Get to Know Your Grasslands: Chestnut-collared Longspur

Chestnut-collared Longspur

 

Grassland birds can be elusive and difficult to identify. More often than not they are heard and not seen but knowing what birds are calling your grasslands home can be important information when assessing the rangeland health. Numerous grassland birds are currently endangered due to habitat loss but if your land is abundant with grassland birds it can be indicative of a healthy environment. First, we need to learn how to identify the different grassland birds. Let’s get to know our grasslands a little better and start with the Chestnut-collared longspur!

 

Characteristics
The chestnut-collared longspur is an endangered medium-sized songbird that is on average 6” in length, with a wingspan of 10.5”, and a weight of 19 grams. In the breeding season, males stand out from females with their black breast, belly, crown, and eye-line. They also have a chestnut patch on the nape (hence their name), and a buffy yellow throat. In basic plumage, both sexes are grayish to buff-coloured overall with dusky streaks. In all plumages, females and males have white outer tail feathers and dark inner tail feathers that form a triangle, which sets them apart from other longspur species.

 

 

 

Source: First photo: Bell, David M., photographer. “Chestnut-collared Longspur [May 29, 2019]” Photograph. Medicine Hat, AB, c2019. From Macaulay Library. https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/173394981
Above photo: Drucker, Jacob, photographer. “Chestnut-collared Longspur [November 13, 2016]” Photograph. San Francisco, California, c2016. From Macaulay Library. https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/40231731

 

 

Habitat and Diet
The Chestnut-collared longspur is a grassland specialist endemic to the Northern Great Plains. It prefers short and well-grazed native grasslands as it breeds in shortgrass prairie and mixed-grass prairie that have been grazed, mowed, or burned. They can be found occasionally in taller grasses but prefer to move in after an area has been grazed by livestock. It winters in Mexico and southwestern USA. This bird’s diet consists largely of insects like grasshoppers, but it does consume seeds from the ground or low vegetation as well.

 

Nesting
It nests in a depression in the ground that is created by the female near slightly taller vegetation. The nest is mainly made up of grasses and averages about three and a half inches in width and two inches deep. A Chestnut-collared longspur has a clutch size of three to five eggs and has two to three broods. Its eggs are “white, gray, or pale buff spotted with reddish brown or purple”. The female typically incubates the eggs while the male stands guard over the nest and they have been known to team up with other longspurs to mog predators such as shrikes and harriers. If a nest is destroyed, the female will try to re-build a nest and will do this multiple times a year, if needed.

 

Behavior
The Chestnut-collared longspur is a ground forager species and therefore devotes a lot of time to forage for food.Males perform courtship displays where they fly up to 50 feet in the air, circle, and descend while singing and spreading their tail. Their song is similar to the Western Meadowlark but still distinctly different.  This bird species is monogamous; however, females will often nest for the second time with a different male. Mates can be exceptionally territorial, with males defending territories of approximately 1 hectare, but this species forms flocks of 50-100 individuals in the winter months.

 

 

Conservation
Between the years of 1966 and 2015, chestnut-collared Longspur populations have declined by 87%. This bird is at risk of losing another half of its population by 2037 if current rates of decline continue. Much of their decline has been attributed to habitat loss as they depend on grazed native land for their habitat and have not been found to adapt well to human disturbance and modifications to the landscape. Conversion to cropland, as well as fewer protected areas of native land being grazed since the disappearance of the bison, and increased oil and gas development have been major threats to Chestnut-collared Longspurs’ habitat. Although, conservation efforts of active management aimed at Burrowing Owls and certain other grassland species have been found to benefit Chestnut-collared Longspurs as well.

 

Co-Author: Jessica Smith and Mindy Hockley

 

References:

Environment and Climate Change Canada [ECCC], “COSEWIC Assessment and Status Report on the Chestnut-Collared Longspur (Calcarius Ornatus) in Canada 2019,” Government of Canada, October 22, 2020, https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/species-risk-public-registry/cose wic-assessments-status-reports/chestnut-collared-longspur-2019.html

David Allen Sibley, Sibley Birds West, 2nd ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), 360.
The Cornell Lab, “Chestnut-Collared Longspur Life History,” All About Birds, accessed August 1, 2023, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Chestnut-collared_Longspur/lifehistory#.

Environment and Climate Change Canada and Saskatchewan Prairie Conservation Action Plan [SK PCAP], “Species at Risk Profile Series: Chestnut Collared Longspur,” Saskatchewan Prairie Conservation Action Plan, January 2017, https://www.pcap-sk.org/rsu_docs/documents/chestnutcollaredlongspur0117.pdf.