Bobolinks

Years ago, the musical bobolinks would fill our fields with song and multiple nestings in the hay.  They nest on the ground, and we always worried about them when it was haying season...will the babies have left their nest, or will they be wiped out...

 I think these ones may have moved over to our field recently after the closest hay fields to our location were cut down.

 If that is the case, I hope there were successful nestings and the babies were able to talke flight before haying season.

In the last few years, there have been less and less, and this year I found out they were on the endangered list for birds.  How sad.  Another one we could potentially lose.  I have been in touch with two different people at the MNR Species at Risk Program a few times recently, as I've been lucky enough to have spotted some in 4 areas nearby.  Not many...but some...both male (as in these pictures) and females.   These ones were in our front field, no longer a hay field, but solid with tall weeds and grass.  I'm hoping this is a good sign.  It would be wonderful to see and hear them next year, returning as they used to in significant groups.  So many species have lost their wintering grounds mainly due to tree cutting, and (people) population growth. 
WHAT ARE WE DOING TO OUR BIRDS?  I hope we never have "a silent spring"....