Date: 11/1/26 2:42 pm From: Kevin Krajcir <kjkrajcir...> Subject: November ASCA Presentation - Mason Dillard - Prescribed Fire and Grassland Birds
Good evening!
Join the Audubon Society of Central Arkansas on Thursday November 12th at 7
PM to hear Mason Dillard talk about how prescribed fire management impacts
breeding and wintering grassland bird communities in Arkansas. Mason is
currently a master’s student finishing his degree at Arkansas Tech
University in Russellville.
Publicly owned grasslands and savannas in Northwest Arkansas are managed
with varying intentions and burned at varying intervals, often
opportunistically. As a result, the specific mechanisms driving avian
community responses to this management remain poorly understood. Mason will
present findings from his thesis research, which seeks to identify the
vegetation characteristics that shape these bird communities and how
management actions influence those characteristics. He studied these
systems across both the breeding and non-breeding seasons, with the goal of
using his findings to inform the continued management of these habitats.
Mason Dillard began his career in ornithology at Texas A&M University,
where he studied neurobiology and attention capture in captive Indian
peafowl. After graduating in 2021, he held a series of field jobs across
the continent— from Colorado to Illinois, and even a short stint in the
Arctic in Nunavut, Canada. Along the way, he's worked with a wide range of
species, including wild turkey, prothonotary warblers, Northern saw-whet
owls, several species of waterfowl, and grassland birds. He is currently
pursuing an MS at Arkansas Tech University, where he is set to graduate in
December 2026.
