keithcurrypochy: The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus…
The Florida Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum floridanus) was recently featured on the cover of Audubon Magazine. This sparrow is on the brink of extinction and likely will be extinct in the wild in the next year or two. There is currently a captive breeding program that is successfully breeding the sparrows but it is unknown is they will ever be able to reintroduce them back into the wild. The sparrow requires dry palmetto prairie, an ecosystem found only in South-Central Florida that has been decimated by human development. I saw these two individuals in 2015 at Three Lakes WMA. I spent many early mornings on the prairies of Central Florida listening for the buzzing call of the grasshopper sparrow without much luck. On one outing I stumbled across biologists who were surveying the population and with them caught my first glimpse of a small blur on an expansive landscape. I returned to the same spot a month later and sat quietly in the burnt grass and palmetto as the sun peaked over the horizon. l was luckily enough to see two males perch and sing their song that announces their territory. That experience will probably be the last one I have with the Florida Grasshopper Sparrow.
Three Lakes WMA, FL
Reposted from http://ift.tt/2zjeB3u.
Tags: birds, extinction, grsp.
