Scientist studies birds, plants at Presque Isle

Erie Times-News

Birds and plants. Since the late 1800s, many important studies have been done on the birds and the plants of Presque Isle. But, until recently, no specific studies have been done to show how the birds and the plants at Presque Isle depend upon each other.

Quietly, very quietly, a study of that interrelationship began at the park in 2007. Though few have heard about it, there's nothing secretive about it. It's just that there's never been a public announcement, and the fact that those who are doing the work are so deeply interested in what they are doing that they probably never even thought of seeking publicity.

Birds are the main focus of the research, bird banding is the method, and Sarah Sargent is the coordinator of the project.

It was early in May when I first met Sarah Sargent. She had just banded a bird and was standing in almost the exact spot where Ron Leberman stood on June 3, 2006, as he brought to a conclusion his 46 years of banding birds at Presque Isle.

Through the grapevine, I'd heard that bird banding had been resumed just beyond Niagara Boat Ramp, where Leberman had his mist nets and banding table in years past.

It was the data from his many continuous years of banding at Presque Isle that brought Sargent -- who has a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology, and works for Audubon Pennsylvania, a state office of the National Audubon Society, to Presque Isle.

"I'm banding here because Ron banded here. It's just really valuable to have longtime data stats," she said.

She said she'd been here last fall, that this was her first spring banding here, and that in the summer and fall she'd be doing some habitat work -- looking "at habitat quality and how quickly birds can gain weight during the stopover."

"This is the only important stopover area for birds," she said. "Especially in the spring, because they're coming from the south to the north. They really build up on the south shore of the lake. Presque Isle, of course, is kind of a promontory, and it's a real migrant trap.

"We just want to know whether they're able to get sufficient food to gain weight in order to continue their migration further north. Like these yellow warblers that go up all the way to the tundra -- practically into the low willows up there, where there's extensive breeding range. And yet, in the winter, they're wintering in northern South America -- Venezuela and Columbia. more