Flooding Fields in the Mississippi Delta Helps Crop Yields—and Shorebirds

From the Summer 2021 issue of Living Bird magazine, by Vanessa Gregory

One bright October morning, James Failing sat on his truck’s tailgate and watched hundreds of shorebirds—Stilt Sandpipers, Long-billed Dowitchers, Roseate Spoonbills—flitting amid the broken cornstalks that rose above flooded fields. Like his grandfather and father before him, Mr. Failing has dedicated his life to farming in the fertile Mississippi Delta.

James Failing farm in Mississippi. Photo by Jason Taylor, via Living Bird Magazine

But fall 2020 marked only his third year of creating temporary habitat for bird migration.

“If you put a little water out, it’s amazing,” Failing said. “You have all sorts of birds, and I don’t know where they come from or how they know, but they really come bombing in incredibly quickly.”

Read the rest of the article about Delta Wind Birds research and habitat conservation in collaboration with farmers in the Mississippi Delta.