AVIAN SURVEYS
IN NORTHEAST TEMPERATE NETWORK PARKS

Technical Report NPS/NER/NRTR--2005/004


Carol Trocki and Peter Paton

Department of Natural Resources Sciences
University of Rhode Island
Kingston, Rhode Island 02881

December 2003

U.S. Department of the Interior
National Park Service
Northeast Region
Inventory & Monitoring Program
Northeast Temperate Network
Woodstock, Vermont

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Project Goal

The goal of this project was to determine the spatial distribution and abundance of birds in seven of the national parks in the Northeast Temperate Network (i.e., Boston Harbor [BOHA], Minute Man [MIMA], Morristown [MORR], Roosevelt-Vanderbilt [ROVA], Saugus Iron Works [SAIR], Saratoga [SARA], and Weir Farm [WEFA]). Within each park, we were interested in comparing vertebrate abundance among species, habitats, and sites.

Past surveys in parks have often been habitat specific with sampling non-randomly located, which has limited the spatial inferences that can be made from these historical datasets. Our inventory was designed using quantitative sampling techniques to calculate unbiased estimates of population and community parameters for a variety of birds. Using these techniques, data can eventually be used to assess changes in population sizes over both space and time.

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