by Dottie Head, Director of Communications

Georgia Audubon and the Atlanta BeltLine recently partnered on a project to install two 12-foot-tall Chimney Swift towers along the Atlanta BeltLine. Funded by a generous grant from Patagonia Atlanta, one tower is located on the Atlanta BeltLine Eastside Trail and the second tower is on the Atlanta BeltLine Westside Trail. Designed to mimic actual chimneys, these towers will serve as roosting and nesting habitat for Chimney Swifts. In addition, a bird-friendly native plant garden has been installed at the Eastside Trail project site thanks to generous grants from the Georgia Ornithological Society and the Cherokee Garden Club with additional funds from Georgia Audubon.
 
Still a fairly common sight in the metro area, Chimney Swifts are being forced to respond to additional threats across their range—from chimney capping, to tree removal, to a decreasing supply of insects due to pesticides and climate change. Other issues, such as building collisions and challenges on swifts’ wintering grounds are exacerbating population declines. These are the seventh and eighth towers Georgia Audubon has constructed in recent years.
 
“The Chimney Swift is one of Georgia Audubon’s focal species, and we have been working with various organizations across the metro area to create habitat for this aerial insectivore,” says Adam Betuel, director of conservation for Georgia Audubon. “We were delighted to partner with the Atlanta Beltline with funding from Patagonia Atlanta to build these towers, which we hope will not only provide nesting and roosting habitat for swifts, but will also educate the millions of people who walk along the Atlanta BeltLine about the importance of supporting these birds. We’re also excited to install a native plant garden near the Eastside tower to attract birds, bees, and other pollinators and show people how easy it is to incorporate native plants into their landscapes.”
 
Chimney Swifts have specially adapted feet that allow them to cling to the inside of hollow structures, like these towers. The swifts build saucer-shaped nests made out of twigs glued together with the birds' saliva. Chimney Swifts rarely allow other birds (including other swifts) to use "their" tower while they are nesting, but in late summer, hundreds or even thousands of individual birds may roost in one large chimney, creating a spectacular site overhead as they flock into the chimney near dusk. In exchange for the roosting site, Chimney Swifts will provide natural pest control as each swift may consume up to 1,000 flying insects, including mosquitos, each day.
 
“The Atlanta Beltline Initiative is very excited to collaborate with Georgia Audubon on the installation of these two Chimney Swift Towers that will support the migration of these wonderful birds,” says Kevin Burke, FASLA and principal landscape architect for the Atlanta BeltLine. “We look forward to future opportunities to further enable and enhance our 22-mile pollinator and wildlife corridor.”
 
Since the 1950s, Chimney Swifts and other aerial insectivores have experienced drastic population declines due to several factors, such as the increased use of pesticides that harms their main prey, flying insects, and the loss of swifts’ nesting and roosting habitat (formerly hollow trees and more recently, man- made chimneys). Chimney Swifts, now listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, have responded to these challenges by increasingly flocking to urban areas that offer abandoned factory smokestacks or historical home chimneys that have been left uncapped and which mimic their natural breeding and roosting sites.
 
GPS Coordinates for the two towers:

Atlanta BeltLine Eastside tower - 33.768029081412074, -84.36123996414393 - in front of Telephone Factory Lofts
Atlanta BeltLine Westside tower - 33.727446999583876, -84.41617312817229 - Not far from the Lee & White development
 
About Georgia Audubon: Georgia Audubon is building places where birds and people thrive. We create bird-friendly communities through conservation, education, and community engagement.
 
About the Atlanta BeltLine: As one of the largest, most wide-ranging urban redevelopment programs in the United States, the Atlanta BeltLine is the catalyst for making Atlanta a global beacon for equitable, inclusive, and sustainable city life.
 

By Dottie Head, Director of Communications
 
Students at Sagamore Hills Elementary School in Atlanta, DeKalb County, have a newly certified Georgia Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary to use for outdoor learning thanks to the diligent work of Stephanie Spencer, a K-5 STEM teacher at the school. The school garden habitat is accessible to the public and students use it daily for activities ranging from studying the monarch life cycle and bird habitat requirements to conducting bird and butterfly counts.
 
The wildlife habitat is certified by both Georgia Audubon and Monarchs Across Georgia, and the project has been several years in the making. Stephanie and another teacher, Allison Nelson, enrolled in a three-day, Georgia Audubon Taking Wing and Flying Together workshop back in June of 2019. One of the assignments was to design a native bird habitat for their school.  Stephanie chose a weedy hillside near the playground for the project, and she worked with Trecia Neal, a Master Gardener and retired biologist from Fernbank Science Center, on the habitat design. Stephanie also wrote two grants to help fund the project and received plant donations. The whole school came together on the garden installation. More than 60 staff, students, and parents showed up for three Saturday workdays to clear the hillside, plant, and mulch.
 
During an initial visit to the school by Gabe Andrle, Georgia Audubon habitat conservation manager, and Melinda Langston, Georgia Audubon board member and an active avian advocate volunteer, recommended that the area needed less turf grass and more native plants in order to qualify for certification as a Georgia Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary. They also recommended that a nearby hillside be converted to a native habitat due to its wonderful potential with a great native canopy, public-facing location, and outdoor classroom space.
 
Stephanie went back to work, consulting with Fernbank horticulturists to map out an additional 250-foot garden along the side of the building and identify a list of native plants that would do well in this habitat. An additional work day on the Martin Luther King, Jr., Day of Service resulted in 100 volunteers planting more than 100 native shrubs and other plants and adding a 3-4” layer of mulch to all the beds. The school was officially certified as Georgia Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary in November 2020.
 
“The garden has thrived, and the students have enjoyed seeing the monarch, Gulf fritillary, and swallowtail eggs and caterpillars on all of the host plants,’ says Spencer. “The number of birds has also increased dramatically, or maybe we’re just noticing them more!”
 
One final addition to our campus was 22 nest boxes for seven species of birds, thanks to a generous donation from Scott Scheivelhud, a grandparent and owner of The Garden Enthusiast, in Tucker. Each grade level was assigned a species of bird to monitor, and each homeroom participated in the installation of their nesting box. 
 
In spite of the difficulties posed by the pandemic, students have continued using the garden. A grant by the Sagamore Hills Foundation allowed the school to purchase 25 pairs of student binoculars. Stephanie and Allison developed a bird unit and taught all second-grade students how to use the binoculars both on campus and at nearby Turtle Creek. “We saw a Great Blue Heron, Gray Catbirds, Red-winged Blackbirds, Eastern Bluebirds, Cardinals, chickadees, and many other birds, quite a few of which the students were able to identify,” says Spencer.
 
In addition, students collected monarch, gulf fritillary, and swallowtail eggs to raise in the classroom. Each fall, students tag the monarchs and report tag numbers to Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas. Students also take part in the Great Pollinator Count and monitor and report data from the nest boxes using Cornell’s Nestwatch Program. “The students love being involved in citizen science projects like NestWatch, Monarch Watch, Journey North, and Project Monarch Health,” says Spencer.
 
The first question students ask when they come to class is, ‘Are we going outside today?’ says Spencer. “The kids absolutely love being outside. They take their jobs outside seriously, whether it is looking for birds, collecting leaves, measuring the rainfall, planting vegetables or identifying invasive plants. They take their clipboards and record their data and return to enter it on national data bases or in their STEM journals. The excitement is evident through their discussions and what I hear from parents. Parents tell me they are learning things they never knew about plants, animals, stream health, pollution, and invasive species from their children. The children’s enthusiasm is contagious, and they get their parents involved. They even involve the community by collecting seeds from our native plants and sharing them with the neighborhood in our seed library.” 
 
When asked what she recommends for parents and other teachers who want to get started with more engaging outdoor learning, Stephanie recommends getting outside and enjoying all the parks in Georgia. She also recommends taking advantage of the programs offered by Georgia Audubon, the Chattahoochee Nature Center, and local parks, as well as the many outdoor education programs such as Project Learning Tree, Georgia Audubon’s Taking Wing and Flying Together, Project WET, Adopt a Stream, and Captain Planet.
 
“I have been a member of Georgia Audubon and the Environmental Education Alliance of Georgia for years,” says Spencer. Through these organizations I have met a lot of amazing scientists and environmental educators who have inspired me and/or helped me plan our outdoor spaces, provide programs for my students and provide a wide range of training for teachers. Networking with outdoor educators has had a big impact on me and how I teach my students. They have given me the information, encouragement and motivation necessary to plan the expansions to our outdoor spaces at Sagamore Hills.”
 
Georgia Audubon is thrilled to add Sagamore Hills Elementary School to the list of more than 600 certified Wildlife Sanctuaries in Georgia.
 
“Stephanie deserves a lot of credit for this amazing wildlife habitat,” says Andrle. “The school has really embraced birds and pollinators and tied them into curriculum in many meaningful ways.”
 
Resources:
Georgia Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary Program - https://www.georgiaaudubon.org/wildlife-sanctuary-program.html
 
Georgia Audubon Taking Wing and Flying Together - https://www.georgiaaudubon.org/professional-development.html
 
Cornell Nestwatch - https://nestwatch.org/
 
Monarchs Across Georgia - https://www.eealliance.org/monarchs-across-ga.html
 
Monarch Watch - https://www.monarchwatch.org/
 
Monarch Waystation Certification - https://www.monarchwatch.org/waystations/certify.html
 

by Dottie Head, Director of Communications

Georgia Audubon recently completed habitat restoration work at the Little Creek Horse Farm and Park, in DeKalb County, as part of a 2019 Habitat Restoration Grant. Over the past two years, Georgia Audubon has worked with the Little Creek Farm Conservancy to restore a creek bank and create a bird- and wildlife-friendly habitat in an under-utilized meadow area along the South Fork of Peachtree Creek in the north-central portion of the park. The restoration area has also been certified as a Georgia Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary.

Located at 2057 Lawrenceville Highway in Decatur, the Little Creek Horse Farm and Park is a 40-acre site that encompasses an equestrian facility and greenspace for local residents to enjoy. The South Fork of Peachtree Creek traverses the property from its east to the west borders. The property was designated as a DeKalb County park in 2004 and is one of the last remaining horse stables inside the Atlanta perimeter.

“Georgia Audubon was pleased to work with the Little Creek Farm Conservancy to make the farm a better place for birds and wildlife,” says Gabe Andrle, Habitat Conservation Program Manager. “By removing non-native invasive species and replacing them a variety of native grassland plants, we were able to convert an old paddock into a native meadow that complements the open areas of the horse farm and provides important habitat for many grassland species that are threatened due to habitat loss and alteration. The Conservancy is actively building upon this restoration work in other areas of the park and will continue work to make habitat improvements.”

Georgia Audubon removed invasive plants along the creek bank and meadow and installed a variety of native meadow plants, including cutleaf coneflower, broom sedge, false indigo, black-eyed Susan, and other species. Georgia Audubon and Little Creek Farm Conservancy have also been monitoring bird species abundance monitoring and offering community outreach programs.
 
“We are grateful for the support and opportunity to work with Georgia Audubon on the habitat restoration grant,” says Bobbi Woolwine, outreach chair for the Little Creek Farm Conservancy. “Gabe and Walter spearheaded an educational and fun experience for our volunteers. We look forward to continuing our partnership protecting the park greenspace from invasive, non-equine friendly plants and scheduling guided bird walks for the community.”

About Georgia Audubon: Georgia Audubon is building places where birds and people thrive. We create bird-friendly communities through conservation, education, and community engagement.
 
About the Little Creek Farm Conservancy: Formed in 2007, the Little Creek Farm Conservancy partners with DeKalb County to provide stewardship of the park and to offer educational, environmental, and recreational outreach programs and events for the public. DeKalb County Parks and Recreation offers operational support, maintains facilities, and provides land upkeep. They are also responsible for animal care.  

by Kimberly Johnson, Georgia Audubon Master Birder and Elementary School Teacher

Hutchinson Elementary was the site of Georgia Audubon’s first garden installation in 2017. Kimberly Johnson was part of the Taking Wing teacher training in 2016, and a beautiful connection was made between Kimberly and Melanie Furr, Georgia Audubon’s director of education. Since then, Kimberly has embraced every opportunity to gain knowledge and resources to connect her students to birds and nature, including taking the Georgia Audubon Master Birder course. Kimberly shares her experiences teaching children about birds in this article.
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I start my school day on hallway duty, playing bird calls from The Backyard Birdsong Guide by Donald Kroodsma. Children walk by and ask, “What bird is that, Mrs. Johnson?” I tell them the name of the bird, and to my surprise, they walk by the next day and can identify the bird by the sound. This is just one way I get kids interested in the birds in their community. Beginning with the simple question “What is a Bird?” can open a child’s mind to exploration and discovery of a whole new world. As a Master Birder and teacher at an inner-city school, I have learned that the more I share my knowledge about birds and nature, the better connected my students will be to their environment and community. Enhancing children’s awareness, knowledge, and attitudes toward birds and wildlife is truly rewarding.

After being awarded a native plant garden from Atlanta Audubon Society (now Georgia Audubon), my students now have a hands-on approach to learning about native plants and birds and understanding how birds thrive. We have several types of bird feeders and nesting boxes. Some of the plants include beautyberry, aster, blueberry bushes, cherry laurel, and many different types of grasses. Students have set up a kiosk and created checklists with photos of the different birds and plants found in the garden for students, school staff, and visitors to use when they visit. Students also have access to field guides and binoculars provided by Georgia Audubon to help them with identifying birds found in the garden. Thanks to our ongoing partnership, Georgia Audubon staff comes out periodically to provide programming and take students birding. Formal teaching comes from Georgia Audubon’s Learning About Birds curriculum, as well as from Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s K-12 Education resources. These lessons give a more in depth look at birds, ranging from bird diversity, flight and migration, anatomy and more. Georgia Audubon also provided a mini library of books for students to read and learn more about birds.

Next year, we plan to offer an after-school bird watching club, “Bird Buddies,” where students will have the opportunity to experience nature walks, scavenger hunts, and off-campus field trips. It is truly a joy to help kids make connections to nature and improve their awareness, environmental knowledge, and attitudes toward local wildlife.  

by Steve Phenicie, Georgia Audubon member
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If Mississippi Kites were circus performers, they might be the Flying Wallendas. If they were military pilots, they might be the Blue Angels. The printed page cannot adequately describe the aerial maneuvers these birds can perform, but if you’d like to see for yourself, search “Mississippi Kite Barrel Roll” on YouTube for a demonstration.
 
When this bird isn’t flying just for fun, it can catch large flying insects high in the air, often holding them with one foot and eating them while on the wing. It can also skim low to catch prey on or near the ground. Major items in the diet include cicadas, grasshoppers, katydids, beetles, and dragonflies; it also eats moths and bees, and lesser numbers of frogs, toads, snakes, bats, rodents, small birds, and turtles. It won’t turn up its beak at road-kill either.

Despite the name, they aren’t particularly associated with the state of Mississippi or the Mississippi River. During the breeding season they are most common in southern South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama and on the Great Plains of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. In the winter they take off for the interior of South America. Except during migration, you’re unlikely to see one in metro Atlanta.
 
The coloration of this bird is a mix of gray and black, becoming pale gray-white on the head and in the secondaries of the wings. The wingtips and tail are black. Juveniles are streaky, with brownish chests and underwings, and have banded tails. In size, they’re between a crow and a goose and have long, pointed wings. The tail is fairly long and square-tipped.
 
Nesting tends to be in loose colonies, with the site in a tree usually near the edge of woodlot 20 to 35 feet above ground, although it can be up to 140 feet. The nest, built by both sexes, is a rather flimsy platform of dead twigs, lined with green leaves. Adults add greenery throughout the season.
           
The female lays one to two white eggs, and incubation is by both parents for 29 to 31 days. Both parents care for the young. First they may feed the nestlings mostly insects, regurgitated into the nest, with larger prey coming later. The young may climb out of the nest onto nearby branches when about four weeks old and make their first flights at about five weeks. Adults feed them for at least eight weeks after hatching.

In Georgia, Mississippi Kites are more common in the coastal plain and on the coast rather than in the Piedmont. They like to nest along the edges of expansive bottomland forests of many of the larger Coastal Plain rivers, in large forest tracts near pastureland, and in some smaller forested areas near cities/towns, according to the Breeding Bird Atlas of Georgia.
 
In late summer, they team up with Swallow-tailed Kites to form foraging flocks. One reliable spot for these flocks is in the Glennville area (west of Savannah), specifically the Skeens Farm. Last year there was also a group near Watkinsville/Athens. During the breeding season, some of the locales you might see them are Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park in Macon, Oxbow Meadows near Columbus, Okapilco Floodplain and Pasture in Brooks County near Quitman, and Paulk's Pasture near Brunswick. 
 

By Diana Churchill, Ogeechee Audubon Society
 
I first met Pat Wolters in 2001 while working at Wild Birds Unlimited. A petite, energetic woman of 71 years came into the shop to buy food and feeders to support her passion for tending the wild birds in her new backyard on Skidaway Island. Pat and her husband, Art, had just relocated to Savannah from Delaware.
 
In 1989, while living in Maryland, Pat had taken her love of birds to a new level by becoming a volunteer at Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research in Newark, Delaware. Her first job was doing the laundry, but she quickly moved on to other tasks, serving as Banding Chairperson, Release Chairperson, and a member of the Oil Spill Core Team.
 
After she moved to Savannah, Pat looked for similar volunteer opportunities and found that Savannah had almost no resources for bird and wildlife rescue. While Pat worked part-time at Wild Birds Unlimited, she was surprised by the number of people who walked into the shop with birds in a shoebox. She realized she needed to obtain the permits required to operate as a licensed rehabilitator.
 
Even though she intended to focus on birds, permitting from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service required that Pat study all the materials about mammals, too, and pass a 100 question /1-hour timed test. The other requirement to earn her permit was to accrue a certain number of hours as a volunteer at an existing facility. She and Nicole Janke, the manager of Wild Birds Unlimited, began making weekly trips to McIntosh County to work with Emmy Minor at Sanctuary on the Sapelo.
 
After Pat received her permits and started Orphaned Bird Care, Nicole became her assistant and chief volunteer. Working with both of them at Wild Birds Unlimited, I’ve had a chance to observe first-hand all the joys, challenges, and heartache that go along with a commitment to helping birds.
 
For starters, helping birds takes more than knowledge and a permit. You need food to feed them, baskets and cages to house them, and medicines to treat them. All of this takes money. Pat is fortunate to receive grants from Ogeechee Audubon, Skidaway Audubon, The Landings Garden Club, the Landings Landlovers, and the Green Thumb Garden Club, as well as donations from individuals. If you find a bird and bring it to a rehabilitator, please consider making a donation, no matter how small.
 
Pat’s permit requires that a veterinarian must see injured birds. There are only a handful of vets who have the necessary licenses and the willingness to treat wild animals, usually pro bono. Through the years, Pat and Nicole have been fortunate to have the help of a number of vets, including Dr. Chris Gall, Dr. Leslie Mailler, and Dr. Stacy Wilkinson.
 
I went out to Pat’s house in early April to get a tour of her “facilities.” Nesting season had just gotten underway so the basket on the desk in her half of the office she shares with Art was empty. It has a heating pad on the bottom, covered with a towel, a small soft substitute “nest bowl,” a mirror, a branch perch, and an elastic-edged fabric screen cover. More than likely, by the time this article appears in print, the basket will house a family of hungry babies, needing to be fed at least every hour. Thankfully, the birds do not have to be fed at night.
 
The “season” will begin with a phone call, a story, and then a handful of gaping mouths to be fed. Nicole will walk into the shop one day with her basket, announcing, “I have dependents.” The resident wrens, chickadees, bluebirds, nuthatches, woodpeckers and doves will come first, followed later by the migratory warblers, great crested flycatchers, eastern kingbirds, green herons, and chimney swifts.
 
Early on, Pat and Nicole developed a kind of job-sharing for tending baby birds. Nicole takes on many of the tiny nestlings that can easily be confined in baskets.  When they get too big and active to be happy in a basket, they move to a cage, often at Pat’s nursery. During the height of the season, the two may be tending as many as 60 to 70 nestling and fledgling birds.
 
Indoors, in her bird room, Pat has two cages, baskets, and an incubator. In the garage she has three large cages on wheels that can be moved outside during the day. They are not predator proof so must be returned to the garage at night. She also has an outdoor aviary designed by her architect son, and built with money from a Landlovers grant.
 
Both Pat and Nicole have a variety of feeders, birdhouses, and watering stations outside in their yards, to take care of the local birds as well as the special birds they care for and release.
 
Orphaned Bird Care also focuses on education. Not all baby birds need to be rescued. Parent birds can be very quick about the task of bringing in the bugs, so unless you spend thirty minutes or more watching, you might mistakenly assume that the babies are not being fed.
 
Helpless nestlings do need to be fed and tended, and take well to being fed by humans. Fully feathered fledglings, on the other hand, are out of the nest naturally. Their parents care for them, and teach them what they need to know to survive as a bird in a perilous world. Fledglings, when “rescued,” do not take well to being fed by humans and are deprived of that period of essential learning.
 
When I asked Pat to tell me about one of her favorite bird friends, she immediately mentioned a pileated woodpecker. I happened to be at the shop the day a man showed up with two young woodpeckers that came from the cavity of a tree that had been cut down at Hunter Army Airfield. One bird had sustained serious injuries in the fall and did not make it, but the other grew and thrived. Nicknamed “Big Red,” Pat eventually released him in her yard. He returned frequently that first year, coming to a particular tree to get his supplemental snacks, until he found a mate.
 
Nicole and Pat treat over 340 native birds annually. Eighty percent of the birds they care for are released back into the wild. For more information, visit Pat’s web site at www.orphanedbirdcare.com.
 

by Dottie Head, Director of Communications

Georgia Audubon has been awarded three grants totaling $35,000, two from the Georgia Ornithological Society and one from KEEN, Inc, to fund habitat restoration, native plant public awareness, and STEM-based outdoor exploration for youth.

Established by the Georgia Ornithological Society (GOS) to benefit seasonal and migratory bird habitat, the Bill Terrell Avian Conservation Grant will fund bird-friendly habitat restoration along the South River. Georgia Audubon will remove invasive plant species, such as Chinese privet and Japanese hop that currently crowds the riverbank across the 15-acre project site and replace them with appropriate native plants, specifically giant cane (Arundinaria gigantea). Five acres of our project site were previously treated in 2016 by the South River Watershed Alliance, but are now in need of follow-up treatment. The remaining 10 acres have had limited to no restoration efforts and are heavily infested with invasive plant species.
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The 15-acre project site is bordered by the Power of Flight grassland (work funded by GOS and managed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources). This specific site is well known for its avian diversity and the broader region is full of wildlife diversity and includes well-known spots like Arabia Mountain, Panola Mountain State Park, Lyons Farm, and the Pole Bridge Wastewater Facility.
 
Restoring a healthy river buffer habitat, with a focus on rivercane, to the South River corridor will further establish critical bird and wildlife habitat. Further restoring the habitat along the South River will enhance the work that has already been done to support a range of species and guilds, including grassland specialists, migratory warblers, river-dependent species, and select focal species like the Swainson’s Warbler.
 
“The Georgia Ornithological Society (GOS) is proud to support the 2021 conservation efforts of Georgia Audubon with a Bill Terrell Avian Conservation Grant,” says Jim Ferrari, a GOS Board member who chairs the Conservation Grant Committee and is a professor at Wesleyan College in Macon. “Georgia Audubon’s proposal to remove invasive plant species along the South River floodplain and replace them with native river cane will improve habitat for resident and migratory birds and other wildlife. Not only that, but restoration of the canebrake ecosystem will have benefits for water quality as well, helping to filter runoff and control streamside erosion.”
 
A second GOS Opportunity Grant, with additional funding received from the Cherokee Garden Club in 2020, will fund a native plant demonstration garden along the Atlanta BeltLine. The garden will be installed in partnership with Trees Atlanta at the site of a newly-constructed Chimney Swift tower (funded by a grant from Patagonia Atlanta) on the Eastside Trail section of the Atlanta BeltLine, an area near Ponce City Market where more than 1.7 million residents and visitors utilize the corridor annually.
Approximately 650 native plants will be planted in a 1,500-square-foot area, ranging from native grass and perennial plugs to larger three-gallon shrubs. The exact mix of plant species will be determined based on availability at the time of planting, but examples include Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), Wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa), Blazing star (Liatris spicata), Black-eyed susan (Rudbeckia fulgida), Purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), and Adam’s needle (Yucca filamentosa).
 
Finally, KEEN Inc. recently awarded one of its KEEN Effect Kids Grants to Georgia Audubon, one of nine organizations selected from an applicant pool of more than 400. This grant will be used to fund Georgia Audubon’s Atlanta Urban Ecologists, a program that guides teens through an 8-month exploration of the fascinating, rich ecology of metro Atlanta, providing opportunities for hands-on field experiences, conservation, and community science, while also establishing a network of environmental professionals who can assist with their academic and career development.
 
For more information on these and other Georgia Audubon conservation and education programs, please visit www.GeorgiaAudubon.org.
 
About Georgia Audubon: Georgia Audubon is building places where birds and people thrive. We create bird-friendly communities through conservation, education, and community engagement.

By Steve Phenicie
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An organization exists for practically anything you can think of, and Rusty Blackbirds are no exception. Ever hear of the International Rusty Blackbird Working Group? This group of scientists has been around since 2005 and exists for a good reason—in recent decades populations of “Rusties” have declined sharply, and the reason is difficult to pin down.

The North American Breeding Bird Survey estimates that populations have dropped 90 percent since 1966. Loss of wet woodland habitat through drainage, clearcutting, and conversion to agriculture is one possible reason—particularly in the southeastern U.S. where some 80 percent of the population winters. Historically, the hunting of beavers across North America may also have reduced habitat by diminishing the number of beaver ponds, but the resurgence of beaver populations may be having a positive effect. Rusty Blackbirds in northeastern North America have been recorded with high mercury counts, which could be contributing to their decline there.

The bird’s remote breeding grounds in the hard-to-access boreal forests of the far north, from Newfoundland to Alaska and lapping into New York and northern New England, make it hard to study. No other blackbird has such a northerly breeding distribution. In the winter it is found from Iowa and southern New England south to the Gulf of Mexico. There and during migration it usually hangs out in swampy places, wading in shallow water at the edges of wooded streams. Rusties also forage in open fields and cattle feedlots with other blackbirds.  

The Working Group tries to get a better handle on this by organizing birders to report on the birds during specific times of the year, particularly during spring migration. Among its activities are outfitting birds with monitoring devices on their breeding grounds and along western Lake Erie in Ohio and Michigan where they stop during migration. Closer to home, Savannah-based Ogeechee Audubon, in cooperation with the Working Group, monitors Rusty Blackbirds on the campus of a private school. (For the full story on that, see this blog post)

The majority of this species’ diet is insects, including aquatic ones such as caddisflies, mayflies, dragonflies, and water beetles, plus land insects such as grasshoppers and others. It also eats snails, crustaceans, small fish, small salamanders, seeds, waste grain, and a few berries.
 
It sometimes nests in small, loose colonies but more often in isolated pairs. The female typically lays four or five eggs that are pale blue-green, spotted with brown and gray. The nest site is in dense cover, usually in conifers or in shrubs. Typically it is only a few feet above the water or ground, but it can be up to 20 feet high. The nest, built by the female, is a bulky open cup of twigs and grass. Incubation is by the female only. Both parents feed the nestlings, and the young leave the nest about 11-14 days after hatching.
 
Around Atlanta, some good spots for Rusties are Piedmont Park, Grant Park, Decatur Cemetery, Cochran Shoals, Constitution Lakes, and, in smaller numbers, at Zonolite Park. Anywhere with flooded woodlands or large blackbird flocks has the potential for them. The name "Rusty" applies to the colors of fall birds, but it could also describe the rusty-hinge sound of its creaking song.

By Dottie Head, Director of Communications

Students at the Georgia Institute of Technology are creating a conservation legacy on the university’s Atlanta campus. Through a partnership forged between Georgia Audubon and Georgia Tech, students, professors, and staff are working collectively to ensure the campus is a safe and welcoming place for resident and migratory birds.

The partnership began in 2017 when Adam Betuel, Georgia Audubon’s director of conservation, connected with Emily Weigel, Ph.D., an academic professional in the School of Biological Sciences. Dr. Weigel, who also serves as director of internships, was able to connect Georgia Audubon with the Georgia Tech intern program, resulting in a series of interns who have been helping with Project Safe Flight ever since.
“The interns have been a tremendous help with all aspects of Project Safe Flight, including managing the database, identifying birds killed by collisions, and coordinating student volunteer teams to monitor and patrol buildings on the Georgia Tech campus,” says Betuel.

Soon after, Georgia Audubon became involved with the Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design on the Georgia Tech campus through a chance introduction. “We were attending the annual Summer Solstice event at Southface Institute, when Linda DiSantis introduced us to the building architects,” says Betuel. “As they were telling us about this amazing sustainable building, I commented on how it would be a shame if it was a threat to birds.” This casual meeting sparked additional conversations and ultimately resulted in the inclusion of special bird-friendly glass in the building design. It was a timely introduction, says Betuel, because retrofitting buildings to make them bird friendly can be expensive and less aesthetically pleasing compared to when bird-friendly glass is incorporated during the initial design phase.
Located on the Georgia Tech Campus, the Kendeda Building for Innovative Design is the first academic and research building in the Southeast to pursue Living Building Challenge 3.1 certification—the world’s most ambitious green building program—which aligns with Georgia Tech’s longstanding vision for its campus to serve as an educational center for innovation that transforms future generations.

Through the Kendeda project, Georgia Audubon was introduced to Steve Place, a horticulturist and the Georgia Tech associate responsible for the landscape surrounding the Kendeda building as well as an eightacre section of the Eco-Commons, located nearby. This thoughtfully designed greenspace will ultimately contain more than 600 new trees and tens of thousands of perennials, shrubs, ferns and grasses following what was originally a naturally occurring stream.

Place’s role is that of facilitator, connection maker, partner, and advocate of the students. “What I try to do in everything I’m involved with is to include the students as much as possible,” he says.

Steve works with three student groups—Students Organized for Sustainability (SOS), Bioengineering and Bioscience Unified Graduate Students (BBUGS), and a Scouts group—that are doing everything from collision work, to landscape design, to choosing native plants, and restoring a small forested area on campus.

The SOS group is charged with taking care of the community garden and working with Steve to help choose plants and design installation at the Kendeda Center. They also help with maintenance.

BBUGS is currently working with a group of freshmen to raise money to install a pollinator garden in the Eco-commons. The graduate students are mentoring the freshmen in grant writing to raise funds for these projects so that they can influence and promote the outcomes that they want to see on campus.

Finally, the Scouts group is working on a habitat restoration project to restore a forest fragment that is full of invasive species. “It’s a perfect partnership,” says Place. “I provide logistical help—hauling ivy, helping with plant ID, etc.—and the students pull the ivy. We also discuss regenerative ecology and what plants we want to reintroduce to the area. In two years, when this restoration project is complete, the area will be a safe harbor for birds and will complement the nearby Kendeda Center and Eco-Commons. It will be a great legacy for these students.

Steve has also spearheaded a Bird-safe Glass Committee, with representation from the three groups. “Bird collisions were clearly a concern across campus that different student groups have talked about, and I was able to bring together a group to look at and address this problem,” says Place. The Bird-safe Glass Committee is working to identify the worst bird hazards on campus and write grants to raise money to purchase and install film to treat these problem windows on campus.

“The students have been monitoring bird strikes for a while now and have enlisted landscape services and the Georgia Tech police department to report dead birds,” says Place. “We have a Vertical Integration Program (VIP) made up of students that do different work, including water quality, air quality, energy use, and wildlife. The wildlife group has done a lot of early morning monitoring of buildings, and I was able to plug them in with Adam and his existing data.”

Steve is rightfully proud of his work. “The EcoCommons used to be 90 percent parking lot, and now all of it has been converted to greenspace. We are planting hundreds of trees every year,” he says. “This a huge commitment to creating this habitat and making sure it will last well beyond our time at Georgia Tech.”

Ultimately both the grounds of the Kendada Building and the Eco-Commons will be certified as a Georgia Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary. Gabe Andrle, habitat program manager for Georgia Audubon, has been brought in to consult with students on native plants and the birds that use them. Gabe and Adam led a bird walk on campus earlier this year with students and faculty to begin assessing what birds are currently using the campus habitat and the steps taking place to make campus more bird-safe. Georgia Audubon has been a great partner, says Place.

In recent months, Georgia Audubon has also connected with Dr. Diana Hicks, a professor in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech specializing in metrics for science and technology policy. In consultation with Georgia Audubon, Dr. Hicks is offering a year-long course in the School of Public Policy which, among other topics, will be addressing possible public policies related to bird-friendly design and how Georgia Audubon could potentially move forward with legislation to ensure future buildings incorporate bird-friendly design elements. Adam is serving as an advisor for this group and will be meeting with them throughout the year.
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“We’re very excited about this partnership and the great work for birds that is taking place on Georgia Tech’s campus,” says Betuel. “Through the work of all of the student groups and with the help of professors and others staff, there is a lot of really substantial progress being made to make the campus a safe and attractive place for birds.”

We are getting lots of calls from people about Pine Siskins at their feeders and concerns ranging from spread of disease to frustration with the sheer volume of seed that these little birds eat. Here are the answers to some of the questions we are hearing.

Why are there so many Pine Siskins this year? - It's an irruption year. Each year, Georgia has a few eBird reports of Pine Siskins, but every few years we have an irruption year and large numbers of siskins migrate to Georgia for the winter. Long story short, it's primarily linked to seed production in pines and other conifers in the boreal forest, but this year Georgia is seeing HUGE numbers of birds.

They are eating me out of house and home. What can I do? - There's not much you can do to discourage these hungry birds, and, as you may have experienced, they can empty your feeders in a matter of minutes. But if you'd like to discourage them, try feeding larger seeds, cracked corn, or even suet. If all else fails, take down your feeders for a few weeks. They should begin dispersing over the next month as they return to their breeding grounds further north. Personally, we prefer to enjoy them while they're here and know that they'll be moving on soon. In the meantime, we’re stocking up on bird food!

I've heard Pine Siskins can spread disease, such as salmonella and finch eye disease. How can I prevent this? - With bird species like Pine Siskins (and House Finches) that travel in large flocks, it is easy for a single sick bird to spread disease to others because of the sheer volume of birds. If you notice an ill siskin or other bird at your feeder (puffy appearance, lethargic, sunken or swollen eyes), the best thing you can do is to take down your feeder, clean it with a mild bleach solution, and keep the feeder down for a few weeks to allow any diseased birds to disperse. Otherwise, just be sure to keep your feeders clean to minimize the spread of bacteria and other diseases that can make birds ill. If you have a sick bird, you can find a list of wildlife rehabilitators on our website. ​