Nebraska Bird Partnership

I am leaving my position with the Bird Partnership as of the end of March, with lots of pride in accomplishments, and twinges of sadness at things yet undone.

Male Sharp-tailed Grouse will be busy strutting their stuff for females on leks in April.

"Sharpies" were likely once found across the state, but now you need to visit the Sandhills or northern Panhandle to find them.

Sharp-tailed Grouse are a Nebraska Bird Partnership priority species for conservation.  Learn more about Sharp-tailed Grouse from the Nebraska Bird Library.

Photo courtesy NebraskaLand Magazine/Nebraska Game and Parks Commission

Apr 6:  PIE Grant 2nd Quarter Submission Deadline

Apr 12:  Wachiska Audubon annual meeting, Denton

Apr 13-15:  Chicken and Stars Field Trip, Mullen

Apr 20-22:  1st Annual Nebraska Prairie Chicken Festival, Burwell

Apr 22:  DeBoer Prairie and Wetlands Complex Field Trip, Lincoln/Palmyra

The spring whooping crane migration is well underway.  Researchers involved with the whooping crane telemetry study report that approximately 20% of the 37 whoopers with GPS transmitters had left Aransas and adjacent areas along the SE Texas coast and headed north, with one of the juvenile marked cranes reaching southern Saskatchewan already!

Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman has signed a proclamation that formally designates April 20-22, 2012 as the dates for the  newly-inaugurated Nebraska Prairie Chicken Festival.  At a recent state capital ceremony in Lincoln, representatives of Calamus Outfitters and the Gracie Creek Landowners, the hosting parties of the upcoming festival, met with the Governor and discussed the significance of this first annual festival that celebrates the grassland grouse species.

The Crane Trust has re-activated its Whooper Watch™ program to enlist the public's help in monitoring whooping cranes as they migrate through Nebraska to their nesting grounds in Canada.

Omaha's only pair of nesting peregrine falcons have laid three eggs so far this season.

A common question every year when the Capitol Peregrine Falcons begin “mixing it up” is whether the male and female Peregrine Falcon are the same birds present in the previous year(s).