Welcome to the online version of "A Land Manager's Guide to Improving Habitat for Scarlet Tanagers and other Forest-interior Birds". You may read the guide online by clicking on the entries in the table of contents at left, or you can download a PDF version of the guidelines that is more suitable for printing. The Guide is now out of print, so we are no longer able to offer print copies for sale.

This publication is a tool to help improve habitat for populations of forest-interior birds. These guidelines are written for two types of land managers: those responsible for large landscapes, such as public lands or entire states; and private landowners who manage small blocks of forest.

We first discuss concepts associated with forest fragmentation at both landscape and smaller habitat scales and provide general management suggestions that benefit many forest-interior birds. We then focus directly on the habitat-area requirements of the Scarlet Tanager: specifically, how much mature forest is necessary to sustain a breeding population of this Neotropical migratory songbird?

Because habitat requirements for the Scarlet Tanager vary geographically, our specific recommendations are tailored to conditions in four regions of the species' range. Two of these regions, the Midwest and Atlantic Coastal Plain, are sparsely forested, whereas the Appalachian and Northern Forest regions are more extensively and continuously forested.

This is the first in a forthcoming series of habitat management guidelines produced by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as a tool to help those interested in managing and protecting habitat for birds. These guidelines offer a set of "management prescriptions"—descriptions of the kinds and amounts of habitat that are required to sustain healthy bird populations. This guide is for the Scarlet Tanager (Piranga olivacea), a brilliant denizen of many mature eastern forests. It also includes useful information for managing for other forest-interior birds.