Avian point count data across a conservation-agriculture-energy nexus, New York State, 2023 - 2025

These data describe counts of bird species, descriptions of their spatial and temporal locations from the observer, and their breeding behaviors. The data were collected between May and July of 2023, 2024 and 2025 by 5 individual observers. The observers also collected data on the date and time of observations, the weather conditions, and other variables influencing the detection of birds. The counts were conducted in New York, at sites representative of grassland and solar-developed habitats. Sites are identified using anonymous codes. These data also describe survey locations and their associated covariates. Survey locations are within four regions of New York State, categorized into one of four land-use categories: Solar developed sites, solar-adjacent open agricultural sites, isolated open agricultural sites, and public protected lands managed as grassland habitat. Within each land-use category are additional sub-categories of specific land management regime. These land-use treatments and regimes are described for each site and for each year surveys spanning 2023, 2024, and 2025. Each site is additionally described by a suite of covariates including: the area size of the focal land use patch, age of solar facilities if applicable, and land cover areas for 8 National Landcover Database classes within each of 4 distance radii of survey points