Surveying Birds Flashcards
The benefit of birds for government
Act as a quality of life indicator, bird songs benefit life
How to assess avian populations
difficult without standardised approaches Territory mapping linear transects Point Counts Nest searching Marking birds Identifying individuals Distribution studies
Territory mapping
habitat base map
based off family groups
can run a monthly census
the result is a map showing territories
Line transects
Walk at a steady pace and record bird encounters
Allows lots of ground to cover, long transects can be split into more manageable ones
Point Counts
The observer stands at a single point and records all birds that can be seen and herd
Can be repeated year to year
Good when woodland is too dense to walk
Need to estimate the distance
Nest searching
Very labour intensive, good with species with weak territorial behaviour doesn't need good ID skills Works well with short breeding seasons cant mark nests for repeat visits
Marking birds
Help follow breeding attempts Can monitor movements Estimate population sizes Estimate survival size survival rates can investigate the association between birds and habitat types can mark with rings flags and tags need a license
Identifying individuals
rings stay on birds for life,
radio tags fall off birds
interex rings fall off in sunlight