Bird Point Counts

The Toolik Field Station Bird Monitoring Program was established in 2008 to monitor long term trends in arrival, departure, status and abundance of all birds breeding within the Toolik-centric region. Transects through the commonly occurring habitats were established and are to be monitored weekly from late May through early August. The overall protocol was adopted from the Alaska Landbird Monitoring Survey (Handel and Cady, 2004)

The point count locations are situated 500 m apart, ten minutes are spent at each point count location and all birds seen and heard are recorded. The number of points within each transect was determined based on the natural features of the landscape. The data collected from these transects will be used to determine status and abundance of birds that breed in the Toolik area. The monitoring program also captures arrival and departure dates for as many species as possible. The survey points are to be walked starting from the field station and moving away from the camp pad.

Bird species numbers 2016
Density estimates and standard errors for common sparrow species detected during point-count surveys at Toolik Field Station during the breeding season. Earlier estimates were re-analyzed to account for changes in observer.
Bird species numbers 2016
Total number of bird species observed in the vicinity of Toolik Field Station each day during spring migration.

 

Bird point count map 2010
Avian point count routes at Toolik Lake (2010).
Data

Data accessible from the Arctic Data Center.  Please cite the data as follows:

Seth Beaudreault, Jake Schas, and Rowan McPherson. 2019. Breeding bird counts around Toolik Field Station, Alaska (2010-2017). Arctic Data Center. doi:10.18739/A2BK16Q4B.