[Announcer] This program is supported by grants from the Solon and Martha Dixon Foundation, the Alabama Wildlife Federation, working for wildlife since 1935, and the Donald M. James Family Foundation.

"Discovering Alabama" is a production of the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

-(birds chirp) -(leaves rustle and crunch) (mud squelches) Ooh man!

This is for the birds.

No, literally.

This morning outing is for birds.

In fact, if I may borrow a settlement from my birdwatching friends, our very state, Alabama is for the birds.

(birds call) -(soft bright music) -(wings flap) Of the roughly 1,000 bird species in North America, almost half of those species can be found here in Alabama.

(wings flap) In "Discovering Alabama"'s almost 40 years of programs, we've celebrated many of the wildlife species that help make Alabama one of the most naturally diverse regions in the nation, and that is certainly true for Alabama's wealth of birds species.

And today, there's growing public interest in the wonder of birds and in that intriguing activity known as bird watching, now properly called just birding.

-(muffled chatter) -(person gasps) (bugs chitter) I'm Doug Phillips.

Come along with me while we do a little birding and explore how Alabama is a veritable bird mecca.

We'll celebrate how Alabama has contributed to the recovery of several threatened and endangered bird species.

We'll visit some of the special birding events that happen every year in our state, and we'll consider a few concerns about the future for the birds.

(leaves rustle) (soft gentle music) This program is about a land unknown to many people, a land that, in many ways, has maintained its native natural wonders, a place of bountiful back country, forests, streams, and wildlife more diverse than can be found in much of the inhabited world.

Come along with me as we explore the wild wonders of this land.

Come along as we discover Alabama.

-(soft bright music) -(critters chitter) In the scientific classification of living things, birds are the class Aves because they have feathers, the characteristic that distinguishes birds from all other animals.

Feathers provide insulation, camouflage for some species, (birds chirp) conspicuous courtship displays for others, (uplifting music) and, of course, lift off, the aerodynamics for flight.

(birds chirp) Paleontologists tell us that feathers and the bird's unique lightweight skeletal structure are the result of evolutionary development traceable to the age of dinosaurs.

But let's not dwell in ancient ages past (birds squawk) when we can marvel at avian wonders in the age of bird watching.

(waves crash) -(leaves rustle) -(bugs chitter) Welcome to "Discovering Alabama," and welcome to a land that many ornithologists and birders feel is heaven on earth.

(birds chirp) (birds squawk) (wings flap) Birding in Alabama is great.

I've been a lifelong birder.

My father was a birder, so I followed him around.

As a retired teacher, as a former teacher, it was a great way to teach children about the environment.

Birding was a way to teach reading, to teach math, to teach geography, learning migration patterns.

It was a great introduction to a lot of things.

(turkeys gobble) Alabama's been known for years for its game birds, for wild turkey, for morning doves, for wood ducks, for other ducks.

But now with the growing population of birding, non-game species have become also very important in Alabama, and it's a great place for birders to come to look for all birds.

In Alabama, there's 449 species of birds documented in the state right now, including to birds, raptors, shore birds, wading birds, waterfowl, seabirds.

(bugs chitter) (leaves rustle) The primary reason for Alabama's diversity of birds is Alabama's diversity of habitats.

-(bugs chitter) -(birds chirp) Alabama, it's a unique state in that its habitats are so diverse.

When you can go from the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, you have to imagine that the life within that, from the vegetative life to the fauna, is as diverse as the habitat itself.

Alabama's impressive variety of natural habitats is due largely to the state's varied physiography with five distinct physiographic regions and the abundant waters of multiple river systems with over 100,000 miles of streams and lakes sustaining every part of the state.

Here all within Alabama is a microcosm of many of the nation's varied natural environments, from tropic-like wetlands to upland temperate forests, prairie regions, mountain regions, coastal areas.

-(waves crash) -(birds call) And Alabama's diverse habitats have been nationally significant for birds in another important way.

The state's abundance of lands and waters have served in assisting the recovery of a number of bird species that were once on the brink of vanishing from our world.

(birds squawk) Not the least of these is the very symbol of our nation, the bald eagle, whose population had declined dramatically due to unchecked pesticide abuse in past decades.

But with the help of recovery efforts launched in Alabama's Mountain Lake country, the balded eagle was given a new chance to survive and today is making a successful comeback across Alabama and the American landscape.

Eagles as a nesting species have disappeared from Alabama by 1950, and so the Non-Game Wildlife Program was involved in a project releasing bald eagles back to Alabama.

We did that from 1985, ending in 1991, and over those years, we released 91 bald eagles.

And since then, the number of nesting eagles has just grown tremendously in the state.

(bugs chitter) Alabama's forests offer hope for the continuing recovery of the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, the only species of woodpecker that makes his den in a living tree and is a social bird, establishing clusters of den trees inhabited by family groups.

(birds chirp) And Alabama's plenitude of natural settings has even supported the repopulation of our beautiful little friend, the bluebird, carrying the sky on his pack, as the saying goes, and adding richness to farm fields, park lands, and backyards across the state.

(waves crash) And the vacation down at Alabama's marvelous coast will put you front and center for the amazing high-diving performance of the brown Pelican, also once a declining species, but today with a recovered population happily thriving along Alabama's coast.

-(pelicans squawk) -(wings flap) In addition to the hundreds of bird species that are full-time residents in the state, another reason for Alabama's bird diversity is the state is along one of the world's major migratory flyways.

The Mississippi Flyway is a chief corridor for many bird species that regularly migrate across North America.

Flyways are generally primary pathways for migratory birds, and the Mississippi flyway essentially follows the Mississippi River.

It's that general broad region of the Eastern Central United States.

For all the species in the world, about 1/3 of them migrate.

What they do is they move to general areas to exploit food resources.

A lot of these birds, you think about it, especially for the migratory species, when they come out of the nest, they have never done this before, so they carry this innate push essentially and orient in the right direction and pursue the migration route to their wintering grounds without ever being trained or taught or anything.

Thousands and thousands and actually billions of birds migrate across the Gulf of Mexico every spring to raise their young in the United States and Canada.

After they raise their young, they migrate back south across the Gulf of Mexico again and spend part of the time in Central and South America.

-(birds chirp) -(wings buzz) Energy's always something that you need to look at.

For example, you have a hummingbird.

Hummingbird weighs two ounces.

That hummingbird puts on enough fat to cross the Gulf of Mexico.

Their wing beat is phenomenal.

(wings buzz) The phenomenon of bird migration certainly is amazing.

So when you add it all up for Alabama, wondrous habitat, wondrous variety of species, the wonder of birds themselves, well, is it any wonder so many folks find Alabama a veritable mecca for bird watching?

-(footsteps shuffle) -(muffled chatter) It's something you can do anywhere.

It doesn't matter what part of the world you're in.

There are always birds, and they're putting on this show that we as humans can appreciate, and then add to the fact that these birds can fly, so they're the ultimate embodiment of freedom, and it just makes birds a wonder that we can appreciate all the time, no matter where we are.

Well, I guess what birding means to me is the whole outdoor world.

If the birds are talking, I wanna know which birds are talking.

I'd love to know what they're saying, and they fly.

(laughs) What fun.

[Doug] And with such a world of birding opportunities, wouldn't you know, Alabama today has an official statewide system of birding trails.

-(soft contemplative music) -(muffled chatter) The system combines familiar viewing areas with new sites, establishing a series of eight trails that highlight many of the best public locations for watching birds year round.

The network of trails and loops has 280 stops covering the entire range of Alabama's physiographic regions from the mountains to the gulf.

The Alabama Birding Trails Program was started to make sure that people around Alabama and across the world knew about places in Alabama to go watch birds.

And it can be anything from a tiny little spot, a boat ramp, to a large state park.

-(birds chirp) -(bugs chitter) As birding has grown in popularity, several of Alabama's bird trail regions celebrate their particular bird worthiness with special events.

(soft upbeat music) In North Alabama, for example, birds can enjoy the thrill of eagle watching on designated eagle weekends at Guntersville State Park or be awed by great gatherings of sandhill cranes together with the seasonal visit of endangered whooping cranes during the annual Festival of Cranes at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge.

There's only two cranes out here that I know of, the sandhill crane and the whooping crane, and I know that that's a lot of birds back there, and there's not enough whooping cranes to make that much noise, so I just know it's probably the sandhill cranes.

And plus I saw a couple of them jumping up and down, and I was told that those are the boys looking for girls.

(tractor rumbles) [Doug] And surprising to some people, down in the midsection of the state is a distinctive realm of birding, the Alabama Black Belt, hosting the Black Belt Birding Festival.

The Black Belt is just a really unique ecological treasure for the Southeast and also for the nation as a whole, and it's distinguished by this presence of extremely fertile soil.

So the plant life in this area is extremely unique, and because of that, the bird life here is also extremely unique.

There are some birds here in the Black Belt region that you can't see in other spots in Alabama.

Let's see.

This one really (indistinct).

[Doug] And in lower Alabama, there is the state's origin grand bird fest event, the Alabama Coastal Bird Fest, started in 2004 and held every year in Fairhope.

(muffled chatter) One of the things about birding and Bird Fest is that we use it to educate people as much as we can, and we're trying to involve young people, and we do that with the free bird and conservation expo where people can come and see hawks and owls up close, and people who are interested in conservation talk about what they're particularly interested in, and so it exposes young people.

So it's up to the adults to share our love of nature with young people, and one of the important parts of Bird Fest is that.

-(muffled chatter) -(hammer taps) Well, a lot of people come from all over to the Bird Fest.

The Bird Fest increases the general awareness of this coastal area as one of the best places to see birds in the state.

That's a red-bellied woodpecker climbing up the snag here.

[Doug] And indeed, a big attraction of the coastal Bird Fest is the opportunity to enjoy guided birding tours on sections of the 230-mile Alabama Coastal Birding Trail with excursions amongst the extraordinary diversity of Alabama's coastal area.

And we've got the Alabama Coastal Birding Trail, and we've got what I think is the very best because it's right here where all the birds are and where they migrate through here first, and it's just a beautiful area.

(bugs chitter) When it comes to having the people of our state understand our environment, care about our environment, realize how special it is, anything we can do that brings that home to people is fantastic.

So an environmental festival like Bird Fest is geared to do exactly that, and it takes people, both experienced people who really know a lot about birds, there's stuff for them to do, but then people who don't know anything about birds, there's stuff for them to do.

-(muffled chatter) -(bugs chitter) Birding events around the state are important in promoting awareness for biodiversity, but years before even the idea for a state birding trail system, a number of bird lovers in Alabama were already way into the cause of bird conservation, and it's been my honor over the years to count several of Alabama's early great birding advocates as friends.

And when we get together, well, sometimes we like to reminisce about times back when.

(waves crash) Back in the mid 70s, there was a piece of property down on Gulf Shores on the gulf.

It was known as the Purdy property.

It was about 1,300 acres, had about 22,000 feet of frontage on the lagoon, and about a mile and a half of gulf frontage.

So I started looking for somebody that could maybe buy this land and put it into conservation.

It literally takes an act of Congress to establish a national wildlife refuge.

(birds chirp) The first Audubon field trip right before Bob and I were married in 1961, it was a miserable day.

It was like minus nine degrees.

We were all numb from the knees down.

(laughs) The first bird, I think, chirped in at nine o'clock.

We'd been out there four hours, but they were hardships that were fun though.

People ask me often when I first started birding.

It goes back as far as I can remember.

I can remember my dad picking me up.

I was about three or four years old, holding me up and looking over into a cardinal nest, which was just outside the kitchen window.

It went in our honeysuckle bush.

So that must have had some kind of effect on me 'cause it was an addiction that I've never been able to overcome.

(waves lap) Plain and simple, we in Alabama today are blessed with exceptional biodiversity and a legacy of exceptional people concerned with protecting that special natural heritage.

-(engine hums) -(truck beeps) But the world today is changing rapidly with natural habitats in many places being altered and destroyed at accelerating rates.

When you lose habitat, you lose species and you lose diversity.

You lose those critical habitats for these animals, these birds to migrate to or these critical habitats where they nest.

A real wake up call has been a study that was published last year in the journal "Science," showcasing the fact that we've lost three billion birds out of the birds that normally occur in North America since 1970, 30% of the continental populations of all breeding birds.

To put it in better context, that three billion lost represents species like bluejays, where we lost one in four, like white-throated sparrow where we lost one and out of every three, like Baltimore oriole, one of our favorite summer birds.

We've lost one out of every three.

It's mainly due to loss of habitat.

We clear good woods and good fields for subdivisions.

So loss of habitat is because of an increase in human population.

Everything requires habitat, a place to live, a place to feed, a place to raise their young.

They will continue to do that unless they don't have habitat, and then they'll disappear, and when they disappear, there'll be silence.

Fortunately, Alabama's legacy of bird advocacy continues on today with a number of organizations dedicated to protecting the natural habitats of our state.

One of the first things you gotta do is just preserve green space, essentially, and we're doing that.

Forever Wild has been a wonderful program as far as land acquisitions since the early 90s.

That was voted in by the people as a constitutional amendment, and it's been wild successful.

In every region in the state, there's been land protected for the people.

Here in Alabama, Alabama Audubon works to preserve habitat, protect birds, and educate folks about birds in the state, and we go on things from field trips to cleanups and really just work to make sure that birds and the places that birds need to survive are around for the future.

The Alabama Ornithological Society, or AOS, has been around since 1952.

It promotes the study, conservation, and appreciation of birds.

Yellow-bellied flycatcher.

We are focused on education about birds, studying the birds, particularly counting birds, do a lot of bird population studies.

We promote just people enjoying birds.

We have meetings there.

We have a journal.

We have newsletters.

We have a lot of things to try to promote birds and the habitats that they live in.

The reason the birds are here is we have protected habitat, and over the last 30 years, we have protected over 11,000 acres of habitat so that the birds continue to come here along the coast and inland and into the delta.

And I think now, there's more realization all around, that there's a relationship between the economic health of our community and the environmental health and more people willing to invest time and resources in it 'cause just thinking it's a good idea, that's good.

But actually working on it and supporting environmental protection is what counts.

Ready?

One, two, three.

-(girl squeals) -(people laugh) Fortunately also for Alabama, there are many dedicated educators striving to promote a caring environmental ethic.

To conserve it, you have to love it.

To love it, you have to know it, and to know it, you have to be taught it.

You have to experience it.

You have to smell it, taste it, touch it, to get out there and know it yourself to really want to save it.

Education is so important to conservation because it really is the trail that forges the way.

I'm still learning all the different ways that we conserve and what that means, and it's really important for us to let people know that conservation happens right in their backyard.

You tend to want to save what you appreciate and what you enjoy.

I grew up in Fairhope.

When I got older, I just wanted to conserve it so future generations could enjoy the same things that I grew up enjoying.

This planet, our forests, our ecosystems sustain us.

They provide the things that are necessary for our lives.

What we've gotta keep in mind is that we are stewards of these resources.

-(bugs chitter) -(birds chirp) We today are, of course, merely temporary stewards of this land that, in effect, is borrowed from future generations.

What kind of world will we pass on to them?

Let us hope that Alabama's remarkable abundance of lands, waters, and wildlife habitats will still be here for them and for the birds.

I think birds are important because they show us part of the wonderful creation and we can watch them overhead, and we just know it's amazing.

-(soft upbeat music) -(birds caw overhead) (birds chirp) (wings flap) (water rushes) -(water laps) -(birds squawk) -(birds caw) -(wings flap) [Announcer] "Discovering Alabama" is produced in partnership with Alabama Public Television.

"Discovering Alabama" is a production of the Alabama Museum of Natural History.

This program is supported by grants from the Solon and Martha Dixon Foundation, the Alabama Wildlife Federation, working for wildlife since 1935, and the Donald M. James Family Foundation.