North Coast and Cascades Network landbird monitoring: Report for the 2016 field season

Holmgren, Amanda; Wilkerson, Robert; Siegel, Rodney; Ransom, Jason

In 2016 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 ten years (2007–2016). In 2016 we conducted 1,096 point counts at point count survey stations along 66 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 158 bird species and one hybrid in the three large parks, 99 of which were detected during one or more point counts. For 58 species (all species detected at least 50 times on annual-panel transects between 2005 and 2016), we present the total number of detections on annual-panel transects in each park during the 2005–2016 field seasons. We caution, however, that these detection totals have not been adjusted for differences in survey effort, observer effects, 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, Ray et al. 2017). We also conducted 73 point counts at Lewis and Clark National Historical Park (LEWI) in 2016, including 36 at Cape Disappointment, 29 at Fort Clatsop, five at Sunset Beach, and three at Yeon. Our field crew detected 86 bird species while in the park, 71 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. After 2015 yielded the highest number of bird detections since the start of the monitoring project, there was a decrease in detections of many species in 2016. However, detections of many species dropped only to levels similar to those seen in 2014. Red crossbill and evening grosbeak detections declined significantly in 2016, which accounted for much of the decrease in detections across the annual-panel transects. We also saw sharp decreases in detections of mountain chickadees. However, there were several species we detected in slightly or moderately greater numbers in the three large parks in 2016 than in previous years. A few of these include cedar waxwing, Swainson’s thrush, brown creeper, and black swift. Each of these species had more detections in 2016 than in any of the previous 11 years. While the numbers of detections of several individual species increased, the overall number of birds (all species pooled) was down from 2015. Interpretation of this result will need to wait until our next multi-year trend analysis, which will account for annual variation in survey effort, observer effects, and detection probability.

North Coast and Cascades Network landbird monitoring: Report for the 2016 field season

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