Man oh man, reading this thread made this northeasterner sad. The midwest and west has always been envisioned as bird heaven to me. To read about all the different factors affecting the bird population is tough.
RCC, your lines about watching bulldozers plow through hundred year old cover was heartbreaking, for you to actually see it must be tragic.
Call me, well, you could call me lots of things but please nothing worse than an ostrich with its head in the sand, but I had no idea that ethanol was getting to be so important as to be such a force of change to farmers' minds and land holdings. Of course, as you point out "no favorable farm bill for Conservation" creates its own impact as well.
This whole country is going ass over tea kettle.
