The Chicago Wilderness Grassland Bird Working Group is part of the Chicago Wilderness Wildlife Task Force and Natural Resources Management Team.  The group's goal is to apply regional, landscape-level thinking to the grassland bird goals in the Strategic Framework and thereby demonstrate how Chicago Wilderness work can be aligned with national and regional grassland bird preservation efforts.  The group plans to define grassland bird conservation areas (GBCAs) within Chicago Wilderness, and to work with the Green Infrastructure Vision to quantify the amount of grassland habitat and grassland birds in the region.   

Resources

Two methods for identifying Grassland Bird Conservation Areas:

1. USFWS Delineating Grassland Bird Conservation Areas in the

U.S. Prairie Pothole Region

2. Sample and Mossman: Wisconsn: Guidelines and Recommendations for Habitat Management

USFWS Midwest Birds of Concern with link to new conservation plan for Henslow's Sparrow

[doc:73331|link:CW Grassland Bird Conservation Design 2002]

Maps  

Working with CMAP, we developed maps which show locations of the grassland bird observations that are currently in the eBird/BCN database.  In addition to the data shown on the map, we have the records from Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.  There are two maps - one shows number of species and the other number of observations of grassland birds of concern in the Chicago Region. 

 Draft map of number of observations of grassland birds of concern

 Draft map of number of species of grassland birds of concern observed

If you have additional grassland bird data,  please send us an email . 

Thanks.

The Chicago Wilderness Grassland Bird Working Group

Jim Herkert (Illinois Department of Natural Resources), Gary Glowacki (Forest Preserve District of Lake County), Drew Ullberg (Forest Preserve District of Kane County), Brook Herman (US Army Corps of Engineers), TJ Benson (Illinois Natural History Survey), Robert Sliwinski (Christopher Burke Engineering), Chip O’Leary (Forest Preserve District of Cook County), Chris Mulvaney (CW), Judy Pollock (Audubon, Bird Conservation Network),  Katie Koch (Midwest Coordinated Bird Monitoring Partnership) and Ben Kahler and Andy Forbes (Upper Midwest/Great Lakes Joint Venture).