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Bird Monitoring Pays Off

by Sheryl De Vore

Carolyn Fields, a volunteer bird monitor in the Cook County Forest Preserves, was invited to confirm the identity of long-eared owls discovered by fellow monitor Stan Stec last winter. She found not only the owls, but also habitat that seemed ripe for breeding grassland birds. "I imagined what wonderful birds this extraordinarily large field might hold in the summer," says Fields. Sure enough, in the spring of 1999, she and Stec discovered 11 singing Henslow's sparrows (a state-endangered species) in Paul Douglas Forest Preserve west of Palatine. Fields, Stec and others are now working with the Friends of the Forest Preserves and forest preserve staff on habitat management plans for key sites in the forest preserves.

This kind of collaboration between volunteers, land managers and researchers throughout Chicago Wilderness is important for many reasons. "While grassland restoration projects continue to succeed in restoring native plant assemblages to degraded areas, the restoration doesn't always help grassland birds," says Lee Ramsey of the Bird Conservation Network (BCN). So people involved with the BCN Census and Chicago Wilderness' Habitat Project are gathering data to learn how to create more bird-friendly wild places.

Dedicated volunteers regionwide have begun to gather data that will help fine-tune land management practices. At Bartel Grasslands in southern Cook County, Thorn Creek Audubon suggested ways to improve bird habitat, with help from Jim Herkert and Marianne Hahn, the site's bird monitor. Henslow's sparrows, grasshopper sparrows, and bobolinks breed at the site, but Hahn says the old brushy fencerows that increasingly dissect the site are driving out the grassland birds. "I would like to see the defragmentation of Bartel Grasslands," she says. Hahn's years of gathering scientifically sound data at the Grasslands have not gone unnoticed by the Forest Preserve District, where Thorn Creek's management suggestions have been well received.

Many opportunities exist for citizen scientists to gather data that will help birds and habitat. Training is available. For information about these initiatives, call the Chicago Wilderness Audubon monitoring hotline at (847) 965-9239.

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