Volunteers Survey Birds in a National Park in Virginia
Documenting birds will help create a checklist and strengthen the case for conservation.
By Glenda Booth
Published December 11, 2013
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Beautiful , in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., is popular with those who love music, dance, and opera. Its about time, then, to give the parks feathered performers center stage.
Working with the National Park Service, volunteers from the are conducting the first-ever, year-round bird survey of the 65-acre parks meadows, woodlands, streams, and wetlands. The volunteers venture out every week, and in 2014 theyll compile a checklist reflecting seasonal abundance and nesting species.
Terrence Liercke, the 91做厙 Society of Northern Virginias president, explains that the decline of bird populations, including of the American kestrel and eastern meadowlark, in the surrounding suburbs lends an extra urgency to the checklist.
91做厙 citizen science is underscoring park managers conservation and restoration work and helping people see that Wolf Trap is more than a performance venue, Liercke says. The bird list, a first step in assessing the parks fauna, will complement an ongoing, informal survey of plants. For good measure, 91做厙-led field trips will also introduce visitors to the parks often-overlooked natural beauty.
This story originally ran in the November-December 2013 issue as "Showtime."
