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In our first forest management publication we focused on eastern forests, the extent of the Scarlet Tanager's breeding distribution. In this booklet, the second in a series of habitat management guidelines produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, we expand our taxonomic and geographic scope to 5 species that breed throughout North America. It is a tool to help those interested in managing and protecting habitat for birds by offering a set of "management prescriptions" -- descriptions of the kinds and amounts of habitat that are required to sustain healthy populations of the Veery, Swainson's Thrush, Hermit Thrush, Wood Thrush, and Varied Thrush.

The guidelines are written for two types of land managers: those responsible for large landscapes, such as public lands or entire states; and private landowners who manage small blocks of forest. The guide begins by mentioning some contemporary forest health and management issues, such as forest fragmentation, insect pests and disease, and fire suppression. The next section of the guide provides tips for managing key forest characteristics that are known to be important to breeding birds. These include forest size, habitat edges, and vegetation structure, such as establishing forested corridors among isolated forest patches, minimizing habitat edges, and promoting forest understory growth by controlling grazing and browsing by livestock and deer.

The heart of the guide is a set of regionally specific recommendations for forest thrushes, detailing specific management actions needed to improve habitat in Eastern/Midwestern forests, Northern forests, and Western forests. The recommendations provide forest managers with information specific to birds and management practices in their region.

Each regional profile includes:

• A map showing the area of the region and the forest cover.
• A review of past research conducted on thrushes in that region.
• Estimates of the minimum forest size needed to support thrushes.
• Descriptions of the forest structure and most common trees at sites known to support thrushes.
• Management summaries that briefly present the most important strategies for that region.

We hope you enjoy the guide and find it useful. We'd like to thank all the volunteers who contributed time and data to the Birds in Forested Landscapes (BFL) project. Without their incredible help, such a large-scale project would not have been possible. To learn more about BFL, visit http://www.birds.cornell.edu/bfl/.