Birds & Science >

Plight of Grassland Birds
Several grassland bird populations are rapidly declining and even approaching extirpation in significant portions of their ranges, including New York State. Data from the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) indicate that populations of Henslow’s Sparrows have decreased by over 99% in New York, and Grasshopper Sparrow populations have decreased by 97%. The Bobolink, still New York’s most ubiquitous grassland bird, has experienced population declines of approximately 50% across its range. The consensus of experts studying this problem is that habitat loss, fragmentation, and deterioration are the main culprits.

While a variety of wildlife and plants depend on grassland habitats, the targeted species in this effort are the most specific in their habitat preferences and needs, and are the species most commonly designated as “grassland birds” in New York. While the traditional habitats most commonly considered to be grasslands are the tall and short-grass prairies of the Midwest, some of the common landcover types in New York that provide habitat for these grassland birds include hayfields, pastures, fallow fields, and other agricultural lands, as well as recently abandoned agricultural lands, landfills, airports, and a variety of other landuses that maintain the land cover in very early successional stages.

The following tables list New York’s grassland birds along with their ranking as determined by several conservation initiatives, as well as the trend data for their populations as provided by the Breeding Bird Survey.

Grassland Breeding Bird Population Trends (79 kb PDF)

Grassland Bird Partnership
A logical start for developing a comprehensive grassland bird conservation effort for New York State was to forge a partnership of stakeholders who have strong interests in conserving the resource and/or those who would are most likely to or effective at contributing to conservation efforts. The New York Grassland Group (for lack of a better term), is cooperating on all aspects of the development of a NY Grassland Bird Conservation Plan (coming soon!), as well as coordinating funding, research, monitoring, and implementation of conservation strategies.

Partners in the New York Grassland Bird Conservation effort (in alphabetical order)
Audubon New York (ANY)
Colorado State University at Ft. Drum (CSU)
Cornell Lab of Ornithology (CLO)
Ducks Unlimited (DU)
Finger Lakes Land Trust (FLLT)
Fort Drum-US Department of Defense (Ft. Drum)
Gerry Smith-Independent consultant
New York Natural Heritage Program (NYNHP)
New York State Parks, Recreation and Historical Preservation (NYSOPRHP)
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC)
State University of New York at Brockport (SUNY Brockport)
The Nature Conservancy (TNC)
Thousand Islands Land Trust (TILT)
US Department of Agriculture-Natural Resource Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS)
US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)

Click here to see the table of Grassland Breeding Bird Focus Area capture rates.