Joseph Grinnell and Alden Miller documented this in the 1920s by mapping the distribution of California songbirds. David Gaines continued their work in the 1970s and alerted the conservation community to the disappearance of many riparian breeding songbirds in the Central Valley. One such effort, California Partners in Flight, identified habitat loss as the major cause of songbird declines, and riparian habitat as the most endangered among these. As a result, the Riparian Habitat Joint Venture was established with the mission to promote conservation and restoration of riparian habitat sufficient to support the long-term viability and recovery of native bird populations and associated species. The relationship between songbirds and riparian habitat is reciprocal, and birds provide an excellent means to track larger changes in riparian systems.
Birds occupy a diverse range of niches and are sensitive indicators of ecosystem health.
Managing for songbird diversity can protect many other elements of biodiversity, including the processes that are inherent in riparian systems. These physical and biological processes include hydrology, geomorphology, insect and fish production, and plant succession. Songbird monitoring on Mono Basin creeks provides us with such a measure of ecosystem health. The project seeks to investigate songbird use of riparian habitats in the Eastern Sierra by utilizing nationally standardized songbird monitoring methods. Overall, the project documents songbird use of twenty nine creeks and two sections of the Owens River along a 232 km stretch of the Eastern Sierra, ranging from Olancha north to Bridgeport.