ABSTRACT

Communities of birds are far more variable in species abundances and composition in winter as compared with summer. Anyone preparing to census winter bird communities will be faced with an array of potential problems not present during breeding season when most bird species are singing on territory. Winter bird censuses represent only samples and usually consist of nonterritorial, often nonresidential, and thus highly transient species, a clear distinction from breeding bird censuses which do tend to be actual population counts of residents. Winter bird populations are quite often small, and data may require statistical transformation to increase normalization prior to statistical analysis. Weather is clearly of major importance in winter censusing.