How Makeshift Stereos Could Help an Endangered Warbler Find a New Home

[Judi Lynn]

A unique experiment aims to lure Kirtland's Warblers to habitat hundreds of miles away from their typical haunts. It's working better than expected.

https://cdn.audubon.org/cdn/farfuture/5w4ZmZFDT3GXt2Oh-7-Qy_16d3EPcn22OG-rQU-wmcI/mtime:1527269637/sites/default/files/styles/hero_image/public/img_0216.jpg

Kirtland's Warbler. Photo: Nick Anich

By Benjamin Graham

Somewhere in a thawing field in far northern Wisconsin, the song of a Kirtland’s Warbler bursts from a clump of young pine trees and echoes through the crisp spring sky. If luck prevails and the winds are favorable, there’s a chance another rare bird passing through might hear the chippy aria and decide to stay for a while.

But back in the stand of trees, nary a warbler can be found. Instead, there’s an MP3 player hooked up to a plastic Rubbermaid bin, holding a hefty battery. This setup is the handiwork of researchers trying to get the Kirtland’s Warbler to expand its territory in Wisconsin.

Since 2014, Nick Anich, a biologist from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, has been embedding these makeshift stereos in terrain suited to the warbler’s finicky tastes. The half-ounce songbird nests almost exclusively in the scrubby jack pine stands found in northern Michigan, a landscape that declined sharply in the 20th century from human disturbances and drastically reduced the bird’s population. Similar habitat exists in Wisconsin, but the birds have to find it first. That’s where the artificial acoustics come in.

The boxes blast a recording of the Kirtland’s voice, mostly the stuttering song of an aggressive male. The idea is to use these playbacks to provide social cues to warblers as they fly through, suggesting that there are other birds of their kind nearby. That in turn tells them there’s suitable nesting habitat. “This just anchors them and says: ‘Hey, everybody, this is the party,’ ” Anich explains.

More:
https://www.audubon.org/news/how-makeshift-stereos-could-help-endangered-warbler-find-new-home