Observations of birds on the Nevada Test Site, an area of restricted access in southern Nye County administered by the U.S. Department of Energy, have been recorded since the 1960s (Hayward et al. 1963).
Early surveys generally focused on the eastern and northern areas of the test site that were affected by nuclear testing and other human activities (Hayward et al. 1963; Richards 1962), or on southern portions near Mercury (Castetter and Hill 1979) and Rock Valley (Rundel and Gibson 1996). We report observations made in the southwestern portion of the test site near Yucca Mountain, an area of interest because the Department of Energy is studying the mountain as a potential site for storing spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste.