Published first in Burroughs Audubon Society Newsletter
In June of 1916, Prof. Albert E. Shirling, spiritual father of the Burroughs
Audubon Society, undertook a comprehensive count of nesting birds in Swope Park.
Mr. Shirling lived on 63rd street across from the northeast corner of the park,
and for years tramped the hills and valleys, woods and meadows, making notes on
the birds he saw and heard. He divided the park into sixteen sections, and each
morning of that June he visited a different area, noting all the birds he saw,
but concentrating his counts on singing males. These would primarily represent
nesting pairs, although he probably heard more than one singing in vain for a
female who never joined him on his territory.
In 1919 Harry Harris had published "Birds of the Kansas City Region." The next
year Shirling published "Birds of Swope Park," with his observations on each
section's June singers of 73 species (plus 5 others later heard in or near the
park). The book also reported the time of first songs of 23 species he and
Walter Cunningham recorded on June 13, 1919 from purple martin and indigo
bunting before 3:30 to the cowbird, white-breasted nuthatch, yellowthroat, and
hairy woodpecker beginning after 5 am CST. He included from his extensive notes
47 species reported during winters in the park, and a master list describing
residents, summer or winter visitors, and transients, totaling 173.
By the time of this publication, he had already seen significant changes in
habitats. A brushy swamp and rank meadow he described as a bird paradise had
been dredged to form the Lagoon in a former Blue River oxbow, and a boathouse
and athletic field had been built. Today, this area is the zoo's African
exhibit. A golf course had been built, and two nurseries for growing trees for
the parks had been cultivated. 940 acres were upland and lowland woods in 1920,
250 had been cleared, and 150 acres were naturally open meadows and prairie.
Shirling noted that the Robin, Bluebird, Kingbird, Mockingbird, and Catbird were
among those commonly nesting around homes, while Barn Swallows, Martins, House
Wrens, and Red-headed Woodpeckers even adopted our buildings, nest boxes, and
telephone poles in place of natural cliffs and dead trees.
In 1916, Swope Park was at the extreme southeast corner of Kansas City, the
urban area having moved south from around Linwood since Thomas Swope donated the
land in 1896. In June of 1973, Swope Park was nearly in the center of Kansas
City. William V. Branan undertook to repeat Shirling's study as a Master's
thesis at UMKC, "Birds of Swope Park Fifty Years Later: A Study on the Impact of
Habitat Modification on Species Composition." Bill was then director of Lakeside
Nature Center, and is now director of the Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch
Sanctuary in Arizona.
During those 57 years, 425 adjacent acres had been added to the park in the
northeast, southeast, and west, another golf course had replaced a meadow and
prairie, some areas have had undergrowth cut and were parkland, and mowing had
become too intensive for ground nesting birds. Fire suppression had allowed a
dense understory to grow in undisturbed forests, and trees grew older and larger
on the hills, continuing the replacement by woodland of the savannahs and
prairies of the early 1800's. Increased traffic, including Gregory Boulevard
through Hazel Dell, 67th Street through Wildcat Hollow, Blue River Road,
Hillcrest Drive, Oldham Road, and I-435, none of which even existed in 1916,
produced a base sound level of about 63 decibels. This drone often drowned out
bird songs moe than a few meters away, although the noise and cars may have had
little actual direct effect on birds nesting.
In the sections where Shirling had counted 71 species and 2003 singing males,
Branan found 65 species and 2048 individuals but adding in the newly-acquired
lands brought the total in 1973 to 70 species. The density of singing male birds
had hardly changed. However, only 49 of those species were found by both
Shirling and Branan. Looking at each study's 20 most abundant species,
(including the new additions to the park) Bill noted:
*1. Indigo Bunting, *1. Blue Jay, *2. Tufted Titmouse, 2. Robin, *3.
Black-capped Chickadee, 3. European Starling, *4. Red-eyed Vireo, 4. Common
Grackle, *5. Downy Woodpecker, *5. Cardinal, 6. Kentucky Warbler, 6. House
Sparrow (ignore. '16), *7. Blue Jay, *7. Black-capped Chickadee, *8. Crested
Flycatcher, *8. Indigo Bunting, *9. Cardinal, *9. Tufted Titmouse, 10.
Yellow-billed Cuckoo, *9. Downy Woodpecker, 11. Brown Thrasher, *11. Crested
Flycatcher, 11. Dickcissel, 12. Mourning Dove, 13. Wood Thrush, 13. Red-bellied
Woodpecker, *14. Cowbird, 14. Flicker, *15. Wood Pewee, *15. Wood Pewee, 16.
Common Crow, 16. Carolina Wren, 17. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, 17. Rock Pigeon
(ignored 1916), 17. Goldfinch, 18. Cowbird, 19. Cerulean Warbler, *19. Red-eyed
Vireo, 20. Eastern Towhee, 20. Red-headed Woodpecker
* common to both top-20 lists
Starlings were not present in 1916, and Shirling ignored House Sparrows and Rock
Doves. Of the native birds, to round out Branan's top 20, we would add *Common
Crow, *Wood Thrush and Barn Swallow.
Twenty-two species were noted in 1916 and not in 1973, while 16 species were
found in the same area in 1973 for the first time. Leaving out those species
where one birder found only 1-3. individuals, and the other found none, Branan
did not find the following seven of the 1916 list: (number Shirling found in
parentheses): Acadian Flycatcher (27), White-eyed Vireo (12), Black and White
Warbler (5), Worm-eating Warbler (21), Blue-winged Warbler (17), Ovenbird (7),
Yellow-breasted Chat (18).
Two species Shirling found abundant where Branan found only one male singing
were Cerulean Warbler (34) and Kentucky Warbler (74). Five species listed by
Branan and not Shirling were Rough-winged Swallow (5), Barn Swallow (26),
Warbling Vireo (8), and Red-winged Blackbird (27), and Chuck-will's-Widow (4).
While the first four were regularly seen in the area but not found nesting in
the park, there was at that time only one Kansas City record for the
Chuck-will's-Widow (in Shirling's own yard one May evening in 1918).
Branan noted that in all but one of the original sections studied, number of
species had declined, indicating most of the park had lost habitat diversity.
But total number of nesting males per section increased as often as it
Nationwide shifts influence the birds available to enter the park, as Bluebirds
had declined, and Starlings had moved in. Chuck-will's Widows have been noted
spreading northward. The non-migratory Greater Canada Goose is now found nesting
wherever water and short grass are provided; this has happened since 1973. House
Finches have moved in from the east. Turkeys have been re-introduced. Treaties
with Canada in 1918 and Mexico in 1937 resulted in federal protection and
hunting regulations for waterfowl, which subsequently increased; Shirling found
none nesting which Bill found three species.
Branan concluded that land use and management practices were the most
significant factors influencing changes in bird composition. The number of dead
and dying trees from Dutch Elm Disease favored woodpeckers in 1973, especially
Red-headed. Prairie and meadow conversion to golf courses resulted in loss of
Dickcissels and great reductions in Meadowlarks, Chipping Sparrows, and Field
Sparrows. But Robins and swallows prefer golf course-type habitat. Opening of
upland forests to park habitat favor Wood Pewees and Red-bellied and Red-headed
Woodpeckers, but decrease Titmice and Chickadees.
In 1916 there were 333 warblers nesting; in 1973 only 14, and they mostly nested
high in trees. I noted that non-migratory Carolina Wrens were abundant nesters
in the woods before a very cold winter in the late 1950's; the next few years,
Bewick's Wrens, usually seldom heard as they moved through in spring, found
their niche unoccupied and became common nesters at the camp area in the
southeast part of the park; as Carolina populations regenerated, Bewick's once
more moved on silently. This temporary "explosion" in the early 60's does not
show in counts by either man.
Thanks to Mr. Shirling's Swope Park publication, Mr. Branan was able to study
the changes in species composition of nesting birds in Swope Park. He found in
some ways it was remarkably small, depending on
ecological niche requirements of species. Large areas still today remain little
affected by people, including the Shirling Sanctuary, Shiloh Hollow south of the
new Lakeside Nature Center, and the outdoor education acreage in the southeast.
Volunteers working with the nature center and KCPL have been working to restore
the glade prairie on the hillside of the Blue River Golf Course, the only one of
Shirling's prairies still present.
In the Kansas City area, as throughout the world, changes in land use patterns
have had great effects on birds, affecting many more species than those reduced
by hunting and commerce. The Christmas bird count
and breeding bird census data from across the nation give us cumulative
information beyond quirks of locality. Extensive efforts have been and are being
made to help restore populations through purchase and management
of habitats for wildlife. However, unless something is done to reduce the
increase in human activities affecting global temperatures and precipitation,
our great-grandchildren can expect major changes in flora and fauna around the
world. These dislocations and extinctions due to climate would occur even if our
increasing population were not converting so much forest and grassland to
cropland and desert.
As we use our fossil fuels to travel in this country and beyond, birds remain
our best windows into the health of nature. No other class has so many species
and individuals we can observe--- birds have color, song, movement. They are
also dependent on specific food, water, nesting sites, and cover. Thus, our
shared observations, locally and worldwide, allow us to construct a picture of
what is happening to ecosystems. Birds are not just decorations to admire and
trophies to add to our life lists, but more than any other form of life they
speak to us of the future of the entire biosphere.