LOCALadk Magazine

LOCALadk 12 The Power of Community Science: Tracking Change One Observation at a Time By Erika Schielke Rob Snell stands on a rural road near Hunt Lake in Corinth, listening for birds. The trees around us are bowed under recent snow, and although it's sunny, the temperature is still below zero at 9 AM. A notebook and Snell's mobile phone, running the Merlin bird iden- tification app, sit on the hood of his car. Snell, the president of the Southern Adirondack Audubon Society, can identify most native bird species by ear. He uses Merlin, which identifies birds by sound, mostly as confirmation of what he hears. This morning Snell is listening in particular for two calls: those of the red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatch. We stand quietly for five minutes, and don't hear either of those species. We do hear a crow and a raven. Snell jots down abbreviations for the species in his notebook and hops back in his car. I follow him about a quarter of a mile along the road to his next survey site, where he pulls off on the shoul- der, and we repeat the process: stand, listen, record. This time, Merlin picks up a golden-crowned kinglet that I heard but couldn't identify; I hear a tufted tit- mouse (sweeeeetie) that didn't register with the app. Both identifications go on Snell's list. The data that Snell is collecting is part of Climate Watch, a community science project run by the Nation- al Audubon Society. The program is one of a growing number that give ordinary folks the chance to partic- ipate in ongoing research studies. In return, scientists dramatically increase the amount of data that they're able to collect, allowing them to tackle projects requir- ing large amounts of data collected over vast areas. Community science projects across the Adirondacks are harnessing the power of volunteers to identify and map invasive species, document long-term trends in lake ice and water quality, track the populations of in- dividual species, and much more. Climate Watch data are being used to validate com- puter models that predict how bird ranges will shift in response to climate change. Testing these predictions requires collecting data over large geographic areas – in this case, across the United States. "It's like we're actually going and saying, 'Hey, our models are predicting this to happen, are we actually seeing this? '" said Brooke Bateman, Senior Director of Climate and Community Science at Audubon. "As a sci- entist, I can count the birds in my backyard, but that might give me an idea over time what's happening in my little local spot. But to really get that big picture, you need…many many people across broad scales… and that's what community science gives us," Bateman said. "We wouldn't be able to understand broad im- pacts without bird data that people have been collect- ing through community science." The most current predictions are alarming: without action to mitigate climate change, approximately two thirds of North America bird species are at risk of ex- tinction, according to Audubon's Survival by Degrees report. In the Adirondacks, this includes iconic species Photo credit: Patrice Bouchard

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