State of the Birds:Documenting Changes in Massachusetts Birdlife

Background

In the fall of 2010, a group of Mass Audubon scientists, naturalists, policy specialists, and educators began working on an analysis of Massachusetts bird data from several studies. State of the Birds: Documenting Changes in Massachusetts Birdlife is the result of this analysis.

This substantial document is based on:

• preliminary results from our nearly completed Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas 2 (BBA2)
• Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas 1 (BBA1) data, covering 1974 - 1979
• the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), comprising 55 years’ worth of repeated bird survey routes (24 in Massachusetts)
• the Christmas Bird Count, begun in 1900, and capturing trends in wintering birds
• 40 years of bird banding records from the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences in Plymouth
• several other long-term sets of data compiled on selected groups of birds by MassWildlife

State of the Birds includes detailed accounts of individual species, habitats, and overall trends; descriptions of the major threats facing Massachusetts birds; recommendations on how to reverse or stabilize some of the declines, including actions that all of us can take to help our native bird populations; and a reminder of the many benefits that birds bring to our lives. Further, we give access to the data we used in drawing our conclusions, including species-by-species trends.

These State of the Bird web pages will be updated as we continue to monitor trends in Massachusetts birdlife. We believe that this is the most detailed and comprehensive analysis ever undertaken on the status of Massachusetts birds and that it contains important implications for the quality of human life as well as birdlife.

We urge you to peruse the site, and, if you are as moved by its conclusions as we have been, we hope you will join us in taking action on behalf of our common wealth of birds.