Landbird Monitoring Protocol for National Parks in the North Coast and Cascades Network: Techniques and Methods 2–A6

Siegel, Rodney; Wilkerson, Robert; Jenkins, Kurt; Kuntz, Robert; Boetsch, John; Schaberl, James; Happe, Patricia

The NCCN, one of 32 networks of parks in the National Park System, comprises seven national park units in the Pacific Northwest, including three large, mountain parks (Mount Rainier [MORA] and Olympic [OLYM] National Parks, North Cascades National Park Service Complex [NOCA]), and four small historic cultural parks (Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve [EBLA], Lewis and Clark National Historical Park [LEWI], Fort Vancouver National Historic Site [FOVA], and San Juan Island National Historical Park [SAJH]). Reported declines of many Neotropical migratory bird species and other bird species breeding in North America have stimulated interest in avian population trends and mechanisms driving those trends. Threats to bird populations breeding in Pacific Northwest coniferous forests include outright habitat loss as well as forest management practices that discourage the development of old-growth conditions. Additional threats facing migratory landbirds that breed in Pacific Northwest include land use changes on both the wintering grounds and along migration routes, potentially influencing overwinter survival of migratory species. Landbird populations provide an excellent resource to monitor for several reasons. First, landbird monitoring is particularly efficient—many species can be monitored simultaneously with the same survey protocol, and costs are relatively low. Well-developed, standardized data-collection methods and analytical procedures for estimating landbird population density already exist, and will facilitate comparisons between NCCN results and data from other regional and national efforts. Substantial knowledge about habitat relationships and bird community structure in the Pacific Northwest, as well as more specific information about the current status of landbirds in the NCCN, already exists and has been used in developing our project design. The primary and secondary objectives of this monitoring project are: 1. To detect trends in the density of as many landbird species (including passerines, near-passerines, and galliformes) as possible throughout accessible areas of five NCCN parks during the breeding season. 2. To track changes in the breeding season distribution of landbird species throughout accessible areas of the large wilderness parks. This protocol surveys landbirds with 5-minute point counts incorporating distance sampling. Incorporating distance sampling into point counts facilitates the estimation of detection probability—a parameter that may vary greatly by species, habitat, observer, or other factors. Estimates of detection probability permit the estimation of absolute density or abundance of birds across the landscape; much more meaningful metrics than the relative abundance indices that can be produced without methods that quantify detectability. Distance sampling is rapidly becoming a standard method of the NPS Inventory and Monitoring Program for estimating detection biases associated with avian monitoring. The protocol narrative describes the monitoring program in relatively broad terms, and its structure and content adhere to the outline and recommendations developed by Oakley and others (2003) and adopted by NPS. Finer details of the methodology are addressed in a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) that accompany the protocol narrative. We also provide appendixes containing additional supporting materials that do not clearly belong in either the protocol narrative or the standard operating procedures.

Landbird Monitoring Protocol for National Parks in the North Coast and Cascades Network: Techniques and Methods 2–A6

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