From today's Virginian-Pilot newspaper:
By JOANNE KIMBERLIN, The Virginian-Pilot
OYSTER â For eons, theyâve passed overhead unseen in the night, a
near-silent
muster of billions of beating wings, bent on a journey half wonât survive.
This fall, the migration of birds down the Eastern Shore blooms in neon
colors
on a computer screen, unveiled by frontier-science radar piercing the dark.
The birds, traveling along a critical flyway linking continents, are a
barometer of global health. As habitat is destroyed, their numbers dwindle.
Until now, labor-intensive field counts were the best option for gauging lost
ground.
This year, a revolution occurred in a soybean field outside this tiny seaside
town about 10 miles north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
There, whirring atop a 60-foot platform, a $4 million radar designed by NASA
to
study precipitation is dedicating its off-time to watching birds.
The idea is to spot the ârivers in the skyâ â massive flocks of birds
that
lift
off after sunset â and pinpoint the property they used as a daytime pit-stop
on
their long flight from north to south.
The program, a brainchild of the Nature Conservancy, intends to map the
rest-and-refuel hot spots â information that could influence future land-use
decisions. Forest and field are vanishing fast on the development-pressured
Shore, a peninsula that fortifies some 70 percent of all breeding birds in
North
America before they launch across the perilous ocean to tropical climes.
âIf itâs unpaved around here,â said Steve Parker, a Nature Conservancy
director, âsome bird uses it for something.â
As it is, 50 to 60 percent of the birds wonât make it to their destinations.
A
high-tech help plan took root last year when NASA approached the conservancy
about parking its new transportable radar on conservancy property on the
Shore.
The space agency wanted to use the location as a home base to study the
precipitation that drives energy circulation in the atmosphere.
âWhen I heard that thing could distinguish the size and shape of a
raindrop,â
said the conservancyâs Barry Truitt, âI said, 'Now wait a minute. Can it
see
a
bird?â â
Radar ornithology has been around for a couple of decades, but standard
systems
canât provide much in the way of details. NASAâs new radar was capable of
scouring a 60-mile radius closer to the ground â vital for linking ascending
birds to the piece of land where they lifted-off.
So the conservancy struck a deal with NASA. In exchange for free rent on its
property, the conservancy commandeers the radar on nights when it doesnât
rain.
Operator salaries are the groupâs only cost â a tab that runs around $120 an
hour. Itâs not hard to find someone to work.
âWe like to do neat things, too,â said NASAâs John Gerlach.
When all the data is in, wildlife experts will glean it for all it yields.
With more experience, they hope to dial in the radarâs technology even more.
Right now, flocks appear on the systemâs computer screen as mushrooming
spirals
of color that deepen from yellow to purple, depending on their density.
Biologists can only estimate the actual number of birds and take a stab at
their species.
A netting and banding program, conducted on the ground, helps fill in the
gaps,
but the potential exists to wring more from the radar.
Time grows short, though, Truitt warned.
âWeâre not even sure if we have enough land left for these birds as it
is,â
he
said.
âWe have to protect whatâs still there. Weâre given one planet to live on
and
we need to learn how to take care of it properly. What a sterile world it will
be if we donât.â
Reach Joanne Kimberlin at 446-2338 or joanne.kimberlin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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