Download Dry Forest Wildlife Habitat Objective

Region 6
White-headed Woodpecker
Monitoring 2011
Monitoring Strategy
Cooperators
USFS Pacific
Northwest Region
Oregon / Washington
Klamath Bird
Observatory
Ecology Program has
supporting role in this region-wide
project
Overview
WHWO Life History &
Importance
Project Overview
& Questions Asked
Ecology Program Role
Protocols & Review of First
Field Season
Summary of Existing Knowledge
May be one of the least studied woodpeckers
Life History
Food Habits
Range and Distribution
Population Trends
Habitat Use
Ecological Considerations
Life History
Year-round residents
Monogamous
Cavity nesting birds
Produce single clutch per year of 4-5
eggs
Both parents brood and feed young
Fledge in 26 days, usually late June-early
July
Home range averages about 800 acres
Reported reproductive success ranges
from 23 to 85% (Frenzel, Kozma, Forristal)
Adult survival estimated at 65% (Frenzel)
Nest success tied to presence of large
pine (Hollenbeck et al. 2009)
Food Habits
Primarily forage on live trees, rarely
on snags
Feed on insects from May to
September – ants, beetles, cicadas
Feed on ponderosa or sugar pine
seeds from late summer through the
winter
Occasionally sapsuck in early
spring
Frequently drink water
Biology and Habitat Use
White-headed woodpeckers (WHWO) are strongly
associated with open, dry ponderosa pine forest habitat.
Historically, fire maintained open habitat for this species.
Generally considered old-growth associates, but Kozma
(Yakama Nation) has recently found that they may be using
younger forests as well.
Also associated with post-fire habitat. They occur in higher
densities and/or reproduce more successfully in post-fire
habitat than in other habitats. WHWO is associated with mixed
severity burn areas.
WHWO use large snags (primarily ponderosa pine) for
nesting and roosting.
WHWO feed almost exclusively on ponderosa and sugar
pine seeds during fall and winter, and mature pine produce a
more reliable seed crop.
Other Woodpeckers Along Transects
A number of other species observed as well:
Pileated Woodpecker
Requires highly decomposed
wood, ants
Hairy Woodpecker
More likely to drill for food
Williamson’s Sapsucker
Eats sap, phloem, ants
Northern Flicker
Ground foraging
Black-backed Woodpecker
Post-stand replacement
Lewis’ Woodpecker
Flycatching of aerial insects
Range and Distribution
British Columbia – very rare
Idaho – scarce and patchy
distribution
Washington – rare
E and NE Oregon – uncommon
SW Oregon - scarce and patchy
distribution
California – common in Sierras
S California – different subspecies
P. a. gravirostras - common
From Garret et al. 1996
Habitat Use
General Habitat Description:
Ponderosa pine or dry mixed conifer
forests dominated by ponderosa pine
and/or sugar pine and Douglas-fir
Large mature pines
Nest in open forests with sparse
understory vegetation
Burned forest – in areas with 60% low
severity or unburned (Wightman and Saab
2008)
High interspersion/juxtaposition of
open and closed ponderosa pine forest
patches (Hollenbeck et al. 2009)
71% of landscape with < 40% canopy
closure (Wightman and Saab 2008)
Habitat Use
Nesting Habitat:
Stands with <40% canopy closure, often in openings created by
silvicultural treatments or fire
Slopes < 20% and lower slope positions
Nest sites w/ >=12 large pines (>21”dbh) had highest nest
success (Frenzel)
Nest Tree Characteristics
Kozma 2009
Nest dbh (cm) 36.6
Nest height
3.8
(m)
Decay
moderate to
decayed
Tree species
80.6 %
ponderosa
pine
Sample size
36
Study
south-central
location
Washington
Frenzel 2004
Dixon 1995
Buchanan et
al. 2003
Bull 1980
Cannon
(unpub. data)
68.9
3.6
65.0
5
51.5
5.8
45
3
100
2.2
84%
ponderosa
pine
43
central and
south-central
Oregon
moderate to
hard
76%
ponderosa
pine
21
eastern
Cascades
Washington
71% moderate
ponderosa
pine
405
central and
south-central
Oregon
soft
75%
ponderosa
pine
4
northeast
Oregon
Douglas-fir
1
southwest
Oregon
Habitat Use
Roosting Habitat (Dixon 1995):
Most roosts in multi-layerd stands
Higher canopy closure, average 57%
Higher density of large live trees (avg.
16/acre) than nest sites
Foraging Habitat (Dixon 1995):
Foraging stands averaged 65% canopy
closure
Forage primarily in live large ponderosa
pine trees
Sapsucking occurred in dense stands of
smaller trees
Population Trends
Breeding Bird Survey trends :
•Stable to increasing range-wide
•Washington and Oregon – trends not significant and credibility
measure was “very imprecise” – 3-5% per year change would not
be detected
Population declines and range reductions:
•Central Oregon – comparison of density estimates between
Dixon (1995) and Frenzel and Popper (1998) indicate a 20%
decline in the density of WHWO in about 5 years
•Central Oregon, reproductive success of WHWO has been too
low to offset adult mortality, thus the population is declining to the
point that occupancy of known territories steadily decreased over
a 6 year study period (Frenzel 2004)
•WHWO no longer occur at some sites in the northern Blue
Mountains where they used to be relatively common (Bull 1980 and
Nielsen-Pincus 2005)
Management Concerns
Management Indicator Species, Regional Forester’s Sensitive
Species, BLM Special Status Species, and a species of concern
in Forest Plan Revisions
Forest management concerns:
•Fires create habitat and thus help to restore habitat for this
species. Salvage can reduce snag densities to levels which
eliminate “restored” habitat
•Dry forest habitat is the target of most restoration and fuels
reduction projects that have the potential to either have
beneficial or negative effects on habitat:
•Create open habitat
•Reduce risk of loss of large pine habitat
•However - especially important is the potential loss of
large ponderosa pine trees and snags due to prescribed
fire.
Threats to WHWO
#1 - Habitat loss
Causes of Decline: Late-seral, single-story,
Ponderosa Pine Forests
81 percent decline from historical conditions basin-wide
Timber harvest:
Replaced late-seral forests with mid-seral forests
Harvest of large ponderosa pine
Fire exclusion:
Shift to more shade-tolerant species Douglas-fir
and white/grand fir
Shift to multi-storied, dense stands
Threats to WHWO
Predators
A main cause of nest failure appears to be predation by small
mammals (Frenzel 2004)
Increase in shrub cover and down wood cover increases nest
predator populations (Smith and Maguire 2004)
Golden mantled ground squirrel
- survival and densities higher in
areas with higher down wood
volume
Yellow-pine chipmunk - densities are
Higher where there is greater total
shrub and live bitterbrush cover
Other factors affecting WHWO
Disease – loss of white
pine and sugar pine –
alternate food for whiteheaded woodpeckers
Competition for nest sites
Harvest units as ecological
traps?
Increased road density
results in increased loss of
snags
Conservation Assessment for Whiteheaded Woodpecker
Regional Goals:
Summarize existing
knowledge
Identify important information
gaps and uncertainties
Define and map habitat
Identify population and
habitat core areas
Offer management
considerations to better
manage the species
Develop a monitoring strategy
Monitoring Strategy
Monitoring & Research Approach
•Broad-scale occupancy monitoring - designed to provide
reliable, standardized data on the distribution, site occupancy,
and population trends for white-headed woodpeckers across
their range in OR and WA.
•Treatment effectiveness monitoring – designed to assess
effect of stand-level treatments on woodpecker occupancy
and nest survival.
•Validation monitoring – designed to validate & refine
habitat suitability models of nesting white-headed
woodpeckers in burned and unburned forests.
•Fuels data collection – designed to support modeling of
fire-climate impacts on historic and future habitat suitability
Gather existing location data on WHWO
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woodpecker
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and Washington
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Sources:
FS NRIS Wildlife
BLM GEOBOB
Natural Heritage
EBird Database
Saab – Birds & Burns
Kozma
Frenzel
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whwo_1420_albers
GIS
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whwo potential
Mapping white-headed woodpecker habitat
Nesting Habitat Mapping Criteria
Based on GNN data
Basic
Habitat Type: Ponderosa pine, sugar pine, western white pine
dominated
Green forests
Habitat Type: Ponderosa pine, sugar pine, western white pine
dominated
Canopy cover: >=10% and < 40%
Large trees: 8 pines/acre >= 21 inches
Post-fire
Habitat Type: Ponderosa pine, sugar pine, western white pine
Pre-fire canopy cover: >=10% and < 40%
Large trees: 8 pines (live or dead)/acre >= 21 inches
Fire severity: low severity only
Age of fire: fires since 2000
Monitoring Strategy
Regional broad-scale occupancy and distribution
monitoring
•30 transects through region
•Play-back survey at point count stations
•2,700 m random transects w/ 10 point counts each
•Transects within pine-dominated landscapes
Monitoring Strategy
More intensive study areas
•Similar protocol, but more intensive
•2 field crews managed by Vicki Saab
•Pringle Falls
•Chemult
Monitoring Strategy
This broad-scale monitoring strategy was designed to answer the
following questions at a Regional scale:
•What are the spatial distribution and occupancy rates of
white-headed woodpecker across the dry forest landscape?
•What are trends in distribution and occupancy?
•What key habitat characteristics are associated with dry
forest species? This information will be used to refine habitat
associations and treatment prescriptions (e.g., canopy
closure, live tree and snag density, and tree size)
Ecology Program Involvement
Ecology Program has supporting role in this
region-wide project
Transect establishment and data
collection
Area 4 (Central Oregon) was
responsible for installing 12
permanent transects in 2011
NE Oregon and Eastern Washington
also have transects
Currently intend to revisit transects
for 6 years
Woodpecker callbacks were
conducted at all 12 transects in 2011
Vegetation measurements were
done on 4 transects in 2011
Vicki Saab and Kim Mellen-McLean are
managing and analyzing data
Monitoring Strategy
Woodpecker Callbacks
•In Central Oregon
•12 transects
•10 points per transect
•2 visits per point
between April 20-July 7
•4.5 minutes
•2 people
Monitoring Strategy
Woodpecker Callbacks
•Issues
•Transect establishment
•Time sensitive
•Weather dependent
•Road closures
•Long distances
between transects
•Long days
Monitoring Strategy
Monitoring Strategy
Playbacks
•2 people
•2 months
•5 min/point
Vegetation
•Original estimate was 1
week per transect for 2
people
•Highly variable depending
on point
•Avg would be 1 week for
4 people
•Thanks Amy and Nikola!
Monitoring Strategy
Vegetation
•1/3 of the transects each
year
•Trees, saplings,
seedlings, snags, stumps,
shrub cover, DWD,
biomass estimates, litter
and duff depths
Monitoring Strategy
Vegetation Data Collection
Bird and Burns methodology
Monitoring Strategy
Vegetation Data Collection
Bird and Burns methodology
•Trees
•2,6,20m belts
•DBH, ht,
crown ht
•Snags
•2,20m belts
•DBH, ht
•Down wood
•Along each
transect
•Saplings
•2 4m radius
circles
•Litter depth
•Photoloads
•Ends of
transects 1 & 3
Monitoring Strategy
Photoload sampling
technique (Keane and
Dickinson 2007)
Monitoring Strategy
Fuels data collection
•Designed to support modeling of fireclimate impacts on historic and future
habitat suitability
•Part of RMRS FireBGC v2
simulation modeling project
•Estimate modern fuel loading using
photoload sampling technique
(Keane and Dickinson 2007):
•Woody, shrub, herbaceous fuel
loadings
•Duff and litter fuel loading
•Canopy base height and tree
height
Results?