Hey all, I've seen some recent discussion regarding where to find Baird's Sparrows here in Larimer County so I'd like to give you all some good directions on where to find them as well as some info about what Bird Conservancy of the Rockies <http://www.birdconservancy.org> is doing regarding Baird's Sparrows in Colorado. If you just want location information without the context, skip to the *bolded sentences* below.
For the 7th year in a row, Baird's Sparrows have been found during the breeding season at Soapstone Prairie Natural Area <https://www.fcgov.com/naturalareas/finder/soapstone>, a City of Fort Collins owned property north of Fort Collins <https://goo.gl/maps/fNVuG5PzaTDFnZJp6>, along the border of Wyoming. Bird Conservancy has been able to a limited and varying amount of monitoring of these birds each year, but along with our full survey of Soapstone in 2019, we also heavily monitored them and searched for them at previously unknown sites on Soapstone, as well as many locations on neighboring Meadow Springs Ranch, owned by Fort Collins Utilities. That year we discovered a new site used by Baird's Sparrows, inaccessible to the public, and confirmed breeding there. We also confirmed breeding on Meadow Springs Ranch, also inaccessible to the public. We have not been able to monitor them as close since 2019, but have opportunistically searched for them as part of some new research taking place at Bird Conservancy related to migration of grassland birds. We're building out a large scale network of Motus Wildlife Tracking System stations across the Great Plains and Chihuahuan Desert to study the migratory and movement behaviors of declining grassland birds, including the Baird's Sparrow. See this link for more info about that: https://www.birdconservancy.org/over-the-airwaves/. Our first station we installed was at Soapstone <https://motus.org/data/receiverDeployment?id=6064>. We have been capturing birds at Soapstone (with all the proper permits and permissions, of course, in 2020 and 2021. We've also been targeting Grasshopper Sparrows, Thick-billed Longspurs, and Lark Buntings. On the 7th of July, after several visits with no detections, we heard our first 2 Baird's Sparrows of the year while on a banding excursion to Soapstone. We were able to capture, band, and deploy a Motus tag on 1 Baird's Sparrow that day. This took place at the traditional site where people can view Baird's on Soapstone, the Jack Springs Ranch gate (just south of point Z on this Soapstone map <https://www.fcgov.com/naturalareas/pdf/soapstone-brochure16.pdf?1482338190> ). *The "Jack Springs" site is accessible to the public* by bike, hike, or by horseback, by taking the Pronghorn Loop Trail from the south parking lot. Exact location is here: https://goo.gl/maps/xAo1pkM37reFH5Tc8. Birds are typically far into a wet pasture east of the trail, but can be heard and sometimes seen directly from the gate. Use the specific Jack Springs eBird hotspot <https://ebird.org/hotspot/L9438484> if you enter anything here! Just over a week ago, we received word from City of Fort Collins biologists doing butterfly surveys that there were 3 more Baird's Sparrows in a different site. Bird Conservancy biologists Erin Youngberg and Erin Strasser(I was unable to go, unfortunately) went up on Friday (July 23) and were able to capture, band, and tag the 3 Baird's Sparrows at that location. *This site is currently accessible to the public* by bike, hike, or horseback, along the Plover Trail (which is open now! It's closed from April to July 15). The birds were able to be heard and sometimes seen from the road itself, but were captured in a wet meadow south of the road, just west of the Ranch Managers Home after the road jaunts a bit to the north and continues west. Exact location is here: https://goo.gl/maps/jF5fanixKKhNSnmt5. Please use the general "Soapstone Prairie Natural Area" eBird hotspot <https://ebird.org/hotspot/L2990328> if you enter anything here, and feel free to add comments about exact locations. AS ALWAYS, please respect all regulations and remain on trails despite the urge to get a better photo by just stepping off trail a bit! There is a lot of sensitive and endangered vegetation at both of these sites, not to mention the possibility that these birds are currently breeding! In 2019, we found a Baird's Sparrow nest well into August, so it's possible! We will be doing another complete survey of the property in the coming years, which could result in new sites that Baird's are using. Each year is different, and we still don't really know what they're doing or why they're here (though we all have our own theories!) Here's a publication that Bird Conservancy biologists published in 2019 regarding Baird's southward range extension: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.2872. If you are unsure of trail conditions or closures, check out the natural area website here: https://www.fcgov.com/naturalareas/finder/soapstone. If you have any questions, or would like more information about our work with Motus, please don't hesitate to reach out to me at matt.w...@birdconservancy.org. Thanks, Matt *Matthew M Webb* Avian Ecologist and Motus Wildlife Tracking System Coordinator *Bird Conservancy of the Rockies* Motus project #281 970.482.1707 x36 (office) 970.405.7155 (mobile - use this number!) www.birdconservancy.org -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/cobirds?hl=en?hl=en * All posts should be signed with the poster's full name and city. Include bird species and location in the subject line when appropriate * Join Colorado Field Ornithologists https://cobirds.org/CFO/Membership/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to cobirds+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. 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