Flaws in nation's bird counts
"A team of researchers led by Theodore Simons, a biologist at N.C. State, found that trained bird-watchers aren't as good at hearing birds in the wild as previously thought, and their powers of perception drop sharply with even small increases in background noise. Factors such as traffic noise and observers' inaccurate spatial perceptions could inadvertently bias bird counts, they say."
Link: Full article from The News & Observer
American Redstart © 2008 Mike McDowell
3 Comments:
Fascinating, and disturbing. I remember doing a Christmas Bird Count in East Texas, and I recorded a relatively high number of Golden-crowned Kinglets based almost entirely on hearing their calls. During the compilation, as everyone was calling out their totals, one other observer had a high number of kinglets, but all the other groups had none or just a few. When I read my number, there was a general murmur of dissatisfaction, and people started asking where my area was and how I found so many. I remain convinced that people simply failed to hear or to identify the kinglets calls, not that I had a special territory.
Very good to be wary of this going into CBC season, thanks for posting this Mike.
~K
This is really important, and something to keep in mind as more and more BBS routes and CBC areas have more and more noise.
But on another point--that photo is SO beautiful. I love how it captures the bird's rictal bristles--not a common feature in warblers and seldom so beautifully shown.
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