Birding!

[FINWIN]

Interesting we have cardinals all over here in DC, and the blue jays have made a major comeback.

 

[jjohnwm]

Add me to the missing Cardinals list. I was just mentioning this morning to my 95 yr old mom how I miss seeing and hearing them. She misses them too. I was also saying that one day I hope to make a trip back to the Point, with my wife who has never been.

Yeah, it's amazing how much one can look forward to the new species of plant and animal life that can be seen when moving to a new locale...but after the move it's saddening when you realize how many you left behind. I miss Cardinals...Praying Mantises (yeah, I know, introduced, but not invasive and also super cool)...Bullfrogs...and a host of other assorted critters that were favourites back in Ontario, but which I just won't see anymore without travelling.

When I read this the first thought that came into my head was how your records could possibly be accurate.

If your circle is chopped up into areas and each segment is scoured by teams of three, how can you be sure to avoid multiple counts of the same birds, given that they will no doubt fly about and possibly overlap segments?

Or is the whole exercise just a good excuse to get out and about and treat the day more like a bit of fun, rather than glean some real time accurate bird count results?

Indeed, how could they? Now, you realize that the team travels together in the same vehicle? That we all have maps that delineate the edges of our areas, and jealously guard our areas against poaching by other teams? Birds certainly are mobile, but most species don't travel vast distances during the course of a single day; my teams area was roughly 30 square miles and any bird in the heart of that is likely staying put for the winter. At one point, we were driving along a road that represented the extreme edge of our area, so we were really, really trying to just look towards the left and ignore the right...but, wouldn't you know it, that's where we found "our" Gray Partridges and they were about 50 feet off the roadway on the wrong side!

So...in the interests of science...we conspired to submit our results after those of the team who rightfully owned those birds. Ha! Those dummies missed the Grays altogether, had none on their count, so of course we claimed them for ourselves. If those had been Ravens or Black-capped Chickadees or other extremely common birds, we would not have done so, but if Grays had been missed altogether that would have been a tragedy.

The Bald Eagle was a different scenario. That's one of the species which could and would easily overlap onto several adjacent blocks of coverage, and sure enough the groups on the next two blocks over from ours saw a single adult Bald as well. "Our" eagle was gone a half hour later, which was about when the adjacent group saw theirs, and the next one almost an hour later, so all of us mutually agreed that there was only the one eagle and it rightfully belonged on my team's list since we saw it first.

There's also a rule that allows the coordinator of the count to add in any species which is seen in the count area during the three days prior to and following the actual count day. This allows for an entire count week, but the only birds added to the count day total are completely new species that are not seen on that one day. So the Northern Shrike I had in my yard three days before count day was not added to the count, because a Shrike was also seen (by someone else) on the big day. But the Pileated Woodpecker I had on my feeder this morning will be added, because no others were seen on count day.

So, yes, there is some friendly rivalry and competition going on, but in the end the accuracy of the count as a whole is the primary motive for most of us...well, that and the fun factor...