WILLISTOWN CONSERVATION TRUST

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Food and Feathers

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At first glance, Rushton Farm looks like your traditional example of small-scale intensive sustainable agriculture. Crops sit nestled within the landscape surrounded by meadow and trees. The gardens and fields reflect the hard work of farmers trying to grow a wide assortment of fruit and vegetables in a way that is beneficial to the surrounding environment. Occasionally the wildlife that inhabits the farm may become briefly visible with a rabbit darting through the fields or a groundhog scuffling into the hedgerow. What is not so apparent is the wide, diverse population of migratory birds that visit Rushton Farm throughout the year.

Songbirds nesting in tomato plants


“Food and Feathers” is our term for learning about the relationship between the food we grow and our fine feathered friends who visit our fields. Bird population and diversity are key indicators to the health of an ecosystem. From the beginning of Rushton Farm, the WCT Bird Conservation Program has studied the population and diversity of the migratory and resident birds. Consistently year after year the numbers have proven that Rushton Farm is providing beneficial habitat for the birds flocking to the farm and surrounding woodland.

Tree swallow at Rushton Farm

In the spring and fall visitors can visit the bird banding station and see a wide variety of birds being banded so that they can be tracked as they make their annual pilgrimages both north and south. In the fall, our sights turn to the little northern saw-whet owls who stop at Rushton to escape the harsh winters of the boreal forest in Canada. In October and November, our bird banders join the owls and become nocturnal creatures of the night spending long hours banding these beautiful raptors.

Northern Saw-Whet Owl

Being able to walk the fields throughout the season and see the diversity of the bird population feeding in our crops has been one of my great joys since we started Rushton Farm. A spring harvest often features tree swallows diving the fields feeding on insects. A summer harvest often means harvesting tomatoes around the songbird nests that often inhabit the rows of tomatoes. Fall harvest is the most active with migratory birds flocking into the fields to feed on the seed from foxtail and other plants as well as insects. Our feathered friends provide a great service to us by clearing our crops of weed seed and invasive insects while in turn, we provide them with food to make it to their final destination. It is “Food and Feathers” at its finest and we look forward to continuing to study how this relationship can be enhanced.

All photos by Fred DeLong/Staff

Amanda Dunbar and Fox Sparrow

You Look Like a Tall Glass of Waterthrush

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Northern Waterthrush banded at Rushton today. Photo by Blake Goll

The sallow leaves fell slowly through the visible cloak of humidity, dark silhouettes of jays pierced through the gray overhead, blood red berries on spicebush sparkled in the dew,  and wet bumblebees sleepily clung to their violet thistle trundles.    Crickets twinkled through the morning fog as big ripe walnuts thudded to the damp ground.  Gazing out over the farm, I spied the bright cream-colored flowers of okra atop their tall green stalks, like a string of globe lights bringing cheer to the gloom. There were some birds around as well.
We caught 25 birds of only 8 species before cautiously closing early again at 9:30 am.  The highlight was the Northern Waterthrush pictured above.  A lover of wet bogs, forests, and streams, this sprightly tail-bobbing warbler can be found in backyards during migration on its way to Central America.  We also caught our commoners including Common Yellowthroats, cute Carolina Wrens, Gray Catbirds, Wood Thrush, and American Robins.

Carolina Wren banded at Rushton today. Photo by Blake Goll

Holly showing how to release a young catbird. Photo by Blake Goll/Staff

I love the photo below because it captures a different kind of “farm to table” (banding table, that is).  These are our banding staff who also work tirelessly on the 6-acre farm of Rushton, helping to produce 30,000 pounds of sustainably grown food, annually.  “In the face of today’s rapid population growth, you can’t do agriculture without conservation anymore,” said Lisa Kiziuk, Director of our Bird Conservation Program.  “We just try to make sure that if you have to take land, at least it’s usable by wildlife.”

Our “farm to table” staff: Todd and Caitlin (pictured at the banding table aging a robin) also work hard on the farm for the rest of the day. Photo by Blake Goll

The way we do farming at Rushton is how they did it in the old days—leaving unkempt hedgerows and wild meadows surrounding the farm fields rather than clearing everything.  Here, we leave space for the finches, salamanders, and caterpillars while satisfying the community’s appetite for food and feathers.   If food is the entrée for connecting people to the wild as Lisa says, then I’d say birds are the amuse-bouche.
There’s a lot going on in the woods,
Blake

Brown-hooded owlet caterpillar on goldenrod. Photo by Blake Goll