Golden Winged Warbler

A bird that benefited from deforestation.

Photo By: Walt Ford / USFWS

This golden winged warbler was photographed at Rice Lake National Wildlife Refuge near McGregor, Minn. The 18,300-acre refuge was preserved in 1935 to provide habitat for waterbirds that eat wild rice from the 4,500-acre lake. Home to one of the largest concentrations of migrating ring-necked ducks in the country, the refuge witnesses more than 150,000 ducks during the fall migration.

The golden winged warbler also appreciates some of the refuge's habitat. It nests in so-called "early successional habitat," the kind of scrub and small-tree forest that grows where farm fields or clear-cut forests have been left to re-grow, according to the Cornell Lab or Ornithology. It's one of those species that benefited from widespread deforestation of the U.S. in past centuries, and it's population is declining now that both farming and clear-cut forestry aren't the norm.

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