Audubon tells what birds need help

Bismarck Tribune

By RICHARD HINTON

More of a quarter of the bird species in the continental United States, including 38 that occur in North Dakota, are in need of help to survive because of habitat loss, global warming and invasive species, according to a report released Wednesday.

The National Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy jointly released a watchlist that identifies the 59 birds of greatest concern and 119 more birds that are rare or in serious decline.

Ten of those 59 greatest-concern birds occur In North Dakota: greater prairie chickens, yellow rails, whooping cranes, piping plovers, Eskimo curlews, buff-breasted sandpipers, interior least terns, Bell's vireos, golden-winged warblers and Baird's sparrows.

The North Dakota list is a hodge-podge of birds, including some on endangered species and one species, the greater prairie chicken, that's the object of a nine-day hunting season. Some birds are migrating through the state and others breed in the state. Some are included on the endangered species list; others are not.

"Unfortunately, it spans a lot of species," Genevieve Thompson, executive director Audubon Dakota, said of the list Thursday.

But North Dakota remains pretty hospitable compared to some nearby states, she added.

"Some folks say we lost 50 to 60 percent of our grasslands and wetlands, but we are ahead of the game compared to Iowa and Minnesota. Minnesota is in the '90s," she explained.

One of the biggest challenges to birds and their habitat is the development of biofuel development and the subsequent threats to idled land in the Conservation Reserve Program.

She praised state, federal and private programs that offer incentives to landowners that keep their fields in grasslands or wetlands and some of Audubon's colleagues, including the Farmers Union, which has gotten into the business of consolidating grasslands for carbon credits.

"If they keep the land in grass they get a carbon credit, but it's a bird credit, too, in my view,"she said.

Ron Martin, a longtime birder from Sawyer who is the treasurer of the North Dakota Birding Society has seen nine of those 10 on his life list of birds. The only one he's missing is the Eskimo curlew, which may be extinct.

"It's not been seen in a while, and it's been a few decades since there were credible sightings," he said Thursday in a telephone interview.

Nesting only in the Dakotas, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Baird's sparrows are a high profile bird for North Dakota.

"A lot of people who watch birds come here to see Baird's. It's one of the most sought-after birds that people come here to see," Martin said. It's losing habitat because the native prairie is being converted to croplands, he added.

The yellow rail breeds and passes through North Dakota, Martin said.

"It likes wet meadows, fens and wet grassy habitat. We are on the edge of its range," Martin said.

Although not common, the buff-breasted sandpiper is a regular migrant, "but you don't see a lot of them," Martin said.

North Dakota is on the edge of the Bell's vireo's range. "A few come up the Missouri. Most are on the stretch between South Dakota and Bismarck.," Martin said.

Golden-winged warblers are "a rare migrant, mostly in the east and seen more in the spring than in the fall," Martin said.

The piping plovers and interior least terns often are spotted as they nest on sandbars in the MIssouri River, and whooping cranes are passing through during the spring and fall migrations.

As evidenced by the limited hunting season, greater prairie chickens seem to be doing all right in North Dakota.

There also is good news on the bird front, including at least a 20-bird increase in the population of the wild whooping crane flock. Peregrine falcons have made a comeback similar to the bald eagle's.

There is a nesting pair in Fargo, and "they are not even news anymore," Thompson said.

"Those are examples to draw on. Give them high priority and bring some of these birds back to be more common," she said.

(Reach outdoor writer Richard Hinton at 701-250-8256 or richard.hinton@;bismarcktribune.com.)