This contains data from 1,030 surveys returned in 2017 from across the United States. Data were collected via a mail-out survey stratified by the population of each state. Data collected include nature-related activity participation, attitudes and barriers to hunting and birdwatching, knowledge of others who hunt and birdwatch, preferred birds, involvement in conservation activities, preferences for information channels on nature-related topics, trust in sources on nature-related topics, wetlands knowledge/visitation, evaluation of wetlands' ecosystem services, and demographics. The purpose of this survey was to inform the 2018 update of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan.

There is a growing movement within natural resource management to view wildlife health as a cumulative outcome of many different factors, rather than simply the absence of disease. This inclusive understanding of health opens the door to management options that are more creative than traditional techniques to prevent or mitigate pathogens. The public health field uses a determinants of health framework to understand the physical, social, and cultural systems that impact health at the individual and community levels (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2016). Applying a similar framework to wildlife can help managers focus on tangible actions to positively impact wildlife health in the absence of disease (Wittrock et al. 2019). In the south-central United States, changes in water availability and quality resulting from changing temperature, precipitation, and land-use patterns can have significant impacts on the health of migratory birds that depend on wildlife refuges as seasonal habitat. These data were collected in partnership with several U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wildlife Refuges across Oklahoma (n=2), New Mexico (n=3), and Louisiana (n=1, 8 individual refuges administratively grouped within the Southeast Louisiana Refuge Complex) to examine how managers define determinants of health for migratory birds and assess how those determinants may be impacted by local changes in water regimes. This data release contains nineteen (19) related datafiles and their associated metadata. For each participating refuge there are three files: an image file of the final conceptual diagram, a .csv file containing information about the elements in the diagram, and a .csv file containing information about the connections in the diagram. The conceptual diagram of migratory bird health was constructed using information collected through interviews with refuge personnel and supplemented (to gain additional context, when necessary) with refuge management documents and information on their public-facing websites. The diagrams are provided as .jpg files exported from the free system mapping and visualization program Kumu, in which they were created. Each diagram consists of nodes (referred to as elements) and relationships (referred to as connections). The elements and connections represent elements of the refuge system that were highlighted by personnel as playing an important role in migratory bird health or water availability. Detailed, narrative descriptions for each system component are provided in their respective .csv files. There is also a .csv file containing data from a pre-interview survey sent to each refuge to gather basic information about the high-priority migratory bird guilds on their refuge, their management objectives in relation to migratory birds, and the water-related threats they consider highest concern.

We investigated methods to estimate the number of nests of waterbirds at a large, mixed-species colony at Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge in south-central North Dakota in 2012 and 2013. The data were summarized and used in the analyses for a publication in a U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report. The data consist of two data sets that were used to assess visible-nest counts for ciconiiform species conducted from the perimeter of nesting areas (hereafter perimeter counts) and observational surveys from fixed points outside the colony to count flights of adult ciconiiforms in and out of the colony (hereafter flightline surveys) as alternatives to within-colony counts of ciconiiform nests.

Effective waterfowl management relies on the collection of relevant demographic data to inform land management decisions; however, some types of data are difficult to obtain. For waterfowl, brood surveys are difficult to conduct because wetland habitats often obscure ducklings from being visually assessed. Here, we used Unoccupied Aerial Systems (UAS) to assess what wetland habitat characteristics influenced brood abundance in Suisun Marsh, California, USA. Using a thermal imaging camera, we surveyed 17 wetland units encompassing 332 ha of flooded area on seven waterfowl hunting clubs during the waterfowl breeding season. Additionally, using a combination of multispectral imagery collected from the UAS flights and LiDAR data from the previous year, we mapped habitat composition within each unit to relate to brood observation counts. From June 3-7, 2019, we identified 113 individual broods comprised of 827 ducklings. We found a positive relationship between the number of broods observed and the proportion of the unit that was flooded. We also found a positive relationship between the number of broods observed and the area of effective habitat, a metric of flooded habitat within a specific distance to flooded vegetation. Brood surveys using UAS could compliment the traditional Breeding Population Survey and provide local managers with fine scale and timely information regarding shifts in brood abundance in the region.

This page includes legacy releases of North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) data for the periods beginning in 1966 and ending with the years 2000 through 2015. These releases have been superseded by a more current release but are included here for archival purposes. The North American Breeding Bird Survey dataset contains avian point count data since 1966 for more than 700 North American bird taxa (species, races, and unidentified species groupings). These data are collected annually during the breeding season, primarily in June, along thousands of randomly established roadside survey routes in the United States and Canada. Routes are roughly 24.5 miles (39.2 km) long with counting locations placed at approximately half-mile (800-m) intervals, for a total of 50 stops. At each stop, a citizen scientist highly skilled in avian identification conducts a 3-minute point count, recording every bird seen or heard within a quarter-mile (400-m) radius. Surveys begin 30 minutes before local sunrise and take approximately 5 hours to complete. Routes are sampled once per year, with the total number of routes sampled per year growing over time; just over 500 routes were sampled in 1966, while in recent decades approximately 3000 routes have been sampled annually. In addition to avian count data, this dataset also contains survey date, survey start and end times, start and end weather conditions, a unique observer identification number, route identification information, and route location information including country, state, and BCR, as well as geographic coordinates of the route start points, and an indicator of run data quality.

This data product consists of a database of population change and abundance estimates for North American birds, estimated from North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) data. Data are presented for 547 species of birds in 4 spreadsheets containing trend estimates and annual indices for 2 time periods. Estimates are derived for each species using the 1 of 4 alternative models, and a cross-validation model selection procedure was used to select the best model for each species. Metadata associated with this data product provides information specific to the associated analysis results; metadata for the BBS data are available at Ziolkowski, D.J., Lutmerding, M., English, W.B., Aponte, V.I., and Hudson, M-A.R., 2023, North American Breeding Bird Survey Dataset 1966 - 2022: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9GS9K64.

This dataset is a subset of data attributes selected from the (full) 1966-2019 North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) dataset to assist in populating the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's FWSpecies application. This subset data was used to add species occurrence information to species lists for each refuge in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho). The full dataset can be accessed online through ScienceBase. And this metadata leaves most metadata fields untouched from the original, except to add details related to additional processing to make a refuge specific subset, for a specific purpose (populating species lists/occurrences on refuges). All questions regarding the BBS data itself should go to USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center. The 1966-2019 North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) dataset contains avian point count data for more than 700 North American bird taxa (species, races, and unidentified species groupings). These data are collected annually during the breeding season, primarily in June, along thousands of randomly established roadside survey routes in the United States and Canada. Routes are roughly 24.5 miles (39.2 km) long with counting locations placed at approximately half-mile (800-m) intervals, for a total of 50 stops. At each stop, a citizen scientist highly skilled in avian identification conducts a 3-minute point count, recording every bird seen or heard within a quarter-mile (400-m) radius. Surveys begin 30 minutes before local sunrise and take approximately 5 hours to complete. Routes are sampled once per year, with the total number of routes sampled per year growing over time; just over 500 routes were sampled in 1966, while in recent decades approximately 3000 routes have been sampled annually. In addition to avian count data, this dataset also contains survey date, survey start and end times, start and end weather conditions, a unique observer identification number, route identification information, and route location information including country, state, and BCR, as well as geographic coordinates of route start point, and an indicator of run data quality.

This data product consists of a database of population change and abundance estimates for North American birds, estimated from North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) data. Data are presented for 546 species of birds in 4 spreadsheets containing trend estimates and annual indices for 2 time periods. Estimates are derived for each species using the 1 of 4 alternative models, and a cross-validation model selection procedure was used to select the best model for each species. Metadata associated with this data product provides information specific to the associated analysis results; metadata for the BBS data are available at Ziolkowski, D.J., Lutmerding, M., English, W.B., Aponte, V.I., and Hudson, M-A.R., 2023, North American Breeding Bird Survey Dataset 1966 - 2023: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P136CRBV.

This data product consists of raster digital data of population change and abundance estimates for 520 species of North American birds estimated from North American Breeding Bird Survey , hereafter referenced as BBS, data. Estimates for 520 species of trend (yearly % change) from 1966-2022 and mean abundances for the interval 2018-2022 are spatially smoothed from data collected on BBS routes. Metadata for the BBS (https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/64ad9c3dd34e70357a292cee) and BBS regional analyses (https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/650325c9d34ed30c2058be3b) provide general information on the survey and survey analyses; these metadata provide information specific to the mapping analysis results.

The 1966-2023 North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) dataset contains avian point count data for more than 700 North American bird taxa (species, races, and unidentified species groupings). These data are collected annually during the breeding season, primarily in June, along thousands of randomly established roadside survey routes in the United States and Canada. Routes are roughly 24.5 miles (39.2 km) long with counting locations placed at approximately half-mile (800-m) intervals, for a total of 50 stops. At each stop, a citizen scientist highly skilled in avian identification conducts a 3-minute point count, recording all birds seen within a quarter-mile (400-m) radius and all birds heard. Surveys begin 30 minutes before local sunrise and take approximately 5 hours to complete. Routes are surveyed once per year, with the total number of routes sampled per year growing over time; just over 500 routes were sampled in 1966, while in recent decades approximately 3000 routes have been sampled annually. No data are provided for 2020. BBS field activities were cancelled in 2020 because of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) global pandemic and observers were directed to not sample routes. In addition to avian count data, this dataset also contains survey date, survey start and end times, start and end weather conditions, a unique observer identification number, route identification information, and route location information including country, state, and BCR, as well as geographic coordinates of route start point, and an indicator of run data quality.