days later. Each time we located a bird, we logged the GPS coordinates of its location( basically like dropping a pin on a Google map), recorded the plant species it was using, and noted the type and height of the bird’ s activity( e. g. nesting, singing, feeding fledglings, etc.). A total of 58 buntings, representing all age and sex classes were successfully tracked, giving us a better understanding of their livelihood on Kiawah Island.
What We Learned What we learned from the buntings is that they often used areas with dense understory vegetation near the marsh, dunes, and ponds on Kiawah Island. The birds were most frequently seen in live oaks, wax myrtle, slash and loblolly pines, Eastern red cedar, sea ox-eye, and yaupon holly. Females were more often seen in wax myrtle and Eastern red cedar than males, likely due to the extra protection these dense shrubs provide. Males were more likely found on high branches in slash and loblolly pines, possibly because these pines provided an ideal perch for watching over their territory, attracting females, and distracting predators from nests. Finally, we found the territories of painted buntings were less than one acre, meaning that what you do to your personal landscape can impact essentially the entire territory of a nesting pair.
How Can You Help? Needless to say, you as one homeowner can do a lot to help the buntings. Remember, habitat loss is the leading cause of
their decline, but YOU can create more. Here’ s how:
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Preserve the understory. Painted buntings use dense, shrubby understory vegetation( 1 – 15 feet in height) like wax myrtle and Eastern red cedar. Planting or preserving this type of vegetation will provide much needed protection and nesting sites.
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Plant native plants. Not only do native plants require less maintenance and incur lower ongoing costs, but natives were also used more often by the buntings in our study than were non-native plants.
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Lose the lawn. In our study, the buntings were rarely seen using open areas of grass and sod. Maintaining green lawns takes a lot of time, money, fertilizers, pesticides, and loads
of water, which can contribute to noise, air, and water pollution. Additionally, the chemicals you may put on your lawn can kill some insects, thus reducing food availability for the buntings( and other species), or leading to toxicity. Insects are an important part of their diet when building up fat reserves for migration, and are the sole source of food for bunting nestlings.
If you already have good or even excellent bunting habitat, there are other ways you can help these feathered jewels
survive and thrive:
••
Prune less and not during the nesting season. As mentioned before, dense vegetation is often used for protection and nesting. Therefore, pruning certain plants can make them less secure. When possible, allow vegetation to grow and prune itself naturally. In areas where pruning is necessary, do it when the buntings are not nesting, meaning do any pruning between September and April. This will prevent potentially pruning a branch with a nest, as the females in our study tended to build nests on outside edges of shrubs.
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Prevent window injuries. The US Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that 100 million to one billion birds are killed each year after flying into windows. Glass often reflects what is outside, confusing birds that think they are flying toward trees, shrubs, etc. Even those that fly off after the impact may die later from internal bleeding. You can do some simple things to prevent the death of painted buntings( and other birds) from window strikes. Especially important is placing feeders far away from windows or as close to them as possible(> 30 feet or < three feet)>
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Become a citizen scientist. You can also help monitor the painted bunting population by becoming a citizen scientist for the Painted Bunting Observer Team( PBOT). Many of our buntings had unique color band combinations that identify them uniquely. By reporting this band combination on the PBOT website, you can help biologists learn more about the buntings’ abundance, distribution, and movement patterns. This information can also help to determine differences in feeder use between males and females or adults and juveniles, and will let us understand how important these feeders are to the buntings overall. NK
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