Group aims to restore state's wildlife habitat

Ducks Unlimited will be using a grant of $153,641 it received from the Nebraska Environmental Trust to restore more than 1,500 acres of grassland and wetland habitat in the Rainwater Basin.

In April, Ducks Unlimited received a $736,000 grant from the North American Wetlands Conservation Act to help to conserve 2,600 acres of waterfowl habitat in the Rainwater Basin.

The Rainwater Basin is a 4,200-square-mile area of shallow lakes, marshes and other wetlands in 17 counties south of the Platte River in south Central Nebraska.

Each year, millions of migratory birds pass through the region to feed and rest. The Rainwater Basin, along with the Platte River, is a major component of the Central Flyway of North America.

Ducks Unlimited's Rainwater Basin Habitat Restoration Project will permanently restore 442 acres of seasonal wetlands and 1,101 acres of native grassland.

Restoration work will include planting native grasses and forbs on recently retired cropland, plugging drain ditches to improve wetlands and filling wetland drainage pits to restore natural topography, according to Ducks Unlimited.

According to Ducks Unlimited, the project will also provide needed habitat for several rare and at-risk species that use wetlands in the area.

The project covers five distinct tracts of land in three counties. Two of the properties will be transferred to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission to provide important public access areas for recreation. A third is part of DU's Verona complex and also open to public recreation. The last two properties are part of DU's Revolving Lands Program in which properties are restored, protected through conservation easements and sold to conservation-minded buyers.

Funds from the Nebraska Environmental Trust Fund will be used to help pay for restoration costs. DU partners will provide 65 percent of the overall project costs.

In related news about Nebraska's Rainwater Basin, a little-known shorebird that frequents south Central Nebraska is featured in the most recent issue of an internationally recognized scientific journal.

The buff-breasted sandpiper is classified as a "highly imperiled" species by the U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan in 2004.

The buff-breasted sandpiper, or "buffie," is an eight-inch, two-ounce bird that, like most types of shorebirds, has long, delicate-looking legs and a slender bill. Its back and upper wings are patterned dark- and light-brown, and its underside, as the name suggests, is buff-colored fading to white.

The eastern Rainwater Basin is the only area of Nebraska where the birds are seen regularly, and that sightings are rare elsewhere in the Great Plains.

While here, buffies typically are found in agricultural fields, unlike many other shorebird species, which more often occupy the shallow and drying areas around wetland edges.

The Rainwater Basin Joint Venture is requesting that the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) designate the Rainwater Basin region a Landscape of Hemispheric Importance for shorebirds.

The region also hosts more than 30 other species of migrating shorebirds, numbering in the hundreds of thousands each year.

The eastern Rainwater Basin region includes Clay, Fillmore, York, Hamilton, Butler, and Polk Counties, and portions of Adams, Nuckolls, Thayer, Saline, and Seward counties.