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Connecting Students to Bird Conservation

November 17, 2021 By Blake Goll

By Caitlin Welsh

The bird banding net lanes at Rushton Farm. Photo by Blake Goll/Staff

Since I was introduced to Willistown Conservation Trust in 2015, it has been a privilege to spend many of my working hours in the field supporting the bird banding program at Rushton.  The time spent walking the net lanes and watching the seasons change over the last two years in particular has made it much easier to stay grounded during a time when it was often easy to find oneself feeling adrift. 

As an educator who primarily engages the public in natural settings, it was especially challenging to connect with our audiences, particularly K-12 teachers and students. However, if there’s one lesson to be learned from the challenges presented by the pandemic, it’s the importance of meeting and engaging with others where they’re at, which is an intrinsic part of good educators’ practice.

I had the fortune to connect with a group of such educators who dedicated time during the pandemic to exploring ways we could help them and their students connect with the natural world.  AIM Academy is a K-12 research-to-practice school in Conshohocken, PA that strives to support students who learn differently, often by using project-based learning strategies and emphasizing 21st century skills.  With students returning to the classroom, Alicia DeVane, Julia Bower, and Cherica Onyango – AIM Academy’s 8th grade science team – were eager to find ways to immerse students in social emotional learning through science education.

  • Ken Leister, County Coordinator for Bluebird Society of PA, and educator Caitlin Welsh at AIM Academy for the bird box building project.
  • The Mobile STEAM Lab truck at AIM Academy

We focused on introducing students to migration ecology with an emphasis on bird-human interactions to help students foster personal connections to local wildlife. Over the course of two weeks, students completed a learning module in which they were able to engage with educators both virtually and in the classroom through presentations, birding on AIM’s campus, and migration mapping activities from Birds Canada that use Motus wildlife tracking data. 

The experience culminated in a project that guided students to creatively promote human behaviors that can support bird conservation, like designing and installing decals to reduce window strikes around the school building, and recording PSAs about preventing interactions between birds and domestic cats.  Activities and other learning resources, as well as an overview of this and other experiences, can be explored in the Educational Opportunities section of the Northeast Motus Collaboration’s web page.

Seeing the ease with which students could activate their empathy through creative pursuits, we were then connected with Kathy Brandon who leads AIM’s Middle School STEAM program where students incorporate art and design principles into STEM disciplines. With the 2021 school year and field season in full swing, Blake Goll, the Trust’s Education Manager, and I took a break from the banding station to work with Kathy’s students and spread the message of bird conservation even farther than the AIM community.

After learning about the Trust’s bird banding program and our work to address the challenges faced by migratory birds due to habitat loss, students had the opportunity to build nest boxes for Eastern bluebirds with guidance from the Trust’s bluebird champion, Ken Leister.  

After building the nest boxes, Kathy plans to mobilize her program and connect with community partners at St. James School, a tuition-free school for underserved student populations in North Philadelphia. Following the AIM’s mission to seek equity and access for all to STEAM Education, Kathy will use AIM’s Mobile STEAM Lab to share cross-curricular learning experiences like the nest box project with St. James Schools’ students and community.  “I really appreciate our collaboration,” Kathy said. “Maybe one bird box at a time we can make a difference for our environment”.

  • Ken Leister and Caitlin Welsh facilitating bird box building with AIM Academy students.
  • Kathy Brandon assisting her students with bird box building.
  • The finished bird boxes!

Filed Under: Bird Banding, Bird Conservation, Education Tagged With: AIM Academy, Bird boxes, Bird Conservation, environmental education

A Suburban Nature Lover Seeks Legacy Easement to Protect Her Native Plant Oasis

October 25, 2021 By Blake Goll

By Blake Goll, Education Programs Manager and Erik Hetzel, Director of Land Protection

Photos by Blake Goll

Meandering along the cool wood chip paths beneath the varied canopy of beech, oak, and cherry trees, your eyes dance with the dappled light around the myriad understory shrubs­—first settling on this glossy leaved plant, then darting upwards to those feathered shadows that flit and call among the boughs above—and you almost forget that this dynamic nature escape is someone’s backyard.

There are an estimated 40-50 million acres of manicured lawn in the United States today (including residential, roadsides, and golf courses); this represents a significant loss in plant and habitat diversity that is necessary to support wildlife in these spaces. While we historically might have been able to justify this simplified approach to our green spaces, many of us now feel compelled to do more. Unsustainable human population growth coupled with harrowing reports of the planet having lost 30% of all birds since 1970 are a call to action. Fortunately, as Marianne Price’s property proves, with the right planning, the average American yard can easily contribute significantly to insect and bird populations.

It all starts with selecting native plant species to support a healthy food web (i.e., insects!).  A keystone species like a native oak tree, for example, is a major driver of Pennsylvania food webs; 511 species of our native caterpillars use oak trees as their host plant! When you consider that the majority of our songbirds raise their chicks on caterpillars, the value of native plants is clear. By contrast, a nonnative gingko tree supports only about 5 caterpillar species. 

  • Marianne Price

“My husband Karl and I bought this place in 1972 after the previous owner passed away,” Marianne explains. “He wanted the buyer to be someone who would take care of the property for the wild birds he loved so much. He’s the one who began stewarding this yard with native trees. I kept nurturing the trees and planting more, because I wanted to keep my word, and I’ve done just that. Here I am almost at the 50 year anniversary!” she gleams. Marianne has continued to care for this one-acre ecosystem, single-handedly taking on the responsibilities after Karl passed in 2007.

Marianne’s devotion to stewarding the property now extends well into the future, thanks to her commitment to conserving the land with Willistown Conservation Trust. Using a Legacy Easement, which is specifically designed for smaller properties like hers, Marianne approached the Trust’s Land Protection Program earlier this year. Director of Land Protection Erik Hetzel recalls, “I visited her property on a sunny October morning and was greeted by an oasis of nature in a suburban neighborhood. The place was buzzing with pollinators and birds.”

  • Erik Hetzel, Sue Costello and Marianne Price

The terms of Marianne’s easements are relatively simple, focusing on the preservation of native tree species, including vital species like the native oak that supports a myriad of caterpillar and bird species. The Trust’s Legacy Easement program uses a simplified easement model to conserve lands that might not be effectively protected by other means, such as through deed restrictions or covenants between neighboring property owners. This unique program opens the door for landowners with smaller properties to become conservationists in a new way, one that is more accessible. And Marianne’s easement will ensure the lasting stewardship of the habitat that she has nurtured over the last 50 years.

Like legacy easements, part of the reason why Marianne’s little sanctuary is so inspiring is that emulating it is doable. She is a plant enthusiast and has fun experimenting with different species and cultivars that are not all native. Experts say that even if you strive for 70% native plant biomass and allow the other 30% to be other (noninvasive) plants of interest, you can still contribute to the growth of suburban bird populations like chickadees. It does not have to be an all or nothing effort. The average American lawn can easily attract at least 50 kinds of beautiful and interesting birds with the right planning!

With a keen eye for sustainability, Marianne even strives to make her watering practices environmentally friendly.  Although her diverse landscape of hardy perennials, shrubs, and deep-rooted trees requires less water that a typical Kentucky bluegrass lawn, she still needs to water during dry spells. She cleverly collects the used “gray water” from her air conditioning unit, de-humidifier, and even her laundry washing machine! She pumps this reusable water into covered storage barrels tucked around her property for watering.

Finally, when you consider that each hour of lawn mowing generates as much pollution as driving a car nearly 100 miles, it also becomes apparent how a property like Marianne’s demonstrates a more carbon neutral solution to an all-lawn landscape. From saving water and reducing carbon emissions to contributing to biodiversity, Marianne is truly an inspiration to us all — proving that an average-sized suburban landscape can be transformed from a uniform green patch to an alluring conservation oasis. 

Blake Goll | she/her | Education Programs Manager | Blake plays a big role in the Trust’s Bird Conservation Program, as well as the outreach and educational initiatives as the coordinator for Rushton Nature Keepers program.

Erik Hetzel | he/him | Director of Land Protection and Public Grants | As part of our Land Protection Program, Erik handles the acquisition of private conservation easements and public lands to add to our nature preserves.

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Legacy Easements open the door for landowners with smaller properties to become conservationists in a new way.  To learn more about how you can be a part of the conservation movement with a Legacy Easement on your property, contact Erik Hetzel at ewh@wctrust.org.

Filed Under: Conservation, Land Protection, Native Plants

A Rushton Nature Keeper “Graduate” Restores Historic Bluebird Trail to Willistown

October 25, 2021 By Blake Goll

By Education Programs Manager Blake Goll

Photos by Blake Goll

Almost ten years ago, a little girl named Siana Christaldi and her brother began religiously attending the Trust’s nature programs that were then part of the nascent Junior Birding Club. Siana especially loved the adventures in which she and her family enthusiastically participated: watching the dazzling courtship flights of the American Woodcocks at Rushton Farm in early spring, exploring a local vernal pool for spotted salamanders one rainy night in early April with Education Programs Manager Blake Goll, and even lending an eager hand for local stream cleanups at the Trust’s nature preserves.

Siana’s passion for nature flourished over the years as she continued to participate in Rushton Nature Keepers program that was established in 2018 as the Trust’s holistic approach to environmental education, encompassing major conservation themes of healthy habitat, birds and wildlife, watersheds, and regenerative farming. In 2019, Siana and her family also dove wholeheartedly into the Trust’s Homeowner Bird Box Program—receiving their own bluebird box to monitor in their yard. A bluebird family quickly took up residence, and Siana was hooked. Naming the dad Blueberry and the mom Muffin, she bravely inspected the nest regularly despite having her hair tousled by the chastising dives of the parents.

Siana and her brother Daniel at a Rushton Nature Keeper program in 2018

It was this personal connection to the bluebird box in her backyard that inspired her to build bluebird boxes for her Girl Scout Silver Award project last winter. Siana (now 14 years old) first met with local bluebird box builder, Ken Leister, better known as The Bluebird Keeper; he has built close to 1,000 boxes in the past ten years for homes, schools, golf courses, local businesses, and nonprofits like Willistown Conservation Trust. And his boxes are crème de la crème if you are a bluebird; they are equipped with thoughtful features that many commercial boxes lack, such as an extra-large roof and ample ventilation to help prevent the chicks from overheating during hot summer days.

After collecting free scrap wood from a local fencing company, Siana worked with Ken to learn the dimensions and to cut all the parts for ten bluebird boxes. She took these parts back to her building team of two friends and instructed them on how to assemble a “Ken Leister bluebird box.” Siana reflects, “We all had fun learning and building these boxes, and the whole experience felt like a special gift during the Covid-19 quarantine.”

In early spring, Siana worked with Blake to install the ten boxes at a private property in Willistown. This was significant because the farm’s current owner is keen on reestablishing the bluebird box trail that her grandfather, Hardie Scott, had lovingly established in the 60’s. In those days, concern was growing over the declining bluebird populations; threats included non-native competing species like House Sparrows, widespread pesticide use, and habitat loss from development. With the help of compassionate citizens establishing nest box campaigns and well monitored bluebird trails beginning in the 60’s and 70’s, Pennsylvania is once again home to healthy populations of these stunning backyard birds.

Siana helped monitor the bluebird trail this summer with Blake and found that the boxes were also being enjoyed by Tree Swallows, native birds that hunt insects on the wing. Since bluebirds hunt insects by diving into the grass from a hunting perch, they are not a direct competitive threat to Tree Swallows. Consequently, a swallow will generally allow a nearby bird box to be occupied by bluebirds but not by other swallows. As such, the boxes were cleverly paired at a private farm in Willistown to hopefully allow Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallows to live and breed harmoniously.

The new bluebird trail now lies vacant under the crisp autumn sunshine in the wide-open rolling hills, wild meadows, and fields of Willistown. The boxes hold the promise of many more broods of baby birds in the spring to come. When the Tree Swallows return to somersault through the honeysuckle-scented air and the bluebirds’ sweet songs bubble forth from the new leaves, Siana’s boxes will again come to life.

  • Siana and her brother Daniel monitoring the bluebird trail this summer. BHG
  • Tree Swallow nest lined with goose feathers

Blake Goll | she/her | Education Programs Manager | Blake plays a big role in the Trust’s Bird Conservation Program, as well as the outreach and educational initiatives as the coordinator for the Rushton Nature Keepers program.

Filed Under: Bird ecology, Rushton Nature Keepers, Staff, Trails, Volunteers

For the Love of Birds

February 26, 2021 By Blake Goll

Join Blake Goll, Education Programs Manager, for a virtual session (video below) that introduced birds through the lens of why we love them.  From their beauty and song that inspires and uplifts us to their incredible migratory feats and daily dramas that leave us awestruck, birds are the perfect gateway to conservation.  They have the power to awaken us to the natural world; what we do for them, we do for the planet and ourselves.

Bluebird feeding on Winterberry by Greg Schneider, Mount Joy, PA Nov 2014 (permission granted)

Blake began the talk discussing why we love birds. First, they come in a dazzling array of diversity found on every continent (10,000 species)! No other life form is this widespread besides microscopic organisms. Birds give us hope with their ultimate freedom of movement and life lived in the present. They represent resiliency having been around for 150 million years longer than we have. Birds are beautifully adapted living dinosaurs!

Birds help us engage with nature. In fact, bird-watching has soared since the pandemic. “It’s quite meditative to watch another life form go about its day,” said Ms. Adanero, 23. “It’s like another way of practicing mindfulness.” (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/science/bird-watching-coronavirus.html).  Jonathen Franzen opined, “They are our last, best connection to a natural world that is otherwise receding.”

Blake went on to say that birds are intelligent and emotional. For example, you might assume Mourning Doves are dull and dumb, but according to wildlife rehabilitator Julie Zickefoose, they are incredibly intelligent and communal. In her book, “Baby Birds”, Julie describes a tender moment in her garden when one of her doves that she raised and released came back to sit right by her in the dirt while she went about her garden chores. The young bird even occupied itself in her company by building itself a “play nest” on the ground.

Other examples of bird intelligence and emotion include crows giving gifts to humans who feed them regularly, or crows entertaining themselves by “sledding” down a roof on a plastic lid! Another example Blake gave was the Barn Owl, known to be monogamous and devoted to their mates. The book “Wesley the Owl” goes into great detail of the intimate relationship an owl developed with his human caretaker over the years.

Another reason people love birds is that they are clever and resourceful. Take the House Wren for example. This little brown bird has deliberate reasons for all its fussing about our yards during the breeding season. Even the little white spider egg sacs that they love to weave into their stick nests has a purpose: these sacs contain the baby spiders of a predatory jumping spider! The spiderlings feast on mites in the nest that could otherwise kill the wren chicks if left unchecked.

Watch the rest of the recording to learn more about why we love birds, why birds are important, what is happening to birds today, and how we can all help birds thrive. This talk was a private event for Radnor Hunt Club on February 10th, 2021. The attendees’ questions follow the presentation.

(Note: The recording begins with music and PowerPoint slides until Blake’s audio comes in around 1 minute 13 seconds.)

Filed Under: Bird Banding, Bird Conservation, Bird ecology, Bird Events, Nature Tagged With: Bird Conservation, Birds

Celebrating 11 Years of Bird Banding at Rushton Woods Preserve

December 16, 2020 By Blake Goll

Blue-winged Warbler banded at Rushton on September 21, 2020. Photo by Blake Goll/Staff

Although we did not venture out to track spring songbird migration at the onset of the pandemic this year, we safely resumed our efforts this fall and were handsomely rewarded. The total number of new songbirds banded from the end of August through October came to 939, even though we only operated the banding station twice a week.  This brings our total number of songbirds across 11 years of banding at Rushton to over 15,000 individuals of 100 species!

The beginning of this fall produced copious warblers including elusive Connecticut Warblers, stunning Black-throated Green Warblers, and Black-throated Blue Warblers. September also brought us two new species for the station (never before caught) including a Cooper’s Hawk and Blue Grosbeak. The grosbeak’s presence at Rushton is another nod to the diverse habitat structure that Rushton Farm offers with its wild farmland borders, forest edges, and shrubby hedgerow habitat. To view more photos from the early part of migration see September’s blog post: https://wctrust.org/the-wings-of-change/

Black-throated Green Warbler banded at Rushton in September. Photo by Jennifer Mathes

October reliably brought the sparrows —White-throated, Lincoln’s, Swamp, Field, Chipping, and Song—along with other winter treasures like a few Winter Wrens, a Dark-eyed Junco, and a handful of Purple Finches (an irruptive species that appears in our region in greater numbers some years than others). Slender Gray-cheeked Thrushes and long-winged Blackpoll Warblers are always exciting to band in late fall as they are some of our longest distance migrants breeding as far north as the taiga in Canada and overwintering in Central and South America. Missing from our usual October catch were Golden-crowned Kinglets, Brown Creepers, and the ever pined for Fox Sparrow.

Purple Finch banded at Rushton this October. Photo by Blake Goll/Staff
Winter Wren banded at Rushton this October. Photo by Blake Goll/Staff
Blackpoll Warbler banded at Rushton this October. Photo by Blake Goll/Staff
Gray-cheeked Thrush banded at Rushton this October. Photo by Jennifer Mathes

Established in 2009 with a grant from the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club (DVOC), our banding station has been a huge success over the years, attracting many exceptional volunteers who help us run the station smoothly during spring and fall migration as well as during the summer breeding season.

Our federally licensed bird banders operate up to 16 nets at a time, placing a unique aluminum band on each songbird. Tagging birds in this way allows us to: learn about presence or absence of species that are using our conservation farm and nature preserve; understand migratory behavior (like how long birds stopover in our habitat to refuel); reveal longevity and examples of site fidelity as individual breeding birds return to Rushton and are recaptured year after year; and explore other important population dynamics as well as habitat quality.

Bird Conservation Associate Alison Fetterman aging a Black-and-white Warbler, and volunteer Victoria Sindlinger documenting the molt. Photo by Blake Goll/Staff

What follows here are some interesting highlights translated from the 10-year report that was compiled from our data by Alison Fetterman, Bird Conservation Associate.

Top 6 Most Abundant Species

Although we have banded 100 species at Rushton Woods Preserve, a few species dominate the landscape. These include: Gray Catbird, White-throated Sparrow, Common Yellowthroat, Wood Thrush, Ovenbird, and Song Sparrow. Catbirds take the cake numbering over 3,500 individuals through the years!

Top 6 most abundant species banded at Rushton Woods Preserve in order of highest abundance from top left: Gray Catbird, White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Common Yellowthroat, Ovenbird, Wood Thrush. Photos by Celeste Sheehan

Rare Species

Over 10 years, there are 8 species that have only been captured once. While they are not necessarily rare migrants, their species-specific behavior (e.g., foraging in the tops of trees above our nets) may in some cases account for why these species rarely encountered our nets.

Bay-breasted Warbler
Clay-colored Sparrow
Cape May Warbler
Eastern Kingbird
Hooded Warbler
Louisiana Waterthrush
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Yellow-throated Vireo

Cape May Warbler, Yellow-throated Vireo, and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker: species banded only once at Rushton. Photos by Blake Goll/Staff

Interesting Recaptures

Of the over 3,200 recaptures—birds captured that already had a band—only two of those birds were not originally banded by us. (This is a typical phenomenon for passive songbird banding.) These migrants included an American Redstart and an American Goldfinch. In addition, one White-throated Sparrow that was originally banded by us was subsequently recaptured at another station. Since all data for each bird is stored in a centralized database called the Bird Banding Lab, banders are able to acquire the birds’ stories from their band numbers:

On September 3, 2015, we captured an adult female American Redstart at Rushton Woods Preserve (RWP). The bird was originally banded at Kiawah Island Banding Station (KIBS) in South Carolina in the fall of 2014 http://kiawahislandbanding.blogspot.com/. These banding stations are 570 miles apart and the bird was presumably on its fall migration when it was encountered in both years. These banding encounters contribute to our understanding of the migratory pattern of this small songbird.

  • American Redstart

On May 1, 2019, tucked within a large flock of American Goldfinches we discovered a second year (SY) male American Goldfinch that had been banded originally at Foreman’s Branch Bird Observatory (FBBO) in Maryland on November 25, 2018. The young bird must have hatched in Maryland in the summer of 2018 and dispersed the 58 miles to Rushton the following spring!

  • American Goldfinch

On October 16, 2016, we banded a White-throated Sparrow at Rushton. The following spring, on March 13, 2017, it was captured at Cape May Bird Observatory—75 miles to the southeast of Rushton Woods Preserve! One can only imagine that the bird continued south in the fall of 2016 after stopping at Rushton, and may have been picked up in Cape May during the north-bound spring migration. Alternatively, the bird may have used Rushton as an important stopover site on its way to its overwintering destination of Cape May, a hot spot for many birds.

  • White-throated Sparrow

Notable Weight Gains

Our data show that 75% of our birds are only captured by us once. Among the other 25% of recaptures, we have noted a few birds that stick around taking advantage of the habitat. When we recapture our birds we are able to record that they are gaining weight and using Rushton to fuel up for their next migratory flight. Songbirds only gain weight during migration in order to make long overnight flights.

As part of the banding process we look at subcutaneous fat stores, visible under the skin on a scale from 0-6, with 6 being the most fat. We also weigh the birds in grams. Through recapture data we can see how long birds may be staying at the preserve and their rate of weight gain for migration. Here are a few examples!

Subcutaneous fat is visible under the skin of birds, and during migration stored fat is commonly seen in the furcular hollow of a bird, just below the throat. Pictured left is a bird with an empty furcular hollow and no fat stores. On the right, the furcular hollow is overfull with fat, stored for a long overnight flight. Subcutaneous fat is visible as an orange fleshy glow under the skin.

Veery : In early September 2017, we captured a Veery twice and discovered that the bird gained 14.9 grams in only eight days! This means the bird gained 47% of its body weight from the first time it was weighed, in only about a week’s time. A true athlete, this small thrush could easily have flown a couple hundred miles in one night following its final capture at Rushton Woods Preserve. It also means the bird was finding everything it needed at Rushton to fuel such a long journey.

A Veery banded at Rushton. Photo by Jennifer Mathes

Worm-eating Warbler: In the fall of 2015 we captured this bird three times between September 3 and October 1. (That’s 27 days!) However, this is a different example of an indication of good habitat quality. This bird did not gain weight between those catches like a typical migrant, but it was a young bird that most likely hatched that summer in a nearby dry wooded hillside—the preferred breeding habitat of this species.

After leaving the nest and its parents, it likely dispersed from the open woodland to the denser hedgerow and meadow habitat where we were capturing the warbler. The long length of stay rather, indicates that Rushton was providing important post-fledging habitat for this young bird and others—a shrubby early successional safe zone full of easy food, hiding places, and fewer predators for young birds learning how to make it in the world.

The Worm-eating Warbler that was captured three times in the fall of 2015. Photo by Blake Goll/Staff

Longevity Records

After banding with a constant effort at Rushton Woods Preserve over the years, we can start to get a better idea of how long birds live and if they are returning from year to year. The Bird Banding Laboratory (BBL) keeps records of the oldest birds through over a million band records. However, after 10 years, we have a few records of our own.

Veery – At least 11 years old! This male Veery was first captured at Rushton on June 30, 2011, aged After Second Year (ASY), meaning it was at least two years old. We have since recaptured this bird breeding at Rushton in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019 and 2020! We may not have seen the last of this old Veery! This is incredible when you consider that the Veery migrates to the tropics each winter. The BBL record for Veery is 13 years old.

Our old Veery was featured on social media this summer by the Institute for Bird Populations.

Ovenbird – At least 11 years old! This female Ovenbird—another neotropical migrant—was first captured on May 27, 2011, aged ASY, meaning it was at least two years old just like the Veery. We have since encountered this bird breeding at Rushton in 2014, 2015, 2017, and 2020. The BBL record for Ovenbird is 11 years old, so we’re tied!

Our old Ovenbird was featured on social media this summer by the Institute for Bird Populations.

If you’d like to view the 10-year songbird banding report in its entirety, please contact us at bhg@wctrust.org. It will also eventually be available for public view on our website.

Wishing you the health and prosperity of our old birds and happy owl-idays!

As always, there’s a lot going on in the woods,

Blake

One of the 84 new Northern Saw-whet Owls banded this fall at Rushton during our nocturnal owl banding program. Photo by Blake Goll/Staff

Filed Under: Bird Banding, Bird Conservation Tagged With: Bird banding, bird banding data, bird migration

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