Avian Shrub Land Management and Shrub Land Nesting Success

摘要

The availability of shrub land habitat is declining in the northeastern United States due to re-forestation on abandoned farmland. This has resulted in a decrease in shrub land birds acrossthe region. Utilities maintain more acreage of managed shrub lands on power line rights-of-way(ROW) than is provided by all other sources combined in eastern United States. In Sterling ForestState Park, NY we assessed the effect of thinning shrub density on breeding bird density alongdistribution lines. Six areas of dense vegetation were chosen for management. Each area was cutand stem-treated with herbicides. Two bird counts were taken in a pretreatment year and in eachof three subsequent years to determine the number of species and individuals in each of the sixmanaged areas. Data compiled using spot-mapping showed an average annual increase of 21% inthe number of species and 27% increase in the number of individuals. These results demonstratethat the density and diversity of shrub land birds on ROW can be altered by different manage-ment practices.