Marsh Bird Surveys

The research staff has spent yet another Spring surveying marsh birds. Once a week for the past 6 weeks, staff arrive to work well before dawn and begin the survey approximately 30 minutes before official sunrise. The species of interest in this survey are Black Rail, Virginia Rail, King Rail, Clapper Rail, Least Bittern, Sora, and Common Moorhen. The data is ultimately used by the D.E.E.P., as we are just one place of many that perform this sort of survey. However, this data is also useful to us here at White Memorial because it tells us about the health of our wetlands. These birds are considered indicator species, ie, they indicate how much humans have disturbed that habitat. So, you can imagine our excitement when we find the birds we're looking for!

Interns Abby Wilson (Left) and Cheyenne Liberti (Right) during the
canoe portion of the survey on the Bantam River

The surveys start at first light (30 minutes before official dawn) and generally last about three to four hours. The survey consists of 16 points at which researchers drive or boat to. Once at the point, researchers play a CD provided by the D.E.E.P. The CD begins with 5 minutes of silence to allow the birds to settle after the initial disturbance of arriving on scene. Next, 7 different songs/calls are played for 30 seconds each, and separated by 30 seconds of silence. Whenever researchers hear a call or song of one of the birds of interest, we record the species heard, and at which point in the CD we heard it.

Pictured above is the CD player  a point on the survey which is accessed by truck.  

So far this season, researchers have heard Sora and Virginia Rail. As seen in a previous blog post, we were lucky enough to see a Virginia Rail calling to our canoe at the end of a recent survey. It called to us at the very last point on the survey, so once the CD was finished playing and the survey was over, we used an app to play Virginia Rail calls toward its direction. Within a few minutes we saw two, calling to us and back and forth to each other. The one pictured in the video in the previous blog post actually flew right into the gunwale of our canoe about 30 seconds after that video was taken. These birds are so mysterious. Not much is known about them, and they are presumed to be very secretive. In this encounter however, we witnessed some curious behavior by the birds.
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Here is a link to the blog post which highlights the Virginia Rail discussed above:Virginia Rail Call

Here is a D.E.E.P. special report from 1999 when state biologists first began these surveys :
Special Report Wetland Birds
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Photo of a Sora courtesy of Ian Davies -Macauley Library

Cornell Lab of Ornithology : SORA

Photo of a Virginia Rail courtesy of Evan Lipton - Macauley Library

Cornell Lab of Ornithology : Virginia Rail

Virginia Rail responding to callback survey, Bantam Lake, Litchfield, Li...

Sarah McQuade, Seasonal Research Technician, recorded this Virginia Rail while performing callback surveys.  Cheyenne Liberti (Yale University and Abby Wilson (Unity College) were also present during the dawn canoe survey.

2013 Wetland Bird Surveys Completed

                                    




Virginia Rail (Rallus limicola)
Courtesy of Utah Department of Natural Resources

Over the past few weeks, Mary Hawvermale and I have been searching around the property for evidence of rails, bitterns, and other wetland birds.  Rails are a type of secretive marsh bird that probe for invertebrates among plants in shallow water, while bitterns stalk fish and amphibians among dense reeds.  Both types of birds tend to remain deep in the vegetation and are very difficult to see. The Connecticut DEEP and similar organizations across the country are concerned about rail populations because of habitat loss.  The marshes these birds call home are increasingly subjugated to pollution and development.  As a result, rail populations have decreased, but we would like more information on their populations as we proceed with conservation projects. White Memorial's vast expanses of marsh makes this the ideal location to gather data for rail conservation.

Mary was kind enough to sample the Bantam River by kayak between Whites Woods Road and Bantam Lake, while I sampled the remaining locations by foot.  The protocol was relatively straightforward:  we would arrive at a predetermined site, listen silently for rails calling for five minutes, and then play calls on a boom box to elicit calls from the rails.  Rails are difficult to see, but they tend to call back to a recording of their voice.  This habit made it easier for us to determine the presence of rails. 

In Connecticut, we have six rail species, several of which are State-listed:

-King rail (Rallus elegans) breeding population State Endangered
-Black rail (Laterallus jamaicensis) breeding population State Endangered
-Sora (Porzana carolina)
-Virginia rail (Rallus limicola)
-Clapper rail (Rallus longirstris)
-Yellow rail (Coturnicops noveboracensis), very rare in Connecticut

In addition to the rails, we also surveyed for the presence of least bittern and common moorhen, two other State-listed wetland species.

Over the course of the past few weeks, Mary and I have heard Sora, Virginia rail, and King rail.

Virginia rail was our most common species, being heard in eight out of our sixteen study points.  These rails were consistently around Little Pond and Mallard Marsh.  One interesting observation was that these birds shifted locality during last week's heavy flooding.  Last Saturday, there was about a foot of water covering the boardwalk at Little Pond, and the Virginia rails were nowhere to be found.  However, we observed Virginia rail at Duck Pond and near Catlin Woods, two places we have not seen them this year.  The flooding also brought the rails out of the marsh onto puddles on the trails.  Here it was easier for the rails to forage.  We observed a total of seven rails, as opposed to the four or five rails we observed when the water levels were closer to normal.

Mary heard a single Sora along the lower Bantam River, but we did not hear any Sora near Cranberry Pond, where they were last year.

In addition to these species we expected to find, we were pleasantly surprised by a King rail calling from the marsh northwest of Little Pond.  We first received reports of this King rail from the first week of June during our BioBlitz. Apparently this individual has continued to live around Little Pond.

 

                                                                
Altogether, we observed a total of about six individual Virginia rails, one Sora, and one King rail.  We hope that continuing research can help us shed more light on wetland bird conservation.

 

You can read more about the State's wetland bird project here and at the December 2012 edition of Connecticut Wildlife.  You can learn more about King rail in Connecticut here.

February 2011 Monthly Volunteer Meeting Recap




River Otter Tracks at Cranberry Pond in Late December 2010.
Photo By James Fischer

 
Last night several folks (a total of 14) came out to catch up with the program's current events and to share their observations while helping on the property.  We began with some announcements. 

1. Wetland Bird Callback Survey and Frog Call Survey Workshop on March 19.  We are combining both surveys into one protocol.  Last year we initiated the Frog Call Survey but the season became too warm earlier than we had anticipated so we missed the peak of frog calling activity.  Several species of wetland birds inhabit the property for the breeding season and as migratory stopover habitat, so we will orient you to these calls, too.  Details will be announced soon.  Check back at the Wildlife Monitor and Forum for further information. 
2. Connecticut Conference on Natural Resources is March 7 at the University of Connecticut, Main Campus in Storrs.  Please consider attending this conference because there will be many natural resource professionals presenting their original research performed in Connecticut.  James Fischer will be presenting a poster titled "An initial survey of crayfish (Order Decopoda) species inhabiting the White Memorial Foundation, Litchfield and Morris, Litchfield Co., Connecticut."  Check this link for more information http://www.ccnr.uconn.edu/ 

Several of our volunteers have been observing loads of meso-predators throughout the property, while some species that are traditionally observed are observed less this year.  White-tailed deer have been impacted by the deep snow so they are moving less to conserve energy, therefore their tracks are infrequently observed this year versus previous years.  Most of the meso-predators are having to move greater distances so that they can find food because most of the small mammals are living under the deep snow and are detected less.  Result of these subtle changes has been translated in our volunteer's observations on the property.  Meso-predators (bobcat, coyote, & red fox) tracks and sign are being observed throughout the property and consistently between each of the transects (a total of 19).  On the other hand, white-tailed deer spoor are observed less frequently by our volunteers even though they are distributed throughout the property.  Our Winter Track Transect Monitors logged a total of 65.5 cumulative hours of effort during the month of January!  The tracking conditions have been really challenging this year but they are all strapping on the snowshoes or lacing up the ski boots so that they can contribute their observations.  Kudos to all of them!