THE RARE VERTEBRATES OF CONNECTICUT

 

The Rare Vertebrates of Connecticut, out of print for 40 years and not otherwise available on the internet, is now accessible via Bird Conservation Research, Inc.  Much has changed since this volume was released.  Species thought to be rare in the 1970s, like the Cooper's Hawk, Pine Warbler, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and Red-bellied Woodpecker, have undergone explosive population growth and are now regular Connecticut residents.  Others, like the Ruffed Grouse and White-throated Sparrow, have declined and still others, like the Common Raven, had yet to colonize the state. 

Thinking concerning the meaning of terms like State rare and State endangered has, as a consequence, evolved  (see, for example, this).  An important conclusion to be drawn from the extent of population change observed over time is that wildlife communities are dynamic rather than static assemblages (see this).  This conclusion affects how conservation concern is evaluated and requires us to develop a more sophisticated notion of how we view rarity at the local level. See this page and click on the PowerPoint presentation Global vs. Local Perspective on Endangerment for a more-in-depth analysis of this issue.   

The Rare Vertebrates of Connecticut provides us with a useful perspective on some of the earliest thinking concerning conservation of rare species at the local level.  It is available here.

 

ESKIMO CURLEW RESEARCH NOW AVAILABLE

Plumage states of the Eskimo Curlew

Our Eskimo Curlew research is now available as an open access document at http://www.birdconservationresearch.org/…/eskimo%20curlew%2…

It investigates the external anatomy of males vs. females and adults vs. juveniles, and identifies two previously undescribed plumage states. One of these states (see photo) exhibits prominent y-shaped markings on the breast whereas the other exhibits linear markings. It also documents, based on specimen data, the species' historical distribution.

YALE FOREST BIRDS SHOW POPULATION INCREASE

Bird populations at Yale Forest have increased since 1985, but the amount of variability among individual study sites has also increased. As the figure shows, surveys were duplicated each year to gain a perspective of survey variability.

Unlike continental trends, which show that birds have declined by 30%, forest birds in northeastern Connecticut have undergone a 20% increase. Read about this and more in Bird Conservation Research's October newsletter: http://www.birdconservationresearch.org/pdf/bcr%20newsletter%2021-4.pdf.

ENDANGERED SPECIES COURSE DEBUTS

The first of the presentations for Bird Conservation Research's new course on endangered species conservation are now available.  These presentations focus on the history of endangered species conservation, the philosophical underpinnings of these efforts and the role of environmental scale in endangered species designation.  These presentations may be viewed at the BCR web site by following this link to the slideshow page.  Scroll to the bottom of the page to see Endangered Species Conservation.

BIRD CONSERVATION CONTRIBUTIONS

Female Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Bird Conservation Contributions is the peer-reviewed scientific journal of Bird Conservation Research, Inc.  It is made available here through Arts and Academic Publishing.  The series consists of individually published papers on basic and applied avian research that have conservation implications.  Submissions may be data papers, syntheses or commentaries.  Submissions are welcome from anywhere in the world, and are particularly encouraged from women and minority authors, researchers at small and non-academic institutions, researchers who have single author contributions, researchers with limited publication budgets and new authors who may need assistance in achieving professional publication standards.  All submissions, correspondence and reviews are accomplished via the internet.  All published papers are open access. There are no page charges or author fees for accepted papers.

MAPS FOR CONNECTICUT AND RHODE ISLAND FOREST BIRDS

Summer distribution of the Eastern Towhee (higher density in red regions).

Distributional maps for birds reviewed in Forest Birds of Connecticut and Rhode Island are now available in a new Bird Conservation Research, Inc. publication.  The maps are open access and may be viewed via Arts and Academic Publishing.  Distribution of habitat and community parameters like species richness are also mapped.  These maps provide the first ever view of the distribution of bird population densities across southern New England.  The maps were produced by Kyle Arvisais of the University of Maine School of Forestry.

Distribution of oak-dominated forest (higher density has larger dots).

ESKIMO CURLEW RESEARCH

Spring (green) and fall (red) locations for museum specimens of the Eskimo Curlew.

With examination of the specimen holdings at the U.S. National Museum and Yale Peabody Museum, our investigations into the external features of the Eskimo Curlew are drawing to a close.  To date, we have examined 86 specimens that were collected in spring, summer, fall and winter.  On each, we have made a series of measurements and also taken photographs of  breast, wing and back plumage. 

To examine differences in measurements, we used a statistical technique called discriminant function analysis.  This technique allows us to examine all measurements simultaneously.  Doing so has permitted us to conclude that males significantly differ from females in particularly bill and tail length.  We found no seasonal differences in measurements, however.  We are still working on comparing measurements of adults and juveniles.

To determine identity of adults and juveniles, we are scoring each specimen for a number of plumage traits, including shape, color, size and density of breast markings, feather edging of wing coverts and extent of spotting on back and scapular feathers.  Although this investigation is still ongoing, it so far appears that traditionally used means of aging individuals do not hold up to careful scrutiny.

In addition to examining specimens themselves, we are also studying the location data attached to each individual.  As traditionally thought, fall migration occurs principally through the Northeast, whereas spring migration occurs through the Great Plains.  Five late May specimens from Alaska provide evidence for a previously unconfirmed breeding population there, whereas specimens from western New York and Montreal provide evidence for a hypothesized fall migration corridor through the northeastern United States.

DENSITY MAPS OF CT AND RI FOREST BIRDS

Summer bird density corresponds generally to the most densely forested regions.  Circles represent population densities at specific study sites.

BCR is presently working with a GIS specialist to turn our population data from the Forest Bird Survey of Connecticut and Rhode Island into density maps for the study area.  The resulting work will illustrate summer and winter habitat and community data as well as data for densities and distributions of individual species.  The resulting publication will serve as a companion to our recently release book, Forest Birds of Connecticut and Rhode Island, which is available via our publishing partner, Arts and Academic Publishing.  As with all products of BCR, including videos, educational documents and scientific papers, it is available as an open access document.

BIRDS IN AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPES

Three tanks of  gas is my self-imposed limit- that point at which my shoulders and mind are tired enough to make continuing on less safe for something as strenuous as chain-sawing.  On this day, however, the third tank and four more hours of labor had gotten me to where I needed to be- at the completion of beating back decades of landscape neglect.  A profusion of multiflora rose, autumn olive, privet, burning bush, Japanese barberry, bittersweet, amelopsis and other non-native invasives had overrun the borders of the ten-acre Connecticut farm now operated by Bird Conservation Research, Inc. as a field station.

To be sure, such border creep into agricultural land is largely the consequence of seed planting by native birds that disperse the fruits and seeds of exotic plants.  However, such creep is not compatible with the goals of production agriculture, and our mission for the past four years has been to maximize wildlife values of landscapes within the constraints of an effectively run agricultural operation.  Such borders, although wildlife-planted, are far from having the optimal vegetation composition for these locations.

Now that these borders are cut back (although the gargantuan task of turning the resulting slash into wildlife brush piles remains ahead), we are examining available options for replanting the borders with superior vegetation.  The borders will shrink from their present 30-75 foot-wide swaths to a more modest but agriculturally practical 15 foot edge that is punctuated by mature trees.  The understory is to be converted from invasive exotics to high wildlife value natives, like our various species of evergreens, hollies, viburnums, dogwoods, shadbushes, cherries, roses and aronias, as well as to non-invasive cultivated plants that are also favored by wildlife.

It is important to recognize that wildlife values are not confined to those species that breed on the property, but also include those conferred by species that pass through the area- notably migratory birds.  Hence, plantings must have value at all seasons.  Species that flower early and late, species that have persistent overwintering fruit and species that offer substantial cover, roost sites and nest sites are the types of plants to be selected.

At present, the field station is home to species that successfully use agricultural landscapes like the American Woodcock (we are presently working on banding our local population).  It also serves as a migratory stopover (and possibly incipient nesting population) to such typically Midwestern species as the Vesper Sparrow (territorial males in early spring), Savannah Sparrow and Clay-colored Sparrow (present spring and fall).

American Woodcocks nest and hatch young well before the haying season and often build nests in the edge adjacent to hayfields.

Forest Birds of Connecticut and Rhode Island now available

Into the Woods, by Barbara Lussier

Forest Birds of Connecticut and Rhode Island

Forest Birds of Connecticut and Rhode Island, the eight-year long summer and winter study of the population densities, distributions and habitat use by the forest birds of southern New England, is now available for free download. We invite readers to become sponsors for individual species. You may do so by writing us your species choice at mail@birdconservationresearch.org. Upon receipt of your choice (please make a first, second and third choice in your message), your name will be added to the species account as a sponsor. Names of species sponsors will be updated daily on the downloadable book so that you may see which species have already been chosen. You will also receive a printed copy of the book as our gift upon completion of the species sponsor campaign. We request a donation of $125 to become a sponsor, and you may make your donation here. The 251 page book may be accessed through Arts and Academic Publishing under the Bird Conservation Contributions tab.

SPECIES COMPETITION AND ESKIMO CURLEWS

The Rufous Fantail of the tropical Pacific competes with the larger Tinian Monarch

Another of the videos in the environmental science series that is available through our internet publishing partner, Arts and Academic Publishing is entitled Species Competition. It begins by exploring community assembly: how it is that particular physical environments come to be occupied by particular groups of species. It then examines how species within such communities might come into competition for such resources as food and living space. The video then goes on to explore ideas about discrete communities as opposed to communities of environmental gradients, where assemblages of species gradually pass from one to another. It examines in more detail the types of environmental gradients that occur along an ordinary New England wooded hillside. The video goes farther afield in examination of niche overlap and instances of inter– and intra-specific competition, looking at examples not only from New England but also from tropical regions.

This is one of several topics covered in the latest Bird Conservation Research newsletter.  In addition, it reports the latest news on the forest bird survey of southern New England and on the ongoing search for the Eskimo Curlew.

THE REMAINS OF A CONNECTICUT GRASSLAND: A FORTY YEAR HISTORY

The switchgrass-sedge grassland of Great Meadow is now largely invaded by cattails and reeds.

The birds were actually better this time around.  In June of 1976, pickings at Great Meadows in Essex, Connecticut were a bit slim, with gulls being among the most abundant species present.  Aside from the ubiquitous Common Yellowthroats, Swamp Sparrows, Marsh Wrens and lone Bobwhite, there was not much of interest present.  In contrast, during this June of 2016, gulls were uncommon and Bobwhites had disappeared, but multiple Ospreys were nesting and several Purple Martins flew overhead.  Both were all but absent in earlier years.  Great Egrets, confined to the river mouth in the 1970s, were also now conspicuously present, as were Rough-winged Swallows, which had replaced formerly common Bank Swallows.  To round things out, a Spotted Sandpiper fed along the banks of the adjacent Connecticut River and a Common Tern explored the river and adjacent tidal creeks.

Forty years have now passed since my first investigation of this extensive lowland bordering the lower Connecticut River.  I had initially gone there to study the extended ecotone between the site’s weakly brackish marsh and adjacent upland.  I thought the wet, grassy meadow that developed there was about as close as southern New England could come to having an extensive natural grassland, and I wanted to document its nature so that I might determine its persistence over time.  Toward that end, I inventoried the entire site and also established a study plot to quantify the presence of key community members.  My plot, chosen to be representative of the site as a whole (although I noted that there was a gradient in species composition from the north to south end), demonstrated that the predominant species were switchgrass (Panicum virgatum), a short species of bulrush- Scirpus americanus, and a sedge- Eleocharis palustris.  In all, I found 11 herbaceous species occupying the 100 m² plot. 

In 1983, I re-visited the meadow and observed that the community was much as it had been seven years before.  However, during this 2016 survey, I found that the ecotone had changed dramatically, with cattails and reeds invading much of it.  Furthermore, S.  americanus now appeared to be present primarily along the edge of the Connecticut River.  This observation left me perplexed enough that I began to doubt my initial identification, but upon later examining specimens I had collected both in 1976 and 1983, I found that my initial determination had been correct.  In the place of this species, I found that the sedges S. fluviatilis, S. atrovirens and the forb Peltandra virginica had become widespread.  I had recorded these species on my 1976 surveys, but none had occurred in the study plot, indicating that they were less common than now.  Switchgrass, although still present, was also not nearly as common as it had once been.  Even into 1983, I was still describing the site as a Panicum meadow, but this characterization no longer held.  Moreover, the entire meadow itself had shrunk from about 6 ha in 1976 to about two ha at present.  All these changes suggested that the site had become wetter over time, with the new dominant species t.ypical of emergent marsh rather than upland ecotone.  Human manipulation in the form of expanded mowing further assisted with reducing the meadow’s extent and, indeed, portions of the meadow have in the past been mowed for hay.

So what is to be gleaned from such long-term observations?  Well, first of all, I’ve concluded that my initial characterization of the meadow as a wet, albeit upland grassland was a bit generous.  With the benefit of now having examined all of the major herbaceous wetlands of the lower Connecticut River for decades, I think that it is more reasonable to characterize such meadows as simply vegetation zones within larger marsh ecosystems.  Furthermore, it now is clear that such communities are not static entities, but are rather dynamic associations that change over time in response to changing physical and competitive environment as as well as to human manipulation.

Alas, the notion of naturally persistent grasslands in southern New England is for me one that has become progressively harder to believe in.  We might still hold out some hope for the reed-canary grass (Phalaris arundinacea) ecotones of more completely freshwater marshes further inland, as Phalaris appears to be aggressively competitive with other species.  However, here again, it seems more reasonable to characterize such habitats as simply marsh vegetation zones rather than upland systems.  I suppose dune grass communities of the coast, nominal though they are, hold the only real claim for being naturally persistent southern New England grasslands.

MYSTERY OF WINTER BIRD MORTALITY DEEPENS

Thoughts of pullorum, aspergillosus, Newcastle, avian influenza and avian cholera  filled my head as I brought four recently dead wild birds from my property to the state pathobiology lab.  Disease names like these strike fear into the hearts of poultry breeders, who can quickly lose their entire stock to such diseases.  

Observers from around the Northeast have been reporting to BCR a winter die-off of particularly cardinals. Combined with my observation of the deaths of cardinals as well as two sparrow species, it appears that the die-off has affected particularly seed-eating finch-like birds.  The question has been what is causing this die-off? Considering the cold and snow of this past winter, starvation seemed a likely culprit, but no evidence consistent with starvation has been apparent.  All seven of the birds I personally found seemed to have had adequate fat reserves.

Examination of the my birds by state veterinarians did not pinpoint a clear cause of death for any of them. One exhibited evidence of a significant head injury but, as I have already noted, all birds appeared to be in good nutritional condition.  There was also no definitive link uncovered to any specific bird disease, although all individuals showed lung congestion.  Whether the congestion was simply a post-mortem effect was uncertain, however. Hence, the possibility of disease affecting these birds has not been ruled out, although what the disease might be remains unclear.

NEW ENGLAND BIRDS UNDERGO LATE WINTER MORTALITY

This first winter White-throated Sparrow was moribund before being hand captured and fed a diet of chick feed.  With feeding, it recovered within 24 hours.

With intense cold since mid-November and with a month of continuous, deep snow pack in southern New England, it appears to be the kind of winter that is associated with high mortality among especially ground-feeding birds.  Still, documenting the effects of such a winter on bird survivorship is notoriously difficult. Birds that succumb overnight may simply disappear into surrounding woodlands or be quickly scavenged by nocturnal mammalian predators.  It is also the kind of winter in which we might expect that diseases could become established among populations already weakened by physiological stress.

Hence, it caught my attention when within the past week I found four dead birds on my property- all primarily ground-feeders- Northern Cardinal, Song Sparrow and White-throated Sparrow. Inasmuch as I also raise free-range chickens, this was the sort of observation that raised disease transmission concerns. There has been a Goshawk patrolling my bird feeders in recent days as well, but the untouched dead birds both beneath the feeders and elsewhere on the property appeared to have their demise unrelated to this predator- who left with his prey.  In hard winters past, I had found dead Carolina Wrens about my property, but these wrens- at their northern range limit here in Connecticut- have a history of winter die-offs that has been documented since the nineteenth century.

This week, I contacted the state animal diseases lab to learn if any outbreaks of bird diseases had been reported. They informed me that none had, but I told them I had also just picked up a moribund individual that I would bring to them for autopsy if it succumbed overnight.  However, in the absence of any evidence of respiratory distress or other obvious evidence of disease, I decided to try first feeding the bird to see if it would recover.  Indeed, within 24 hours the bird had regained its strength and continued to show no other signs of disease (photo above).

This observation led me to suspect that this local mortality was primarily starvation-related.  I found it notable that all the birds involved were juveniles- the least experienced and likely most socially subordinate individuals- i.e. the individuals most susceptible to winter mortality.  In my studies on Bald Eagles in years past, juvenile birds indeed appeared less able to meet their winter energetic requirements. In my more recent studies of forest bird communities of eastern Connecticut, I've also demonstrated that forest birds, including the species I've been finding dead locally, vacate northern latitudes and accumulate in energetically less expensive coastal locations.

However, I am still not entirely convinced that no other factors are at work.  Examination of the dead birds showed that they still had reasonable levels of subcutaneous fat and well-developed breast muscles- suggestive that they were not starving.  One thing I have observed with my domestic birds is that socially subordinate hens can show atrophy of the breast muscles.  It is something I have to pay attention to so that I can separately feed such birds before they become weak.

In the meantime, I plan on keeping a close eye on events around my bird feeder and elsewhere on my property.  I recommend that others of you in this region be mindful of the possibility of a local disease outbreak.

NEWSLETTER FOCUSES ON CURLEW SEARCH, NEW ENGLAND FOREST BIRD SURVEY

The Common Redpoll was an irregular but sometimes common winter resident of Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The October newsletter of Bird Conservation Research, Inc. focused on the continued search for fall-migrating Eskimo Curlews occurring on the coast of Massachusetts.  It also provided an update on the Forest Bird Survey of Southern New England, which is now in the data analysis phase.  Computations of population densities and distributions are now complete, as are habitat analyses for the region.  The next step is publication of an atlas of forest bird resources for the region..

Also highlighted in the newsletter are video productions being prepared for the national AP Environmental Science curriculum.  Links to the latest versions of these videos are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGVuPr0N2Hw and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk5kUx1_aC8.

STUDY OF GEOGRAPHIC BIRD DIVERSITY PATTERNS NOW AVAILABLE

The second major paper to arise from the Forest Bird Survey of Southern New England is now available for free download from the Bird Conservation Research, Inc. web site as well as from Bird Conservation Contributions- the scientific journal of BCR.  This paper, FACTORS INFLUENCING GEOGRAPHIC PATTERNS IN DIVERSITY OF FOREST BIRD COMMUNITIES OF EASTERN CONNECTICUT, USA, explores patterns uncovered during four years of summer and winter studies.  The abstract follows:

At regional scales, the most important variables associated with diversity are latitudinally-based temperature and net primary productivity, although diversity is also influenced by habitat. We examined bird species richness, community density and community evenness in forests of eastern Connecticut to determine whether: 1) spatial and seasonal patterns exist in diversity, 2) energy explains the greatest proportion of variation in diversity parameters, 3) variation in habitat explains remaining diversity variance, and 4) seasonal shifts in diversity provide clues about how environmental variables shape communities. We sought to discover if our data supported predictions of the species-energy hypothesis. We used the variable circular plot technique to estimate bird populations and quantified the location, elevation, forest type, vegetation type, canopy cover, moisture regime, understory density and primary production for the study sites. We found that 1) summer richness and population densities are roughly equal in northeastern and southeastern Connecticut, whereas in winter both concentrate toward the coast, 2) variables linked with temperature explained much of the patterns in winter diversity, but energy-related variables showed little relationship to summer diversity, 3) the effect of habitat variables on diversity parameters predominated in summer, although their effect was weak, 4) contrary to theory, evenness increased from summer to winter, and 5) support for predictions of species-energy theory was primarily restricted to winter data. Although energy and habitat played a role in explaining community patterns, they left much of the variance in regional diversity unexplained, suggesting that a large stochastic component to diversity also may exist.

JULY BCR NEWSLETTER HIGHLIGHTS ENDANGERED SPECIES

The full color, downloadable July newsletter of Bird Conservation Research, Inc. may be accessed at our web site's publications page.  Read about the latest progress on the Forest Bird Survey of Southern New England, and also about Eskimo Curlews and Ivory-billed Woodpeckers.

IVORY-BILLED GHOST BIRDS

I have tucked away in an old file a letter addressed to me from James Tanner.  He was someone who I had known of since my early teens, although when I initially corresponded with him I didn’t let on that I did.  Back in the days before computer generated form letters, he replied to me with a personal and eminently polite note concerning the graduate program at his institution.

At that early point in my scientific career, I was debating in whose footsteps I might wish to follow.  Would it be those of Tanner- the last individual to study the Ivory-billed Woodpecker- a guide across the Styx into the world of ghosts?  Or, alternatively, would it be with someone who could tutor me in the practical and possible?  My decision turned out to be somewhere between those opposing poles- I would follow an individual who had already left this world, John Sage, a founder of the American Ornithologists Union who was ending his career about the time that Tanner was beginning his.   He was also student of Connecticut birds, so continuing on his distributional studies was something that I could actually do. Back in the early 1970s, when it was still possible to sit in a university collection room alone and unsupervised, I would spend my late evenings in front of Sage’s hand-written catalogs and his tray of preserved Passenger Pigeons, contemplating the individual who had collected them.  To this day, I continue largely in Sage’s shadow (see this work here).

But still, thoughts of Ivory-bills never quite faded.  Over the decades intervening between then and now, I have quietly launched solitary albeit unsystematic searches for them.  In all, my searches have been limited in scope, never reaching the magical thousand-hour threshold that seems the minimum for recording low probability events.  But still, I’ve tried and will likely try more.  There are so many thousands of acres of habitat and so few people out really looking that it has seemed just possible that birds might survive somewhere.  The inaccessible and inhospitable nature of the species’ last known refuges- bottomland forests- also appeared to argue that it could be persisting undetected.  Suggestion has also been made- and seems to be backed up by observed patterns of sightings and disappearance- that any remaining birds might be nomadic, so where they are one year is not necessarily where they are the next. Such a possibility would make documenting their occurrence doubly difficult.

Like so many others, when several years ago credible evidence surfaced in Arkansas and Florida (in the latter case, right near where I had been searching myself) that Ivory-bills were still extant, I was exhaltant.  I knew it.  They had to be somewhere.  I watched the videos and listened to the recorded calls posted on the internet.  I found the videos modestly convincing, but the sounds?  Certainly.  In their cadence and phrasing and horn-like quality, it seemed to me that they could be nothing else. I had burned into my head those very sounds from 1930s recordings I had listened to years before.

And then, enter the naysayers.  It is a venerable tradition in academia that critique follows assertion- tiresome and apparently self-serving at times- but most would say essential nonetheless.  In this case several groups took on the evidence presented and negated it point by point.  The images could have been this, the sounds could have been that, statistical inference indicated no no no. 

One suggestion was that the sounds might have been those of blue jays.  I could see why one might think so, but I disagreed.  I’ve just completed, a la John Sage, eight years of surveying Connecticut’s forest birds (see this work here) in which I detected individuals via vocalizations under varying field conditions, topography and distance.  During those years, I counted the better part of two thousand jays and in the process heard what seems likely to be every variation on a jay call theme.  My ears told me that those recordings were not of jays.

And then there was the issue that one of the naysayers had not too many years before edited a volume on Connecticut birds.  In that volume, it stated that it was absolutely, positively and otherwise definitely impossible to survey quantitatively the birds of the entire state.   Well, as it turns out, I just did that, alone and on my own dime, covering over a thousand miles on foot, and not just in summer but in winter as well, and I threw in the whole state of Rhode Island for good measure.  So, assertions to the contrary aside, it was possible.  Dogged determination, persistence and belief go a long way toward making the impossible possible.  I hope traits like these will guide the serious searchers for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the years that follow.

It was, thus, with some dismay that I read that one of the key institutions behind re-discovery attempts, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (Tanner's alma mater, by the way), was discontinuing its intensive field efforts to find birds.  This led me to investigate who was behind the surveys.  From the photos I located, it appeared that the teams consisted principally of young students.  Physical stamina is certainly an advantage in the daunting work required of a survey of this sort.  I discovered my own decreasing stamina limits late last summer when, during field searches for migrant Eskimo Curlews, my legs began giving out after hour upon hour of trudging along Cape Cod dune trails.  However, there is a trade-off between stamina and experience.  Back in Tanner's day, the senior Arthur Allen and Peter Kellogg were out with him during those historic Ivory-bill studies.  I regularly see how my own years of experience give me a substantial advantage over the less practiced in distinguishing subtleties, in understanding how to look and in detecting what others might miss.  I hope this generation of senior Cornell figures has, similarly to their predecessors, made a significant field contribution to the recent efforts.  

Despite professions by some of the scientific elite that the Ivory-bill is either extinct or beyond saving, my feelings remain different.  What I see from published reports is a species that appears to have persisted for a century over significant portions of its former range without any human help.  As our continent's supply of mature bottomland forest continues to grow, we may yet see this bird emerge from its present ghostly status back to that of a resilient and revered member of our wildlife community.

APRIL BIRD CONSERVATION NEWSLETTER NOW AVAILABLE

Welcome to the April, 2013 newsletter of Bird Conservation Research, Inc.  In it, you will find news of our latest progress on analyzing data from the Forest Bird Survey of Southern New England.   You will also find news about our latest products for environmental education.  

Thanks to all of you who have become 2013 BCR members.  Everyone who has done so will be receiving an acknowledgment shortly that can be used for tax purposes. If you haven't yet joined, you may do so simply by clicking on this link.

If you wish to download a PDF version of the newsletter, visit our web site at http://www.birdconservationresearch.org/publications/newsletters.php.

AVIAN HABITAT SURVEY OF SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND

The Forest Bird Survey of Southern New England, the eight year long project of Bird Conservation Research, Inc. to map density distribution of the region's forest birds, also conducted habitat surveys along its 2220 census points.  The survey examined field conditions in 3417 ha of forest, a sample nearly 100 times that of periodic U.S. Forest Service surveys in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Like the Forest Service surveys, BCR studies evaluated proportionate cover of major forest types.  In addition, BCR examined forest canopy cover, prevailing tree diameter, understory density, moisture regime, and elevation.  The data are to be used to seek relationships between habitat distributions and distributions of forest bird densities.

Analysis of cover types shows that the forests of Rhode Island (RI in the graph below) are dominated by xeric oak and conifer associations.  Northeast Connecticut (NECT) most resembles Rhode Island in its forest composition; both these regions are extensively underlain by glacial sand and gravel.  The locations most heavily dominated by oak forests are Southeast (SECT) and Southwest (SWCT) Connecticut, where lower elevations and milder climates prevail.  Central Connecticut (CECT) also has a high proportion of oak forests, but has as well extensive cover by more mesic-associated mixed deciduous forests.  Much of the remaining forest in heavily urbanized central Connecticut is indeed in wetter environments.  Northwest Connecticut (NWCT), with the most mountainous terrain in southern New England, has less cover by oaks and more cover by conifer-hardwood forests.  Such forests are generally associated with cooler, northern climates.