Palo Alto National Historical Park

Bird Monitoring

The GULN has implemented two bird monitoring methodologies intended to monitor breeding birds and non-breeding wintering birds. These methods utlize a ramdom point count, fixed-duration, time and distance-based technique. Sixty random points have been generated for PAAL and broken into 4 panels of 15 points, with 2 panels being sampled each season.

Breeding birds surveys occur between May 15 and June 15. At the first detection of each individual bird, observers record species identity, the time within 1-minute intervals for 10 minutes, and record an estimated distance within four distance annuli (0 � <25 m, 25 - <50 m, 50 - <100 m, and >100 m). This data has been entered into the USGS Point Count Database and is accessible at http://www.pwrc.usgs.gov/point/

Wintering bird surveys occur between November 15 and February 15. At first detection of each indiviedual bird, observers record species, time within 2-minute intervals for 20 minutes, and an esimated distance within three distance annuli (>50m, <50m, flyovers). Methodology was developed Dan Twedt, USGS, and documented in the GULN Avian Monitoring Plan. These data have been entered into the GULN Bird Monitoring Database in Access 2003 format. Data are availble by contacting the network data manager.

In addition to the scheduled surveys, an eBird kiosk has been installed in the visitor center. This program allows visitors to easily document birds seen during their park visit. For more information on eBird, go to http://ebird.org.

Download the Palo Alto Bird Monitoring Site Bulletin.

Survey locations within the boundary of Palo Alto National Battlefield.