Riparian landbird monitoring in Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes National Seashore: Progress report for 2019–2020

Dettling, Mark; Humple, Diana

doi:10.36967/nrds-2293064

This document contains an abbreviated progress report for landbird monitoring conducted from 16 August 2019 through 15 August 2020 in predominantly riparian habitat found in Point Reyes National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area as part of the National Park Service’s (NPS) Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) Program, and following protocols established for this purpose in these two parks (originally Gardali et al. 2010; most recent revision Gardali et al. 2019). The Analysis and Synthesis reports – or in some cases, publications in their stead – that are produced every six years (e.g., Humple and Porzig 2014, Dettling et al. 2021) include in-depth analyses and discussion that are not the purview of this progress report. This progress report deviates slightly from the structure of previous progress reports (e.g., Detting and Humple 2020) following a joint decision by Point Blue and NPS to restrict this version to truly a “report on progress”, with limited results. Monitoring was conducted by Point Blue Conservation Science (hereafter Point Blue) at 15 study sites within the parks using one or both of two methods, point counts and constant-effort mist netting. We report on point-count surveys that were conducted during the peak landbird breeding season (May-June) of 2020, and mist netting (and associated bird banding) that was conducted in fall 2019 through summer 2020. Monitoring at the entire suite of sites takes place every three years. Additionally, monitoring occurs annually at a subset of “core” sites (mist netting and point counting) as part of Point Blue Conservation Science’s Palomarin Field Station network of intensive monitoring sites and as a complement to the I&M Program (Gardali et al. 2019). Site narratives were updated to reflect changes in vegetation and other environmental factors. One change in effort is that two sites that previously were considered core Palomarin sites, are now surveyed on the every-three-year schedule with the rest of the entire suite of sites: Lagunitas Creek because we no longer mist net there; and Arroyo Hondo, where we have never mist netted, for consistency with our selection of which sites are core, given limited staff capacity. Due especially to the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic and initial shelter-in-place orders, as well as to some funding restrictions and impacts of fire, deviations to the mist-netting schedule occurred during this period. Public outreach, via live demonstrations, is an important component of Point Blue’s mist-netting programs but was curtailed significantly due to safety concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the closure of the Palomarin Field Station and elimination of class visits to our riparian mist-netting sites. However, approximately 225 members of the public viewed mist netting at these sites during this year-long period either in person, prior to the closure, through organized class visits or virtually through one of three online live demonstrations. We were also able to interact with hundreds more people as drop-in visitors prior to the closure. In total, 118 bird species were detected during surveys this year across the monitoring sites. Concurrent with the data collection and production of this report, a publication (Dettling et al. 2021) was produced based on long-term data from this riparian landbird monitoring effort.

Riparian landbird monitoring in Golden Gate National Recreation Area and Point Reyes National Seashore: Progress report for 2019–2020

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