Guidelines for post-fire bird surveys

By Janine Duffy

 

Surveys and observations of birds after the bushfires of 2020 will be valuable in helping scientists and land managers protect wildlife.

Any observation is valuable.  If you can, submit a list to eBird.org – that is the easiest and best way to get the information into the hands that need it.  If you don’t feel up to that, or if you’re not sure of the names of the birds, post a pic on Mallacoota Birds and others will help.  We will try to keep records of birds posted on facebook.

If you’re not into facebook you are welcome to email photos and notes to me: janine@echidnawalkabout.com.au

Thankyou!

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Here’s some guidelines for post fire surveys from eBird:

1. Once it is safe to do so, we ask the eBird community to stay on paths and roads when conducting post-fire surveys in burnt areas to avoid disturbing habitat in any fire-affected areas.
2. We encourage you to visit and survey birds at the same locations more than once, e.g. once a week, and use the same method each time, so that we can monitor bird community recovery over time.
3. We recommend using standard survey protocols. For example, a standard method commonly used in eBird and Birdlife is a 20 minute-2 hectare survey protocol. You can do your eBird survey using this standard protocol by recording birds as you walk along a transect, such as on a path or road, covering a distance of 200 m in 20 minutes time and recording all the birds you see or hear along the way (in an area about 50 m on each side of your transect). Submit this as a ‘Traveling’ list if you are using the eBird phone app (with distance 0.2 km and time 20 minutes), or if submitting from the eBird AU website, you can choose Observation Type ‘Other’ and select ‘Birdlife Australia 20min-2ha survey’ if this is the protocol you used.
4. We also encourage eBirders to locate and survey vegetation remnants that were not affected the fires, and submit surveys from both burned and unburned areas of (formerly) similar habitat. We want to evaluate recovery by comparing bird community response to these devastating fires in burned and unburned habitat.
5. We also hope to collaborate with any groups keen on conducting analyses in their own communities, especially in places with eBird lists from before the fires. Contact us at eBirdAustralia@gmail.com to discuss.