Breeding Bird Monitoring at Booker T. Washington National Monument, 2019

As of 2019, scientists of the National Park Service’s Mid-Atlantic Network had spent ten years working with skilled local volunteers to monitor bird populations in national parks across the mid-Atlantic region. What they gather helps them understand the relationships between breeding birds, available habitats and park resource management, with the goal of developing the best available science so parks can better understand and protect their resources. This brief summarizes the 2019 results for Booker T. Washington National Monument.

A field where native grasses are being encouraged through exotic plant control; a local Master Naturalist group planted a small experimental plot of native warm-season grasses here. NPS / Timothy Sims.

Highlights

• In summer 2019, two volunteers made 21 surveys at 11 sites across the park. In each survey they recorded every bird heard or seen over a 10 minute period, and forest and grassland sites were visited several times during the breeding season.
• Several species of regional concern were documented, some of them, including yellow-billed cuckoos and grasshopper sparrows, relatively abundant.
• Forest bird community index scores suggest moderate to high ecological health in the park’s forest bird communities.

Species of regional concern

Partners in Flight, a network of organizations involved in bird conservation in the Western Hemisphere, has identified a number of bird species that are declining and facing increasing threats across the mid-Atlantic region. Park managers take particular interest in them. The page lists these species observed in 2019:

Grassland birds

For years the park has encouraged meadow diversity and native warm-season grasses to benefit birds, and 2019 shows grassland specialists such as grasshopper sparrows and eastern meadowlarks, both species of regional conservation concern, living there. Despite regional population declines of more than 50%, grasshopper sparrows were the 4th most common bird at grassland sites. Field sparrows, another grassland species of concern, were also relatively abundant. Continued and improved management of warm-season grass meadows should support more rare grassland-dependent birds like the grasshopper sparrow.

Figure from the Park Service’s article: the ten most abundant birds at grassland sites in 2019 (average number observed per site).

Forest birds

The most abundant bird at forest sites in 2019 was the American crow, and the 3rd most common was the yellow-billed cuckoo, a species of regional conservation concern. Partners in Flight considers it a common bird in steep decline, with range-wide population declines of more than 50% since the 1970s. Maintaining forest habitat will benefit birds, including the cuckoo.

Figure from the Park Service’s article: the ten most abundant birds at forest sites in 2019 (average number observed per site).

Forest bird community index

Studying the abundance of all the bird species in an area shows the overall health of its bird community. The forest bird community index score (O’Connell et al., 2000) shows the park’s forest bird community to be moderately healthy, with “medium” or “high integrity.” Continued management for mature forest habitat will help keep this high score. Because of the park’s relatively small size, conserving mature forest on surrounding private lands may matter for the long-term persistence of its forest bird communities.

Figure from the Park Service’s article: forest bird community index score, 2009-2019.

Sources

• National Park Service, Mid-Atlantic Network, Breeding bird monitoring at Booker T. Washington National Monument: 2019 status and trends, a brief on the park’s 2019 breeding bird monitoring report by Mark Johnson, the network’s ecologist (Johnson, 2020); the red-headed woodpecker photo, credited to a volunteer, and the volunteers’ names are left out; the introduction names Richmond National Battlefield Park, which disagrees with the title, the closing section and the address, so the monument is used; the source’s count of species of regional concern, which its table does not match, is left out; rewritten in hubnx's own words.