Birds Find a Haven Under Our Power Lines

It turns out that some of those open stretches of land below high voltage transmission lines, called utility rights-of-way (ROW), are home to the golden-winged warbler.

According to an O&R-sponsored study on Shrubland Management and the Avian Community, these birds have found a nesting haven in O&R's ROW in Sterling Forest State Park. Data collected by Dr. John Confer, a professor at Ithaca College's Biology Department, supported the theory that the golden-winged warbler population was high in the park's ROW.

"The management of shrubland in utility ROWs is extremely important to the future of these declining species," said Dr. Confer, who has studied the warbler for 20 years. "The population of forest birds is increasing while birds that nest in shrubland are declining."

This is mainly because shrubland habitat is decreasing. Farmlands, once a major source of shrubland habitat, are being replaced by other forms of land use, and those lands not developed or managed naturally, are becoming forests. As a result, utilities have become the largest managers of shrublands — totaling more than 10,000 miles of ROW in New York alone.

Dr. Confer's research was helped by a grant from O&R.