Although the males have arrived, the females, which usually arrive about a week later than the males, are only just beginning to appear in the fields. BECO's Bobolink research team is hard at work tracking the birds' early season movements and starting to collect clues about where the birds will nest as they begin staking out their territories.

This is the second year of our research on rotationally-grazed beef cattle farms, where we are working with producers to test grazing strategies to support Bobolink. A collaboration with the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association, this work is funded by the Species at Risk Partnerships on Agricultural Lands program, an Environment and Climate Change Canada initiative.

Our main research question is whether or not small bird refuges are an effective way to support Bobolink in rotationally-grazed pastures. But after our first season working on this project and learning more about beef cattle farming, we've incorporated some additional research questions into our project this year.

In some of the pastures, we're planning to test if Bobolink can nest successfully in paddocks that are grazed early in the season, at relatively low stocking rates. The heavy rain in early May, however, was a stark reminder that our field research, similar to the cattle grazing season, is strongly shaped by the weather. Although many producers would like to move their cattle from wintering areas to the paddocks they graze in spring and summer as soon as possible, it all depends on the grass and how quickly the fields dry up. Whether we'll be able to study early light grazing this year will be determined by the weather and how fast the grass grows.