Delaware Bird-A-Thon seeks to raise $35,000 to preserve habitat
Maddy Lauria
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Bill Stewart as the president of the Delmarva Ornithological Society. He is a past president. Anthony Gonzon is the current president.
Early next month, birders across the state will grab their binoculars and gear up for a weeklong push to raise the money needed to save a large chunk of land in New Castle County from encroaching development.
The Delmarva Ornithological Society’s 12th annual Delaware Bird-A-Thon, which challenges birders to spot as many species as possible, aims to raise $35,000 toward the purchase of the 635-acre Passmore Farm property along Del. 9, east of Townsend and Odessa.
“And any donors who would like to match $1 million, that would be super,” said Bill Stewart, founder of the Delaware Bird-A-Thon and past president of the Delmarva Ornithological Society.
The Passmore Farm, nestled between development to the west and more than 10,000 acres of property preserved by the state and Delaware Wild Lands, the state’s first land trust program, houses a wide variety of coastal habitats that hundreds of species call home.
“Our coastline needs to be preserved, and it cannot be preserved in concrete and blacktop,” Stewart said. “We are preserving it for some identified species, but we want all of them to benefit, and we’re doing that through focusing on birds.”
Named after the family of Wills Passmore, a lifelong Delawarean and farmer who died after a motorcyclist crashed into his tractor in 2015, the Passmore Farm will add to the protected land that supports an array of rare and declining species, said Delaware Wild Lands Executive Director Kate Hackett.
“By acquiring that property, we’ll be able to expand habitat for those species and give them a little boost,” she said. “The owner, Wills Passmore, was completely dedicated to open space and farmland protection in Delaware. We’re thrilled to support his wishes and honor his legacy.”
One of those rare species is the coastal plain swamp sparrow, a small bird that is only known to breed along the Delaware Bayshore.
“This property is pristine,” he said. “It is absolutely a wonderful part of the tidal marsh, and it has some upland habitat which will help support well over 100 different species of birds on that property, whether they migrate there or they breed there. This is not going to end up being a development.”
While preserving the property will be beneficial for the swamp sparrow and hundreds of other native plants and animals, keeping the land free from development is also a key defense against rising seas and climate change, Stewart said.
“If we lose this habitat to concrete, then water is going to be over top of it, and that’s going to be it,” Stewart said. “These are buffers for climate change and also the migration of the marshes.”
The property includes forested areas, wetlands and a variety of habitats that are home to everything from coastal plain swamp sparrows to muskrat to rare rusty blackbirds and will link already protected lands, said Anthony Gonzon, an avid birder and coordinator of the state's Delaware Bayshore Initiative.
"We want to see these areas here for many generations to come," he said. "We want to make sure that 100 years from now, my kids' kids can go out and see things like rusty blackbirds or bald eagles or muskrat huts. We often tout that over half of the lands in the Bayshore are protected in some way. Anything any of our conservation partners do to protect or restore lands only benefits the whole."
Hackett said she is hopeful the property will be purchased this summer, and Stewart said since the Bird-A-Thon generally raises about $40,000 every year that he expects the event will hit its fundraising goal.
“The Bird-A-Thon is very similar to a walk-a-thon or any of those other events where you get somebody to pledge a flat amount or say they’ll give you $1 for every species that you see,” he said. “My team goes out, and we bird for 24 hours. Some groups go out and do a morning, or some just do it in their backyard.”
Since the inception of the Bird-A-Thon, which brings together the Delmarva Ornithological Society with partners including the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, the Conservation Fund, Delaware Wild Lands and other conservation groups, the event has raised more than $500,000 and helped preserve more than 1,300 acres throughout the state.
Those lands include more than 800 acres along the Delaware Bay and St. Jones River and 330 acres near the Thousand Acre Marsh that are now the Ashton Tracy Wildlife Area.
Once the Passmore Farm is purchased thanks to money raised through the Bird-A-Thon, individual donations and a $850,000 matching grant from the Mt. Cuba Center, Hackett said Delaware Wild Lands will take over management of the land, and it will be used for farming, hunting and restoration projects.
While the land will be privately owned by Delaware Wild Lands, the public can visit through scheduled visitations, she said, such as during volunteer opportunities, citizen science projects, wood duck monitoring and paddling opportunities.
For more information or to participate in Delaware Bird-A-Thon, which runs from May 5-13, go to www.delawarebirdathon.com.
Contact reporter Maddy Lauria at (302) 345-0608, mlauria@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @MaddyinMilford.
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