New River Land Trust

Why Bird Conservation?

The whole business of land conservation is based on the willingness and excitement of landowners, says Grayson Davie, Conservation Coordinator at New River Land Trust (NRLT) in the Catawba Valley of Virginia. He notes that connecting on a personal basis with landowners and finding out what they are passionate about is the key to success.

Birds appeal to so many people through their colorful plumage and interesting vocalizations; they can inspire connections with nature and can help landowners get excited about conservation. Thus, as part of a Land Trust Bird Conservation Initiative small grant project in 2023, NRLT set out to understand bird species occurrence on two large farm properties protected by conservation easements in an effort to build relationships with the landowners.

Through the grant, NRLT volunteers surveyed birds on the properties during the breeding season. NRLT staff then compared the bird data collected by their volunteers to the data available through the Northeast Bird Habitat Conservation Initiative (NBHCI) Mapping Tool, an interactive decision support tool that displays modeled eBird Status & Trends data in 13 states for 43 bird species.

After comparing the NBHCI Mapping Tool data with bird observation data collected in the field, NRLT found good alignment between the two data sources and feels comfortable referring to NBHCI data and pointing landowners to it, says Davie. “We now have another set of data that we can use to get people interested in conservation and land protection,” he says. In the past, NRLT’s conservation value assessments, which are used to prioritize land protection and acquisition projects, have not included bird data; now, NRLT is making bird data part of their prioritization process and including it in conversations with landowners.

Spotlight Resources: eBird, NBHCI Mapping Tool, Volunteers, Partnerships

Over the course of this project, to collect bird data in the field, NRLT staff conducted 26 site visits with staff from Appalachian Mountains Joint Venture, a co-applicant on this grant, and seven volunteers from the Virginia Tech Bird Club and Blacksburg High School. Bird monitoring was conducted along 350 foot transects on working farms during the breeding season and fall migration period, and data was recorded using eBird, the online checklist program.

The study was designed by NRLT’s bird partner Becky Keller, who is the science coordinator at Appalachian Mountain Joint Venture. During monitoring visits, 87 bird species were observed, including common grassland birds like Eastern Bluebird, Song Sparrow, and Red-winged Blackbird—and some species in decline and listed as Species of Greatest Conservation Need in Virginia’s State Wildlife Action Plan, such as Eastern Meadowlark and Grasshopper Sparrow. Before bird surveys were conducted, NRLT hosted three days of eBird training for the volunteers to make sure they were comfortable identifying bird species by sight and sound; volunteers also learned to enter data correctly in the eBird app to ensure their data’s use in future scientific research and bird conservation measures, including analyses of bird population changes over time.

“Our volunteers were the meat of this study,” notes Davie, who was pleasantly surprised by how robust the data was and what a fantastic job volunteers had done collecting it. “This project was successful because we had so much good data,” he says.

As mentioned above, Davie manipulated the collected data to calculate relative abundance for observed species, comparing NRLT’s data to the modeled eBird abundance data available through the NBHCI Mapping Tool. Overall, the data collected on the ground verified the data predicted by the Mapping Tool, giving NRLT staff the confidence to use the tool to estimate bird species and abundance on properties of future conservation interest and to talk with landowners about the importance of protecting bird habitats.

Making the Connection

While data collection and analysis were the focus of this project, the relationships built with volunteers were the foundation of its success. By working with local schools, birding clubs, and a bird conservation partner, NRLT engaged local volunteers for 80 hours, recording over 1,700 individual birds and building capacity to complete project activities.

This work aligned partners with different skillsets who supported one another to meet project goals. Becky Keller, from Appalachian Mountain Joint Venture, was responsible for the study design and monitoring protocol training; Davie, who is not a birder but a GIS technician, managed the data, analyses, and mapping; and Bethany Bookout, former Youth Outreach Coordinator at NRLT, was responsible for coordinating and communicating with volunteers, which Davie says was critical to the success of this project.

Advice to Other Land Trusts

Davie suggests that other land trusts in the Northeast experiment with the NBHCI Mapping Tool to become familiar with bird data in their service areas. The tool can provide insight into target bird species present on private lands to help with land prioritization, and this information can be especially interesting to landowners who are exploring the idea of protecting their land and want to become an active part of a conservation story.

Davie says that landowners often want to know what kinds of birds are on their property and how they can help improve the habitat for these species, making a difference through actions on their land no matter how big or small. Bird data can open doors to these conversations and get landowners interested in conservation. “If there is a certain target bird on their property, now we can tell them about the bird and the science behind it and get them excited about their part in its conservation story,” says Davie.

Next Steps

NRLT produced outreach materials to educate landowners about the bird species found during their surveys, and they plan to create more bird-specific outreach materials with interns in the future. In the meantime, NRLT staff is closing more easements than ever before and hearing from more people wanting to get involved in land conservation in the area, thanks in part to the birds.

As those conversations progress, NRLT will be integrating bird data from the NBHCI Mapping Tool into the outreach process. As Davie says, “We’re hoping it will be one more thing that will help convince people to protect their land.”