The Marsh Monitoring Program (MMP) began in 1994 in order to monitor the condition ofmarshes in the great Lakes Basin, using marsh birds and amphibians as indicator species. Volunteers survey marsh birds or amphibians, or both. Four to eight survey stations comprise aroute, which is visited in the evening two or three times between April and July. Species areidentified by sound or sight. The Marsh Monitoring Program is a cooperative venture of Environment Canada and the Long Point Bird Observatory.
Contact for MMP:
Kathy Jones
Aquatic Surveys Officer
Bird Studies Canada/Long Point Bird Observatory
Box 160
Port Rowan, Ontario N0E 1M0
519-586-3531 Fax: 519-586-3532
aqsurvey@bsc-eoc.org
A larger effort by USFWS, USGS, and CWS has also begun (1998) to look at the feasiblity of monitoring marsh birds throughout North America. Those efforts and associated meeting notes, contacts, and reports are available at their web site.
A group of Canadian and US ornithologists have joined together to design and implementmonitoring systems for birds during migration. Counts taken during migration suffer from high variability in counts and captures. However, for boreal zone migrants, such as Gray-cheeked Thrush, Cape May Warbler, and Bay-breasted Warblers, counts during migrationare the only real opportunity to track population changes.
To fill that information gap we have initiated anew program to count birds as they migrate north and south. The program consists of a networkof migration monitoring stations (e.g., bird observatories, migration banding stations, and dailymigrant counts) and a more extensive program to collect daily field checklists from birders.
Checklist report and
recommendations.
Checklist programsalready exist in Quebec (1955), Wisconsin (1982), Alberta (1994), New
Brunswick (?), NWT(1995) and we would like to see all North American states, provinces,
and territories with onerunning by the end of the century.
Bird observatories, migration stations, and other intensive monitoring sites.
Most recent recommendations for
establishing a migration station or other intensive site migration operation.
Canada has now implemented a national Migration
Monitoring Network.
The United States has no network in place and there are no current plans to implement
one. One would hope that somebody will, at some point, fill this gap and coordinate
the existing U.S. stations.
A listing of migration
stations and bird observatories in North and Latin America.
We encourage those interested in starting a checklist program to get in touch with Ricky Dunn at Erica.Dunn@ec.gc.ca .
Word Perfect 6.1 and ASCII versions of these reports are available via ftp .
We also present (fall and spring) maps and tables for 48 common neotropical migrants, showing the general patterns of abundance for these birds on their routes north and south.
Information on the Quebec Checklist Project through the Les oiseaux du Quebec/Birds ofQuebec (WWW) , click on É.P.O.Q. Étude des populations d'oiseaux du Québec .
As part of the process of building a network of migration monitoring programs, the Council is cataloging the existing programs and sites. If you would like to register your site please use the following (non-web)form. [Form no longer available]
Info on the Long Point Bird Observatories' migration monitoring programs in Canada.
As part of an effort to develop a network of calling amphibian surveys throughout North Americanight birds will also be recorded. While the survey will be optimized to collect information onspring and early summer calling amphibians many of the caprimulgids (e.g., whip-poor-wills,chuck-will's-widow), owls, and marsh birds will be calling. These species, while recorded on theBBS and CBC are only poorly represented. In the case of some of the marsh birds and caprimulgids there aremajor concerns about the populations status.
The Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship Program (MAPS ) is a volunteer based program that uses the standardized mistnetting of birds during the Breeding Season to track the changes and patterns in the number of young produced and the survivorship of adults and young .
The Winter Bird Survey technique was developed in Maryland by Danny Bystrakdbystrak@aol.com. Danny's goal was to create standardized maps of the relative abundance of wintering birds in Maryland. Rather than using Atlas techniques, which are often difficult to interpret because of problems with observer bias and unequal distribution of effort, transects were used.
The project was systematically completed over the course of 6 winters, resulting in thepublication of both contoured winter distribution maps and atlas style dot maps. To learn moreabout these techniques you can go to the Winter Bird Survey Instructions or to a webbed versionof the final publication . The publication now has GIF formatted color maps of the winterdistribution of each of the species recorded in Maryland. We feel that this technique provides anaccurate picture of the winter distribution of birds in a region and will work well in areas withhigh volunteer labor pools.
The North American Breeding bird Survey, National Audubon Society's Christmas Bird Count,and the International Shorebird Survey are large scale census efforts designed to monitor birdpopulations over broad geographical and mostly rural areas. Smaller scale regional efforts alsoexist for national parks, national wildlife refuges, national forests, and many sate and private landholdings. There appear to be few monitoring programs that concentrate on urbanized landscapes. In summer 1993 a cooperative effort called, "D.C. Birdscape" was started to monitor breedingbirds in Washington D.C. This pilot project is coordinated by the Audubon Naturalist Society,the U.S. National Park Service and the National Biological Survey. A PC-driven GIS(Geographical Information System program was used to generate a matrix of more than 750census points spaced at 500 meter intervals across the entire city (note: this can also be doneusing regular city book maps, no need for a GIS system to do a Birdscape project). Eighty-nine volunteers participated in the first year's census conducted between May 28 and June 30. approximately 90% of all census points were visited once for a five-minute count of all birdsseen or heard. The data were assembled in a format compatible with retrieval and analysis on theGIS, and presence/absence and contour maps were drawn for each species. Of the theeighty-eight species tallied, the ten most frequently encountered were European Starlings, HouseSparrows, Chimney Swifts, American Crows, Rock Doves, House Finches, NorthernMockingbirds, American robins, Northern Cardinals, and Song Sparrows. Maps were alsoproduced of estimated species richness for Neotropical migrants, woodpeckers, urban-tolerantspecies and total population size. Bird community composition varied significantly with urbanland use class. this program of point counts carried out by trained and experienced volunteerscan produce cost-effective, landscape-level estimates of bird population changes for other urbanareas.
Jump Here to travel to a summary report of the first year's efforts.
Jump Here to see the 1994 instructions and protocol for observers.
The USFWS, NBS, and state agencies are collaborating to create a system of periodic inventories of colonial waterbirds in the U.S. An effort will be made to complete a thorough census of colonial waterbirds in each state on a 5-10 year rotating basis. Data is being stored ina standardized and consildated database, making data from all states available and in the sameformat. Data collection has begun on the East Coast and will move westward in the followingyears. Protocols for the collection of these data are available at this web site.
Those of you interested in more information can contact John Trapp (FWS)John_Trapp@fws.gov or Mike Erwin (NBS) R_Michael_Erwin@nbs.gov.
Be prepared for a big push to expand this quietly effective volunteer monitoring program. Youcan read a general overview of the ISS from Manomet Bird Observatory or you can read the 1995 report .
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service and Canadian Wildlife Service jointly run andmaintain one of the world's most extensive monitoring programs for any group of birds. They have breeding and wintering surveys for waterfowl and gamebirds that range from the arctic islands down into northern Mexico. Population estimates and annual indices are available for most species of waterfowl, doves, and woodcock. A wide variety of reports are available and can be ordered by calling Graham Smith (301) 497-5860.
Hawk counting stations and observatories dot the ridge crests and migratory funnels of NorthAmerica. Most of these sites are linked through membership in the Hawk Migration Associationof North America. A site maintained by Wallace Coffey has information on many hawk migration stations along with their results via his Hawk Watch Network (currently offline -9/10/96) . Hawk Mountain has built another web site with good general information on raptor monitoring and biology.
If you are a raptor counter you may want to download the HMANA raptor counting and storage freeware developed by B.H. Powell and many HMANA cooperators. You can do so by logginginto our anonymous ftp site: ftp.im.nbs.gov /pub/software/hmana or you can jump there directly .
The Forest Bird Monitoring Program tracks songbirds as an indicator of the health of Ontario'sforests, monitors changes in bird populations in non-random forest interior plots, and helps toidentify species in decline.
For more information contact the program coordinator:
Mike Cadman, Canadian Wildlife Service
Environment Canada
75 Farquhar St.
Guelph, ON. N1H 3N4
519-826-2094
More on Canadian Bird
Monitoring Programs
Bird Monitoring
Monitoring in General
Go forth under the open sky, and listen
to Nature's teachings.
Bryant - Thanatopsis