Bog habitats in the southeastern United States are fragmented and currently occupy very limited areas. Richardson and Gibbons (1993 pgs 257-310 in Biodiversity of the Southeastern United States: Lowland Terrestrial Communities) note "Data on the faunal characteristics of mountain bog ecosystems are extremely limited. Detailed observations of the animal communities characteristic of such habitats, or even faunal lists, would be extremely valuable. One species that may be typical of mountain bogs, and dependent on them in many areas, is the bog turtle..."

Bogs are disappearing at an alarming rate and probably represent the most threatened of mountain habitats in the southeast because they are so easily impacted by man’s activities. Additionally, the plant communities they support are unstable in terms of successional processes. For example, Lee and Norton (1995; Maryland Naturalists 40: 7-46) in a survey of bog turtle (Clemmys muhlenbergii) sites in the eastern United States showed a marked decline in the number of extant sites and concluded that fewer than 357 hectares of occupied habitat was available. Most individual sites are small, ranging from .5 to 2 hectares. From Maryland southward there are probably fewer than 200 hectares of bog turtle habitat and perhaps that many hectares again of bog habitats in western Maryland and West Virginia, outside the range of bog turtles. Despite their relatively limited occurrence, bogs and bog-like habitats represent a natural part of the habitat mosaic of the southeast. Because of striking structural differences in the vegetative communities between bogs and bog ecotones, with those of the surrounding plant communities, they have the potential to harbor a number of breeding boreal bird species which in the southeast are represented only by small relict populations.

This study is to survey bog and sedge meadow communities in the southeast in order to document the occurrence of breeding birds which are locally uncommon and well south of their centers of distribution. Occurrences are being examined based on bog type, bog size, bog sucessional stage, adjacent communities, latitude and elevation. Prior to this there had been no systematic survey of southern bog avifauna, and from an ecological and zoogeographic perspective this information is critical for resource planning and management if historic habitat mosaics are to be maintained. In that birds are primarily diurnal, and species’ specific songs are relatively easy to monitor, they are good thermometers to measure community change. Based on our first two years of study we think we can use birds as a tool for measuring habitat quality as it relates to bog turtles. Furthermore, a number of relict floral and faunal elements (many of which are regionally threatened or endangered) also occur in these bogs (Curtis and Gibbons 1993, op. cited). In particular, the recently listed bog turtle is a index species of a number of the bog types which will be surveyed. Of particular emphasis will be an attempt to identify management strategies which will benefit bog turtles, endangered plant associates, and relict bird populations.

Area covered : Maryland and West Virginia southward to northern Georgia and South Carolina. Focus of work to be in bog turtle habitats in the Piedmont of Maryland and mountains of North Carolina. Secondary work in bogs in mountains of Maryland and West Virginia, Southern Blue Ridge of Virginia, and one or two sites each in Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina. Also, several Piedmont sites in NC are being studied. Habitats while generally identified as bogs, represent a number of community types including, fins, tamarack swamps, sedge meadows and their related sucessional communities.

Methods: Standard point counts, fitting in as many 25 m radius census points per site as possible in dominate bog vegetation are being conducted. See Hamel et al. 1996 A Land Manager’s Guide to Point Counts of Birds in the Southeast (USDA, Forest Service, General Tech. Rept SO-120) for overview of methods for point counts. Ecotones are being surveyed by transects which follow the perimeter of each bog, and a general list (with ranking of order of relative abundance)will be prepared for each site. Sites are visited two to five times during the breeding period (number depending on the size and nature of the site). Information for specific sites is being compared to previous studies when they are available (less than 0.5% of sites). Thus, information on diversity and density of birds in various bog vegetative communities will be generated against which to measure community change. Most sites are currently being invaded by exotics and shrubby vegetation, and future repeat of detailed bird surveys can be used to study this change as well as the effects of active management. Parameter counts will provide information on the importance of bog edge communities, and ranking list will be used to interpret broad scale zoogeographic patterns of relict breeding bird distributions.

Purpose: To demonstrate the importance of southern Appalachian bogs to the zoogeography of relict populations of birds, of rare and disjunct bird species and of bird species with expanding distributions. The key question is "Will habitat enhancement of sites for bog turtles, and or the increase of the size of sites by clearing back encroaching vegetation also be of benefit to populations of rare and geographically interesting breeding bird populations ?" The secondary question is the relative importance of bog habitats to regional faunal assemblages.

The following aspects are being studied as they relate to bird populations: species composition, species rank, latitude gradients, altitude gradients, size of bogs as they relate to diversity, density and unusual species, the role of succession and/or drainage to species diversity and species of interest, dominate vegetation, and adjacent vegetation.

Most of the species encountered will be ubiquitous birds which prefer open areas or edges (i.e., Common Yellowthroats, Rufous-sided Towhees, etc.) and a few wetland species (i.e., Red-winged Blackbirds). The avian species of interest known to have affinities for bog habitats in the region include: Marsh Hawk (old breeding records from Cranesville Swamp), American Bittern, Virginia Rail, American Woodcock, Spotted Sandpiper, Saw-whet Owl, Empodinax flycatchers (several), Olive-sided Flycatcher, Sedge Wren, Golden-winged Warblers, Nashville Warbler, Northern Waterthrush, Mourning Warbler, Canada Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, White-throated Sparrow, Henslow’s Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, and Purple Finch. Other species of zoogeographic interest are expected.