Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions eNewsletter
Spring 2023

Welcome to the 13th IMBCR e-newsletter! With this outlet, we will showcase IMBCR data applications for management and conservation efforts, highlight the many partners and faces that make IMBCR possible, and provide updates and outreach materials. Please forward the newsletter to any interested colleagues who might find the material useful. If you have examples you would like to share using IMBCR data or would like to get involved in this monitoring effort, please contact Jen!

Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions (IMBCR) is a breeding landbird monitoring program that spans the Great Plains to the Great Basin. A nested, probabilistic sampling design allows us to make inference about bird populations at multiple scales across public and private lands. Click here for more information about the program including the IMBCR vision and mission statement.
IMBCR Announcements
Read all about it! The 2022 IMBCR Field Season report is live! Visit this link to view the report online. As we discussed at the Partners meeting this year, the online report is easier to navigate and more interactive. Thanks, Jessie Reese, for creating it! If you would like to download a pdf version of the report, click here. Note that this is a draft version of the report. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to Jen or Matthew by April 14.
Density and occupancy estimates for 2022 are accessible in the Results section of the annual report via query links for the Rocky Mountain Avian Data Center. To access trend estimates for all strata and species through 2022, along with a ReadMe doc, please visit this folder.
Above: scissor-tailed flycatcher courtesy of Nick Tepper.
We held a hybrid IMBCR Partners meeting in January this year with 35-40 participants each day (most of those remote). On the first day, we discussed hiring challenges to fill field crews the past few years, and various ways that IMBCR data are informing grassland bird conservation, such as large-scale modeling efforts to determine what's driving population trends. We also had a funding panel discussion with 6 partners where they described the challenges and successes of securing funding for IMBCR each year. On the second day, we listened to 5 presentations on different IMBCR applications, such as data integration efforts for IMBCR and BBS for grassland birds, and modeling songbird habitat relationships to inform management of PJ woodlands. We wrapped up the meeting by presenting Matthew McLaren with the 2022 IMBCR Partner of the Year award. Thanks for steering this ship every year, Matthew! Visit this folder to see notes and presentations from the meeting.
Field Season Prep: Hiring for the 2023 field season is wrapping up! If you know someone with bird ID skills who is looking for a field job, please reach out to some of our implementation partners who may still be filling their field crews (e.g., Intermountain Bird Observatory). The sampling effort this year will be larger than in 2022. For the baseline effort, we will survey across all BLM field offices in Idaho and Colorado, and also have some expanded Forest and Grassland coverage in USFS Region 2.
IMBCR Partner Spotlight
Jeremy Halka

Jeremy is a research biologist with the Intermountain Bird Observatory (IBO), a non-profit bird research and education organization housed under Boise State University in Idaho. 2023 will be Jeremy's 11th year working on IMBCR — 4 years as a technician across a handful of states, and now 7 years as a coordinator. He manages large portions of the IMBCR program in Idaho and southern Utah, and he hires, trains, and supervises a crew of 10–12 field technicians each year across both states. The surveys Jeremy manages are funded primarily by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
 The USFS and BLM use the IMBCR data IBO collects to inform their land management plans, update sensitive species lists, and assess the potential effects of various projects (energy, habitat treatments, etc.). IBO has also worked with partners on more focused project areas using the IMBCR design ("overlay" projects). For example, they partnered with Idaho BLM from 2018–2021 to conduct pre- and post-treatment surveys across a landscape-level juniper removal project in southwest Idaho (Bruneau-Owyhee Sage-Grouse Habitat Project) to measure the treatment effects on non-game avian species.

Left: Jeremy in front of the Pine Valley Mtns at the Utah IMBCR training, and top: Jeremy conducting a survey in Boise National Forest.
Applying the Data
During this year's Partners meeting, Quresh Latif presented on a 10-year overlay study funded by the Wyoming BLM to learn about the impacts of oil and gas development on sagebrush birds of concern. He estimated trends in species occupancy and richness relevant to management triggers, and explored mechanisms underlying observed trends to inform management. Fine-scale occupancy for sage thrasher declined within the high-development stratum at a rate sufficient to meet an a priori management trigger set by the BLM, and the trend for overall species richness exhibited a negative relationship with development. In addition, well pad density and invasive plants associated with energy development were identified as causal factors contributing to the negative relationships. Read an early version of the publication here.
Nick Van Lanen also presented some of his graduate research at the Partners meeting. For example, he modeled habitat relationships and estimated population trend for pinyon jays using IMBCR data across western states, and mapped change in predicted jay density from 2008 to 2020 based on resource conditions in 2008 and 2020. His results showed a decrease in pinyon jay populations in BCR 16 with positive relationships between jay density and sagebrush and pinyon-juniper cover and Palmer Drought Severity Index, and a negative relationship between jay density and NDVI. He also predicted higher pinyon jay densities in locations which had sagebrush and pinyon-juniper cover that is characteristic of areas typically treated for conifer removal. Thus, if conifer removal meant to restore sagebrush communities is conducted in these locations, they could negatively impact pinyon jay populations. View the full publication here.
Resources
Need a little help understanding the population metrics we provide each year from IMBCR monitoring? Take a look at this one-pager, which explains the difference between density, abundance occupancy, and trend; how we determine robust estimates; some example applications for these metrics; and how to access them.
We developed the IMBCR Communication Strategy as a guide for IMBCR partners who wish to communicate to current and potential data users the value of the program, how to use estimates for management and conservation decisions, and how to get involved in the program. The strategy contains several sections to help partners convey a consistent message about the IMBCR program, including why we monitor bird populations in the first place, features that set IMBCR apart from other monitoring programs, identifying your target audience, real-world data applications, and various pathways to communicate your message.
Check out the IMBCR Applications webpage for IMBCR-related resources. You can access publications, annual reports & field protocols, trend estimates, past IMBCR meeting notes, and various one-pagers.
Stay in touch!
Contact Jen Timmer (jennifer.timmer@birdconservancy.org) with questions, example applications of IMBCR data, pictures, or any other contributing material for future IMBCR e-newsletters.
birdconservancy.org/IMBCR