MASS. BREEDING BIRD ATLAS (4/08/04)

The University of Massachusetts Press has recently published the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas, edited by Wayne R. Petersen and W. Roger Meservey. This book, the first such comprehensive effort in North America, was undertaken in 1974 by the Massachusetts Audubon Society and the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife as a a five-year survey of all the birds that were breeding in the Commonwealth The impressive results obtained by the nearly 600 volunteers who spent untold hours in the field collecting data reveals the remarkable diversity of bird life in Massachusetts. The atlas includes distribution maps showing possible, probable and confirmed breeding areas for 198 nesting species on a grid of 989 ten-square-mile blocks. Opposite each species map is a summary account giving historical perspective, relative abundance, habitat, seasonal schedule, nest, egg and song descriptions, clutch size, egg dates, number of broods and other pertinent details. Each species account, as well as the 21 introductory pages, is delightfully illustrated with extremely accurate watercolors by award-winning nature artists John Sill and Barry Van Dusen. The book also includes a set of eight transparent overlay maps that allow the reader to correlate key environmental factors with the distribution of nesting species. An introductory section describes the atlas survey methodology, while two appendices document bird species known to breed in Massachusetts before and after, but not during, the survey period. Included, also, is a list scientific names of plants and animals (other than birds) noted in the text. Breeding bird atlases are undertaken to provide a baseline record that is important for creating a workable conservation strategy for states’ breeding birds. Most often the answer to the whys of bird population increases or decreases is not the oft-repeated Location! Location! Location! but rather Habitat! Habitat! Habitat! The changeover from pastures, fields, orchards, sand roads and certain types of woodlands causes the loss of some bird species, whereas the advent of introduced shade trees and increased development for housing and business allows other birds to thrive. Since the information comes from twenty-five years ago, readers see the scientific perspective of what most of us have realized or “felt in our bones” about the status of our state’s birds. One look at the distribution of many species with which we are familiar shows a shocking disparity between then and now. Take the bobwhite status on Cape Cod, for instance. Twenty-five years ago, the map shows almost solid green dots representing breeding pairs. All of us who have been associated with the Cape at that time can testify to the accuracy of the data. Back then, it was hard to get out of range of a calling bobwhite. Today, we rejoice if we hear one such individual in a summer. Here’s what Chatham’s Blair Nikula wrote about this bird. “Bobwhites inhabit a variety of open habitats — weedy fields, overgrown pastures, farms, open woodlands, and clearings along power lines. Dense patches of brush and hedgerows within these habitats are important for providing cover and protection from the many predators that find these plump birds to be desirable and vulnerable prey.” Does that describe today’s Cape? Not at all! Other species well represented in the 70’s are almost nonexistent today. For instance, the American kestrel, once seen perched on telephone wires throughout the Cape and mainland are a rare treat now. Whip-poor-wills, formerly widespread on the Cape, are severely limited in number today, with only 3 sites that I am aware of. Others, such as barn owls with 3 confirmed nesting sites — 2 probables and 1 possible — and purple martins, recorded as limited breeders by the surveyors no longer breed here at all. Of course, an atlas shows both the increase of species as well as decline. Here are some examples. The double-crested cormorant had one outpost on an island north of Marthas Vineyard; today they are seemingly everywhere. Mute swans were locally common along southeastern coastal plains and islands and were noted as “spreading and increasing.” Now, they appear on almost every pond of any size. Wild turkeys, once extirpated from the entire state, have increased exponentially since being reintroduced in the 1970’s. Willets, those noisy shorebirds which seem to dominate every marsh on the Cape during breeding season, were declared “uncommon” in the atlas survey with only one location noted of breeding on the Cape and three others in the state. Laughing gulls, abundant at all ocean vistas today, had only two breeding sites, both on Monomoy, at the time of the survey. Even herring gull numbers were way below what they are today, as were great black-backed gulls, whose origins were probably Europe through Nova Scotia. Red-bellied woodpeckers, as I have mentioned in recent columns, are a southern species that has been moving north. None was reported breeding on the Cape in 1975, and they are still a fairly rare (as compared to our other breeding woodpeckers) and local resident. Likewise, downy and hairy woodpeckers’ breeding density has increased during the last quarter of the 20th Century.  At the time the of the survey, ospreys had begun to show a population upswing from only 11 pairs found in 1964. This incredibly low number was the result of their reproductive failure induced by the spread of pesticides into the environment. Today ospreys and their nests atop telephone poles erected along bay and ocean sites are a familiar sight. Piping plovers, as we all know, are being well protected by the Endangered Species Act, and as a consequence, their numbers are rising each year. In 1975, they were assigned the “very uncommon” designation. Screech owls were quite sparse during the survey period but are widespread today because of the number of hardwood trees planted by new residents. Actually, just paging through the atlas and looking at the maps spins quite a story, especially to anyone who is aware of today’s Cape’s breeding birds — or lack thereof. I hope you'll find this out for yourself! Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas:  454 pp., 226 color illus., 198 maps; $60.00 cloth. To purchase copies, call 1-800-537-5487 Please send your comments and anecdotes about birds to me in care of the Cape Cod Times, 319 Main Street, Hyannis, MA 02601 or, if you use email, to emiller@seepub.com. I regret that because of an overwhelming amount of mail, I cannot respond to each of you personally. However, I have added a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section to the web page with my current and past bird columns, now found at http://home.comcast.net/~elliemiller/index.html. If you can’t find the answer to your question there, try Bird Watcher’s Digest at 1-800-879-2478 or check out their FAQ at www.birdwatchersdigest.com.