I found Dennis Paulson's comments about bird associations and anthropogenic
habitats to be very interesting. To use Dennis' example, the sage habitats
here at Kamloops in winter are also quite devoid of birds.
Short-eared Owls on occasion, patrolling Gyrfalcons, Golden Eagles, magpies,
ravens, Horned Larks, perhaps some Rosy-finches & Chukar, but generally it
is pretty quiet out there away from civilization.
The same is true for the native grasslands, but grasslands can be deceptive
at first glance. What appear to be native grasslands to the untrained eye,
can be grasslands that have been altered by the cattle industry over the
last 125 years or so. Native bunchgrasses have been ploughed up and replaced
by alien sod grasses for hay and grazing pastures. Crested wheatgrass has
been widely interplanted and replaced Bluebunch wheatgrass in some areas.
To be sure, some of these new habitats provide opportunities for voles,
raptors and other birds, but the key point is that they are different and
not native, as are the paddocks, feedlots and farmyards that attract birds.
A fellow biologist once commented disparagingly about how short the grass
had been grazed over a particularly large area of ranches, and how could our
native birds survive. I pointed out to him that the grass in question was
not native bunchgrass, and was in fact planted because it could withstand
severe grazing, and fit in well with the ranching objectives of raising
cows.
Of course, this conversion of native grasses to alien species was not
particularly helpful for some birds, but was useful for other species.
Unfortunately, these shorter grasses are not used in the same way by some of
the birds that are more adapted to our native grasslands, and are probably
contributing to a decline in some of these species, despite being "grass"

For several years, we have been counting Long-billed Curlews in the spring
as part of a strategy to understand the size of our populations here. I have
been counting an extensive area of rangeland on one of the largest cattle
ranches in North America. Despite having seen birds in the general area in
the past, and hearing reports from ranchers & cowboys, I was turning up 0-1
birds per trip, despite travelling up to 100 km through grasslands.
Finally, after a long day of looking at grasslands, an as yet unproven
theory popped into my head. Vast amounts of what I had been looking at were
altered grasslands that had been extensively converted to sod grasses for
haying purposes or denser growth of non-native buncgrasses. Much of it was
unirrigated . At the time of year when we were doing surveys, the moist
patches left by retreating snow had dried up, and new growth had not begun.
The sod was firm and hard to penetrate. Insect life was sparce and hard to
find. There was no soil to probe as one finds between bunches of native
wheatgrass.

Was it possible that curlew use of these habitats was limited, or restricted
to a brief period when migrant birds found the damper sites to be of some
value? Typical curlew nesting sites of short, sparce bunchgrass with patches
of soil and an intermittent cryptogamic lichen crust were not present.

In this case, these specific anthropogenic habitats seemed to be a negative
factor for curlews. Not far away, we know that alfalfa & timothy fields
provide useful foraging sites,and with suitable nesting nearby, these
anthropogenic habitats are supporting 100% of the curlews in a valley for a
distance of about 100 km. There was no curlew habitat before settlers
cleared the forest and began to make "grasslands" out of pine & fir forests.
We see similar relationships between Columbian Groundsquirrels, badgers and
newly-created "grassland " habitats such as heavily-grazed horse paddocks &
logging cutblocks. Ironically, these mammals are moving into places that are
being created at the hand of man, but vanishing in some of the native
grasslands due to the hand of man.

So the relationships between birds & other wildlife in native vs altered
habitats is a complex & fascinating one that is deserving of careful
observation. How stable are these habitats that are provided at the whim and
economic needs of human beings? Should we rely upon them in order to
conserve rare species, or at least, where do they fit into the scheme of
rare species management.? Would some birds be there without these habitats ?
Clearly malls allow errant grackles to titillate our twitching quests (we
have a grackle at a mall in Kelowna too), but we would never think of them
as habitats to conserve. Hmmm, or would we ?
Perhaps littering bits of food is not such a bad thing to do afterall.....
Those poor Ring-billed Gulls would be limited to worms on school grounds if
kids stopped throwing away mom's healthy sandwiches.

There are many questions that are in need of being asked, and birders can
certainly provide a lot of useful information about habitat use that can
assist in bird conservation.

Now, if I can just find my binocs before heading over to Starbucks.......

Rick Howie
Kamloops, BC
rick.howie at shaw.ca