Researchers have studied where a very rare bird spends the summer, but now they’re learning they might need to pay more attention to where it spends the winter. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:
Transcript
Researchers have studied where a very rare bird spends the summer, but
now they’re learning they might need to pay more attention to where it
spends the winter. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports:
The Kirtland’s warbler is one of the rarest songbirds in North America.
It spends the summer near the Great Lakes, mostly in Michigan, and the
winter in the Bahamas. The bird’s been on the endangered species list
since 1966. Efforts to control predators and manage habitat in
Michigan have helped the warbler recover, but scientists haven’t known
much about what the warbler needs in winter.
Dave Ewert is the director of conservation science for the Nature
Conservancy’s Great Lakes program. He says his team’s research
indicates that warblers are fattening up on fruit right before they
leave the Bahamas in the spring.
“So if we can identify these sites that produce a lot of food just
before migration, we think that may be a really important key for
conservation implementation in the Bahamas in the future.”
Ewert says the team will need a few more years of research before
recommending specific sites to preserve in the Bahamas.
For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.