Beetle Havens Important Wildfowl Habitat

On April 6th, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a final ruling identifying critical habitat for the severely endangered Salt Creek Tiger Beetle (Cicindela nevadica lincolniana). In the ruling, 1,933 acres of saline wetlands in northern Lancaster and southern Saunders counties that provide current or potential havens for this diminutive bug were identified and given in minute detail.

Several of the tracts are wetlands well-known to bird enthusiasts and as they were accessible places, have been visited for go bird-watching for many decades. During the years, a wide variety of species have been documented.

The first bird notes from saline wetlands in Lancaster County, Nebraska occurred far beyond a century in the past. Many of the original notes are from the Salt Basin - Salt Lake - Capitol Beach locale west of Lincoln. Through the decades, the best birding places have shifted from west of Lincoln to north of the city, especially up along Little Salt Creek, and this is the area for which a modern-era bird list can be readily compiled.

Aerial image of saline wetland areas at the Little Salt Forks. March 2010. Courtesy of the Wetland Program Manager at the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

Sites have been grouped in three different localities:

Salt Creek Confluence

Boosalis Park; King Wetland; North 27th Street and I-80 Flats; North 40th Street Wetlands; North 40th Street Wetlands - East; Roper Ponds; Whitehead Saline Wetland

Lower Little Salt Creek

Anderson Property; Arbor and nearby Arbor Lake which became Arbor Lake WMA once it was acquired by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission; Federation Marsh which, after its purchase by the City of Lincoln, was renamed the Frank Shoemaker Marsh; GE Basin; Little Salt Basin; Little Salt Creek at Arbor Road; Little Salt Creek at Federation Marsh; North 27th Street Wetlands

Upper Little Salt Creek

Dakota Prairie; Little Salt Creek WMA of 257 acres; Little Salt Fork Marsh Preserve, owned by the Nature Conservancy is about 175 acres; Hermone Marsh and Prairie which is now identified as the Little Salt Creek West WMA and comprises 220 acres; historically Little Salt Forks which was the attribution given for the wetland complex in the vicinity; Scheel Tract now known as Little Salt Springs WMA is 123 acres, owned by the Lower Platte South NRD.

Most recently purchased were 66 acres of the Allen tract for $304,000, said Tom Malmstrom, natural resources coordinator for the city Parks and Recreation Department. Grants were provided by the Nebraska Environmental Trust Fund ($153,000), Lower Platte South NRD ($76,000)and from Lancaster County ($75,000). This was about $4,606 per acre.

Wetland at Little Salt Forks, with the newly purchased Allen Tract in the background. August 2009.

Wonderful Diversity of Birds

There have been 142 species noted in the last ten years at the various saline wetlands, as indicated in the following list. Records have been summarized here to simplify their presentation, though each occurrence is designated to a very particular place, and date when the particular species was observed. The value given is the number of different records for each locality.

Common Name	Salt Creek Confluence	Lower Little Salt Creek	Upper Little Salt Creek
Snow Goose	-	1	-
Canada Goose	2	11	1
Wood Duck	-	14	1
Gadwall	-	1	-
American Wigeon	-	3	-
Mallard	4	18	1
Blue-winged Teal	3	23	2
Northern Shoveler	3	11	1
Northern Pintail	-	1	-
Green-winged Teal	1	26	-
Hooded Merganser	-	2	-
Common Merganser	-	1	-
Ruddy Duck	-	-	1
Ring-necked Pheasant	-	23	3
Wild Turkey	-	1	-
Northern Bobwhite	-	13	-
Pied-billed Grebe	-	1	1
American Bittern	-	2	-
Least Bittern	1	-	-
Great Blue Heron	2	15	1
Great Egret	-	1	-
Cattle Egret	1	-	-
Green Heron	1	12	1
Turkey Vulture	-	1	1
Bald Eagle	1	-	-
Northern Harrier	-	4	-
Sharp-shinned Hawk	-	1	-
Red-tailed Hawk	2	14	2
Rough-legged Hawk	1	-	-
American Kestrel	2	2	2
Virginia Rail	1	1	-
Sora	1	9	-
American Coot	1	7	-
Semipalmated Plover	-	1	-
Killdeer	9	26	4
Spotted Sandpiper	-	7	1
Solitary Sandpiper	-	9	-
Greater Yellowlegs	-	1	-
Willet	-	2	-
Lesser Yellowlegs	1	9	3
Semipalmated Sandpiper	-	3	1
Least Sandpiper	-	10	1
White-rumped Sandpiper	-	2	-
Baird's Sandpiper	-	1	-
Pectoral Sandpiper	-	2	1
Stilt Sandpiper	-	1	-
Wilson's Snipe	-	7	-
Wilson's Phalarope	3	3	-
Franklin's Gull	1	1	-
Ring-billed Gull	-	2	-
Herring Gull	-	1	-
Black Tern	1	1	-
Rock Pigeon	-	1	1
Mourning Dove	5	34	6
Yellow-billed Cuckoo	-	3	-
Eastern Screech-Owl	-	1	-
Great Horned Owl	1	9	1
Short-eared Owl	-	1	-
Common Nighthawk	1	1	1
Chimney Swift	-	1	1
Belted Kingfisher	1	15	-
Red-headed Woodpecker	-	2	1
Red-bellied Woodpecker	1	9	-
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	-	2	-
Downy Woodpecker	1	17	-
Hairy Woodpecker	-	1	-
Northern Flicker	-	24	3
Willow Flycatcher	-	1	-
Eastern Phoebe	-	1	-
Western Kingbird	-	1	1
Eastern Kingbird	1	9	4
Loggerhead Shrike	-	1	-
Bell's Vireo	-	-	1
Warbling Vireo	1	2	-
Red-eyed Vireo	-	1	-
Blue Jay	1	27	3
American Crow	2	2	1
Horned Lark	-	2	-
Tree Swallow	-	5	-
Northern Rough-winged Swallow	-	9	-
Cliff Swallow	2	24	1
Barn Swallow	4	20	4
Black-capped Chickadee	1	2	-
Red-breasted Nuthatch	-	1	-
White-breasted Nuthatch	-	3	-
House Wren	-	12	-
Winter Wren	-	1	-
Sedge Wren	-	8	-
Marsh Wren	1	6	2
Golden-crowned Kinglet	1	1	-
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	-	1	-
Eastern Bluebird	2	-	1
Swainson's Thrush	-	1	-
Hermit Thrush	-	1	-
Wood Thrush	-	1	-
American Robin	1	27	2
Gray Catbird	-	7	2
Northern Mockingbird	-	1	-
Brown Thrasher	-	12	2
European Starling	-	26	2
Nashville Warbler	-	1	-
Yellow Warbler	1	5	1
Yellow-rumped Warbler	-	3	-
Black-and-white Warbler	-	1	-
Mourning Warbler	-	2	-
Common Yellowthroat	-	12	1
Spotted Towhee	-	2	-
Eastern Towhee	-	1	-
American Tree Sparrow	-	3	-
Chipping Sparrow	-	2	-
Clay-colored Sparrow	-	4	-
Field Sparrow	-	7	-
Vesper Sparrow	-	6	-
Savannah Sparrow	-	5	-
Le Conte's Sparrow	-	3	-
Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow	-	5	-
Fox Sparrow	-	1	-
Song Sparrow	-	9	-
Lincoln's Sparrow	-	8	-
Swamp Sparrow	1	5	-
White-throated Sparrow	-	3	-
Harris's Sparrow	-	7	-
White-crowned Sparrow	-	1	-
Dark-eyed Junco	1	6	-
Northern Cardinal	2	18	1
Rose-breasted Grosbeak	-	4	-
Blue Grosbeak	-	1	-
Dickcissel	1	13	2
Bobolink	-	3	-
Red-winged Blackbird	6	44	3
Eastern Meadowlark	5	23	2
Western Meadowlark	4	8	1
Yellow-headed Blackbird	2	6	-
Rusty Blackbird	-	2	-
Brewer's Blackbird	-	1	-
Common Grackle	4	21	1
Great-tailed Grackle	2	4	-
Brown-headed Cowbird	2	20	2
Orchard Oriole	-	6	1
Baltimore Oriole	-	5	1
American Goldfinch	2	23	2
House Sparrow	2	2	-

This list has more species if a greater period of time is considered. In the last 20 years, the overall tally is 157 species; and in the last 25 years it is 169, and so forth. In a fifty-year-period, the list includes 187 species. Based on all the known occurrences of birds, the overall species list has 215 species, with the oldest records dating to the 1899 for a Greater White-fronted Goose, noted in "J.S. Hunter's Card Catalog of Nebraska Bird Records" at what were then known as the North 27th Street Wetlands.

Aerial image of the Hermone Tract, 2009. Courtesy of the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.

Many of the following records were noted in the details of a myriad of notes prepared by Ralph Dawson, another prominent birder of times gone by.

Other notable historic sites were the Little Salt Basin and Arbor. Most of the more than 4100 records are after 1970. Nearly 2500 of the observations are based on my own birds surveys, done as recently as 2010 along Little Salt Creek at Frank Shoemaker Marsh, which happens to be the same site where surveys have been personally done, starting in 1980.

With the fine birding that can be found at the saline wetlands, additional species will undoubtedly be noted, and the diversity of species at the different localities will increase. Especially exciting will be what might be found at the public-lands complex that has been developed about the forks of Little Salt Creek.

There have been two recent purchases by public agencies in this area, including the Hermone Tract in latter 2009, and just a few weeks ago, the ??. The Nature Conservancy was the first to purchase land here, creating the Little Salt Forks Nature Preserve.

This name came from my attribution for the area during the biological survey of Lancaster County saline wetlands, which was issued many years prior to the the land purchase. It was quite nice to see the name continued, and to become an identifying feature now and into the future for these important natural places.

Habitat Conservation

Saline wetlands suitable for iddy-bitty tiger-beetles are also important places for many types of wildfowl. Conserving these places for the bugs will also help ensure the ongoing occurrence of their bigger brethren which also are present at habitats which meet their needs for resting and feeding habitats.

Bird watchers will certainly appreciate the places!

Saline wetland conservation properties of North Lincoln. August 2009. Courtesy of the Lower Platte South NRD.