Ground-Nesting Birds 2024
GNB 2024 Subpages:
List of all GNB
American Woodcock | Black & White Warbler
Common Nighthawk | Dark Eyed Junco
Dark-eyed Junco near East Pine Island Pond on April 15, 2023
Click on image to view video by Joshua Barss-Dunham and hear it sing
INTRO (Apr 1, 2024)
Spring is in the air… and underfoot
That’s right, we said “underfoot” and we’re not talking about a budding crocus…
Have you noticed the birds have started to sing? These ‘early birds’ are staking out their territories and hoping to attract a mate. Soon, eggs will be laid in carefully hidden nests all over the Backlands, but not all these nests are in trees.
Several of our most familiar (and threatened!) birds nest right on the ground where eggs and young are very vulnerable to being eaten or trampled. In fact, the success rate of these nests is quite low. Many of these birds make several attempts to raise young, from early spring into the fall.
Help give our hard working feathered friends a hand, by keeping our feet and our pets on the trail. A simple step (pun intended!) that will give them the best chance possible to raise the next generation of songsters.
Over the next few months, we will be sharing profiles of four ground-nesting bird species found in the Backlands. (See full List of ground-nesting species.) Wondering what a ground nest looks like? When you might spot a nestling? What they eat? Where they will go in the winter?
Stay tuned to find out!
– The Ground-Nesting Bird Group:
Joshua Barss Donham, Ilona Inman, Fulton Lavender, Cathy Smalley, Katharine Studholme
Ground-nesting Bird Wrap-up (27 Sep, 2024)
🐦 It’s time to wrap up our 2024 Ground Nesting Bird Series with a big thank you from the heart ❤️ of the Backlands for keeping your feet 👣 & your pet’s paws 🐾 on the trails while our ground nesting feathered friends were hatching and raising their young this season!
P.s. It’s best practice year-round to stick to trails, to minimize our impact on sensitive habitats and a wilderness area’s entire ecosystem. Help keep wilderness areas healthy for years to come, so that we can continue to enjoy the great benefits they provide us, from cleaner water & air, to places for recreation & relaxation.
In our 2024 Ground Nesting Bird Series we featured:
🐦 Dark-eyed Junco (nests March 20 – Sept 23)
🐦 American Woodcock (nests March 30 – Aug 30)
🐦 Black and White Warbler (nests mid-May – mid-August)
🐦 the Common Nighthawk (nests June 7 – Sept 7; Halifax’s 2024 Bird of the Year!)
Find the whole series in our profile highlights & on our web page: https://backlandscoalition.ca/?page_id=6340
Left to Right:
Black & White Warbler, West Pine Island Ponds, 18 May 2023
Heart of the Backlands
American Woodcock (Dartmouth), 8 April 2015
Junco at Divide Trail, 11April2024
– The Ground-Nesting Bird Group:
Joshua Barss Donham, Ilona Inman, Fulton Lavender, Cathy Smalley, Katharine Studholme
Page posted by David P 1Apr2023