Citizen Monitoring ofAquatic Bird Populations Using a Florida Lake

Hoyer, M. V.,j. Winn and D. E. Canfield,Jr. 2001. Citizenmonitoring ofaquatic bird populations using a Floridalake. Lake and Reserv. Manage. 17(2):82-89. Five years of monthly bird counts on a 2.32 km2 lake in north central Florida were used to examine the ability of a citizen volunteer to monitor aquatic bird populations. When compared to published aquatic bird data, collected by professional biologists, the citizen volunteer was able to accurately assess bird abundance and species richness. The monthly counts over a five-year period were also used to examine seasonal patterns in aquatic bird use. We highly recommend the development of citizen based aquatic bird monitoring programs for the assessment of reportedly declining aquatic bird populations. This would be especially useful ifentire states programs could be developed to monitor regional as well as temporal trends in aquatic bird populations.