Speakers Program - Bioacoustic Monitoring
oin Napa-Solano Audubon for this program focusing on this new technique to monitor birds and other species.
Details:
Recent surveys show a dramatic 63% population decline of Tricolored Blackbirds in only 6 years. Current management techniques might be helping this species to rebound, as the latest survey shows a 22% population increase. To date, nesting success is evaluated by in-person visits. Because the number of colonies vastly outnumber the researchers and volunteers available to monitor them, colonies can only be visited at best a few times a month, or only a few times for the entire breeding season. This provides only snapshots of the timing and success of nesting, and often leaves frustrating gaps in understanding how a colony performed in a breeding season.
To address this, scientists tested the feasibility of using audio recordings to enhance their understanding of the nesting cycle. Known as Bioacoutic Monitoring, this technique has revealed the exact timing of courtship, incubation, hatching and fledging of a Tricolored Blackbird colony.
Dr. Wendy Schackwitz will demonstrate how bioacustic monitoring is being used on local colonies in Solano County and how this new monitoring technique can be used to track the impact of climate change and habitat loss on multiple species of birds and other animals.
This program is free and open to the public at the Florence Douglas Center, 333 Amador St. in Vallejo.