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"BBS"
- To: Carolina birds <carolinabirds@acpub.duke.edu>
- Subject: "BBS"
- From: Clyde Sorenson <clyde_sorenson@ncsu.edu>
- Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 10:20:53 -0400
- Delivered-to: pardo@metalab.unc.edu
- Sender: carolinabirds-owner@acpub.duke.edu
- User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20030208 Netscape/7.02
All,
I've been alerted to the fact that I succumbed to the "everyone ought to
know what I'm talking about" syndrome (AKA the "4 letter Bird Codes are
alright" syndrome). A BBS is a Breeding Bird Survey route. This is a
data collection program coordinated by the USGS (US Geological Survey)
and the Canadian Wildlife Service with the help of thousands of
volunteers all over North America. These are 25 mile-long routes along
which the volunteer stops every 1/2 mile and records every bird he (or
she) sees or hears for 3 minutes. We usually start about 1/2 hour before
sunrise, and the route usually takes 4-5 hours to run. The program
started in 1966, and some routes have been run virtually every year
since then. This project has generated masses of tangible, "hard" data
on the distribution and population trends of a large percentage of the
species composing our breeding avifauna.
You can learn more about the program at
http://www.mp2-pwrc.usgs.gov/bbs/
You can view one of the products of this research program at
http://www.npsc.nbs.gov/resource/distr/birds/breedrng/breedrng.htm#contents
(This site contains distribution maps for BBS species in 5 year
increments from 1970 - 1989)
I've run BBS routes in Nevada (Smoke Creek Desert), Missouri (northern
part of the Bootheel ["Occupied Arkansas"]), and here in Wayne and
Johnston Cos. In my opinion, its definitely something worth doing (but
it is an awfully early morning...).
Take care,
Clyde Sorenson
Clayton and Raleigh