Laura Erickson's For the Birds

Baird’s Sparrow was the very last new bird described by John James Audubon, who collected specimens in 1843 in North Dakota. The species was not recorded again for another 29 years. I’ve only seen Baird’s Sparrow once in my life, near Lordsburg, New Mexico in April 1982. I wish I spent more time in real prairie country!

This lovely bird with its clear, tinkling song deserves much more attention than it gets. It’s lost over 65 percent of its population just since 1968, a victim of the same forces destroying our tall grass prairies as are wiping out prairie chickens. The beautiful photo here is obviously not mine–I found it on Wikipedia, and it was taken by Rick Bohn, USFWS Mountain-Prairie.