Mountain Birdwatch: 2010-2022

Mountain Birdwatch (MBW) is a long-term community science monitoring program for 10 bird and 1 mammal species that breed in high-elevation spruce-fir forests of the northeastern United States. Initiated in 2000 as Mountain Birdwatch 1.0, MBW 2.0 (years 2010 and onwards) provides the only region-wide source of population information on these high-elevation species. Each June, under the coordination of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, volunteers perform repeated point counts at nearly 750 long-term fixed sampling sites along established hiking trails in Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and eastern New York (Catskills and Adirondacks). The primary emphasis was placed on Bicknell’s Thrush, a montane-fir specialist that breeds only in the Northeastern U.S. and adjacent portions of Canada. In 2010, the program underwent many positive changes to reemerge as Mountain Birdwatch 2.0. All of the sampling locations prior to 2010 were permanently retired, and new sampling locations were chosen using a generalized random tessellation stratified (GRTS) procedure. For more information see: https://vtecostudies.org/projects/mountains/mountain-birdwatch/ These data on KNB contain all of the point count for the 11 monitored species from 2010 to 2022 with the exception of data from 6 routes in Maine that occur on commercial timberlands. Our confidentiality agreements with those timber operations prevent us from sharing those data in a non-aggregated format.