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Birds
Introduction
Birds are one of the most visible forms of wildlife in Alberta. There are 433 bird species[1] that occur in Alberta, ranging from waterbirds like ducks and geese to birds of prey like owls and falcons to songbirds like chickadees and sparrows.
Facts About Birds
Alberta’s avian diversity is a reflection of the province’s broad range of ecosystems and habitats.
Photo Credit: Gerald A DeBoer
More than 80% of the Bay-breasted Warbler breeding population in the western hemisphere can be found in the boreal forest. This species is a spruce budworm specialist, increasing in abundance with budworm outbreaks
- Considered the “bird nursery” of North America, the mosaic of forest and wetland habitat in northern Alberta boreal forests serves as the breeding grounds for millions of birds each year. Some birds, like the Cape May Warbler and Boreal Chickadee, are almost entirely reliant on the boreal forest during the breeding season.
- The southeast quarter of Alberta is part of the Prairie Pothole Region, otherwise known as the “duck factory” of North America. This is a globally significant breeding area for waterfowl, and several sites have been identified as Important Bird Areas in recognition of the essential habitat provided for bird populations.
- The prairies are also home to several bird species that are at the northern edge of their breeding range. Species like the Baird’s Sparrow, Sprague’s Pipit, and Chestnut-collared Longspur rely on native prairie habitat for nesting and foraging.
- The foothills and Rocky Mountains in western Alberta provide habitat for a unique community of birds because not only is this region mountainous, but it is the eastern edge of the breeding range for many North American bird species, such as the Varied Thrush, Clark’s Nutcracker, and Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch.
- There are many familiar bird species—Black-billed Magpie, Blue Jay, and American Robin to name a few—that are commonly found in human settings such as residential and urban areas, roadsides, and agricultural fields.
Detecting Birds in Alberta
Photo Credit: Jillian Zsolt
ARU deployed on a Black Spruce tree to monitor the acoustic environment.
Autonomous recording units (ARUs) are used by the ABMI to monitor bird species that sing or call to establish territories and attract mates during the spring breeding season. Between 2015 and 2022, over 1,380 hours of audio recordings have been analyzed, with 265 bird species detected at sampling locations across the province. ARUs are also used to monitor other species that make sounds, such as amphibians.
Why Monitor Birds
- Birds are one of the most studied and thus well-understood taxonomic groups, which makes it easier to create and validate models using current knowledge to predict impacts to populations due to different land use practices or stressors in the environment.
- Birds have been shown to respond both positively and negatively to human disturbances, such as forestry, agriculture, and energy development. As a result, they can be indicators of different land use management practices, such as retention forestry and altered cultivation practices and grazing regimes. Birds are also sensitive to other major human disturbances, including grazing, pesticides, other pollutants, industrial noise, altered disturbance regimes and climate change.
- Monitoring federally and provincially listed bird species—e.g., Canada Warbler, Bay-breasted Warbler, Black-throated Green Warbler—can be done directly using autonomous recording units (ARUs) to track changes in their populations.
- Monitoring migratory landbirds in their breeding habitat can help to distinguish impacts to their populations as a result of disturbances in their breeding range compared to their winter ranges further south.
Photo Credit: Wayne Lynch
Old-forest specialists, like the Brown Creeper, respond to changes in the amount and configuration of old forest in the landscape, and are considered indicators of this habitat type.
Research Spotlight
Towards Improved Methods for Estimating Bird Population Sizes
Purpose: Compare two approaches for estimating population size for birds, and the implications for how we understand population changes over time.
Species associated with open habitat and forest edges, like the Song Sparrow, are detected well along roads.
Species associated with forest interior habitat, like the Western Tanager, are under-sampled along roads.
Background
Population estimates are important to support the conservation and management of bird species. There are several ways to estimate the size of bird populations; one popular method uses Breeding Bird Survey data, which are collected along roads. However, there are issues using roadside data to estimate bird population sizes in areas such as the boreal region, which is largely roadless. Therefore, in this project, two methods for estimating bird population sizes were compared:
- Partners in Flight (PIF v 3.0): This method makes adjustments for survey area to the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) dataset—data which are primarily collected along roads—to estimate bird population sizes.
- Pixel-based model: Using roadside and off-road data, bird populations were estimated based on mapped predictions of bird abundance, incorporating changes in land cover and climate across the landscape.
Key Findings
- Bird population estimates were different when calculated using data collected along roads (PIF method) compared to data collected both along roads and off roads (PIX method).
- Some bird species, like the American Crow and Song Sparrow, are detected well using roadside surveys. These species are associated with open habitats and forest edges—habitat features associated with roads.
- Species associated with forest interior habitats, like the Cape May Warbler and Western Tanager, are not adequately sampled along roads, nor are species associated with habitats (e.g., wetlands) not found as often near roads.
- The differences between the two methods were large enough to change the ranking of bird species by abundance.
- Methods for improving population estimates were suggested.
For complete results see: Sólymos, P. et al. 2020[2]. This publication is a result of years of collaboration between the ABMI, the Boreal Avian Modelling (BAM) project, the Canadian Wildlife Service (Environment and Climate Change Canada), and the United States Geological Survey.
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Lead avian ecologist
Meet the ABMI's Resident Bird Expert
Dr. Elly Knight
Elly is an applied ecologist interested in understanding spatial and temporal variation in avian ecology to inform when and where wildlife conservation efforts will be most effective. Elly has studied various bird species across North America and has particular interest in a group of nocturnal birds called the nightjars.
To find out more about the ABMI's bird monitoring program, please email: ecknight@ualberta.ca
Additional Resources and Publications
How do we monitor birds?
Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute. 2019. Terrestrial ABMI autonomous recording unit (ARU) and remote camera trap protocols 2019-12-21. Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, Alberta, Canada. Report available at: https://abmi.ca/home/publications/551-600/565
Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute. 2014. Terrestrial field data collection protocols (abridged version) 2014-03-21. Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute, Alberta, Canada. Report available at: https://www.abmi.ca/home/publications/1-50/46.html
How do we identify birds?
Bayne, E., M. Knaggs, and P. Sólymos. 2017. How to most effectively use autonomous recording units when data are processed by human listeners. Bioacoustic Unit, Alberta, Canada. Report available at: https://abmi.ca/home/publications/451-500/489
Wildtrax Acoustic Platform Tutorial (2020). Tutorial available here.
Selected publications:
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Photo Credit: Glenn Bartley
The Chestnut-collared Longspur is associated with native prairie habitat in southern Alberta.
Crosby, A.D., L. Leston, E.M. Bayne, P. Sólymos, C.L. Mahon, J.D. Toms, T.D.S. Docherty, and S.J. Song. 2023. Domains of scale in cumulative effects of energy sector development on boreal birds. Landscape Ecology 38:3173–3188. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01779-8
Knight, E.C, P. Sólymos, C. Scott, and E.M. Bayne. 2020. Validation prediction: a flexible protocol to increase efficiency of automated acoustic processing for wildlife research. Ecological Applications, 30: e02140. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2140
Leston, L., E. Bayne, E. Dzus, P. Sólymos, T. Moore, D. Andison, D. Cheyne, and M. Carlson. 2020. Quantifying long-term bird population responses to simulated harvest plans and cumulative effects of disturbance. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 8:252. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.00252
MacPhail, A.G., D.A. Yip, E.C. Knight, R. Hedley, M. Knaggs, J. Shonfield, E. Upham-Mills, and E.M. Bayne. 2024. Audio data compression affects acoustic indices and reduces detections of birds by human listening and automated recognisers. Bioacoustics, 33(1):74-90.
Yip, D.A., C.L. Mahon, A.G. MacPhail, and E.M. Bayne. 2021. Automated classification of avian vocal activity using acoustic indices in regional and heterogeneous datasets. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.13548
Click on the links to see additional publications by Elly Knight, Péter Sólymos, and Erin Bayne.
More information:
Made in Alberta models help continental bird conservation (2020). Blog available here.
References
1.
Hudon, J., R. Klauke, M. Ross Lein, J. Riddell, B. Ritchie, G. Romanchuk and R. Wershler. 2021. Thirteenth report of the Alberta Bird Record Committee. Report available here.
2.
Sólymos, P., J.D. Toms, S.M. Matsuoka, S.G. Cumming, N.K.S. Barker, W.E. Thogmartin, D. Stralberg, A.D. Crosby, F.V. Dénes, S. Haché, C.L. Mahon, F.K.A. Schmiegelow, and E.M. Bayne. 2020. Lessons learned from comparing spatially explicit models and the Partners in Flight approach to estimate population sizes of boreal birds in Alberta, Canada. The Condor 122(2):duaa007. https://doi.org/10.1093/condor/duaa007
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