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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFOOTHILLS UNITARIAN CHURCH EXPANSION - FDP210027 - SUBMITTAL DOCUMENTS - ROUND 1 - WILDLIFE DOCUMENTS WARNER COLLEGE OF NATURAL RESOURCES Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1234 https://warnercnr.colostate.edu/ October 27, 2021 City of Fort Collins 700 Wood Street Fort Collins, CO 80521 Dear City Planners, Foothills Unitarian Church must cut down 11 trees to make room for the planned expansion of their sanctuary. Before the trees can be taken down, a qualified biologist must check the trees for nesting birds. I am a professional ornithologist with over 40 years of experience conducting research on landbirds and teaching ornithology and wildlife courses at two universities. I can provide my CV if you would like more detail on my education and experience. I have searched for nests of numerous bird species in the western United States and Mexico. I examined the trees that were going to be cut on the FUC property and in my opinion, there are no active nests in the trees. I provide details on my examination below. On October 18, 2021, I examined 3 spruces, 5 long-leaf pine trees and one pinyon that are scheduled to be removed for the FUC sanctuary expansion. I returned on October 26th and examined a boxelder and an ash that I missed on my first visit. I spent approximately one hour examining the trees. No bird species normally nest in the Fort Collins area October-January, but I examined the trees anyway to see if there were any visible nests or birds moving to and from the tree that might indicate nesting. I also inspected all the trees for large nesting holes because Great-horned Owls (Bubo virginianus) use tree cavities for nesting and start nesting in January and therefore could be nesting depending on when the trees are taken down. The two spruce trees adjacent to the sanctuary (Figure 1) are the largest of the trees that will be removed. I checked their trunks for holes and examined what I could see of the limbs from directly underneath the trees and from the side. I could not see through the vegetation, but I saw no activity that indicated that nesting birds may be present. Next, I examined the three long-leaf pine trees (I’m unsure of the species) south of the sanctuary adjacent to the sidewalk on the north side of Drake Ave (Figures 2 and 3) and the pinyon pine near the east parking lot. It was easy to examine the trunks and all the limbs of these trees because they have an open structure (pines) or are small enough to examine closely (pinyon). Again, I saw no nests, no activity that would indicate nesting nor any nesting holes. I then examined the spruce (Figure 5) and two pine trees (Figure 6) east of the religious education building. I could not see through the vegetation of the spruce, but no activity was observed that would indicate birds were nesting in the tree. The pines are very open, and I could scan all of the limbs and trunk and did not observe nests, nesting activity, or cavities. On the 26th I examined the boxelder just south of the sanctuary (Figure 7) and the ash (Figure 8) in the island in the west parking lot. Most of the leaves had fallen off of the boxelder and it was easy to scan all of the limbs. The ash had more leaves, but it was open enough to scan most of the limbs. No nests, nesting activity or cavities were observed in either tree. I am confident that there are no birds nesting in the trees that will be taken down for the building expansion at FUC. Sincerely, Luke George Figure 1. Two large spruce trees just south of the existing sanctuary. Figure 2. Two pine trees south of the sanctuary. Figure 3. Pine tree near Drake Avenue. Figure 4. Pinyon pine tree adjacent to east parking lot. Figure 6. Two pine trees east of religious education building. Figure 5. Spruce tree east of religious education building. Figure 7. Boxelder tree south of the sanctuary Figure 8. Ash tree in the west parking lot.