Bzzzzzzt. My alarm goes off at the crack of
why-am-I-awake. Actually, it’s not so bad – my and Kelly’s surveys for
the morning are within walking distance of last night’s camp, so no driving
this morning, just the usual getting everything together – datasheets, binocs,
rangefinders, GPS, extra pencil, waterbottles, and so on. Usually, I
bring my habitat assessment gear with me, too, but yesterday was an incredibly
long day, and the afternoon’s agenda includes an unknown amount of driving and
scouting on roads better suited for ATVs than pickups. We’ll veg on our
next survey here!
It’s still dark as Kelly heads uphill to her site, and I
pick my way downvalley to my transect, to start my first point as the clock
ticks over to official sunrise. A Dark-eyed Junco pair in the adjacent
willow greets the new day with me.
My pre-survey drill: I get to my point, and start filling in
the headers of my datasheet. Transect name, point, date, weather
conditions. I haul out my rangefinder, and double-check where my 50m and
100m boundaries are, then I take a photo of my datasheet headers, then another
one (or more) of the transect point. By this time, if any of the birds in
the area were disturbed by my arrival, they should have calmed down a
bit. I note the start time on my datasheet, and start my watch
timer. Go!
Basically, the idea behind our point counts is to record
every bird we see or hear from the point during the 10-minute survey period,
with no double-counting of individuals within or between points. Each of
those detections is recorded by the minute at which we detect it (e.g., minutes
1 through 10), and the distance band (e.g., within 50m, 50-100m, beyond 100m,
and flying over). Inevitably, birds move over the course of the survey
period, so we’re trying to stay aware of where our birds are moving, so we
don’t double count them. It’s critical to use the distance category at
which we first detect the birds, so we don’t inflate our density estimates.
I like to think of our point count survey as a snap-shot of the bird
community in that first split-second of the survey – it’s just that, given some
individuals and species are more detectable than others, we have 10 minutes in
which to try to record everybody!
By the time my watch beeps out the end of my count, I have
several Spotted Towhees singing, along with a Bewick’s Wren, American Robin,
and Mourning Dove. My Dark-eyed Junco pair has stuck around, too. I
don’t have any unknowns to track down, so it’s time to walk to my next
point. A few meters further on, I hear a Lazuli Bunting male start
singing about 75m away. I record him as an incidental, and keep on
downvalley, until I reach #2, and start the process over again.
By the time I finish #10, it’s coming up on 9am.
Usually, I’ll then run our rapid habitat assessments on each bird survey point,
as I make my way back to the truck, but we’ll be coming back here in a couple
of weeks, so it’ll get done on our next round. I make my way back up
Eldorado Canyon – such a beautiful spot – taking a time-out at the rock arch to
drink some more water and enjoy the view. Happiness. And then back
up to the truck, where I rendezvous with Kelly, and we scout out the road
access to our upcoming surveys. Then camp! Some paperwork,
listening to bird calls/songs, a book and a letter, and dinner. As the
evening wears on, Kelly and I scout out the lower canyon on foot, get
acquainted with some more of the plants of the Pine Nut Range, then head back to
camp to get things ready for the morning. As lower Eldorado Canyon falls
into darkness, I hear one last loud feeding run by the Robins nesting a bit
down the road, and I am out like a light. Until the next morning, when
the whole thing starts up again!
On October 31, at Las Vegas Wash, I spotted a small group of pelicans - two of which had been banded. One of the bird's tags were readable - two numbers and a letter in white writing on a green tag. It turns out it had been banded as a chick on July 23rd up in the Great Salt Lake. Here's a short article that the Review-Journal published earlier this year on the banding there. Keep your eyes peeled! And remember, if you find banded birds (pelicans or otherwise), please do report their bands to the Bird Banding Lab here - though with the larger wing tags like those on these pelicans (since you're not likely to be seeing the leg bands), you'll have to use their email address.
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