fewer sightings
夝
A4
Flight to nowhere 䡲 On LI, as in much of the country, birds once called common are engaged in unsettling, baffling vanishing act
FEWER SIGHTINGS
These bird species, once common on Long Island, have declined in numbers over the last 40 years:
BY CHRISTINA HERNANDEZ
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JUNE 24, 2007
www.newsday.com
[email protected]
“Do I have a yellow-billed cuckoo?” Lisa D’Andrea wondered aloud, peering through binoculars into the thick woods of the New York State-owned Nature Preserve at Barcelona Neck in East Hampton. Pauline Rosen rushed down the trail, her sneakers crunching on the sand and stones. “Where?” she asked breathlessly. “Where?” Rosen and D’Andrea are more than avid birders investigating a mystery. The two East Hampton Town Natural Resources Department employees spent an hour on this rainy Wednesday morning doing a bird survey, part of an effort to determine locally what experts say is true nationally — that many common birds are slowly disappearing around the U.S. and Long Island. After confirming the first sighting of a yellow-billed cuckoo, they spotted its mate a couple of minutes later. Because the birds were a local species known to be in a population slump, Rosen celebrated. “Put ’er there, baby” she said, high-fiving D’Andrea. “That is great.” A few mornings each week, the women walk trails in the preserve watching for flapping wings and listening for bird songs. For them, it is a labor of love. In an hour last week, they came to a quick, if unscientific conclusion: 11 bird species were spotted on a trail used by hikers, but only six were present on a trail used by people driving or walking to Northwest Harbor, which they say is unusual. There is an urgency in their work. Earlier this month, the National Audubon Society released a list, compiled from 40 years of data, of the top 20 common birds declining nationally. Of those, said Greg Butcher, author of the report and director of bird conservation for the society, 15 are no longer common on Long Island. “These declines are way beyond what would be normal for these kinds of birds,” he said. The bird with the greatest national drop — down 82 percent to 5.5 million from 31 million 40 years ago — is the Northern Bobwhite, a robin-sized bird with a distinctive whistle that was once a fixture in fields and open areas of Long Island. The downturn for most birds on the list has been steady over the last four decades, Butcher said. Like the mystery of declining honey bee numbers, exactly why some bird populations are declining is not known. Locally and nationally, ex-
NORTHERN BOBWHITE
EVENING GROSBEAK
NORTHERN PINTAIL
GREATER SCAUP
EASTERN MEADOWLARK
COMMON TERN
LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE
FIELD SPARROW
GRASSHOPPER SPARROW
SNOW BUNTING
COMMON GRACKLE
AMERICAN BITTERN
WHIP-POOR-WILL
HORNED LARK
LITTLE BLUE HERON
To hear an audio of how some of these birds sing, please go to Newsday.com/health perts say there are several suspected reasons for the dramatic reductions of birds, including the continuing impact of development and loss of open space, large numbers of feral cats common in the suburbs, and light and noise from homes, businesses and traffic. “On Long Island, we’re worried about urban and suburban sprawl,” Butcher said. This loss of woods and fields forever changes birds’ habitats, said Aaron Virgin, executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary and Audubon Center in Oyster Bay. “We’ll lose the chance of certain species occurring here nat-
urally again,” he said. Birds prefer a sizable chunk of land — for some, a square of about 100 yards on every side — to call their own, said Bridget Stutchbury, author of “The Silence of the Songbirds.” If nests are too close together, she said, the birds don’t produce as many offspring. Additional reasons for the decline of certain common birds, experts say, are fragmentation of forests to create walking trails and an increasing number of socalled parasitic birds, such as cowbirds, which lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, sometimes displacing the host babies. Another theory is that thou-
sands of miles away, in birds’ winter homes in Central and South America, habitat has been lost to logging. Most experts say highly publicized environmental issues, including global warming and diseases such as West Nile virus are not affecting birds as much as human activities. As for disappearing colonies of honey bees, experts cite weather change, pesticide use and infections as possible answers. Despite a worrisome trend, Virgin said the local and national bird loss could be reversed. He encouraged Long Islanders to take steps to bring the birds back, starting in their own back-
yards. Planting trees and shrubs native to Long Island will attract birds to make their homes here, Virgin said. Refraining from pesticide use can make a yard more hospitable for birds. And feeders provide a supplemental food source for birds that winter here. But if the declines continue, Virgin said, everyone should be worried. “When we start having species not showing up on Long Island, we lose that indicator, we lose that canary in the coal mine,” he said. “If ducks aren’t around, should we be swimming in these areas? If birds aren’t eating the fish, should we be?”
A4
Flight to nowhere 䡲 On LI, as in much of the country, birds once called common are engaged in unsettling, baffling vanishing act
FEWER SIGHTINGS
These bird species, once common on Long Island, have declined in numbers over the last 40 years:
BY CHRISTINA HERNANDEZ
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, JUNE 24, 2007
www.newsday.com
[email protected]
“Do I have a yellow-billed cuckoo?” Lisa D’Andrea wondered aloud, peering through binoculars into the thick woods of the New York State-owned Nature Preserve at Barcelona Neck in East Hampton. Pauline Rosen rushed down the trail, her sneakers crunching on the sand and stones. “Where?” she asked breathlessly. “Where?” Rosen and D’Andrea are more than avid birders investigating a mystery. The two East Hampton Town Natural Resources Department employees spent an hour on this rainy Wednesday morning doing a bird survey, part of an effort to determine locally what experts say is true nationally — that many common birds are slowly disappearing around the U.S. and Long Island. After confirming the first sighting of a yellow-billed cuckoo, they spotted its mate a couple of minutes later. Because the birds were a local species known to be in a population slump, Rosen celebrated. “Put ’er there, baby” she said, high-fiving D’Andrea. “That is great.” A few mornings each week, the women walk trails in the preserve watching for flapping wings and listening for bird songs. For them, it is a labor of love. In an hour last week, they came to a quick, if unscientific conclusion: 11 bird species were spotted on a trail used by hikers, but only six were present on a trail used by people driving or walking to Northwest Harbor, which they say is unusual. There is an urgency in their work. Earlier this month, the National Audubon Society released a list, compiled from 40 years of data, of the top 20 common birds declining nationally. Of those, said Greg Butcher, author of the report and director of bird conservation for the society, 15 are no longer common on Long Island. “These declines are way beyond what would be normal for these kinds of birds,” he said. The bird with the greatest national drop — down 82 percent to 5.5 million from 31 million 40 years ago — is the Northern Bobwhite, a robin-sized bird with a distinctive whistle that was once a fixture in fields and open areas of Long Island. The downturn for most birds on the list has been steady over the last four decades, Butcher said. Like the mystery of declining honey bee numbers, exactly why some bird populations are declining is not known. Locally and nationally, ex-
NORTHERN BOBWHITE
EVENING GROSBEAK
NORTHERN PINTAIL
GREATER SCAUP
EASTERN MEADOWLARK
COMMON TERN
LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE
FIELD SPARROW
GRASSHOPPER SPARROW
SNOW BUNTING
COMMON GRACKLE
AMERICAN BITTERN
WHIP-POOR-WILL
HORNED LARK
LITTLE BLUE HERON
To hear an audio of how some of these birds sing, please go to Newsday.com/health perts say there are several suspected reasons for the dramatic reductions of birds, including the continuing impact of development and loss of open space, large numbers of feral cats common in the suburbs, and light and noise from homes, businesses and traffic. “On Long Island, we’re worried about urban and suburban sprawl,” Butcher said. This loss of woods and fields forever changes birds’ habitats, said Aaron Virgin, executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary and Audubon Center in Oyster Bay. “We’ll lose the chance of certain species occurring here nat-
urally again,” he said. Birds prefer a sizable chunk of land — for some, a square of about 100 yards on every side — to call their own, said Bridget Stutchbury, author of “The Silence of the Songbirds.” If nests are too close together, she said, the birds don’t produce as many offspring. Additional reasons for the decline of certain common birds, experts say, are fragmentation of forests to create walking trails and an increasing number of socalled parasitic birds, such as cowbirds, which lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, sometimes displacing the host babies. Another theory is that thou-
sands of miles away, in birds’ winter homes in Central and South America, habitat has been lost to logging. Most experts say highly publicized environmental issues, including global warming and diseases such as West Nile virus are not affecting birds as much as human activities. As for disappearing colonies of honey bees, experts cite weather change, pesticide use and infections as possible answers. Despite a worrisome trend, Virgin said the local and national bird loss could be reversed. He encouraged Long Islanders to take steps to bring the birds back, starting in their own back-
yards. Planting trees and shrubs native to Long Island will attract birds to make their homes here, Virgin said. Refraining from pesticide use can make a yard more hospitable for birds. And feeders provide a supplemental food source for birds that winter here. But if the declines continue, Virgin said, everyone should be worried. “When we start having species not showing up on Long Island, we lose that indicator, we lose that canary in the coal mine,” he said. “If ducks aren’t around, should we be swimming in these areas? If birds aren’t eating the fish, should we be?”
