The YBA Small Grant Program

Black Phoebe ©Aaron Haiman

Yolo Bird Alliance offers funding for work on the lives of birds in Yolo County and nearby areas.  The main aim is to help new investigators, mostly UCD students, get started on projects of interest to YBA.  The Small Grant Program has been busy supporting novel research projects and environmental education programs that foster community and institutional interest in our local birds.
   We are supporting seven projects this year.  One examines the effects of nest boxes on the use of natural cavities in birds that rely on holes in trees for nesting.  The study compares the section of Putah Creek that has nest boxes to a section that lacks them.  Such a comparison has never been made in the now twenty-seven years of the UCD nest box program.
   A second project looks at the nesting ecology of the Northern Harrier in the Sacramento Valley.  The project measures nesting success and factors in that success, especially habitat type.  With the harrier in severe decline as a breeder in the Valley, this is timely work.
   On the same theme of local raptor breeding, another project seeks to evaluate landscape features that contribute to nesting success of American Kestrels.  Its focus is on how temperature gradients impact kestrel nestling diet and adult movement patterns.
   YBA has for years supported a UCD effort to understand how the black phoebe adapts to life in the city and all its human activity.  In a twist on most research, a new project examines how the intensive monitoring of phoebe nests affects the behavior and nest success of the birds themselves.
   YBA also supports local educational efforts to get more bird content to more age groups.  The Yolo Basin Foundation operates a mobile visitor center and education lab in the Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area and around the county, with an emphasis on birds, and YBA is subsidizing part of the cost of its operation.  YBA also contributed materials to Tuleyome, a local non-profit, to conduct field trips for local school-aged children at Woodland Regional Park Preserve.
   Grant recipients are asked to present their work at members’ meetings, so watch for our 2026-27 programming season, where we will hear about some of the great local work that YBA has helped support.
   There has been so much interest in the Small Grant Program already this year that we have suspended the call for proposals.  Potential small grant applicants should keep an eye out for another call for proposals in September 2026.
 

–Michael Perrone, Conservation Chair and Lynette Williams Duman, Small Grant Committee Chair