‘Pop-up’ wetlands help birds

Thanks to a partnership between an environmental group and California farmers, birds migrating south along the Pacific Flyway are finding wet places to land in the midst of the current drought.

Some Sacramento Valley rice farmers are being paid to temporarily flood their fields in order to provide “pop-up” wetlands as friendly stopovers for the millions of migrating birds currently traveling through the area, according to KQED.org. The experimental project is being funded by The Nature Conservancy.

“It’s like stopping on a road trip, so anywhere that they can find habitat and … things to eat to put on fat for their journey, they’ll stop,” said Nature Conservancy scientist Mark Reynolds of the migrating birds.