Ohio preserve helps save the unique Henslow's sparrow
The great opera star Beverly Sills could produce some of the prettiest tones ever emitted by an animal. But a great many songbirds are her equal, albeit in very different ways. The Henslow’s sparrow? Probably not, at least if their respective arias were judged by a panel of musicians.
Sills, had she ever been asked to emulate the song of a winter wren, probably would have thrown in the towel. The elfin songbird sings an incredibly ornate song that can last up to 10 seconds. Its melody is full of highs and lows, amazing pitch variations and impossibly complex flourishes. The wren’s song is one of nature’s most elaborate compositions and is far beyond what even the greatest opera stars could hope to mimic.
Conversely, the protagonist of this column, the little-known Henslow’s sparrow, possesses one of the world’s shortest bird songs. Sometimes dubbed the “prairie hiccup,” its tune lasts only three-fifths of a second and resembles a cricket. Someone uninitiated to the Henslow’s sparrow call could walk through a meadow of singing males and never notice them.
I recently had the opportunity to visit the Arc of Appalachia’s Resilience Preserve in Hocking County. “The Arc” is one of the Midwest’s most successful conservation organizations and the land trust thus far has protected 14,000 acres of wildlands in Ohio and West Virginia.
Many of the holdings, such as the Highlands Nature Sanctuary in Highland County − home of the Arc’s Appalachian Forest Museum − are the best of the best. These preserves are largely like they would have appeared to the first settlers.
Resilience Preserve bucks the trend of unsullied sites. The 525-acre preserve has a rough history: logging, oil and gas extraction, and strip mining for coal. The Arc was interested in the site for several reasons. It occurs within one of the largest roadless areas in the Hocking Hills region, and thus is a significant dark sky preserve due to the lack of light pollution. Despite the site’s checkered past, an impressive array of wildlife has recolonized the area, including box turtles, salamanders and scores of breeding bird species.
The latter group includes a thriving colony of Henslow’s sparrows, and that was the primary target of my recent foray. Protection of the rapidly declining sparrow was a driving force in the Arc of Appalachia’s decision to acquire Resilience Preserve. It may be the first preserve ever acquired with conservation of Henslow’s sparrow as a primary goal.
Upon arrival, I set out for the large meadows. They occur on the roughest piece of ground, where the strip mining was most recent. Post-mining “reclamation” efforts involved seeding the site with a few species of nonnative grasses and legumes. Other than some broomsedge grass and Virginia pine, nearly all of the meadow vegetation is nonnative.
But the Henslow’s sparrows aren’t overly picky about nativity, and the vegetative structure is to their liking. As I neared the meadows, I heard the weak chirps of Henslow’s sparrows. I eventually tallied about two dozen singing sparrows – an impressive collection of birds for a fairly small site.
Henslow’s sparrows are often described as “shy,” “retiring” or some such descriptor. They’re not really. They just spend their time in densely vegetated habitats and feed primarily on the ground in thick duff. In such places, they are nearly impossible to see. But come breeding season, the males tee up on conspicuous perches to sing to the girls.
Jim McCormac is a natural historian and columnist.
The bird in my photo was in full song and it’s quite the production. He looks around, perhaps to see who might be watching, he throws his head back and flutters his wings and tail, the throat feathers puff to fullness, and out comes a faint chirp. Little more than a half second later and the performance is complete. While the whole thing might seem a bit anticlimactic after the buildup, the song is an important component in the making of new sparrows. The males sing tirelessly, even into the night.
Legendary pioneer ornithologist John James Audubon discovered Henslow’s sparrow in Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, in 1820. He named it for John Stevens Henslow, an Anglican priest who was an exceptional botanist, geologist and overall natural historian. Henslow was a mentor to Audubon, Charles Darwin and other scientists of his time.
The upper Midwest, including Ohio, is the core range of Henslow’s sparrow. The last formal estimate of the population size dates to over a decade ago and put Henslow’s numbers at 390,000 birds. That number has surely dropped since, as much meadow and prairie land has been lost to development.
Ohio should play a big part in Henslow’s sparrow conservation, and kudos to the Arc of Appalachia for going to bat for this enigmatic and poorly known bird.
Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at jimmccormac.blogspot.com.
