Red haws have been recorded as nest trees of horned owls, yellow-billed cuckoos, cardinals, and fox squirrels. Cavities in the trunks are used by downy woodpeckers, titmice, chickadees and white-footed mice.
#Cercis canadensis.#--Redbud is abundant in some parts of the woodland. Trees are up to nine inches in diameter and 25 feet high. They grow chiefly in rich soil on hillsides in moist situations. Redbud and dogwood are in part complementary in distribution, each forming an understory in parts of the woodland where the leaf canopy of larger trees is not too dense. However, redbud is more tolerant of shade. In general dogwood grows in the drier, more rocky situations and redbud in better soil and damper sites. In the southeastern part of the Reservation, on a west facing slope, redbud dominates, with smaller numbers of elm, blackjack oak, and dogwood.
Several times nests of yellow-billed cuckoos were found in redbuds. Titmice, chickadees, and red-eyed vireos forage in redbuds on many occasions. Brown creepers forage on the trunks. Titmice, chickadees, and downy woodpeckers used cavities in dead or dying redbuds. However, there is no evidence that this tree is especially attractive to any kind of vertebrate, or plays an important part in the ecology of the area.
#Gymnocladus dioica.#--Kentucky coffee-tree is one of the less important trees on the area but it is widely distributed. In general it is absent from the denser woods. On limited areas of certain slopes it is the dominant species. The groves sometimes are in nearly pure stands. Slope exposure evidently is not the determining factor in the local distribution as groves have been found on hillsides of varying exposure. The tree seems to flourish where the forest has been opened by cutting of the larger trees. Groves are mainly on the more gently sloping parts of the hillsides, or on the nearly level terrace. There are few coffee-trees more than 12 inches in trunk diameter. The largest tree examined was 27 inches.
In May, groups of orchard orioles (_Icterus spurius_) have been observed in coffee-trees, seemingly attracted by the blossoms. These concentrations never lasted more than a few days and seemed to involve individuals that were still migrating or newly arrived and not yet established on their territories.