Rare or Endangered Bird Sightings: What You Can Do

NPR ran an article this past week on the rediscovery of the native Florida Flamingo population which I found fascinating. In short, the bird was believed to be extirpated from the state in the 1800's. In the early 2000's a small population of flamingos was discovered to still be living in Florida year round in Florida Bay.

This got me thinking about what birds might we think no longer live in Wisconsin. It also got me thinking about the value of logging our observations in citizen science databases like eBird.org or by participating events like the Midwest Crane Count.

I did a little digging and came across a Wisconsin DNR listing of rare bird species in Wisconsin. The list is pretty interesting and provides status codes for the species based on how endangered or numerous they are.

For example, a species I've often seen in parks near me, the Eastern Meadowlark, is listed as SGCN as part of the Wisconsin Wildlife Action Plan. SGCN is "Species of Greatest Conservation Need". I've often logged my Meadowlark sightings in eBird, which is generally a good thing to do. However what I learned by visiting the DNR site is that for some of these species, there is a another database being used to track them.

The Wisconsin Natural Heritage Inventory is part of the DNR and is responsible tracking the location of rare or endangered species in Wisconsin. A full list of life being tracked and other useful information can be found here.

For birders, the list of rare birds is a good place to start. There were a number of species which I've seen in my birding adventures. Keep these species in mind the next you are out birding and be sure to log them in WI DNR's Natural Heritage Inventory.