The Evergreen Naturalists Audubon Society, Inc.

Bear Creek Watershed Breeding Bird Atlas
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Bear Creek Atlas Project | : About the Atlas |

About the Bear Creek Watershed Breeding Bird Atlas Project

 

The Bear Creek Watershed Breeding Bird Atlas Project (BCA) will begin in the spring of 2008. Through the BCA, we will survey representative habitats in a broadly selected group of sites in the Bear Creek Watershed of Colorado over a period of five years. The survey will be repeated for another five years using the same sites.

 

During the first year, 12 sites will be surveyed. In the next year, we will survey 10–12 different sites, and during the third, fourth, and fifth years we will survey another 10–12 different sites each year, so that by the end of 2012 we will have monitored the birds in approximately 60 different sites. All the sites are open space lands administered by public agencies.

 

The purpose will be to determine the abundance, distribution, and breeding evidence of the watershed’s breeding bird community. In general, we will use the same field protocols as the Colorado Breeding Bird Atlas project. Each site will have a designated leader, and assistant leader, whose responsibility will be to survey the site at least five times during the breeding season. Leaders can return to sites as often as they wish and they can survey other sites for which they are not leaders.

 

Experienced birders from the sponsoring organization (The Evergreen Naturalists Audubon Society [TENAS]) are encouraged participate in these breeding bird surveys and to visit sites out of the specific survey window. Routes in the field should vary among visits, to ensure that all key habitats at each site are covered. All leaders and other surveyors are encouraged to announce their field dates in the group’s newsletter, The Dipper, to attract members who would like to participate.

 

Birders ouside the local organization are certainly welcome and encouraged to help with this project.  Visiting birders are encouraged to create an account  and enter any breeding bird evidence into our database.  If you are visiting and would like to help survey an under-reported area, please contact the committee  for an area assignment.

 

Field data is collected using a series of codes for breeding evidence  and habitat .  This data is then entered in the BCA Atlas database for analysis.

 

Listed below are the sites for 2008, with an abbreviation of the land manager after each: LAK = Lakewood Parks & Recreation, JCOS = Jefferson County Open Space, DMP = Denver Mtn. Parks, SWA = State Wildlife Area, and NF = National Forest.

 

•   Plains/Foothills: Bear Creek Lake Park (LAK), Dinosaur Ridge North (JCOS), Dinosaur Ridge South (JCOS), Mount Glennon (JCOS), Lair o'the Bear (JCOS), Little Park (DMP)
•   Montane: Bergen Peak (DMP), Bergen Peak SWA, Elk Meadow (JCOS)
•   Subalpine/Alpine: Captain Mountain/Lincoln Lake Trail (NF), Summit Lake (NF/DMP), Beaver Meadows/Mount Evans Shelter House (NF).