Outdoors Maryland; 1505

Outdoors Maryland is made by NPT to serve all of our diverse communities and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you. Coming up the wait for the return of the lone Annex is over. As the candidate returns to America. They were going fellow home again on the cliffs of Maryland Heights and the search for the perfect. Outdoors Maryland is produced in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. DENR. Inspired by Nature. What.

A. Move. And I am. Aware. It's late afternoon on a tributary of the Miles river on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The low murmur of Canada geese grows as the birds take flight in search of food in nearby fields. Hundreds of geese filled the skies with a noisy symphony. Each year in the fall thousands of these migratory birds travel hundreds of miles from their breeding areas in northern Canada. Q As the richness of the Chesapeake Bay is what crossed them. They spend the winters feeding in the corn soybean and wheat fields along the water.

On this afternoon three hunters Crouch wearily behind a blind located near dozens of goose decoys. Danny Callahan lures the geese with a series of cause. Like now look around this guy there he's everywhere icebreaker back in and hopefully will never lose out again. After years of being on the decline the numbers of migratory geese are growing again. For the second year hunting has been allowed in Maryland after a six year moratorium. And the season has been lengthened from 30 to 45 days. And a whole bunch coming unless you're going to run right on there's been more welcoming the whole flock. In less than an hour the hunters had reached their limit of one bird per person on. The way here.

Danny Callahan has been hunting since he was 10 years old. Years ago we had a 90 day season the Free Bird bag limit. I do think that was too much. We were we were shooting the golden goose if you will. They could take by some estimates in the late 70s and early 80s. Hunters were taking up to 40 percent of the population. Too many geese were being shot. There were also successive years of poor nesting conditions in Northern Canada. Those two factors together created a crisis for these birds in the 1980s and 90s. Larry Heineman a waterfowl expert with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources has studied these birds for years. The numbers decline from about one hundred eighteen thousand payors in 1988 down to 29000 pairs in 1999 and that was a 75 percent reduction to cope with this problem. State environmental officials monitored the birds and their nesting areas in northern Canada to get a more accurate count. And they banned all hunting in 1995.

That proved to be an important step to bring the numbers back. By closing the hunting season the course we maintained our goose population we gave a chance for the birds with favorable conditions to produce goslings they got old enough to become breeders. And what is happened is the breeding population has climbed from a low of twenty nine thousand payers in 1995 to one hundred forty six thousand payers in the spring of 2002. So by restricting the harvest to gays you can actually increase their survival. But regulating hunting is only part of the picture in managing this unique resource for the Chesapeake Bay. Let us just play it and pan a little bit late and planted it. But first week in November. State environmental officials also work closely with farmers paying the money to set aside hundreds of acres of crops each winter as food for the geese.

He's here on Eastern Shore manatees kind of in a unique way and that they're managed by farmers unlike Canada geese in the Midwest that are rare to more international wildlife refuges or state goose management areas here on the eastern shore east or on private lands. That want to take them. Albert Schober is one of 20 farmers providing winter forage for geese. The farm he manages lands and is home to some 5000 geese each winter. With the help of state funding he has set aside 20 acres of clover and 10 acres of corn this year. I guess you know almost like a thank you erred I guess bison I can rest without any hunting pressure I guess it'd be a pretty safe. Place party watching. I seemed to start flipping her thinking thinking becoming so famous and one of the most important key sanctuaries on the eastern shore is Chesapeake farms a

30 300 acre agricultural and wildlife center near Chestertown. Thousands of geese are drawn here each year because of food and safety. Dr. Mark Connor is a wildlife biologist who heads up the center. My perception is way the birds are definitely on the rebound and growing back to the numbers that they were. At say 20 years ago. The Chesapeake Bay provides all the resources that the gates need during the winter months so they have water they have shelter for escape areas and they have food provided both in the bay but also in the agricultural fields that surround them. Larry Heideman is optimistic. We see the population expanding. It's composed mostly of adults now. So it's really going to skyrocket in terms of number of views over the next few years with good nesting conditions. All good news. But too many geese can also be a nuisance for both farmers and landowners.

You know the geese you know do bother us a little bit so we try to communicate them you know out of this as much as we can. If you have a lot of small grain now you say that can hurt you so you get in a small grain field browsing down pretty hard. But like I say just try to you know keep them out of the grain field. That's where hunting will become extremely important to state officials if the numbers of geese continue to grow. Already hunting is a crucial part of the financial side of managing the geese. The good will of so it. So it. Will. Hunting license fees and federal taxes on the sale of sporting firearms pay farmers to grow crops for the geese and pay for the monitoring program in Canada. Hunting does serve an ecological role in that it particularly with geese. It is the one tool that measures have to try to regulate the number of years that you have. What we try to do is to harvest the annual surplus from the reduced population without exceeding a safe level

state environmental officials have learned a lot about managing Canada geese. They now have better monitoring systems to distinguish migrating geese from geese that are permanent residents. They know what's happening in the nesting season in the summer months in Canada and they are more aware of the problems that can occur from excessive hunting. All that has helped bring back Canada geese to the Eastern Shore of Maryland in numbers that haven't been seen for years. I'm. Aiming. For Danny Counihan the return of the cookie signifies something far more than just a new hunting season. For him. These birds their journey and their songs are one of nature's treasured rituals. Every year about that very time when you heard the first news you know home of all the noise and I got to run outside for the same when you stop and think that you know and it would be nice in the distance that they're traveling and just that just know that their ancestors have been coming here for years and years and years

and they they just continue that migration of a pattern and it is really anything. And. You're right. Yeah. Of course. It's early May and Craig kopi of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in search of a young peregrine falcons. On this day his search takes him to the heart Miller lighthouse near Back River where an adult pair of Falcons is known to be nesting. You can get it. Right. No yeah.

Well I'm afraid of how it happens sometimes and not always productive. Such is the way nature goes. CO peace efforts are part of a plan to return peregrine falcons to their historic nesting areas. On another day Craig now accompanied by Sean Padgett of the Center for Conservation Biology takes his search to the Route 3 0 1 bridge over the Potomac. He also has a look around here just in case you see something. Like it. And he is. At one of the Dell Falcon right there she's going to get really aggressive here. Very. Tense. Tense. Days approaching a critical point here. Thanks for chicken mole.

We have a. Great week. We've got the male the female. Thing go ahead and take a male on a female and they'll be gone do the fairy for I'm out the next day. Greg and Bill head of the National Park Service transfer the birds to the cliff face above Harpers Ferry. What a beautiful view they have. You can't help to think that just maybe. By next year some of the birds from last year's hack might come back here. And you'll have a. Territorial female or a male. And. Then they will one day be raising babies on their own. That's. Three government agencies and a private organization have joined forces to bring Falcons back to the mountains of central Maryland.

The complex chain of events that led to this effort began at least a half century ago. Cliff face here at Maryland Heights was the last known historic nesting site for peregrine falcons in Maryland so the attempt is to get parents to re-establish themselves as nesting birds at this cliff face and other cliff faces along the Potomac River Glen Thera's is with the Department of Natural Resources. They disappear as a breeding bird in Maryland in the mid 1950s duty effects of. DDT and chlorine pesticides by the mid 1960s Peregrines were on the verge of extinction. But when the government banned DDT in 1070 hope returned. From 1977 to 1983 Peregrines were successfully reintroduced along the coastal plain of Maryland as part of a multi-state effort. Now after 15 almost 20 years we actually have a

sustained breeding population. Despite this success Peregrines haven't returned to their natural habitat. We had put birds on the coastal plain on our official sites for a couple reasons one there was more abundant food for a bird that didn't have an adult to teach it how to hunt. And secondly there were less great horned owls which are predators and Paragon. The hope was that the birds would eventually move to the cliff faces. Well they haven't found the cliff faces on around so now we're trying to reintroduce birds to the cliffs. Now after two weeks in the hack box the chicks have acclimated to their new environment and are ready to be released. But first a little high tech. This is going to be 4 0 7 transmitter so what is the green and black means. What we're doing today is funny satellite transmitters on the three young Kerrigan Falcons to track their movements once they're fly and you

know when the transmitters in place the birds can be released. You get one good twist. But Nature's Caprice once again intrudes. Yeah I think we ought to just hold off. The weather is projected for. This front to come through sometime in the afternoon and tonight. And preceding it this this of the sun comes out at all then we're going to be in some extreme severe weather pattern. A few days later. The weather is perfect for the next step in this extended process. What a day to fly he says. Tsk tsk tsk there's a reason why would you just as a functionary measure so that when you open up the door the birds haven't fed in awhile the first thing they'll do is come out for the food. But when surely don't just grab the coil

and fly. He's seen us take about 45 minutes in the sun to dry. It doesn't take long for the fledglings to begin to explore. OK another one just dropped out. Right now I get two birds out. One is feeding the other. He's more interested now and. Wanting to flop around. They're being fed by people but the birds don't know where this food is coming from. When you don't have parents to feed them or show them then what you'll have are birds that are being provided food and then innate behaviors kick in. They're flying around they're learning. How to catch prey on their own. And eventually they wean themselves off the cliff. Until then JJ Martin of the park service makes a daily trek up the mountain. Every day I have to tear the quail take them up to the site

usually throw them out to the birds so they can see. The monitor. Whenever I see them doing. First of. All. They stayed. In every day to learn something new. At first they were just young ones and they would. Just fly to a tree. Perch and then a. Few days later they started. Flying. You know just simply flying in the air. A few days later they're playing flipping and diving. By the end of the summer all seven Falcons have left the mountain. Out of sight but not out of range. Each Monday hill head converts the satellite data into a map showing the bird's movements and posts it on the park's website. Already two of the three transmitters have stopped returning data. Most likely the birds have died. But this is not an unusually high mortality rate for young falcons.

They fly it to very high speeds to get their prey which is a hazardous activity in itself. Also they're being juvenile they're not really familiar with their environment and who may be preying on them. Even so the Falcons future is bright. I don't mind seeing them in a city. But where we're standing today is where they really need to be and where they should be. It's inevitable that they will return the cliffs. It's a slow process. He is called the hawk man. For his uncanny talent for identifying hawks in flight.

See. Kevin Graff has honed his watching skills for nearly a decade and interest evolved from an early fascination for watching flocks of migrating Canada geese. In bird watching circles hawks are recognized as notoriously difficult to identify. Flying high they're vexing specks of silhouette against an ocean of bright sky and clouds are tricky to track with binoculars or cameras. The challenge is what drives the hawk watchers obsession. Kevin's backyard in the suburbs of northeastern Baltimore is a recognized

regional hawk watching site. It lies directly along one of the major migration routes of the broad wind hawk. Some years Kevin has recorded upwards of 20000 Hawks over several weeks time. A skilled birder in his own right. Pete Webb has known Kevin Graff for years. They met in a birdwatching club because poor hearing has affected Kevin's speech. Pete often interprets for Kevin when Kevin is interviewed by the media. You know every morning the peak migration of rattling hawks here seems to be in the second and third week of September in the fall and in the spring they seem to come around the second and third week of April the fall migration seems to be a lot more broad wings And we ever had here in the spring. In Paris you know nothing walked into her own one you know and in my bag you know and I'm with for the past eight

years I've been watching hawks here in my backyard which is in northeast Baltimore. And the reason the hawks seem to concentrate here is because this is at the location of the first major ridge west of the Chesapeake Bay and the Hawks need their rigs to help catch a thermal to speed them on their migrations. Kevin records his hawk sightings for both the spring and fall migrations and reports his counts to a hawk watching website. He's part of an international network of enthusiasts who track the daily progress of hawks and other birds during migration seasons. And you've been on one Corning and each fall the Hawks start their southward migration from Canada and the Arctic regions and they cover perhaps 400 miles a day stopping to eat along the way. And they're on their way to Central and South America for the most part although a few of them do every winter in Florida. When I bought the home we opened when I spot a hawk way up in the sky

sometimes you can tell by the shape of the wings there you can tell by the size. Or you can tell by the the length of the tail as to what kind of bird it is. It's a small sharp chin Hawk slight notch in the end of that long tail rounded wings heading pretty much Northwest. Pete came to recognize Kevin's knack for identification while on birding expeditions with other hawk enthusiastic a lot of people have speculated that Kevin's extraordinary visual acuity in identifying the hawks at a distance might possibly be as a result of his poor hearing and that perhaps his vision has become more acute as a result. Now on some of our field trips he's identified some birds way out there using his binoculars at some of the rest of us needed telescopes to verify the identification of. But invariably when we got our scopes on the birds he was right on the money. Broad wing talks this species of Kevin's intense interest sheer physical

characteristics with other hawks all are predators with hooked beaks and sharp talons like some of their human admirers. Hawks have remarkably keen eyesight. Broad wing hawks that are beauty type hawks which means that with the rounded wings and the relatively short tail they're not high performance fliers. They therefore are not catching birds on the wing that away a falcon would do. What they mostly do actually is they will sit in a place in the forest where there's a fairly open place on the forest floor and they wait for some smaller things to come by like mice chipmunks small squirrels or a toad or other small animals sometimes even some birds but they mostly do it by just waiting quietly until something comes by below that they can swoop down and pounce on. They do require large tracts of mature forest for their breeding territories and as more and more of those get cut down or developed there's less and less place for them. And Marilyn

probably the only place that they would be nasty would be some of the larger tracts of forests in western Maryland. So you wanted the tower to be here someplace. Kevin is doing his part to help promote and preserve Hawk populations. He's studying biological sciences at community college. With the hope of turning his life's interest into his life's work. Kevin's aspirations soar with the dream of building a community nature center on a nearby wooded section of the hawk watching Ridge. The woods are privately owned now and vulnerable to development. In the future. I hope that maybe we could set up the bridge near my house as a sort of a nature center for people to learn about nature and perhaps to set up all tower for watching hawks because from there you can see on both sides of the ridge. And to be a great opportunity to photograph birds up close as they come by.

For the hawk man and his hawks the sky's the limit. Drop into our website at MPD dot. Oh RG

Just send us your comments and suggestions. Maryland is made to serve all of our diverse communities possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you.