By John Myers on
Nov 6, 2017 at 6:22 p.m.
DULUTH
— It took eight years, 700 volunteers and thousands of hours in the field but
Minnesota has its first new breeding bird atlas since 1936.
The
new, interactive online atlas is considered the bible of Minnesota's native
birds, documenting species that nest and raise their young in the state's
forests, prairies, suburbs and cities.
Volunteers
joined researchers from the University of Minnesota Duluth's Natural Resources
Research Institute and Audubon Minnesota, fanning out across 2,353 townships —
some 99.5 percent of the state.
They
made more than 1 million bird observations, recorded 380,000 different contacts
and confirmed 249 species as nesting across the state.
Work
began in 2009 with major funding from the Minnesota Environmental and Natural
Resources Trust Fund, state lottery profits allocated to natural resource
projects. It took four years of field work and then another four years in the
office to analyze the data, painstakingly separating good data from lesser
stuff.
A
nest with young or eggs got an absolute confirmation, males repeatedly singing
might be a "probable" and birds hanging around a suitable habitat
might be a "possible" or "observed." Whether they made the
list of 249 depended on the species, said Jerry Niemi, ornithologist, senior
program manager for the NRRI and a lead author of the atlas.
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