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SONGBIRDS INDICATE ECOLOGICAL CONDITIONS - 44 percent of mid-Atlantic highlands rated good to excellent

Release Date: 9/6/2000
Contact Information: Bonnie Smith, (215) 814-5543

Bonnie Smith, 215-814-5543

PITTSBURGH - At the National Aviary today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Penn State Cooperative Wetlands Center released a special report demonstrating how songbirds indicate local ecological conditions in the mid-Atlantic highlands.

“The patterns and health of bird populations are important because they narrate a larger story about environmental health and the loss of habitat. This study will help provide a roadmap to EPA and communities in conserving forest and farmland, restoring degraded ecosystems, and preserving the natural treasures of the Appalachian highlands,” said Bradley Campbell, EPA mid-Atlantic regional administrator.

Informally, the report’s scientific data confirm what birders have long suspected. If your backyard is full of robins, sparrows, crows, blue jays and starlings, you live in a degraded natural environment - - concrete-covered city with few trees, densely-housed suburbs, or rural cornfields. These type of poor conditions for birds exist in 21 percent of the mid-Atlantic highlands.

Fair conditions for birds exist in 36 percent of America’s mid-Atlantic mountains, where well-treed suburban and rural communities attract goldfinches, catbirds, tufted titmouse and blackbirds.

A bird’s-eye view of heaven, naturally, is the dense forest, where good-to- excellent ecological conditions nurture the top of the pecking order -- warblers, woodpeckers, and scarlet tanagers -- birds which prosper in unspoiled woodlands.

The bird report released today in Pittsburgh – home to one of the nation’s foremost aviaries – is part of a long-term EPA study of natural resources, conditions, stressors, trends and vulnerabilities called MAIA (Mid-Atlantic Integrated Assessment). It’s the first time scientists have described ecological links between humans and songbirds here.

In the MAIA study, EPA and Penn State scientists looked beyond the conventional analysis of chemicals in the environment, and studied the effects of human habitation and land use on the success of neighboring life forms, in this case songbirds.

Using birds to assess environmental health first originated with miners who took canaries into coal mines to detect carbon monoxide buildups. The fragile little birds died before miners’ were endangered, and served as an early warning to evacuate the mine. Likewise, Chesapeake Bay waterfowl studies show the Bay’s environmental health.

While EPA and Penn State scientists analyzed 112 songbird species over a five-year period, anyone can get a quick bird’s-eye view of local ecological conditions by seeing what kind of birds come to the backyard feeder. City and suburban residents and farmers can expect poor-habitat birds like robins, sparrows and pigeons, but a visit from a scarlet tanager or a black-and-white warbler might indicate there’s fine forest habitat nearby.

The MAIA report recommends that local governments maintain forests, restore forested corridors and guide development to ecologically poor areas. Healthy forests reduce flooding, absorb pollution runoff and promote overall healthy environmental conditions.

The report also encourages bird-watching among the general public in order to raise awareness of ecological conditions.

Copies of the MAIA summary, Birds Indicate Ecological Conditions of the Mid-Atlantic Highlands, are available at the Mid-Atlantic Integrated Assessment Team, Environmental Science Center, 701 Mapes Road, Ft. Meade, MD 20755-5350; by phone at 410-305-2749. To learn more about MAIA, check the Internet at www.epa.gov/maia/.

The full scientific report, The Bird Community Index: A Tool for Assessing Biotic Integrity in the Mid-Atlantic Highlands, Report Number 98-4, the Penn State Cooperative Wetlands Center, will be displayed online at www.wetlands.cas.psu.edu.

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Songbird Snapshot of Mid-Atlantic Highlands

Good or excellent ecological conditions (forest)

warbler
woodpecker
scarlet tanager
Forest ground nesting birds, which may include: black-and-white warbler,
worm eating warbler, Louisiana water thrush, Kentucky warbler, ovenbird,
veery, hermit thrush



Fair environment (suburban, rural, woodland)

goldfinch

brown thrasher
red-winged blackbird
indigo bunting
catbird
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Poor ecological conditions (urban, suburban, farm)

cowbird

house sparrow
pigeon
starling
house finch
more omnivores than insect-eaters – robin, goldfinch, cardinal, sparrow



Songbirds you will see in all of the ecological conditions

robin, hummingbird, cardinal, crow
Forest generalist birds: downy woodpecker, eastern towhee,
red-bellied woodpecker, tufted titmouse, northern flicker, blue jay

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The study uses a broad definition of songbirds. The songbird study did not include hawks, owls, pheasant, turkeys, ducks, and geese.

The mid-Atlantic Highlands study area is the central Appalachian mountains. It includes central and western Pennsylvania, western Virginia, western Maryland, and all of West Virginia.