Bird Monitoring - Bureau of Land Management:
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Projects
Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory began conducting surveys on BLM lands in 2008 as part of the Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions (IMBCR) sampling design. RMBO partners with the BLM in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and the Dakotas in Bird Conservation Regions (BCR) 10, 16, 17 and 18 to monitor breeding landbirds.
BLM lands in these states provide key habitat for a variety of sagebrush and grassland species. By monitoring BLM lands, we provide the agency and its partners with detailed population data on priority species such as Sage Thrasher, Sage Sparrow, Brewer’s Sparrow and Loggerhead Shrike. Inferences about species and populations are scalable down to the field office level or combined at the state level, depending on the objective.
In 2010 we surveyed 33 different locations on BLM lands throughout the western half of Colorado. We surveyed 38 BLM locations in BCRs 10 and 17 in Montana and 15 locations in BCR 17 in the Dakotas. In Wyoming, we had 76 BLM survey locations in BCRs 10, 16, 17 and 18.
In addition to landscape-level, multi-species monitoring, we also scale down to focus on specific locations or species on BLM lands. In 2010 we implemented specific surveys in Wyoming’s Atlantic Rim region to compare bird populations across landscapes with various levels of oil and gas development. We surveyed 15 transects in the Hi-development region and five transects in the Lo-development region. Some of the commonly detected species were Greater Sage Grouse, Sage Sparrow, Brewer’s Sparrow and Sage Thrasher.
RMBO has executed several small projects with low-density species in western Colorado to study Burrowing Owls, Yellow-billed Cuckoos and nest sites of Peregrine Falcon and other raptor species. In 2010 we searched for raptors and other bird species of interest that could be nesting near trails and impacted by trail construction near Ridgway. A new project in 2011 will determine the effects of habitat restoration work on riparian bird species along the Dolores River in western Colorado.
Loggerhead Shrike. Photo by Bill Schmoker