Nancy Edmonds Hanson
hansonnanc@gmail.com

Flood mitigation has a bright side for the birds. As hundreds of homes have disappeared from the Red River’s course between Moorhead and Fargo, the decade-long effort not only keeps human habitats dry. It also opens up a priceless opportunity to replace the trappings of civilization along its flood-prone banks with what Nature always intended.
It’s called the Urban Woods and Prairies Initiative. Since 2014, Audubon Dakota has taken 23 tracts of riverside land – nearly 1,000 acres – under its wing. Working with the cities of Fargo and Moorhead, the Buffalo-Red River Watershed District and other public entities, the conservation powerhouse has begun the slow process of replacing concrete, former lawns and the rest of the human-installed landscape with native grasses, flowers and forbs. As they sink roots and blossom, the riverside world grows better able to nurture birds, butterflies, bees and the rest of the traditional inhabitants displaced by human settlement.
And while birds and other species are big winners, the river itself comes out on top.
Marshall Johnson leads the Fargo-based chapter of the Audubon Society. Given its work across the Dakotas, he says, its restoration efforts mostly focus on the prairie. Here, though, along the Red River Corridor, they spend an equal amount of time in the woods.
“Birds are the prism through which we view our work,” he explains. “They frame our focus on conservation. They make the connection with cities and farmers and bring the habitat onto the landscape. In real time, we talk about budgets, fencing, grazing and bird-friendly practices more than the birds themselves.”
The University of Minnesota-Crookston alumnus, who’s been with Audubon for 15 years, goes on: “Our number one goal right now in wooded areas is removal of invasive species like buckthorn. It shades and chokes out native flowering species that our pollinators need to have some fun.” Its presence is no accident; homeowners and farmers have intentionally planted hedges of the European species since the 1800s. Though it was outlawed by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources years ago, it continues to flourish on private and public lands. In recent years, a thousand Audubon volunteers have worked on the riverbanks, along with private contractors, to root out the insidious shrub.
That nasty buckthorn has plenty of company. Urbanization has turned continuous miles of ecologically diverse land into fragmented tracts, transforming it with chemical-drenched lawns and exotic ornamental plants. That artificial version of “nature” has delivered a knock-out punch to much of the eons-old landscape that settlers found here. Imported species are often equipped to out-compete the humble grasses and flowers of the ecosystem. Pesticides, herbicides and domestic pets all threaten birds’ environments.
Their ecological effects extend to humans, too. Marshall explains how grassy natives help control the troublesome river: “If you see a native plant that’s 3 feet tall, its roots go three times deeper – 9 feet,” he explains. “That’s what gives the region’s soil its quality and its microbial activity. Once the east tall-grass prairie managed all this land. Today just 1% of it is left.”
That’s important, he says, for how it affects not only the land but the water. Prairie plants – both grasses and forbs, best described as “not grasses” – retain and store far more water. Their deep roots filter and retain precipitation in the soil, releasing it only slowly into streams and rivers. In an hour, his colleague Mike Bush explains, the natural plant community can absorb 10 inches of rain, compared to a single inch that falls on a citified lawn. The organization’s goal is to encourage enough regrown vegetation on the sites it manages to store and discharge one billion gallons each year.
Audubon Dakota has memos of agreement to manage nine Moorhead and 12 Fargo tracts, ranging from 6 to 113 acres. All are in various stages of five- to ten-year plans to develop what Marshall calls nature parks. Unlike more familiar city parks, with their picnic tables and ball fields, the nature areas will provide only for a minimal level of public access. Some, like the three original sites – Orchard Glen, Forest River and Heritage Hills on the west bank – have more fully developed trails. Others, like Oakport on the north edge of Moorhead, have only limited parking and mowed trails. Most will ultimately tie into Moorhead’s river corridor trail system and its Fargo counterpart.
“We want the sites to be better known and more welcoming,” he says. “We want to provide access – a moderate level of access – but still maintain the natural environment.” That’s what draws visitors, he explains. “Two minutes after you walk into Heritage Hills, you’re no longer in the largest city on the northern Great Plains. You have a sense of being isolated in the midst of nature.”
The reseeding process is a three- to five-year project, Mike says. The same tall, tenacious Big Bluestem, Indiangrass and Maximilian sunflowers that towered over early explorers’ heads require a gentle touch in their earliest years. The first Audubon-managed tracts were initially seeded five years ago. Some, like most in Moorhead, were begun in 2018. Yet the repatriated plants already are showing progress. Marshall points to black-eyed susans, blazing star, switchgrass and countless others germinating along the recently flooded riverbanks.
With their blossoms come the pollinators – bees and butterflies increasingly threatened in the man-made environment, but nourished by the reseeded blossoms. Birds are attracted, too, to the more natural ecology of the Urban Woods and Prairies plots. As climate change makes past habitat less suitable for familiar species, some are forced to find new fields and forests.
One of the best-known newcomers is the cardinal. “If I had a dollar for every time someone mentions them to me,” Marshall smiles, “I’d be a billionaire.” Native to areas south and east of the Red River Valley, they’ve been forced out as their homeland becomes less suitable. That’s to our benefit, as the once ultra-rare red birds have reestablished themselves here over the past few years.
Other species have sadder tales to tell. The western meadowlark, with its trilling call, is being squeezed ever farther west by disappearing habit and the changing climate. “Where the grass is gone, there’s no suitable habitat for breeding,” Mike says.
The two environmental advocates see a good deal of hope here in Moorhead and Fargo. “It’s promising. We’re seeing everyone from city planners to real estate developers wanting to work with nature instead of against it,” the director says. “Lots of people are looking for ways to grow and support the natural habitat. It’s exciting to be a part of it.”
For more information on Audubon Dakota, its programs and its active chapter in Fargo-Moorhead, go to www.dakota.audubon.org.