We have two things to report today, and both will make you feel positive.
First, registration opens tomorrow (Friday, Feb. 14), for the Michigan DNR/Michigan Audubon Kirtland's Warbler tours that go out of Hartwick Pine State Park in Grayling. That combined with longer days and pitchers and catchers reporting for spring training baseball camps, well, you know what it means!
Tours start May 24 and run through June 30. Weekend tours are most popular -- obviously -- so consider making your reservations quickly at https://www.michiganaudubon.org/kirtlands-warbler-tours/ .
Item No. 2 in the hopper today is news out of the Winter Meeting of the full Kirtland's Warbler Conservation Team, which was held on Tuesday, Feb. 11. We apologize for not writing about it immediately after the meeting concluded, but after sitting for a six-hour Zoom call, we were just not interested in any more chair time.
Here's the good news out of the meeting ...
We're written in the past about how the agencies have taken their eyes off the ball when it comes to creating new habitat. The good news is that both the Michigan DNR and the U.S. Forest Service have met their planting goals for two years in a row. That's the first time that has happened in more than a decade.
Now, that doesn't mean we are out of the woods. Even though the agencies have met their goals for two years in a row, we expect the amount of available habitat will continue to drop for at least one more year before it is projected to start growing again in 2027.
We're likely going to see this habitat shortfall manifest itself in a significant decline in the Kirtland's Warbler population when we conduct the census this summer. We know a population decline is likely because the DNR and Forest Service estimate that there's one pair for every 20 acres of nesting habitat. If you have fewer acres available for nesting, you are going to have fewer birds.
Dealing with this habitat shortfall has been the first major challenge of the Conservation Team since morphing from the Recovery Team. The problem has not been solved just yet, but everyone came away from the meeting optimistic that we are addressing the issue and moving in the right direction.
We'll write more in the near future about what might happen if the Kirtland's Warbler population falls below two key thresholds that are written into the Conservation Plan.
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