THE FOREST CLASSROOM
Researching the Elusive Whip-poor-will How Audio Recording Devices Assist in Data Collection By Carrie Deegan
T
he Eastern Whip-poor-will is the kind of bird you’re more likely to hear than see, in part because they are nocturnal, actively flying and foraging for insects only after the sun has set. During the day they rest motionless on the ground or a tree branch, their mottled gray-brown plumage blending in seamlessly with bark or dead leaves on the forest floor. Save for almost stepping on one, you’re not likely to spot a Whip-poorwill. On still, moonlit summer nights, however, it is definitely possible to hear the repeating onomatopoeic whip-poorwill call ringing out across the landscape. This auditory encounter, which I have had the pleasure of experiencing numerous times over the years, is unfortunately becoming less common. Since 1966, data from the North American Breeding Bird Survey suggests that the Eastern Whip-poor-will has experienced a nearly 70 percent population decline across its breeding range from Maine to South Carolina and west to the Mississippi River. The Whip-poor-will is currently listed as a species of concern in New Hampshire, as well as in 21 other states. There are numerous factors contributing to this steep decline, but two of the biggest are habitat loss and reduction in food abundance (moths and other nocturnal insects), possibly due to pesticide use. Whip-poor-wills are a bit high maintenance when it comes to habitat. They prefer mature mixed forests with little understory for nesting and roosting during the day, but they also require open habitats such as old fields, shrublands, and young forest in order to perform the aerial acrobatics needed to catch moths and beetles on the wing. Here in New Hampshire, and across the eastern seaboard, we’ve got plenty of mature forest. It’s the fallow fields and early successional forest landscapes 14 | FOREST NOTES Summer 2021
The nocturnal Whip-poor-will relies on its camouflage plumage to rest during the day in plain sight. that are ever more limited compared to 50 or 100 years ago. Thankfully, some landowners are managing their lands for early successional forests for other species. A program run by the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service called Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW) provides financial incentives for landowners to create areas of young forest through patch cuts (i.e., the removal of all trees in an area) of varying sizes. In New Hampshire and the rest of New England, the primary aim of the program is to create habitat for the New England cottontail, a native rabbit whose populations have also been in decline. Further south, the program is focused on creating young forest and shrubland habitat for the golden-winged warbler. In the past decade, hundreds of private landowners as well as land trusts and conservation organizations, including the Forest Society, have created tens of thousands of acres of early successional habitat for these two species from Maine to Georgia through the WLFW program.
Currently, a collaborative research project involving scientists from the University of Massachusetts, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, University of Pittsburgh, and University of Maryland is trying to figure out whether the young forest habitat created through the WLFW program is also benefitting the Eastern Whip-poor-will. In June, I met the project lead, Jeffery “J.T.” Larkin, a graduate student in environmental conservation at UMass Amherst, at the Forest Society’s Hills Forest in Durham, N.H., to learn about the research. This spring, Larkin and his team installed more than 500 autonomous recording units (ARUs) on WLFW research project lands across 11 states in the Whippoor-will’s breeding range, including on the Hills Forest, where 5 acres of habitat were created for the New England cottontail in 2012. “It’s not easy stuff to walk through, young forest,” Larkin admits as he pushes through brambles and a thicket of small birch to reach an
