True BLUE
IT’S 4:30 a.m. on an early June day just outside Albany, New York. Rush hour, with its impatient drivers and honking horns, has yet to begin. Just before sunup, the only headlights are those of biologists driving to a meet-up in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve’s main parking lot. They will soon head into the Pine Bush, as it’s locally known, to catch and band Indigo Buntings, Prairie Warblers, and other birds that breed in this pitch pine-scrub oak habitat.
The Pine Bush Preserve, which lies in the midst of crisscrossing highways, suburban neighborhoods, industrial parks, and Amtrak railroad tracks, is, however improbably, one of the largest of 20 inland pine barrens left in the world and, scientists say, may be the best remaining example of the ecosystem. In 2014, the Albany Pine Bush was designated a U.S. National Natural Landmark.
It’s also an Important Bird Area, supporting an assemblage of species that prefer young forests and shrublands. No fewer than 78 Species of Greatest Conservation Need, as designated by New York state, dwell in the Pine Bush, of which 45 are birds. Among them: Prairie Warbler, Scarlet Tanager, Ruffed Grouse, Blue-winged Warbler, and
