Birds of Pipestone National Monument: 109 Species in 14 Years of Surveys

In 14 years of breeding-season surveys since 2009, scientists have found 109 bird species at Pipestone National Monument in Minnesota. Ninety-two could breed there. The community has stayed relatively stable — but some of its most familiar birds are declining in the wider region.

Why birds

Birds eat pests, spread seeds, pollinate plants and feed people, and birdwatching is a multi-billion-dollar industry. They are also early warnings of environmental change — the canary in the coal mine. The Heartland Inventory and Monitoring Network surveys Pipestone's birds and the plant communities they live in, and compares the park's trends with the region's, to judge how birds are faring and help the park manage their habitat.

Prairie pothole country

Pipestone lies in the Prairie Potholes Bird Conservation Region, a glaciated landscape of mixed-grass prairie to the west and tallgrass prairie to the east. Despite heavy wetland drainage and conversion of grassland to farmland, it holds the most important waterfowl habitat in North America: the main breeding range of most dabbling ducks and several diving ducks, and critical breeding and migration habitat for over 200 other species, 105 of them found in and around the monument. Pipestone itself is mostly open grassland and prairie, with some woods and dense vegetation along a stream. Wetland loss, farming and development, and fragmented grasslands threaten many of the region's birds.

Pipestone National Monument. N. Barber; public domain via the NPS's NPGallery.

Birds of conservation concern

Seven species of regional concern could breed in the park, and should guide how its habitat is managed:

Trends

A Song Sparrow. G. Yellowhawk; public domain via the NPS's NPGallery.

Fifteen species were common enough to track. The Bobolink, American Robin and Red-winged Blackbird were the most abundant and widespread. In the park, only the Common Yellowthroat showed a trend — a moderate increase; the other 14 were uncertain. Regionally, the American Robin, Dickcissel and Yellow Warbler were increasing, while the Bobolink, Clay-colored Sparrow, Eastern Kingbird, Grasshopper Sparrow and Ring-necked Pheasant were declining. Comparisons between park and region were inconclusive.

A Bobolink. Credit: NPS.

The Bobolink

The sparrow-like Bobolink travels about 12,000 miles a year between North America and southern South America, migrating at night and navigating by Earth's magnetic field; the northward journey starts in early March and can take more than two months. It prefers damp meadows and natural prairie, which are getting harder to find, so it now often nests in hayfields. At Pipestone it is among the most abundant birds — yet it is declining in the region.

Sources

Based on "Bird Community Monitoring at Pipestone National Monument in Minnesota, 2022" from the National Park Service's Heartland Inventory and Monitoring Network, a work of the United States government in the public domain. The full report is in the NPS DataStore. Pictures the first rewrite left out, filed by the Park Service as public domain in NPGallery, were restored on 2026-09-26.