Ohio Winter Bird Atlas
It has been a long time in the making, but the Ohio Winter Bird Atlas is finally nearing completion. The manuscript is finished, and awaiting the completion of the final proof before it goes to the Ohio Division of Wildlife and the Ohio Biological Survey for publication. I think it will be worth the long wait for this chronicle of almost 200 species, historic information, and a diverse range of introductory information. Our goal is to have the first Winter Bird Atlas ever conducted and published in this nation available to the public by the end of the year.
Many people do not realize that this project is a pioneering effort. What exactly does that mean? Simply put--while there have been many breeding bird atlases conducted in this country, this is the FIRST atlas of winter bird distribution. BSBO is honored to be a part of such an important project. We thank Victor Fazio for launching the program initially, before entrusting the oversight of the project to the Observatory in 2003. Vic remains an integral part of the project. We also recognize all of the volunteer birders who spent thousands of hours--and dollars--traversing the frozen Ohio landscape in search of birds, and reporting their discoveries. We'll keep you posted!
Atlas Purpose
by Victor W. Fazio III
We live in an ever-changing world. We endeavor to understand the nature of that change so as to better predict what is coming next. As a species, it is perhaps the key to our adaptability, the key to our success, and the key to our future.
As our population has increased so, too, have our impact on the natural resources that sustain us, the landscape within which we live, and the spectrum of biodiversity with which we share it. Out of ecological thought, we have come to understand something of our part within the complex fabric of interrelationships among these elements and our reliance upon them. However, it was the stark reality of extinctions, the loss of biodiversity at our hands, and the moral and ethical questions they posed that spurred the biological conservation movements of the past century. This combination of scientific reason and sense of stewardship over our natural resources guides us in our present-day effort to ensure a biologically diverse future.
Ohio has been at the forefront of avian conservation for the past century, in part, because it was here that we closed a chapter on avian loss. The once massive populations of the Passenger Pigeon, so ubiquitous we thought their number endless, met their end with the taking of an individual along the Scioto River near the Pickaway-Scioto County line in 1900 (Peterjohn 1989), closing out a century of unfettered consumption of natural resources. Notable, too, at this time was the extensive depletion of Ohio’s forests, the continued draining of its wetlands, and the tilling of remaining prairie fragments. Redressing the loss of species and habitat in Ohio began shortly there after with landscape restoration (e.g. establishment of state forest lands, national and state wildlife refuges and preserves, etc.) and participation in national monitoring programs. Of the latter, among the earliest was the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count.
Ohio’s history with the Christmas Bird Count dates to the inception of what was initially planned as a substitute for the annual hunt held at Christmas (Stewart 1954). Over the decades, it has been molded into a tangible means of monitoring the early winter abundance of species across the North American Continent (Butcher et al. 1990). That it does so during the winter has taken on added significance in recent years owing to the recognition of a pattern of global climate change (Solomon et al. 2007), coupled with the observation that many winter distributions are associated with climate(Root 1988a, Root 1988b).
Many efforts are underway to document the response of organisms to environmental change, with a greater effort now put forth toward a growing concern over the ramifications of rapid climate change. Numerous studies involving birds have modeled the potential impacts of global warming trends on breeding ranges (Price 2000, Price and Root 2000), examined the altered phenology of migration (Murphy-Klassen et al. 2005, Swanson and Palmer 2009),and addressed potential shifts in winter (LaSorte and Thompson 2007, Niven et al.2009) and elevational distributions (Sekercioglu et al. 2008). The Ohio Winter Bird Atlas is a result of a concern for the lack of baseline data on the distribution of the state’s avifauna during a season in which distribution and population changes may be most sensitive to climatic influences.
Early-winter season distributions across the continental United States and southern Canada have been presented based on Christmas Bird Counts (Root 1988c). However, no effort within the United States has previously been made to match the winter atlas effort of the British (Lack 1986) in which distribution is mapped across standardized blocks covering the entire geography of interest corresponding to that of its breeding bird atlas effort. Nor have the existing winter monitoring efforts expressly attempted to map the midwinter avifauna of a region. The biogeography of over-wintering populations is a starting point for charting winter survivorship, providing additional insight into what has been phrased “life history strategies near the limit of persistence” (Zani 2005).
In 2001, we perceived a need for laying the groundwork for an Atlas focused within a time frame, adequate for survey by a volunteer observer base, yet sensitive to potential climatic change. The meteorological midpoint of Ohio,the point at which average daily temperature reaches its nadir [http://www.geography.osu.edu/faculty/rogers/OOC.pdf],is January, thereby identifying the working time frame for study. It is also the time period when conspicuous late fall and early spring migrations are not underway in Ohio. Few birds are on the move (e.g. late autumnal flights of waterbirds, and the late departure of facultative migrants) that would confound an attempt at determining the distribution of over-wintering populations, while also detecting winter irruptions of boreal and sub-boreal species at their height. Presumably, the extremes offered by the minimum night-time temperatures midwinter are relevant to the energetic constraints that have been implicated in winter bird distributions (Root 1988b). Furthermore, there is a growing literature regarding the influence of global warming on night-time temperatures (Caprio et al. 2009, Easterling et al. 1997, Rogers et al. 2007). We were guided by these elements to undertake the mapping of Ohio’s winter avifauna.
Knowledge of Ohio’s avifauna can be referenced to the works of Peterjohn (1989, 2001) wherein he establishes what we know and, as importantly, what we don’t know about the winter birds of Ohio. A careful reading of these succinct texts reveals the frequent disparity between the relative wealth of knowledge of bird distribution in early winter and the paucity of accounts subsequent to the Christmas Bird Count period leaving us with many questions. Here we hope to further that knowledge, refine some generalizations, and offer a foundation for future investigation into a fascinating and largely untouched area of research into Ohio’s avifauna.
Many people do not realize that this project is a pioneering effort. What exactly does that mean? Simply put--while there have been many breeding bird atlases conducted in this country, this is the FIRST atlas of winter bird distribution. BSBO is honored to be a part of such an important project. We thank Victor Fazio for launching the program initially, before entrusting the oversight of the project to the Observatory in 2003. Vic remains an integral part of the project. We also recognize all of the volunteer birders who spent thousands of hours--and dollars--traversing the frozen Ohio landscape in search of birds, and reporting their discoveries. We'll keep you posted!
Atlas Purpose
by Victor W. Fazio III
We live in an ever-changing world. We endeavor to understand the nature of that change so as to better predict what is coming next. As a species, it is perhaps the key to our adaptability, the key to our success, and the key to our future.
As our population has increased so, too, have our impact on the natural resources that sustain us, the landscape within which we live, and the spectrum of biodiversity with which we share it. Out of ecological thought, we have come to understand something of our part within the complex fabric of interrelationships among these elements and our reliance upon them. However, it was the stark reality of extinctions, the loss of biodiversity at our hands, and the moral and ethical questions they posed that spurred the biological conservation movements of the past century. This combination of scientific reason and sense of stewardship over our natural resources guides us in our present-day effort to ensure a biologically diverse future.
Ohio has been at the forefront of avian conservation for the past century, in part, because it was here that we closed a chapter on avian loss. The once massive populations of the Passenger Pigeon, so ubiquitous we thought their number endless, met their end with the taking of an individual along the Scioto River near the Pickaway-Scioto County line in 1900 (Peterjohn 1989), closing out a century of unfettered consumption of natural resources. Notable, too, at this time was the extensive depletion of Ohio’s forests, the continued draining of its wetlands, and the tilling of remaining prairie fragments. Redressing the loss of species and habitat in Ohio began shortly there after with landscape restoration (e.g. establishment of state forest lands, national and state wildlife refuges and preserves, etc.) and participation in national monitoring programs. Of the latter, among the earliest was the National Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Count.
Ohio’s history with the Christmas Bird Count dates to the inception of what was initially planned as a substitute for the annual hunt held at Christmas (Stewart 1954). Over the decades, it has been molded into a tangible means of monitoring the early winter abundance of species across the North American Continent (Butcher et al. 1990). That it does so during the winter has taken on added significance in recent years owing to the recognition of a pattern of global climate change (Solomon et al. 2007), coupled with the observation that many winter distributions are associated with climate(Root 1988a, Root 1988b).
Many efforts are underway to document the response of organisms to environmental change, with a greater effort now put forth toward a growing concern over the ramifications of rapid climate change. Numerous studies involving birds have modeled the potential impacts of global warming trends on breeding ranges (Price 2000, Price and Root 2000), examined the altered phenology of migration (Murphy-Klassen et al. 2005, Swanson and Palmer 2009),and addressed potential shifts in winter (LaSorte and Thompson 2007, Niven et al.2009) and elevational distributions (Sekercioglu et al. 2008). The Ohio Winter Bird Atlas is a result of a concern for the lack of baseline data on the distribution of the state’s avifauna during a season in which distribution and population changes may be most sensitive to climatic influences.
Early-winter season distributions across the continental United States and southern Canada have been presented based on Christmas Bird Counts (Root 1988c). However, no effort within the United States has previously been made to match the winter atlas effort of the British (Lack 1986) in which distribution is mapped across standardized blocks covering the entire geography of interest corresponding to that of its breeding bird atlas effort. Nor have the existing winter monitoring efforts expressly attempted to map the midwinter avifauna of a region. The biogeography of over-wintering populations is a starting point for charting winter survivorship, providing additional insight into what has been phrased “life history strategies near the limit of persistence” (Zani 2005).
In 2001, we perceived a need for laying the groundwork for an Atlas focused within a time frame, adequate for survey by a volunteer observer base, yet sensitive to potential climatic change. The meteorological midpoint of Ohio,the point at which average daily temperature reaches its nadir [http://www.geography.osu.edu/faculty/rogers/OOC.pdf],is January, thereby identifying the working time frame for study. It is also the time period when conspicuous late fall and early spring migrations are not underway in Ohio. Few birds are on the move (e.g. late autumnal flights of waterbirds, and the late departure of facultative migrants) that would confound an attempt at determining the distribution of over-wintering populations, while also detecting winter irruptions of boreal and sub-boreal species at their height. Presumably, the extremes offered by the minimum night-time temperatures midwinter are relevant to the energetic constraints that have been implicated in winter bird distributions (Root 1988b). Furthermore, there is a growing literature regarding the influence of global warming on night-time temperatures (Caprio et al. 2009, Easterling et al. 1997, Rogers et al. 2007). We were guided by these elements to undertake the mapping of Ohio’s winter avifauna.
Knowledge of Ohio’s avifauna can be referenced to the works of Peterjohn (1989, 2001) wherein he establishes what we know and, as importantly, what we don’t know about the winter birds of Ohio. A careful reading of these succinct texts reveals the frequent disparity between the relative wealth of knowledge of bird distribution in early winter and the paucity of accounts subsequent to the Christmas Bird Count period leaving us with many questions. Here we hope to further that knowledge, refine some generalizations, and offer a foundation for future investigation into a fascinating and largely untouched area of research into Ohio’s avifauna.