Surveying Nocturnal Bird Communities of the Southeast with Silent and Playback Methods
Non-game Wildlife Outstanding Technical Paper
Accurate nocturnal bird abundance and distribution data are necessary for managing nocturnal avian communities. We compared vocalization playback and silent methods for surveying 3 nocturnal avian species in Mississippi in 1997 and 1998. Playback elicited more responses from eastern screech-owls (Otus asio) than the silent method. Playback was more effective than the silent method at detecting habitat associations of eastern screech-owls, which were strongly associated with pine regeneration stands than pine sawtimber stands and pine-hardwood stands. Playback of broadcast vocalizations...
