“What’s that bird singing?” someone asked. During our first public nature hike at the French Settlement Road Public Conservation Areas last spring, the group had stopped in the meadow to listen.
Linda Gibbs, Tug Hill Tomorrow Land Trust (THTLT) Community Programs Director, and lifelong birder Steve Litwhiler exchanged a hopeful look. She whipped out her phone and activated the Merlin bird identification app to see if it confirmed their first thoughts. Sure enough, the group had heard the call of a Golden-winged Warbler.
This small, boldly marked, silvery-gray migratory bird, with a golden yellow head cap and golden wing patches, is a species of special concern in New York State.
It’s experiences like this that remind us why protecting these spaces matters, for the birds, for the habitat, and for all of us who get to share in the wonder.
A Species of Special Concern
Golden-winged Warblers have shown decline for two major reasons.
The first is habitat loss. These birds require specific areas of shrubby habitat with underlying herbaceous plants and grasses situated in a certain proximity to young and mature forests in order to thrive. Without disturbance, their ideal shrubby habitats naturally disappear and grow up into young trees and forest.
The second is interbreeding between Golden-winged Warblers and the more abundant Blue-winged Warbler. Hybridized young can potentially sing both birds’ songs, so visual confirmation is the only way to accurately determine that true Golden-winged Warblers are present.
This spring, THTLT staff and an experienced group of volunteers will conduct focused surveys to confirm the presence of Golden-winged Warblers in this location, and THTLT will likely include improvement and maintenance of habitat for these birds moving forward.
This is the power of our public conservation areas
While they protect vital habitat, they also provide the unique opportunity for people to escape the day’s pressures, relax, breathe fresh air, and connect with wildlife in a natural setting surrounded by birdsong, the flutter of butterfly wings on flowers, a chorus of frog songs, and more.
And that so, for the foreseeable future, visitors walking the meadow trail at French Settlement Road Public Conservation Area can stop, hold their breath, and say, “I hear a Golden-winged Warbler singing!”
