Scoville Library talk outlines mixed bag for America’s birds

SALISBURY — Bird expert George E. Wallace said Connecticut’s bird population faces distinct challenges despite the overall growth in total forested area in the state. Wallace, recently retired from the American Bird Conservancy, spoke at the Scoville Memorial Library Thursday, Dec. 12 (sponsored by the Salisbury Association Land Trust).

Wallace gave some background, and without delving too deeply into the rise and fall of the iron industry in Salisbury and the Northwest Corner, noted that by the 1920s, when the industry ceased operations, most of the local forest was cut down for the charcoal needed for iron production. Wallace described this as “catastrophic deforestation.”

That means that the current forest, while extensive, grew back more or less all at once.

And the “new” forest has vulnerabilities, including invasive species, overbrowsing by deer, insects like the emerald ash borer and spongy moth, and diseases such as Dutch elm disease and American chestnut blight.

All of these elements combine into a very mixed bag of results for birds.

North America lost about 3 billion birds between 1970 and 2019, Wallace continued.

Specifically, 720 million (or three out of four) grassland birds, 500 million (nine out of 10) boreal forest birds, 2.5 million (two out of five) migratory birds, and 160 million (two out of five) aerial insectivores.

On the plus side, Wallace said raptors are doing well in North America, with some 15 million added, largely due to regulation of pesticide use and hunting.

There are 14 million more woodpeckers around than before, and 35 million waterfowl. Wallace pointed to hunting regulation and the activities of conservation groups such as Ducks Unlimited for the waterfowl increase.