Painting In Spring Colors

Spring has sprung and we are now enjoying the warmer weather, blooming flowers, and the arrival of beautiful Painted Buntings. Arriving around mid-April, the colorful males stake out and rigorously defend their territories. Singing from high in a tree, the male works to serenade lovely lady buntings and entice them into mating. Bonds are formed, babies are hatched, and the cycle begins again – provided we have enough habitat to support their population.

There has been a dramatic decline in the Painted Bunting population in the past 40 years. According to breeding bird surveys, over 60% of the buntings’ population has disappeared and their numbers are continuing to shrink. The major causes of the decline are thought to be habitat loss, predation/parasitism, and trapping for the pet trade at their wintering grounds in South America. Currently, Kiawah seems to have a healthy population of buntings visiting each year. This is mostly due to the understory vegetation throughout the Island. They rely on this dense understory layer for protection, nesting, and food. When this shrub layer disappears, so do the buntings.

To aid in the recovery of these beloved birds, the Kiawah Island Conservancy, with the assistance of the Town of Kiawah Island, has led the conservation initiative through research. You may remember reading about the telemetry pilot project this past summer, intended to give an initial glimpse into the movements of Painted Buntings on Kiawah. In the pilot project we fitted four buntings with radio transmitters to understand their movements and habitat preferences, but most of all, to test how well radio telemetry actually worked on a tiny bird in dense vegetation. It turns out the technology worked pretty well, and the Conservancy has approved funding for a largerscale project.

The next phase of this project will begin this spring. With the assistance of John Gerwin (Curator of Birds at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences), Lex Glover (SCDNR research technician), and Dr. Paul Nolan (Assistant Professor of Biology at The Citadel) over 20 Painted Buntings will be fitted with transmitters and tracked between May and August. The project is still in the design phase, but the focus will be similar to that of the pilot-project: focusing on habitat requirements, territory size, and causes of mortality. We will also conduct an estimate of the population size. These counts will provide us with a better idea of the population of buntings on Kiawah Island, as well as give us some baseline data to compare to future counts.

The data gained through this research will allow the Conservancy to recommend landscaping methods to attract buntings, and will also allow us to track their population on Kiawah. On a broader scale, what we learn on Kiawah will give biologists a better understanding of their needs throughout their range. Watch for us as we roam the Island this spring with radio receivers in hot pursuit of these brilliantly colored birds, and stay tuned for more updates on our progress.