Common Bird Monitoring: What, why, how who, where

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Common Bird MonitoringWhat, why, how (who,
where)?
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Common bird monitoringSchemes have been around
for 40 years in some countries e.g. 1963 in UK
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Common breeding bird monitoring

• Now in 20 countries in Europe
• Well established in North America
• Possibly elsewhereIndia, New Zealand
• RSPB/BirdLife Global Common Bird Monitoring
  project starts this year

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CBM in Europe
Dark Established breeding bird surveys Mid
Redesign or new in last 10 years Light Redesign
or new in last 5 years Orange new scheme pilot
or planned




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Basic CBM principles

• Breeding birds, in spring
• Across all habitats
• Annual
• All species that are common enough to be recorded
  in plots
• Standard method used within schemes, although
  differ between schemes
• Volunteer surveyors

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Outputs

• Annual counts at each CBM site
• Combine data from each count to produce trends at
  national ( regional?) level
• Sample size is extremely important more sites
  surveyed the better trends for more species,
  and more robust trends

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Data from squares combined to produce trend
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Trends presented as indices

• Results indicate relative change in numbers, not
  the actual number of birds
• Referenced to standard start value i.e. 100, or
  1, in start year
• Can produced estimates of error in the trend to
  indicate accuracy

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Species trends
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Why monitor common birds?

• Good indicators of broad and large scale
  environmental changes e.g. climate change
• Have increasingly become a conservation concern
  e.g. due to increase agricultural
  intensification. In UK, 16 of 40 red-listed
  species are common birds

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PECBM

• Across Europe, national CBM schemes contribute to
  produce Europe common bird indices, which are
  combined to produce a Pan-European Common Bird
  Indicator.
• Very powerful tool for conservation

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Basic principles more detail

• Volunteer-based
• Ask each surveyor for a relatively small
  commitment, to get as many participants as
  possible
• Keep method and recording simple
• Good networks for recruiting, training and
  retaining volunteers

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Cont.

• Support
• Training
• Instructions
• Supporting materials
• Local networks, maintaining contact with
  volunteers

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Cont

• Sites
• Need to be as representative of countryside as a
  whole as possible
• Free choice vs. random
• Semi-random?
• Constraints posed by the difficulty of getting to
  sites, remoteness, terrain etc

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Cont

• Method
• Territory (spot) mapping
• Point counts
• Line transects

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Different approaches across Europe

• Territory mapping - Netherlands
• Point counts France, Spain, Portugal, Romania
• Line transects UK, Ireland, Poland, Bulgaria,
  Turkey

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Factors to consider

• Traditional preferences
• Habitat
• Terrain
• Species
• Time/effort
• Transport
• Observer experience

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For Greece

• Successful pilot year, but may need refinements
• Size of squares
• Site selection
• Some recording details
• More later!