Bethpage State Park Participates in 2018 Audubon Climate Watch

Eastern bluebird during nesting season (2017) on the Black Course

As an enormous green space in the heart of Long Island (1,477 acres to be exact), Bethpage State Park is always looking for ways to help protect local wildlife and utilize our grounds for citizen science research. If an environmental organization has a simple program in place that matches these efforts, well you can count us in! This month we participated in Audubon's Climate Watch, an example of just that kind of program.

This biannual birding opportunity calls on North American volunteers to go outside and look for target species that scientists predict will most likely be effected by climate change within this decade. The species of interest this year are bluebirds and nuthatches. The intended goal of Climate Watch is to collect data on where these birds are now, so scientists can stay alert of their range changes and create timely protection plans for the future.

(Reference from Audubon's Climate Watch Webpage)

Leading the Climate Watch at our park is volunteer birder Irene Bareis. This is Irene's second time participating in this program at Bethpage State Park, having collected similar target species data for Audubon last summer. However, Irene's work does not stop there; she, along with other volunteers, monitors 45 bird boxes throughout nesting season and sends weekly reports of these observations to Cornell Nestwatch. The nest boxes she monitors are located all throughout our five golf courses and provide extra nesting habitat for tree swallows, house wrens and you guessed it, eastern bluebirds!     

   

Eastern bluebird chick and eggs
 in our bird box (2017)

Irene monitoring bluebird nests during the spring 

     

                 

This year, I accompanied Irene for the Climate Watch; together we counted birds at twelve different observation points, for five minutes each (as requested by Audubon's protocol). All observation points were located on the Black Course and spaced out by at least 200 meters, to prevent repeat counting. Irene chose these observation points based on the fact that they were in close proximity to our park's bluebird boxes. While we ironically did not spot any eastern bluebirds, we did note at least eight other bird species including one of Audubon's other target species...a white-breasted nuthatch! The overall birding process took about two hours to complete.  

While our bluebird and nuthatch counts were low, the data is not surprising for this time of year. It is also possible that we might have missed some bluebirds and nuthatches, as we were only observing a small portion of our park's habitat. Nonetheless, as they say in the science world, little or nothing is still something when it comes to data! We now have numbers that can be used for future comparisons. This is important because we hope to bird in the same exact locations for upcoming Climate Watch events (including the one this summer). 

         To learn more about Audubon's program make sure to visit http://www.audubon.org/conservation/climate-watch-program

and stay tuned for more Bethpage birding related posts!