Hi Anne, I wasn’t thinking of entering the fields that had been pre-selected for early mowing, nor searching for nests. Rather, I was wondering if in some way those fields could be rendered unappealing just before nesting begins, at the critical moment* when the sociable and polygamous Bobolinks are choosing which fields to build their nests in. Maybe they would find certain noises or predator signals or patrolling drones or something else unacceptable, and move on to settle into other fields that were slated for later mowing.
*I wrote “moment” for whatever the brief period might be before they make their choice and begin nest building. -Geo Sent from my iPhone > On Jun 21, 2021, at 6:36 AM, anneb.cl...@gmail.com wrote: > > Speaking as someone who spent years locating redwing nests, I think this is > a mountain not a molehill. Locating nests in grassland is HARD on purpose. > Birds make it that way. Feeding females do t go down to their nests. They > drop and walk to the nest. One makes paths tromping through the grass which > neither farmer nor birds will benefit from. > > I was thinking about what long term obs and relatively few nesting areas it > took for the one farm as described. > > No not impossible but much harder than it seems. And leaving clumps with > nests as well as paths near them will increase predation. > > I am dubious as good as this sounds. > > Anne > > Sent from my iPhone > >> On Jun 20, 2021, at 10:40 PM, Geo Kloppel <geoklop...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> I’ve been musing along a different line, wondering if a preemptive approach >> is possible. >> >> It takes time to mow the big fields that grassland nesters favor, and the >> hay farmer can’t mow all of them simultaneously. The work of haying season >> has to begin somewhere, and start early enough that the farmer can get >> through it all. So each year some field will be selected to go first, and >> another second, and the rest must wait their turns. >> >> Clearly some fields that are later in the queue can produce a crop of >> fledglings before it’s their turn to be mowed; otherwise we wouldn’t be >> having this conversation. So, suppose for the moment that the decision about >> which fields to mow early could be made before nesting had even begun. If >> there was then some way to discourage the birds from selecting those >> particular fields to nest in, the effect would be to direct them to the >> fields slated for later mowing... >> >> -Geo >> -- >> >> Cayugabirds-L List Info: >> http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME >> http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES >> http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm >> >> ARCHIVES: >> 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html >> 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds >> 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html >> >> Please submit your observations to eBird: >> http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ >> >> -- >> -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
