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Collaboration, relationships, and partnerships are at the heart of effective conservation. It takes a team! For example, the Northern Forest Conservation Delivery Network (NFCDN) has a large array of conservation partnerships across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan supporting forest birds. Recently, this network directly supported an Evening Grosbeak tagging effort in Michigan.

On February 13^th, the NFCDN webinar series hosted the Evening Grosbeak Working Group co-lead David Yeany who is an Avian Ecologist for the Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program (PNHP) at the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. Through the support of Road to Recovery (R2R) and with funding from the Knobloch Family Foundation, the Evening Grosbeak working group was able to expand their conservation efforts. You can read more about this project on the Road to Recovery website. Additionally, if you missed the webinar, you can check out the recording on YouTube with the link below.

The best part about hosting this webinar was getting to know David and other Evening Grosbeak working group members. Upon meeting David, he was wondering if our NFCDN had partners in Michigan with flocks of Evening Grosbeaks at feeders. Through a few quick e-mails and calls, the network was able to assist David with a handful of Evening Grosbeak sites across the state of Michigan! Markedly, David and his team were able to successfully tag 11 birds near the Ottawa National Forest! They successfully deployed Sunbird satellite tags on 6 birds, which was the target goal for Michigan – 4 females and 2 males. As expected, the tagged birds are sending good positions (see draft map for updated movement).

David is hopeful we will gain more knowledge of how Evening Grosbeak are using the landscape and Ottawa National Forest as spring arrives. Will the birds remain to breed or will they disperse northward?? Surely, in a couple of years we can invite David back to present results of this study. Understanding the movement of these forest birds can help give us an idea on how they are using the forest. Therefore, inform scientists and land managers on how to (potentially) support a healthy home for these beautiful finches.

Did you know the NFCDN has a priority forest birds species habitat matrix? To summarize, the Evening Grosbeak is a northern forest priority species! If you are interested, the 2025 webinar series is highlighting northern forest priority species with partners. Join us in April to talk about Whip-poor-will monitoring and management with JT Larkin!