State

Along the Bladen County highways troffic is often halted for several minutes ot the time by swarms af low-flying blackbirds. This is Highway 74 near Chadbourn. — (Photos by Vincent Winnies.l How do you discourage 20,000,000 unwelcome visitors? The Blackbirds of Big Juniper Bay Pinehurst and Southern Pines are favorite wintering areas for thousands of Northerners, but the Bladen County community of Abbottsburg is the host to millions — not people, but black¬ birds. Abbottsburg’s winter guests, unlike their human counterpart, are fast wearing out their welcome; instead of contributing to their hosts’ well-being, they are literally eating them out of house and home. Every fall just before grain harvest¬ ing time, brown and boat-tailed grackles, along with the red-winged blackbirds, leave their homes in the Northeastern and Central States and head for eastern North Carolina. Their timetable is unerring; they arrive simul¬ taneously with the mechanical grain harvesters in the first field of ripened grain in Bladen County. Fortunately for the farmers, the first invasion is on a limited scale; much of the grain can be harvested before the entire flock arrives. Darken the Sky Usually on the first cool day in the fall, the skies above Abbottsburg are filled with the raucous calls of the grackles and the fine chirping of the red-winged blackbirds as they fly over the Abbottsburg rookery checking to see if it is still a safe haven. Day by day the flock increases until the birds actually darken the skies for more than half an hour each morning when they leave the roosting area and in the late afternoon when they return. Mo¬ torists on the Bladenboro-Elizabeth- town highway quite frequently stop to observe the birds as they fly over, but often they are halted by low-flying droves that actually block the roads for several minutes at a time. How many blackbirds are there in the rookery? There is no method known by ornithologists to make even a rough count, but amateur bird watchers agree that there are more than 20,000,000 of them. Some esti¬ mates go as high as thirty-five million. A flock of more than five million which had been roosting in Chadbourn joined the Abbottsburg group after hunters invaded their rookery, yet bird watchers were unable to detect any appreciable increase in the Abbolts- burg rookery. Why has this rookery become so large so quickly? It has been used only nine years (since the last fire that swept through the area) and many rookeries are more than 100 years old Professor Alfred Roberson of South- Bft DON CAUSEY eastern Community College, located in Whiteville, points out that the birds have found two vital things that they must have — food and a safe haven in which to roost. Food is becoming more plentiful as farmers increase their grain acreage each time tobacco allot¬ ments are cut. Impenetrable Roost The safety of the roosting area can be attested to by Professor Roberson because on his third futile attempt to enter it, he and the writer remained lost for two days. When they emerged wet, tired and briar-scratched, they were greeted by the Chadbourn Res¬ cue Squad and deputies from Bladen and Columbus counties who were be¬ ginning a search of the area. The rookery is located in center of the twenty square mile Big Juniper Bay and is surrounded on all sides by more than a mile of briar-laced, tangled underbrush. The lost bird watchers had finally extricated them¬ selves from the area by crawling on their hands and knees for nearly a mile. A Bladen County deputy ex¬ pressed surprise at their escape; he pointed out that Big Juniper Bay is a place that few people ever entered and none of them had come out. No, they did not reach the rookery. While their roosting area is still un¬ explored, their feeding grounds have been carefully surveyed by amateur ornithologists and enraged farmers. Flights of blackbirds leaving and ap¬ proaching the rookery were trailed for fifty miles north, south, east and west. This indicates that the feeding area could be as much as 8,500 square miles. Farmers as far away as Horry County in South Carolina aided in the tracking of these flights. Hard to Discourage Farmers sought aid from their County Agents and other agricultural specialists when the birds began to damage their crops. Hurried telegrams were sent to the United States Depart¬ ment of Agriculture in Washington asking for aid in combatting the in¬ creasing menace. Two practices were recommended that have proved help¬ ful; planting early maturing varieties of grains which could be harvested before the birds migrated and using a repellent on seed grain. Ralph Sasser, Bladen County Extension Agent, THE STATE, March 1, 196S 15