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Florida birds

Birding researchBreeding and NestingResearch

High hopes for a nearly extinct sparrow as mating season begins

by Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal
written by Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal

It’s almost mating season for the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow, a spring ritual dating back thousands of years on the Florida prairie. But this may be the year that determines whether a rescue mission can turn things around for the country’s most endangered bird.

A year-old grasshopper sparrow just before its release into the grasslands. Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal

Every week starting this month, researchers are releasing a half dozen or more young sparrows raised in captivity to try and boost breeding in the wild and stabilize the overall population.

The releases are the final step in a long, complex restoration plan that’s taken shape over the two decades since the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow’s sudden collapse. Now researchers will be watching the sparrows’ every move as they hope nature will take its course.

Juan Oteyza, the state research scientist who oversees the project along with Karl Miller, watched the first batch of sparrows disappear into the Florida prairie south of Orlando one morning earlier this month. 

“They’re on their own now,’’ he said.

That isn’t entirely true: It’s up to the sparrows to fan out over the grasslands, find mates, build nests and raise a new batch of chicks. But a team of human helpers will be on hand to monitor the mating rituals, locate the nests and then raise them out of the reach of flood waters. They’ll also encircle the nests with fences to ward off predators. Each new family is tracked daily for five months to see if the sparrow population increases.

Here’s a video of this spring’s first release, taken with a remote camera, so the picture is slightly fuzzy. But you can see the sparrow’s hesitant reaction to the prospect of freedom — followed by a plunge into the grasslands: 

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Birding researchBreeding and NestingConservation

Fledglings take flight: Good news for the nation’s most endangered bird

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

The wildlife managers who bred more than 200 Florida Grasshopper Sparrows in a laboratory setting over the past two years knew they faced a tricky question when it came to releasing the birds into the wild this spring:

A Florida Grasshopper Sparrow about to be released

Would they know how to act like grasshopper sparrows?

Could they sing the sparrow’s unique courting song? Would they know how to hide from hawks? Would they have the instincts to build nests, mate with wild sparrows and raise their young together?

The captive-breeding experiment is the culmination of a decades-long project to revive the most endangered species in the U.S.. Only 30 pairs of the sparrows remained in the wild when the team decided they had no choice but to try producing chicks in captivity, then introducing them back into the wild in hopes they’d multiply.

The answers to all their questions came pouring in over the course of the breeding season that is now coming to a close.

A bundle of newborn sparrows in a hidden nest in the grasslands. Photo by Amanda Adams.

The birds not only mastered the routines of the mating season, they gave birth to a new generation of Florida Grasshopper Sparrows over the summer. ( Forty-two birds were born from captive-bred birds and altogether 64 were born from wild and captive-bred birds.) Almost all have now left the nest and flown off to begin life on their own.

“We’re very happy with what we saw this first season,’’ said Juan Oteyza, the research biologist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Institute that oversees the project. “It seems to be paying off.’’

Craig Faulhaber, avian conservation coordinator for the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said it was hard to tell the captive-bred from the wild sparrows. “They showed all the normal behaviors,” he said. “They bred successfully. They took care of their young. They acted just like wild sparrows.”

Flying Lesson: The project to save the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow has been full of discoveries for researchers. They’ve learned what it takes to breed birds in captivity, protect fragile nests from harm and how to begin to replenished the depleted population. It’s not yet clear if the project will be successful, but already the lessons are proving valuable to help understand the woes of the grassland birds like the sparrow.

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What the Grasshopper Sparrow is teaching us as it skirts extinction

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

For the next month or so, biologists from a coalition of wildlife agencies will be standing on the sidelines of a grassy prairie in Central Florida, pacing like worried relatives in a hospital waiting room.

A captive-bred sparrow steps from its cage.

They’ll be peering through binoculars and listening for bird calls for signs of the revival of the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow, whose total population has fallen to a just 30 breeding pairs.

Our article on the campaign to save the sparrow runs this week in the Washington Post. It’s a story about the mysterious decline of one of Florida endemic species and how a consortium of state, federal and non-profit agencies is staging a biological intervention sparrows bred in research centers to hold off extinction.

Sarah Biesemier (left) and Juan Oteyza, state biologists who oversee the project, arrive at the prairie with a carrying case full of sparrows.

It’s also a story about what’s happening on the front lines of the world of birds in a time of extraordinary change. On the one hand, researchers have built more tools, they’ve developed better research practices and they know more about birds like this sparrow than ever before. On the other hand, the threats to many species are unprecedented. A study in the journal Science a few months ago found that a third of North America’s breeding bird population has vanished in the last 50 years.

We came home from weeks in Central Florida, after visiting the research centers and talking to dozens of scientists, with a question nobody could answer very well: Do we have the collective wherewithal, and the financial and political capital, to put this kind of rescue mission together for the growing number of species certain to need it in the future?

Every grasshopper sparrow on the prairie is identified and tracked by four bands on its legs to follow their progress.

The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow is not the most likely candidate to win the kind of scientific full-court press it’s getting. It’s a small, brown, nondescript bird that’s never seen by most people. It’s found only on the Florida prairie, a unique environment slowly evaporating as the state grows. As a brand, this sparrow is on the far end of the appeal spectrum from such conservation successes as the Bald Eagle, the California Condor and the Osprey.

And yet, an ambitious plan has come together on behalf of this bird. It’s powered by state and federal researchers, some of whom have devoted their careers to studying Florida’s birds, and it’s supported by such non-profits as Florida Audubon and the Fish and Wildlife Foundation of Florida (which just announced a grant for this project.)  It is all the more impressive given the anti-environmental streak now running through modern politics.

The consortium makes a persuasive case that the grasshopper sparrow should be saved: It is one of the symbols of the Florida environment. With its haunting song and its place on nature’s ground floor, it’s a key piece of the puzzle of the biosphere we rely on. “The grasshopper sparrow is one of Florida’s flagship birds,” said John Fitzpatrick, director of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Flying Lesson: The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow is a harbinger of a future in which many species are threatened with extinction. Researchers have built an ambitious rescue plan to save this bird, but is there enough public and political support to undertake missions like this for dozens of birds at the same time?

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An unexpected discovery: These birds are a lot more like us than we knew

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

When researchers built a giant grid of radio receivers for tracking birds in the sandy fields south of Orlando, they hoped to find new ways of protecting the struggling Florida Scrub-Jay.

Florida Scrub-Jay / Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal

They discovered something else along the way. Birds are a lot more like people than either species might have thought.

The grid concept is something new in bird research. By setting up receivers throughout the Scrub-Jay’s territory, and then equipping the birds with solar-powered tracking devices, biologists can follow the birds’ every move all day long for months at a time.

The research is still in its early stages, but some intriguing behaviors have jumped out:

Like teenagers everywhere, the young jays form tight cliques of favorite friends. Like many parents, adult jays try to build enough territory to pass sections along to their offspring. When the birds start looking for mates, they come up with ways of sizing up the competition – and sometimes coming between couples. 

Archbold biologist Reed Bowman looks over a map of the Scrub-Jays’ territory

“It turns out that they have very complicated social lives that aren’t that different from ourselves,’’ said Reed Bowman, a research biologist at the Archbold Biological Center that has been studying the Florida jays for decades.

The Florida Scrub-Jay is one of the state’s most popular birds and an uncommon segment of the jay species. They’re found only in Florida – and now only in a few central Florida counties. They’re unusually friendly toward humans. Proponents have pushed, so far without success, to make the Scrub-Jay the state bird in place of the more ordinary Mockingbird.

Researcher Young Ha Suh / Photo by Reed Bowman

But they’ve been in a long, steady decline, mostly because the jays are so dependent on dry, elevated and mostly treeless habitat that has steadily been lost to development. Wildlife managers are trying to learn how to protect the last 4,000 Florida Scrub-Jays.

The Archbold researchers believe the key is understanding how the birds use what’s left of their habitat. They want to know how the young birds approach breeding and what wildlife managers can do to create the best environment.

At first, researchers thought they could conduct this research by simply watching the jays in the field. “But you could only track a handful of birds at a time,’’ said Young Ha Suh, a doctoral candidate at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the project’s lead researcher. “It was really time-consuming.’’

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A Tricolored Heron worthy of the Olympics

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

It’s a move that seems to defy physics: The Tricolored Heron hovers in midair just above the surface when it dips its neck down and snags its prey from near the surface of the water.

This medium-sized heron is named for its striking collage of blue, purple and white plumage and known for its frenetic feeding dance in shallow water that helps to scare up prey. But if there’s one acrobatic maneuver that tops them all, it’s how the Tricolor will sometimes feed while flying  — a move worthy of the Olympics.

I watched just such a gravity-defying maneuver the other day at a central Florida marsh near Melbourne, where a heavier-than-usual rainfall drew a large flocks to the wetlands. The competition was fierce among hundreds of herons, ducks, gallinules, pelicans and spoonbills.

This young Tricolored Heron was trying out all his tricks.

First it zigged and zagged along the edge of the shore, lunging for prospects as it followed its own obstacle course though the water. Then, apparently unhappy with the results, it lifted off and headed to a new spot. That’s when the heron spotted something near the surface of the water.

It dropped down a few inches until its feet were almost touching the surface. As if walking on the water, the Tricolored reached its long neck down and into the pond and snapped up something for lunch. The show didn’t stop there: The bird never landed, and instead recovered its equilibrium and flew on.

Herons are great fun to watch, particularly the more active Great Blue, Little Blue Heron and Tricolored Heron. As common wading birds that generally don’t mind people, you can study them for hours working the waterways, marshes and sometimes on the beach. The Great Blue can be found all across the U.S. and Central America, and the Little Blue in the Southeast, parts of the Midwest, California and Mexico.

Little Blue Heron

Great Blue Heron

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tricolored is the hardest of the three to find, more limited to Florida, the Gulf Coast and Central America. But when you do come across one in the midst of its search for food, you may get a performance. This is one bird that deserved a place on the podium.

Here’s a gallery of some of our favorite heron photos, followed by two of Cornell’s range maps of where they can be found. The first shows their range through the year, and the second is an animated version.

 

 

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Floridians and their Scrub-Jay: Can they coexist?

by Anders Gyllenhaal
written by Anders Gyllenhaal

It’s the height of the birding season in Florida, where some 500 species can be found from the sawgrasses marshes of the Everglades to the North Florida oak hammocks. But if you had to choose a single ambassador for the state’s huge bird population, it would be the Florida Scrub-Jay.

Photos by Anders Gyllenhaal

These beautiful blue and gray birds are so full of personality and appeal that there are on-and-off-again pushes to make them the state bird. The Florida Scrub-Jay is the sole bird found only in Florida. And they’re among the most social creatures you’ll ever encounter.

When we finally found them on a small preserve just west of Titusville midway into our January swing through Florida, this family of jays acted as if we were long lost friends:

They flew back and forth in front of us as if showing us the way. They took up perches just a few yards off and launched into nonstop greetings – (or scolds; it was hard to tell which). They hopped around on the ground as if in charge of entertainment for our party of birders.

In many ways, the Florida Scrub-Jay is the symbol for Florida’s bird story. On the one hand, Florida is near the top of the list of states for its number of resident and migratory species. On the other, it’s struggling to keep from losing several of its most prominent indigenous birds, including the Scrub-Jay.

“The big thing that threatened the Florida Scrub-Jay is that they occur in high dry ridges of land,’’ said Reed Bowman, a research biologist with the Archbold Biological Station and one of the state’s experts on Scrub-Jays. “And that’s also where all the people want to be.”

About 4,000 Florida Scrub-Jays remain in a handful of scattered Central Florida patches of elevated scrub land that sit on sandy soil, with low bushy growth and few trees. As development consumes what’s left of this habitat, state and county researchers are waging a campaign to keep the jays from dwindling further, to the point of moving whole families when their territories are threatened.

“We’re losing land by the minute,’’ said Johnny Baker, a Brevard County land manager who watches over some of the remaining Scrub-Jay families. “We’ve got to preserve what’s left.’’

The story of the legislation to make the Florida Scrub-Jay the state bird helps explain why they’re in trouble in the first place. Opponents in Tallahassee have cited a list of reasons for keeping the common, unexciting Northern Mockingbird in that perch. But the unspoken truth is the powerful development lobby is afraid the special status might get in the way of further construction, say those in the know.

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