Almost two decades of research, aided by citizen scientists who monitor backyard bird feeders, has yielded a fuller picture of the migration habits and threats facing a precious songbird known as the painted bunting.
The eastern population of these colorful birds spend winters in Florida, Cuba, Mexico and Belize, while their breeding grounds are in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.
But researchers now know much more about what helps them thrive, and where they are struggling, thanks to a project started in 2006 by Jamie Rotenberg, an avian ecologist.
He recently retired from his professorship at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and moved to Sarasota.
Rotenberg will give a talk about his research Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Celery Fields, at the Nature Center.
"Without citizen science, my project would have never worked," said Rotenberg.
He and colleagues tracked about 5,000 painted buntings for a project that spanned 2006-2012.
Researchers put color-coded bands on birds, and then tracked sightings of them by hundreds of everyday people who wanted to contribute to the research.
Although the Painted Bunting Observer Team has wrapped up its work, the project continues to yield data about the birds.
"I'm thrilled to say that I have several grad students who worked with me on this project," said Rotenberg.
"So they have started a new bird observatory in Wilmington, North Carolina. And it is called the Cape Fear Bird Observatory. They're doing some fantastic things," he said, like banding painted buntings, and looking for re-sights that will fill in the picture of where they go and how long they live.
"It is possible to spot them, even here at Celery Fields in Sarasota. If there's a banded bird with a color combination, we would definitely want to know about it and report it back to them," Rotenberg said.
Painted buntings are known to be in decline due to habitat loss. And in Florida, they are sometimes captured for the exotic pet trade.
The latest data from the the Breeding Bird Survey shows "that in North Carolina, they're doing okay, and in South Carolina, they're not doing so well. In Georgia, they're doing okay. And in Florida, they're not doing as well," said Rotenberg.
A range of factors are at play, from climate change, to land development, to farming practices that remove forest tracts to increase yields, he said.
"On top of the habitat loss on their breeding grounds, we're also losing them to the pet trade on their wintering grounds. So they're kind of facing a double whammy, unfortunately," said Jennifer McCarthey Tyrrell, a master bird bander with Audubon South Carolina.
The painted buntings that wintered in Florida will soon fly north to the Carolinas and surrounding regions.
