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Birds of the Great Plains
Protecting more 400 species of birds found in the Great Plains.
The Great Plains is a dynamic landscape shaped by interdependent ecosystems. Expansive grasslands and tallgrass prairies stretch alongside river valleys, wetlands, and woodlands. These diverse habitats are home to a variety of species including the Western Meadowlark, Greater Prairie-Chicken, Sandhill Crane, Scarlet Tanager, Northern Flicker, and many more find their home.
The Great Plains encompasses the world’s largest area of intact grasslands. Grasslands provide birds with essential resources for survival, including food, nesting, shelter for protection from predators, and a place to rest and refuel during migration.
The unique ‘Braided River’ Platte is a rare ecosystem, the natural variation in stream flow creates sandbanks, warm water sloughs, and shallows for water birds.
Along the rivers of the Great Plains, woodlands are abundant with birds that thrive in the treetops shelter. These forests significantly increase the biodiversity of the plains, providing shelter from the wind, cooler temperatures, and water for plants and animals.
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The Western Meadowlark is the state bird for six states: Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, and Wyoming. It is a symbol of these states due to its widespread presence in western grasslands, melodic song, and distinctive appearance.
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Found in several scattered areas of North America, Sandhill Cranes reach their peak abundance at migratory stopover points on the Great Plains. The early spring gathering of Sandhills on the Platte River in Nebraska is among the greatest wildlife spectacles on the continent, with over a quarter of a million birds present at one time. Although they are currently very common, their dependence on key stopover sites makes them vulnerable to loss of habitat in the future.
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Cowboys sometimes called these owls 'howdy birds,' because they seemed to nod in greeting from the entrances to their burrows in prairie-dog towns. Colorful fiction once held that owls, prairie-dogs, and rattlesnakes would all live in the same burrow at once. A long-legged owl of open country, often active by day, the Burrowing Owl is popular with humans wherever it occurs, but it has become rare in many areas owing to loss of habitat.
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A small plover with a very short bill. Its pale back matches the white sand beaches and alkali flats that it inhabits. While many shorebirds have wide distributions, this one is a North American specialty, barely extending into Mexico in winter. Many of its nesting areas are subject to human disturbance or other threats, and it is now considered an endangered or threatened species in all parts of its range.
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One of our most popular birds, the Northern Cardinal, is the official state bird of no fewer than seven eastern states. Abundant in the Southeast, it has been extending its range northward for decades, and it now brightens winter days with its color and its whistled song as far north as southeastern Canada. Feeders stocked with sunflower seeds may have aided its northward spread. West of the Great Plains, the Northern Cardinal is mostly absent, but it is locally common in the desert Southwest.
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Widespread across North America, Europe, and Asia, the Northern Pintail is probably one of the most numerous duck species in the world (although outnumbered by the omnipresent Mallard). Slim and long-necked, it has an elegant appearance both on the water and in flight. Pintails are wary at all seasons, and become very secretive during the flightless stage of their molt in late summer.
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One of the rarest North American birds, and also one of the largest and most magnificent. Once fairly widespread on the northern prairies, it was brought to the brink of extinction in the 1940s, but strict protection has brought the wild population back to well over one hundred. The flock that winters on the central Texas coast flies 2400 miles north to nest in Wood Buffalo National Park in central Canada; this remote breeding area was not discovered until 1954.
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At one time, the eerie hollow moaning of male prairie-chickens displaying on their spring 'booming grounds' was a common sound across much of central and eastern North America. Today the prairie-chickens are quite uncommon and localized; the race on the Atlantic seaboard, called the Heath Hen, became extinct in 1932. Greater Prairie-Chickens still thrive on a few areas of native grassland in the midwest.
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Well-named, this very large grouse is found nowhere except in sagebrush country of the west. It nests on the ground among the sage, and the leaves of this plant are its staple diet in winter. The Sage Grouse is best known for the spectacular courtship displays of the males: Large numbers (up to 70 or more) will gather in spring on traditional dancing grounds and strut with their chests puffed out and spiky tails spread, hoping to attract females.
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Fluttering over meadows and hayfields in summer, the male Bobolink delivers a bubbling, tinkling song which, loosely interpreted, gives the species its name. The male is unmistakable in spring finery, but before fall migration he molts into a striped brown appearance like that of the female. Bobolinks in this plumage were once known as 'ricebirds' in the South, where they occasionally used to cause serious damage in the ricefields.
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Largest of the native waterfowl in North America, and one of our heaviest flying birds, the Trumpeter Swan was almost driven to extinction early in the 20th century. Its healthy comeback is considered a success story for conservationists. Ordinarily the Trumpeter is quite sensitive to human disturbance; in protected areas, such as some parks and refuges, it may become accustomed to humans and allow close approach.
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A medium-sized hawk of the woodlands. Feeding mostly on birds and small mammals, the Cooper's Hawk hunts by stealth, approaching its prey through dense cover and then pouncing with a rapid, powerful flight. Of the three bird-eating Accipitrine hawks, Cooper's is the mid-sized species and the most widespread as a nesting bird south of Canada.
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One of the world's fastest birds; in power-diving from great heights to strike prey, the Peregrine may possibly reach 200 miles per hour. Regarded by falconers and biologists alike as one of the noblest and most spectacular of all birds of prey. Although it is found on six continents, the Peregrine is uncommon in most areas; it was seriously endangered in the mid-20th century because of the effects of DDT and other persistent pesticides.
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The emblem bird of the United States, majestic in its appearance. It is not always so majestic in habits: it often feeds on carrion, including dead fish washed up on shore, and it steals food from Ospreys and other smaller birds. At other times, however, it is a powerful predator. Seriously declining during much of the 20th century, the Bald Eagle has made a comeback in many areas since the 1970s. Big concentrations can be found wintering along rivers or reservoirs in some areas.
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Male Scarlet Tanagers seem almost too bright and exotic for northeastern woodlands. These birds are fairly common in oak forests in summer, but they often remain out of sight as they forage in the leafy upper branches. Sometimes in spring, when the Scarlet Tanagers have just arrived from their winter home in South America, a late freeze will force them out in the open as they search for insects on roadsides or in gardens.
From the Arctic Slope in Alaska to the Mississippi Delta, and from the Northeast’s Long Island Sound to the wetlands of the Everglades, the power of Important Bird Areas (IBAs) cannot be overstated. Audubon is leading the way to protect these iconic places and the birds that depend on them, and mobilizing our network of Chapters to act as stewards.
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