BNT Science Officer, Scott Johnson holds a Bananaquit in his hand for a portrait before it’s released
Keeping a Close Eye on our Friends in the Sky
[insignia_section_heading title=”Outside science, in parks.” subtitle=”” align=”text-left” separator=”disable” heading_tag=”h2″ heading_font_size=”18″ font_weight=”font-weight-300″ heading_color=”#343434″ subtitle_font_weight=””]Trust Notes | October 2020 Issue
Your national parks are important places for resident and migratory birds in The Bahamas. They protect healthy areas of forests and other habitats that are vital to birds. Your support helped the BNT start a new ‘hands-on’ project to better understand how these birds are using national parks.
A variety of wildlife can be found in national parks, including birds. These intact natural ecosystems are crucial to birds for feeding, nesting, and resting. Many national parks like the Inagua National Park were created specifically to protect certain bird species and their habitats.
For the past two years, BNT Science Officer, Scott Johnson, has been collecting data on birds in national parks in New Providence as part of an ongoing project focusing on monitoring the wildlife in national parks.
Scott Johnson holding an Ovenbird, a common migratory bird that can be found at The Retreat.
A lot of Scott’s research has been concentrated on The Retreat National Park. The Retreat is a lush 11-acre botanic garden in the heart of New Providence. It was once one of the largest private palm collections in the world and is an important area for resident and migrant birds. Within this park is a large variety of native and exotic fruiting plants, manicured lawns and trails, and water features. All of these elements combined support a rich diversity of birds. In fact, it’s one of the best places on the island to observe migratory warblers and other bird species.
This makes The Retreat the perfect site to conduct this type of research.
A lot of Scott’s research has been observing the foraging and feeding behavior of birds in The Retreat. To supplement this research, he started netting birds to gather more information on individual birds in the park. This new approach involves setting up mist nets at various locations around the park at select times in the day when birds are most active.
Birds will fly into these soft nets and get caught in small pockets. Once a bird is captured, the team immediately and carefully removes the bird from the net and takes it to an area that was set up to collect information.
Bird netting team carefully removes a Worm-eating Warbler from a mesh net in the Primeval Forest National Park
Information such as wing and tail length, weight, age, and sex are collected from the captured birds. For resident birds, we also record information to see if the bird is currently in a breeding cycle and at what stage.
Both migratory and resident birds are captured and their information is collected, however, it is especially important to capture data on resident birds, to see how these birds are using the parks over time for various purposes.
Scott taking measurements of a Worm-Eating Warbler netted in The Primeval Forest National Park.
After all of the relevant information is recorded the birds are safely released back into the forest.
A pair of Black-Throated Blue Warblers are released together back into the Retreat. Both birds (male and female) were caught together.
“This work is extremely important because it helps us to understand how these birds are using national parks. As the national park managers, this will help guide us in managing these special areas and the species they protect. Special thanks to our supporters who make this work possible” – Scott Johnson, BNT Science Officer
So far, your gift has provided the necessary funding to keep this new program going and allowed BNT’s Science Team to record a variety of resident and migratory bird species, most of them at The Retreat. The majority of these birds were migrants who were just passing through The Bahamas on the way to their wintering grounds.
A dashing male American Redstart, a common migrant from North America
The goal is to expand this work to other national parks on different islands throughout the archipelago. Your support makes this possible.
Placing identification bands on the birds captured, truly documents and records how species are using your national parks over time. It has the possibility to record things such as site fidelity and inter-island migration.
The BNT is exploring the possibility of setting up the first official bird banding station in The Bahamas, in partnership with Birds Caribbean. A banding station will help us carry out this work more efficiently and collect critical data on our friends from the sky.
After all of the information is recorded from these birds, the team takes a nice photo to remember these beautiful creatures before releasing them back into the wild.
