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Why Birds Matter
Birds are the most visible and measurable indicators of environmental health in our natural areas and of far-away places from which birds travel. The Mid-Atlantic region is located within the Atlantic Flyway, which is one of the main “highways” in the Western Hemisphere for many millions of migrant birds and is key to a number of species. Habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation are the leading causes of population declines in birds and also impact other wildlife and plant communities. Roughly 2.1 million acres of wildlife habitat nationwide are converted to residential use every year. So we now look to our own properties as resting, nesting and refueling stations for the most common bird species and those stopping on their long migratory travels. In the process, we increase our ability to live with nature rather than against it.
Related to the sandpipers, the American Woodcock has strikingly different habits. This rotund, short-legged bird hides in forest thickets by day, where it uses its long bill to probe in damp soil for earthworms. American Woodcock eyes are set far back on its head, allowing it to watch for danger even with its bill buried in the dirt. Males perform a remarkable 'sky dance' on spring and summer nights, in a high, twisting flight, with chippering, twittering, bubbling sounds.
A tiny marsh bird, no bigger than a sparrow. Extremely secretive, it walks or runs through the marsh, and is rarely seen in flight. In very dense cover, it may get around by using the runways made by mice. The distinctive short song of the Black Rail is given mostly late at night, so the bird may go unnoticed in some areas. Fairly common at a few coastal points, its status inland in the east is rather mysterious.
The sky-blue upperparts of the male Cerulean Warbler are difficult to observe in summer: At that season, the birds stay high in the tops of leafy trees in the eastern United States and extreme southern Canada. The bird itself has become harder to observe in recent decades, as its numbers have decreased in parts of its range. Cowbirds, which lay their eggs in the warblers' nests, may be finding their unwitting 'hosts' more easily as forest patches become smaller.
A clattering cackle in the salt marsh is often our first clue to the presence of this big rail. The Clapper Rail is usually hidden in dense cover, but sometimes we see it stalking boldly along the muddy edge of the marsh, twitching its short tail as it walks, or swimming across a tidal creek. Historically it was abundant on the Atlantic Coast -- Audubon reported that it was possible to find a hundred nests in a day -- but now much more localized, as coastal marsh has been broken up by development.
A strikingly patterned warbler of leafy second growth and swamp edges. Once common in the northeast, it has been declining recently in southern parts of its breeding range. As it disappears, its close relative the Blue-winged Warbler has been advancing north. The Blue-wing may be driving the Golden-wing out of the best habitats, but the situation is not well understood. The two species interbreed, creating distinctive hybrid types known as 'Brewster's' and 'Lawrence's' warblers.
A bird of the coast, named for the spiky tips on its tail feathers (which it shares with several related kinds of sparrows). Saltmarsh Sparrows have an unusual mating system for a songbird, with males simply roving about looking for females rather than defending a nesting territory.
No other songbird in North America is so closely tied to salt marsh as the Seaside Sparrow. Except for a few populations in Florida, it is almost never found away from tidal marshes along the immediate coast. With a patchy and disjunct habitat, this species has evolved a number of well-marked local races. One of these, the 'Cape Sable' Seaside Sparrow, was not discovered until 1918; another, the 'Dusky' Seaside Sparrow, recently became extinct despite major efforts by conservationists.
Seldom seen but often heard, this medium-sized rail lives in marshes across much of our continent. This bird and the Sora are often found together, but their diets differ: the short-billed Sora eats many more seeds, while the long-billed Virginia Rail eats mostly insects. Virginia Rails communicate with a wide variety of calls, and some of these can be mystifying to listeners; one, dubbed the 'kicker call,' was attributed to the elusive Yellow Rail for many years.
Seemingly not as shy as the other brown thrushes, not as bold as the Robin, the Wood Thrush seems intermediate between those two related groups. It sometimes nests in suburbs and city parks, and it is still common in many eastern woodlands, where its flutelike songs add music to summer mornings. However, numbers of Wood Thrushes have declined seriously in recent decades, focusing the attention of conservationists on the problems facing our migratory birds.
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