Bird study a calling for UNL students

The 100-acre restored tallgrass prairie at Homestead National Monument of America is one of three locations in the Midwest involved in a study aimed at learning the impact these sites have on providing habitat for prairie grassland birds.

“The grassland prairie is considered endangered land, less than 1 percent of the tallgrass prairie remains today,” said Monument Park Ranger Jesse Bolli. “With only 1 percent remaining, we need to learn how we’re going to manage that to best protect these species.”

That’s where a grant-funded study by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln headed up by UNL graduate student Sarah Rehme, who is working on her master’s in wildlife ecology, comes in.

“The gist of it is we’re looking at park size to determine if small national parks should manage for grassland birds,” she said.

Rehme said Homestead National Monument is one of three sites involved in the study, which also includes the 10,000 acre Tallgrass Prairie National Park in Kansas and Pipestone National Monument in Minnesota.

For the project, two technicians are on site each day to collect data on the birds. At the Homestead National Monument, they are undergraduate students Ashton Mueller and Ryan Rezac.

Mueller and Rezac are on site every day, starting at about 6:30 a.m. collecting data by searching for nests, doing surveys of the birds they hear and see and setting up mist nets to catch birds in order to collect samples and tag the birds.

“Our target species are the Eastern and Western Meadowlark and the Dickcissel,” Mueller said.

Rehme said the study is looking at several factors, including nest survival rates and whether the birds return to nest in the same area.

In addition, the technicians look at the vegetation around the nests, she said, to see if there are patterns there that could help the parks in finding ways to manage to help these birds survive.

Rehme said the surveys are counts where the technician stands in a location for a certain length of time and identifies by sight and sound the number and types of birds in the area.

When they catch one of their target species birds in the nets, they take a feather and blood sample and tag the bird, she said.

The feathers are collected for stable isotope analysis, basically a way to look at where the bird has been by looking at the make-up of the feather.

“If we find it is the same site each year, we know that site is successful,” Rehme said.

Bolli said this study will help monument staff in managing the tallgrass prairie there by learning about the impact the environment they provide is having on species survival and health.

“Is a restoration of this size beneficial to native birds,” he said.

Bolli said the general thought in those that work with prairie habitat is that a larger area is needed to have an impact, and that’s true for some species, but for others the hope is that a smaller space like that at the Homestead National Monument does help.

Rehme said they think the birds will come back to a larger park rather than a smaller one because they are more likely to be successful there.

Mueller and Rezac began work on the study on May 13 and will continue until July 25.

All three students are involved because of their interest in wildlife and birds in particular.

“For me personally, I love birds. I’ve loved them since I was little,” Rehme said. “They’re so interesting to me.”

Both Mueller and Rezac wanted to do work with birds this summer, and that’s how they got involved with the project.

“I worked with birds last summer, so I was interested in looking for another project similar to that,” Rezac said.