11-Year Old Blue-winged Warbler Is a Sign of Stewardship Success at the Bent of the River Audubon Center

Earlier this yr, a chook bander on the Bent of the River Audubon Heart made a powerful discover: a Blue-winged Warbler who was at the very least 11 years outdated!

Chook banding is a vital instrument in conservation. Licensed professionals arrange “mist nets” to quickly seize birds flying by means of an space. After being retrieved from the light nets, captured birds are recognized, measured, and banded.

On the Bent, common banding classes all through the spring and fall enable their employees to higher perceive how the middle’s different habitat is getting used, and by who.

This explicit Blue-winged Warbler is a repeat buyer on the middle’s banding website. It was even initially banded there in 2016 as an “after second yr” chook, which means that our bander was in a position to decide it had hatched at the very least two years prior.

In 2019 after which 2022 it was captured once more. Notably, in each years it confirmed indicators of breeding!

“The return of [this warbler] to the Bent speaks to the standard of habitat on the sanctuary,” explains Corrie Folsom-O’Keefe, Audubon Connecticut’s director of chook conservation, and the bander who made this thrilling discover. “This chook has used the early-successional cedar fields on the Bent as nesting habitat throughout at the very least 4 springs and summers of its life.”

Early successional habitat is the one habitat that Blue-winged Warblers nest in. It’s additionally arduous to seek out in Connecticut, the place it makes up lower than 5 % of the state’s panorama.

“Sustaining this habitat kind is a core a part of the conservation work we do on the Bent,” says Glen Somogie, the middle’s land supervisor. All year long, he and different employees interact in invasive plant elimination, selective mowing, and different strategies key to conserving the early successional habitat within the middle’s “Cedar Fields”.

“If it weren’t for the administration actions taken by [Audubon staff] over the winter months, this chook, and plenty of others, wouldn’t proceed to seek out appropriate habitat,” says Folsom-O’Keefe.

Common chook banding, like what we do on the Bent, helps us higher perceive which birds are utilizing this habitat, and the way. Taking this info into consideration permits us to make administration selections that finest profit the birds that depend on the habitat we offer.

And as for capturing this impressively outdated Blue-winged Warbler?

“It’s an unimaginable signal that this administration is working,” says Robin Ladouceur, middle director for the Bent of the River Audubon Heart.