Buff-breasted Sandpiper stopover ecology in the Eastern Rainwater Basin, Nebraska

    I am currently working on a masters degree at the University of Nebraska at Omaha under John McCarty and LaReesa Wolfenbarger.  My thesis research is focused on the importance of the Rainwater Basin as a stopover site to the Buff-breasted Sandpiper during the species' long migration from southern South America to the North American Arctic. Stopover sites are immensely  important to  migratory shorebirds.  Perhaps the best illustration of this point is the recent case of the rufa Red Knot.  Numbers of that population have fallen sharply in recent years.  It is believed that reduction of one food resource, horseshoe crab eggs, at one stopover site, Delaware Bay, is responsible for the decline.    

    The Buff-breasted Sandpiper is a medium-sized shorebird that breeds in Arctic coastal areas of Alaska and Canada and winters on the Pampas of Argentina, Uruguay, southern Brazil and Paraguay (see map).  Like most shorebirds the Buff-breasted Sandpipers utilizes wetland habitats, but prefers to forage in upland areas of short grass, cultivated fields, and grassland burns.  In the Rainwater Basin birds primarily occupy agricultural fields.  The Buff-breasted Sandpiper is a species of significant global and regional conservation concern.  It is considered “highly-imperiled” globally  by the United States Shorebird Conservation Plain is a “priority species” in the Central Plains Regional Shorebird Conservation Plan.  The world population has been recently estimated at only 15,000 and numbers are believed to be declining further  for reasons that are not clear.  Previously collected data and other sources suggest the Rainwater Basin is an important stopover for the Buff-breasted Sandpiper during spring. 

    The Rainwater Basin is a region of flat and gently rolling loess plains in south-central Nebraska that formerly was a broad expanse of prairie containing numerous shallow playa wetlands.  This ecosystem has been converted to an intensely cultivated agricultural region and more than 90% of the former wetlands have been destroyed and the remaining are degraded.  The remaining wetlands serve as one of the most important stopover sites for migratory waterbirds in North America The U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan for the Central Plains Region recognizes the Rainwater Basin as one of the “high priority habitats” for shorebird conservation.  It has been estimated that 200,000-300,000 shorebirds use the Rainwater Basin each spring.  When using this estimate and if the individual wetlands are considered a single entity, the Rainwater Basin surpasses the criteria used by the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network to identify sites of international importance. 

    Because the Buff-breasted Sandpiper occupies agricultural fields birds are difficult to detect (test your skills by locating the bird in the above picture of corn stubble).  An important facet of our research is determining on the actual numbers that stopover in the Rainwater Basin.  Our Research is focused on identifying those variables that the Buff-breasted Sandpiper depends upon, factors that may affect the species deleteriously, and identifying areas within the Rainwater Basin that are more important during stopover. 

Funding for the project is provided by

    Nebraska State Wildlife Grant Program

    Center for Great Plains Studies

    University of Nebraska at Omaha Department of Biology

By the way, the Buff-breasted Sandpiper is in the lower left hand corner in the above pic.

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