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Help Protect Nature! |
Unfortunately, the 2010 Jay Watch Monitor Training is completed. The survey season has begun and will continue through mid-July.
If you are interested in learning more about Jay Watch, or for more information about volunteering: please contact Cheryl Millett at (863) 635-7506 or cmillett@tnc.org to sign-up.
The charismatic Florida scrub-jay is Florida’s only bird species that lives nowhere else on Earth. It clings to survival within the ancient, sandy scrub of peninsular Florida, where scrub-jays have lived in set territories and within tightly organized family groups from generation to generation.
The scrub-jay is considered the indicator species of Florida’s oldest wild lands – the ancient islands that make up today’s scrub. When the scrub-jay does not thrive, something is wrong with its habitat.
Today, degradation of scrub habitat pushes the scrub-jay toward extinction; they are listed as a threatened species by state and federal governments.
For millennia, lightning would routinely ignite fires in Florida. Species such as the scrub-jay and gopher tortoise depend upon fire to rejuvenate their habitat. Because people have suppressed nature’s historic fire regime, land managers now must perform carefully controlled burns.
From its Tiger Creek Preserve on the Lakes Wales Ridge, The Nature Conservancy leads a program called Jay Watch. This citizen-science approach has tracked the bird’s populations on both public and private lands since 2002.
Jay Watch also reports on vegetation conditions, helping land managers determine when and where actions such as controlled burns are needed for scrub-jays.
2009 report indicates continued decline
In summer of 2009, surveys took place on 87 properties in 18 counties. Volunteers observed 291 scrub-jay family groups, which included 698 adults and 251 juveniles, on 63 of those properties. (Other sites using a slightly different protocol also contributed, helping determine wider population trends.)
Download the latest Jay Watch Report with results from the 2009 survey.
When compared with earlier surveys, these data show continued declines. Over the long term, 59 percent of survey sites had fewer groups of scrub-jays, 27 percent had more and14 percent had the same. Short-term trends were even more alarming: 73 percent had fewer groups than in 2004, while 14 percent had more and 14 percent had the same. Numbers on most properties are down even since last year. Since the 1990s, scrub-jays have completely disappeared from some counties.
Habitat degradation is the scrub-jays’ biggest threat today, and 2009 vegetation monitoring indicates that much work needs to be done. Scrub-jays require low and open scrub, with oak shrubs 1 to 2 meters tall and only one or two pine trees per acre. Bare sand is also necessary to cache acorns, which feed the scrub-jays through winter.
This year more than a third of Jay Watch survey areas had vegetation too tall for scrub-jays, and more than half had too little bare ground. Even these numbers are optimistic, as Jay Watch doesn’t survey in dense areas that are considered uninhabitable.
Scrub-jays are carefully observed
Jay Watch pairs volunteers with field biologists. In 2009, 321 Jay Watch citizen scientists volunteered more than 3,014 hours. They were first trained to gather scientifically reliable data during spring workshops held by the Conservancy’s Jay Watch coordinator, scrub-jay experts from Archbold Biological Station and land managers from various agencies.
These dedicated volunteers go out in the field from mid-June through July. It’s blazing hot, but this is when the year’s young are easily located within family groups and their plumage distinguishes them from adults, letting surveyors see how well scrub-jays reproduced. Permanent points at each site are visited three times, before noon on separate days, to ensure that all scrub-jays are noted.
Volunteers play recorded, territorial scrub-jay calls to attract the birds. They then observe and record the number of family groups, and adults and juveniles within each group. Any band color combinations are noted, helping track individual birds. Information is recorded on aerial maps while in the field; scientists later computerize these data.
What good does the Jay Watch Report do?
Jay Watch results, although not a representative sample, show general trends. They allow us to see where the jays are declining and where they have increased. Maps based on Jay Watch information are created to help land managers decide where and how to improve their habitat, usually through the application of controlled burns.
Scrub-jay populations have already been seen to thrive at some sites where scrub habitat was restored. And, volunteers have observed new scrub-jay families establish territories in previously uninhabitable areas.
What’s next?
Controlled burning and other conservation actions are vital to improve scrub-jay habitat within the scrub-jay’s range. It can take as long as three to five years, or even more, for scrub to return to ideal conditions. This lag time between “if you build it” and “they will come” can seem frustratingly long to those who desire immediate results.
Unless people act, the Florida scrub-jay may blink right out of existence. The Conservancy and our Jay Watch partners know what the scrub-jay needs and how to provide it. The time to act is now. Will you help?
Find out how you can volunteer or recieve the Jay Notes E-newsletter for the Jay Watch Program, contact Cheryl Millett at
Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Eric Blackmore (Jay Watch volunteer).
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