BIRDS OF THE ST. CROIX RIVER VALLEY 



19 



Methods, Terminology, and Nomenclature 



The counties covered in this report include Chisago, Pine, and Washington 

 in Minnesota and Burnett, Douglas (part). Pierce, Polk, and St. Croix in Wis- 

 consin. References made to a species status or occurrence in the Valley 

 will pertain to these counties. Ideally, a complete coverage of the birds 

 occurring in this region would include records for all counties within the 

 watershed. However, because many records are not discernible to exact loca- 

 tions within a county (in or out of the watershed) I have, for conformity, 

 included bird records only for counties that border on the St. Croix River. 



Foremost among the published sources of data on bird occurrence and dis- 

 tribution presented in this report were the Loon and its predecessor, the 

 Flicker, the quarterly pubUcation of the Minnesota Ornithologists Union, 

 and the Passenger Pigeon, the quarterly publication of the Wisconsin 

 Society for Ornithology. Important papers dealing with species or species 

 groups have been pubUshed in these journals and extensive use was made of 

 the data contained therein. Considerable use was made of pubUshed reports 

 in American Birds, the field report pubUcation of the National Audubon 

 Society. Probably the most important contribution oi American Birds to the 

 present report was the yearly pubUcation of Christmas Bird Counts (CBC) 

 conducted in both States. 



I conducted field work in this region from 1966 through 1978, and inter- 

 mittently during 1979-80. Before 1969, most observations were made in 

 northern Polk, southern Douglas, Burnett, and eastern Pine counties. Dur- 

 ing 1969-76, field work was expanded to include the remainder of the coun- 

 ties and intensive observations were started on several species in Pierce, St. 

 Croix, and Washington counties. Many of the dates of occurrence and state- 

 ments on abundance and distribution were derived largely from my unpub- 

 Ushed field notes. The unpubUshed field notes of Rev. Samuel Robbins for 

 1960-68 in St. Croix, Polk, and Pierce counties were also examined exten- 

 sively. Several State parks and wildUfe management areas in both States 

 were visited and some Umited data (with the exception of the Crex Meadows 

 WildUfe Area) were made available. 



Data on breeding and winter status were gathered from three sources. 

 First, intensive field work by several previous investigators and me led to 

 the discovery of numerous nests or dependent young. These observations 

 provide the foundation for species status remarks and habitat use of breed- 

 ing birds. Secondly, the U.S. Fish and WildUfe Service, Migratory Bird and 

 Habitat Research Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, has estabUshed a number 

 of BBS transects throughout North America (Robbins and Van Velzen 

 1967). These 39.2-km transect routes are selected at random and are cen- 

 sused once each year during June. Five transect routes were estabUshed in 

 the VaUey; unfortunately, all five are in Wisconsin (Fig. 4). Data from these 

 routes are presented to point out regions of peak populations of several 

 species and, in some instances, to show geographic differences in species 

 breeding distribution. Third, CBC sponsored by the National Audubon 

 Society provide an important source of data on winter bird populations and 

 geographic differences in species abundance. At least eight CBC areas have 

 been estabUshed within the VaUey. However, only five (Fig. 5) have been 



