The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Land Trust Bird Conservation Initiative has been a truly incredible partner to ALC over the past two years. Their grant program has directly supported various habitat restoration activities that have had a tremendous impact on both birds and people. And the support continues.
Aiken Land Conservancy joined the Burning for Birds Conservation Collaborative in 2023, which currently consists of six conservation partners throughout the Southeast that are working together to restore habitats for declining, fire-adapted bird species such as the Eastern towhee, Bachman’s sparrow, brown-headed nuthatch, and Northern bobwhite. This partnership comes with funding, and that funding was put to good use over the past year.
Nearly 400 acres of longleaf pine uplands had fire reintroduced to them through the Burning for Birds funding. These acres include lands owned by private landowners that are protected with conservation easements, as well as lands that ALC owns, such as Boyd Pond Park. ALC staff, alongside Augusta-Aiken Audubon volunteers, conducted pre-burn and post-burn bird surveys on each property. The results were telling. Both Eastern towhees and brown-headed nuthatches were recorded in greater abundance post-burn than pre-burn on nearly every property surveyed, and one property had Northern bobwhite quail calling in the burn unit just a couple of months after fire had been reintroduced!
In 2024, ALC was awarded $25,000 from the Cornell Land Trust Bird Conservation Initiative to go towards longleaf pine restoration on its Shaws Creek Preserve Conservation easement. Through the project, 50 acres of what was a dense, off-site loblolly pine stand with limited value to wildlife was converted to 50 acres of naturally-occurring longleaf that will ultimately support a wide range of native wildlife species. In addition to this restoration, funding supported a landowner event in partnership with The Longleaf Alliance, Sandhills Forestry, Women Owning Woodlands, Clemson Extension, and the Center for Heirs Property to educate 19 landowners about longleaf pine restoration techniques. Finally, an interpretive sign was created and installed on the Shaws Creek Preserve so that visitors can better understand the habitat transformation that took place on the property.
In 2025, ALC was awarded yet another grant to support habitat restoration activities for declining birds and, this time, upland snakes as well. Ryne Huggins, ALC’s Stewardship Coordinator, will be working with our landowner network to provide funding assistance for prescribed burning, with a particular emphasis on reintroducing fire to areas where it has long been absent. Along with volunteers from the University of South Carolina-Aiken and Augusta-Aiken Audubon Society, ALC will again assess bird populations before and after the burns, but will also be using cover boards to determine how snake species respond as well. Fire benefits a wide range of species, and we hope to show how beneficial these burns can be for our native ecosystems.
Finally, ALC will receive additional funding this year from the Burning for Birds Conservation Collaborative. This funding will not only help to reintroduce fire to properties where landowners want to reduce wildfire risk and improve forest health, but will go to landowners that want to burn in the growing season (April-July), when burns are most ecologically-beneficial.
Prescribed fire helps to maintain the conservation values of our protected lands, something that ALC takes very seriously. Thank you to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, our many partners, our volunteers, and, especially, the participating landowners for making all of these projects so successful.