Written by Bryan Watts
2/8/13
For the third winter in a row Fletcher Smith, a field biologist with the Center for Conservation Biology, has traveled to the coast of Georgia to assist the Georgia Department of Natural Resources with a project focused on marsh sparrows in winter. Initiated as a sister project to a CCB project in coastal Virginia the effort has captured, identified, and banded nearly 500 sparrows in several trapping sites along the coast of Georgia.
A seaside sparrow during winter. Photo by Bryan Watts.
Seaside and saltmarsh sparrows spend their entire life cycle within tidal salt marshes and represent some of the most sensitive indicators of marsh conditions available to science. Their home is confined to the narrow ribbon of habitat that is increasingly vulnerable to climate change and sea-level rise. The broad objective of this work is to collect information that will be critical to the long-term conservation of these species. Habitat-specific densities, age structure, site philopatry, survivorship, and habitat use are all important in understanding the potential impacts of sea-level rise on marsh-bird populations.
Fletcher Smith measures the wing of a saltmarsh sparrow. Photo by Bryan Watts.
A bald eagle nest just off the Poropotank River in Virginia in 2003. A nest with two equal young and ample food was a normal scene during this time period. This reflects a golden period during the late 1990s and early 2000s when males had more leisure time to hunt and provide for broods. Photo by Catherine Markham.
Breeding female on the Eltham Bridge. This female was hatched on Elkins Marsh along the seaside of the Delmarva in 2010 and has held the territory on the Eltham Bridge since 2013 with three successive males. She has been very aggressive and protective of the nest site and has held the territory together. She was found with a wing injury from a collision in December and could not be rehabilitated. She is one of a number of falcons that have been documented to go down in 2022. Photo by Bryan Watts.