Redwood National and State Parks 2012 Breeding Bird Survey

Schmidt, Kristin; Brown, Heather

using the park-side of the K & K Road. Route reconnoitering will be done this spring before the next BBS route survey planned for June, 2013. The 2012 Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) route in Redwood National and State Parks (RNSP) was conducted on 14 June. A new observer, Heather Brown, started this year with Kristin Schmidt, the previous observer, acting as data recorder and quality control. The route was not run in 2011 due to a slide on Coastal Drive that made access impractical to a large portion of the survey route, and leaving the route impossible to complete within the time constraints of the BBS survey protocol. Since there is no plan to open this road to car traffic in the future, a new route was created using as many of the old survey points as possible. Twenty five of the survey points from the old route were incorporated into the new route and twenty five new points were added to meet the BBS 50 point protocol. The new route switches directions heading from north to south along the Newton B. Drury Parkway, and continuing south along Highway 101, then turning east up Bald Hills Road. Two stops on Bald Hills Road were not surveyed due to road construction using a pilot car that prohibited stopping. Unfortunately, after this new route was run for the first time this year, it was learned that the route slightly overlaps another active, existing BBS route. A revision of the route will need to be created in 2013 using the majority of the old and new points, but leaving Bald Hills Road, perhaps The survey followed established BBS protocol. Data were entered into the on-line data entry system, checked, and corrected. Hard copies of all field and transcribed data were sent to the U.S. Geological Service Wildlife Research Center at Laurel, Maryland for use in analyses of bird population trends throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. This year X/Y coordinates (Zone 10, NAD 83) were recorded for all 50 stops with a Global Positioning System unit and sent to the U.S.G.S. office. Numbers of species detected and numbers of individuals within species detected have been compared each year to the data captured in previous years since 1995. Due to the change in the route, it will no longer be possible to compare this data set from year to year. As long as RNSP is able to maintain a consistent route starting in 2013, there should be comparable data within a couple of years. While it is unfortunate to lose such a long term data set, this change of route will give RNSP the opportunity to look at different habitat types and the bird species using those habitats over the long run