California Department of Fish & Wildlife North Central Region, Resource Assessment Program 2009 vector digital data http://bios.dfg.ca.gov ftp://ftp.dfg.ca.gov/BDB/GIS/BIOS/Public_Datasets/600_699/ds696.zip During the spring and summer of 2009, California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), North Central Region (Region 2) staff surveyed a portion of the Sacramento Valley and Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta of California for nests of Swainson's hawks. We surveyed 125 randomly selected landscape blocks within the study area (16 percent of the study area), each measuring 5 km by 5 km, for all active Swainson's hawk nests. We followed methods used in the Region's previous Swainson's hawk monitoring (2002). These data map the active Swainson's hawk nests located in the 2009 survey. The goals of our survey were two-fold: first, to detect changes in the number of breeding pairs of Swainson's hawks within the study area over the long term, by following on earlier CDFW monitoring efforts. This information will form the basis for comparative analysis with earlier, similarly collected data, which will help gauge the effectiveness of several Habitat Conservation Plans within the Sacramento Valley region. Secondly, we intend to use the results of the survey to refresh the occurrence database of active Swainson's hawk nests. This information may be helpful in making informed land use decisions. This survey was supported by the State Wildlife Grant program. In addition, the 2002 and 2009 survey area landscape blocks are available as a polygon shapefile through CDFW's BIOS website http:\\bios.dfg.ca.gov A Microsoft Access database contains further information on the number of young (when seen), surveyors and code tables. CDFW North Central Region GIS. Methods: Study Area The study area includes those portions of the Sacramento Valley and Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta that fall within the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's North Central Region (NCR). To provide continuity with past surveys, we also included areas north and south of the current NCR that were included in past surveys. This is roughly an area of the Central Valley that extends from Chico in the north to Tracy in the south. Our 2009 study area contained 781 five-by-five kilometer survey blocks all of which had at least 50 percent of their area below 500 feet in elevation. Five by five km blocks were chosen for consistency and comparability with past surveys; and results of past surveys have shown that Swainson's hawk nest detections were rare above 500 feet elevation in the Sacramento Valley. Sample Design For 2009, we selected a random sample of 125 survey blocks. The sample was stratified based on nest density. Low density blocks had either zero or one CNDDB record as of 2001 for Swainson's hawk. High density blocks had two or more CNDDB records for Swainson's hawks. Based on a statistical-power analysis for best sample allocation among strata, we randomly selected 97 low-density blocks and 28 high-density blocks for survey within the 2009 study area. Survey blocks within the study area were included regardless of vegetation, land use, or habitat characteristics. Survey Protocol We employed 27 surveyors to survey the 125 survey blocks. Survey protocol required that surveyors drive all of the public roads, or other access routes in the survey block and methodically search for Swainson's hawk nests during the breeding season using binoculars and spotting scopes. Surveyors searched each survey block at least once during each of three survey phases (March-April, May-June, and July). All surveyors were required to attend 2 training sessions where they were trained in Swainson's hawk identification and biology, survey protocols, and survey equipment including GPS, compass and rangefinder. Surveyors were instructed that the objective of the survey was to locate every Swainson's hawk nest within each assigned survey block, involving a complete search of the entire survey block during each of the three phases. The requirement that surveyors search each block at least once in each of the three phases was designed to increase the likelihood of detecting the greatest number of nests in the survey block, as well as gain information about the rate of nest success and the number of chicks produced. In instances where access or visibility prohibited full coverage, the surveyor was instructed to draw a line around any un-surveyable area and label it "un-surveyed" on the block map for later calculation of the un-surveyed area. Only occupied, active Swainson's hawk nests were recorded. Confirmation of an occupied nest consisted of one or more of the following: - Observation of an adult Swainson's hawk in the nest. - Observation of a Swainson's hawk defending the nest. - Observation of a Swainson's hawk carrying food to the nest. - Observation of young Swainson's hawks in and around the nest (species of young verified by presence of adult). When a Swainson's hawk nest was detected, the location of the nest tree was recorded using the coordinate location of the observer as recorded by a handheld GPS unit, a compass bearing to the nest tree, and the distance from the observer's coordinate to the nest tree obtained from a laser range finder. These measures were later entered into a data base which determined the nest tree coordinate based on the input data from the survey form. In order to verify the accuracy of nest locations, the calculated nest coordinate was mapped over current aerial imagery and reviewed by the original surveyor. The surveyor made corrections to the nest location if needed, and the corrected coordinates were recorded in the data base. 2009 ground condition Complete Repeated on approximately a 5-year basis -122.293089 -121.055868 39.795671 37.666284 None Swainson's hawk Buteo swainsoni raptor nests nesting distribution survey population relative abundance ISO 19115 Topic Cateogry biota None California, USA Tehama County Butte County Colusa County El Dorado County Glenn County Nevada County Placer County Sacramento County San Joaquin County Solano County Sutter County Yolo County Yuba County CDFW Region 2 North Central Region None 2009 None User's of this data are expected to fully read the metadata and any associated manuscripts and data. These sites do not represent all nest sites within each block surveyed, some were undoubtably missed. Only a random set of 125 landscape blocks of the 781 total blocks within the study area were surveyed in 2009. David Wright California Department of Fish & Wildlife, Resource Assessment Program Staff Environmentalist (916) 358-2945 David.Wright@wildlife.ca.gov California Department of Fish & Wildlife Resource Assessment Program. Microsoft Windows Vista Version 6.1 (Build 7601) Service Pack 1; ESRI ArcCatalog 9.3.1.4095 All nest locations in this data set were verified by the surveyors for accuracy +-10 meters. Edited metadata (added title, keywords) 201101 Will Patterson California Department of Fish and Game geodata@dfg.ca.gov Restructured attribute table to show the most pertinent information at the beginning. Replaced instances of California Department of Fish and Game or DFG with California Department of Fish and Wildlife or CDFW. Also, made other minor edits to the metadata. 20130919 Sophie King California Department of Fish and Wildlife BIOS Data Librarian geodata@wildlife.ca.gov Vector Entity point 268 Albers Conical Equal Area 34.000000 40.500000 -120.000000 0.000000 0.000000 -4000000.000000 coordinate pair 0.000000 0.000000 meters North American Datum of 1983 Geodetic Reference System 80 6378137.000000 298.257222 ds696 Swainson's Hawk Nests - CDFW Region 2 [ds696] FID Internal feature number. ESRI Sequential unique whole numbers that are automatically generated. Shape Feature geometry. ESRI Coordinates defining the features. Obs_Date Date of initial observation. Survy_Year Year of the survey. Nest_ID Unique Nest ID, continuing from 2002 data set. Young_Pres Presence of young confirmed. -1 Yes 0 No Soaring Swainson's hawk behavior observation. -1 Yes 0 No Perching Swainson's hawk behavior observation. -1 Yes 0 No Nest_Build Swainson's hawk behavior observation. -1 Yes 0 No Mating Swainson's hawk behavior observation. -1 Yes 0 No Incubating Swainson's hawk behavior observation. -1 Yes 0 No Foraging Swainson's hawk behavior observation. -1 Yes 0 No Defensive Swainson's hawk behavior observation. -1 Yes 0 No Descript General location description. Tree_Spp Tree code for common name of nest tree species. BO Blue Oak CW Cottonwood EU Eucalyptus PI Pine VO Valley Oak WI Willow OE Other Exotic ON Other Native Tree_Ht Nest tree height in feet. LandU_NE Land use code describing north-east of nest. AL Alfalfa CO Commercial/Highway CR Cropland (wheat, corn etc) FA Fallow/Ruderal GS Grassland GZ Grazing/Pasture OR Orchard/Vineyard RE Residential/Urban RI Riparian SW Seasonal Wetland LandU_SE Land use code describing south-east of nest. AL Alfalfa CO Commercial/Highway CR Cropland (wheat, corn etc) FA Fallow/Ruderal GS Grassland GZ Grazing/Pasture OR Orchard/Vineyard RE Residential/Urban RI Riparian SW Seasonal Wetland LandU_SW Land use code describing south-west of nest. AL Alfalfa CO Commercial/Highway CR Cropland (wheat, corn etc) FA Fallow/Ruderal GS Grassland GZ Grazing/Pasture OR Orchard/Vineyard RE Residential/Urban RI Riparian SW Seasonal Wetland LandU_NW Land use code describing north-west of nest. AL Alfalfa CO Commercial/Highway CR Cropland (wheat, corn etc) FA Fallow/Ruderal GS Grassland GZ Grazing/Pasture OR Orchard/Vineyard RE Residential/Urban RI Riparian SW Seasonal Wetland Block_ID Block_Asgn Whether the 5km sampling grid block was assigned to the surveyor who found this nest. Y Yes N No Verified Was the final mapped site verified by the surveyor? -1 Yes 0 No Entry_Date Data entry date. Entered_By Data entered by. Survyr_ID Surveyor ID. Lat_WGS84 Latitude of nest site in WGS84 datum. Lon_WGS84 Longitude of nest site n WGS84 datum. Downloadable Data 0.007 20131023 David Wright California Department of Fish & Wildlife, North Central Region Research Analyst (916) 358-2945 David.Wright@wildlife.ca.gov FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata FGDC-STD-001-1998 local time http://www.esri.com/metadata/esriprof80.html ESRI Metadata Profile 201310231638350020131023