Rutland County Audubon and many of our members have helped support the Bobolink Project for the past three years. Here is an encouraging report from Margaret Fowle at Audubon Vermont about this year’s results:
As many of you know, Audubon Vermont joined Mass Audubon and Audubon Connecticut to help continue the Bobolink Project in 2016. This project provides a financial incentive for farmers who delay haying during the Bobolink nesting season (mid-May through mid-July). To date, approximately $114,500 has been raised since 2013 in Vermont, enough to support bird-friendly management on 1,600 acres of hayfields in the State.
In 2016, the total acreage enrolled in Vermont was 407 acres. In addition, 22 acres were enrolled in Massachusetts and 98 acres were enrolled in New York, for a total of 527 acres. Allan Strong from UVM and Audubon Vermont staff surveyed the Vermont Bobolink Project fields in 2016 and estimated that 175 nesting pairs produced nearly 500 young. To do this work, we walked transects back and forth across each field to count the numbers of females and males, and then extrapolated the number of young produced using metrics from Allan's work. Often the landowners joined us on our survey and it was great for them to see the number of birds in their fields. In addition to the Bobolinks, we observed Savannah Sparrows, Eastern Meadowlarks, Northern Harriers and many other species.
Thanks to all of you who supported this important project - we look forward to continuing the work in 2017. Currently any donations to the project are going towards the 2017 field season. For more information, click here.