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	White Mountain National Forest Breeding Bird Survey

Memories from the Forest

by Sylvia L. Schmidt, White Mountain Bird Survey Biologist, and Laura Deming, ASNH Wildlife Biologist

"Counting birds" is what I expected for my first job conducting a breeding bird survey. But rather than simply counting birds, I learned about where birds live, what types of habitat support what bird communities, and what features are important for particular species. This summer, I found myself immersed in the forest - in northern hardwood stands, where smooth gray beeches show the scars of black bear claws; in young regenerating patches so thick with pin cherry and birch saplings that we nearly had to "swim" through them; and in thick spruce-fir forests growing on high elevation slopes of the White Mountains. All around us, birds were singing, calling, foraging, displaying, courting, nesting, and defending territories. During surveys in lower elevation forests, my field partner and I saw a pair of scarlet tanagers, the bright orange throat of a blackburnian warbler, and the perfect grid left by a yellow-bellied sapsucker on a piece of bark. We flushed a female grouse with four chicks and studied the song of a solitary vireo singing right above our heads (no doubt making sure we didn't mistake it for a red-eyed vireo). We could hear some birds from far away, including a soaring red-tailed hawk, screaming "keee-yer" from high overhead. At times, the work was physically challenging. Waking up before dawn gets to you after a while, but who needs coffee when a black bear crosses your path at 4:45 a.m. or you wade through a freezing cold stream? And, as if bushwhacking weren't enough, the January ice storm left us blowdowns to scramble over, under, or through. And then there were bugs! High elevation surveys were also challenging but well worth the effort! We were blessed with good weather, fabulous views, and often a breeze that kept biting insects away. Blackpoll warblers followed us along the trail, perching on the tops of spruce and fir just a few feet from us. Golden-crowned kinglets and boreal chickadees sang and called from within the thick, dark wall of forest on either side, allowing us only brief glimpses of them when they zipped across the trail. During one of our early morning point counts, a male spruce grouse showed up and spent the entire time calmly staring at us as we listened and looked for other birds. From our survey points on high mountain slopes, we listened as ruby crowned kinglets belted out their exuberant jumble of notes from wet, boggy spruce swamps. Higher up, just below the krummholz, the wiry, veery-like songs of Bicknell's thrush seemed to drift like mist over the stunted forest. Some of my favorite moments came after a day's survey was done, such as when I had a gray jay land on my hand to steal some gorp, and the time I identified by song, and finally saw, a bay-breasted warbler for the first time. It's September, and the vibrant singing has nearly ceased. In my mind, the memory of winter wrens, black-backed woodpeckers, flycatchers, and warblers conjure images beyond individual birds. When I think of birds and recall their singing in the dark, early mornings, I think of trees, streams, mountain slopes, and distant ridges that make up the landscape in which they live.