FreeLists / birdky / [birdky] Henslow's Sparrows in Todd county and RFI

[jgiocomo@xxxxxxx]

Through the University of Tennessee we have been working at Fort 
Campbell since 1999 monitoring grassland bird populations. This year we 
started a project comparing the grasslands within Fort Campbell to the 
rest of the "Big Barrens" area (Parts of Trigg, Christian, Logan, Todd 
and Simpson Counties in KY and Stewart, Montgomery, and Robertson 
counties in TN).

We put together a "citizen science" Henslow's Sparrow Atlas protocol 
for TN and KY to supplement the project we are doing around Fort 
Campbell. If you would be willing to participate, please take a look at 
our web site and let me know (any county in KY or TN). The site is...
http://web.utk.edu/~jgiocomo

Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

So far, I posted an updated map with the locations of the new Henslow's 
Sparrow county records this year. This includes a few fields in north 
of Elkton, KY on private agricultural land. The first field we were 
allowed to survey contained about 40 individual males singing, and we 
are trying to find some of their nests. When we searched the 
surrounding fields within two or three miles of the original field, we 
found two more fields with significant populations of (presumably) 
breeding Henslow's Sparrow populations. We are still working on getting 
permission to work in the new fields.

At Fort Campbell and the surrounding Big Barrens Study Area our crew, 
led by Daniel Hinnebusch and assisted by Daniel Moss, is monitoring 
over 100 nests including >10 Henslow's Sparrows, >40 Field Sparrows, 
Dickcissels, Prairie Warblers, Yellow-breasted Chats, and various other 
grassland associated species, so far (we still have almost 8 weeks left 
in the peak nesting period).

The Henslow's Sparrows are just finishing their first successful 
nesting cycle and are gearing up for their second attempts. The 
Dickcissles are just starting to show signs of nesting activity. Of the 
three nests I found this weekend, two were found while the female was 
carrying material to the nest. This may be due to the recent mowing of 
the hay fields in the surrounding area causing a re-shuffling of birds 
to unmowed sites.

 If you have any questions or any information about Henslow's Sparrows 
(especially in our Big Barrens Study Area), please let me know.

Thanks,
Jim Giocomo
Post-doctoral Research Associate
Department of Forestry, Wildlife, and Fisheries
The University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN



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