Flyway Robbery

A dickcissel, a summertime Illinois resident, takes a well-earned pit stop on its migratory journey. Credit: Wildreturn via Wikimedia Commons

By Julianna Gerdes 

In December 2022, I embarked on my longest road trip to date. Eager to escape the frigid air of Chicago to the warmth of Tampa Bay, my family and I covered 1,200 miles in 17 hours. Though we were determined to make it down south without having to stop for the night, pit stops were inevitable. First we needed more gas. Then we realized we needed to eat – and man it feels nice to stretch your legs after that much time in a car. Multiple pit stops later, we finally made it to our vacation destination, though the stops added an hour to our ETA. For birds, however, a 60-minute layover is for rookies. Birds add weeks or even months to their migratory journeys across the U.S. by taking extended pit stops as they travel to their vacation homes. 

Migratory birds are a lot like people: They move south when it gets too cold. That means every fall the birds pack up and hightail it to the neotropics, which stretches from the tip of Florida to South America. Likewise, every spring they start their long trip back up north. This journey of thousands of miles is inspired by nothing less than the essentials: breeding and food. “Most birds are migrating because their current breeding habitat is no longer amenable for survival,” explained Janice Enos, an avian biologist at the University of Illinois. These migratory birds spend the warm summers breeding up north, and once temperatures and daylight hours begin to drop, they start a fall migration down to Mexico or South America, until spring rolls around and the cycle continues. “It’s not so much of a choice but a fixed behavior that environmental cues will tell a bird when it is time to leave,” Enos said.  

Credit: American Bird Conservancy

These birds aren’t just “winging it” though. In the U.S., they generally follow four main flyways: the Pacific, Central, Atlantic, and the most populated, Mississippi Flyway.  Like cars navigating a highway, birds follow these general paths and can pull off to find stopover points that are critical for their cross-country journeys. Stopovers serve as gas stations or hotels, where birds can rest and refuel for days to weeks at a time before they start the next leg of their migration. These rest areas are so critical that birds often spend more time at these stopovers than in the air actually migrating.   

Champaign acts as an excellent stopover site for birds following the Mississippi Flyway. According to Enos, you can see “50 to 60 species on a good day” during their spring and fall migrations. At grassland parks and wetland areas throughout Champaign and Urbana, birds can find adequate food and shelter to rest up along their journey. From a birds-eye view, Champaign County is a green oasis surrounded by a desert of agriculture spanning miles and miles. For much of the route along the Mississippi Flyway though, stopover sites are a much different story. 

Habitat Lost and Found  

One of the biggest issues facing migratory birds is habitat loss, especially to agriculture, which covers roughly 127 million acres of land across the Midwest. Illinois alone has 27 million acres of farmland, making up roughly 70% of the state. Farm practices like monoculture, tilling, and pesticide use make it very hard for migratory birds to find the food and shelter they need at a stopover, meaning successful migration is much less likely. Fortunately for these birds, they have a famous piece of legislation on their side: the Farm Bill.  

Introduced in 1933 as a way to raise sinking crop prices and help struggling farmers by regulating commodity prices, the Farm Bill has since grown to include food stamp programs as well as conservation programs. While the Farm Bill’s primary purpose is ultimately to aid farmers, migratory birds also reap the benefits of some initiatives detailed in this legislation. Even better, it is renewed and (usually) improved every five years. Though we are currently operating under a one-year extension of the 2018 Farm Bill, it expires in September 2024.   

“It is enormous and has cascading impacts on lots of different areas for migratory birds — where they’re breeding, where they’re migrating, even outside of the U.S.,” said Mike Ward, head of the Avian Behavior and Ecology Lab at Illinois. He especially noted the importance of the Conservation Reserve Program, better known as CRP, which is outlined in the Farm Bill.   

Since 1985, the goal of the Conservation Reserve Program has been to encourage farmers to set aside “environmentally sensitive” land to be used as wildlife habitat in exchange for a yearly rental payment under 10- to 15-year contracts from the Farm Service Agency. This land gets filled with native prairie grasses and wildflowers, while farmers still get paid for land that is no longer producing crops. Migratory birds are able to use this land for shelter as well as a source of food to fuel up before continuing their journey. Call it an environmental win-win-win. “The CRP is probably the biggest creator of habitat in the Midwest. Without that, migratory grassland birds would not be doing very well,” Ward emphasized.  

The good news for birds is that CRP is very popular. As of February 2020, about 330,000 farms participated in CRP, setting aside about 22 million acres of reserved grassland. That grew to just under 25 million acres in 2023, providing migratory grassland birds with more places to rest and refuel.   

Returning from its wintering grounds in Argentina, this upland sandpiper takes advantage of north-central Kansas’s prairie habitat for nesting and feeding. Credit: Tony Ifland / USFWS

The increase in CRP acreage indicates that this conservation program is having an impact. In 2016, Partners in Flight, a landbird conservation group, created the “Partners in Flight Watch List,” comprising 86 bird species of the highest conservation concern. Several migratory species on this list, such as the Cassin’s sparrow, dickcissel, grasshopper sparrow, lark bunting, and upland sandpiper, have all utilized CRP land during their migrations north and south.   

While it is promising that more farmers are using the CRP, there is still work to be done in the name of quality habitat. For a model stopover habitat, Enos said, “You want a lot of native species that are supporting insect or berry populations.” Frustratingly for birds, there is no real standard guaranteeing these qualifications. CRP lands “tend to be strip habitats, really small and edgy,” which are not ideal for migrating birds, Enos said. “In those habitats predation risk tends to be higher.” Birds have very little to gain from low-quality stopover sites, and much to lose. It wouldn’t be a very fun road trip if you were eaten at a rest stop along the way. Unless changes are incorporated in the new Farm Bill this calendar year, farmers will continue to be paid for any CRP land whether it’s quality habitat or not.   

The Farm Bill still has quite a way to go before we can stop worrying about the conservation status of migratory birds. Studies suggest that since 1970, migratory bird numbers have dropped by about 2.5 billion — roughly eight birds for every person in the United States. Migratory species that rely on grassland habitat — like sparrows, blackbirds, and larks — are among the most at-risk due to the food and habitat they require at stopover sites.  

In-Flight Pesticides  

Even if a piece of CRP land offers a good size and plant make-up, another threat may halt migratory bird conservation in its tracks: pesticides. 

When asked whether pesticide use was addressed in the Farm Bill, Ward responded with a quick and passionate, “It should be.” The term “pesticide” encompasses chemicals used to kill any type of “pest,” which could include weeds, insects, or diseases. Unfortunately for migrating birds, these harmful pesticides can be found in most potential stopover sites. Every year, the U.S. uses an estimated 1.2 billion pounds of pesticides, and a majority of it is applied in agricultural settings. According to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute, 672 million birds are exposed to these pesticides on agricultural land every year, killing about 10% of them annually. Despite these staggering numbers, the Farm Bill has yet to address the problem.  

These feathered fatalities can occur for a multitude of reasons, all centered around pesticides. As insecticides kill bugs that farmers don’t want on their crops, they also kill a valuable food source for birds looking to fuel up after a long flight. Herbicides also kill off plant species that support the insects these migrating birds rely on.  And killing these plants reduces the amount of shelter available for birds, putting them at risk for predators even if they do manage to find the food they require. 

While pesticides play an important role in farming, they don’t belong in a migratory bird’s digestive tract — but that is exactly where they end up. Pesticides can be ingested by birds in several ways: They can eat a berry or insect with trace amounts of pesticides; they can consume pesticides by preening feathers that may have contacted these chemicals; or they can consume the pesticides directly. Birds can mistake pesticide granules for seeds, which presents a new set of biological challenges for these migratory birds beyond struggling for food or shelter.   

Studies show that pesticides can cause a multitude of problems for birds once ingested — reproductive issues such as inhibited embryo development and eggshell thinning, as well as loss of coordination, respiratory distress, and organ failure. One study correlated certain pesticides to rapid weight loss and lack of appetite in birds, and exposure to a higher dose of these chemicals led to a more severe loss of body mass. At a stopover site where a migratory bird’s primary focus is to put on fat and muscle, this is an especially concerning possibility as birds interact with these chemicals directly and indirectly. You wouldn’t want to pull over during your road trip at a gas station that takes fuel instead of giving you more – or harms your health.   

One way to prevent some of these adverse effects is to use pesticides responsibly. While some pesticides, classified as “Restricted Use,” require a license to purchase and apply, many others are considered “Unclassified” and can be purchased over the counter for anyone to use. “I don’t think they’re well-regulated,” Ward said, noting the absence of pesticide restrictions in the Farm Bill. The regulatory loopholes can lead to unsafe application of these chemicals in ways that cause extra harm to birds, such as applying a higher concentration or dose than required. Increasing restrictions on pesticides, and adding them to a future version of the Farm Bill, would help safeguard our feathered friends.    

Failing to follow label instructions can also increase the risk to migratory birds, if chemicals are not applied at the correct locations or times. There may be an easy fix: requiring manufacturers to print labels in multiple languages. An estimated two-thirds of farmworkers primarily speak Spanish, while most pesticide labels are exclusively in English. Many bird conservation organizations, such as the American Bird Conservancy, argue that the next Farm Bill should include requirements to label pesticides and harmful chemicals in multiple languages, giving people who apply them a better understanding of how to do so safely. Though any pesticide in any dose can potentially be harmful to birds, taking actions to ensure that these chemicals are used correctly would be a step in the right direction.   

How Do You Like Your Coffee?  

Addressing shortcomings in the Farm Bill and pesticide use in the U.S. is only the tip of the iceberg for migratory bird conservation. Improvements like high-quality CRP land or increased pesticide restrictions can definitely help birds migrating domestically, but they also fly internationally twice a year. Birds spend a good deal of the year vacationing down in Central or South America, far away from paid programs like CRP. Though a trip to the neotropics sounds like a relaxing getaway, birds and a wide variety of other animals are threatened by deforestation of lands converted to agriculture.   

This agriculture largely consists of growing coffee beans. Latin and South America produce most of the world’s coffee. Brazil is the world leader, growing more than a third of the coffee we consume; Columbia is the third largest producer, and Peru sits at No. 9.   

Americans alone drink about 179 billion cups of coffee a year, and worldwide 511 billion cups are consumed annually. It’s no surprise that coffee is the world’s second most tradable commodity. The only problem is that it comes at a heavy cost in the form of habitat loss. In Brazil, 1.7 million hectares of land — roughly the size of Delaware — are set aside for coffee production, and many other Central and South American countries have followed this trend.   

Habitat loss from this large-scale production may have adverse effects on migrating birds looking for their winter vacation spot. Deforestation and agriculture in Central and South America shorts birds on both habitat and food sources, making it a challenge for migratory birds to find a viable place to stop for the winter. It would be a shame to spend all that time heading south, just to find out that your winter home had been demolished and no one bothered to tell you.   

This problem could potentially be fixed with one change the Farm Bill could encourage. Most coffee is sun-grown, requiring open and tree-free fields to thrive. However, there has been a push to produce more shade-grown coffee — plants that are tolerant to living under the canopy of a habitat-rich forest. “Shade-grown coffee is much better for migratory birds,” Ward emphasized.

Sun-grown coffee presents more issues than just habitat loss for migratory birds. Like many agricultural operations, traditional coffee production involves intensive care. Coffee plants require fertilizers that often leak into water sources, hurting both aquatic and terrestrial populations that rely on that water to survive. Coffee growers also use pesticides; as in the U.S., birds face the risk of directly and indirectly consuming these dangerous chemicals. The neotropics have turned into another minefield of risks and dangers that migrating birds need to navigate — except this time, there are no safe spaces like CRP to provide quality shelter or food.   

Shade-grown coffee, on the other hand, is much less damaging to the environment and birds. Besides being a much healthier alternative for the land by reducing deforestation and soil erosion, it can save farmers money on production costs. Shade-grown coffee plants do not require fertilizers or pesticides, due to the nature of their environment. Because they are planted among trees, rather than in a monocultural coffee-crop fields, shade-grown plants benefit from nitrogen-fixing bacteria provided by the trees. Soil is also healthier in forest settings, offering more nutrients for these crops. This cuts down on the need for fertilizer, which in turn keeps waterways safe for wildlife. The forest setting also provides plenty of habitat for both migratory and resident birds. And that helps farmers save on pesticides: Birds living among the coffee plants are more than happy to eat the pests that insecticides would have targeted.

Shade-grown coffee sounds like a win for birds, but there is a downside. Sun-grown coffee is more productive and much easier to harvest. Sun-grown plants can produce three times as many coffee beans as their shade-grown counterparts, due to the extra sun exposure and synthetic fertilizers. But while sun-grown coffee may have the advantage in production efficiency, it is possible that the Farm Bill may be able to tip the scales.    

“We’re trying to get the Farm Bill or other policies to promote the import of more shade-grown coffee,” Ward said. “The Farm Bill can’t dictate what people in South America grow, but it can dictate how valuable that commodity is in the U.S.” 

The Farm Bill includes several commodity programs that can manage and control the prices of different crops. While these programs were put in place to protect the income and livelihood of farmers in the U.S., it has inadvertently given us a way to lower the value of some imported goods in America, like sun-grown coffee, and increase the value of other goods, like shade-grown varieties. To do so, however, these commodity programs must be reauthorized when the current Farm Bill expires in September 2024.   

Protecting stopover sites for birds is critical for successful migration, especially considering the length of their cross-country journeys. A 1,200-mile road trip was, to my standards, brutal, and I couldn’t imagine completing it without pit stops. Any time we were low on gas or food, we were just a quick stop off the highway from a gas station. And fortunately for us, our vacation home did not get torn down and replaced by agricultural fields; nor was our food poisoned (or downright missing). It is no more acceptable to leave migratory birds without shelter and food. Humans are to blame for disrupting migratory flight paths, and it’s our responsibility to safely restore them before it is too late to reverse the damage. As more and more habitat is lost to development, pollution, and agriculture, and climate change exacerbates a decline in bird biodiversity, it is only a matter of time before we see these beloved birds begin to disappear for good. While current policies give winged travelers a few options for refueling, there’s no guarantee they will be healthy pit stops. All eyes are on Congress as the newest Farm Bill is drafted. Birds everywhere are hoping for good news. 

About the Author …

Julianna Gerdes graduated from the University of Illinois in May 2024 with a B.S. in Integrative Biology and a minor in Conservation Biology and Ecology, as well as the Certificate in Environmental Writing. She now works as an environmental educator at Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation, and continues to write in her free time.

This piece was written for ESE 498, the CEW capstone course, in Spring 2024.