Nebraskaland

52 NEBRASKAland • MARCH 2017 species that rely on these stopover habitats in Nebraska. One of these species is the buff- breasted sandpiper, a shorebird that spends the winter in southern South America and breeds in the North American Arctic. Nearly the entire population of "buffies" stop over for a few days in the eastern portion of the Rainwater Basin during the middle of May. Woodland migrants include a diversity of warblers, vireos, orioles, buntings and flycatchers that winter in the Neotropics and nest in temperate and northern boreal forests. Grassland migrants include Sprague's pipit and Baird's sparrow, two rapidly declining species that nest in vast prairie regions of the northern Great Plains and winter in the southern United States and Mexico. Threatened and Endangered Species Five state and/or federally threatened or endangered bird species are known to occur in Nebraska. Whooping cranes, piping plovers, least terns, and red knots are all on the federal and state endangered species lists and mountain plovers are on the state list. Whooping cranes, with a population of just over 300 birds, are only found in Nebraska during spring and fall migration, times that are especially dangerous for a species that is critically endangered. Red knots are migratory shorebirds that rarely stop in our state, so their status as a threatened species has limited implications for Nebraska. Piping plovers and least terns breed across Nebraska and occupy habitats of sparsely vegetated sand adjacent to water in and along our major river systems. Historically, these birds were found on mid-stream river sandbars in the Missouri and Platte rivers and their tributaries. Today, human-created environments, such as reservoirs, aggregate mines and lakeshore housing developments, support most of our breeding populations of both species. Piping plover numbers in the state have generally remained stable during the past few decades. Least terns are being considered for removal from the federal list because their numbers along the lower reaches of the Mississippi River, where a majority of the population resides, are greater than previously thought. The mountain plover is a shorebird that inhabits dry shortgrass prairies and generally avoids water. Almost all mountain plovers in Nebraska now nest in fallow agricultural fields in the western part of the state because these areas mimic naturally disturbed areas that the birds prefer, but a nest placed in an agricultural field is at-risk of being incidentally destroyed. As with piping plovers and least terns, the fact that mountain plovers are now nesting in human-dominated environments presents challenges and opportunities for conservation practitioners [see page 53 sidebar]. MISSISSIPPI KITE BY JOEL JORGENSEN BUFF-BREASTED SANDPIPER BY JON FARRAR

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