The Bird Atlas: What It Is, What It Will Accomplish
The Connecticut Bird Atlas, in 636 words
Adapted from “Using Science to Conserve Birds,” by Chris S. Elphick, Ph.D. Published originally in Connecticut State of the Birds 2017, “The New Bird Atlas: A Call to Action for Connecticut’s Conservationists”
How many Cerulean Warblers are there in Connecticut? Is it possible that Black Rail still nest in the state? Where are the most important areas for Wood Thrush? Have Belted Kingfishers declined? These, and dozens of questions like them, have been debated in Connecticut ornithological circles in recent years, and – although there is lots of informed speculation – the answer is often that we simply do not know.
The Connecticut Bird Atlas, which begins in earnest in spring 2018, will address many of these questions, providing a firmer scientific basis for conservation decisions throughout the state.
Connecticut conducted its first atlas in 1982-86, with the results published in 1994 as the Atlas of Breeding Birds of Connecticut. The state was subdivided into a grid of 596 blocks, each of which was visited by volunteer birders to generate a list of species present during the breeding season and to determine how strong the evidence was that breeding occurred within the block.
As the vision of what a bird atlas can be has expanded, however, the variety of data collected and methods used has also grown. For the new Connecticut atlas, we plan to draw on the full range of methods available to provide as comprehensive a view of the state’s birds as we can achieve. We also plan to draw rely on the tremendous developments that have occurred in the field of statistical ecology in recent years to use the available data to better understand where birds occur, what determines their distribution patterns, and how their distributions will change under alternative future scenarios.
The new study will go much further than simply describing the breeding distributions of the state’s birds. It will undertake survey efforts during both the breeding and non-breeding seasons, and data collection focused on describing both distributions and abundance patterns.
The basic field work, however, will be similar to that of the first atlas, and will rely almost entirely on the hundreds of recreational birders that live in the state.
Interested birders will select blocks that they would like to survey and will be asked to make several visits, on each of which they will record all the birds that they can find.
During the breeding season, they will also record any evidence of breeding.
In winter, we will ask people to estimate bird numbers using methods similar to those used during Christmas Bird Counts.
Over the course of the study, birders will be asked to visit as many of the block’s habitats as possible in order to produce a complete list of species that occur within the block’s boundary.
Birders will be provided with a handbook describing the data collection methods in detail, and will have the option of submitting their data on a simple paper form or as an eBird checklist.
In addition to the basic data collection, birders will have several other options for ways to contribute.
Those who do not have the time to take on surveys for an entire block can opt to submit data just for their own property or for a local park or land trust property that they visit regularly.
Less experienced birders, who do not feel comfortable surveying for all bird species, can also submit incidental records just for those species that they do know – for example, if they find nesting waterfowl on a local pond, or hear calling owls while out for an evening walk.
More experienced birders, who are willing to commit to learning additional count methods and to investing substantial time in surveys at assigned points, can also opt to perform standardized point count surveys like those used for the USGS’s Breeding Bird Survey. These point count data will be combined with that data collected by project technicians and used both to estimate abundance and to quantify habitat use patterns.
Chris S. Elphick, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Center for Conservation & Biodiversity, and Institute of Biological Risk, University of Connecticut
