GCSU ornithology students focus on conservation, drive nest box project for Georgia warblers

By Ian Wesselhoff

O n April 17, Georgia College & State University ornithology students were at Andalusia Farm monitoring the nesting success of prothonotary warblers - using nest boxes that the students built and installed themselves. The session was part of their ongoing project to track the birds' migration habits, funded by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

The prothonotary warbler is a species of high conservation concern in Georgia, and their migration has never been studied in the state. The students' nest boxes provide homes for the warblers and enable researchers to tag them with devices that monitor barometric pressure and light, which will help identify when and where the birds stop along their migratory path.

"A bird from Georgia might not take the same route as a bird from South Carolina, and they may have a different stopover habitat that we need to protect," said Dr. Michelle Moyer, assistant professor of biological and environmental sciences.

Moyer, who is overseeing the project, says that prothonotary warblers are strong indicators of wetland health. Their population has been declining for decades as more than half of the United States' wetlands have been destroyed, and protecting their habitats will preserve vital levels of biodiversity across Georgia's wetlands. The nest box project will help identify where Georgia's breeding prothonotaries migrate during the winter and the types of habitats they need through the rest of the year.

Research is different here

Undergraduate students in Moyer's ornithology class have built and installed 10 nest boxes at Andalusia and two more at the Oconee River Greenway. Two of the ornithology students also volunteered to join Moyer and her research team in installing 28 additional nest boxes at a wetland protected site in Sandersville, which required further training to access.

"I just decided to get my foot in the door more and be more hands-on with birding, bird banding and tagging," said senior biology major Daisy Lott, one of the volunteers. "It was heavy, hard work, but we got it done. It was fun."

Warblers at large are notoriously hard to study, but the prothonotary warbler is one of just two kinds of cavity-nesting warblers in North America, so the nest boxes provide an easier way to catch and study them.

"It also allows us to monitor really closely the breeding success, so we can know how many nestlings they have, how old, how big do they grow, how fast do they grow, how many of them survive," Moyer said. "Nest boxes are kind of a cheat code for studying bird reproduction."

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources has been studying prothonotaries' breeding success near the Alapaha and Altamaha Rivers for several years, and the department's support of this project is covering much of the cost of the barometric pressure tags.

"This is kind of the next step of Georgia's interest in the species," Moyer said. "We're just adding onto that with the tags and adding a new study site."

The long-term project will be led by Sarah Kennedy, incoming master's student in Georgia College's biology and environmental sciences program, who will be driving the majority of the data collection and analysis. GCSU's teacher-scholar model encourages faculty to engage in research both as educators and active participants, especially incorporating their undergraduate students in the process.

"The great thing about working here [at GCSU] is I get to be in the field too and do all the fun stuff," Moyer said.

Moyer says the hope is that the warblers will return to the nest boxes in future years.

Header Images: Students in Dr. Moyer's ornithology class built, installed and are now monitoring the warbler nest boxes at Andalusia Farm and the Oconee Greenway. Photos by Michelle Moyer and Ian Wesselhoff.