Plant ecologist and nursery owner Mel Asher, pointing to one her nursery-grown big sagebrush seedlings, planted 18 months prior. Photo credit: CDLT
Your eBirding data helps create tools that can be used to further conservation, inspire support, and inform ecological management strategies. eBird in Action is a segment which shares the conservation stories made possible because of your contributions. This edition comes from the Cornell Lab’s Land Trust Bird Conservation Initiative (LTBCI).
When devastating wildfires swept through Washington in September of 2020, they burned much of the remaining Greater Sage-Grouse and Sharp-tailed Grouse shrub steppe habitats in the region. Prior to the 2020 fires, Greater Sage-Grouse and Sharp-tailed Grouse occupied only 8% and 3%, respectively, of their historic range within the state of Washington—so the habitat was extremely limited even before the fires.
Part of this remaining range is in central Washington, on land owned and conserved by Chelan-Douglas Land Trust (CDLT). Traditionally, CDLT’s 1,396-acre Spiva Butte Nature Preserve (SBNP) provided nesting and wintering habitat for Greater Sage-Grouse—a species listed as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature—and Sharp-tailed Grouse, both of which are endangered in the state of Washington and had been observed in areas close to SBNA. Unfortunately, the fire burned 100% of the property, and big sagebrush, the plant that provides critical cover and food for grouse, was eliminated.
Three Greater Sage-Grouse huddled around a three-tipped sagebrush. Photo credit: CDLT
According to CDLT Conservation Fellow Susan Ballinger, this was extremely problematic for the future of Greater Sage-Grouse, because “without big sagebrush, you can’t have successful rearing and reproduction of Greater Sage-Grouse.” She explains that sagebrush leaves are the critical food of wintering Greater Sage-Grouse, females of the species build nests under sagebrush, and adults feed their young insects that are tied to the sagebrush ecosystem.
After the wildfires, it was important for CDLT staff to act quickly to jumpstart the habitat recovery process and prevent the establishment of invasive plant species. Plant ecologists advised that CDLT had a short window of time, essentially two autumns after the fire, to plant sagebrush seedlings before resprouting natives would take hold of the site, leaving no room for sagebrush. In riparian areas, the fire burned the non-native streamside trees, presenting an opportunity to establish native species such as water birch, a critical winter food for Sharp-tailed Grouse.
Inspired to take action, CDLT biologist Joe Veverka (now with The Nature Conservancy), supported by Ballinger, worked with local partners to submit an application for a small grant from the Land Trust Bird Conservation Initiative to restore areas of Spiva Butte Nature Preserve. “This was the right grant at the right time,” says Ballinger, who helped implement the successful $25,000 grant project in 2022.
To assess the impact of the habitat management practices on bird populations, CDLT’s Joe Veverka worked with volunteers from North Central Washington Audubon to conduct bird monitoring surveys. From June 2022 to May 2023, eight rounds of survey data were recorded in eBird (excluding December to March, when the property was inaccessible due to snow). During this monitoring, 68 bird species were detected, including Swainson’s Hawk, Northern Shrike, Sage Thrasher, Lincoln’s Sparrow, American Coot, and several warbler species. These eBird checklists will serve as a baseline for future bird monitoring as the property recovers from the fires of 2020.
“The value of the eBird data goes beyond this single property,” notes Ballinger. For example, Ballinger recently cited the eBird data from Spiva Butte in a competitive grant application for state funds. Seeking funding to assist with a project a mile away from Spiva Butte, Ballinger highlighted the state priority bird species that were observed nearby during eBird monitoring at the restoration site.
After the fire, CDLT staff observed Greater Sage-Grouse at Spiva Butte, part of the traditional home range of the species. And a silver lining of the 2020 wildfires is that the Washington State legislature has recognized the value of sagebrush ecosystems, funding the Washington Shrub Steppe Restoration and Resiliency Initiative, a collaborative effort dedicated to conserving the state’s shrub steppe wildlife and habitat.
Learn more about Greater Sage-Grouse and Sharp-tailed Grouse by exploring eBird Status and Trends—and log your observations of these species to help scientists further understand their populations and movements.
Read more about CDLT’s habitat restoration project on the Cornell Lab’s Land Trust Bird Conservation Initiative website.