The Central Hardwoods Bird Conservation Region (CHBCR) straddles the Mississippi River between Illinois and Missouri. The region to the west is also known as the Ozarks or Interior Highlands, and the region to the east, the Interior Low Plateaus, although a small area of southern Illinois actually is affiliated ecologically with the Ozarks.

The CHBCR occupies a transition zone between what were historically tallgrass prairie and oak savanna and woodlands to its north and west, pine forests and woodlands to the south, and oak and mixed mesophytic forests to the east. Components of each of those ecosystems are interspersed throughout the CHBCR, with their juxtapositions dependent to a large degree on variation in topography and soils as well as human uses of and alterations to the land. Ecologically similar areas are divided into a hierarchy of ecological units for planning purposes.

The CHBCR’s priority birds can be grouped into four suites of species based on general habitat affinities:

1) forest-woodland,
2) grass-shrublands,
3) grasslands, and
4) wetlands.

More information about the habitat types, priority birds, and conservation challenges of the CHBCR can be found in a paper presented by Fitzgerald and Nigh at the 2005 Annual Conference of Southeastern Associations of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

Click on map to see as PDF.