Thick-billed longspurs are a sparrow-sized bird that’s declined by 94% since the 1970s. They're short grass prairie specialists. They only breed in the Northern Great Plains — and those plains are at risk.
Grassland ecosystems are one of the most threatened in the world. Some of the last largest grasslands in North America, can be found here in Montana. Now, researchers are studying the birds that rely on these habitats to better understand their declines.
University of Montana graduate student Lauren Hatch is researching the thick-billed longspur’s decline.
“They really like the short and sparse grass and forbs, but there's really no other songbird in North America like them,” Hatch said.
She’s studying a population of thick-billed longspurs across intact and fragmented grassland habitat in central Montana. Hatch finds where the birds are nesting, and she uses how successful those nests are to determine how suitable a given habitat is.
Things like habitat fragmentation, the introduction of non-native weeds and land conversion have all contributed to grassland birds' declines. But it’s hard to say which of these factors is the main culprit. It's a question she’s hoping to answer.
“We're trying to get at a total of 13 different species, which all have different habitat requirements and different kinds of specialists towards types of grasslands,” Hatch said.
Through all this work, she hopes she and conservation groups like the Northern Great Plains Joint Venture can better conserve these birds and the ecosystems they rely on.
