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Study: Some feathered favorites losing ground

Once-common meadowlarks and red-headed woodpeckers are becoming less common in Minnesota, as are several other species sometimes seen in the Fergus Falls area.

Those decreases match national trends that the Audubon Society reported last week.

In addition to meadowlarks and woodpeckers, area species on the decline include the evening grosbeak, northern pintail, greater scaup, field sparrow, grasshopper sparrow, snow bunting, American bittern and the ruffed grouse.

“Many of these are not very commonly found in (the Fergus Falls) area, but are present,” said Audubon Minnesota Vice-President and Executive Director Mark R. Peterson.

The northern pintail and the snow bunting are migrants, which sometimes pass through in the spring or fall.

Loss or degradation of habitat is the likeliest cause for the bird population decrease, said Mark Martell, Minnesota Audubon’s director of bird conservation.“We know we are losing grasslands. Habitat is a big issue. But the environment is under a lot of other stresses. We’ve got invasive species coming in and pesticide problems,” Martell said.

“Problems with House Sparrows and Starlings are universal, and are certainly a problem in Fergus Falls,” Prairie Wetlands Learning Center (PWLC) Park Ranger Laura Bonneau said. “Another native bird species that has suffered both from a loss of nesting habitat (cavities) and from sparrow predation is the Eastern Bluebird — we’ve had problems even at the PWLC with sparrows invading bluebird and tree swallow nesting boxes.”

The National Audubon Society says emerging threats such as global warming and demand for corn-based ethanol are also causes.

The group compared databases for 550 species from two different bird surveys: its own Christmas bird count and the U.S. Geological Survey’s breeding bird survey in June.

Of the 20 species on the national list showing the steepest declines, 16 can be found in Minnesota. They include evening grosbeaks, boreal chickadees and ruffed grouse.

The state chapter of the Audubon Society highlighted bird species with especially large losses in Minnesota over the past four decades. According to the chapter, populations of western and eastern meadowlarks, red-headed woodpeckers, purple martins, northern pintails and Indigo buntings all dropped between 62 percent and 95 percent since 1967.

“One of the things this report is saying is something is wrong, we are losing common birds, we better figure out why, and we better take some action quickly,” Martell said.