Bird Conservation, Spring 2019

BIRDCONSERVATION The Magazine of American Bird Conservancy

SPRING 2019

BIRD’S EYE VIEW

ABC at 25: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

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fire-impacted landscapes. Efforts to stem and mitigate climate change are also critical. Since forests can sequester huge amounts of carbon, one important way we can do this is to restore forests in Latin America, where many of our breeding birds winter and forest cover is declining.

Paramount are ABC’s founders, George and Rita Fenwick. The vision and amazing results they generated will have permanent benefits for all birds. ABC has also been blessed with terrific volunteer leadership — from our first Chair, the late Howard Brokaw; subsequent chairs Ken Berlin, Jim Brumm, and Warren Cooke; to our current Chair, Larry Selzer. ABC has developed enormously under their guidance, and we are extremely grateful to them and all of our Board members, individual donors, foundation supporters, conservation and agency partners, and everyone who has lent a hand along the way. Thank you!

ABC will continue to work with partners to expand our international reserve network (see p. 16), and to help manage land better for birds across the Americas through BirdScapes, in conjunction with our Joint Venture partners and others.

We will also make new innovations in conservation — for example, by attracting private investment to support habitat restoration, and developing the technology and collaborations to solve critical threats to birds including pesticides, cat predation, glass collisions, and light pollution.

their habitats throughout the Americas.

With an emphasis on achieving results and working in partnership, we take on the greatest problems facing birds today, innovating and building on rapid advancements in science to halt extinctions, protect habitats, eliminate

conservation.

abcbirds.org

Despite our progress, the task that lies ahead is greater still, and we must now focus on what we need to do over the next 25 years if we are to effectively counter both the current and emerging threats to birds.

Unfortunately, new analysis of bird population trends shows that North America has lost a significant portion of its birds, and climate change is likely to compound the threats causing these declines. The bird community must pull together to advocate for a much more significant push to recover overall bird populations.

Twenty-five years from now, we need the situation to be better, not worse, for birds.

Many of our birds spend more time outside the country than they do here, yet the amount of money spent to conserve habitat internationally is a fraction of that spent in the United States. We need to address this, and also ensure endangered species funding is focused on species needing it most, such as Hawaiian honeycreepers (see p. 4).

Among many habitat priorities, we need to change how we farm so that we reduce pesticide and herbicide use, and also re-create more diverse forest ecosystems, both in the East and the West. This won’t just help birds, but also entire ecosystems and communities in

TOP: ‘I‘iwi by Warren Cooke COVER: Long-whiskered Owlet, a Peruvian endemic that may be seen at the Abra Patricia Reserve.

Photo by All Canada Photos, Alamy Stock Photo

Birds are symbolic of nature as a whole. When they are doing poorly, we know that nature is out of balance. Twenty-five years from now, we need the situation to be better, not worse, for birds. The challenges ahead are many, but conservation success always starts with a few people who really care, then move it forward. Let’s make it so.

Spring 2019

threats, and build capacity for bird

A copy of the current financial statement and registration filed by the organization may be obtained by contacting: ABC, P.O. Box 249, The Plains, VA 20198. 540-253-5780, or by contacting the following state agencies: Florida: Division of Consumer Services, toll-free number within the state: 800-435-7352.

Maryland: For the cost of copies and postage: Office of the Secretary of State, Statehouse, Annapolis, MD 21401.

New Jersey: Attorney General, State of New Jersey: 201-504-6259.

New York: Office of the Attorney General, Department of Law, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.

Pennsylvania: Department of State, toll-free number within the state: 800-732-0999.

Virginia: State Division of Consumer Affairs, Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services, P.O. Box 1163, Richmond, VA 23209.

West Virginia: Secretary of State, State Capitol, Charleston, WV 25305.

Registration does not imply endorsement, approval, or recommendation by any state.

Bird Conservation is the magazine of ABC and is published three times yearly for members.

BIRDCONSERVATION 10 Boosting Birds’ Diets

in Forests, Grasslands,

and Oceans

Grasshopper by Ned Napa, Shutterstock

n November, ABC begins its 25th anniversary year. As we head toward this milestone, I want to recognize the enormous contributions of the many supporters, partners, and Board and staff members who have made ABC such a great organization.

ABC is dedicated to conserving birds and

16 ABC Reserves Reach a Million-Acre Milestone 24 A Reserve Snapshot,

Antpittas to Andean Tapirs 26 Camera Traps and Web Cams:

Eyes on Wildlife

Senior Editor: Howard Youth VP of Communications: Clare Nielsen Graphic Design: Gemma Radko

DEPARTMENTS

Contributors: Mark Cheater, Aditi Desai, Chris Farmer, Jane Fitzgerald, Holly Goyert, Steve Holmer, Daniel J. Lebbin, Conor Marshall, Jack Morrison, Merrie Morrison, Hannah Nevins, Michael J. Parr, Grant Sizemore, David Wiedenfeld, Wendy Willis

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For more information contact: American Bird Conservancy 4249 Loudoun Avenue, P.O. Box 249 The Plains, VA 20198 540-253-5780 • info@abcbirds.org

Bird’s Eye View On the Wire Birds in Brief

30 Final Glimpse

Michael J. Parr, President

Find us on social!

The glorious colors of the endemic Green-headed Tanager can be spotted at several ABC reserves in Brazil. Photo by Rafael Martos Martins, Shutterstock TOP: A Blue-winged Warbler holds on tight to a caterpillar meal. Photo by edk7, Flickr B I R D CO N S ER V A T IO N | S P R IN G 2019

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Palila by Robby Kohley

Cautious Hope for Hawai’i’s Seed-eating Honeycreeper

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he Palila is a slow-breeding, highly localized songbird that may not produce young every year. Based on recently released analysis of the 2018 annual survey, the wild population was down to approximately 1,000 birds.

In early February, dozens of volunteers again gathered, this time for the 2019 Palila survey, aiming to determine the current population while re-assessing forest health.

Results will be finalized in mid-2020, but observers report that many more Palila were detected this year.

Today, Palila are only found high on the southwestern slope of Mauna Kea on Hawai‘i Island, although a century ago, they ranged across the center of the island.

They formerly occurred on O‘ahu and Kaua‘i as well.

More than two-thirds of Hawai’i’s original honeycreeper species are now extinct. ABC and its partners are dedicated to saving the remaining species, including the Palila.

Yellow-headed with a smoky gray back, the Palila uses its thick bill to pull off and rip open tough māmane tree seedpods, revealing the nutritious seeds within. These immature seeds, toxic to other creatures, constitute the vast majority of the bird’s diet.

Palila have been declining because sheep and goats heavily browse their habitat, while cats eat their nestlings (and adults when possible). In addition, the species’ tiny range was ravaged by one of the worst droughts recorded for the region from 2000 to 2011.

ABC and the Mauna Kea Forest Restoration Project work together on Palila conservation, planting more than 13,000 native trees in 2018 to restore the native māmane forest; maintaining fences to keep out browsing non-native ungulates; and controlling nonnative predators to protect Palila nests, along with those of other native birds.

Observations from the 2019 survey also indicated promising recovery of the forest, which bodes well for the Palila and the hope that future generations will share the Big Island with this unique bird.

ABC is grateful to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the Dorrance Family Foundation for their generous support of our efforts to protect the Palila.

Great Curassow by KrzysztofWiktor, Shutterstock

ON the WIRE

Free of Hunting, Iconic Birds Thrive in Regenerating Costa Rican Forest

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n Costa Rica, increasingly rare Great Curassows and Great Tinamous show more resiliency than expected. These large birds are among the first species to disappear when human settlement encroaches in large, forested areas, and many believed that they only lived in oldgrowth, primary forest.

From May to August 2017, a team of eight biologists gathered video footage from 60 camera traps they had installed both in primary and regenerating forests within a protected area on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula, along the country’s southwest coast.

After analyzing footage they collected, the biologists found that forest age is less important to the birds’ survival than the presence or absence of hunting.

The researchers reported in the journal The Condor in October 2018: “Our work suggests that secondary forests can offer valuable complementary habitat to assist in the recovery of these declining species, at least when hunting is controlled and intact forests are nearby.”

Although they occur from southeastern Mexico to northern South America, both the curassow and the tinamou are heavily hunted and now scarce outside large protected areas and roadless wilderness. Five of the study’s eight authors are biologists working for Osa Conservation, ABC’s partner in the area. ABC has helped Osa Conservation protect both primary and secondary forests on the Osa Peninsula.

For more on camera traps and bird conservation, see page 26.

Endangered Roseate Terns Take a Turn for the Better

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he United States’ Roseate Tern population has reached its highest numbers since 1987, when it was listed as a federally Endangered species. According to the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife, the 2018 estimate for the United States Roseate Tern

Go Ahead and ASK ABC! Do you have questions about wild birds and bird conservation?

We have answers!

ASK ABC will be a new feature in Bird Conservation. We’ll also run ASK ABC questions and answers on our social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (#AskABCbirds).

population is 4,552 pairs. Fifty-one pairs were estimated for Canada.

The rebound is due in large part to successful habitat restoration and predatory gull management at the birds’ three largest breeding colonies, located along the Atlantic coast in Massachusetts and New York. Living much of their lives on the open ocean, Roseate Terns spend only a few months on rocky islets where they nest. They winter off the northeast coast of South America and in the Caribbean.

Overall, this population estimate is great news, but Roseate Tern

numbers remain short of the recovery target goal of 5,000 pairs. And in recent decades, encouraging increases have been followed by reversals.

Possible causes of the decline include climate change, sea level rise, competition for food from commercial fishing fleets, and largely unknown sources of mortality in the birds’ tropical wintering range.

A new threat is also growing: Offshore wind energy development may provide a collision or displacement hazard to the terns and other seabirds. Such plans are being monitored by ABC and other conservation organizations.

Email us your bird questions at: askabcbirds@abcbirds.org and watch next issue for our first ASK ABC, which will feature selected reader Q&As. Roseate Terns by duangnapa, Shutterstock

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Ruby-throated Hummingbird by Holly Miller-Pollack, Shutterstock

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ON the WIRE

BRINGING BACK THE BIRDS

2018 Farm Bill a Bumper Crop of Good News for Birds

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ongress renewed the Farm Bill in December. This legislation boosts bird conservation in a big way, providing the United States’ single-largest source of funding for conservation on private lands and securing important habitat for more than 100 bird species.

The 2018 renewal ensures that conservation programs will continue or even be expanded, as is the case with the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP), which helps private landowners design and implement voluntary conservation solutions on their property. Through this program, ABC works with its Joint Venture partners to create habitat for the Golden-winged Warbler in the Great Lakes region and the Cerulean Warbler in Appalachia, among many

Exploring Migration and Preserving Birdscapes Throughout the Americas

other projects. Grassland birds and waterfowl are other beneficiaries.

“This Farm Bill marks a victory for birds and the conservation work of farmers and other private landowners. By utilizing the RCPP, we can better target conservation efforts to bird species most in need,” says Steve Holmer, Vice President of Policy for ABC. Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan led efforts to increase the RCPP and resist riders aimed at rolling back protections for birds and their habitat.

Other private lands conservation programs carried forward in the 2018 Farm Bill include the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQUIP).

A new book from American Bird Conservancy

Western Meadowlark by Michael J. Parr

This Farm Bill is also a success for what’s not in it: “The final agreement also dropped numerous harmful provisions affecting federal forests, endangered species, and dangerous pesticides that kill millions of birds each year,” adds Holmer.

AN IMPRINT OF MOUNTAINEERS BOOKS

The RCPP was created in the 2014 Farm Bill. Under the 2018 bill, RCPP funding has been increased to $300 million per year from $100 million.

GIFT of BIRD CONSERVATION Send the

North Sea Wind Energy Facilities Displace Loons

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ind energy can be a conservation concern because of the collision hazard turbines pose to birds and bats. Based on three peer-reviewed studies, ABC estimates that 1 million birds die annually from collisions with wind turbines.

1,210-square-mile protected marine reserve in the German North Sea. The study, published in February in the Journal of Environmental Management, determined that wind turbines inside or next to the reserve displaced birds from valuable habitat,

But in addition to direct threats from collision posed by turbines and towers, wind facilities also have indirect impacts on the habitat available to birds. Documenting these dangers is challenging. Bettina Mendel of Kiel University, Germany, and colleagues investigated how loons are being affected by a cluster of wind farms inside and around a

With spring in full bloom, now is an ideal time to gift an American Bird Conservancy membership to others.

A membership is the perfect gift for neighbors and friends, teachers and colleagues, and moms and dads!

With an ABC membership, recipients discover new birds and exciting conservation efforts that ABC and its partners take on with the goal of protecting all of the Western Hemisphere’s birds.

crowding them into remaining safe areas. The consequences of this displacement likely include increased stress, competition for resources, and, perhaps, increased mortality.

“We tend to only worry about individual collisions, but displacement can also have a long-term effect on bird populations,” says Holly Goyert, ABC’s Bird Smart Wind Campaign Director. ABC urges wind energy companies to adopt bird-smart practices, such as careful study, siting, monitoring, minimization, and mitigation.

Avid listers, backyard birders, conservationists, and animal lovers alike will enjoy supporting ABC programs and initiatives, while learning more about birds and how to save them.

See: abcbirds.org/program/ wind-energy-and-birds/

We’re pleased to extend our special

gift membership rate of only $30.

Your gift membership will include: • A personalized card to the recipient, acknowledging your gift.

• Three issues of Bird Conservation, our full-color magazine.

• Our annual report highlighting ABC’s accomplishments for birds.

• New species profiles weekly through our Bird of the Week email series.

• The knowledge that recipients are playing a part in real conservation efforts.

Gifting a membership is easy! Visit abcbirds.org/giftmembership or use the enclosed envelope.

Red-throated Loon by Ashok Khosla Indigo Bunting by Birds and Dragons, Shutterstock

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“We are grateful to State Parks for their cooperation and for moving swiftly to meet the requirements of the settlement,” says Grant Sizemore, ABC’s Director of Invasive Species Programs.

Up to 1 billion birds a year die in collisions with buildings in the United States alone. A 2014 study that appeared in The Condor found that the White-throated Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, Ovenbird, and Song Sparrow are among the birds most frequently killed by collisions with buildings, and that species of concern are also affected, including the Wood Thrush, Golden-winged Warbler, Canada Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, and Painted Bunting.

Hawai’i’s Most Populated Island Gets Seabird Surprise

In a study published in The Condor in February, the researchers describe monitoring 16 Oahu sites, two of which registered Newell’s Shearwater, or ‘A’o, calls, and another that recorded Hawaiian Petrel, or ‘Ua’u, calls. Repeated recordings at these sites seem to indicate regular visits, renewing hope that these birds — which had been considered extirpated from the island — may breed, or may someday breed, again on Oahu.

Ask your members of Congress to support this bill: abcbirds.org/action/ petition-bird-safe-buildings

A colony of 26 feral cats was removed from New York’s Jones Beach State Park by late December 2018. This effort put the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (New York State Parks) in full compliance with the settlement of ABC’s 2016 lawsuit alleging that New York State Parks violated the Endangered Species Act by allowing a feral cat colony to put at risk state-Endangered and federally Threatened Piping Plovers that nest in the park. The cats were trapped, examined by veterinarians, and relocated to cat sanctuaries.

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Newell’s Shearwater by Jack Jeffrey

Feral Cats Relocated from Jones Beach State Park

Lilacine Amazon by Michael Moens

Hawai’i’s two endemic seabirds, the IUCN-listed Critically Endangered Newell’s Shearwater and Endangered Hawaiian Petrel, were recorded in Oahu’s mountains after 200 years’ absence, thanks to automated acoustic recording devices strategically placed by researchers from Pacific Rim Conservation, an ABC partner.

ABC, Jocotoco, and Rainforest Trust are working to protect key roosting and nest sites and will soon launch campaigns that inform nearby communities about these rare birds and the need to protect them. The Loro Parque Foundation also supports research and educational efforts focused on this declining parrot.

Natural Resources Management Act Signed into Law Passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law in March, the Natural Resources Management Act advances many

Hopes Rise for Bahama Oriole Elevated to species status in 2011, the Critically Endangered Bahama Oriole is now confined to the Andros Islands complex within the Bahamas. Prior research only recorded this species nesting in coastal settlements, but a new study published in The Journal of Caribbean Ornithology in 2018, part of a collaboration between the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the Bahamas National Trust, yielded the first nesting records inside native pine forests widespread on the islands. Currently, the oriole’s population is estimated at fewer than 300 birds. This new research, partly funded by ABC, will likely help revise this figure upward.

Bahama Oriole by D. Belasco

U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) and Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA), along with 15 other co-sponsors, reintroduced the Bird-Safe Buildings Act in late January. This bipartisan proposal is designed to reduce bird mortality by calling for federal buildings to use bird-safe building materials, design features, and lighting.

Recently split from the Red-lored Amazon, the Endangered Lilacine Amazon is only found in the dry tropical forest and mangroves of western Ecuador, where five subpopulations are known. The largest population occurs near the town of Las Balsas. Patricio Reyes lives there and works with ABC’s Ecuadorian partner Fundación Jocotoco (Jocotoco). He is monitoring Lilacine Amazon roosting sites, and in February discovered the first four known nests of the species in his area. The nests were found in cavities in bototillo and kapok trees.

ABC Remembers David Pashley, Bird Conservation Pioneer

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n October 31, 2018, ABC’s friend and colleague David Pashley passed away following a long illness. A relentless advocate for bird conservation throughout the Western Hemisphere, David was also a master of inclusion with an incredible ability to forge partnerships. He leaves behind a tremendous conservation legacy.

David found his way to ABC 23 years ago, not long after the organization was founded. As Vice President for U.S. Conservation Partnerships, he helped greatly broaden the scope of bird conservation. For example, he worked tirelessly on the Joint Ventures (JVs), regional affiliations consisting of state and federal land-managing agencies and conservation-minded nonprofit organizations. Originally organized in the late 1980s to address declining waterfowl’s habitat needs, today there are 22 JVs, which focus on bird species of concern in nearly all native habitats, both wetland and terrestrial (see mbjv.org). David had an impact on virtually all of the JVs but was instrumental in creating seven.

Six JVs are now supported by ABC staff. These JVs alone have positively impacted well over 6 million acres of habitat for priority bird species.

David was also central to the development of two other important bird conservation initiatives: Partners in Flight (PIF) and the North American Bird Conservation Initiative (NABCI).

Today, PIF is the hemisphere’s largest bird conservation alliance, and NABCI works to integrate efforts of government agencies, conservation groups, and others

Photo by Daniel Lebbin

Bird-Safe Buildings Act Reintroduced

Piping Plovers by M. Filosa, Shutterstock

BIRDS in BRIEF

wildlife conservation and recreation initiatives. ABC applauds this victory for birds and public lands. It includes permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which supports the protection of federal public lands and waters, and reauthorizes the Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act (NMBCA), which provides direct conservation support for 386 bird species and their migration stopover and wintering habitats in Central and South America and the Caribbean. The Act also designates wilderness areas, monuments, and other public lands that will help conserve habitat for birds and other wildlife.

Nesting Confirmed for Key Lilacine Amazon Population

to achieve common objectives and advance issues such as bird monitoring and state and federal funding (see partnersinflight.org and nabci-us.org). David served as PIF’s first national coordinator and played a large role in the development of what we now call the Watch List, a quantitative approach for determining which U.S. bird species are most in need of conservation. Of course, many Watch List species migrate well south of the United States, and David also helped move the bird conservation community into full annual life cycle conservation. ABC’s Migratory Birds Program is largely a result of David’s tireless advocacy for Neotropical migrants and PIF, and uses the Watch List to guide our conservation efforts throughout the Western Hemisphere today, both inside and outside the Joint Venture framework.

Beyond his work, David was a beloved colleague, mentor, advisor, and friend. We at ABC are grateful for the time we spent with him, and will continue to advance his work to positively shape and inform conservation for years to come.

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n a stand of trees on a snow-dusted western Maryland ridgetop, Amanda Duren is talking about bird food.

But it’s not the relative merits of suet or sunflower seeds she’s discussing on this bracingly cold January day — it’s caterpillars.

TREES TO SEAS: Helping Nature Feed the Birds

“Caterpillars are a hugely important food source for Cerulean Warblers,” says Duren, ABC’s Appalachian Mountains Joint Venture (AMJV) Habitat Delivery Coordinator. Duren is referring to the sky-blue-backed songbirds that return in spring to breed in Appalachian forests around here. “Nestlings need protein to grow, and caterpillars are one of the best sources of protein. They make up more than half the food brought to the nest.”

Duren stands next to Shannon Farrell, a private lands forester with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Indiana University of Pennsylvania. They are both here to check out a project on private land that will help bolster caterpillar populations for the declining warbler and other insectivorous forest birds, including the Kentucky Warbler, Scarlet Tanager, and Yellowbilled Cuckoo. Their goal: To work with the landowner

to restore insect-rich oak and hickory forests that once dominated sites like this.

“Caterpillars have evolved alongside our native plants so that they can only eat a certain subset of host plants,” says Duren, “and White Oaks host more caterpillars than any other species of tree. Hickory is really high up there as well. From a bird-food perspective, we want to encourage this shift back to an oak-hickory-dominated forest.”

In places like this across the country, ABC partners with government agencies, other conservation groups, private landowners, and industry representatives to ensure carefully managed habitats — and thus healthy food supplies — are available for birds.

This work takes on many different forms, from restoring Appalachian forests, to encouraging bird-friendly cattlegrazing on the Great Plains, to promoting sustainable fishing practices on the high seas. While the overall goal is to help declining bird species, the projects have many other benefits, aiding not only other wildlife, but also frequently adding to local communities’ economic bottom lines.

Caterpillar by Ziga Camernik, Shutterstock

Managing for Caterpillars in Appalachian Forests

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pring seems like a distant dream on the frozen, windswept ridgetop. In fact, the warblers Duren, Farrell, and their colleagues aim to help are wintering far away in northern South America, plucking caterpillars from glossy leaves in forested foothills of the Andes.

By the acre or by the league, optimizing habitats can boost birds’ diets, and local economies as well.

By Mark Cheater

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While the birds are away, chainsaws are at play. A logging crew has nearly finished loading a long, staked truck trailer with 12-foot logs, ready to take to the nearby paper mill.

Branches, brush, and sawdust litter the ground, presided over by a stand of remaining oaks, which reach into the cold blue sky.

How will tree-cutting help this forest grow? “It seems counter-intuitive to use tree harvests to create old-growth forest conditions, but that’s what we’re doing,” says Duren. “We’re

Cerulean Warbler by Ray Hennessy, Shutterstock

basically re-creating natural disturbances like wildfires, windstorms, and gaps caused by falling trees.

We’re doing what Mother Nature would have done over 200 years, but we’re doing it faster.” The crew has removed maple and birch trees, opening up the forest canopy to make room for oak and hickory seedlings, which need sunlight to grow.

This Cerulean Warbler conservation work is part of a collaborative effort among AMJV and ABC, Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources, Maryland Natural Resources Conservation Service, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and the Allegany Soil Conservation District — working with the landowner and a local paper company’s logging crew.

The aftermath of the morning’s work might not look pretty, but soon

— perhaps within a few growing seasons — this tract will host a healthier population of caterpillars, and hopefully nesting and foraging sites for birds currently wintering 2,000 miles south of here.

Cerulean Warblers prefer to nest in large tracts of mature forest, both in uplands and along river valleys and stream courses. These habitats must have a mix of tall, leafy trees and sun-dappled openings in the canopy, helping the birds hide their cupshaped nests, while providing plenty of food.

Unfortunately, history has not been kind to the type of forests Ceruleans favor. Most old-growth Appalachian forests were cut more than two centuries ago, Farrell explains. Then, much of the cleared land was tilled and turned to pasture or row crops.

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correct,” says ABC’s Golden-winged Warbler Private Lands Coordinator Kevin Sheppard. Sheppard works with private landowners in northern Minnesota, a state that provides breeding grounds for roughly half of the remaining Golden-winged Warbler population.

There are additional benefits to this forest restoration work. Back in the Maryland forest, the collaborative

effort will not only produce more caterpillars for birds — the growing oaks will also provide acorns, an important protein-rich food source for more than 100 other wildlife species, including Wild Turkeys and Black Bears. And the sustainably cut trees will provide a valuable crop of greenbacks for the landowner, who will get paid for the logs, but also will receive a cost-share payment from

NRCS to compensate for the value of the trees left behind.

“There are so many benefits to doing this type of management,” says Duren. “The landowner sees benefits, we see benefits not just for birds but all kinds of wildlife, and then the local economic impact of having this paper company sourcing its wood locally in a way that’s sustainable is really important, too.”

Grasshopper by happymay, Shutterstock

Giving Grassland Birds a Home on the Range

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The Golden-winged Warbler overlaps with the Cerulean Warbler

otanically diverse native grasslands, or prairies, once covered hundreds of millions of acres in America’s heartland. This sea of grass and forbs directly and indirectly fed an abundance of wildlife.

Enormous herds of American Bison and Pronghorn antelope flourished, and so did millions of nesting birds, nourished by a bounty of seeds and

a rich assortment of invertebrates, including grasshoppers, beetles, spiders, and ants. Once-common and now-declining bird species included the Sprague’s Pipit, Lark Bunting, Baird’s Sparrow, and Chestnutcollared Longspur, for which invertebrates constitute a significant part of their diet, especially during the spring and summer breeding season.

But 97 percent of our tallgrass prairie and 47 percent of our Great Plains native grasslands have been lost in the past two centuries. As the prairie vanished, so did many native food sources, and many grassland bird populations. According to the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, six species of grassland-breeding birds, including the pipit, bunting,

in much of its breeding range, but nests in brush-and-thicket habitats. There, too, robust insect populations are key.

Some forests re-grew, but landowners doused wildfires that formerly created forest gaps, cut the large oaks and other commercially valuable trees, and unwittingly or intentionally introduced invasive exotic plants, animals, and diseases, many of which spread rapidly, including devastating chestnut blight.

to the south, the Cerulean Warbler population dropped by about 70 percent over the past 50 years.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) now lists the species as Vulnerable, while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) considers it a Species of Concern.

Generations of these practices — along with other challenges such as the deer population explosion and, likely, climate change — resulted in a dramatic shift in the composition of remaining Appalachian forests.

In the Appalachians and in the Central Hardwoods region, ABC and its Joint Venture partners aim to improve Cerulean Warbler habitat.

Strategies vary by site. In some places, fencing keeps deer from mowing down precious hardwood seedlings.

At other sites, herbicide applications may be necessary to keep invasive

Losing both mature forests in the East and Andean wintering habitat

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plants like nonnative honeysuckles and Autumn Olive from taking over the forest. And, over time, former surface mines are being transformed from something like a moonscape back into forest (see sidebar p. 13).

At some of the same restoration sites, another declining warbler benefits from boosted food supplies, only far sooner. The Golden-winged Warbler overlaps with the Cerulean in much of its breeding range, but nests in brush-and-thicket early successional habitats. There, too, robust insect populations are key. “I had one landowner say, ‘Oh, you’re not managing for warblers, you’re managing for caterpillars.’ And he was 100 percent

Golden-winged Warbler by Eugene Koziara

For Old Mines, New Life

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lat-topped, choked with weeds, and devoid of trees, old Appalachian surface mines look like the worst possible place for forest-loving birds. But the Appalachian Mountains Joint Venture (AMJV) is taking on the challenge of turning these wastelands into havens for warblers. AMJV, through its partner Green Forests Work (GFW), is trying to restore several thousand acres of this land in Kentucky and Ohio by returning it to native hardwood forest, particularly in areas where reforestation joins large tracts of existing forest.

Kentucky native Kylie Schmidt is coordinating this effort for GFW, and for her, the work is personal. She grew up in coal country, frequently hiking in the woods as a child. “Inevitably, I would pop up on a surface mine, and it was like stepping onto a moonscape. I remember thinking, ‘This isn’t right!’”

The work to restore these sites poses many challenges: weedy plants must be removed, compacted soil must be tilled with large ‘ripping shanks’ towed by bulldozers, then hundreds of oaks, chestnuts, and other native species must be planted.

With all the equipment and labor involved, it costs about $1,500 per acre to reforest an old surface mine. “It’s incredibly expensive, and that’s why people aren’t doing it themselves,” says Schmidt. AMJV tries to work with private landowners, often families that leased the land for mining decades ago and now want it restored.

It will likely be decades before Cerulean Warblers return to these sites. “It’s definitely a long-term approach,” says Schmidt. But there are many benefits in the meantime.

Tilling and replanting native vegetation reduces erosion and runoff, improving water quality. The growing trees help improve air quality and capture carbon. And the young forests benefit Golden-winged Warblers and many other species.

— Mark Cheater

Yellow-breasted Chats inhabit the shrubby early stage of forest regeneration. Photo by Tessa Nickels

Sardine by Walter Bilotta, Shutterstock

sparrow, and longspur, have declined between 68 and 91 percent.

Cheryl Mandich, ABC’s Northern Plains Conservation Coordinator, is working with landowners to enhance habitat for grassland birds, efforts that help to optimize their food options. She works with landowners in the Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming — the heart of grassland bird breeding territory.

Sometimes Mandich’s work involves finding funding to plant native grasses and flowers on former cropland. Bringing back a mix of native plant species helps restore the birds’ preferred breeding habitat and diet.

“But native plantings [on this scale] are very expensive and they take two or three years to establish,” says Mandich. “So ranchers lose those pastures for two or three years, and loss of grazing lands affects their livelihoods.”

So, more often, Mandich encourages ranchers to practice rotational grazing, moving cattle from one pasture to another at different seasons to create a patchwork of grass heights that promotes plant diversity, which in turn provides habitat for a multitude of insects. “Grasslands evolved with bison grazing,” she points out.

“Bison go in and graze an area and then they move on, and they might not come back for a while. And that’s how these grassland birds evolved.”

Rotational grazing creates a patchwork of grass heights that promotes plant diversity, which in turn provides habitat for a multitude of insects.

Monarch butterfly by Vladimirkarp, Shutterstock

This patchwork approach boosts overall biodiversity. “What it does, especially for wildlife and grassland birds, is give you some pastures that are grazed a little heavier, some maybe not as much, and some that aren’t touched,” she adds. “So you have that variety of plant structure.”

In addition to different heights, rotational grazing can also affect the types of plants in a pasture. “If a pasture is grazed very heavily year after year, the cattle will go after their favorite species. So you’re going to see a reduction in plant species, such as grasses and forbs. But if you start moving livestock around, those species will typically come back.”

Cattle can also be used to target some of the non-native plant species that crowd out native grasses and provide less value to birds and other wildlife. “I work with a landowner

who’s using cattle to control a noxious weed, Canada Thistle,” Mandich says. “He moves his livestock to pastures when Canada Thistle is pretty fresh, like in May, and the cattle will actually target it. It’s high in protein.”

Mandich says that over the past four years, the rancher’s new grazing practices, including targeting noxious weeds, helped increase bird diversity on his land. “We’ve seen some birds come in that I haven’t seen there before, like Bobolink,” she says.

Not only do sustainably managed grazing lands help ensure a better diet for birds — they also provide better and more reliable forage for livestock. And what benefits livestock also benefits ranchers.

“We always have to keep in mind that this is their livelihood,” says Mandich, who grew up in a Michigan farming community. She and ABC see sustainable ranchers as important partners in conservation in many open areas. “If we lose the ranchers and they sell out, you run the risk of the ranch being bought and turned into something else,” says Mandich. “Keeping the ‘green side up’ helps to ensure we have habitat for grassland birds, insects, and other wildlife species.”

Tallgrass prairie in Kansas; Dickcissel on fence in foreground. Photo by Cindy Tsutsumi

Seafood: Saving a Third for the Birds

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nsects and seeds are a dietary staple for many land birds, but marine birds dine on the fruits of the sea. Seabirds use a variety of tactics to pursue different marine prey, but many of these birds focus on small “forage fish” species, including anchovy, herring, sardine, and capelin.

In the same way that Cerulean Warblers rely on caterpillars, seabirds — including puffins, penguins, auklets, and murres — depend on oily, protein-rich forage fish to keep their chicks healthy and growing.

Hannah Nevins has first-hand knowledge of the importance of forage fish to seabirds. Nevins, ABC’s Seabird Program Director, spent two summers on islands in the Gulf of Alaska, working with government scientists to study the diets of Tufted and Horned Puffins and Rhinoceros Auklets.

Tufted Puffins — small diving birds with bright orange bills and feet, white eye masks, and distinctive head plumes — nest in colonies along the North Pacific coast. In the breeding season, they plunge into the chilly ocean water to hunt for sand lance or “sand eels,” which they line up cross-wise in their chunky bills before flying them back to their chicks. “In a good year, the chicks’ diet will be 90 to 95 percent sand eels and other forage fish, and the eels will be almost the exact same size,” says Nevins.

But in a bad year, like 1997-1998, when El Niño-warmed waters wreaked havoc on the North Pacific ecosystem, the staple of the puffins’ diet was hard to find. “The puffins were bringing back anything — shrimp, octopus, tonguefish…totally weird stuff. They were working really

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TOP: Chestnut-collared Longspur by William Leaman /Alamy Stock Photo

hard and scraping to get by with anything they could find,” she recalls. “We saw a lot of chick mortality.”

The researchers witnessed other forage fish feeders struggling, including kittiwakes and fulmars. “It was doom and gloom out there.”

Nevins obviously can’t stop El Niño events, nor create more forage fish. But she can do something about another threat to seabirds: overfishing. There’s a huge global demand for seafood products, not just for direct human consumption, but for products such as nutritional supplements and animal feed, Nevins points out. Many commercial fisheries target herring, anchovies, sardines, and other forage fish upon which seabirds rely.

A 2011 study published in Science looked at the connection between forage fish abundance and seabird breeding success in seven ecosystems around the world. The authors found that when fish numbers dropped below one-third of their maximum, seabirds suffered. Sometimes a dangerous drop in forage fish is caused by a natural event, such as the El Niño effect that Nevins witnessed. But often it is caused by overfishing, especially when fishing occurs near seabird colonies during the breeding season.

The Science paper helped spur the “Save a Third for Birds” approach, which was adopted by ABC and other conservation groups. When fisheries organizations set annual quotas for forage fish harvests, ABC urges them to leave at least a third of those

fish in the ocean for seabirds and other wildlife. “You’ve got to take a precautionary approach to fisheries management where you realize that a third of the biomass is needed to sustain the ongoing functioning of that ecosystem and all the species that are dependent on it,” says Nevins.

Consumers can help support “Save a Third for Birds” by only buying seafood with the Marine Stewardship Council’s “blue fish” label, Nevins points out (see: msc.org). “ABC also makes recommendations to fishers to adopt techniques to reduce the likelihood that birds will accidentally be caught on lines or in nets,” she says.

Whether it’s fish for seabirds, grasshoppers for grassland birds, or caterpillars for forest birds, ABC and its partners’ bird conservation work often enhances essential food options for birds — wherever possible, in ways that benefit other wildlife and local communities as well. In such win-win situations, what’s good for the birds benefits us all.

Mark Cheater is a writer, editor, and photographer who lives in Greenbelt, Maryland.

TOP: Tufted Puffin by Robin Corcoran

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ore than a mile above the distant Pacific, an emerald mantle of cloud forest cloaks the undulating Andes in northern Peru. Spanning close to 25,000 acres of lush terrain, the Abra Patricia Reserve is one of the only places on the planet sheltering the diminutive Long-whiskered Owlet, the leggy Ochrefronted Antpitta, the orange-headed Johnson’s TodyFlycatcher, and an all-blue hummingbird known as the Royal Sunangel.

Woolly Monkey and the Spectacled Bear, plus a dazzling array of orchids, tropical trees, butterflies and moths, reptiles, amphibians, and much more.

Going Where the Birds Are ABC’s first land protection project outside the United States was the creation of El Carricito Reserve in Mexico in 1998. There, 24,710 acres of highland pine-oak forest were protected via a conservation easement with our partner Bosque Antiguo and the Huichol indigenous community (see site 1, p. 18). The following year, the reserve was expanded by 922 acres. This reserve protects important habitat for the Military Macaw, which IUCN lists as Vulnerable, and the Eared Quetzal.

All four species are relatively new to science, described in the 1970s or later. Established by ABC and its Peruvian partner ECOAN in 2005, the Abra Patricia Reserve was created to save these and other species and to protect watersheds vital to surrounding communities (see site 5, p. 18). Now the reserve also anchors ecotourism in the region, while Saving the rarest birds providing a shining example of how conservation inspired the creation of is one of ABC’s core additional protected areas among surrounding communities. principles — an important

Celebrating a Million-Acre

MILESTONE As ABC approaches its 25th anniversary, we are celebrating a reserve network that now protects more than 1 million acres of bird habitat for many of our hemisphere’s rarest species.

by Daniel Lebbin

In some cases, reserves can be small, yet play a huge role in saving a species. In brush-covered hills in southern Ecuador, Yunguilla Reserve is an island of wild habitat surrounded by arid lands degraded by over-grazing goats and agriculture. Between 2004 Through collaboration with more part of conserving all birds and 2014, ABC helped Fundación than 30 partner organizations like in the Americas.

Jocotoco (Jocotoco) purchase eight ECOAN, ABC has protected 1,053,879 tracts here totaling 321 acres, inacres of bird habitat at more than cluding some of the first acreage.

90 sites in 15 countries across the This land is essential to the survival of the highly localWestern Hemisphere. The Abra Patricia Reserve is just ized Pale-headed Brushfinch (see site 4, p. 18). Without one of these, like a sparkling gem in a glittering crown it, this cream-and-caramel-colored songbird would have of protected areas that ABC and its partners have no safe refuge and likely would have gone extinct. Insecured for birds. These sites provide homes for 2,900 stead, today the bird’s future looks bright: The reserve bird species — including 38 percent of the International has grown to 484 acres, habitat is being restored, and Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red-Listed the brushfinch’s population is expanding beyond the Endangered and Critically Endangered species in the reserve’s boundaries.

Americas, including, for example, the robust and rare Bay-breasted Cuckoo on Hispaniola and the dazzling Seven-colored Tanager, found only in Brazil’s remaining Atlantic Forest (see sites 2 and 6, p. 18).

Saving the rarest birds is one of ABC’s core principles — an important part of conserving all birds in the Americas. Put together, these protected lands approach the size of Delaware, but when it comes to dwindling species, careful land selection and protection matters more than overall size.

These lands are important for more than just birds. At Abra Patricia, the umbrella provided by protecting four uber-rare species benefits more than 200 additional bird species, as well as the Critically Endangered Yellow-tailed

The Royal Sunangel is known only from a handful of sites in northern Peru and southern Ecuador.

Photo by Carlos Calle Quispe TOP: Abra Patricia Reserve, a verdant example of how strong partnerships can protect rare birds and their habitats. Photo by Fundación ProAves

Abra Patricia, El Carricito, and Yunguilla are just a few highlights among the million acres ABC and our partners have protected. If you look at the map on page 19, you will see that these protected sites pepper the Americas.

But their locations are not random. In fact, it is easy to quickly spot some patterns: Much of ABC’s land protection work has been focused in regions like the Andes and eastern Brazil — areas with high concentrations of endangered and endemic birds.

ABC and our partners are highly strategic in finding and securing reserves. Over the years, a priority has been protecting Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE) sites — last (continued p. 21)

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1

2

MEXICO El Carricito Reserve

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Loma Charco Azul Reserve

Total Area: 25,632 acres

Total Area: 43,042 acres

Partner: Bosque Antiguo

Partner: SOH Conservación

Focal Species: Eared Quetzal

White-necked Jacobin by Tim Zurowski, Shutterstock

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Focal Species: Bay-breasted Cuckoo

Greg Homel, Natural Elements Productions

2 Cesar Abrill

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COLOMBIA El Dorado Reserve

ECUADOR Yunguilla Reserve Total Area: 484 acres Partner: Fundación Jocotoco Focal Species: Pale-headed Brushfinch

Total Area: 2,211 acres Partner: Fundación ProAves Focal Species: Santa Marta Parakeet Murray Cooper

Francisco Sornoza

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PERU Abra Patricia Reserve Total Area: 24,783 acres Partner: ECOAN Focal Species: Long-whiskered Owlet Alan Van Norman

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ABC’s Reserve Network Partnering to Save the Western Hemisphere’s Rarest Birds

BRAZIL Serra do Urubu (RPPN Pedra D’Anta) Total Area: 464 acres Partner: SAVE Brasil Focal Species: Seven-colored Tanager

4 5 6 7

Ciro Albano

7 BOLIVIA Barba Azul Nature Reserve Total Area: 26,459 acres Partner: Asociación Armonía Focal Species: Blue-throated Macaw

site of an ABC reserve

Daniel Alarcon, Asociación Armonía

Military Macaws by Vaclav Volrab, Shutterstock

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Keel-billed Toucan by buteo, Shutterstock

refugia for Endangered and Critically Endangered species with 95 percent or more of their population at one site.

Ecuador’s Pale-headed Brushfinch is one such example. ABC also targets many other sites where imperiled bird species are now confined to scattered habitat fragments (rather than a single site), as is the case for the Orangebellied Antwren and Seven-colored Tanager in the few remaining patches of Atlantic Forest in northeast Brazil.

Overall, 71 percent of the acreage ABC helped to protect lies in South America and 24 percent is in Mexico and Central America — reflecting critically important real estate for rapidly declining, isolated bird species. Though they make up but a small fraction of the total, 4,401 acres sit within the United States at seven sites, including Tucson Audubon’s Paton Center for Hummingbirds and lands within the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri. (Watch this space for a future article on millions more acres managed, but not acquired, for birds by ABC and our partners.)

ABC does not prefer one tactic or another, but uses the most appropriate methods determined by the land tenure practices where the birds are.

Some of our partners, like Fundación ProAves (ProAves) in Colombia and Jocotoco in Ecuador, specialize in protecting private lands through land acquisition, whereas our Peruvian partner ECOAN does this in addition to protecting public lands and working with communities to help them to protect their indigenous territory.

Land tenure and protection laws vary by country, and this can proLand tenure and vide both challenges and opportunities for conservation. Brazilian law, protection laws vary by for example, provides tax incentives country, and this can for private landowners who protect a portion of their land as permanent provide both challenges reserves called Private Natural Heriand opportunities for tage Reserves, or RPPNs. All of the private land we buy with partners in conservation.

Brazil is ultimately registered under this designation. This also presents Kaempfer’s Woodpecker by Tulio Dernas a huge opportunity in Brazil to work with private landowners to protect land without buying it, or by providing financial incentives that cost less than the full price of the land. Our partner Aquasis has done Varied Game Plans for Bird-Rich this successfully to encourage protection of habitat for Real Estate Gray-breasted Parakeets. This year, we are looking into In order to protect birds where they are, we need providing financial incentives to a private landowner to multiple methods for protection at the ready. protect part of his land as an RPPN for the Kaempfer’s Woodpecker, which was rediscovered in central Brazil in One option is buying land directly. Challenges can in2006, 80 years after the first confirmed bird was collected. clude tricky negotiations. Landowner price expectations By working in partnership with the local organization Invary widely, and landowners can change their minds. stituto Araguaia, we have more confidence that the forest While sellers frequently want to settle quickly, it can protected within the RPPN will not only be respected, but take six months or more for ABC to acquire the necessary will also be monitored as part of a larger wildlife conserfunds from multiple donors to seal a deal. vation project in the area.

Although 79 percent of individual land tracts ABC has Sometimes multiple methods of land protection are helped protect were purchased, the majority of the acreneeded to build a single reserve. This is what happened at age we protect — 78 percent — was not acquired, but Peru’s Abra Patricia Reserve. ABC and ECOAN protected rather protected via easements, conservation concesa total of 24,783 acres at Abra Patricia between 2007 and sions, or other legal means without our partners owning 2018 through a complex arrangement of 42 private land the land. acquisitions and the creation of an additional 40-year The Endangered Gold-ringed Tanager and some 250 other bird species conservation concession on neighboring public lands.

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find refuge at the Tangaras Reserve, established in 2009 by ABC and Colombian partner Fundación ProAves. Photo by Christopher Becerra, Shutterstock

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Many, but not yet all, of the private lands acquired have already been registered as a Private Conservation Area (PCA) within the system of national protected areas in Peru.

Abra Patricia was a great step forward for conservation in northern Peru and has since become a springboard to protect much more. Funds spent by ABC and ECOAN protecting lands there helped ABC to raise additional funding for conservation projects with neighboring communities. ECOAN has planted more than 1 million trees and shade-coffee bushes in northern Peru inside or near Abra Patricia with funding mostly secured through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act grant program, which requires three dollars in non-federal funding to match every dollar this program provides. Consequently, this engagement inspired participating communities to create their own reserves and register these as PCAs. (The area is winter home to species such as Canada and Blackburnian Warblers and Swainson’s Thrush.)

In 2018, ABC and ECOAN celebrated the approval of two new PCAs close to Abra Patricia, totaling 46,272 acres — almost twice the area of the Abra Patricia Reserve and protecting many of the same endangered birds. ABC is now fundraising to support management of these new conservation areas to sustain these successes.

Ensuring That Reserves Protect Birds Sustaining and managing reserves is a long-term undertaking. Declaring a reserve is just the beginning of this commitment. To ensure reserves are more than just lines on a map, guards and land managers must be hired and well-trained. These staff deter poachers, settlers, and other trespassers who may want to remove timber, clear vegetation, or hunt wildlife.

They also maintain trails and nest boxes, monitor wildlife populations, and work with neighboring communities so the reserves’ purpose and value are understood and respected. Some reserves require even more active management, including habitat restoration, fire control, or other interventions to help the birds that live there thrive or recover from past threats. In turn, on-site staff need housing, appliances, equipment, and in some cases, vehicles.

Ongoing management of protected lands costs money.

ABC works with our partners to ensure sustainability and management of protected lands, and to strengthen our partner institutions themselves. In a growing number of cases, we are working with partners to develop innovative ways for reserves to generate income to pay for management. For example, ABC is grateful to many donors who have supported us, enabling us and our partners to build birding lodges and research stations at our reserves.

New to science in 1976, the Ochre-fronted Antpitta now thrills birders at Abra Patricia Reserve. Photo by Carlos Calle Quispe

Other income-generating enterprises under development include sustainable cattle ranching at Barba Azul Nature Reserve in Bolivia. In this stunning savanna dotted with palm islands, ABC and our partner Asociación Armonía (Armonía) protect the Critically Endangered Blue-throated Macaw and myriad other wildlife (see site 7, p. 18).

conservation action that prevented these forests from succumbing to an expanding agricultural frontier, the future looks bright for these species. They have emerged from obscurity to regularly delight visiting birders, who contribute to the reserve’s upkeep by staying at Owlet Lodge and walking the reserve’s forested trails.

Bird-fueled Conservation

ABC and our partners are proud of the habitats we protect for birds and are enormously grateful to all of the supporters and donors who helped achieve our millionacre milestone. Together, we keep working hard to locate and protect prime habitats for dwindling bird species.

Back in Peru, Abra Patricia is a great example of how a birding lodge can help generate funds to pay for management. ABC worked with ECOAN to build the Owlet Lodge and a research center; accommodation fees paid by visitors support the reserve. Today, visitors to the 12-room lodge enjoy a network of trails, hummingbird feeders, and a canopy tower. The lodge and its reserve, in turn, are a key stop along the Northern Peru Birding Route and have inspired others in the region to conserve habitat and set up feeding stations for hummingbirds and wood-quail, as well as observation towers and other amenities for birders. Owlet Lodge now earns enough through tourism to cover ECOAN’s costs to manage the reserve, making Abra Patricia one of the best examples in our network of a self-sufficient reserve.

Beyond staffing and sustainability, we rely on community support to protect our reserves and their birds. Being a good neighbor is an ABC priority, and by reaching out to nearby communities, we gain increased public support of these special places, and more eyes on the ground. For instance, several years ago, a bulldozer was discovered testing the boundaries of the El Dorado Reserve, which is managed by ABC’s partner ProAves in Colombia (see site 3, p. 18). The local community and police from the nearby town of Minca came to the assistance of ProAves to help stop this incursion. And in Bolivia, ABC and Armonía established a regional awareness campaign that helped curb illegal trade in the endemic and Critically Endangered Red-fronted Macaw, which travels between protected nesting sites and unprotected foraging areas.

From the Shadows to a Bright Future Birds threatened by habitat loss can be protected into the future by reserves large and small. Think back to the misty wilderness of Abra Patricia, where until the 1970s, four of the endemic species the reserve protects — the owlet, the antpitta, the tody-flycatcher, and the sunangel — remained unknown to science. Thanks to timely

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Daniel Lebbin is ABC’s Vice President of Threatened Species.

ABC is grateful to the many donors who have provided major support to our reserves, including: Anonymous (3) • Amazon Conservation Association • Amos Butler Audubon • Beneficia Foundation • BirdLife International • blue moon fund • Kathleen Burger and Glen Gerada • Conservation International • Warren and Cathy Cooke • David and Patricia Davidson • Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund • Richard and Nancy Eales • The Moses Feldman Family Foundation • Regina B. Frankenberg Foundation • Jonathan Franzen • Robert Giles and Ana Contreras • Global Conservation Fund • David Harrison and Joyce Millen • Joan Hero • Inter-American Development Bank • IUCN National Committee of The Netherlands • Jeniam Foundation • Catherine C. Ledec • Jim Macaleer • MacArthur Foundation • Noel Mann • March Conservation Fund • The Marshall-Reynolds Foundation • Missouri Department of Conservation • Elisha Mitchell Audubon • Mitsubishi Corporation Foundation for the Americas • Leo Model Foundation • Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation • John V. Moore • National Fish and Wildlife Foundation • New Venture Fund • Benjamin Olewine • Osa Conservation • The Frank E. and Seba P. Payne Foundation • Quick Response Fund for Nature at RESOLVE • Rainforest Trust • Southern Wings • Jennifer Speers • Swarovski Optik • Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency • Larry Thompson • Tropical Forest Forever Fund at Gulf Coast Bird Observatory • U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service • Weeden Foundation • Western Alliance for Nature • The Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust • Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources • Constance and Jeff Woodman • World Land Trust • World Land Trust - US • The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund

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One Snapshot of the Million-Acre Network

TAPICHALACA RESERVE As our small group carefully navigated the slippery, winding trail through the misty forest, all sorts of avian treasures appeared from the shadows: Grass-green Tanager, Gray-breasted OR

D

A CU

Mountain-Toucan, White-throated Quail-Dove….

Finally, the park guards guiding us stopped at a point in the trail. One opened a tin, pulling

E

out a few earthworms, which he then dropped on the side of the trail. We settled in to wait for the star of the show.

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PE

Within seconds, an ash-colored Chestnut-naped Antpitta slipped out of the dense undergrowth and began to gobble worms. Then as fast as it appeared, it vanished,

replaced by a larger bird that bounded into view on long blue-gray legs. Black crown, rusty eye, bold white “moustache” — the Jocotoco Antpitta! What a thrill to see so easily this large, secretive, and super-rare bird, and on the same trail where it was discovered just 22 years ago!

— Gemma Radko, ABC Communications and Media Manager

T

he 1997 discovery of the Jocotoco Antpitta sparked a series of events that would forever change conservation in Ecuador. Ten months after the sighting, ABC’s Ecuadorian partner Fundación Jocotoco (Jocotoco) was founded and the Tapichalaca Reserve created to protect this and many other globally threatened birds. Now, birders enjoy visiting the antpittas and their habitat, while helping to support further protections here and elsewhere.

Other Wildlife: The reserve is part of an important corridor for populations of Andean Tapir, Spectacled Bear, Puma, Andean Coati, and a large, spotted, nubtailed rodent called the Mountain Paca.

Overview: Tapichalaca is situated in the Andes a bit east of the Continental Divide. It adjoins the southern extremity of Podocarpus National Park and sits just north of the Peruvian border, making it an integral part of a significant conservation corridor in southern Ecuador.

This cloud forest reserve ranges in altitude from 6,500 to 11,000 feet. Over 16 feet of rain falls annually in this zone, compared to a typical 6.5 feet in Ecuador’s lowland Amazon forest.

Support: The 1997 discovery of the Jocotoco Antpitta sparked the creation of both the reserve and Fundación Jocotoco itself, which now administers 12 reserves around the country. ABC worked with Jocotoco to purchase 2,754 of the reserve’s 8,305 acres and has also supported tourism, management, parakeet nest boxes, and reforestation on degraded lands at this reserve.

Birds: This is the only place in the world where birders can expect to see the Jocotoco Antpitta. Among the other rare, range-restricted species found here: the Bearded Guan, Golden-plumed Parakeet, and White-necked Parakeet. Additional birds of interest include the Rufouscapped Thornbill, Ocellated Tapaculo, and Masked Mountain-Tanager.

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Adult and immature Jocotoco Antpittas by Greg Homel, Natural Elements Productions

Amenities: The reserve has a comfortable lodge, called Casa Simpson, which sits a short hike from trails leading to antpittas, parakeets, and mixed feeding flocks including many tanagers.

Insider Tips: Bring rain gear; you will be very lucky if it doesn’t rain. And, of course, get up early: Each morning at 6 a.m., the Jocotoco Antpitta reveals itself, hopping into view from the dense foliage to snap up worms placed on the ground by a guard.

To visit Tapichalaca, contact JocoTours: info@jocotoursecuador.com To read more: Visit conservationbirding.org and search Tapichalaca

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NEW EYES on WILDLIFE 5 4 3

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by Howard Youth

Camera Traps and Web Cams Reveal Wildlife Secrets

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ueled by curiosity and a can-do attitude, former U.S. Congressman George Shiras rigged a camera and explosive magnesium-powder flash to string and rope trip lines, capturing what’s likely the first-ever remote-activated wildlife photos. This breakthrough occurred in the early

1900s. Today, tiny infrared motion sensors, compact flashes, and digital technology allow modern camera traps to keep an unblinking eye on shy wildlife. Video camera technology is also advanced and miniaturized.

Producing both stills and video, day or night, camera traps are now essential equipment for conservationists monitoring — or trying to locate — rare, elusive species. They’re also handy all-seeing eyes that catch poachers or marauding introduced predators in action. Readily available and inexpensive, camera traps also thrill backyard wildlife aficionados, while web cams bring wildlife to the masses.

On these pages, we share but a few examples of the wildlife secrets revealed by these versatile, quickly improving cameras.

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1 A team of British and Peruvian scientists documenting the unique flora and fauna of Peru’s Cerros del Sira range relied upon 22 carefully placed camera traps to find skittish species, including the first-ever camera-trap footage of the Critically Endangered, 3-foot-tall Sira Curassow in 2015.

ABC supported Exploration Sira, providing funding for field equipment and other expedition costs.

Photo by Exploration Sira

2 The first-ever Harpy Eagle Cam in 2017 transmitted rare footage from a camera rigged 90 feet up in a massive rainforest tree. Put online by Rainforest Expeditions and the focus of a nesting behavior study by San Diego Zoo Global and Wired Amazon, it followed the progress of a Harpy Eagle nest at Tambopata, Peru.

From late June to December, a downy white hatchling gradually transformed into a full-sized immature bird, taking her first flights from the nest. She

flourished on a parent-supplied diet of howler and squirrel monkeys, sloths, and other prey.

Photo by Rainforest Expeditions

3

Even though it looks like a gaudy jungle roadrunner, the Rufous-vented Ground-Cuckoo is very hard to find and poorly known. Enter a camera trap, set up in the Peruvian Amazon

by Renzo Piana of the Amazon Conservation Association and his colleagues.

This image is part of a series that documents — for the first time — this species following a Collared Peccary.

(Ground-cuckoos were already known to follow White-lipped Peccaries, which travel in larger herds.)

This large cuckoo tails peccaries as they root around on the forest floor, stirring up insects and other small creatures, as well as fallen fruits.

The bird’s alarm calls possibly alert peccaries to predators.

Photo by Amazon Conservation Association

4 A camera trap rigged by a 13-year-old at his Nicaragua home captured this bird’s-eye view of a Great Kiskadee visiting a bird bath.

Resident from southern Texas to central Argentina, this boldly colored flycatcher catches the attention of birders and non-birders alike.

Camera traps provide backyard naturalists the chance, day or night, to record sightings of birds and other wildlife neighbors they otherwise might miss.

Photo by Thomas Youth

5

A feral cat drags an adult Hawaiian Petrel from its nest burrow. Cats are a persistent threat to this and other rare, slowly reproducing seabirds.

ABC and its partners in Hawai’i rely upon camera traps to alert them to the presence of introduced predators, including cats, rats, and mongooses.

Such footage helps them to site locations for active management, knowing, for example, where to install predator-free enclosures.

Photo by Kaua'i Endangered Seabird Recovery Project

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6 “Atlantic Puffins like you’ve never seen them” might be a tagline for this web cam, which takes viewers to Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge in Maine, directly inside a puffin nesting site. The background chorus of fussing terns is occasionally punctuated by the puffin’s moaning call, which sounds like a far-off chainsaw or a lowing cow. Atlantic Puffins lay one white egg, which both parents take turns incubating for up to 30 hours at a stretch.

Atlantic Puffin by Eric Isselee, Shutterstock

Tiny infrared motion sensors, compact flashes, and digital technology allow modern camera traps to keep an unblinking eye

Another web cam covers a “loafing ledge,” where the birds congregate.

Seal Island is one of the sites where the National Audubon Society’s Project Puffin has supported the return of Atlantic Puffins to islands off the coast of Maine.

Photo by explore.org

on shy wildlife.

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7 Known in Spanish as oso hormiguero gigante, or giant ant bear, the Giant Anteater roams both grassland and forest, flicking its 2-foot-long tongue to gather up to 30,000 ants and termites a day.

This adult and its young were snapped in Bolivia at the Barba Azul Nature Reserve via a camera trap set by a visiting Glasgow University team, there to survey the reserve’s wildlife.

Among the other photogenic species caught in action: Puma, Pampas Cat, Ocelot, Marsh Deer, and Maned Wolf.

Barba Azul Nature Reserve is run by Asociación Armonía (Armonía), ABC’s Bolivian partner. In 2008, ABC helped Armonía create the Barba Azul Nature Reserve to reverse the decline of the Critically Endangered Bluethroated Macaw and to restore the once-degraded landscape. In 2014, ABC and other supporters helped to double the reserve’s size.

Photo by Asociación Armonía/ Glasgow University

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The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Canopy Family, and explore.org maintain a web cam at the Canopy Lodge in Panama, where viewers can enjoy wild birds — including these Collared Aracaris — coming for bananas, oranges, and papayas.

Other feeder birds regularly sighted, both on the camera and by lodge visitors: Gray-headed Chachalacas, Chestnut-headed Oropendolas, Red-crowned Woodpeckers, Flamerumped Tanagers, Thick-billed Euphonias, Rufous Motmots, Graycowled Wood-Rails, omnipresent Clay-colored Thrushes, and others.

The web cam allows viewers worldwide to view these wild birds, no doubt enticing some to visit Panama.

Photo by Canopy Lodge, Panama

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Close human presence can cause Great Blue Herons and other wading birds to abandon rookeries, but this web cam, run by the Chesapeake Conservancy, lets people follow the nesting activity at a rookery on

Maryland’s Eastern Shore without stressing the birds. By posting the herons’ private nest life online, the Chesapeake Conservancy hopes to inspire viewers to better understand North America’s largest heron and work to protect its habitat, both in and beyond the United States’ largest estuary.

Photo by Chesapeake Conservancy

10 ABC’s Ecuadorian partner Fundación Jocotoco deploys camera traps to monitor Spectacled Bears at several of its reserves. The traps enable scientists to monitor the animals, document their young, and watch for poachers who might slip in and hunt wildlife. This adult bear was “captured” wandering through its cloud forest home at the ABCsupported Tapichalaca Reserve.

11 At the Tucson Audubon Society’s Paton Center for Hummingbirds in southeastern Arizona, birders flock to one of North America’s top places to see the localized Violet-crowned Hummingbird. Today, even if birders can’t make it there, they can still watch the birds in real time via a live feeder web cam. ABC supported this reserve’s creation in 2014, after Marion and Wally Paton, who welcomed birders to their home for decades, passed away.

Photo by Paton Center for Hummingbirds, Arizona

Howard Youth is ABC’s Senior Writer/Editor.

(For more information on Tapichalaca Reserve, see page 25.)

Photo by Fundación Jocotoco

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BIRD CONSERVATION | SPRING 2019

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Blackburnian Warbler by Frode Jacobsen

FINAL GLIMPSE

Joint Venture Restores the Wonder of Glades

by Jane Fitzgerald

I

can’t help but feel happy when I walk in the glades. Maybe it’s the great diversity of native grasses and flowering plants in these special open patches. Glades punctuate forests here in Missouri, usually on rocky, dry, south- and westfacing slopes and hilltops. As I hike and take stock of how our habitat restoration work is progressing, I frequently see the eye-popping scarlet of Indian Paintbrush, whites and violets of Shooting Star and blazing stars, Pale Purple and Yellow Coneflowers, and other plants with fun names like supplejack, palafoxia, and Gum Bumelia.

My other senses are tickled as well.

Just setting foot on a diminutive calamint is a real treat, as its lovely, minty scent hovers in the air long enough to fully delight. The glade bird community is an interesting mix, providing a feast for the ears during spring and early summer.

That’s when I hear the robin-like song of Summer Tanagers in the wide canopies mingling with the repeated renderings of early-successional species, including Prairie Warblers, with their ascending “zee, zee, zees,” and Blue-winged Warblers, with their dropping “bee-buzzes.”

Whenever possible, I get out to glades. Thankfully, it’s part of my job as ABC’s Central Hardwoods Joint Venture (CHJV) Coordinator.

Migratory Bird Joint Ventures are cooperative, regional partnerships that work to conserve habitat, primarily for the benefit of birds

in need of conservation attention.

There are 22 joint ventures across the United States and Canada. Mine is but one of these, spanning portions of eight states, from Indiana to Oklahoma.

Our work is guided by a management board of representatives from three federal and four state wildlife agencies and four nongovernmental organizations, including ABC. The CHJV partnership works to restore high-priority bird populations, including those of the Red-headed Woodpecker and Prairie Warbler, by improving and restoring the native habitats needed to support them. Along the way, many other species benefit from these efforts. Of the habitat types, I have to say that glades and open woodlands have become my favorites.

Glade-woodland complexes were relatively common in the Central Hardwoods region, but many glades landscapes have been degraded by decades of fire suppression, which allowed Eastern Redcedar and other dense, woody vegetation to invade.

Glades occur in patches from tens to thousands of acres, interspersed with more densely forested patches on lower slopes and in moist bottomlands.

The CHJV and its broad-scale coordination is key because habitat restoration work can more easily be carried out at appropriate scales by state and federal land-managing agencies on large public land

Glades punctuate forests here in Missouri, usually on rocky, dry, south- and westfacing slopes and hilltops. holdings, alone or in concert with our other partners and surrounding private landowners.

Over the course of the last year, our partners collectively reported over 193,000 acres of habitat improvements for woodland and, to a lesser extent, grassland birds. Of these, 136,000 acres were treated with tree thinning and/or prescribed fire, helping, in large part, to restore those glades and open woodlands I’ve come to hold dear.

Jane Fitzgerald is an ABC Vice President and the Central Hardwoods Joint Venture Coordinator.

Creating a Legacy for Birds “My husband and I have enjoyed so many unforgettable experiences and received so much meaning and pleasure from birds and birding over the years that it just made sense to try and help ensure the conservation of bird species for future generations.

“It was a 'no brainer' to add ABC to our estate plans because no other organization has been as focused or as effective for bird conservation as ABC.” —

Marianne Mooney Marianne Mooney and Joseph Sasfy, May 2015

TOP: A restored glade habitat in bloom with native blazing stars (Liatris sp). Photo by Susan Farrington

You too can leave a legacy for birds when you join ABC’s Legacy Circle with an estate gift through your will, retirement plan, trust, or life insurance policy. If you would like more information, or if you have already included ABC in your estate plans, please contact Jack Morrison, Director of Major Gifts

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and Planned Giving, at 540-253-5780 or at jmorrison@abcbirds.org.

P.O. Box 249 The Plains, VA 20198 abcbirds.org 540-253-5780 • 888-247-3624

A vibrant male Magnolia Warbler nabs a caterpillar meal. Photo by Glenn Bartley