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Habitat Management Leads to Buzzworthy Discovery

By Deborah Basalyga
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Bumblebee on an Indian Blanket (Gaillardia pulchella) flower in a wildflower pollinator meadow. 7/15/2021 USDA photo by Kirsten Strough

NRCS Northeast Field Team 2 is buzzing about the Golden-winged Warbler! If it was not for an active Golden-winged Warbler Initiative effort in Monroe County, PA, the buzz of a rare insect may have never been heard.

USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Northeast Field Team 2 is buzzing about the Golden-winged Warbler! If it was not for an active Golden-winged Warbler Initiative effort in Monroe County, PA, the buzz of a rare insect may have never been heard.

The Wildlands Conservancy currently has a Golden-winged Warbler Initiative contract with NRCS in Mayfield, PA. By using Brush Management, Early Successional Habitat Development / Management, as well as Tree and Shrub Management and Upland Wildlife Habitat Management, an intern with the Conservancy made an important discovery!

According to the Conservancy, “‘Joey the Intern’ is one eager guy, who never expected to come upon one ‘not-so-busy’ bee,” the rare specimen find. Joey always wanted to work in zoology but found a special passion for insects and thankfully, he made that the focus of his education.

Joey is very involved in the Golden-winged Warbler Initiative and his stewardship efforts enabled him to simultaneously conduct insect studies. By focusing mainly on caterpillars, which are a preferred food for Golden-winged Warblers, he sampled insect populations inside and outside the established 70-acre management area and compared the data sets. Not only did he find a much greater variety of insects in the managed area, he also found himself face-to-face with a very different bumblebee specimen, the critically endangered bumble bee, the Bombus fernaldae.

Joey said he identified two notable insects: the first was the bumblebee, Bombus fernaldae. Joey noted this species has been listed as endangered and “recommended for immediate conservation action” with a range decline of over 70% in the past 50 years. That study was conducted in 2009, so the risk may be even higher by now. The second insect he found was a wasp called the smoky-winged beetle bandit (Cerceris fumipennis) that collects buprestid beetles to feed to its young.

The good news continued; soon after this important discovery, the Conservancy found the host species for the Fernaldae later in their study. Through their work on the Golden-winged Warbler Initiative, 75 species were visually collected and photographed in the early-successional habitat created through controlled burning.

Within the more than 55,000 acres the Wildlands Conservancy has protected, 2,600 have forever been set aside to offer the Lehigh Valley and Lehigh River watershed nine nature preserves. Wildlands’ Pocono-based Thomas Darling Preserve consists of more than 1,300 acres filled with the largest spruce forests in the state. It is a special landscape of groundwater-fed glacial wetlands that provide unique opportunities for birding, hiking, hunting, and more. The site has been a home-base for important, ongoing efforts to steward populations of at-risk species like the Golden-winged Warbler and the Northern Flying Squirrel.

The Wildlands Conservancy has successfully protected irreplaceable natural lands; the forests, mountains, wetlands, and critical habitat they permanently protect exhibits perpetual respect and love for the land. NRCS Northeast Field Team 2 is honored and happy to work with them and who knows… maybe more “buzz-worthy” discoveries can be made together in the future!