Written by Teresa ‘Bird’ Wicks, Eastern Oregon Biologist for Bird Alliance of Oregon
Cover photo of an ARU in Silvies Flood Plain by Teresa ‘Bird’ Wicks
While most people are familiar with landscapes, fewer are familiar with soundscapes. Soundscapes are essentially the collection of sounds in an area. This can include birds, amphibians, mammals, humanmade sounds, weather, etc. Soundscapes provide important information about changes on the landscape, including impacts from human activities on wildlife vocalizations and populations. As part of our work in the Harney Basin, Bird Alliance of Oregon has been working on expanding our monitoring through the use of passive acoustic monitoring (PAM). Our PAM projects are scattered across the Harney Basin, with the highest concentration of sites at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
While this monitoring is widely distributed, the scattered nature of our sites creates more of a “birdscape” than a landscape. We’re using this information to better understand the distribution of bird species in the Harney Basin and how land management, including habitat treatments and water management, affects bird distribution and bird communities.
In 2022, we detected 106 species at 16 sites. In 2024, in the Silvies Floodplain alone, we’ve already detected about 100 avian species, two amphibian species, three mammal species, and various insects. From these recordings, we were even able to detect the young of several species, including Sora, American Coot, Yellow-headed and Red-winged Blackbirds, and Sandhill Crane.
This data will be helpful for treating invasive plants, rehabilitating woody riparian area, and other work in the Blitzen and Silvies Floodplains. And you can help. We are looking for volunteers interested in some at-home experience of Malheur and Harney County more broadly, including Trout Creek Ranch south of Fields.
With nearly 60 sites across Harney County, Bird Alliance of Oregon’s PAM Project is one of the largest-scale projects using acoustic recordings to monitor birds and habitat in Oregon. If you are comfortable with identifying birds by ear, and/or willing to learn to identify birds by ear, you can support this project from afar. We are looking for volunteers interested in learning about processing acoustic recordings to obtain diversity and relative abundance of bird species at our PAM site.
Are you curious but unsure if you’re ready to commit to a project like this? Come to our virtual training December 10th from 5:30-7:00 to learn about the project, the web-based platform we use for processing recordings, and tips and tricks for identifying birds by ear. Sign-up here. If you can’t attend the virtual training in person, that’s okay! A recording will be sent to everyone who signs up.
