A Four-year Summary of Breeding Bird Surveys in TFL 48 ... - BIOD

INTRODUCTIONWe began establishing Breeding Bird Surveys (BBS) in Tree Farm License (TFL)48 of the Peace River District in the summer of 2002 to evaluate the response ofvarious bird species to different seral stages and structural classes in a managed forest,and to assess species richness, abundance, and diversity, as well as habitat use, ofbirds. From 2003 to 2004, new routes were gradually added to TFL 48 to increasehabitat representation over the tenure. In 2005 the monitoring program was expandedto include the Fort St. John Timber Supply Area (TSA) for the same purpose as TFL 48.Breeding Bird Surveys (BBS) have long been used as a method for obtaining a relativeindex of species abundance and population change (Robbins et al. 1986). However, nolarge-scale systematic surveys of summer birds have previously been conducted ineither TFL 48 or the Fort St. John TSA.The benefits of BBS data are two-fold. In the short term, indices of variation inthe distribution and abundance of individual species can be mapped and associatedwith changes in present-year climatic conditions and differences in habitat. In the longterm, species' population trends and changes in distribution can be assessed regionallyand associated with habitat alteration, large-scale climatic patterns, and historicalspecies’ distributions. Subsequently, species-habitat associations can be used to modelpredicted changes in habitat suitability and use based on forest harvesting practices.Variation in the spatial scale at which BBS data can be applied is also animportant component. Individual survey stations can elicit direct results of habitatchange, whereas transects as a whole can provide information regarding broaderchanges that may occur at the scale of watersheds or landscapes (Bender et al. 1998;1