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Re: Blackpolls and other landscape effects on migrants



If you are interested in the study of migrants, of what has happened in
the past, what is currently going on, and what the future may hold, I
suggest John Faaborg's "Saving Migrant Birds", 2002.  This is somewhat
of a follow up of John Terborgh's "Where Have All the Birds Gone?" from
1986.  Faaborg's book looks at a lot of landscape issues and discusses
exactly what kind of information we can and can not use from current
bird census' and research.

Craig Watson
Mt. Pleasant, SC
(843)881-2652
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kendrick Weeks" <musoikos@yahoo.com>
To: "Carolina Birds" <carolinabirds@duke.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 24, 2003 11:13 PM
Subject: Blackpolls and other landscape effects on migrants


> Van Horne wrote an excellent paper in 1983 on density
> being a misleading indicator of habitat quality, a
> standard reference and consideration for study design
> and data analysis in current landscape scale
> ornithological research.  This is probably exactly
> what is happening not only with Balckpoll Warblers but
> also other migrants. Who here has a favorite migrant
> spot that happens to be a relatively small island of
> habitat in an urban area?
>
> Kendrick Weeks
> Fuquay Varina
>
> Josh wrote:
>
> The consensus seems to be that Blackpolls migrate
> across the landscape
> in
> a more-or-less uniform front. Upon encountering a
> developed area, all
> Blackpolls that would normally be spread across that
> area get
> concentrated
> into the few trees available, those being typically
> the big streetside
> oaks. A few folks have noted that large oaks tend to
> host a large
> variety
> of inchworms and other lep larvae, and that oaks in
> town are more
> stressed
> by heat, pollution, pavement covering their roots,
> etc. and so less
> able
> to resist infestations, thus constituting a very
> long-term and indirect
> sort of bird feeder for insectivorous species.
>
>
>
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