Managing and Monitoring Birds Using Point Counts: Standards and Applications

Abstract

The use of population size as a measure of health of a species has been a very common tool of ornithologists for many years (Lack 1954, 1966; Hutchinson 1978). Methods for surveying population size are detailed in Ralph and Scott (1981), the excellent compendium by Cooperrider and others (1986), and the manual by Koskimies and Vaisanen (1991). Many types of counting techniques are available to estimate relative abundance and population trends. Probably the most widely used are modifications of unlimited distance point counts (Blondel and others 1981), conducted at a series of counting stations. These often represent the best compromise between economy of collection effort and precision and accuracy of the estimates of population trends or population indexes (Verner 1985).