Capital Area Audubon Call Note Newsletter, November 2021

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Call Note

Photo by Kristy Taylor 2021

CAPITAL AREA AUDUBON NOVEMBER 2021

Join Us AT OUR NOVEMBER MEETING! Join us at our next meeting Thursday, November 4, 7:00 - 8:30pm on Zoom!

Native Hawaiian Forest Bird Conservation Presenters: Reina Galvan and Tucker Grigsby Join Reina Galvan and Tucker Grigsby as they share their experience working with Native Hawaiian birds and discuss some of the threats that these birds face. They will also discuss recent work aiming to conserve Hawaii’s threatened and endangered bird species.

Please visit our Zoom link https://msu.zoom.us/j/94720211954 or open your Zoom app and enter Meeting ID: 947 2021 1954 Password - CAAS Social time will take place from 7-7:15 followed by brief announcements and our speakers at 7:20pm.

Dedicated to creating a greater awareness, appreciation, and understanding of the interrelatedness of all Michigan’s wild places and wildlife and the need for stewardship.

A NOTE FROM OUR PRESIDENT Maybe this fall you have noticed the bumper crop of black walnuts, pine cones and acorns. It seems every walk around my neighborhood or local park alerts me to another black walnut tree that I had no idea was there before!

Due to a combination of last year's stressful weather, and this year's wet weather, trees have produced a huge amount of mast this season. This could mean a mess for your property, but it also means that abundant food is available for mammals and our birds.

Black walnut hulls can help birds by providing a home for many different types of bugs that can help sustain them during the winter months. If you are cleaning up your yard this fall, consider leaving sticks, leaves and plants alone for the winter. These small things can help provide safe places for birds to hide during the winter, as well as food sources. They can also allow some of the insects that use the leaf litter to overwinter a place to develop and grow undisturbed!

This fall my work at the Michigan State Bird Observatory was busy and wonderful as we banded over 5,000 new birds this season. This set a new station record and we were thankful to be able to share the experience of getting to see a bird up close with many visitors to the station.

CAAS membership helps to support programs like the MSBO, Fenner Nature Center, Whitefish Point Bird Observatory, and the Michigan Nature Association as well as providing our monthly programs and newsletter. If you have not renewed your

membership yet this program year, now is a great time to visit the website and sign up!

We are hopeful that a return to inperson meetings will happen this spring, but want to make sure the health, safety and comfort of our members is at the forefront. We are still planning to host our spring walks, and hold the June program outdoors, but would be interested in your opinion of offering additional outdoor meeting opportunities and address any concerns you may have about our return to in-person meetings.

There are also many opportunities for virtual engagement with Audubon and birding groups from around the country during this age of digital meetings. Many are available after the fact on YouTube or via the club websites.

Next month I will send out a Google form for all of our members to ask about your comfort levels for returning to in-person meetings in 2022. The optional form will be very simple and ask for your email, if you are a current CAAS Member, your meeting location preference and your comfort level with masks and social distancing. Please feel free to email us if you have any concerns or suggestions for our return to in-person events.

Hope to see you all soon!

Kristy Taylor CAAS Board President 2021-22

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CAAS EVENTS Monthly Meetings December 2 – Christmas Bird Count Speaker - CAAS Members Join CAAS members via Zoom to learn more about the Capital Area Christmas Bird Counts. Hear about the history of the count, memorable years, rare birds, and how to get involved with this year's count!

East Lansing Christmas Bird Count December 18 – Greater Lansing Area Join CAAS members as we participate in one of the longest running community science programs in the country!

More information, including count areas and leader contacts, will be provided in the December Newsletter.

LOCAL EVENTS Kellogg Bird Sanctuary Free Fall Fly-In November 7, 1-4pm Kellogg Bird Sanctuary Visit the KBS for free and enjoy raptor presentations, tables with bio-facts and migrating waterfowl observation!

Coffee and Birds November 10, 10am, Zoom Join the Kellogg Bird Sactuary for a Birds and Coffee Chat discussing diving ducks, including the Ruddy Duck, Bufflehead, Common Loon and mergansers. Register at www.kbs.msu.edu/events/ Michigan Natural Resources Commission Wednesday, November 10, 9am Have your voice heard regarding decisions about the conservation, protection, management and use of the state's natural resources. For more information, visit michigan.gov/DNR Michigan Nature Association Nature at Home Series Thursday, November 18 Hear stories from the field and get a sneak peek at upcoming work in "Conservation Storytelling with Fauna Creative." Their recent film, "The Fight for Flight" has been officially selected at several local film festivals including the 2018 Fresh Coast Film Festival, and the 2019 Freep Film Festival.

To register, visit michigannature.org

BIRDABILITY WEEK 2021 Although birding is available to everyone, there are a number of barriers that can block many people from enjoying the outdoors and getting to fully enjoy the wonder of birds.

Through education, outreach and advocacy, Birdability works to ensure the birding community and the outdoors are welcoming, inclusive, safe and accessible for everybody.

Birdability is a brand new nonprofit whose mission is to share the joys of birding with people who have disabilities and other health concerns.

They focus on people with mobility challenges, blindness or low vision, chronic illness, intellectual or developmental disabilities, mental illness, and those who are neurodivergent, deaf or hard of hearing or who have other health concerns. In addition to current birders, they also strive to introduce birding to people with disabilities and other health concerns who are not yet birders so they too can experience the joys of birding.

The first Birdability Week, held during October 2020, launched Birdability into becoming a nonprofit organization. This year, they hosted a week of events to celebrate inclusion, diversity, equity and accessibility (IDEA) in the birding community.

This year's Birdability week, October 18-24th, helped to celebrate birders with disabilities and other health concerns and helped share ideas to make the birding community more accessible, inclusive and welcoming to everyone.

sharing this resource with any organizations you're involved with;

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Signing up to receive the Birdability newsletter to keep up to date with new resources, events and more;

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Following Birdability on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter; and donating if you’re able and would like to support their work.

One of the most fascinating and easiest ways to help out is by recording information for the Birdability Map. The Birdability Map is an ongoing collaboration between Birdability and National Audubon. Birdability creates the questions that make up the Birdability Site Review, and works in partnership with the National Audubon GIS team on the Birdability Map. The Lansing area only has one site listed on the map, the Corey Marsh Ecological Research Center. There are many areas in Greater Lansing that offer great access, and others that could use major improvements or are not great sites for anyone with physical limitations. By reviewing these sites on the map, you give valuable information to those planning an outing that may need to be aware of the paths and parking situations.

Please consider contributing after your next outing to make birding more accessible and safer for all birders!

To view the Birdability map, visit https://gis.audubon.org/birdability/ Many of the presentations from Birdability Week are now available on the website to view at any time. They can also be found on YouTube by searching Birdability.

One of the ways you can participate in this welcoming and inclusive birding community is to follow one of the suggestions below, available at birdability.org -

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Learning what features make up an actually accessible trail;

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Contributing birding locations to the Birdability Map (a crowdsourced map of accessible birding locations, with details of the accessibility features of them);

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Reading ideas for you to be a more welcoming and inclusive birder;

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Learning about the things that inclusive organizations do, and

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CAAS MEMBERSHIP Support community programs with your CAAS Membership. Your membership supports programs in our community and monthly meetings Sept. through June.

Your membership is more important than ever! It's time to join or renew your membership! Memberships run the length of the program year, September to August.

SEPTEMBER 2021 - AUGUST 2022 Membership Categories Individual $15.00 Family $20.00 Contributing $30.00 Sustaining $50.00 Donor $100.00 To sign up and pay online, visit capitalareaaudubon.org If you would like to mail your membership form and payment, please mail to CAAS, PO Box 22065, Lansing, MI 48910

CALL NOTE Published monthly September through June by the Capital Area Audubon Society PO Box 22065, Lansing MI 48909.

Deadline for submissions: 20th of the month.

2021-2022 CAAS Officers President Vice President Secretary Treasurer Membership

Kristy Taylor Julia Spalding Mike Moquin Michael Caterino Richard Yarsevich

Editor & Facebook Publicity & Hospitality Field Trip Coordinator Program Coordinator Historian Website

Kristy Taylor Sandra Conn Mike Moquin Julia Spalding Open Roger Wolf

2021-2022 CAAS Board of Directors John Baumgartner Michael Caterino Sandra Conn Patricia Deventer Mike Moquin Julia Spalding Kristy Taylor Richard Yarsevich caaudubon@gmail.com capitalareaaudubon.org facebook.com/capitalareaaudubon

KIRTLAND'S WARBLER RECOVERY SURVEY Kirtland’s warbler census shows once-endangered songbird continues to thrive October 25, 2021 - issued jointly by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service.

State and federal agencies and droves of volunteers have partnered to count Michigan’s Kirtland’s warbler population. The agencies recently announced that surveys conducted in June show the small songbirds have continued to flourish since their October 2019 removal from the federal list of endangered species.

“The power of partnership continues to yield excellent results for the Kirtland’s warbler after coming off the endangered species list,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director Charlie Wooley. “Recovery of this beloved species required a strong, creative set of partners, and that spirit continues into the future with agencies, organizations and private entities working together locally, nationally and internationally. I’m confident this strong partnership will secure the long-term future of this bird.”

With the June survey results now tallied, the Kirtland’s warbler global population is estimated at 2,245 pairs, which is more than double the 1,000-pair recovery goal for the species – which has been exceeded over each of the past 20 years.

Researchers survey nesting areas, listening for singing males advertising and defending nesting territories.

Each male found is presumed to have a mate, so the number of males also indicates the number of pairs.

Kirtland’s warblers build nests on the ground, only in young, dense stands of jack pine in Michigan, Wisconsin and Ontario. This habitat was historically created by large wildfires.

Today, wildfires are suppressed, and the nesting habitat is created by harvesting mature jack pine and planting jack pine seedlings in the logged areas.

This year’s counts took place in nesting habitat situated across lands managed by the Michigan DNR, U.S. Forest Service, and U.S. FWS. Nearly all the world’s Kirtland’s warbler population nest in Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula.

In 2017 and 2019, partial surveys were completed. This year’s thorough census was the first full count of Kirtland’s warbler since 2015, when 2,365 singing males were counted.

This is believed to represent ALL the adult males of the entire global population of this highly localized bird species.

“Recovering a species as imperiled as the Kirtland’s warbler wasn’t easy,” said Brian Bogaczyk, Regional Threatened and Endangered Species Biologist for the USDA Forest Service Eastern Region. “The US Forest Service is honored to play a part in the Kirtland’s warbler comeback, an incredible success story that’s a great example of what we can achieve with strong partnerships. We must continue to invest in creating habitat for this disturbance-dependent species to thrive, and the Forest Service is committed to doing our part in the future.”

More specifically, 1,114 singing males were located on the Huron National Forest – representing a 9% increase over the number counted in 2019 – while 994 singing males were found on lands managed by the DNR and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the northern Lower Peninsula.

In addition, two singing males were found in Lake County on the Manistee National Forest in jack pine not established for Kirtland’s warbler breeding habitat. This was the first time the birds have been found on the Manistee National Forest since 1977.

“The number of singing males was above what we expected,” said Phil Huber, Wildlife Program Manager for the Huron-Manistee National Forests in Cadillac, MI. “It’s really gratifying to see this species doing so well, especially compared to the population lows we observed in the 1970s and early 1980s when 200 singing males was the average. The recovery of this species has been a decades long effort by many dedicated individuals.”

In the Upper Peninsula, a record number of Kirtland’s warblers were recorded by census participants.

Previous counts recorded 37 singing males in 2015, 44 in 2017 and 40 in 2019. This year, 67 singing males were found across the Upper Peninsula. To learn more and read 3 the full article, visit www.kirtlandswarbler.org/news