Songbirds sing virtue of sustainability

MARQUETTE - Bobolinks are teaching Phil Specht how to balance productivity and sustainability on his Clayton County dairy farm.

During a visit this week to Specht's pastures, dozens of the charismatic songbirds swooped, hovered and sang their cheerful song, which poet William Cullen Bryant described in his 'Robert of Lincoln” as 'bobolink, bobolink, spink spank spink … chee chee chee.”

'If the farm supports happy bobolinks, the whole thing is working,” said Specht, who is conducting research to determine how grazing practices can be tailored to best serve the needs of nesting bobolinks.

Populations of bobolinks and other grassland birds have declined steadily as grasslands, hayfields and pastures are being converted to row crops.

To bobolinks migrating from Argentina each spring, Specht's farm and the adjacent farm of his late brother, Dan Specht, stand out as large islands of grass in a sea of corn and soybeans.

Specht said he undertook his research, which he calls the 'Bobolink Legacy Project,” in part as a tribute to his brother, who died two years ago in a farm accident.

Dan Specht, who raised grass-fed beef cattle, had done pioneering research on rotational grazing, cover crops, water quality and blending the working farmland with wildlife habitat restoration.

'He believed bobolinks were an indicator species for a healthy, working-farm grassland ecosystem,” Phil Specht said.

The brothers had a 'sibling rivalry” over whose grazing techniques best maximized profit while benefiting the environment, said Phil Specht, who has converted every square inch of his 260-acre farm to pasture for his 200 dairy cows and calves.

They both practiced rotational grazing, but differed in some details.

'Dan moved his cattle every day but I leave mine in the same paddock for three to four days, depending upon how far down they eat the grass,” Phil Specht said.

His research involves counting bobolink nests on 10 randomly selected 2.5-acre plots - six on his farm, four on his brother's. Specht measures grass height and records grazing dates among other data collected for each plot.

During nesting season, which runs from late May to late June, he and an assistant drag a 100-foot length of rope across the top of each plot and count the females that flush from the ground.

That, he said, is a generally accepted means of identifying nest sites for ground-nesting birds.

In most cases he further verifies the sites by watching the adults bring food to their young.

This is his first year of data collection. After five years, Specht said he thinks he will have sufficient data to draw conclusions about the bobolinks' nesting preferences.

After observing bobolinks on his farm, Specht said he thinks the research will show that they prefer grassland that has been grazed, but not overgrazed.

Conservation Reserve Program grassland, which has not been grazed at all, is too tall and dense, while intensively grazed pastures have too little cover and too many nest-destroying hoofs, he said.

Specht thinks the ideal will resemble pre-settlement prairie that had been grazed by bison.

Specht said he and his brother converted their farms from row crops to managed grassland out of concern that runoff from fields was threatening the smallmouth bass they both loved to catch in nearby streams.

When asked how much pollution leaves his farm, Specht replied, 'None. No chemicals are used, and no soil is exposed to erosion.”

Preserving Dan Specht's legacy is also important to his close friend Mary Damm, a prairie ecologist affiliated with Indiana University, who recently bought 120 acres of his farm.

'I always thought conservation had to be on undisturbed land,” she said. 'Dan taught me that it could be practiced effectively on a working farm.”

Although the plants in the pasture are not natives, they can, with proper management, provide everything ground-nesting birds need to flourish, she said.

'If you can have happy bobolinks and take out 1,000 gallons of milk a day, that makes sense to me,” Phil Specht said.

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