Incidental and long-distance bird observations in the Wassuk Range, Sweetwater Mountains, and east slope of the Sierra Nevada, Nevada and California: 2nd edition

These data document observations of birds in canyons throughout three mountain ranges in the western Great Basin (Mineral, Douglas, and Lyon Counties, Nevada; and Alpine and Mono Counties, California): the Wassuk Range, Sweetwater Mountains, and east slope of the Sierra Nevada. A small number of observations were made in the valleys adjacent to these mountain ranges. Data were collected during the breeding seasons from 2012 through 2022. These data complement those in Fleishman 2019 (https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2015-0031-2), which included detections of breeding birds during fixed-radius point counts within 100 meters of the observer. The data in this publication allow more-complete documentation of the composition and distribution of the local and regional avifauna than would be possible with the fixed-radius point-count data alone. Some birds documented in these data were detected during fixed-radius point counts but were outside the radius of the sample point (e.g., > 100 meters from the observer) or flying over the point rather than apparently using resources within the point. Others were detected opportunistically while traveling to sampling locations. The records also include juveniles, which are not included in published analyses. Data include species detected, date of detection, and, in most cases, method of detection and either coordinates or an approximate location.
These data were collected in the course of sampling to examine relations between occupancy and abundance of birds and topography and vegetation. Data also were collected to investigate baseline variation in occupancy and abundance of birds in space and time and to compare distributions of birds and butterflies in space and time. Knowledge of baseline variation informs assessment of possible effects of environmental change, whether natural or anthropogenic. These data complement those in Fleishman 2019 (https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2015-0031-2), which had strict criteria or standards with respect to, for example, sampling methods, bird behavior, location, and age class. The data in this file are reliable, but do not meet those strict criteria. The data are useful for documenting species composition and distribution across space and time. Some species included in these data are not represented in the data from the fixed-radius point counts.
Among the reasons these data are considered incidental or long distance (hence included in this file rather than Fleishman 2019 (https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2015-0031-2) include but are not limited to the following. Bird was detected during a fixed-radius point count but observer did not record distance from the point center (thus it is unclear whether the detection was within 100 meters of the observer, which is a criterion for many analyses); detected during point counts but at > 100 meters from the point center (the limit for inclusion in many analyses); not detected during point counts (e.g., bird was observed while traveling between sampling locations or in the afternoon or evening rather than during morning point-counts); juvenile bird rather than adult (most analyses are restricted to adults assumed to be breeding in the vicinity). Various measurements of vegetation at or near point-count locations, which may be useful for exploring associations with presence, are available in Fleishman 2019b (https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2015-0032-2). There is a previous edition of this data publication (Fleishman 2015, https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2015-0033). This second edition, which was published on 05/07/2019 is the recommended edition of these data. Minor metadata updates were made on 05/28/2019. This edition was updated on 01/08/2020 to include data from the 2019 breeding season and a small number of records from previous years that inadvertently were omitted. On 08/09/2022 data from the 2020-2022 breeeding season were added and a few species names were corrected/updated.