Latest update: 12 May 2009 Latest bulletins!

Mini Breeding Bird Surveys

Orange, Chatham, and Durham Counties

North Carolina

A Mini Breeding Bird Survey (MBBS) is a small-scale version of the full Breeding Bird Survey organized each year by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service throughout North America.

An MBBS focuses on one county.   Volunteers count birds seen or heard along randomly chosen routes on secondary roads.   The objective is to determine the distribution of breeding birds in the county and to assess any year-to-year changes in their numbers.

MBBS 2009 IS NOW IN PROGRESS!
All routes and summaries are now posted (see links below)!

In 2007 the numbers of many birds hit all-time lows, but 2008 saw a spectacular recovery.   Many species reached all-time highs!   The pattern is approximately the same in all three counties, even for individual species of birds.   For more details, click the links for "compare years" below.

This year is the eleventh consecutive year for Orange County,
the tenth for Chatham, and the eighth for Durham County.

... as always please check the latest bulletins!

Results for 2008 ...

Orange County
Chatham County
Durham County

Check out our results for years past. . .

Orange County -- 1999   2000   2001   2002   2003   2004   2005   2006   2007   2008   Compare years!

Chatham County -- 2000   2001   2002   2003   2004   2005   2006   2007   2008   Compare years!

Durham County -- 2002   2003   2004   2005   2006   2007   2008   Compare years!

Special thanks to all of our participants for 2008! -- all 38 of them!

For more information, see . . .

OUR PROCEDURES (revised 10 May 2006)

including

descriptions and maps of our routes

a list of birds breeding in our area

and

FORMS FOR MBBS DATA

If you have questions, please contact Ginger Travis (Orange County),
Marsha Stephens (Chatham County), Patsy Bailey (Durham County), or Haven Wiley !

 

 

Latest bulletins!

MBBS 2009 is in progress!

Participants -- contact your county coordinator as soon as possible
if you need help submitting your data or running your routes!

Remember we start our routes at 5:30, preferably on a Sunday morning
between May 20 and June 20 (or as soon as possible thereafter).
It's a good idea to display our signs saying "Bird Count".

There are Excel spreadsheets at the link above for submitting your numbers
(but if spreadsheets are inconvenient for you, send your results on paper to me
or to your country coordinator who can forward them to me).

I will be out of the country again for some more field work until late June.
Send your spreadsheets to my email as usual (see link below) ...
I'll post the data on our web site as soon as I return!

May the sun shine and the birds sing on your MBBS routes!
Minna and I will run ours -- the rest is up to all of you!

Haven Wiley