4:49 a.m. It’s time to start counting birds. This is my seventh year doing this Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) route, one of over 4000 routes across the United States and Canada that volunteers like me survey one morning each summer. For many North American breeding birds, the BBS is our best stab at tracking how their populations are changing from year to year.

Montana birder Harriet Marble started this BBS route in 1979 and surveyed it annually for the next 37 years. Each June I think of her as I follow in her footsteps.

Everything is ready now. My notebook is out, the frequent stops sign taped to the back window of my car. As the horned larks tinkle and the prairie tries to seep in at the edges of the wheat, I set my 3-minute timer. Go!

This month’s story is about my BBS route among the wheatfields of Chouteau County, Montana: a story of industrial agriculture, prairie bird declines, and all of the life that continues to persist in the face of it all. Many thanks to Harriet Marble for sharing her experiences of many decades on this route.

This podcast features the voices of a variety of prairie birds that I recorded: horned lark (Eremophila alpestris), thick-billed longspur (Rhynchophanes mccownii), red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus), gray partridge (Perdix perdix), chestnut-collared longspur (Calcarius ornatus), lark bunting (Calamospiza melodia), Franklin’s gull (Leucophaeus pipixcan) and black-necked stilt (Himantopus mexicanus).

As always, I depend on the support of my listeners to continue doing this work. Please share these podcasts, leave a rating, and, if you’re able, support me through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wildwithnature. Thank you!!!

You can find the written, illustrated version of this story here: https://wildwithnature.com/2025/07/01/wheat-industrial-agriculture-declining-birds/