Bird Projects

Birds are a highly visible component of many ecosystems and because they respond quickly to changes in resource conditions, birds are good indicators of environmental change. Bird inventories allow us to understand the current condition, or status, of bird populations and communities in parks. These data are important for managing birds and other resources and provide baseline information for monitoring changes over time.

Climate change may have direct and/or indirect effects on many elements of Southern Plains network ecosystems, from streams and grasslands to fires and birds.

The National Park Service's Sonoran Desert Network Inventory and Monitoring Program is monitoring several vital signs that will likely show the effects of climate change. This article offers a summary of the network’s local-scale findings to date, as well as some examples of how monitoring will detect future change.

Southern Colorado Plateau Inventory and Monitoring Network bird monitoring allows scientists to track bird numbers, diversity, and habitat relationships. However, it is less able to identify reasons for changes in bird populations. The Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship program (MAPS) is complementary in that regard. It collects demographic data such as bird reproduction and survival rates. Bandelier and Mesa Verde implemented MAPS programs in 2010.

Bird communities can tell us a lot about changing environmental conditions. High on the food chain, and sensitive to climate and habitat changes, birds are monitored on the Southern Colorado Plateau as indicators of riparian and upland ecosystem health.

Climate change models predict a warmer and drier southwestern United States, and land managers want to know how plants and animals may be affected by these changes. Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey collaborated with university scientists in Arizona and New Mexico to model the effects of a changing climate on 12 southwestern bird and reptile species as a project of the National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center.

Amistad National Recreation Area and its surroundings are in a transitional zone between eastern, western, northern, and southern avifaunas, which provides the opportunity to see a wide variety of birds. Over 200 species of birds, both resident and migratory, have been documented at the recreation area.

Big Bend National Park, located within the bend of the Rio Grande in southwestern Texas, encompasses the largest protected area representative of the Chihuahuan Desert. More than 450 species of birds have been recorded at the park, including some unique Mexican species that range into the U.S. only along the border.

Prior to this inventory, little information existed on the presence, distribution, or relative abundance of high-country breeding birds in Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

Landbirds are one of many natural resources monitored by the National Park Service (NPS) Division of Inventory & Monitoring (I&M). Landbirds are considered good indicators of ecosystem health for many reasons. In NPS units of the American Southwest, three I&M networks monitor landbirds using the scientific protocol described here.