Page 19 - Sonoma County Gazette November 2018

Post-Fire Bird Count
Help Document Bird Recovery from the 2017 Firestorm
through Christmas Bird Count Participation
By Lisa Hug
There are many organizations addressing this question through research, from State Parks to Pepperwood and Bouverie Preserves to Point Blue Conservation Science. It is difficult to nearly impossible to study and interpret the effects of fires on birds without data from years of baseline studies. Baseline studies give us information on the “normal” numbers and ranges of birds before large events such as the 2017 firestorm.
There are three Christmas Bird Counts (CBC). The Santa Rosa CBC run by Redwood Region Ornithological Society on December 16, the Sonoma Valley CBC on December 28, and the West Sonoma County CBC run by Madrone Audubon Society on December 30.
How are the Birds faring after the 2017 firestorm?
Much of our baseline data on birdlife comes from long-term citizen-science projects. The longest running citizen-science project on record is the National Audubon’s Annual Christmas Bird Count. This long-term project was started in Boston and New York in December, 1900 by Frank Chapman. There are now Christmas Bird Counts all over the world and they provide important data on population trends all over the planet. By participating in a CBC you make an important contribution to conservation.
All counts depend on volunteers. Most of our volunteers are experienced birdwatchers but we also have beginning
birdwatchers and administrative and kitchen volunteers. To find out more about these CBCs and more CBCs throughout California, checkout this website: http://www.natureali. org/cbcs.htm.
Both the Santa Rosa Count and the
Sonoma Valley Count cover areas that were burned during the 2017 firestorm. Seeing
the charred landscape was devastating for some participants last year and it had many volunteers reliving their own traumatic events during the fires that happened only a few weeks before the Counts. Hopefully, one
year later, the painful effects of the fires will have softened by the sight of new growth and rebounding birds and wildlife in the areas. Collecting data on bird numbers from these regions during the CBCs will be another
piece of information that wildlife biologists can use to understand the effects of wildfires on local bird populations.
Assessing the effects of wildfires on birds is very complicated. It takes time for birdlife to recover from fire. There are different stages of fire recovery.
What happens to birds during the fires? As you might expect, most birds
fly away from the fires, but sadly, some do perish. There were reports in 2017
of birds showing up in the East Bay in unlikely areas, presumed to be fleeing
the fires to the north. There are surprising historic reports from fire lookout observers from 1902 and 1949 of some birds actually flying TO fires. Swallows and swifts are acrobatic aerial that are able to maneuver quickly in flight to catch rising insects above fire’s flames and then escape from the heat in time to avoid injury. There are even reports of raptors spreading fires by moving burning sticks to catch the small mammals that are displaced from their burrows.
In the months and first few years after the fires, birds such as Lazuli Buntings and various kinds of sparrows are attracted to the renewed grassland and chaparral habitats. Woodpeckers are attracted to beetle infestations of burned trees in the forest. It may take several years for certain kinds of bird that need mature forest to be able move back into the areas from nearby unburned areas.
Fires are a natural part of our California ecosystem.
We do not understand all the various ways that fire affects birds and other wildlife. We do know that increased human population and climate change
are causing more fires, hotter fires, and larger fires than in the past. In order to understand how these fires are affecting our birds, we need lots of information from lots of different sources and perspectives. One way that you can help with this effort is to join in the fun of a local Christmas Bird Count. It is a festive way to contribute to our knowledge base of local bird populations.
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