North Coast and Cascades Network landbird monitoring: Report for the 2014 field season

Holmgren, Amanda; Wilkerson, Robert; Siegel, Rodney; Happe, Patricia

In 2014 the North Coast and Cascades Network (NCCN) continued to implement the Network’s landbird monitoring protocol, in partnership with The Institute for Bird Populations. The protocol was partially implemented (with data collected from the annual panel only) as part of protocol development (2005–2006), and has subsequently been implemented fully (including data collection on the annual panel as well as all of the five alternating panels) for the past eight years (2007–2014). In 2014 we conducted 1,114 point counts at point count survey stations located along 68 transects in the large wilderness parks of the NCCN, including Mount Rainier National Park (MORA), North Cascades National Park Complex (NOCA), and Olympic National Park (OLYM). We detected 138 bird species in the three large parks, 92 of which were detected during one or more point counts. For 57 species (all species detected at least 40 times on annual-panel transects between 2005 and 2014), we present the total number of detections on annual-panel transects in each park during the 2005–2014 field seasons. We caution, however, that these detection totals have not been adjusted for differences in survey effort or potential differences in detectability of birds between years; such adjustments will be made in conjunction with our periodic trend analyses (e.g., Saracco et al. 2014). At Lewis and Clark National Historical Park (LEWI), we conducted 74 point counts, including 37 at Cape Disappointment, 29 at Fort Clatsop, five at Sunset Beach, and three at the recently acquired Yeon unit. Our field crew detected 85 bird species while in the park, 70 of which were detected during point counts. We present the number of detections, and the number of points with detections, for each species detected during point counts at LEWI. The 2014 season yielded the highest number of bird detections on annual-panel transects since the start of the monitoring project, about 200 more than the previous high count in 2012. However, in 2012 the high number of detections was largely due to a spike in red crossbill and pine siskin detections, both species being at an all-time high since the start of the monitoring project. In contrast, red crossbill detections remained very low in 2014 after the substantial decrease in 2013 (105 detections on annual-panel transects in 2014 compared to 503 detections in 2012). Pine siskin detections were also much lower in 2014 than in 2012, but increased relative to 2013 levels (Holmgren et al. 2014). In general, finch detections were down in 2014 compared to other families, many of which increased during this time period. Many species were detected in slightly or moderately greater numbers in 2014 than in previous years. While many of these upticks in numbers of birds counted may reflect real population increases in 2014, it should also be noted that we conducted more point counts across the large parks than in any previous year, which would affect the number of birds we detected. The Landbird Monitoring Project’s periodic trend analyses will explicitly account for annual variation in survey effort.

North Coast and Cascades Network landbird monitoring: Report for the 2014 field season

Series

Collections