American Redstart
Please welcome today’s guest writer, Nathan Hilbrands. Nathan (’21) graduated with degrees in geography and environmental health and conservation. He is still in Grand Rapids and is pursuing a career in land conservation and stewardship. He enjoys collecting National Geographic issues that he rarely looks at again, playing disc golf a lot without improving, and trying new board games.
To a curious bystander, our group of fifteen people or so would have looked kind of funny. But as we were standing on a two-track in state forest land in northern Michigan, there were no curious bystanders. So we continued staring intently at the stand of young jack pines in front of us without drawing stares.
No, we were not pine tree enthusiasts. We were students at Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies (which means some of us might have been pine tree enthusiasts), and our goal for the day was birdwatching. As we ignored the incessant calls of blue jays around us, it became clear that we were not interested in just any birds. We were hoping to see Kirtland’s warblers.
To be honest, they’re not that impressive. The blue jays we were ignoring are more striking birds. That summer, I’d already heard the haunting calls of hermit thrushes, seen wonderfully blue indigo buntings, and watched a family of hooded mergansers on a small pond, all of which were more impressive than the small gray and yellow bird we were hoping to glimpse between the jack pines.
Now I’m not privy to the inner circles of ornithologists and serious birders, but I’m guessing that they wouldn’t be too happy with my previous paragraph. Because there is something about this warbler that convinces people to pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, to travel to small towns in northern Michigan to see it.
And that is simply because there are not many of them.
This kind of story has been told many times and in many places. Instead of directly killing them, like we did with the bison or passenger pigeons, we drastically altered the habitats Kirtland’s warblers need to thrive. The suppression of natural wildfires in Northern Michigan reduced the availability of suitable habitats, and the population crashed. In the 1970s, a census showed only 167 singing males. When the Endangered Species Act was passed, the Kirtland’s warbler was one of the first species on the endangered species list. It was one of the rarest birds in North America.
But this is where the story changes. As of 2019, the Kirtland’s warbler became one of only fifty-four species to be delisted thanks to population recovery. With prolonged forest management and trapping of nest parasitic brown-headed cowbirds, the species has rebounded to over 2,000 breeding pairs.
This success story is so much more important than one species. It provides a great lesson in ecological principles, that ecosystems are more than the sum of their parts, and the loss or reintroduction of one species can have crucial impacts. But I think more importantly, it provides a lesson about humanity. Yes, we have the power to destroy species and habitats, and we do it all the time, but we also have the power to bring them back.
These thoughts were not in my head as we stood in the young jack pines, however. I was too focused on the bird calls among the trees. Then, between the branches, we saw movement. A warbler perched on the top of a pine. It raised its head and sang.
I realize that using a picture of a different kind of bird for this story is probably a little confusing, but this is one of the best pictures of a bird I’ve taken so far. I didn’t get a picture of the warbler that day, and I hope to head back up north to the jack pine forests someday and watch for some flashes of yellow. A picture of a Kirtland’s warbler isn’t as valuable these days; they’re not endangered anymore, and they’re no longer one of the rarest birds in the world. But that’s the goal. When I get my picture, I want them to be no more exciting than chickadees.
