 Last spring, with funding from the Georgia Ornithological Society, Birds Georgia began recruiting private landowners for a pilot nightjar study. Every few years, Birds Georgia selects a ‘focal species’, which drives our conservation, education, and community engagement efforts. From 2023 to 2025, our focal species is the Chuck-will’s-widow. More often heard than seen, these captivating creatures belong to a group of birds known as nightjars.
Nightjars, including those found in Georgia (Chuck-will’s-widows, Eastern Whip-poor-wills, and Common Nighthawks) are aerial insectivores, and feed mainly on flying insects, such as moths and beetles. They are typically active around dusk and dawn, and often call throughout the night during bright, moonlit spring and summer nights. You’d likely recognize their calls, as the names imitate their vocalizations: whip-POOR-will, whip-POOR-will, chuck-WILL’s-widow, chuck-WILL’s-widow. As is the case with most aerial insectivores, nightjar populations are in severe decline. Studies estimate that Chuck-will’s-widow populations have declined by 63% and Eastern Whip-poor-will’s by nearly 70% in the last 50 years (Source: Breeding Bird Survey). This is due to many factors, but habitat loss, fragmentation, and widespread pesticide use are likely contributors. There is still so much we don’t know about these birds. For that reason, in 2024, Birds Georgia began a pilot study with the goal of learning more about their distribution throughout the state, how land management strategies such as thinning or burning contribute to their presence, and how to best detect them on large working lands. Ten properties participated; from family farms, to expertly executed timber rotations, to newly acquired conservation easements, these properties varied in magnitude and management. However, they all share a common goal: they endeavor to attract wildlife and improve their habitat. Whether it be regular burning, thinning, removal of invasive species, enrollment in conservation or technical assistance programs, or a general awareness of meeting the needs of local wildlife; each site was uniquely poised to provide habitat to nightjars. We set out Autonomous Recording Units (ARUs), self-contained audio recording devices, at each site for approximately six weeks during early summer. ARUs are becoming popular tools to survey for birds, especially for species that are more cryptic, may not be as responsive to call-response surveys, or call during times of the day when it is difficult for humans to observe them. Since nightjars sing between dusk and dawn, ARUs provide an ideal method to survey for them in place of a human observer. Each unit was programmed to record for specific two-hour intervals each day and night. The units were placed in uplands, where nightjars were expected. . Some had burned as recently as two months prior, and others had never been burned. Forest composition ranged from 100% managed Loblolly Pine stands, to old-growth Longleaf with a diverse understory, to mixed hardwood-pine stands with dense midstories. Chuck-will’s-widows require multiple habitat types during the breeding season, favoring denser hardwood areas for nesting, and adjacent openings for feeding. We successfully detected Chuck-will’s-widows at seven of the 10 sites. Where Chuck-will’s-widows were present, Common Nighthawks were also present at two of those sites, and Eastern Whip-poor-wills were present at one site. While our pilot study did not reveal the intricacies of the nightjars’ habitat selection, they were more likely to be detected at properties where habitats were heterogeneous - e.g. more diverse. One property, consisting of recently burned upland pines bordered by a bottomland hardwood forest, mature Longleaf, agricultural fields with pollinator-friendly borders, and young Longleaf regeneration was a recipe for higher avian diversity; a total of 52 species were detected here in the breeding season, including game birds such as Northern Bobwhite and American Woodcock; raptors such as Swallow-tailed Kite, Mississippi Kite, and Barred Owl; and songbirds such as Hooded Warbler, Kentucky Warbler, and the ever-elusive Swainson’s Warbler. In conclusion, the more diverse your management plan, goals, and methods are, the more diverse the reward. We will continue this work in 2025 and hope to learn more about nightjar habitat selection - interested? Contact [email protected] to inquire about participation.
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Recent Retrofits: Birds Georgia installs Feather Friendly film at Camden County High School2/18/2025 Photos by Jill Helton. This month, Birds Georgia is putting the finishing touches on our largest retrofit to date and our fourth on the Georgia coast. This brings us to just over 5,000 square feet retrofitted since 2022. Visitors to the Camden County High School Fine Arts Building may notice lots and lots of dots on the building. These dots are special window treatments designed to prevent birds from flying into the glass. The project was made possible thanks to a partnership between Birds Georgia, Camden County High School, and the City of Kingsland through a grant from the Disney Conservation Fund. The dots are a special dot-matrix by Feather Friendly® that reduces the transparency of the glass and breaks up reflection, preventing birds from flying into them. Feather Friendly® has been applied to approximately 2,200 square feet of the exterior windows. The pattern, with dots spaced two inches apart, breaks up the reflection and alerts birds that the space is not a clear flyway, causing them to stall and fly in a different, safer direction. Current research estimates that over 1 billion birds perish each year from colliding with buildings in the United States alone. Since the Fine Arts Building opened in 2020, bird collisions have been a regular occurrence. The west façade, which faces a beautiful wetland habitat in the middle of the campus, is a deadly combination of highly reflective glass and trees. School administrators sought solutions and contacted Birds Georgia for assistance. The purchase of material from Feather Friendly® was funded by a generous grant from the Disney Conservation Fund. Material and shipping worked out to about ~$3.89/sq ft for this project. Birds Georgia, with the help of volunteers from Camden County Audubon, as well as students and staff of Camden County High School, applied the film over the course of three volunteer workdays in early 2025. A million thanks to our volunteers who assisted with the installations: Dr. Grayson Day, Jeff Potocsnak, , Jill Helton, Amy Burns & Josie Landers, Dan & Priscilla Krupp, Amanda Carroll, Mike, Brahm & Noah Bessette, Jaxon McQuaig, Loree Sherck, Cannon Nethercott, Elissa Owens, Erin Singleton, and Alexis & Izzy Stewart. Additionally, Birds Georgia provided 375 square feet of Feather Friendly® Large Scale Pro Solution to retrofit portions of the University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant office in Brunswick, Georgia. This building, while already partially retrofitted with CollidEscape solutions, had a few untreated windows where collisions would occasionally occur. The purchase of material from Feather Friendly® was funded by a grant from the Disney Conservation Fund. Material and shipping worked out to about ~$4 per square foot. The University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant office in Brunswick, Georgia houses our coastal specimen collection for Project Safe Flight and has been a valuable partner for many years. We’re happy to report that all glass around the building will now be treated with a bird-friendly film and will reduce or eliminate collisions for years to come! Retrofits along the Georgia Coast:
Other projects we’ve completed: Dunwoody Nature Center Wild Nest Bird Rehabilitation Center Sawnee Mountain Visitor Center Southface Institute Atlanta Amana Academy Blue Heron Nature Preserve Newman Wetlands Center Chattahoochee Nature Center Elachee Nature Science Center Trees Atlanta/Birds Georgia office (Bird-friendly glass) Kendeda Building, Georgia Tech Campus (Bird-friendly glass) About Project Safe Flight Project Safe Flight is a conservation effort to further understand the issue of bird/building collisions in the Atlanta metro area as well as Georgia’s coastal counties. The goal of this project is to determine what species are colliding with buildings, how many birds are affected, what parts of the state are problematic, and what can be done to make Georgia's cities more bird friendly. Volunteers with Birds Georgia’s Project Safe Flight patrol the streets during both spring and fall migration, looking for birds that have been killed or injured after colliding with buildings. More than 5,300 birds, representing 140 different species, have been collected since monitoring began in fall 2015. Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Tennessee Warblers are the top 2 collected species across the metro-Atlanta area; Common Yellowthroat is the top species in the coastal counties. UGA Installation. Photos by Bryan Fluech. Camden County High School Installation. Photos by Jill Helton.
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