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Restoring Grasslands on Maryland's Eastern Shore - Interview with Dr. Henry Sears
Given a little help, nature can be resilient.
© Mike Martin
For more than a decade, Henry Sears has been restoring native habitat on his farm near Chesapeake Bay. Why? Dr. Sears wanted to find out if, after 250 years of alteration, native grasslands could be brought back for the benefit of birds, plants, and other animals. Within a month of the initial restoration, hundreds of Grasshopper Sparrows moved in. Dickcissels like this one, an extremely rare bird in Maryland, appeared the following year. Now more than a decade into the project, Dr. Sears advises that, although rewarding, habitat restoration is a complex and long-term undertaking.
BirdNote®
Restoring Grasslands for Birds on Maryland’s Eastern Shore
Interview with Henry Sears
Written by Todd Peterson
This is BirdNote.
[Calls of Northern Bobwhite Quail]
For more than a decade, Dr. Henry Sears has been restoring native habitat on his farm near Chesapeake Bay. Why has he dedicated himself to this work?
“Because I’ve lived long enough to understand the tragic consequences of the last 65 years of changes to the rural and agricultural lands of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. I’ve seen the results in the environment caused by changes in farming practices and development…My generation has been witness to the destruction of habitat leading to the loss of many of Maryland’s iconic species starting with the Canvasback duck, the Terrapin, oysters and now the Northern Bobwhite Quail.”
[Calls of Northern Bobwhite]
Dr. Sears wanted to find out if, after 250 years of alteration, native grasslands could be brought back for the benefit of birds, plants, and other animals. Within a month of the initial restoration, hundreds of Grasshopper Sparrows moved in. Bobwhite Quail numbers rose dramatically. Dickcissels, an extremely rare bird in Maryland, appeared the following year. [Dickcissel song]
Now 15 years into the project, Dr. Sears reminds us that, although rewarding, habitat restoration is a complex and long-term undertaking.
“These things are much more complicated than is usually perceived… For what we’re doing, it may be very successful, but it’s going to require a tremendous amount of ongoing work. It’s not start it and let it go, nature doesn’t work that way.”
To see pictures of the restoration in process, come to our website, Birdnote.org.
[Calls of Northern Bobwhite]
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Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Call of the Northern Bobwhite 2604 recorded by P.P. Kellogg; Grasshopper Sparrow recording 107330 W.L. Hershberger used to provide the ambient track; song of Dickcissel 50228 recorded by G.A. Keller.
BirdNote's theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2014 Tune In to Nature.org June 2014 Narrator: Michael Stein
ID# searsh-01-2012-06-07 searsh-01b
Todd Peterson
Writer
Michael Stein
NarratorSights & Sounds
