By DAN SHAVER, guest columnist

Migratory songbirds like the state-endangered cerulean warbler have flooded into Brown County. They are singing from the treetops and gobbling up caterpillars, spiders and other juicy tidbits.

Next, they will get ready for a summer of hard work by singing to find mates, building a nest, defending their young from predators and hopefully raising the next generation of songbirds. All this excitement and work comes at the end of very long journey.

The journey started in South America on the western slope of the Andes Mountains. Birds like the wood thrush with its flute-like call, the scarlet tanager with its familiar ‘chip-burr… chip-burr’ or the reclusive yellow-billed cuckoo that booms out hollow wooden sounding notes that the Cornell Lab describes as ‘ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-kow-kowlp-kowlp-kowlp-kowlp’ or a metal door knocker hitting a strike plate.

These birds spent winter foraging in mixed flocks in the Andes Mountains. But at some point, they get the urge to start moving.

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They make their way up to Central America and start gathering in flocks of millions on the Yucatan Peninsula of southern Mexico. These massive flocks of birds can be seen rising up out of the trees on radar. Often, they rise from the trees only to settle back down into the forest. But eventually something will be right, the drive will be strong and they will rise and begin flying out over the Gulf of Mexico.

This non-stop, no-chance-to-turn-back flight will last 18 to 24 hours for many of these birds that weigh no more than a AAA battery. They will beat their wings 20 times a second, 1,200 beats a minute for 18 to 24 hours straight. They cannot stop, they cannot eat, they cannot drink, they just keep flying.

If all goes well, they will reach the Gulf Shores of the U.S. exhausted, hungry and so depleted they have burned all the fat in their bodies. It does not go well for all of them. They are compelled to make the journey. An unseen, hard-wired instinct compels them to migrate as the southern hemisphere turns to winter. Lacking food resources some will fly themselves to death trying to make the journey.

When they reach the Gulf Shores, they are not done. They grab a bite to eat, drink some fresh water and keep moving. They are looking for something else, something special, somewhere to live, sing, nest, breed and raise their young. What they are looking for is the forests of Brown County.

Many of the migratory songbirds need large blocks of forest full of oak hickory or beech maple forest-types. These tiny birds depend on old forest, teenage forest and young forest, shrubby land and thickets of blackberry and briars full of fruit and juicy insects. Birds like these need high ridges, steep ravines and flowing woodland streams. They need the security that can only be found in ridge after ridge of contiguous forest populated with the native species they are adapted to feeding on, nesting in and living in to produce the next generation of songbirds.

They need Brown County.

Since May, these amazing migrants have been singing in our woods, flittering by the treetops and even visiting bird feeders in our backyards. To enjoy a rose-breasted grosbeak, summer tanager or other migratory songbird at a feeder is a sight many Hoosiers will never behold. In Brown County, it is somewhat common because of the amazing forested natural area that surrounds us.

Enjoy it, embrace it and appreciate this amazing miracle of migration that brings these birds into our lives every year. But don’t take it for granted. Inappropriate forest management, invasive species, forest conversion and other big threats like climate change can degrade this forest system.

When the songbirds return to South America, they fly into peril. We know they face unregulated forest management and forest conversion in the Andes Mountain. Their habitat is being destroyed and converted.

When they make the long journey to Brown County, they do not know what they will find when they get here. By keeping our properties forested and removing invasive species, we can ensure the forest habitat these birds depend on is here for them every year. We can have a management plan developed for our property and work with professional foresters and wildlife managers to ensure our woods are healthy and viable for songbird generations to come.

The migratory songbirds have no choice. We do.

Dan Shaver is the project director for the Nature Conservancy’s Brown County Hills Project. If you want to know more about protecting your property or managing it sustainably, contact him at 812-200-4040 or [email protected].