On the last night of September, a few days after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, Baldwin County skies were blanketed with birds. A lot of birds. Nearly 10.5 million.
The overnight …
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On the last night of September, a few days after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, Baldwin County skies were blanketed with birds. A lot of birds. Nearly 10.5 million.
The overnight count was recorded by BirdCast, a data project headed by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in collaboration with Colorado State University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which provides real-time forecasts and analysis of bird migration. Many of the birds that flew through Baldwin were migratory.
The next day, on Fort Morgan, the Banding Coalition of the Americas (B.C.A.), a nonprofit avian research organization based in Foley, carefully captured, banded and released 184 individual birds representing 22 different species.
“We may not see any of these birds except during migration,” said Emma Rhodes, one of the founders of B.C.A. “But we are hosting many more species than we realize.”
B.C.A., founded by Rhodes and Kyle Shepard in 2020, hosts an annual public banding event at the historic fort site as a way to continue the work of their predecessors, Bob and Martha Sargent. The Sargents and their group, the Hummer/Bird Study Group, hosted banding events for 30 years in the same place.
The banding process is quick. Every 30 minutes, trained volunteers collect the birds from mist nets that run parallel to walking trails. They bring them back to a processing table where the birds' species, age, sex and physical condition are recorded. A small aluminum band with an identification number, not unlike a social security number, is placed around each bird's leg. They are then released.
B.C.A's federally licensed research is reported to the Bird Banding Laboratory, a program run by the United States Geological Survey.
Fort Morgan, and coastal Alabama more generally, provide crucial habitat for year-round native residents like the great blue heron and the tufted titmouse, but the area also plays a large role in the seasonal migration of more than 80 other species — it serves as the last strip of land before these birds make the long journey across the Gulf of Mexico.
BirdCast estimates that 117 millions birds have fully crossed Baldwin County since August, many of them headed south for the winter. But before they do, they need to prepare for a flight that can take anywhere from 16 to 24 hours. According to Rhodes, that means doubling or almost doubling their body weight in fat and muscle for some species.
“To equate that to humans and driving,” Shepard said, “Baldwin County is like a gas station, and these birds need to fuel up before they make the rest of their trip."
Dense vegetation is key to the fuel the migratory birds’ need: insects. And as the county continues to develop, large swaths of this habitat are disappearing.
In its place, subdivisions on the Eastern Shore, condos along the coast. Even agricultural land in central Baldwin County, while not ideal for migratory song birds, has provided great hunting grounds for wintering kestrels and other raptors, and it continues to dwindle.
“As habitats shrink, birds are forced into smaller habitats, and the carrying capacity shrinks as well,” Shepard said, referring to to the number of species and individuals that make up that species that can survive in a given area.
Rhodes, Shepard and B.C.A. say they understand that progress, development and tourism in this area is inevitable. And they aren’t against it, Rhodes said.
“The thing we have to consider is, are we doing it in a sustainable fashion that not only mitigates against the effects and considers the affect on our species, but also of our (human) communities," Rhodes said.
Over their nine-day banding event this year, the B.C.A and their volunteers banded 590 birds from 51 species. With the event being open to the public, it serves as a rare opportunity to get up close to birds that you might only normally see with a set of binoculars or on the pages of a book. That type of intimate interaction can be life-changing.
It’s also a unique window into the effort and precision that goes into scientific research. Shepard said he hopes the work the organization is doing on Fort Morgan can help local officials make more informed decisions.
“We as an organization are not political. We don't fight policy.” Shepard said. “Without the data that we are collecting there, there is just nothing. And people will make assumptions, and assumptions are dangerous.”
Find out more about the Banding Coalition of the Americas at the website www.bandingcoalition.org, and keep an eye out for their two-day spring banding event on Dauphin Island in conjunction with Dauphin Island Bird Sanctuaries (DIBS).
