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A Birder’s Guide to U.S. Federal Public Lands

10,000 Birds

These lands support countless birds, either year-round, as migratory stopovers, or as breeding grounds. The federal government owns about 46% of the land in these states but only about 4% of the other states (excluding Alaska). There is one gigantic outlier: Alaska. In terms of federal land, Alaska truly stands apart.

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The “Rufa” Red Knot is now protected under the Endangered Species Act

10,000 Birds

Fish and Wildlife Service has listed the “Rufa” population of Red Knot ( Calidris canutus rufa ) as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The other sub-species, Calidris canutus roselaari , migrates along the Pacific Coast and breeds in Alaska and the Wrangel Island in Russia.

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The National Wildlife Refuge System: Birders Leading the Way

10,000 Birds

The vast majority of this area (about 85%) is in Alaska. For example, essentially the entire population of the endangered Whooping Crane winters at Aransas NWR in Texas. Farallon NWR , a group of islands near San Francisco, hosts the largest colonies of breeding seabirds south of Alaska. It’s not just for the birds.

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The Best Birding Locations in the United States (according to ChatGPT)

10,000 Birds

The Kirtland’s Warbler is an endangered bird species that breeds primarily in the jack pine forests of northern Michigan. Specifically, the warbler’s primary breeding range is concentrated in a few counties in the northern Lower Peninsula and the eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

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Listening to Falcons: The Peregrines of Tom Cade

10,000 Birds

“I’d witnessed Peregrines and Gyrfalcons in the fall of 1949 while I was doing undergraduate work at the University of Alaska. ” Cade was later to comment, “1951 was when I first saw the high-flying style of hunting performed by the wilderness-inhabiting Peregrines of Alaska.” And grow they did.

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Birding Santa Cruz Island

10,000 Birds

At the very northern end of their breeding range in the Channel Islands, they are strictly a Californian bird as far as the U.S. Like several species, breeding Peregrines were extirpated during the height of the DDT era but have reclaimed their island domain in more recent years. is concerned.

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Open Season on Bald Eagles

10,000 Birds

There was a lot of hunting for Bald Eagles—it is traditionally a game species. There was a bounty on them in Alaska from 1917 until 1952—up to $2 a head! Yes, they have been an endangered species for as long as most of us can recall, but remember, they were traditionally a hunted species. young per year.