Fish Like a GIRL

As many know, I used to call myself an accidental birder. I have always thought it was cool to watch birds at a feeder and to see them in the woods and whatnot. But in recent years, I have gotten into Project FeederWatch and have also done more reporting of observations and checklists of birds wherever I happen to be.

Earlier this month, I checked out a webinar presented by Dr. Amanda Rodewald, senior director of Center for Avian Population Studies (CAPS) at Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It was called “More than a wing and a prayer: How birds can help bend the curve on biodiversity loss.” 

Pictured above is a screenshot of the ebird.org website.
(Submitted photo)

She started with some recent headlines:

“Half of World’s bird species in decline as destruction of avian life intensifies,” and

“Billions of North American birds have vanished.”

Indeed, approximately 3 billion birds in North America have been lost since 1970, that is one in three from breeding populations. 

One of the things Rodewald pointed out was that loss of birds was happening across every type of habitat. Other than waterfowl, which we actively manage on a broader scope, eastern forest, arctic tundra, western forest, boreal forest, shorebirds and others were in decline, some of them quite drastically.

Birds not only are a cue to what could be wrong with habitat, or that there is a bigger issue, but they provide a lot of services to us, and to the ecosystems in which they are found. They provide seed dispersal, help to control pests and work as scavengers. For that reason, Rodewald pointed out that bird conservation was not just for the benefits of the birds themselves. It is for the benefit of people and also the planet. I will admit that the same could be said for plenty of species and types of wildlife. 

When I think of helping birds, I think of things such as eBird, where people like me record their observations, or maybe some sort of conservation organization. But Rodewald pointed out that even companies and CEOs around the world are starting to recognize that the environment and even biodiversity, are very important to their own operations and success. I had not really thought about it, but she pointed out that about half of the world’s GDP depends moderately or highly on nature and its services.I suppose it would make sense, then, for those companies especially, to pay more attention to things such as birds. That said, much of the conservation work that benefits birds also benefits the foundation of our global economy.

“We need smarter conservation,” she said, indicating that the Status and Trends Project through eBird could help to provide that. I will get to that in a minute, but the gist of the program is to compile a wealth of data about birds that could be overlaid on other data to show a better picture of what may really being going on in any given location around the world. 

One of the things land managers, conservationists and even companies would be looking for was, of course, a good return on investment. I am sure most of those who read my column are aware that conservation is not cheap. Anyone involved in a lake organization, for example, likely knows the cost of fighting invasive species, even if that is not an issue on their own lake. It is like that with any type of conservation. Those who undertake it want to make sure they are doing the right things, in the right places.One thing Rodewald said, was that, while we are doing this things, we have to keep in mind that we also need to accommodate human activities that would be happening in or near those same ecosystems.

She said conservation efforts should also be flexible. We may need to shift focus or timing when the outcomes are not what we planned.

We need to be able to shift focus or timing and be flexible. She said it was not just doing more, but finding ways to have the right interventions, at the right place, at the right time.

This type of conservation effort, obviously, requires as many inputs as possible — it takes a lot of information. 

That is one thing that eBird provides. Since its inception, over 1 million eBirders have contributed over 1.8 billion observations.

“Big problems need big data,” she said. She called eBirders, “a global network of biodiversity sensors.” While some birders were adding their sightings just for the fun of birding, others do so with the specific objective of adding to science. 

In turn, Cornell uses citizen science and other technology such as radar and bioacoustics as well as partners to gather huge data bases of information. It really is a cool program to check out, even for those who are not necessarily into birds, per se.

eBird not only allows Cornell Lab to contact and engage the public and get birders and citizen scientists to report their observations, it also allows the cataloguing and sharing of all of that information across the globe. That data, then, can be turned into actionable science.

Entities such as conservation organizations and even government entities can then use that science to hep support the decisions they are making in the realm of conservation, habitat protection and restoration, and so many more decisions.

Data that comes into eBird through the app or the web interface is the raw data. Birders and citizen scientists input observations and checklists. An observation is just a single observation. Say a person is walking down a trail and sees a bird they do not normally see and they want to record that species at that place. They can submit that as a single observation. A checklist is a bit different. Checklists involve the birder inputting all of the bird species they see over a given time and/or a given area. Some birders complete checklists in a stationary spot, and other complete them while walking or hiking, for example. 

These checklists, Rodewald said, also help researchers to know what is not on the landscape in any given place. This data can be just as important as the birds that are on the checklists. The eBird Status and Trends Project, then, takes all of that data and combines that with remotely-sensed information on a variety of environmental factors and variables that also affect birds. That data is also overlaid with any information related to the person or people that may affect what species they saw or did not see. Things such as the number of people in the group and the time of day may mean seeing different species — or not seeing those species.

They use a statistical process that is likely beyond the scope of this simple column, but it was pretty impressive to learn about all of the variables they take into account. It is fun to know where my data goes and how it is used. I am a fairly regular user of eBird and for the last several years I have also participated in the FeederWatch Project. 

The Status and Trends Project has a number of deliverables. They include things such as range maps, species occurrence, relative abundance, associations with particular habitats and population trends, which is a more recent product of the Project.

Looking at different spacial maps can reveal things a bit more clearly when looking at trends in various species. Rodewald used the Wood duck and the great blue heron in her examples. In the finer spacial scale estimates, from a range-wide view, wood ducks looked positive and great blue heron negative. 

On a regional scale, it showed wood ducks were doing well in the Midwest and Upper Midwest, but they were decreasing in the Southeast. For great blue herons, there were some population increases in inner mountain Rockies. 

The landscape scale, which is what the eBird trends look at, squares of 27 by 27 kilometers, there is an even finer level of detail. It was interesting to see how those population estimate maps changed and truly pinpointed what was happening with these two bird species, and, I am sure, this would hold true for most species.

When we can look at those trends, and things that are happening on the landscape on a more local level, that can much better inform management and other decisions made in much more specific places.

Federal agencies, too, use this information. Because they are charged with much more than bird conservation, having this information at their disposal, they can see which species are utilizing their land at a much higher degree than other lands. Species such as the white-headed woodpecker, Clark’s nutcracker and American dipper are found, more than 90% of the time, on federally managed lands. Without understanding that, federal land managers may not understand how important managing for those species truly is to the survival of the species overall.

This can also be extrapolated out to entire groups of birds. As an example she mentioned arid land birds. Over half of those arid land species have at least one quarter of their populations on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management alone. There are also maps broken down by state and even more maps that can be utilized by land trusts. Land trusts can use these maps when looking at where they may want to attempt to acquire land or to get a better idea what birds are already on the lands under their control, too.

Companies, too, can use these maps and programs to get an idea how their lands or practices might be affecting bird biodiversity.

She also hit on migratory birds and eBirds’ ability to track those birds as they migrate. These maps are pretty cool. You can actually watch the migration and the abundance of specific species as they make their way across the landscape. I am a bit “geeky” like that, and these maps are super cool to me. The stopover sites, which are important in their migration, were not specifically pinpointed before as they are now starting to be with eBird projects. Rodewald said half of migratory species, not just birds, but all species, are in decline and 1 in 5 are in danger of extinction. That is a sobering thought.

She also showed how the maps from eBird could be overlaid on maps such as where wild bees are prevalent, or soil organic carbon maps or air quality maps. Another map she showed that could be overlaid was the map of potential development.

I also have been attending a series webinars that are far more technical than this one that taught how to dig into the data and create maps of particular species at specific times of year on a higher level than is readily available on the Status and Trends web page. I am not sure I will utilize this to the extent it was explained, but it may be useful for some reporting along the way. For those who have not been on eBird, or who may have been on the platform but have not really looked into it, hey, winter is coming. I always try to have cool things I can investigate more when the weather gets cold and I am curled up on the couch in my hoodie with a cup of hot tea. If there are other people like that out there, they should put eBird on the list. It would be cool, too, to get more people involved in adding their observations and checklists to the platform. There is an app (shocker, right?) that is free to download. It makes it convenient to put in observations wherever I am, but it is also cool because I can look back on all of my observations and checklists to see what I have found where over the years. To learn more, head to the Cornell Lab eBird website at ebird.org.

Beckie Gaskill may be reached at [email protected].