For Susan Smith, bird migration
season means no sleeping-in...

By RUDI HEMPE
CELS News Editor & Reporter

Dr. Susan Smith lives in a quaint historic farmhouse tucked so far in the woods off Route 138 in Kingston that there are neither traffic noises nor any other annoying intrusions of civilization.

Yet unless it rains, she cannot sleep in beyond dawn.

In fact her mornings these days are pretty hectic for she must make the rounds every half hour over a five-hour span, checking to see whether she has any “visitors.”

Her visitors aren’t noisy either but they do provide the opportunity to keep tab on migrating songbirds, a project that has been going on for decades at what is now known as the Kingston Wildlife Research Station.

The station is an 84-acre tract of woods on the south side of Route 138, a half-mile east of the Kingston traffic light. There is no sign—just an address number on a pole that marks a long dirt driveway and the Audubon Society wants it that way because the fewer visitors, the better for any wildlife refuge.

After all, this property is for the birds, or rather, for keeping track of the birds that travel through Rhode Island every year in late summer and early fall.

Smith, who just received her PhD in environmental science from URI/CELS last June is the current operator of the station which consists of a couple of outbuildings in addition to the historic house.

Scattered in the woods along foot paths are 10 “mist nets” that are designed to safety trap songbirds as they fly through the underbrush. The term “mist” is used because the nets are so fine they are almost invisible unless you stand close to one.

Twelve meters long and three meters high, the mist nets are strung horizontally between two metal poles, a few feet off the ground. Birds fly into the nets and then they drop safely into pockets. There they remain until Smith and other helpers retrieve them.

Carefully placed in soft cloth bags, the birds are then taken to an 8X6-foot shed that serves as the station’s laboratory. Then the birds are weighed and other data, such as feather condition and fat accumulation (experts can spot that on a bird’s neck) are recorded. Finally each bird is fitted with a tiny, light-weight metal band around its leg. All the data is entered into a bird banding database so when the banded birds show up in another location, their travels and condition can be tracked.

The ritual each morning is for Smith and any helpers to get up at dawn and open the nets. Then every half hour for the next five hours, they visit each net to see if they have captured any birds.

“We have to check the nets every half hour so any trapped birds don’t get stressed,” she explains.

This process takes place every morning from August through October. Smith explains that the nets are not opened on rainy mornings because of the risk that the feathers of any trapped birds may lose the ability to shed water.

Those mornings she can sleep in.

Smith has been banding birds for years, having learned the skills in a much larger bird banding station on the shore of Lake Ontario—she is a native of Rochester, N.Y.

Her bird banding experience has led her into another aspect of annual bird migrations.

“Many birds just eat insects during the spring and summer,” she explains, “but then switch to eating small fruit when it comes time to migrate.” The fruit diet probably gives them more nutrients in order to withstand the rigors of migration, she says.

Her observations in this regard recently resulted in her being given an “Outstanding Oral Presentation Award” at a meeting

A tiny shed serves as Susan Smith's "lab" where she bands birds that at netted at the Kingston Wildlife research Station.

of the Association of Field Ornithologists in Orono, Maine. Her topic was “Influence of Diet and Food Availability on Fuel Use and Storage in Songbirds During Autumn Migration in Rhode Island.”

Small fruit is important to migrating birds to give them added fuel for endurance, she says, adding “It’s not just junk food.”

Viburnums provide much of the food that birds like although viburnums that grow in a forest under story often do not flower and bear fruit. That’s why open areas are important, she adds.

Earlier this year, the station received a small federal grant to clear an area of trees. The idea is to encourage the growth of native grasses that will also provide nesting places for birds that prefer meadows and also provide sunlight for fruiting shrubs.

Smith says on a good day they will trap about 30-50 birds although there is an interesting change this year in that weather has affected the migration. If the wind is from the northwest, the station will have more birds in the nets each day. But if the wind is from the southwest, the count is down—southwest winds are head winds for the birds, making flying more strenuous. And so far this fall, which has been exceptionally warm, the prevailing winds have been from the southwest.

Bird counts and banding have been conducted on the property since 1956.

It all started in 1950 when the late Dr. Douglas L. Krauss, a URI chemistry professor with a passion for ornithology bought the property, a former farm, for the princely sum of $5,000, relates Dr. Peter Paton, chair of the CELS Department of Natural Resources Science.

Krauss ran the mist-netting operation on the property until 1994. “As far as I can tell, his efforts represent the longest-running bird-banding operation in North America,” Paton wrote earlier this year.

In 1998, Krause donated his property, which abuts East Farm at its southern boundary, to the Audubon Society of RI and then drafted a cooperative agreement with URI to officially establish the Kingston Wildlife Research Station. Writes Paton in the recent edition of the Rhode Island Naturalist, by 1994 “Doug banned a remarkable 23,568 birds representing 113 species…”

Smith has no plans to challenge the Krause record. Next year she may be pursuing her career elsewhere—she currently teaches a couple of courses at URI. But in the meantime she is carrying on a valuable research project—except on rainy mornings.

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