Surveys hit
high note
for Henslow's

Rare sparrows found at more sites

By Todd Schneider
   The Henslow's sparrow is diminutive in size and numbers. Recent surveys, however, documented previously unknown populations in Georgia, adding information critical to conserving this pint-sized songbird.
   Henslow’s sparrows nest in prairies and other grasslands in the Midwest and Northeast and spend winters in grassy areas of pine flatwoods, pitcherplant bogs and powerline corridors in the Gulf and Southeast Atlantic Coastal Plains. The species has declined precipitously over the past several decades, probably due mostly to habitat loss on its breeding and wintering grounds.
   The small population size, greatly reduced habitats and other factors make Henslow’s sparrow a species of high conservation concern. Yet, its secretive nature and small numbers make it a difficult to survey and monitor, and little is known about its distribution and populations across most of its range, including in Georgia.
   Paulk's Pasture Wildlife Management Area in Glynn County is the only location in the state where regular sightings have occurred over the past 10 to 15 years. Part of a powerline corridor and an adjacent pine forest on the WMA are regularly burned, using prescribed fire to provide habitat for the birds. Nongame Conservation Section biologist Tim Keyes has captured and banded a significant number of Henslow’s sparrows at the site during the last three winters.
   In an effort to find additional populations, I surveyed powerline corridors at other sites on WMAs and natural areas with the help of Nongame Section staff and volunteers. Jim Cox and James Tucker of Tall Timbers Research Station surveyed pine flatwoods and pitcherplant bog sites on some WMAs and natural areas in the southwest corner of Georgia.
   The results have been heartening.
   Populations never before documented were found at Paulk's Pasture WMA (a second location), Townsend WMA and Moody Forest Natural Area. More than 60 individual birds were caught and banded at these sites. (Although no Henslow's sparrows were discovered on DNR lands in southwest Georgia, Cox and Tucker found good habitat and think the sparrows may occur at River Creek, the Rolf and Alexandra Kauka Wildlife Management Area near Thomasville.)
   Surveys on these areas and others will continue for at least a few years. The hope is to find many more new sites with Henslow's sparrows and better determine population size and how to best manage habitats to conserve this species.   

Todd Schneider is a wildlife biologist with the Nongame Conservation Section and lead editor of The Breeding Bird Atlas of Georgia (UGA Press).

Paulk’s partner
Plum Creek is a 2010 DNR Forestry For Wildlife Partner due in part to conservation efforts involving prescribed burning to enhance winter habitat for Henslow's sparrows on the Paulk's Pasture tract, which Plum Creek owns.

Burning and banding
DNR’s Game Management Section has done much of the rest of the burning at the WMA, and joined with U.S. Fish and Wildlife staff in helping survey the sparrows.




Sprewell Bluff surprise

By Hal Massie
   Discoveries often start with “that’s funny …”
   While scouting a ridgeline in the Sprewell Bluff area of Pine Mountain in January, Nongame Conservation Section biologist Nathan Klaus and his wife, Joyce, spotted a plant with clumps of narrow grass-like leaves and tall flower stalks topped by clusters of brown seed capsules (above left). Klaus, an ornithologist keenly interest in land restoration and fire ecology, first thought the plant was beargrass, uncommon but found in the Coastal Plain and fall line sandhills.
   Within days, he doubted himself. Klaus returned to the steep bluff for a positive ID. The plant was actually eastern turkeybeard, an herbaceous perennial known in the state only from a few north Georgia counties.
   Other surprises followed: Klaus had to revise his first estimate from a few dozen plants to 150-200, then – after a visit with this author – to 300-400 plants.
   Previous to the discovery, the range of eastern turkeybeard extended from northern Alabama and Georgia through the Appalachians to northern Virginia, with disjunct populations in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, northeastern Alabama and Kentucky. Usually found in rocky, well-drained soils and often on slopes in association with heaths and pines, the Pine Mountain population appears associated with longleaf and shortleaf pine, as well as mountain laurel and rhododendron.
Current distribution maps show turkeybeard in one to six Georgia counties.
   Thanks to Klaus’ discerning eyes and persistence in identifying the plant, those maps will be updated to show a population in the lower Piedmont.

Read Hal’s complete article in the March 2011 BotSoc News, the Georgia Botanical Society newsletter.

A need for fire
Eastern turkeybeard is not common anywhere, probably due to fire suppression. Fire stimulates flowering and helps maintain the open, pine-dominated habitat the plant prefers. The Sprewell Bluff site was burned in February 2007 and again this month. Klaus expects “some pretty prolific blooms this spring.” (Example from Dawson Forest WMA above right in photograph.)

Category: special
Turkeybeard is ranked as an S1 plant, meaning it is imperiled within the state. DNR lists turkeybeard’s status as rare.


TERN Volunteer of Year












Statesboro gardener
has heart of a guardian
  
   In 1990, lifelong gardener Martha Joiner wanted to know what plants grew on the wooded house lot her family had just acquired. Last month, The Environmental Resources Network named the Statesboro resident 2010 Volunteer of the Year, honoring a devotion to understanding and conserving native plants that took root 21 years before.
   “I think the plants recruited me!” says Joiner, laughing.
   They chose well. Joiner’s what-grows-here question eventually led her to propagate native plants, acquire a master’s degree in botany and – along with her husband Hew – become one of the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance’s first Botanical Guardians. As part of the program in which citizens monitor rare plants and habitats, Joiner protects a complex of pitcherplant bogs along a south Georgia powerline.
   “Continued improvements (there) … could not have happened without Martha’s steadfast work,” Nongame Conservation Section botanist Lisa Kruse wrote in nominating Joiner for the TERN award
   The bogs contain five state-protected species and represent Georgia’s only-known site for Coastal Plain purple pitcherplant. Joiner’s oversight has included inventorying plants, successfully pushing for fencing and signs to keep out ATVs, working with landowners, planting "purps" or young pitcherplants she raised (right), and cutting shrubs so Georgia Power doesn’t need to spray the right of way with herbicides.
   TERN president Brock Hutchins said Joiner’s relationship with landowners is key. “She’s gotten their respect and confidence that she’s going to do the right thing.”
   Along with their work at the bog, Martha and Hew help monitor rare plants in McIntosh County and water quality on a stream crossing Jenkins County property they own. As for the less than 2-acre Statesboro lot that originally steered Martha toward plant conservation, “I finally decided this place didn’t need a gardener,” she said.
  “It was already a garden. I just needed to figure out what was here.”


Passion for Unicoi BirdFest
  
   Unicoi State Park and Lodge in spring has long offered the location and timing for a major birding event. What helped change that potential to practice this year was the deep birding interest of Unicoi resource manager Ellen Graham and Angie Johnson, Region Four resource manager for state parks.
   “We started it because we have a passion for it,” Graham said of the Georgia Mountain BirdFest, set for April 28-May 1 at the park near Helen.
   Planning and organization have transformed a low-key birding program held at Unicoi since 1999 into a lineup of more than 30 birding experts and 60-plus sessions and field trips. Speakers include the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Marshall Iliff and Birding Georgia author Giff Beaton. Nongame Conservation Section staff will lead some sessions. Programs vary from identifying warblers and trees to off-topic talk of Georgia bats and butterflies. Trips tap birding hot spots such as Ivy Log Gap and Buck Shoals. Saturday offers events open to the public, and many of them free.
   Learn more at www.gamtnbirdfest.com or download a festival guide.

Other birding events

• Camp Talon takes flight June 12-16. St. Simons Island is base camp for the birding and nature camp for teens. Destinations include Harris Neck NWR, Altamaha WMA, Fort Stewart and Sapelo Island. Details: Rusty Garrison, rusty.garrison@dnr.state.ga.us or (770) 784-3059.
• The Youth Birding Competition signup deadline is only days away – March 31. Click here to register or explore this fun and challenging 24-hour Georgia birdathon, set for April 16-17.

Out my backdoor

The vine that shines

By Terry W. Johnson
   In my neck of the woods, Chickasaw plums, redbuds, yellow Jessamine, daffodils, jonquils, forsythias and pear trees are always at the head of Mother Nature’s spring parade of flowers. But as I look across my yard to the crossvines blanketing a fence along one edge, I know that in a few weeks this native woody vine will herald spring with its dusty red and yellow trumpet-shaped blossoms.
   Crossvine has long been a personal favorite. It annually produces attractive foliage and provides wildlife with food and nesting and escape cover. Native Americans appreciated crossvine for its reputed medicinal value, using the bark, leaves and roots to treat ailments including diphtheria, rheumatism, edema and headaches.
   The vine gets its name from the cross-shaped pith seen when its squarish stem is cut in two. The vine grows throughout the state; however, it is more abundant in middle and south Georgia.
   Crossvine grows fast and can reach lengths of 50 feet or more. For this reason, the flowers sometimes go unappreciated as they festoon the tree canopy far above the forest floor.
   The slender, pointed, dark green leaves remain green yearlong in southern portions of the state. In the northern half, the foliage often turns a pleasing reddish purple in winter.
   But it is the blossoms that are show-stoppers! Each spicy, fragrant flower is shaped like trumpet or bell about 2 inches long and 1½ inches wide. The outside is orange-red; the throat is yellow.
   Healthy crossvines produce cascades of flowers. Some horticulturalists say the crossvine bears more flowers per foot than any plant. This vine also is an early bloomer, blooming for three to four weeks beginning in April in the Georgia Piedmont, and earlier in south Georgia.
   Blooming coincides with the return of ruby-throated hummingbirds, providing abundant sugar-rich nectar when there are few sources available. While crossvine’s winged seeds are not considered important to wildlife, deer browse on the foliage and vines and crossvine is a preferred food of swamp rabbits.
   If you have never incorporated native woody vines into your landscape design, the crossvine is a great start. It is easy to maintain, attractive, drought-tolerant once established and a valuable wildlife plant.
   Crossvine is also a great conversation piece. When neighbors see the cascade of large, orange and yellow flowers in your yard, they will want to know what it is that plant and where can they find one.

Terry Johnson is a former Nongame program manager with the Wildlife Resources Division, a backyard wildlife expert, and executive director of TERN, the friends group of the Nongame Conservation Section. (Permission is required to reprint this column. Contact rick.lavender@dnr.state.ga.us.)

Crossvine starter

• Lives in partial shade and full sun, and moist or dry soil conditions. But flower production is best when planted in acidic, well-drained soils in full sun.
• Propagate from seed or cuttings. Cuttings seem to root best in June or July.
• Find native crossvine for transplanting in bottomlands, upland mixed forests and old fencerows. (Obtain the landowner’s permission!)
• Cultivars available at nurseries vary from Jekyll (developed from wild plants on Jekyll Island) to tangerine, noted for its abundance of blooms.

Not just for the birds
Other nectar-feeders such as butterflies and moths share in crossvine’s sugar-rich nectar. The vine is also a host plant for the rustic sphinx moth. Look carefully for the large, predominantly green caterpillar of this yellowish to chocolate brown-colored moth feeding among the foliage.

Read Terry’s full column on crossvine, including more tips on care and planting.




Parting shots


With calving season ending, an EcoHealth Alliance survey team spotted this North Atlantic right whale mom and 1-month-old calf off Tybee Island March 18. The pair was the 20th documented during winter 2010-2011, a total that DNR wildlife biologist Clay George said is slightly above average. See next month’s Georgia Wild for a closer look at the calving season.



Prescribed fire that swept 1,200 acres in and around rugged Tallulah Gorge State Park on March 22-23 was a searing success. “We were able to burn at the landscape level … and let the fire figure out where it needed to go,” said Nathan Klaus, a senior DNR wildlife biologist. Habitats that will benefit include rare table mountain pine communities. The cones of this small pine native to the southern Appalachians require extreme heat to open and release their seeds, Klaus explained. The recent burn, ignited largely from a helicopter, provided it. Cooperators included DNR, the U.S. Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, Georgia Power Co. and the Georgia Forestry Commission.



Janisse Ray and her father write their memories of Moody Forest in a scrapbook during a celebration this month at the Appling County natural area. The event marked the 10th anniversary of the acquisition of Moody Forest ("Miracle of Moody," February 2011). Managed by The Nature Conservancy and DNR, this 4,500-acre forest is a conservation treasure, with diverse habitats home to rare wildlife such as red-cockaded woodpeckers and eastern and ancient baldcypress, oaks and longleaf pines. The celebration drew a crowd of about 100, including DNR Commissioner Mark Williams, TNC Georgia Director Shelly Lakly and Ray, author of “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood” and editor of the essay collection “Moody Forest.” The natural area is open to the public. Activities vary from hiking to hunting. More on the anniversary: Read Charles Seabrook’s column in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.


Calendar
April 2: Growing Up WILD workshop for educators, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Stone Mountain Memorial. Georgia Project WILD coordinator Mary Terry, mary.terry@dnr.state.ga.us or (770) 784-3059.
April 15: Nature Conservancy's 17th Annual Hoochie conservation fundraiser, 7 p.m., Tophat Soccer Fields, Atlanta.
April 16-17: Youth Birding Competition, statewide but event ends 5 p.m. April 17 at Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center, Mansfield.
April 18, 19, 21: DNR public hearings on proposed 2011-12 and 2012-13 hunting season regulations and regulations for non-hunting/angling fees on WMAs and PFAs. 7 p.m. April 18 at Stuckey Conference Center Auditorium/UGA Griffin Campus, Griffin; April 19 at Coffee County Courthouse, Douglas; April 21 at Georgia Mountains Center, Gainesville. Also comment online or by mail by April 29.
April 29-May 1: Advanced Project WILD workshop The Birds and the Bees, Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center. Georgia Project WILD coordinator Mary Terry, mary.terry@dnr.state.ga.us or (770) 784-3059.
April 30: Coastal Georgia Audubon Society clean-up of Brunswick's Andrew Island Causeway, 8-10 a.m. Details: Marge Inness, minness@comcast.net.
May 26: Growing Up WILD facilitator training, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center. Georgia Project WILD coordinator Mary Terry, mary.terry@dnr.state.ga.us or (770) 784-3059.
June 18-24: Paddle Georgia 2011.
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