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THANK YOU!
Over the past three years of our donor-supported Adopt-a-Transect program, your generosity has allowed us to conduct 23 surveys of 17 transects in aspen, coniferous forest, Joshua tree, Mojave scrub, pinyon-juniper, sagebrush, and salt desert habitats across Nevada.
In 2024, we were able to survey 8 transects in coniferous forest, Joshua Tree, Mojave scrub, pinyon-juniper, and sagebrush habitats. Overall, we detected more than 1200 individuals of 102 species. Among the many highlights were a Long-eared Owl, a Golden Eagle nest with awkward youngster, Gilded Flickers, and several pairs of Long-billed Curlews scolding surveyor and Northern Harriers, alike!
The transects we surveyed in 2024 were selected in and near burned areas, and added needed data to our fire effects dataset. One interesting example was our survey of DS-BorderCorral, in Joshua tree/scattered pinyon-juniper habitat near the California-Nevada border. This site burned in 2023, during the York Fire, and had been surveyed recently enough that we had pre-burn site photos to share.
As we can see above, many of the areas of this transect have been completely burned over, though extensive unburned patches are also represented. Some locations have experienced substantial herbaceous regrowth, and even some shrub growth/regrowth, while others remain quite barren. It will be helpful to monitor how the plant and bird communities change with time after fire, particularly in relation to other Joshua tree sites, including surveys of JT-68, which donors also made possible!
Future analyses will be able to include these surveys to investigate fire effects on the bird community, which could include burn age, size, intensity, as well as climate variables. The surveys that you make possible, make a real difference to our understanding of the current status of bird communities in Nevada, and to how those communities may be responding to changing conditions. Thank you so much for your support!
- Jen
JT-68
Explore the map
Below is a map of our donor-supported surveys we’ve conducted the past two years. You can explore these sites and see species lists and photos from our surveys by clicking on the pins to open a pop-up window. Sometimes there are more than one survey associated with a particular pin – if so, in the top right corner of the popup you may see little arrows with “1 of 2” for example, and by clicking on the arrow on the top left you can scroll through the surveys.
