[birding] Streaked Horned Lark piece posted to BirdFellow.com journal

[David Irons]

Greetings All,

Today I posted a short piece about the endangered "Streaked" Horned Lark (A. a. strigata) to our BirdFellow.com journal. The focal point of current research on this rare subspecies is Oregon's Mid-Willamette Valley. Corvallis area residents Bob Altman, Randy Moore and Doug Robinson are monitoring and studying the remaining breeding populations, the bulk of which nest in the Willamette Valley. These are very striking birds when seen close-up. They are much more colorful than most other subspecies of Horned Lark. There are several excellent online publications including Pearson and Altman 2005 (see citation at the bottom of the BirdFellow piece) that discuss the plight of this fragile population. Bob Altman's excellent species account in Birds of Oregon: A General Reference (Marshall et al. Eds. 2003) is also recommended reading for those interested in these birds. 

Last summer I volunteered with the Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife doing driving and walking transects originally set up by Bob Altman in the 1990's. Hopefully, this project will be funded again this summer. It is an important study that is monitoring the status of several bellweather grassland species (Horned Lark, Western Meadowlark, Grasshopper Sparrow, and Vesper Sparrow) in the Willamette Valley. According to the recently released U.S. State of the Birds report, short-grass prairie ecosystems and the birds that reside in them are in rapid decline.  

Dave Irons
BirdFellow.com

_________________________________________________________________
Rediscover Hotmail®: Get quick friend updates right in your inbox. 
http://windowslive.com/RediscoverHotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Rediscover_Updates1_042009
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.midvalleybirding.org/pipermail/birding/attachments/20090403/1afc8be7/attachment.html