Bird-Monitoring Plan for the Upper Cumberland Region

One of the purposes of bird counts and the data they generate is to obtain a handle on the population status of as many species of birds as possible within a given area.  In the case of the Upper Cumberland Region (UCR), a sufficient number of bird counts and bird-data gathering activities exists for the data from those activities to point at the population status of some of the bird species residing therein.  Below is a preliminary (and perhaps overly conservative) assessment of the current bird monitoring efforts ongoing in the Region.

    Bird-monitoring in the Region is intended mainly as a local back-up to continental programs like the Christmas Bird Count and the Breeding Bird Survey.  These large-scale programs will probably identify changes in bird populations before they can be identified in the Region, and they will act as an important verifier of any changes in trends noticed within the Regional data that do happen to be detected prior to detection at the continental level.

    The table below lists all species occurring within the UCR.  Bold-faced species are those for which sufficient data exist to consider monitoring of their populations to be in effect in the Region, while light-faced species are those for which insufficient data exist to consider monitoring of their populations to be in effect.

    For each (bold-faced) species for which monitoring is considered to be in effect, the degree of monitoring capability currently available is estimated from High to Low; sometimes uncertainty in this matter has led to an assessment that lies between two of the three possible values (i. e., for Bufflehead the degree of monitoring capability is listed as L/M, that is somewhere between Low and Medium is the best estimate that can be offered). Note: an important factor—how dectectible a species is—that plays a role in determining the degree of monitoring capability that is available for each species is currently subsumed within the overall set of criteria that determine monitoring capability, but eventually a separate column will be added to the table below to indicate, or at least suggest, how detectible each species is.

    For each species, the seasons of the year when monitoring efforts are in effect are listed. Usually these efforts coincide with the period when the species is present within the Region.

    For each species, the monitoring programs being employed to monitor its population are listed. These monitoring programs follow:

• SBC—Spring Bird Count
• BBS—Federal Breeding Bird Survey (8 in the Region)
• Foray—County-wide breeding bird efforts to determine distribution and abundance
• FBC—Fall Bird Count
• CBC—Christmas Bird Count
• Other—Various survey efforts of a limited scope

    For each species, its current Regional status in terms of population trend is estimated, and it is placed in one or a combination of the following categories:

• IT—Increasing trend in population
• ST—Stable trend in population
• DT—Decreasing trend in population
• UT—Uncertain trend in population
• ?—Insufficient data or data analysis exist to be certain that this trend estimate is accurate, but some data/indicators point to this status
• /—A divider that separates two possible status components for a species with the first component considered likeliest

Table 1. Assessment of the current monitoring status for birds occurring within the Upper Cumberland Region.

Quick links to other sections of this website:

• HomePage for SJS

• The BirdPage

• The ButterflyPage