The 2021 Eastern Meadowlark Blitz

The 2021 Eastern Meadowlark Blitz, in partnership with New Hampshire Audubon, was coordinated to locate and document remaining Eastern Meadowlark populations during the breeding season. Volunteers surveyed grasslands and agricultural fields to record where Meadowlarks were and weren’t present, as well as how they were using available habitat. The goal was to fill knowledge gaps in their distribution and population estimates, and to provide conservation groups with information to help protect existing grasslands, and ultimately guide habitat management for this declining species.

More than 800 Eastern Meadowlark records were amassed in Vermont from almost 40,000 eBird checklists; for comparison, over 17,000 checklists contained Black-capped Chickadees. While that’s a very small number of Meadowlark reports relative to all checklists, it nearly tripled 2020’s number of Meadowlark eBird reports. For this increasingly rare bird, and many other species experiencing declines, every sighting can provide vital data that may benefit conservation efforts. Using this field data collected by a host of Vermont birders who participated in VCE’s 2021 Eastern Meadowlark Blitz, the Endangered Species Committee listed this declining species as state-Threatened in 2022.