A Bobolink in a field with Oxalis (wild clover) and Vicia (cow vetch). Photo by Allan Strong.
The Bobolink Project is almost ready to go! With one week left for donations, we’re just $2000 away from protecting 1,000 acres of grassland bird habitat this year. That would be nearly twice as many acres as when the project started! With this year’s increase in farmers applying to protect habitat on their land, we need to ask for more help to accept as many applicants as we can.
The Bobolink Project works through a reverse auction, meaning farmers name the lowest per-acre price they’ll accept in exchange for a delay in mowing their fields. We select the lowest bids and work our way up the list, making agreements with more farms until we reach the limit of our Bobolink donations for the year.
Delaying hayfield mowing is a tried-and-true way of protecting Bobolinks. Hayfields provide an excellent surrogate for the tall grassland Bobolinks require to nest- such an excellent surrogate that Bobolinks can rarely differentiate wild grassland from agricultural hayfields. But when fields are mown before the end of nesting season, eggs and nestlings are destroyed during the harvest. Unfortunately, early-season hay is protein-rich and valuable, and some working farms cannot afford to delay mowing and drive down the value of their hay.
That’s where we come in—we use donations to cover the cost of mowing later, essentially buying the birds time to raise their young and move out.
Every donation directly protects acreage of fields and their resident Bobolinks. Please help us make it to our goal of 1,000 acres this year!