Sara recently published a paper in the journal Rangelands about an experiment we carried out at Dye Creek Reserve- a working cattle ranch and biodiversity reserve in the Lassen foothills of Northern California.
The work was in response to a call from the California branch of the USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) to develop and test new methods for installing raptor perches using existing fencelines for support. In many ranching landscapes, the soil is too rocky to make digging down to install posts using an underground concrete base an option (the recommended method for installing perches in arable farmland). Rangelands are quite extensive across the American West (and globally!), so are important habitats for a number of raptors. Ranchers also want to attract birds of prey to act as natural enemies of rodent pests.
We developed a perch design that is lightweight and can be attached to existing fenceposts without the need to dig underground. Our perches performed well, even in the windy conditions at our site, and we found that they were utilized by raptors- especially American kestrels.
You can find the paper at the publisher's website here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rala.2023.12.002
Or download a copy from our publications page on this site.
The work was in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy. Sacramento State University undergraduate students Renata Chapman and Alejandra Martinez co-authored the study. Publishing the work took a long time because Sara had baby Quinn while we were doing fieldwork, moved across the country and to NZ + in the middle of all that there was a global pandemic.
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