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The endangered red-cockaded woodpecker has lost nearly all of its habitat in Ihe Southeastern Uniled Stales. Now it's finding a surprising new home on a Florida bombing range
SITTING CROSS-LEGGED on the mossy forest floor, I try not to make a sound as I swat away mosquitoes. The air is warm, the smell of bright Florida sunshine on moist soil still lingering. But a chill descends as the sun goes down, and crickets venture a twilight chirp. Suddenly I hear a quiet drumming, and then a sound like squeaky dog toys being tossed from tree to tree. "Is that them?" I mouth to Greg Thompson, the Archbold Biological Station scientist spearheading this project. He nods.
We make our way along a path that Thompson had carefully cleared of crunchy palmetto fronds and pine cones. I hold my breath, creeping through the gathering dusk to my spot. Thompson tiptoes to a longleaf pine with a white ring painted around its trunk, the mark of a nesting tree. He raises something like a butterfly net attached to an extendable pole, slowly, quietly, until it reaches a hole in the trunk about 20 feet up. Mary Marine, a research assistant, appears from among the palmettos in a plaid shirt and rubber boots and begins slapping the tree trunk until a little bird about the length of a dollar bill dives out of the hole and into Thompson's net. Moments later, Thompson is cradling a rather irritated red-cockaded woodpecker in his hand.
"Male. Purple-green, shrimp, yellow, dash, yellow, aluminum," Thompson says, reading out the colors of the bird's leg bands to confirm it's the one they wanted to capture, called "95H Male."
This is only the beginning of a very long night for that little male. The next step is to rendezvous with the other biologists and volunteers carrying nine other birds captured from around the Osceola National Forest, each safely nestled in a fabric-lined box for the four-hour drive to their new home, so they can repopulate an area where they used to thrive.
Their destination? Avon Park Air Force Range, central Florida, the largest military bombing and gunnery range east of the Mississippi.
THE WORDS "BOMBING RANGE" might evoke a desolate war zone. Avon Park is...