For the Love of Birds

FRIENDS HELPS TO SUPPORT PARKWAY RESEARCH

Published in High Vistas

What do saw-whet owls, grassland birds and cerulean warblers have in common?
   
They all live along the Blue Ridge Parkway, one, and two, they are all in habitats threatened by humans.
   
Resource management specialist and biologist Bob Cherry, in North Carolina, planned research projects that FRIENDS support edwith friends and funding in efforts to monitor and help these native creatures.
   
Cherry works on water resources, rare wildlife and wildland fire issues for the Parkway.  When it comes to wildlife, he says, “the problem we’ve always had is we don’t know what we have.”
   
That place in the world is being threatened by development, technologically advanced farming, poaching and deforestation.  

Northern saw-whet owls: Volunteers were needed in April and May to visit sites with tape recorded calls two to three times a week to identify and count owls, from a half hour after sunset and returning by 1:00 a.m. The owls are remnant species of birds who made their homes in the mountaintops of the Appalachians, rather than following retreating glaciers north long ago.  Development and road-building are affecting their habitats.
   
Grassland birds:  Cherry was interested in tracking 10 species of birds which used to nest in hayfields.  With the advent of higher-tech, earlier, more frequent and more thorough mowing, the birds’ nests were being destroyed.  Volunteers were needed a couple days a week in May and June from sunrise to noon to listen for and counts birds.   The Parkway used the data to make recommendations to farmers who lease Parkway farmland.
   
Cerulean warblers:  These birds like tall trees with an open understory, on steep slopes.  While more common in Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky, their numbers were declining along the Parkway.  Volunteers were needed from mid-April to mid-or late May, sunrise to 10 or 11:00 a.m., to listen for and count birds in Parkway habitats.