Wednesday, March 20, 2024

My Fifty Years With the North American Breeding Bird Survey

 

Route of the Steinhatchee Breeding Bird Survey Route, Taylor County, Florida

Thirty-minutes before sunrise on June 15, 1974, the air was cool and crisp with a touch of October to remind me that Wisconsin’s winter wasn’t far off. 

With me that morning was my soon-to-be wife (now ex-wife) and fellow graduate student Keith Dueholm. Ruth and Keith accompanied me to be my assistant’s on my first-ever run of a North American Breeding Bird Survey route. The route selected, named Lorraine after the township in Polk County where it began, had been run for several years by my thesis advisor, Steve Goddard. For whatever reason Steve tired of rolling out of bed at 0 dark 30, driving 90 minutes north to the start of the route at about 4:30 a.m. and then counting birds for nearly 5 hours until the route was completed.

I had been Steve’s laboratory instructor/assistant in his undergraduate/graduate level Ornithology 460 class during my second, third, and fourth years of college. Beginning graduate school, Steve said to me one day “If you’re going to be an ornithologist, I guess you should have the class on your resume. Take it this year.”

I took Ornithology while I was the laboratory assistant for the fourth year in spring quarter 1974. Steve later admitted he should have just given me an A in the class to free up time for me to take another class in another subject. I received a perfect 100 percent on all exams and field quizzes. Ornithology and Plant Taxonomy the year before were the two easiest classes I ever took in college. They were also the two classes I learned the most while taking.

The North American Breeding Bird Survey route we were conducting in Polk County was one of about 70 scattered across Wisconsin and coordinated by Sam Robbins, author of the book “Wisconsin Birdlife” and brother of famous ornithologist Chandler Robbins. In the mid-1960s Chandler and his colleague Willet T. Van Velzen at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel, Maryland, came up with the idea for a technique to monitor changes in bird populations over large land areas

Their technique, the North American Breeding Bird Survey, was a series of 24.5-mile-long roadside counts scattered then among the lower 48 states and distributed by well-known and recognized geophysical regions. There were a few other restrictions like not crossing state lines or geographic region boundaries. The Lorraine route was close to my hometown (although the Cumberland route, which we would conduct the following weekend was closer).

I had taught myself bird songs by listening to Roger Tory Peterson 78 rpm vinyl records all winter long each long Wisconsin winter. When spring finally rolled into northern Wisconsin I was primed and ready having listening to Chestnut-sided Warblers and Mourning Warblers and all the Flycatchers almost nightly for the previous 10 months. None of those months of training prepared me for the cacophony of voices that overwhelmed me when I stepped out of my car, clipboard in hand, and prepared to conduct my first BBS route!

Was that a Great Crested Flycatcher? That might be a Willow Flycatcher or is it an Alder? Is that bird singing slow enough to be an American Robin or is it fast enough to be a Rose-breasted Grosbeak? Those and one hundred other questions overwhelmed me as reality sunk in.

Making matters even more of a challenge was that by the rules only I could identify birds despite having assistants and all the counting must be completed in a 3-minute period after which you drive 0.5 miles to the next stop and repeat the process all over again.

After 4 ½ hours of second-guessing many of my identifications and wondering how many others I had completely missed, we came to stop 50 of the Lorraine BBS route. Our total for the morning was about 75 bird species and about 1,300 individuals. Most importantly I was hooked and could not wait to run the next route.

I didn’t have to wait long because the following weekend we conducted the Cumberland BBS route that began in Cumberland Township west of Rice Lake. At stop 1 there was a singing male Eastern Phoebe. At stop 10 a male Purple Finch and at stop 38 an American Goshawk. When the morning was over I realized I would have to wait another year before I could conduct another BBS route.

During my remaining time in Wisconsin, I ran 11 different routes extending from the central part of the state along the Mississippi River north to Chaffey in Douglas County and Shanagolden in Ashland County.

A professional move to North Dakota changed my habitat outlook and my BBS responsibilities. There I became the North Dakota State Coordinator of the BBS trying, and usually failing to find enough competent observers to conduct each of the routes in the Peace Garden State. While in North Dakota I was conducting research on breeding birds along the Platte River in Nebraska which provided the opportunity to conduct routes in Nebraska, South Dakota and I once sneaked over the border and ran a route in Wyoming.

Another move sent me from North Dakota to Georgia where because of other responsibilities I was able to conduct only one route in three years. Meanwhile with my main office now at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in suburban Washington DC I made frequent trips to the mid-Atlantic region where I was able to help Danny Bystrak conduct some of his routes in Western Maryland and one in Pennsylvania.

Another move sent me to southern California where there were too many bird dialects for me to feel secure with the abundance of bird voices and variations and I didn’t run any routes there. My final professional move was to Washington DC where, because of the concentration of competent birdwatchers and ornithologists it was nearly impossible to find a route to conduct unless I wanted to drive 7 hours to the Appalachian Mountains of southwest Virginia to conduct an available route.

My first trip to Barrow, Alaska, was in June 2017, and while there I began wondering why nobody had ever established a BBS route on the northernmost tundra in the United States. Logistics is a major negative about traveling to Barrow – logistics and persistent summertime fog that might turn a daytrip into a weeklong trip. Several letters to the BBS office in Laurel Maryland resulted in establishment of the Barrow BBS route. It was first scheduled to be conducted in 2020 but COVID changed those plans. I finally ran it in 2021 and plan to run it each year while I still have a pulse.

At the same time, I decided it was time to begin running some routes in Florida where, like with Virginia, an abundance of competent observers makes it difficult to have a route nearby to run. I now run four routes in Florida – the one nearest to my home begins 230 miles north of Sarasota.

Despite a long hiatus away from running BBS routes while stationed in California and Washington DC, when I count the first bird on the Olustee Florida BBS route on May 15, 2024, it will mark almost 50 years to the day since I nervously stepped from my car in Polk County, Wisconsin, in June 1974 and was overwhelmed by the dawn chorus of singing males.

In 50 years of being associated with BBS routes I have seen some unusual wildlife that doesn’t fly. Consider my first Gray Wolf that crossed the highway in front of me at stop 48 on the Shanagolden BBS route in Ashland County, Wisconsin, in June 1975. Who could forget the Black Bear in eastern Wyoming who decided that I was blocking his route and I had to stay in my car until he decided to move on before I could count any more birds. A Prairie Rattlesnake along a Nebraska route caused consternation for an employee of a local CENEX station who was determined to kill the snake because it was a snake. He yelled at me and called me a couple of deleted expletives when he returned to kill the snake and found me lifting it up with a shovel and heaving it into the ditch before he could kill it. A Moose plodding down the road in the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota was exciting as was a pair of Caribou and an Arctic Fox on the Barrow Alaska BBS route in 2022.

As of today, I have recorded 297 bird species on the BBS routes I have conducted. Being anally retentive it bothers me to no end that the list is not 300 species. With luck, a Bachman’s Sparrow, Swainson’s Warbler and Prothonotary Warbler will appear on a north Florida route in 2024 and put me at or over the 300 mark.

How much longer I continue to conduct BBS routes is a subject best understood by my hearing. A recent audiologist test revealed that I have lost 40 percent of the aural acuity in my left ear. A paper that Danny Bystrak and I wrote about observer bias in the BBS revealed that about 95 percent of birds recorded along a route are encountered by sound so if I have lost that much aural acuity how much longer will I be useful? A test of my hearing conducted by the Speech Pathology Department at the University of California in Davis in October 1980 showed that I had the sharpest hearing ability of anyone they had ever tested. However recently I looked at a Pine Warbler near by home who was singing. I could see his mouth open and even see little whisps of frost coming from his mouth, but I could not hear a single note of the song he was singing.

I will be back in the range of Henslow’s Sparrow and Grasshopper Sparrow in southern Minnesota in late May. Those two birds will be my test species. If I can see them singing and hear them singing I will know I haven’t lost the ability to hear birds with a high range of song. If I can only see their mouth moving with no song coming out it might be time to hang up my cleats and let younger ears do the counting I have enjoyed so much for so long.

 

List of Birds Recorded on BBS Routes from 1974 to 2023

 

#

Species

1

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck

2

Snow Goose

3

Greater White-fronted Goose

4

Brant

5

Canada Goose

6

Tundra Swan

7

Wood Duck

8

Blue-winged Teal

9

Northern Shoveler

10

Gadwall

11

American Wigeon

12

Mallard

13

American Black Duck

14

Mottled Duck

15

Northern Pintail

16

Green-winged Teal

17

Canvasback

18

Redhead

19

Ring-necked Duck

20

Greater Scaup

21

Lesser Scaup

22

Stelle's Eider

23

Spectacled Eider

24

King Eider

25

Black Scoter

26

Long-tailed Duck

27

Bufflehead

28

Common Goldeneye

29

Hooded Merganser

30

Ruddy Duck

31

Northern Bobwhite

32

Ruffed Grouse

33

Sharp-tailed Grouse

34

Greater Prairie-Chicken

35

Willow Ptarmigan

36

Gray Partridge

37

Ring-necked Pheasant

38

Pied-billed Grebe

39

Horned Grebe

40

Red-necked Grebe

41

Eared Grebe

42

Rock Pigeon

43

Eurasian Collared-Dove

44

Common Ground-Dove

45

White-winged Dove

46

Mourning Dove

47

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

48

Black-billed Cuckoo

49

Common Nighthawk

50

Chuck-wills-widow

51

Eastern Whip-poor-will

52

Chimney Swift

53

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

54

Clapper Rail

55

Virginia Rail

56

Sora

57

American Coot

58

Yellow Rail

59

Sandhill Crane

60

Black-necked Stilt

61

American Avocet

62

American Golden-Plover

63

Pacific Golden-Plover

64

Killdeer

65

Upland Sandpiper

66

Bar-tailed Godwit

67

Marbled Godwit

68

Long-billed Dowitcher

69

American Woodcock

70

Wilson's Snipe

71

Wilson's Phalarope

72

Red Phalarope

73

Red-necked Phalarope

74

Spotted Sandpiper

75

Willet

76

Ruddy Turnstone

77

Red Knot

78

Stilt Sandpiper

79

Red-necked Stint

80

Buff-breasted Sandpiper

81

Dunlin

82

Baird's Sandpiper

83

White-rumped Sandpiper

84

Least Sandpiper

85

Pectoral Sandpiper

86

Western Sandpiper

87

Semipalmated Sandpiper

88

Long-tailed Jaeger

89

Parasitic Jaeger

90

Pomarine Jaeger

91

Ivory Gull

92

Sabine's Gull

93

Laughing Gull

94

Franklin's Gull

95

Ring-billed Gull

96

Herring Gull

97

Glaucous Gull

98

California Gull

99

Slaty-backed Gull

100

Least Tern

101

Black Tern

102

Forster's Tern

103

Arctic Tern

104

Red-throated Loon

105

Pacific Loon

106

Common Loon

107

Yellow-billed Loon

108

Wood Stork

109

Anhinga

110

Double-crested Cormorant

111

American White Pelican

112

Brown Pelican

113

American Bittern

114

Black-crowned Night-Heron

115

Little Blue Heron

116

Tricolored Heron

117

Snowy Egret

118

Green Heron

119

Western Cattle Egret

120

Great Egret

121

Great Blue Heron

122

White Ibis

123

Glossy Ibis

124

Black Vulture

125

Turkey Vulutre

126

Osprey

127

Swallow-tailed Kite

128

Mississippi Kite

129

Northern Harrier

130

Sharp-shinned Hawk

131

Cooper's Hawk

132

American Goshawk

133

Red-shouldwered Hawk

134

Broad-winged Hawk

135

Swainson's Hawk

136

Red-tailed Hawk

137

Ferruginous Hawk

138

Eastern Screech-Owl

139

Snowy Owl

140

Great Horned Owl

141

Burrowing Owl

142

Barred Owl

143

Short-eared Owl

144

Belted Kingfisher

145

Red-naped Sapsucker

146

Red-headed Woodpecker

147

Rd-bellied Woodpecker

148

Downy Woodpecker

149

Hairy Woodpecker

150

Pileated Woodpecker

151

Northern Flicker

152

Crested Caracra

153

American Kestrel

154

Olive-sided Flycatcher

155

Western Wood-Petee

156

Eastern Wood-Pewee

157

Acadian Flycatcher

158

Alder Flycatcher

159

Willow Flycatcher

160

Least Flycatcher

161

Dusky Flycatcher

162

Western Flycatcher

163

Eastern Phoebe

164

Say's Phoebe

165

Great Crested Flycatcher

166

Western Kingbird

167

Eastern Kingbird

168

White-eyed Vireo

169

Bell's Vireo

170

Yellow-throated Vireo

171

Blue-headed Vireo

172

Plumbeous Vireo

173

Philadelphia Vireo

174

Warbling Vireo

175

Red-eyed Vireo

176

Loggerhead Shrike

177

Canada Jay

178

Blue Jay

179

Black-billed Magpie

180

American Crow

181

Fish Crow

182

Common Raven

183

Carolina Chickadee

184

Black-capped Chickadee

185

Tufted Titmouse

186

Horned Lark

187

Bank Swallow

188

Tree Swallow

189

Purple Martin

190

Northern Rough-winged Swallow

191

Barn Swallow

192

Cliff Swallow

193

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

194

Golden-crowned Kinglet

195

White-breasted Nuthatch

196

Brown-headed Nuthatch

197

Red-breasted Nuthatch

198

Blue-gray Grantcher

199

House Wren

200

Winter Wren

201

Sedge Wren

202

Marsh Wren

203

Carolina Wren

204

European Starling

205

Gray Catbird

206

Brown Thrasher

207

Northern Mockingbird

208

Eastern Bluebird

209

Mountain Bluebird

210

Townsend's Solitaire

211

Veery

212

Swainson's Thrush

213

Hermit Thrush

214

Wood Thrush

215

American Robin

216

Dusky Thrush

217

Cedar Waxwing

218

House Sparrow

219

Sprague's Pipit

220

Evening Grosbeak

221

House Finch

222

Purple Finch

223

Common Redpoll

224

Red Crossbill

225

White-winged Crossbill

226

Pine Siskin

227

American Goldfinch

228

Lapland Longspur

229

Chestnut-collared Longspur

230

Snow Bunting

231

Grasshopper Sparrow

232

Chipping Sparrow

233

Clay-colored Sparrow

234

Field Sparrow

235

Lark Sparrow

236

Lark Bunting

237

Dark-eyed Junco

238

White-throated Sparrow

239

Vesper Sparrow

240

LeConte's Sparrow

241

Seaside Sparrow

242

Nelson's Sparrow

243

Savannah Sparrow

244

Baird's Sparrow

245

Henslow's Sparrow

246

Song Sparrow

247

Swamp Sparrow

248

Spotted Towhee

249

Eastern Towhee

250

Yellow-breasted Chat

251

Yellow-headed Blackbird

252

Bobolink

253

Western Meadowlark

254

Eastern Meadowlark

255

Orchard Oriole

256

Bullock's Oriole

257

Baltimore Oriole

258

Red-winged Blackbird

259

Brown-headed Cowbird

260

Brewer's Blackbird

261

Common Grackle

262

Ovenbird

263

Worm-eating Warbler

264

Louisiana Waterthrush

265

Northern Waterthrush

266

Golden-winged Warbler

267

Blue-winged Warbler

268

Black-and-white Warbler

269

Nashville Warbler

270

MacGillivray's Warbler

271

Mourning Warbler

272

Kentucky Warbler

273

Common Yellowthroat

274

Hooded Warbler

275

American Redstart

276

Cape May Warbler

277

Cerulean Warbler

278

Northern Parula

279

Blackburnian Warbler

280

Yellow Warbler

281

Chestnut-sided Warbler

282

Pine Warbler

283

Yellow-rumped Warbler

284

Yellow-throated Warbler

285

Prairie Warbler

286

Black-throated Green Warbler

287

Canada Warbler

288

Summer Tanager

289

Scarlet Tanager

290

Western Tanager

291

Northern Cardinal

292

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

293

Black-headed Grosbeak

294

Blue Grosbeak

295

Lazuli Bunting

296

Indigo Bunting

297

Dickcissel


2 comments:

  1. I must admit that my knowledge of birds is limited to the simplest listing of them! Robins, Cardinals, Blue Jays, etc........! Lol! To me, you are the most knowledgeable person in this area of study that I have ever known. I didn't realize there are so many different birds in the world! Keep up the good work, my friend.

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  2. Super cool! I appreciate all the help you have given with birds the last several years since we connected. Though we were at UWRF at the same time we only overlapped by a year. We had some of the same prof’s in the biology department. In whom we both had the same respect and realize they pushed us to a limit necessary to be able to excel in our careers and in life. Unfortunately that university has lost some of that same feeling. Though I do know profs personally that still carry that pride in their mission and their students. But they are worked in such a way that they cannot begin to serve as the profs of the past. I feel we have a strong connection. I have relatives in Rice Lake you may have known. So that another connection as well.

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