Introduction

Key Points:  

• In the past 100 years, Florida is fortunate that several books have been written describing the state’s birds.
• Breeding bird atlases came into being in the 1960s as a tool to establish the breeding status of all bird species found in a defined area during a particular time.  
• The membership of the Florida Ornithological Society (FOS), established in 1972 to promote field ornithology in Florida and to facilitate contact between professional and amateur ornithologists and birders in the state, collaborated with several partner agencies and took on the challenge of preparing the first Florida BBA (BBA I) in 1986. 
• 20 years after the first Breeding Bird Atlas, because it was anticipated there would be changes in the distribution of breeding birds in Florida, FOS has worked to prepare the second Florida Breeding Bird Atlas II (BBA II). 
• Many sources provided financial support for BBA I; the primary sources were the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Nongame Wildlife Trust Fund, Florida Audubon Society (FAS), Frank Stanley Beverage Foundation, and many Florida Ornithological Society members.
• In stark contrast, BBA II was funded almost completely by FOS, private donations, and volunteer effort. 

Historically, the first biological atlas was prepared from information collected on plants and became the Atlas of the British Flora (Perring and Walters 1962). Shortly thereafter, the first Breeding Bird Atlas (BBA) – an attempt to establish the breeding status of all bird species found in a defined area during a particular time – was completed in Great Britain and Ireland between 1968 and 1971 (Sharrock 1976). The atlas concept transferred to North America, and atlasing at a state level began in Massachusetts in 1974 (Veit and Petersen 1993). By 1990, in North America, Breeding Bird Atlases were being developed in 36 states and 8 Canadian provinces (Smith 1990). 

Over nearly 100 years, Florida has had the good fortune to have several books written that cover the birds of the state. Bailey (1925), Howell (1932), Sprunt (1954), Robertson and Woolfenden (1992), Stevenson and Anderson (1994), and Greenlaw et al. (2014) summarized the accumulated knowledge about Florida’s birds including descriptions, and some maps, of each bird’s distribution. These authors used information from a variety of sources such as correspondence with colleagues and scientific publications to characterize where individual bird species occurred in the state. Stevenson and Anderson (1994) improved the distribution maps with unique symbols for each season for records of bird species in Florida. They also used data gathered by thousands of volunteers from the continental-scale Audubon Christmas Bird Count to characterize winter abundance. 

The membership of the Florida Ornithological Society (FOS), established in 1972 to promote field ornithology in Florida and to facilitate contact between professional and amateur ornithologists and birders in the state, has been interested in all aspects of birds since its founding. Of particular interest has been the status of Florida’s breeding birds – where they are found geographically in ​​Florida, and how their populations have changed over time. Harnessing volunteers in a “citizen science” project to collect data on breeding birds was a logical next step. To find out, members of FOS decided to go into the field to collect information on every breeding bird species in Florida and to gather the information into an atlas. The membership of FOS and many collaborators took on the challenge to prepare the first Florida Breeding Bird Atlas (BBA I) (Kale et al. 1992). 

Field studies for BBA I occurred during 1986 – 1991 and the completed BBA I is available on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s website. BBA I incorporated supplementary surveys of rare birds and wadingbirds (Kale et al. 1978, Nesbit et al. 1982, Runde et al. 1991, Rogers et al. 1996). Because it was anticipated there would be changes in the statewide distribution of breeding birds, it was decided to prepare a BBA every 25 years to monitor those expected changes.  

In 2011, as almost 25 years had passed since the completion of the BBA I, FOS members formed a committee of individuals interested in Florida’s breeding birds and their distributional changes in the years since BBA I to discuss conducting a second BBA. BBA II project began in January 2011 and field studies ended in December 2016.  

BBA I, fortunately, had extensive financial support from many sources. The primary sources were the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Nongame Wildlife Trust Fund, Florida Audubon Society (FAS), Frank Stanley Beverage Foundation, and many FOS members. Supplemental funds were donated by private corporations, foundations, garden clubs, and individuals. Funds from FAS came from FAS chapters and a fund-raising appeal to each FAS member in 1986, 1988, 1990, and 1991. FAS also provided most of the coordinators and fieldworkers for BBA I (FWC 2003). In contrast, early discussions in organizing BBA II determined that support from outside organizations probably would not be available as had occurred for BBA I​​; therefore, BBA II would need to depend on volunteers. The committee coordinating the BBA II project relied almost completely on ​funding from FOS and private donations​​, and the project’s success was dependent on volunteer efforts​. At the BBA II project’s start, the FOS Board of Directors budgeted $1,000, and later, in 2022, received donations of $6,000 from 2 FOS members to be applied to completing BBA II. 

Florida’s Breeding Bird Atlases were intended to monitor “environmental and biotic change over decadal time scales” (Noss 2006). Thus, it was critical to collect comparable data in successive atlases using a standardized approach. The BBA I established the methods to collect field data and analyze the data. BBA II has been prepared similarly so comparisons can be made of the changes between BBA I and BBA II. Both the first and second Florida Breeding Bird Atlases were designed to cover the entire state at the relatively fine scale of U.S. Geological Survey 7.5-minute topographical quadrangles (quads) of which there are several thousand in Florida. The BBA I had more than 1,880 participants from more than 50 organizations involved in field data collection that yielded 136,000 records. In comparison, BBA II had 351 participants, individually and from 8 organizations, and collected 144,134 records. Using GIS-based change detection maps for each species, BBA II examined the changes between BBA I and BBA II in breeding distribution by quadrangle. BBA II also compared changes in birds’ populations between the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) routes for the 48 continental U.S. states and Canada and the Florida routes. 

The Florida Ornithological Society has enthusiastically completed the second Breeding Bird Atlas of Florida. This outstanding large-scale volunteer project typifies the joint professional – amateur collaboration that the society has fostered since its inception. The Florida Ornithological Society Breeding Bird Atlas II Committee thanks all the contributors to the BBA II project, who helped to demonstrate that a large-scale project like BBA II can be done through the power of voluntarism. Thanks to all for successfully completing this immense project, well done!