06/25/2026
🌞Fort Sill Wildlife Monitoring IPs Black-Capped Vireo Monitoring - Summer 2026🌞
Two members of our Individual Placements Program are doing important work this summer to protect breeding populations of black-capped vireos in southern Oklahoma! ✨
Black-capped vireos are small insect-eating birds that migrate to southern Oklahoma each year to lay eggs and raise their young in oak trees. Habitat loss had so heavily impacted the vireo population over the course of the 20th century that they were placed on the Endangered Species List in 1987 with only 350 known individuals left in the world, (USFW, 2018). As of 2018 the vireo’s conservation status was updated from endangered to vulnerable, meaning that while its population has increased significantly, it is still vulnerable to threats like climate change and habitat loss.
Our Fort Sill Wildlife Monitoring IPs, Rachel and Reagan, are working alongside the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department and the Department of Defense, Fort Sill Army Garrison to continue protecting this unique species. Much of their work consists of surveys across Ft Sill’s bluffs and hills on foot searching for sight, sounds, or signs of vireos and their nests. 🪺🔍
When they're not surveying for vireos, Rachel and Reagan are helping Fort Sill’s natural resources team monitor and control the population of brown-headed cowbirds! Cowbirds are brood parasites: they lay their eggs in other birds’ nests, forcing the parents to raise their young, who typically hatch faster and are larger, thus outcompeting the nesting birds’ own hatchlings. Cowbirds don’t make their own nests, and will remove or damage eggs and fledglings from other nests to make room for their own eggs. Managing the cowbird population is key to protecting the continued recovery of the black-capped vireo!
Rachel and Reagan have so far observed 11 vireo nests, and some already have eggs!🎉
Way to go, IPs!🥳👏
