Scientists Probe Winged Migration with Radar
Rex Springston
Richmond Times Dispatch, VA
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Hampton, Virginia (US):
Oyster In a cramped trailer next to a cornfield, Mike Watson ran an ultramodern NASA radar in hopes of shedding light on an age-old mystery the nighttime migration of tiny songbirds.It was shortly after sundown, and the birds should be taking wing soon.
Watson, a radar technician, scanned a screen that bore an outline of Virginia's Eastern Shore.Suddenly, Watson began to see blue spots before his eyes. "It looks like some stuff is coming up right there," he said.The spots were surely birds, taking off from the Shore and getting high enough to reflect Watson's radar beam.
Each time new spots appeared on the screen, they indicated places the birds had just left.Scientists believe the radar will reveal the birds' most important migratory rests stops -- and identify Eastern Shore lands that should be protected.Songbirds eat insect pests and delight humans with their colors and songs.
Many, however, are in serious decline.They are dying out primarily because development is destroying places in the U.S. and Canada where they nest; in the tropics where they spend winter; and in between, like the Eastern Shore, where they stop and feed during migration.In their plight, songbirds suggest broader environmental problems, said Barry Truitt, a conservation scientist for The Nature Conservancy.
"They are sort of a barometer for life on Earth."The conservancy, an environmental group, is working to protect increasingly scarce wild lands on the Eastern Shore.Migrating songbirds are like little airborne sailboats; they prefer a tailwind to push them along. The best routes run through inland Virginia, but millions get blown to the Shore, the south end of a peninsula between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
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See Archive:
Songbirds to be Given Cell Phones
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Some get blown out to sea, where they die.Birds flying south along the tapering Shore bunch together like sands in an hourglass. At the Shore's southern tip, the birds hit the mouth of the bay -- 17 miles of water to cross before reaching land again in South Hampton Roads.Truitt said the birds apparently see the water "and say, 'Whoa, we'd better stop before we fly over that.'"So the birds fly back north a few miles and take refuge in forests on the Shore. They eat insects or berries for a few days -- their fuel for the next leg of the trip -- and take off again when the wind is right.The problem is, those Eastern Shore forests are disappearing.
In Northampton County alone, the Shore's southernmost locality, development and timber-cutting took 8 percent of forestland from 1994 to 2002, a recent study found.Even before those changes, the heavily farmed Eastern Shore contained only remnant patches of forest, Truitt said.
Saving the songbirds' stopovers is a matter of life and death, experts say.
Oct 27, 2005
Rex SpringstonRichmond Times Dispatch, VA
_______________________
Hampton, Virginia (US):
Oyster In a cramped trailer next to a cornfield, Mike Watson ran an ultramodern NASA radar in hopes of shedding light on an age-old mystery the nighttime migration of tiny songbirds.It was shortly after sundown, and the birds should be taking wing soon.
Watson, a radar technician, scanned a screen that bore an outline of Virginia's Eastern Shore.Suddenly, Watson began to see blue spots before his eyes. "It looks like some stuff is coming up right there," he said.The spots were surely birds, taking off from the Shore and getting high enough to reflect Watson's radar beam.
Each time new spots appeared on the screen, they indicated places the birds had just left.Scientists believe the radar will reveal the birds' most important migratory rests stops -- and identify Eastern Shore lands that should be protected.Songbirds eat insect pests and delight humans with their colors and songs.
Many, however, are in serious decline.They are dying out primarily because development is destroying places in the U.S. and Canada where they nest; in the tropics where they spend winter; and in between, like the Eastern Shore, where they stop and feed during migration.In their plight, songbirds suggest broader environmental problems, said Barry Truitt, a conservation scientist for The Nature Conservancy.
"They are sort of a barometer for life on Earth."The conservancy, an environmental group, is working to protect increasingly scarce wild lands on the Eastern Shore.Migrating songbirds are like little airborne sailboats; they prefer a tailwind to push them along. The best routes run through inland Virginia, but millions get blown to the Shore, the south end of a peninsula between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
_______________________
See Archive:
Songbirds to be Given Cell Phones
_______________________
Some get blown out to sea, where they die.Birds flying south along the tapering Shore bunch together like sands in an hourglass. At the Shore's southern tip, the birds hit the mouth of the bay -- 17 miles of water to cross before reaching land again in South Hampton Roads.Truitt said the birds apparently see the water "and say, 'Whoa, we'd better stop before we fly over that.'"So the birds fly back north a few miles and take refuge in forests on the Shore. They eat insects or berries for a few days -- their fuel for the next leg of the trip -- and take off again when the wind is right.The problem is, those Eastern Shore forests are disappearing.
In Northampton County alone, the Shore's southernmost locality, development and timber-cutting took 8 percent of forestland from 1994 to 2002, a recent study found.Even before those changes, the heavily farmed Eastern Shore contained only remnant patches of forest, Truitt said.
Saving the songbirds' stopovers is a matter of life and death, experts say.
Oct 27, 2005
