CONSERVATION

Birds and their habitats were big winners at the recent mid-term elections, with 51 of 60 conservation-related ballot measures passing around the country. For example, Georgia voters approved re-allocation of a sales tax that will generate about $22.5 million annually for land conservation during the next decade. Some of those funds will likely go to improve longleaf pine ecosystems, home to Summer Tanagers, Pine Warblers, Chuck-Will’s-Widows and Brown-headed Nuthatches.

Voters in 19 states will have the opportunity to generate more than $3.7 Billion in funds for land conservation this Election Day, November 6th. If approved by local voters, these funds will provide places for urban residents to go birding, hiking, biking and paddling. More people outdoors enjoying nature-based activities will stimulate recreation-related jobs and support outdoor economies.

This Election Day, November 6th, voters across the country will have an unprecedented opportunity to protect birds and their habitats. It’s not a partisan issue and it’s not about who you vote for. It’s about supporting the 45 ballot measures being offered by municipalities, counties and states where citizens have voluntarily decided to put funding up for a vote to protect parks, recreation areas and open spaces.

During my visit to Long Lake National Wildlife Refuge this week, a favorite “local” refuge southeast of Bismarck, I appreciated how many decades I have toured the refuge and surrounding habitats to enjoy the varied avifauna. This week I appreciated observing, and hearing, my first hundred Sandhill Cranes of the fall, among a mixed flock of Mallards and Northern Pintails.

The World’s Premiere System of Public Lands to Protect and Conserve America’s Wildlife: That’s a bold boast for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to make, but if you’ve been birding at a refuge recently, you know it’s a valid claim. Peppered across the country are 567 Refuges and 38 wetland management districts conserving more than 150 million acres. Unlike other public lands, our national wildlife refuges were protected just for wildlife and, in most cases, birds.

There are now at least 5,200 Black-capped Vireos, and perhaps as many as 14,000 – a dramatic increase from the low of only about 350 birds when the species was declared Endangered in 1987. This spring, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service removed Black-capped Vireos from the Endangered Species List, recognizing the species reached population goals established by biologists during the recovery process.

Northern Bobwhites whistle, elusive Henslow’s Sparrows nest, Northern Harriers hunt; this Kentucky grassland oasis is springing back to life on the remains of one of the most desolate landscapes on Earth – reclaimed coal mine land. Thousands of aces scraped bare by mining operations are slowly being restored to provide habitat for declining populations of grassland birds. The burgeoning bird biodiversity there is testament to dedicated study and restoration by the staff at the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The piercing beams of New York City’s 9-11 Memorial trace the outlines of the fallen Twin Towers and help us remember an American tragedy. Now, through research by Cornell Lab of Ornithology scientists and volunteers at New York City Audubon, those lights pose less of a threat to migratory birds. Songbirds such as warblers, tanagers, vireos and thrushes migrate at night and navigate by the stars, but they can become confused by artificial lights, sometimes leading to fatal collisions with buildings.

This landscape is as wild as the Northern Goshawks that nest there. Perched along the northern border of Grand Canyon National Park at an elevation of 6,000 feet, Arizona’s Kaibab Plateau typifies the rugged beauty of the American Southwest. The Kaibab contains the largest tract of old-growth ponderosa pine in the Southwest and one of the densest nesting populations of Northern Goshawks in the region.

For the next couple of months, tens of millions of migratory birds will be making their way south to warmer temperate and tropical wintering ranges. Readers of The Birding Wire can play an important role helping to keep these migrants safer during their perilous flights by collision-proofing windows at your home, office and place of worship. It’s a simple, effective, inexpensive action that can save the very birds we revel in inviting in our urban yards locations and birding sites.

With the late afternoon sun streaming through the green longleaf pine needles bathing the grasses and ferns of the forest floor with a golden glow, I could hear an adult Red-cockaded Woodpecker calling nearby, and any second it would land at its cavity, less than 30 feet away, where it would roost for the night. With good fortune, it would linger at the cavity entrance just long enough for me to see the color bands on its legs, adding to data we were collecting on this endangered species. Suddenly the ground started to shake.

Most birders have heard of The Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, but I wonder how many of us appreciate that this is one of the premier conservation efforts. The Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network is a system of internationally important sites used by shorebirds throughout their life cycles.

Did the Endangered Species Act help prevent the extinction of our national bird, the Bald Eagle? It’s hard to know for sure, but there can be little doubt that it played a positive role in bringing Bald Eagles back from their previously endangered status in the 1970s.

Biologists report that as contaminant levels in the East Coast’s Delaware Bay have declined, Osprey populations have recovered. Earlier pollution in the Bay and other coastal sites dramatically affected fish-eating Ospreys and some other predatory species, but reducing pollution in Delaware Bay and other estuaries has been the focus of a herculean effort by public and private partners.

Nestled in the southwest corner of Florida at the north end of Myakka River State Park, the 1,143-acre Triangle Ranch teems with birdlife. Christmas Bird Counts conducted since the 1940’s have recorded more than 280 species on the property and surrounding areas, including such exciting birds as Florida Sandhill Cranes, Wood Storks and Crested Caracaras.

Building on last week’s Conservation essay underlining the importance of Duck Stamps for purchasing property for America’s National Wildlife Refuge System, let’s look a little closer at this remarkable collection of more than 560 national wildlife refuges. Each refuge is managed by the government as public land dedicated to protecting and, in some cases, enhancing exceptional and necessary lands for breeding, migrating, feeding and wintering animals, especially birds.

All birders should buy an annual Duck Stamp for $25; in turn, enlightened conservationists find and purchase the highest quality habitats in the country for waterfowl and all birds and other wildlife. In most cases, the protected habitat is open to the public as part of the National Wildlife Refuge System.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will propose delisting the endangered Kirtland’s warbler, a gray and yellow songbird that ranges from the Great Lakes to the Bahamas. The bird was one of the original species listed under the Endangered Species Act and over the last 50 years has improved from about 200 breeding males to nearly 2,400 today.

Thanks to robust conservation efforts, the black-capped vireo, a small songbird, is being removed from the list of endangered and threatened species. From a low of only 350 birds in the late 1980s, the population has received to an estimated 14,000 birds across the breeding range of Oklahoma, Texas and Mexico.

The updated Iowa Monarch Conservation Strategy  seeks to establish approximately 480,000 to 830,000 acres of monarch habitat by 2038.