New guide to state birds
Just in time for spring, which commences a week from today, I have in hand the most monumental work ever published on Georgia’s birds, The Breeding Bird Atlas of Georgia.
Compiled by hundreds of Georgia birders from more than eight years of field observations and poring through scientific data, the new 520-page atlas covers each of the 182 free-ranging birds known to breed in at least a part of Georgia each year.
Published by the University of Georgia Press, the 5-pound book ($64.95) provides color pictures and a wealth of information about each bird — habitat, life history, distribution, population trends, interactions with humans, diets and threats facing it.
The new atlas can be purchased from the publisher, through online booksellers or at bookstores.
“The Breeding Bird Atlas [is] the largest ornithological undertaking survey ever to take place in Georgia,” said Todd Schneider, a state Department of Natural Resources ornithologist and one of the work’s four editors.
Unlike field guides, which help birders identify birds in backyards, forests, fields and seashores, a breeding bird atlas is a valuable tool for monitoring changes in bird distribution within a geographic area and providing critical information for bird conservation.
The atlas, for instance, provides baseline data that will help biologists determine whether populations of certain birds are declining or increasing.
Such information may be especially timely now since many birds appear to be changing migration patterns or expanding ranges because of climate change.
As former Georgia Lt. Gov. Pierre Howard, himself an avid birder, notes in the atlas’ introduction, Georgia’s bird-breeding season “begins deep in December with the resonant nocturnal hooting of the Great Horned Owl proclaiming territorial dominion over its patch of mature forest. ... As May bursts forth, Golden-winged, Cerulean, and Blackburnian warblers once again adorn the higher mountains, jewels in the crown of the Blue Ridge. The breeding season of birds in Georgia is now at full crescendo.”
A few tidbits gleaned from the new atlas:
● Breeding was confirmed for 10 species that had never before been known to nest in the state: mottled duck, golden eagle, black rail, laughing gull, sandwich tern, Eurasian collared dove, red-breasted nuthatch, shiny cowbird, red crossbill and pine siskin.
● During the years when birders were gathering data for the atlas, the bald eagle made a tremendous comeback — from nearly disappearing in the early 1970s to about 90 breeding pairs in the state this year.
● Birders failed to document breeding for some species that had nested in the state in the past: ring-necked duck, spotted sandpiper, black-billed cuckoo, yellow-bellied sapsucker, ivory-billed woodpecker and Bewick’s wren.
In the sky: The moon will be new on Monday. Look for a thin crescent moon low in the west at dusk on Tuesday, said David Dundee, an astronomer with the Tellus Northwest Georgia Science Museum. Venus, shining brightly, is low in the west just after sunset and appears near the moon on Wednesday evening. Mars rises out of the east at sunset and is visible throughout the night. Jupiter is low in the east just before sunrise. Saturn rises out of the east a few hours after sunset.
