Monitoring Breeding Birds at Shaw Nature Reserve

The best time to start a long-term dataset is 25 years ago. The second-best time is now!

Summer solstice is the height of the bird breeding season at Shaw Nature Reserve. Dozens of species are singing, from Dickcissels in the open prairies, to Prothonotary Warblers in the damp forests along the Meramec River, to near-ubiquitous Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, seemingly everywhere.

 

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For six days this month, two students and I are counting birds systematically across Shaw Nature Reserve to learn how they are influenced by ecological restoration. Birds are a common focus for monitoring restoration projects because they can be observed efficiently over large areas, and because they often respond quickly to changes in ecosystem structure. Ovenbirds, for instance, prefer the dark shade of closed-canopy forests, whereas Kentucky Warblers replace them in woodlands that have been burned (fire is a common restoration strategy in many Missouri ecosystems).

Locations of bird counting stations at Shaw Nature Reserve. Each point is at least 100 meters from the edge of a management unit and at least 200 meters from any other station.

A typical bird survey goes like this:

• 4:20 AM. I pour a travel mug of coffee, pick up a student to help record data, and drive to Shaw Nature Reserve in the dark. There are way too many deer along the side of I-44.
• ~5:00 AM. We arrive at Shaw Nature Reserve in twilight and hear a cacophony of birds singing over one another. Indigo Buntings scatter from the loop road ahead of our car.
• ~5:15 AM. We arrive at the first bird counting station and record the temperature, cloud cover, and wind speed. For five minutes, we write down each bird that we hear or see. Sometimes during these early morning counts, nocturnal birds, like Chuck-will’s-widow, are still calling.
• ~5:30-10:00 AM. After we finish a point, I set my GPS to navigate to the next point on our route and we continue to record birds until mid-morning, by which time it is warm and many birds have stopped singing (although the Red-eyed Vireos are still going strong).

Leighton Reid (left) listens to Wood Thrushes and Northern Parulas while REU student Joseph Smith (Lake Superior State University, right) records data. As indicated by the abundant bush honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii; e.g., by Leighton’s right leg), this particular part of the reserve has yet to be restored.

This is our inaugural bird survey at Shaw Nature Reserve. Unlike many of my projects, this one does not have explicit apriori hypotheses; I’m not trying to “test” anything. Instead, I intend for these data to be used for monitoring and demonstrating progress. Over time, I hope and expect these observations to provide a record of biodiversity change as portions of the reserve are restored and managed.

Counting Common Yellowthroats, Dickcissels, and Red-winged Blackbirds at dawn at the Wetland Mitigation Bank.

For more information on breeding birds at Shaw Nature Reserve, you can explore citizen science observations on eBird, including this printable checklist of birds recorded in June during the past 10 years.