Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
sensitive and adaptable species, but also rel ected losses of favorites such as
the red-headed woodpecker, was to me personally relevant. Such relevance
was, however, not scientii c. I had no benchmark of a rigorous bird survey
from my childhood woods. The current assembly of birds seemed okay, but
what was really lost or gained over those forty years? Scientii c retrospectives
in Virginia, Australia, and the United Kingdom suggest some answers.
For centuries, a mature, deciduous forest cloaked the southern shore of
Lake Barcroft, a reservoir serving Alexandria, Virginia. Situated a mere eight
miles from the White House and its First Family, this region of northern Vir-
ginia (Fairfax County) was home to the newly minted U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service's ornithologist, John Aldrich. Aldrich was a distinguished researcher
whose career would span i fty years and was bookended by bird counts
around Lake Barcroft. Shortly after moving to Alexandria in 1941, Aldrich
employed the precise and time-consuming methodology of his graduate
mentor, S. Charles Kendeigh, to map the territories of all breeding songbirds
in a ninety-i ve-acre forest fronting the lake. The young ornithologist delim-
ited 187 territories of twenty-three species. Most common were the obligate,
deep forest species. All but 39 territories were owned by pairs of red-eyed
vireo, ovenbird, wood thrush, scarlet tanager, hooded warbler, Acadian l y-
catcher, and eastern wood pewee. And then development happened.
Beginning in 1950 Aldrich's study area was transformed from forest to
suburb as much of northern Virginia rapidly urbanized. The urban tsunami
washed over Lake Barcroft, and in its wake the ninety-i ve-acre wood splin-
tered into a mixture of forest remnants and single-family residences, one of
which was occupied by the Aldrich family in 1959. To Aldrich, science was
now getting personal.
Ornithologists are obsessed with the birds around their homes. Aldrich
watched his birds whenever he could and slowly accumulated a lifetime's per-
spective on and passion for Lake Barcroft's avian world. In 1979, retired from
federal service but not yet released from the lure of science, he remapped the
 
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