An Overview of the Forest Bird Monitoring Program in Ontario, Canada

In 1987, the Canadian Wildlife Service (Ontario Region) initiated a program to inventory and monitor trends in forest birds. The Forest Bird Monitoring Program (FBMP) was designed to describe changes in numbers over time for all forest songbirds, to develop a habitat-specific baseline inventory of forest birds (species composition and relative abundance), and to develop regionally accurate habitat association profiles for all common forest birds. It was intended to build upon and augment the broad regional base of the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). The program relies on volunteers for annual surveys to monitor trends, supplemented by salaried observers to establish sites and conduct baseline inventories. This paper provides an overview of procedures and methodology and some general comments on habitat-specific surveys and volunteers. The paper is intended as a description of the program and does not contain extensive data justifying the protocol. The initial selection of procedures for FBMP was based primarily on scientific literature, field experience, and the opinion of experienced volunteers. An additional section comparing 3-, 5-, and 10-minute counts based on 1992 data has been added to the paper since the 1991 workshop.