Tell your state leaders that solar arrays create bird habitat!

A new study from Argonne National Laboratory examines twelve “ecovoltaic” community solar arrays (planted with wild grasses and forbs beneath the panels) across the Midwestern U.S., comparing wild bird activity in the solar arrays with nearby farming fields. They found that the ecovoltaic sites supported more species and higher occupancy of many grassland birds such as ring-necked pheasants, eastern bluebirds, and vesper sparrows.

The researchers also counted 236 bird nests sheltering amid the solar panels. Species making nests in the new solar array habitat included generalists like robins and mourning doves as well as grassland species like dickcissels and red-winged blackbirds.

This is part of a broader wave of ecovoltaics research from Argonne National Laboratory. Their bird-focused study is a parallel to a similar study from the same team which found that bats are benefiting from Midwestern solar farms as well. Argonne has also built an AI-enabled camera that recognizes and catalogs birds flying near solar panels — and it’s recorded zero collisions in over 17,000 hours of video.

“In general, birds may be attracted to ecovoltaic systems for refuge and as habitat for foraging and nesting…

Over 99% of the native prairie and grassland ecosystems of the Midwestern U.S. have been lost to human development and agricultural expansion since European settlement...

There is an opportunity to alleviate some of the ecological pressures resulting from this massively altered landscape by integrating habitat restoration and other ecological principles with appropriately sited renewable energy development.”

— “Ecovoltaic solar energy development can promote grassland bird communities,” 2025

This is perhaps the biggest win/win available in contemporary land use management! As GLP-1 adoption, demography shifts, and improved productivity techniques are on track to reduce the amount of land needed for row crop farming, we can restore biodiversity and provide a surge of much-needed clean and cheap electricity by building more solar farms and sowing some local wild plant seeds on the ground beneath. In addition to farming-plus-solar “agrivoltaics,” wildlife-plus-solar “ecovoltaics” is looking like a super-scalable success story for the entire world.

By supporting the build-out of solar farms, U.S. state leaders can help provide abundant clean electricity and provide a new support to natural landscapes. Yet another great reason to prioritize and accelerate solar power progress with maximally supportive pro-buildout legal, regulatory, and permitting structures!

Tell your state leaders that solar arrays create bird habitat!