests (NA0517); iii) the ecoregion to the south in the states of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana is the Southeastern Conifer Forests (NA0529); iv) to the west in Louisiana and most of Mississippi are the Mississippi Lowland Forests (NA0409); v) to the north in northwestern Mississippi and northwestern Alabama are the Central U.S. Hardwood Forests (NA0404); vi) to the north in most of Alabama and in a small part of Georgia we find the Appalachian Mixed Mesophytic Forests (NA0402); and finally vii) the western border of the ecoregion in most of Georgia and in all of South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland transitions abruptly\u00a0into the higher-altitude Appalachian Blue-Ridge Forests (NA0403).<\/p>\n
A detailed description of the\u00a0ecoregion\u00a0can be found at\u00a0WWF’s site<\/a>\u00a0(the map\u00a0above\u00a0is a screen shot from\u00a0that Wildfinder site). There may also be additional information\u00a0to\u00a0be found on this ecoregion’s page at Wikipedia. WWF identifies 9 fairly intact representative blocks of habitat, occurring in NC, SC, MS, AL, GA, and LA.<\/p>\n The characteristic avifauna of the ecoregion\u00a0has been determined by me (see list below). The total number of species considered characteristic is 254. A high proportion of them are only wintering (67 spp.) or only migrants (56\u00a0species). The numbers of wintering and migrating species are inflated considerably by the inclusion of the coastal portion of the ecoregion in MD and VA; otherwise the ecoregion is strictly interior. Two areas of the ecoregion seem atypical from an avian perspective and result in inclusion of a lot of species which would\u00a0not otherwise be characteristic of the ecoregion. Firstly, the northernmost extremity\u00a0of\u00a0the otherwise completely interior ecoregion dips to the coast in a small area of Maryland and Virginia; thus many\u00a0coastal species (particularly migrant and wintering ducks and shorebirds)\u00a0get added. Secondly, having most of\u00a0Mississippi in this ecoregion results in including many wintering species that are more typical of more western ecoregions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The following resources would be of value to the birder traveling to this ecoregion:<\/p>\n My\u00a0list below of the “characteristic species” of the ecoregion (see an\u00a0explanation on the About<\/a>\u00a0page) are those that are of regular\u00a0occurrence and thus excludes very rare, or accidental species.\u00a0The species are classed as residents (r), summer breeders (s), migrants (m), wintering (w), or peripheral (x), that is,\u00a0occurring in the ecoregion but only on its periphery and more characteristic of an adjacent ecoregion. The peripheral species are not included in the ecoregion total.<\/p>\n The list for this ecoregion includes 254 species, of which 66 are resident year round, 65\u00a0are summer breeders, 56\u00a0are only to be found during migration, and 67 are wintering species.<\/p>\n Because of my particular interest in the MD part of this ecoregion (where I reside), I also note below\u00a0the characteristics species of the MD portion of the ecoregion, its most northerly extension. Apart from consulting distribution maps in Sibley guide to determine each species status, I reviewed\u00a02010-2016 eBird records grouped\u00a0for the following counties, which more or less are fully within the ecoregion: Anne Arundel, Prince Georges, Harford, and Charles.<\/p>\n Resident breeders (r) 66\u00a0[MD 61]<\/p>\n Summer breeders (s) 65\u00a0[MD 62]<\/p>\n Migrants (m) 56\u00a0[MD 58]<\/p>\n Wintering (w) 67\u00a0[MD 51]<\/p>\n Peripheral (x) [not in Total] 28\u00a0[MD 22]<\/p>\n TOTAL 254\u00a0[MD 232]<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n DJG: 148\u00a0spp. [MD 142] (March 31, 2017)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Blogs posted from this ecoregion: Thomas Jefferson’s ecoregion: Southeastern Mixed Forests (October\u00a02014) The ecoregion extends a great distance from north to south, more so that any other ecoregion in eastern North America. It essentially constitutes the piedmont area, intermediate between the higher Appalachian ranges to the west and the coastal plain ecoregions\u00a0to the east and… Continue reading Southeastern Mixed Forests (NA0413)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":81,"menu_order":3413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-templates\/full-width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/124"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1494,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/124\/revisions\/1494"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"NA0413\"](\"http:\/\/039adfd.netsolhost.com\/WordPress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/NA0413.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDescription of the\u00a0Ecoregion<\/span><\/h3>\n
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The natural vegetation of this ecoregion\u00a0is dominated by oak-hickory-pine forests. The common pines of the ecoregion include a number of species; they have\u00a0generally have become more important as a consequence of human alteration of the original vegetation. WWF estimates that 99% of the ecoregion has been converted or highly degraded so this is one of the most heavily altered ecoregions in North America, and one of the most densely settled.<\/span><\/p>\n
Birds of the Ecoregion<\/span><\/h3>\n
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There are\u00a0no bird species that are exclusive or near-exclusive\u00a0to this ecoregion. My general impression is that from an avian perspective, most of the\u00a0ecoregion is fairly well\u00a0differentiated, with bird range boundaries corresponding to ecoregion transitions to the\u00a0coastal plain to the east and to the higher altitude Appalachian Blue-Ridge Forests to the west. In the southernmost part of the ecoregion, there are less clear distinctions from surrounding ecoregions.<\/span><\/p>\nResources for the Ecoregion Birder<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Characteristic Species of the Ecoregion<\/h3>\n
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