Peter Brannen’s article on the State of Birds in the Gazette two weeks ago was interesting and included excerpts from the information gathered over the last 40 years by the Massachusetts Audubon Society, Manomet Bird Observatory and the Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife Department. Vineyard birders can relate to these findings, but there are significant differences between conditions on the Island and even southeastern Massachusetts. The following thoughts were collected in conversations with members of the Island birding community to get their take on the State of the Birds on Martha’s Vineyard.

The Vineyard is composed of habitats similar to those found off-Island. However, until about 1960 the Island has not had three resident mammalian predators — skunks, raccoons and chipmunks — which are common and longtime residents in the rest of the state. The Vineyard also does not have predators the rest of the state has which help control the skunk, raccoon and chipmunk populations. Don’t get me wrong. None of us want coyotes, foxes, bears or cougars here. However, some of us would like to wring the necks of the people who introduced the three bird predators to the Island.

Ground-nesting bird species have been most affected by these mammals. The eastern towhee used to be the national bird of Martha’s Vineyard and had a very large and healthy population, probably approximating 10,000 pairs. Towhees nest on the ground so their eggs are easy prey for skunks, raccoons and chipmunks, and their population has dropped sharply in the last 30 years. Other ground nesters that have declined sharply due to mammalian predation include northern bobwhites, brown thrashers, ovenbirds, black-and-white warblers, all the terns (common, least and roseate), black-crowned night herons, green herons, snowy egrets, piping plovers, and spotted sandpipers. It is possible to largely protect piping plovers and terns that nest on the Vineyard’s beaches by building fences that keep the predators out. But this is not possible for all the species that nest in woods, pastures and grasslands.

Northern bobwhites, ring-necked pheasants and ruffed grouse have a slightly different story. Bobwhite or quail are residents of the Vineyard but their numbers in the past have depended on the efforts of Fish and Wildlife restocking. Before the mammalian invasion, the northern bobwhite population was fairly stable. However, since the arrival of skunks, raccoons and chipmunks, the stocked group rarely survive and the small population of historic survivors has been able just barely to endure due to egg predation. Ruffed grouse were introduced to the Island in the 1800s. They probably were reintroduced in the 1960s and the last known sighting was in 1997. The third game bird, the ring-necked pheasant, was introduced to the Island in the 1900s and decreased immensely when the mammalian predators arrived. Pen-raised birds were released annually for many years, but these birds do not possess the survival instinct of wild birds and were easy prey. Another addition, the so-called wild turkey of Martha’s Vineyard, is not wild; rather the population is made up of domestic turkeys gone feral.

Mammalian predators are not the only reason for the changes in the bird life on the Island. Dramatic habitat changes have occurred here as well. Older Vineyard birders remember open fields covering much of the Island and large expanses of low scrub of both pine and oak which was relatively short. Now these fields are either covered with houses or have grown into high scrub or woodlands. Birds that formerly inhabited those areas can’t survive in the new habitats, so they have disappeared. We have lost all our eastern meadowlarks, grasshopper sparrows and short-eared owls, many northern harriers, all our upland sandpipers, most eastern whippoorwills and a small population of bobolinks.

The loss of the American kestrel (sparrow hawk) is an interesting tale. Multiple nesting boxes for the kestrels were built between 1971 and 1974. The results were positive: 30 pairs of kestrels were documented nesting on the Island. The food of choice for these small falcons is grasshoppers and small mammals (mice, voles and moles). Kestrels hunt by hovering over open fields and dropping down on their prey. The Vineyard has lost a large percentage of its fields, and now we have no more of these small falcons nesting here. Cooper’s hawks moved onto the Island as a breeding species about 10 years ago; their habitat of choice is forest and we now have at least eight to 10 pairs nesting here. They are aggressive hunters; just ask anyone with a bird feeder during the winter months. They are known to hunt American kestrels. The combination of loss of habitat and a new predator has eliminated the American kestrel as a Vineyard breeder.

A favorite food of the Cooper’s hawk, mourning dove, is another species that has seen a decline on Martha’s Vineyard.

Climate change has brought new colonists to the Island, this time not from England, but from our southern states. These recent invaders include northern cardinals, northern mockingbirds, red-bellied woodpeckers, Carolina wrens, tufted titmice, rose-breasted grosbeaks, great egrets and turkey vultures. All these birds except great egrets now nest on the Island. Five are also beneficiaries of the greater expanse of forest which did not exist 50 years ago. In addition, forest species such as Baltimore orioles, scarlet tanagers, great crested flycatchers, eastern wood pewees, and red-eyed vireos which were not common breeders 50 years ago, are now much more numerous as nesters here.

The warming trend since 1900 has changed bird populations in other ways. The numbers of sea ducks such as eiders and scoters, which breed far to the north of the Island and used to winter off Aquinnah and Squibnocket have declined in the last 10 years. We do not know if this is because they find the Vineyard too warm in the winter and thus do not migrate as far south, or because their food of choice has been reduced due to sea water changes.

Eleanor Waldron reminded me that in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s we used to see flocks of 16 species of warblers in the woods and woodland edges as they migrated through in the fall. She added that often there were between two and 10 of each species. Now it is hard to find more than about five species of warblers in a fall flock, and only one or two of each. The reasons for this decrease are complex and involve loss of habitat in the warblers’ migratory routes, their wintering grounds, and an increase in brown cowbirds that parasitize the warblers’ nests in the cleared parts of our woods.

Increases in human populations, their multiple dwellings, domestic pets which run uncontrolled and people’s lack of concern about their environment have contributed significantly to the decline in our bird populations. In general, the disappearance of the vast open areas that characterized the Island for 100 years has made the general habitat here much more like that of the nearby mainland, and our resident bird populations have come to resemble those of southeastern Massachusetts much more closely than they did before.

Gus Ben David, Rob and Wendy Culbert, Allan Keith, Matt Pelikan, Scott Stephens, Penny Uhlendorf and Eleanor Waldron contributed to this piece. Susan B. Whiting writes the Vineyard Gazette Bird News and is coauthor of Vineyard Birds and Vineyard Birds II. Her Web site is vineyardbirds2.com.