Building a Bird Haven, One Habitat at a Time

For years, Joshua Harkness and his family had seen American Woodcocks on their farm and forest property Perry Hill in Amenia, NY, but only at the tail-end of winter. 

The woodcocks would arrive in March and utilize the family’s open meadow and grassy areas in an old cow pasture to “display,” making a spiraling flight up into the sky and dramatically plunging back down in an effort to impress a mate.

But American Woodcocks require dense shrubby areas for nesting, and so Joshua hadn’t seen them later in the spring... until he made an important change.

For years, Joshua had kept multiflora rose at-bay in the pasture by mowing but began to realize that he was also mowing down native plants. He started mowing selectively and focused on removing invasive shrubs with hand pruners and digging out the roots with a pick mattock, allowing other plants and shrubs to thrive. As a result, the pasture erupted with native willow, winterberry, silky dogwood, and goldenrod.

In June, he saw an American Woodcock utilizing the dense, shrubby willows for nesting.

Studying breeding birds is a primary way that Joshua monitors the health of his family’s property, which is mostly forested. He begins with the premise that forest-breeding birds don’t necessarily stay in one place or require one specific type of habitat to thrive.

Unfortunately, our northeastern forests are not as diverse or intact as they once were, and forest-breeding birds are in a state of decline.

Knowing that birds are an indicator species, Joshua is following their songs to make decisions about how he manages his woodlands. Every June, Joshua goes out and counts the birds he hears singing at various points on the property, the same points each year. If the species change, it’s an indication that something has changed about the surrounding habitat as well.

With Joshua stewarding the land that change is usually intentional, but sometimes nature does the work for him. 

One year a storm blew a number of trees down and Joshua decided to leave them on the ground (similar to the patch cut shown above, which is actually meant to mimic a storm). The branching treetops created a natural barrier where they lay, protecting young sugar maple saplings from browsing deer. Joshua identified Eastern Towhees along with an increase in Veeries nesting in the thicker understory the following spring.

Two winters ago, Joshua created a one-acre patch cut in an area of the forest where many oak trees had died or been damaged because of defoliation by Spongy Moth (an invasive insect) and by an ice storm.  Some of the trees cut were hauled out of the woods and used as firewood for making maple syrup, while others were left to rebuild the soil and create new microhabitats.  The following spring, he planted American Chestnut seeds to help restore a native tree species and added a deer exclusion fence to protect the growing trees and other plants.  Already, Indigo Buntings, Eastern Towhees, and Common Yellowthroats have nested in this new habitat. Before establishing this area of young forest, Joshua had not observed more than 9 species of native forest birds at this site, but as many as 18 species are now present here during the breeding season.

Ultimately, Joshua aims to make his family’s farm a more dynamic, complex environment that supports birds, botanical plants, and even bears – a few of which he has seen utilizing those downed trees for foraging insects!