Auditory and Visual Data of Bird Species in Mountain Wetlands, Upper Bow River Basin, Alberta, Canada

Data was collected using autonomous recording units (ARU), and in-person point count surveys, during the 2018 field season. Variables such as: dominant vegetation cover, area of peatland, elevation, Natural Subregion classification, distance to closest road, ambient noise, wind speed, date and time of year, were collected along with the point counts and recorded files. Spectrograms were used to analyze recorded files since each bird species have unique songs and calls. Once files were processed a list of bird species present at each site was used for statistical analysis. This data collection method will also be repeated for the 2019 field season.

The objectives of this project is to determine the bird species richness in mountain peatlands along an elevation gradient in the Upper Bow River Basin, and model how community composition changes along an elevation gradient. The purpose of this study is to understand what birds occupy mountain peatlands, and studying birds along an elevation gradient can be a proxy for how species richness and community composition will change with the changing climate. Also, bird watching is a very popular economic activity and this taxonomic group is a great motivator for those who care about habitat protection, but before we can protect birds in mountain peatlands, we need to know: what species are there, the number of species, and what influences their presence.

This data set is collected for the project titled “Future Water for the Mountain West" [now Mountain Water Futures], which is a Pillar 3 project under the Global Water Futures Program funded by Canada First Research Excellence Fund.

Rooney, R., Reynolds, J., Bolding, M., & Pearson, J. (2019). Auditory and Visual Data of Bird Species in Mountain Wetlands, Upper Bow River Basin, Alberta, Canada. Waterloo, Canada: Canadian Cryospheric Information Network (CCIN). (Unpublished Data).

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