General Technical Report hroughout the New World attention is
now being focused on the status of populations of landbirds,
which are the many species of smaller birds, sometimes referred
to as non-game birds. Landbirds have not usually been the focus
of management activities except in a few cases of threatened or
endangered species, such as the Kirtlands Warbler. Recent
evidence suggests that some landbird species are declining in
abundance, fueling much speculation upon the causes of these
declines, the species involved, and their habitat preferences.
Hypotheses about the causes of these declines are varied,
ranging from tropical deforestation to nest parasitism by the
cowbird. However, part of the difficulty in determining the
status of landbirds results from problems in monitoring these
small birds, as compared to larger, more easily-studied species.
To determine population changes, and to hypothesize possible
causes of these changes, more basic information needs to be
gathered. Much of the evidence for th