North Coast and Cascades Network landbird monitoring: Report for the 2018 field season
Holmgren AL , Wilkerson RL, Siegel RB, Ransom JI. 2019. North Coast and Cascades Network landbird monitoring: Report for the 2018 field season. Natural Resource Data Series. NPS/NCCN/NRDS—2019/1224. National Park Service. Fort Collins, Colorado
In 2018 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 during 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 11 years (2007–2018), except for 2017 when data collection was temporarily suspended to reallocate resources for a 5-year data synthesis. In 2018 we conducted 1,116 point counts at point count survey stations 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 143 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 2018), we present the total number of detections on annual-panel transects in each park during the 2005–2018 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. We also conducted 54 point counts at San Juan Island National Historical Park (SAJH) in 2018, including 38 at American Camp and 16 at English Camp. Our field crew detected 77 bird species while in the park, 67 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 SAJH. There was a small increase in the number of bird detections on annual-panel transects between 2016 and 2018, but since there were also more point counts conducted in 2018, there was little change in the average number of bird detections per point between the two years. Many species were detected in slightly or moderately greater numbers in the three large parks in 2018 than in previous years, most notably at NOCA. A few of these species include Swainson’s thrush, hermit thrush, black-throated gray warbler, and red-eyed vireo. Each of these species had more detections in 2018 than in any of the previous 12 years. Interpretation of these results 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.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Holmgren, Amanda; Wilkerson, Robert; Siegel, Rodney; Ransom, Jason
- Date of Issue
- 2019-05
- Publisher
- National Park Service
- Units
- MORA , NOCA , NRSS , OLYM , SAJH
- Keywords
- Abundance, alternating panel, American Camp, American robin, annual panel, annual report, Avian, Biology, Bird, black-throated gray warbler, dark-eyed junco, Density, Detectability, Distribution, English Camp, European starling, gray-crowned rosy-finch, hermit thrush, hermit warbler, house wren, landbird monitoring, marbled murrelet, Monitoring, Observation, Pacific wren, Pacific-slope flycatcher, pine siskin, Point Count, Presence, red-eyed vireo, Swainson’s thrush, Townsend’s warbler, Townsend’s/hermit warbler hybrid, Transect, Trend, varied thrush
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Biological Integrity | Focal Species or Communities | Birds