BIRDS COME AND THEY GO…
By Gary Metzger
I’ve lived in northcentral and now central Pennsylvania pretty much all of my life, in large part because of the incredible natural beauty of the area. Hunters, fishermen, hikers, bikers, everyone with a hankering for the “green hills of home”, can appreciate the draw. Once my wife Joan and I got hooked up with the good folks from Audubon, we added “lots of birds” to our criteria for spots of great natural beauty. I’m going to mention two of “our” spots, and recent teaching moments regarding bird habitat.
The Scotia Barrens, and the associated State Game Lands 176, near State College is an incredible piece of habitat pretty much full of birds much of the year. Adjacent to the game lands the Ten Acre Pond well known for its seasonal waterfowl and shorebirds and all the other birds associated with the surrounding forest and fields. Two years ago a pair of pied-billed grebes successfully nested at the pond and were quite a local attraction!
Then it stopped raining. Centre County has endured essentially droughty conditions for a year and a half now. Last Fall the Pond almost dried up, and even after a recent weekend with nearly 3 inches of rain, the pond is now perhaps three or four acres. Very few waterfowl this Spring; perhaps next year the precipitation, and the birds, will return.
We had another, somewhat different, interruption in our birding late this past April when we did our routine visit to the Game Lands themselves at dusk to immerse ourselves in American woodcock and whip-poor-wills, and their respective glorious breeding displays and song. I hadn’t given much thought to the smoke that had seeped into State College several days earlier, but as we drove the last mile or so of the road through the Game Lands to the shooting range the source was quite obvious. The Game commission had done a heavy, controlled burn on both sides of the road, stopping just short of the range itself.
We heard a couple of distant woodcock peenting and whistling in flight from the range area and perhaps three or four whips singing from the forest’s edge beyond the clearing. Driving slowly back the road, lights off, we heard one additional songster. Previous years we had routinely encountered perhaps 15 or more singing whip-poor-wills over the same stretch. Was it the burn, or perhaps we were a bit early, and our visit was during one of this Spring’s cold snaps? So, I gathered up another group of birders a week and a half later, perhaps the second week of May, and took another trip to Scotia. This time we got a spectacular look, and listen, at a displaying woodcock, heard perhaps six whips and got a fantastic view of one of them on the road, in our vehicle’s parking lights, catching moths apparently attracted to the still warm asphalt! Better birds this time, but still one half or even one third of the singing birds from years past.
Clearly the Commission’s management by burning of this particular piece of habitat had diminished this particular species use of it for breeding. No doubt a temporary displacement in this 6500-acre piece of public land. And I have no doubt that they know exactly what they are doing with their habitat management strategy—the proof is in the pudding considering the species and populations of birds that use the land. Our recent experience at both the Pond and SGL 176 was just a reminder that the current condition of any piece of habitat will determine what’s available, bird-wise, for us to enjoy. And yes, there’s always something new to learn out among the birds!
