It's been a tough summer for some of our breeding birds.
They've been enduring a drought stretching from west central Minnesota into Montana that worsened as the solstice passed. Grassland parent birds were flying a half-mile round trip to find insects to feed their young. They likely were feeding four or five babies dozens of times a day.
Observers saw that situation in the Dakotas in early July. Nestlings were small for their age or starving.
"Because of the drought, grassland songbirds are wrapping up their breeding season about two weeks early," wrote Nancy Drilling in an e-mail I received on July 4.
Drilling is with the American Bird Conservancy, working out of Beach, N.D., and Larslan, Mont. She posted to a North Dakota e-mail bird list.
"In some of the grasslands, there are no bugs to be had," she wrote. "So the birds are congregating in unmowed hayfields and ditches, where the vegetation is thicker and there are more bugs.
"There still are nests, but many are failing during the nestling stage. Many of the nestlings are small for their ages," Drilling wrote.
"We're thinking that the parents can't find enough food for them. We've seen parents fly up to a quarter-mile to find food for the nestlings," she wrote.