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Rushton Woods Banding Station Annual Songbird Banding Report 2022

March 27, 2023 By Bird Conservation Team

By Alison Fetterman, Bird Conservation Associate and Northeast Motus Project Manager
and Blake Goll, Education Programs Manager

Hooded Warbler. Photo by Blake Goll

“Oh Canada, Canada, Canada!” The wistful song of the White-throated Sparrow languidly drifts over the early spring landscape of our region, heralding the end of winter and the coming vernal equinox. Even those not attuned to individual avian sonatas can recognize these indelible notes punctuating the change of seasons. Humans are hard-wired for connection to nature, and birds provide that copacetic anchor. Watching them go about their day can make us feel grounded as fellow creatures of the earth; hearing them sing brings contentment and a sense of wellbeing; and admiring their colors and diversity ignites our curiosity and fascination.

We need birds. Not only for the joy they bring to our lives but for the life they bring to our world. They pollinate plants, disperse seeds, eliminate insect pests, and play a critical role in many different ecosystems. To an ornithologist or a bird bander, monitoring the population of birds allows us to take the pulse of the environment while measuring the success of science-based conservation initiatives and quantifying the value of land conservation.

Spring Bounty | Warblers and Woodpeckers | April and May are mirthful months when Rushton Woods Preserve (RWP) becomes a veritable jungle lit up with the tropical sounds and sights of the most delicate and breathtaking of the bird world: the wood warblers. These exquisite birds feed largely on insects gleaned from leaves, so their northward progression coincides with the leaf-out in our temperate throughway. Some will stay to breed in Rushton like the Ovenbirds, Common Yellowthroats, and Worm-eating Warblers, but most continue on to more preferable habitat or northward, as far as the boreal forest of Canada. Such passerby species included: Black-and-white Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Northern Waterthrush, Nashville Warbler, and Blue-winged Warbler.

Overall, spring 2022 produced our highest number of individual birds captured in any spring for a total of 510 (Fig. 2), as well as the highest diversity totaling 55 species. This spring saw a record number of 16 warbler species, though not as many individuals — 117 compared to 161 in 2021 (Fig. 3). One of the highlights was a male Hooded Warbler (second ever for the station), resplendent in lemon yellow contrasting with his ebony hood. This is a bird that seeks mature coniferous woodlands for breeding, or wooded swamps with labyrinthian undergrowth. Under the cool hemlock trees it emphatically proclaims in a tone as clear and pure as the forest air, “tawee-tawee-tawee-tee-o!”

Another unique occurrence this spring was the significant number of woodpeckers. Not only did we catch all five breeding species (Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Pileated Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, and Yellow-shafted Flicker) for the first time ever in one season, but we caught double the number of individuals for a total of 18 (Fig. 4)! The increased presence of these birds indicates the habitat may be shifting to more dead standing trees — called snags — in the forest and hedgerows. Woodpeckers begin nesting early in the spring, so these individuals were likely already raising chicks in the snags.

Their unique ability to excavate cavities with their strong bills makes woodpeckers keystone species, paving the way for other cavity-nesting birds and mammals who do not possess the tools and talent to make their own. More than 40 bird species in North America depend on woodpecker carpentry for their nest and roost cavities. The woodpeckers’ need for dead or dying trees shows the importance of not over-tidying our landscapes; wherever they do not pose a threat to humans, dead trees should be left as vital components of the food web.

Summer Nursery | Cradle of Caterpillars | The end of May marks the close of spring migration and the start of the hurried nesting season. In the northern hemisphere, songbirds must take advantage of the relatively brief period of increased solar energy that allows for the creation of offspring — powered largely by the dazzling diversity of plant-eating insects. In particular, caterpillars are the herbivores that transfer more energy from plants to animals than any other plant-eaters. Birds, being experts at efficiency, capitalize on caterpillars because their large size and soft bodies make for easy energy packets for nestlings.

Caterpillars are also full of protein needed for nestling growth and antioxidants for plumage development and immune function. The only caveat is that caterpillars tend to be host plant specialists, having evolved over many years to be able to eat only one or two plant lineages to which they were exposed. Therefore, native plants hold the key to supporting population growth in birds. According to Doug Tallamy, author of “Bringing Nature Home,” one pair of Carolina Chickadees — a common breeder at Rushton — must find up to 500 caterpillars a day to rear one clutch. Chickadee parents attempting to raise chicks in a suburban neighborhood that is largely dominated by non-native ornamental plants have a greater risk of failure.

Rushton is one of more than 1,000 banding stations in North America participating in MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) through the Institute for Bird Populations to understand breeding success of songbirds. Our 12 years of MAPS data show that we have 38 breeding bird species nesting in or around Rushton Woods, including State Responsibility Species such as the Wood Thrush and Scarlet Tanager. Our capture was relatively low last summer with only 107 individual birds (Fig. 2). With a record number of falling trees in the woodland habitat and plant communities shifting to non-native plants, the low numbers could suggest the habitat quality is deteriorating.

However, there are myriad other factors in a bird’s annual cycle that could also be affecting our breeding numbers, including natural fluctuations over time. For example, conditions on wintering grounds and migration routes can affect the survival rates and reproductive success of birds the following summer, a phenomenon known as “carry-over effect.” Analyzing such trends requires datasets that are broad in time and geographic scale, which MAPS as a whole offers with over 30 years of effort.

At Rushton, we strive to act locally to support this diversity of breeding bird species (and encourage landowners to do the same) by practicing land management initiatives that restore nature’s balance, often through plants. For example, our Land Stewardship Team removed a section of the Preserve’s hedgerow that had become heavily invaded with alien plant species and replanted this area with over 150 native shrubs and trees. These new native plants will act as caterpillar vending machines for our hungry breeding birds and their nestlings, just as neglected snags act as food web drivers. Vital habitat components such as these promote resiliency in our landscapes and productivity in birds.

A Quiet Fall | Honing Habitat | Besides productivity and survivorship, bird banding can estimate recruitment. This refers to the number of birds that survived life in the nest and are now out on their own as part of the adult population. Newly recruited “baby birds” bolster our fall catch significantly, making it typically our highest catch of all three seasons. Last fall, however, marked the lowest capture in our station’s history with only 740 new birds (Fig. 2).

One contributing factor for the low total could have been the unpredictable weather; we were forced to close the station for six days due to rain and/or high winds. Another question arises though; was there a regional lower recruitment of birds due to factors such as climate change, development, or habitat changes? Further research may help tease out some of these answers. One of the nuances of a bird’s annual cycle is that they require different habitats at different life stages. This is one of the reasons we try to manage the Preserve for a variety of habitats, especially early successional shrubland. This is the amorphous, often underappreciated plant community of shrub thickets, vines, and small trees that would naturally exist after a meadow matures and before it becomes a forest.

Carolina Chickadee.
Photo by Aaron Coolman
Pileated Woodpecker.
Photo by Blake Goll
Visitors observe bird banding.
Photo by Aaron Coolman

Studies show that the structure of this type of declining habitat is exactly what many young birds seek during the perilous post-fledging period — the time after they have left the nest and before their first migration. For a young bird learning how to survive, early successional habitat provides an abundance of food, as well as denser cover from predators than open woodlands. Consequently, even a forest-dwelling species like an Ovenbird (a wood warbler that builds its nest on the forest floor) can be observed in shrub habitats after fledging. Many migratory birds also seek shrub habitats during fall migration for the bounty of berries — particularly those of native plants — that provide a rich source of fats and antioxidants needed for migration.

Therefore, in order to promote maximum recruitment of young birds as well as encourage migrants to stop over, we must maintain a healthy shrubland. Some indicators from our data — the increase in woodpeckers, the decline in some shrub-loving species like White-throated Sparrow, and our overall low fall catch — could suggest the maturation and deterioration of our shrub habitat and the need for targeted management. Replacing large trees and invasive species with native shrubs — a project that has begun thanks to our grant from Pennsylvania Society for Ornithology — will help improve the habitat integrity.

Bird banding can also reveal habitat integrity through recaptures. In addition to the 740 new birds banded last fall, 97 birds were recorded as “repeats.” These are birds already banded by us within the same season but caught multiple times, which allows us to calculate their weight gain or loss during stopover. For example, we recaptured one Ovenbird on September 14th that weighed 24.1 grams — an almost 25% increase in body mass from its original capture date on September 1st when it weighed only 19.4 grams. This may indicate that the habitat is satisfactory for Ovenbirds.

White-throated Sparrow. Photo by John Drake
September Banding workshop with PA Game Commission partner. Photo by Aaron Coolman

Some unique fall highlights included a beautiful Mourning Warbler in September, as well as a record number of five Yellow-bellied Flycatchers and three Cape-May Warblers. Cape May Warblers breed in the spruce balsam northern forests where they raise their chicks largely on spruce budworm. An eastern outbreak of this boreal pest may have contributed to a regional population boost for this warbler. During winter they can be found in shrubby gardens or even coffee plantations in the Bahamas and Greater Antilles.

THe People | Our banding station operates so successfully thanks to a dedicated team of staff and volunteers. The diversity of people who visit, study, and train at RWBS make our labor as enjoyable as the array of birds. In the spring, we hosted French banders from Tadoussac Bird Observatory in Quebec, as well as a drop-in bander from Israel’s Jerusalem Bird Observatory. In the fall, BirdsCaribbean sponsored Omar Monzon Carmona and Dayamiris Candelario to train for one month at RWBS to support the Caribbean Bird Banding Network. Another partnership with the Pennsylvania Game Commission allowed us to host a two-day intensive bird banding training workshop led by guest bander Holly Garrod from Montana.

Like the birds who return to Rushton, we hope we’ll see our old human friends again, as well. Birds connect us across continents, returning to the places that supported them and allowed them to thrive throughout their annual cycle. Capable of taking to the skies, they are still forever tethered to the earth — a reminder to us to remain loyal to our roots, bringing hope and healing to the land just as the birds do.

Resources:

  • Institute for Bird Populations | birdpop.org
  • Northeast Motus Collaboration | northeastmotus.com
  • Rushton Woods Banding Station Annual Songbird Banding Report | wctrust.org/research
  • Species Seen List | wctrust.org/birds/species-seen

Filed Under: Bird Banding, Bird Conservation, Bird ecology, Motus

My Conservation Journey: A Tale of Two Countries

December 1, 2022 By Bird Conservation Team

By WCT Bird Conservation Associate Phillys N. Gichuru
Cover Photo by Jennifer Mathes

My first memorable conservation experience was when, as an undergrad, my population genetics professor walked into the classroom and very nonchalantly said he was going to miss one of our classes, because he was going to participate in the translocation of elephants from the larger Narok area into Maasai Mara National Park in Kenya. Of course, all five of us in the classroom asked if we could go along too. That experience is how I was sold on conservation as a viable career option for me. It was the thrill, the tender care for each animal, and the passion for the job that drew me in. This was true for every job experience I took on after that. 

I went on to work with Ol Pejeta Conservancy as a field technician affiliated with my university at the time, collecting black rhino (Diceros bicornis) dung samples for non-invasive genetic analysis to study population genetics. Technically, the fresher the dung, the better the chances of getting DNA from it. What was most endearing about this experience is because black rhinos are critically endangered, at the time, every rhino in this population was monitored very closely to reduce poaching incidences. Over time, each warden knew every little detail about the rhinos, and they called you when the dung was fresh with a bonus story of how they had just gotten chased by a rhino and had the torn trousers to prove it. 

While conservation in Kenya and the US is very similar in a lot of aspects — including my observations they both rely heavily on donors/fundraising, habitat loss is a never-ending concern, and passion drives most people in this field — it is also very different. Most of Kenya’s wildlife can be found in protected areas, Kenya does not employ hunting as a model of conservation, and most obviously, we have a lot more charismatic megafauna that tend to get a lot of attention. In parallel, Kenya heavily relies on tourism to fund conservation. Protected areas in Kenya are either federally owned (National Parks) or privately owned (mostly conservancies). While there are private conservancies, the federal government has a huge stake in management of endangered/critically endangered species such as the elephants, black rhinos, Hirolas, Sable, and Roan antelopes, wild dogs, Grevy (zebras). 

Oh! If it wasn’t obvious, we took part in that elephant translocation. The adults get darted and tranquilized from a helicopter and you swoop in very fast with a 4-wheel car right before they go down. To tranquilize the calves, if present, we load them on a huge truck and move them to the park. It takes phenomenal precision.

Now at WCT, I am far from the savanna and I work to conserve animals that are significantly smaller than the elephants and rhinos. I’ve found that the precision required in the elephant translocation process lends itself to the precise skills used to gently remove birds from our mist nets before wrapping tiny bands around their slim legs in the bird banding process. Conservation comes in all shapes and sizes.

To learn more about the science of endangered feces, click here.

— By WCT Bird Conservation Associate Phillys N. Gichuru

Filed Under: Bird Banding, Bird Conservation, Conservation, Nature, Staff

Rushton Woods Banding Station Annual Songbird Banding Report 2021

April 7, 2022 By Bird Conservation Team

By Alison Fetterman, Bird Conservation Associate & Northeast Motus Project Manager and Blake Goll, Education Programs Manager

In April 2021, the WCT bird banding crew members emerged from their winter hibernation and gathered at Rushton Woods Banding Station (RWBS) to begin their 11th year of Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) and their 12th year of spring and fall migration. It was clear that the birds had continued living their celestial lives, lives that were intricately synchronized with the steady rhythms of nature millions of years before we showed up.

THE PEOPLE | Bird banding occurs under the supervision of four WCT staff who are federally licensed by the Bird Banding Laboratory. We regularly train volunteers who are essential to the successful operation of the banding station. In 2021, we were grateful for all our volunteers, but especially our regular helpers: Katie Hogue, Kelly Johnson, Molly Love, Kaitlin Muchio, Edwin Shafer, Jess Shahan, Victoria Sindlinger, Kirsten Snyder, and Claudia Winter. We were also lucky to host a guest bander this year: Holly Garrod. Holly joined as a migratory bander, stopping over for the fall to lend us her expert banding skills before her reverse migration to study birds in the tropics on their breeding grounds.

Other guests to RWBS included staff from the Pennsylvania Game Commission and BirdsCaribbean, with whom we continue to collaborate for a greater conservation impact. We also welcomed U.S. Representative Chrissy Houlahan for a visit in April.

Holly Garrod. Photo by Jennifer Mathes.
Guest visitors, BirdCarribbean.
Photo by Jennifer Mathes.
Guest visitors, PA Game Commission staff. Photo by Lisa Kiziuk/Staff.

THE MARVELS OF MIGRATION | A small songbird weighing just a little more than a quarter may spend 30% of its year in migration, traveling to and from the exact breeding and wintering locations as the year before. Each spring, an estimated three billion North American migratory birds traverse distances of over 2,000 miles from the tropical wintering grounds of South America to the critical boreal forest “nursery” of Canada — most of them putting in the mileage by night, navigating by starlight and Earth’s magnetic field. This anomalous strategy allows foraging by day along the way, which is vital especially for smaller birds that can only carry so much fuel in the form of fat reserves.

In fact, for most songbirds, 70% of migration is spent feeding and resting in “stopover habitat,” or pit stops, rather than in sustained directional flight. Consequently, understanding how birds use stopover habitat during migration has become just as important to ornithologists as identifying breeding or wintering habitat. This is just one of the reasons why we began banding at Rushton Woods Preserve and Farm 12 years ago. Never was the stopover value of our nature preserve better elucidated than on the morning of May 4, 2021, or as we call it: “The Spring Fallout.”

Brewster’s Warbler. Photo by Blake Goll/Staff.
Figure 2. Predicted songbird migration of more than 552 million birds in early May, 2021. Source: www.birdcast.info.

THE SPRING FALLOUT | Bleary-eyed banders arrived to the hedgerows in the blue civil twilight before dawn, expecting a good catch based on the southerly winds from the previous night. As the nets were opened, the vegetation around us came alive with the whispered din of hundreds of excited bird voices chirping about their recent arrival. The low chattering exploded into full song at daybreak, and it was as if we had just entered an aviary with the roar of hundreds of birds representing dozens of different species reverberating through the shrubs and vines. “It’s birdy as heck out here today,” Blake noted, now wide-eyed, as we convened at the banding table to anticipate the first net check.

Favorable migration conditions the previous night (Fig. 2), combined with pre-dawn storms and heavy fog presented fallout conditions, a phenomenon where birds cannot continue to their destination because of the energy required to fly through severe weather. This resulted in many travelers honing in on the closest suitable stopover sanctuary. The “good catch” we expected became our best catch ever; our skilled team of bird banders, volunteers, and visitors from the PA Game Commission safely processed and released 180 indviduals — three times our normal catch (Fig. 3).

The avian cast included our first Brewster’s Warbler (defined as a hybrid of the Blue-winged Warbler and the near threatened Golden-winged Warbler) along with a dazzling 25 other species including: Magnolia Warbler, American Redstart, Ovenbird, Blue-winged Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Waterthrush, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Black-and-white Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Wood Thrush, Veery, White-eyed Vireo, Eastern Towhee, Gray Catbird, American Goldfinch, Swamp Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow,and White-crowned Sparrow!

Figure 3. A total number of birds captured per day at RWBS during spring migration 2021.
Veery (Catharus fuscescens).
Photo by Blake Goll/Staff.

A SUMMER BREEDING RECORD | After the exhilaration of tracking spring migration in the hedgerows and thickets adjacent to the Rushton Farm, the banders moved to the interior woodlands of Rushton Woods Preserve to monitor our breeding birds for the Institute for Bird Populations’ nation-wide study called MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship). For eight weeks in the summer, we sizzled beneath the cathedral-like canopy of the royal beeches and tulip poplars and used our mist nets to capture a snapshot of the nesting activity of Rushton Woods. Banding fresh, fuzzy babies just out of their nests is usually reward enough, but last summer we also had the humbling thrill of catching up with a “veery” old friend.

“It’s he!” Alison exclaimed into the data book after Blake routinely read off the nine-digit band number of a recaptured Veery. It was the same Veery we had caught the year before and several years before that; he was first banded in 2011 — our inaugural MAPS year — when we proclaimed him to be at least two years old based on our feather and molt analysis. That makes him at least 12 years old as of summer of 2021 and our oldest banded bird for the station! To put that age in perspective, according to the Bird Banding Lab, the oldest recorded Veery is 13.

The Veery is a long-distance migrating, neotropical thrush, overwintering in central and southern Brazil and capable of flying 160 miles in one night. How awe-inspiring that our old Veery accomplished this feat a dozen times, triumphantly returning each summer to fill the emerald understory of Rushton with his ethereal song. This longevity record is a testament to the importance of preserving land for wild creatures. When you consider what these migratory birds must face on their journeys — habitat loss and destruction by humans, city lights and buildings, climate change, weather, pesticides, open oil pits, natural predators, and cats — it is miraculous that a bird can persist on such a knife’s edge.

AUTUMN’S BOUNTY | Fall brought Rushton banders back out to the migration station in the relatively open hedgerows where young birds hatched in the dark woods to find a more forgiving landscape for learning how to survive, and where migrants discovered an abundance of insect and berry forage to fuel their southbound journeys. Fall of 2021 turned out to be our second best with 1,372 new birds banded in addition to 174 recaptures of a total diversity of 61 species; for comparison, fall of 2019 brought 1,427 new birds. Gray Catbirds — familiar and endearing garden birds related to mockingbirds — had a record year, comprising 42% of our total new birds! The majority of these were fresh youngsters hatched that summer; this annual recruitment of new birds into the population is the reason why we see a species-wide increase in abundance during the fall season relative to spring; for comparison, spring 2021 totaled 493 new birds (Fig. 4.).

Figure 4. Total New Birds Captures Per Season 2010-2021 at RWBS.

The fall banding season is also much longer than spring, with birds taking a more leisurely voyage in the absence of the pressure of mating. Last September brought beauties like the chartreuse Chestnut-sided Warbler, the dashing Black-throated Green Warbler, and the elusive Connecticut Warbler.

September also produced our 102nd species for the station, a Cooper’s Hawk, that was ceremoniously banded by expert raptor bander and renowned naturalist and author, Scott Weidensaul. Scott happened to be visiting for a talk he was to give that evening about the Willistown Conservation Trust’s role in Motus Wildlife Tracking and his most recent book: “A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds.” After the raptorial hawk was gently banded and processed, it was temporarily excused from the net premises for the safety of the rest of our songbirds.

Scott Weidensaul with a female Cooper’s Hawk (Accipiter cooperii). Photo by Jennifer Mathes.

Though 75% of the songbirds we catch are only caught once, there is immense value in the few birds we see more than once. For example, we caught a young Worm-eating Warbler on September 8 and again on September 30. This bird likely hatched late summer on a nearby wooded hillside, then dispersed to the Rushton shrublands, illustrating the importance of shrub habitat — including those typically associated with forests — for young birds learning how to make a living before their first migration. We also caught other songbirds stopping over, like the hatch-year female American Redstart who gained 27% of her body weight in just 10 days; that’s the equivalent of a 145 pound human gaining almost 40 pounds in a little over a week! Birds gain weight in this rapid manner only to prepare for long overnight flights. Studying the rate of weight gain through recaptures such as these can help shed light on the quality of stopover habitat in terms of supplying adequate forage for migrants.

Finally, one of the last days of the season produced our fourth ever American Woodcock! These marvelously camouflaged earthworm-eaters prefer early successional woodlots next to open fields — like those found at Rushton — where the males can perform their esoteric sky dances, electrifying the dusk and moonlit skies of spring with their wing twittering and chirping spiral descents.

A female American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla).
Photo by Blake Goll/Staff.
American Woodcock (Scolopax minor). Photo by Blake Goll/Staff.

BIRD BANDING AND LAND CONSERVATION | When all is said and done, we banded nearly 2,000 birds in 2021, between spring migration, summer MAPS, and fall migration. It was a wild year that included fallouts, two new species for the station, discovering a bird that was with us since our very first year, hosting hundreds of visitors including special guests, and training many students and colleagues. Through banding we continue to learn information about species abundance and diversity, individual longevity and site fidelity, and how birds are using our conserved land throughout their annual cycle.

Our banding station’s high catch rates — or “birdiness” — combined with the unique setting on a regenerative farm within a greater nature preserve shows the world that people and wildlife can coexist in harmony. On a broader scale, as Rushton Woods becomes inreasingly surrounded by human development, our continuous banding efforts may be illuminating the Preserve as a critical island habitat for birds traveling through, wintering, or breeding in the region.

With more than 17,000 birds banded over the last 12 years, it can be useful to look more broadly at species groups and their changes over time. Birds of species groups have many similarities, including diet and foraging habits. For example, we typically capture over 200 warblers of different species each year. Since most warblers are tree top dwelling, insect gleaners, if we group them together, we may gain a better understanding of habitat priority needs at Rushton. Our captures are overwhelmingly dominated by Catbirds, Sparrows, Warblers, and Thrushes (Fig. 5). And when we look at the capture rates over time, we can see that all are increasing except for Sparrows (Fig 6).

Figure 5. Percent of birds captured by taxonomic group at RWBS 2010-2021.
Figure 6. Capture Rates (Birds per 100 net hours) for the four most abundantly captured birds by taxonomic group at RWBS 2010-2021.

The gravity of the state of birds today runs the risk of being lost on the reader through an auspicious annual banding report such as this. It must be noted that in less than one human lifetime, North American bird populations have plummeted by 30% with no ecosystem spared; that’s three billion, or one in four birds gone since 1970, largely due to human actions. So while we recover from our world being briefly disrupted by the uncertainty of a pandemic, we must learn to minimize our disruption of the natural systems to which we are inextricably linked.

You can find the full Rushton Woods Banding Station Annual Songbird Banding Report, as well as a full list of all species we’ve banded each year since 2010, on our website.

One thing’s for certain: the wild birds at Rushton will always be welcome, where the rhythm of winged creatures reigns.

RESOURCES

Institute for Bird Populations
Northeast Motus Collaboration
Rushton Woods Banding Station Annual Songbird Banding Report
Species Seen List

Filed Under: Bird Banding, Bird Conservation, Uncategorized

Motus Wildlife Tracking System – A Tutorial

August 10, 2020 By Bird Conservation Team

Learn about the Motus Wildlife tracking system by watching this slideshow. You’ll learn about the technology, the network, and its contributions to understanding wildlife migration. Advance through the slides at your own pace by clicking the right arrow.

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Filed Under: Bird Conservation, Motus

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Provides Grant to Track Species of Greatest Concern in Northeast

April 20, 2020 By Bird Conservation Team

A Wood Thrush with an attached radio-transmitting nanotag, banded and tagged at Rushton Woods Preserve last summer. Photo by Blake Goll

WILLISTOWN, PA (APRIL 20, 2020) — A major grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) will enable a research partnership that includes the Willistown Conservation Trust in Chester County, Pennsylvania, along with a number of state agencies and nonprofit organizations, to dramatically expand a revolutionary new migration tracking system across New York and New England.

The grant, totaling $998,000, has been awarded to a partnership led in part by the Northeast Motus Collaboration (northeastmotus.com), which includes the Willistown Conservation Trust; the Ned Smith Center for Nature and Art in Dauphin County; Project Owlnet, a nationwide cooperative research initiative; and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Powdermill Nature Reserve in Westmoreland County.

The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department is the lead agency, along with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game, and the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Other partners include New Hampshire Audubon, Massachusetts Audubon and Maine Audubon.

The grant will allow the partners to establish 50 automated telemetry receiver stations in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine. These receivers will track the movements of bird, bats and even large insects tagged with tiny radio transmitters called nanotags — so named because they are tiny enough to be placed on migrating animals as small as monarch butterflies and dragonflies. The receiver array will be part of the rapidly expanding Motus Wildlife Tracking System (motus.org), established in 2013 by Bird Studies Canada, which already includes nearly 900 such stations around the world.

Together, the combination of highly miniaturized transmitters — some weighing just 1/200th of an ounce — and a growing global receiver array allows scientists to track migrants previously too small and delicate to tag with traditional transmitters, like a gray-cheeked thrush that made a remarkable 46-hour, 2,200-mile non-stop flight from Colombia to Ontario.

Gray-cheeked Thrush banded at Rushton Woods Preserve last spring. Photo by Blake Goll.

This is the second major USFWS grant for Motus expansion that the Northeast Motus Collaboration has received. In 2018, the agency awarded the collaboration about $500,000 to build 46 receiver stations in Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. The collaboration had already constructed a 20-receiver array across Pennsylvania in 2017 using private, foundation and state grant funds.

Besides significantly increasing the telemetry infrastructure across the Northeast, this new USFWS grant specifically targets several species of greatest conservation need in New England. Research collaborators will use nanotag transmitters to study the migration routes, timing and behavior of American kestrels, the region’s smallest falcon and a bird that has experienced drastic and largely unexplained declines across New England.

An American Kestrel nestling being banded by Hawk Mountain scientists as part of their nestbox project in Pennsylvania. Photo by Blake Goll.

Other scientists will use the smallest nanotags to track the movements of monarch butterflies from the region, which have also suffered large population declines, but about whose migration little is known. The tracking information will help conservation agencies map the best areas to target for land conservation and habitat improvement, like encouraging the planting of milkweed for monarch caterpillars. Finally, researchers will also conduct testing to better understand the detection limits of newly developed versions of this new technology.

Monarch butterfly on asters. Photo by Blake Goll
Swamp Milkweed, a native host plant for Monarch butterflies. Photo by Blake Goll

While the grant focuses on a few target species, the value of the expanded receiver network has much broader implications. Any nanotagged animal that flies within nine or 10 miles of any of the receivers will be automatically tracked.

“Conservationists are rightly concerned about kestrels and monarch butterflies, and the work funded by this grant that may give us answers that allow us to reverse their declines,” said Lisa Kiziuk, director of bird conservation for the Willistown Conservation Trust. “But by greatly expanding the overall Motus network, the grant will also provide scientists and resource agencies with a treasure-trove of information on dozens of other migratory species, from at-risk songbirds like Bicknell’s thrush and rusty blackbirds to rare bats that travel through the Northeast, and about whose movements we know little or nothing.”

Lisa Kiziuk, Dave Brinker, and Scott Weidensaul of the Northeast Motus Collaboration standing next to a Motus receiver station at Rushton Farm.

“For me, this project is important because never before have we had the technology to see intimate details of an individual species’ migratory pathway in this way,” said Doug Bechtel, president of New Hampshire Audubon. “Motus technology and this particularly dense array that will be constructed in New England, especially in conjunction with the expansion in the mid-Atlantic states, will enable conservation organizations, industry leaders and legislative decision-makers to see how habitats are being used on a landscape level and make associated conservation decisions based on near real-time data.”

CONTACT INFORMATION

Lisa Kiziuk, Director of Bird Conservation, Willistown Conservation Trust. 610-331-5072, lkr@wctrust.org.

Scott Weidensaul, Northeast Motus Collaboration. 570-294-2335 (cell), scottweidensaul@verizon.net.

Monarch with nanotag. Photo by Grace Pitman

Willistown Conservation Trust, located in Chester County PA, is a land trust focused on preserving open space and habitat protection in the Willistown area. The Trust’s Bird Conservation team has operated the Rushton Woods Bird Banding Station since 2007, and has been a lead partner in the Northeast Motus Collaboration to save migrating bird species since its inception in 2016.

Filed Under: Bird Banding, Bird Conservation, migration, Motus Tagged With: American Kestrel, Bird banding, Conservation, Monarch butterfly, Motus Wildlife Tracking, nanotag

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