Why Monitor Birds? How Park Scientists and Birdwatchers Track Them

The early birder gets the count! NPS / Neal Herbert.

Whether you live in a city or the wilderness, you probably see or hear birds every day — drawn by their songs and the wonder of a hawk riding a thermal.

Why birds matter

• Food and habitat: they pollinate, eat destructive pests, and disperse seeds.
• Ecosystem engineers: their nests and tree holes are reused by other animals.
• Economy: birdwatching is a multi-billion-dollar industry.

With over 10,000 bird species worldwide, many migrating vast distances, keeping track of them is a monumental task — and scientists need your help.

Community science

If enough people watch birds in backyards, towns and wild places, they create a "snapshot" of bird populations that can be compared across years: are species increasing or decreasing, and are their ranges expanding, shrinking or shifting?

• Great Backyard Bird Count: an annual four-day global count open to all ages and abilities, with results shown almost in real time through eBird. In 2022, an estimated 384,000+ participants identified over 7,000 species; in 2023 it marked 26 years. birdcount.org
• All year: the Audubon Christmas Bird Count, eBird, Project FeederWatch, and a project devoted to urban birding.

Monitoring in parks — and beyond

NPS.

• Inventory and Monitoring: 32 NPS networks gather data on plants, animals and ecosystems to gauge park health. Birds respond quickly to change, so they are good indicators.
• Trends guide action: when managers at Pea Ridge National Military Park saw bobwhite quail declining, they focused on grassland restoration.
• Beyond boundaries: many birds migrate thousands of miles. A recent study compared protected lands with a citizen-science project in unprotected areas — with some surprising results that show the value of long-term monitoring as the climate changes.

Beyond binoculars

A tagged robin. NPS / Emily Mesner.

• Tags: electronic tracking devices show where migratory birds go and by what routes — see how tagging is used in Alaska.
• Motus: the NPS has joined the worldwide Motus Wildlife Tracking System, which uses radio telemetry to follow small animals; the first NPS Motus station went up at Fort Union National Monument in 2022 to track declining grassland birds.
• AI: BirdNET detects over 3,000 species in audio recordings, helping parks study restoration success, climate change and more.

The big picture

A 2019 study of long-term monitoring found North America has lost 2.9 billion birds since 1970 — 1 in 4. Knowing that lets agencies and organizations focus their conservation, and you can help from home with 7 simple actions — the last of which is to watch birds and share what you see.

Sources

Based on "Why Monitor Birds?", National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The meadowlark photograph, credited to an individual photographer, is left out.