Marvelwood teacher brings students, birds together

KENT —In small New England towns, everyone wants to contribute in some way. But not everyone is sure how to do it. These small communities run almost entirely on the efforts and energy of volunteers. Some take part in historical societies, others work hours at the library. The brave ones sign up for multi-year terms on town boards, commissions and committees.Laurie Doss, when it comes to volunteer work in Kent, is a literal rare bird. She has been a science teacher since 1987 at The Marvelwood School, which is a snug, rural private boarding and day school perched at the peak of Skiff Mountain. From that small launching pad she has created a program that has a worldwide impact — and has had an impact as well on the landscape of this town.Doss is chair of the science department at Marvelwood and wears a half a million or so hats on campus. In addition to teaching she is head of one of the dorms and hosts pizza parties, makes sure students are thriving and healthy, works with her young charges to keep the building spruce inside and out.She helps socialize future service dogs by bringing puppies-in-training to the campus as part of the school’s well-established community service program. The students cuddle with them, feed them and teach them not to be nervous when surrounded by a giggling gaggle of humans.She is beloved on campus and is rumored to have been the model for the extraordinary Miss Frizzle in the Magic School Bus series. Although there is a Magic School Bus connection to Marvelwood, Doss, who is flattered by the comparison, stresses that there is no truth to the rumor. In her nonexistent spare time, she is a consultant to the Kent Conservation Commission and on the Board of Directors for the Kent Land Trust.On the worldwide stage, Doss manages birdbanding and scientific research programs throughout the year — tracking programs that now extend well past Skiff Mountain, down into Kent, and out over North America and the Caribbean Sea to Panama. Twice a year, like the birds she studies in the summer, Doss and a group of students migrate to the Central American nation of Panama to do birdbanding and to study migratory patterns of birds. This research compliments the banding of resident and neotropical migratory birds done during the summers in Kent as part of an ongoing avian research project under the guidance of the Institute for Bird Populations (IBP) and Audubon Sharon. Marvelwood (which has about 150 students in grades nine to 12) is only one of three high schools in North America to have its own birdbanding stations in partnership with the institute. And it is the only high school that helps run an IBP banding station in the Mesoamerican Region.It’s a complex program, with many facets. When asked to describe it, Doss paraphrased IBP’s website and said, “The students help band birds as part of a long-term, continent-wide birdbanding program called MAPS (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship), where their banding data provides critical information relating to the ecology, conservation and management of North American landbird populations, and the factors responsible for changes in their populations. This research is overseen by the Institute for Bird Populations located in Point Reyes, Calif., and master bander Laurie Fortin from Audubon Sharon and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.”Essentially, here’s what it is: Students work with Doss to collect data on migratory birds during the spring summer, and fall seasons. They learn to gently untangle them from mist nets set up on the Skiff Mountain campus, and they learn to hold the nervous avians, first using the “birdbander’s grip,” which enables students to hold the bird safely and securely with the head between the middle and index fingers and the body cradled in the palm of the hand. “This keeps the bird relaxed and allows the students to quickly collect data,” Doss explained. More advanced students use the “photographer’s grip,” where, Doss said, “the bird is safely secured just above the knees, on the region of the legs closest to the belly, so that important photographs documenting the species can be recorded.” Some birds are easy for students to hold such as hummingbirds and most warbler species; other bird such as northern cardinals, woodpeckers and feisty hawks are better left for Doss to tackle.Banding in Kent is mainly conducted during the breeding and migrating seasons. However, Doss said, “I emphasize to my students that if they enjoy seeing and hearing these birds at school and/or near their homes, they also must be responsible for protecting their wintering grounds.” Many students heed this call to responsibility and migrate with Doss — and, sometimes, Audubon Sharon — to Central America to do additional avian research. While in Panama students also work with scientists to study other species of animals such as amphibians, reptiles and mammals. Last year students worked with Twan Leenders, a renowned herpetologist formally with Connecticut Audubon Society (Twan is now the executive director of the Roger Tory Peterson Institute in New York). During last year’s excursion, they logged one species of salamander and two frogs that are apparently “newly discovered species.”Mammals are harder to study, Doss noted, and require the use of remote camera traps — which are supplied by Marvelwood. The students also maintain their school’s commitment to community service and help paint schools and work on farms — and they play with local children, and teach them about birds and other animals native to their area. One quantifiable benefit of their visits to this rural area over the years is that the youngsters in the area have stopped shooting at birds with their slingshots, and the adults have reduced their hunting of sensitive wildlife. Doss reported that “highlights from this past research year include finally capturing the elusive cerulean warbler, which rarely comes down from the canopy; and a previously banded Cooper’s hawk, that probably was born somewhere in Kent but was originally banded in New Jersey during migration in 2010.”Some of the recent visitors to the banding stations on Skiff Mountain and in Panama include the Kentucky warbler, northern waterthrush, ovenbird, American woodcock and scarlet tanager.As if tracking and studying these species isn’t enough, Doss and her students have joined forces with the Kent Land Trust and Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection to help care for and manage the domestic tranquility of the purple martins that breed in the Kent/New Preston area — and winter in Brazil. The “martin team” has been banding the birds since 2006, when 24 young birds were recorded on the Connery property, near the school. “This year,” Doss said, “the team banded 145 nestlings before the annual August migration back to South America. The team has been able to increase the population of martins by strategically placing new houses, purchased through grant money and contributions from the Kent Land Trust, Marvelwood parents, and Lake Waramaug Country Club in or near known colonies. Purple martins in the East have evolved to depend on artificial housing created by humans and are listed by the state of Connecticut as a threatened species. For this and for all her projects, Doss stresses the importance of community partnerships to connect people — especially students — with the natural world. “The passion of one is what provides inspiration,” Doss said, “but it is the collective power of many joining hands that provides the foundation to protect species and their habitats for future generations.”The purple martin project of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is explained in detail online at www.ct.gov/dep.To learn more about the Kent Land Trust and how to get involved, go to www.kentlandtrust.org.And to learn more about Marvelwood and the Panama bird study program, go online to www.marvelwood.org.