Bird Survey Work

Land Steward Brett Hillman has a been doing some interesting volunteer work for the Forest Society this summer as part of his gradutate coursework in Conservation Biology at Antioch University New England. He has been conducting surveys of breeding birds at two Forest Society reservations where there is significant early successional habitat: the Morse Preserve in Alton Bay, and Harmon Preserve in Freedom. Early successional habitats such as grasslands, pine barrens, and shrub/scrub areas provide important nesting habitat for some of the state's declining bird populations, such as Eastern Towhee, Golden- and Blue-Winged Warblers, Field Sparrows, and Bobolinks. New Hampshire is, percentage-wise, the second most forested state in the nation (behind Maine) and as old pasture and field land has reverted to forest over the last century, we are at risk of losing some of the wildlife that depend upon open areas.

Early Successional Habitat at Morse Preserve (photo: C.Deegan)

Harmon Preserve and Morse Preserve contain very different habitat types (Harmon is a pine barrens natural community while Morse contains old fields and a former comercially-managed blueberry operation) but both will require considerable active management on the part of the Forest Society if we are to maintain the early successional habitats here. In both locations we are considering controlled burns to re-establish natural communities - in the case of the pine barrens, this community actually depends upon fire in order for the pitch pine to regenerate successfully. The baseline bird surveys that Brett is conducting for us will help us determine which species are currently using the properties, which can be compared with future surveys conducted following any management prescriptions.

A big thank-you to Brett for doing this survey work on his own time! Brett also has a blog about New England's natural evironment, so check it out in the links section of this blog. For his post on bird work at Harmon and Morse Preserves click here.