Virtual Tour Brings Forest Management for the Birds to Life

How does forest management affect wildlife, specifically birds? Which birds prefer which types of forest habitat? How can you help birds thrive on your property?

The Forestry for the Birds Virtual Tour is a new tool developed by Purdue Forestry and Natural Resources and Purdue Extension, which offers answers to those questions and more in an easily digestible and visual format. The virtual tour is based on The Nature Conservancy’s Forestry for the Birds program.

The virtual tour is an interactive guide to forest management techniques and birds in the forest that features 360-degree images, including several taken on eight Purdue FNR properties across the state. Bird identification resources from Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Macaulay Library, forest management resources from Purdue Extension and more make the tour come to life and allow landowners to improve their identification and management skillsets.

The tour was created and is narrated by Kaitlyn Young, a 2022 wildlife alumna and current FNR master’s degree student. Young spent the summer of 2023 monitoring birds as an avian monitoring and extension intern for the Purdue FNR Extension Internship program.

Young conducted breeding bird surveys and made recordings of all the species she encountered whether audibly or visually last summer. She utilized a GoPro Max to capture 360-degree images of the properties she surveyed. Song Meter Mini acoustic monitors allowed her to capture various bird songs, which are incorporated into the background of some of the virtual scenes of the tour. Still camera images also provide stunning visuals of each property and bird type.

“I think my favorite thing about the tour is that when you are exploring each scene, it really feels like you are there,” Young explains. “I want folks who may not be able to visit our properties to feel like they are right there, inside the scene, while learning a thing or two about bird conservation and managing our forests for our rapidly declining feathery friends.” 

Young is quick to note, however, that it is much easier to spot the birds she added to each scene of the tour than when trying to look for them during surveys, when they are often hiding behind the leaves in the canopy.

Forestry for the Birds is a project developed by the Indiana Chapter of The Nature Conservancy, which provides foresters and private landowners with the information and tools needed to enhance their forests in a way that fosters thriving bird communities. Many resources, including the Forestry for the Birds pocket guides, focus on the "Birders' Dozen," or 12 bird species which nest in the Central Hardwood ecoregion of Indiana that are easy to identify by sight and/or sound, and need conservation action to assist with range-wide or local population declines. The Birders’ Dozen species were selected by The Nature Conservancy and an independent group of birders, ornithologists and conservationists.

The virtual tour focuses on how different forest stewardship practices and forest types can benefit a variety of bird species, including the Birders’ Dozen. In each scene, there are three or more bird species to look for, recorded bird songs which are representative of what you could hear in that scene, interactive icons that link to images and videos and an audio description of the scene.

“I’m excited to see this virtual tour come to fruition – it provides some depth of information to complement the Forestry for the Birds Pocket Guide and Silvicultural Guide,” said Jessica Outcalt, Purdue Extension Educator, who helped develop the Forestry for the Birds materials for TNC. “I especially appreciate the visuals and audio that can’t be communicated via printed materials, and how this tour captures the sense of being in a forest that will make the material accessible to a wider audience.”

The properties shown illustrate a variety of forest stewardship techniques ranging from single tree selection to group tree selection, shelterwood, clearcut, oak woodland restoration and prescribed fire. The tour also highlights both young forests and mature closed-canopy forests.

The Birders’ Dozen includes:

• Yellow-billed and Black-billed Cuckoo
• Eastern Whip-poor-will
• American Woodcock
• Eastern Screech-Owl
• Red-headed Woodpecker
• Wood Thrush
• Eastern Towhee
• Yellow-Breasted Chat
• Baltimore Oriole
• Worm-eating Warbler
• Hooded Warbler
• Cerulean Warbler

The American Woodcock, Wood Thrush and Cerulean Warbler are listed on the National Audubon Society watchlist, while the Cerulean warbler is state endangered in Indiana. The Eastern Whip-poor-will, American Woodcock, Worm-eating Warbler and Hooded Warbler have been noted as species of special concern by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Fish and Wildlife.