The Mountain Bird Network

Standardized bird surveys along elevational gradients. Survey data can be used to test fundamental hypotheses right now, and are crucial in providing information on how montane birds are responding to climate change. There are real stakes here: climate change is widely predicted to lead to to the extinctions of montane populations (and even species), and in some places montane birds are indeed on an “escalator to extinction”. But we don’t have survey data for most birds in most places. We need this information, and we need it as soon as possible. I think of the quote “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now.”

We are addressing this data gap by building a collaborative group of academics and birders across the globe called the Mountain Bird Network.

The idea is simple. If you (1) do a complete bird survey of your local mountain (or if you have survey data from an elevational gradient already in hand - I think this is a great way to rescue “lost” datasets that never got published), then you will (2) be a co-author on a paper that analyzes and publishes this data.

It’s fun to get out and do point counts at different elevations, co-authorship provides an academic incentive, and publishing all the data ensures that this project will be useful to the research community.

Here is information on how to do a mountain bird network surveY (LINK to Pdf)

HERE is an example of what digitized point count data looks like (link to spreadsheet)

AND HERE are descriptions of some mountain bird network surveys (link to pdf)

contact Sam Jones (sjones432@gatech.edu) to participate