What do you get when you put twenty-seven wildlife biologists in a UVM classroom with 12,088 woodcock wings? This might sound like the set-up for a Far Side cartoon, but the correct answer is a “Woodcock Wingbee.” The goal of the wingbee? To help understand and protect populations of this upland bird species, a favorite of both hunters and springtime bird watchers.
The three-day event, March 31-April 2, was organized by Ken Sturm, UVM class of 1992, and now the manager of the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge in Swanton, Vt. — and hosted by UVM’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources.
“Every year, hunters voluntarily submit wings to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” Sturm explained, and every year bird biologists gather to examine them. In the patterns of feathers, the scientists can read a bird’s age and sex — giving them a tool for estimating how many woodcocks are being hatched each fall. It’s an important part of efforts to monitor the health and habitat of millions of woodcocks that live in a vast flyway from Florida to New England and farther north.
“The wingbee rotates from state to state every year, but it's never been in Vermont,” Sturm said. So he collaborated with University of Vermont professors of wildlife Jed Murdoch and Allan Strong to bring the wingbee—and biologists from two federal agencies and eight states including Vermont—onto UVM’s campus.
Deep experience
On April 1, on the first floor of the Aiken building, Amanda Spears ’15, a wildlife biology major, was having her woodcock chops tested by Becky Rau, a wingbee veteran and bird biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “In order to do the wings, you have to pass the test,” Rau says with a broad smile, “basically, you have to get at least 24 out of 25 right.”
Spears gingerly spreads the translucent brown and grey feathers and peers closely. The relative thickness of the outer three flight feathers determines whether it’s male or female. Spears shakes her head and laughs. “I just stopped in after class,” she says, but this is not her first time studying bird feathers. “I worked at a bird banding station in Maryland,” she says, “but we only banded a few woodcocks when they were migrating, so coming to the session today was a chance to see a lot of wings and really bone up on my aging and sexing skills.”
Rau confirms her ID, and Spears returns to a long table covered with stacks of brown envelopes, each containing a wing. Around the table, four biologists methodically remove wings from the envelopes, examine them, pencil in a set of scores, and then discard the wings onto a growing pile in a box on the floor.
“I wanted students to see real population ecology going on outside of their textbooks and to interact with professionals,” Sturm says — “The experience in the room here is deep.” He points across the room, crowded with people in USFWS shirts, wearing hats that read “Timberdoodle Tracker,” and drinking coffee.
“This is a tremendous opportunity for students to help biologists at work — and to see how we use this kind of data to inform management and policy decisions,” says UVM’s Allan Strong, an ornithologist. “This work is going on right here between their lounge and classrooms.”
And outside, in fields and forest edges across the region, male woodcocks are starting to do their outrageously beautiful, whistling, twirling aerial displays — shooting up into the evening sky — to attract a mate.
