Fifty years on, the Breeding Bird Survey continues to produce new insights

Date: July 26, 2017

Source: American Ornithological Society Publications Office

Summary: In 1966, a US Fish and Wildlife Service biologist named Chan Robbins launched an international program designed to measure changes in bird populations using volunteers recruited to count birds on pre-set routes along country roads. The result, the North American Breeding Bird Survey or BBS, is still going strong more than five decades later.

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Wildlife response to climate change is likely underestimated, experts warn

Analyzing thousands of breeding bird surveys sent in by citizen scientists across the western United States and Canada over 35 years, wildlife researchers report that most of the 40 songbird species they studied shifted either northward or toward higher elevation in response to climate change, but did not necessarily do both.

This means that most previous studies of potential climate change impacts on wildlife that looked only at one factor or the other have likely underestimated the effects of environmental warming, say research wildlife biologists David King at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Sonya Auer of the University of Glasgow, U.K. Their study appears in the current issue of Global Ecology and Biogeography.

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UK Breeding Bird Survey shows some marked changes in finch sightings

All change in the finch family; Siskins and Lesser Redpolls increase while Greenfinches decline

August 2013. Many householders have become familiar with the sight of Siskins and Lesser Redpolls on their garden bird feeders in recent years, and the latest figures from the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) confirm that numbers of both these small finches are increasing nationally. However, Greenfinches, which have been hard hit by the disease trichomonosis, continue to decline.

Siskins

Siskins are small, bright yellow finches that normally breed in conifer woodlands, and forty years ago they were confined to the highlands of Scotland and Wales. However, the increase of commercial forestry has seen a remarkable increase in range, and in recent years they have started to take advantage of garden food supplies in the winter and early spring, which may have boosted survival rates. The latest BBS figures show that 2012 was a particularly good year for Siskins nationally, with numbers increasing by 28% between 2011 and 2012.

Redpolls

Lesser Redpolls, brown with a red cap, are closely related to Siskins, but have a very different history, having declined dramatically since the 1970s. Like Siskins, however, Lesser Redpolls now appear to be benefiting both from new forestry habitats, and, more recently, from garden bird feeding. The BBS shows that numbers have increased by 55% since the start of the survey in the mid-1990s, and by 25% between 2011 and 2012.

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