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For the Birds
Monitoring Breeding Landbirds in Alaska's Interior
Your 2:30 am alarm goes off.
You roll over a few times in your tent before convincing yourself to get up and get moving. No matter how many days you have been on this schedule, it always feels like an impossible adjustment.
You have planned just enough time to put on your bug shirt, wake your survey partner, grab a few energy bars from the bear cannister, sling the shotgun over your shoulder, and start hiking toward your first survey of the day...
At this northern latitude, the sun doesn’t set and you push on to the first point count in the drawn-out multi-hour dawn light. For those first few surveys, you still get to experience the previous day's warmth.
Air rushing over the outspread tail feathers of a Wilson's Snipe (pictured) creates the "winnowing" sound heard at most survey sites. Photo and audio by Zak Pohlen.
Background: Wetlands surrounding Minnkokut Lake, Kanuti NWR. Photo by Callie Gesmundo.
You take out your map and plan your attack. What's the best route? Around that lake? Across that beaver dam? Along this ridgeline? Take your pick. 500-meter hike, unpack, ten-minute survey, re-pack, 500-meter hike, unpack, ten-minute survey, re-pack....rinse and repeat.
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle; pictured) with its wheel-like song is the most frequently detected warbler on surveys in Alaska's interior. Photo and audio by Zak Pohlen.
Background: Rolling hills surrounding Murphy Dome, AK. Photo by Zak Pohlen.
You finish your first set of surveys and hike back to your tents. With two hours until the floatplane arrives, you have just enough time to organize the data and tear down camp.
The Ruby-crowned Kinglet (pictured), has a impressively loud song for a bird weighing as much as a nickle! Photo and audio by Zak Pohlen.
Background: Forested edge of the Porcupine River, Arctic NWR. Photo by Callie Gesmundo.
Why do this unusual ritual day-in and day-out for most of the month of June?
Background: Lowland landscape of Tetlin NWR. Photo by Callie Gesmundo.
It's for the birds...
Blackpoll Warbler Setophaga striata
Photo and audio by Zak Pohlen
A Survey Like No Other
Every year, roughly a dozen surveyors abandon the creature comforts of daily life to survey breeding birds in remote parts of Alaska as part of the Alaska Landbird Monitoring Survey , also known as ALMS.
Surveyors brave the remote Alaskan wilderness, flying from site to site, traversing rivers, camping next to untouched boreal lakes, and hiking through steep terrain, buggy bogs, and tussock-laden wetlands on a mission to learn about Alaska’s breeding birds.
The primary goal of ALMS is to monitor long-term trends in Alaska’s avifauna. These surveys parallel the long-established North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS), while addressing problems that are uniquely Alaskan.
View from an ALMS survey point on the north side of the Porcupine River in Arctic NWR. Photo by Callie Gesmundo/USFWS.
The North American BBS is among the most consistent and widely applied programs in the world to monitor avian populations. Without this program, we would know much less about bird populations across North America.
However, the BBS was established in a geographic system interlaced with millions of miles of roads along which surveys are conducted. Meanwhile, Alaska has roughly 640 square miles of land for every one mile of paved road—by far the lowest road density of any U.S. state.
The Denali Highway: one of few roads traversing Alaska's interior. Photo by Callie Gesmundo.
ALMS from Above
Because of this road requirement, the BBS program has left gaps in our coverage and understanding of Alaska landbird populations. Alaska's scarcity of roads also presents us with unique challenges for collecting unbiased data about bird populations and trends.
ALMS fills this gap in road-based surveys by sending observers to randomly selected locations in remote corners of the state, accessible only by aircraft and boat.
Small outboard motorboats are regularly used by biologists to access ALMS sites along rivers. Photo by Zak Pohlen/USFWS.
Several organizations and agencies have participated in ALMS since its creation in 2003, with extensive and ongoing participation from 11 of Alaska’s 16 National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs): Arctic, Tetlin, Kanuti, Nowitna, Innoko, Koyukuk, Selawik, Kenai, Kodiak, Becharof, and Alaska Peninsula.
This widespread refuge participation has been critical to the current and ongoing success of the ALMS program.
Interact with this map to learn more about Alaska's NWRs. Zoom in using the plus/minus buttons and click on the yellow refuge boundaries and green wilderness boundaries to reveal more information.
Since 2015, with support from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) Refuges Inventory & Monitoring, USFWS Alaska Migratory Bird Management (MBM) has deployed teams to conduct ALMS at seven interior refuges.
Surveyors unload gear after being dropped off in Koyukuk NWR. Photo by Zak Pohlen/USFWS.
Zoom in on this map to investigate the actual survey points conducted by USFWS Alaska MBM.
As of 2019, ALMS surveyors have counted 97,642 individual birds of 194 species on 9,248 point count surveys throughout the state.
Beyond Alaska
While ALMS is only conducted in Alaska, these data can also improve our understanding of avian trends on a continental scale. Currently, there is ongoing collaboration and support to integrate complementary surveys like ALMS into the greater North American analysis of breeding birds. With many northern, roadless areas left out by traditional road-based monitoring programs, surveys like ALMS are key to fully understanding earth's most rapidly changing region—our northern landscapes.
Click and drag the center slider to reveal the drastic landscape changes from 1958 to 2001. Forest and tundra habitats in northern regions around the globe are considered the most at risk to climate change (NASA 2011). Repeat photography, like these two images taken for the Denali Repeat Photography project , is one way scientists study climate change effects over time. Photos by Leslie A. Viereck.
Why Care?
Alaska provides vital breeding habitat for hundreds of landbird species, particularly across its interior boreal forest. Unfortunately, researchers recently documented wide-spread declines among North American avifauna, with species breeding in boreal habitats experiencing the second steepest decline among all biomes.
The 1.5 billion acres of North American Boreal Forest stretching from eastern Canada to western Alaska is a critical summer nursery for billions of breeding songbirds.
Boreal forest birds have declined over 30% (500 million individuals lost) since 1970 ( Rosenberg et al. 2019 ), many of which are Blackpoll Warblers—a boreal breeder that has lost over 90% of its population in the last 40 years ( Rosenberg et al. 2016 ).
Long-term avian monitoring programs like ALMS are crucial for tracking these sorts of trends into the future.
Blackpoll Warbler Setophaga striata
Photo and audio by Zak Pohlen
By filling geographic data gaps, ALMS can help paint a more complete picture of North American bird populations while ensuring future conservation and management efforts are focused on the species and areas most in need.
Northern Waterthrush Parkesia noveboracensis
Photo and audio by Zak Pohlen
Do you have what it takes?
Every year the USFWS Alaska MBM landbird program hires biologists to conduct point counts for ALMS throughout the state.
If you have the skills to conduct point counts in Alaska's breathtaking backcountry and are interested in becoming a part of our team, email our ALMS program coordinator for more information, and look for our annual seasonal announcement on USAJOBS.gov
Partner Organizations
ALMS is a collaborative program created by USGS Alaska Science Center and Boreal Partners in Flight and implemented on public lands throughout the state of Alaska. The success of ALMS depends on numerous organizations and people for its past, current, and continued success.
