[ucbnet] Bird sightings and date guide

[Colby Neuman]

Matt and others,

I think something like this would be awesome!  It would take the focus off
'vagrants' and birders in this state would start paying attention to every
bird out there.  I think everyone's level of understanding of the abundances
and distribution of birds in this state (Utah County included) would
certainly go up over time.  Unfortunately, I really don't know if we have
the data right now to do something like this.  Even though this year has
been better than past years in terms of people reporting their sightings to
birdtalk, ucbnet, etc., we are still not coming close to collecting the
proper data to do something like this.

I've long been an advocate for http://www.ebird.org because it has the
ability to do exactly what you're saying so long as people actually start
reporting their sightings to it.  I really recommend that ALL birders take
the time to write down a list of birds at the end of each birding location
they visit.  The data really is valuable!  And if you do approximate
numbers, you really are contributing greatly.  The ebird.org Utah list,
which includes weekly bird abundances and distributions, is really starting
to come around on a lot of the birds.  There are obviously some holes, but
we are making progress.

Matt and others - Keep reporting your sightings to birdtalk or ucbnet and to
www.ebird.org, and I think something like this will be very doable in the
near future.

Colby

On 9/20/07, Matt Mills <mattymills2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Does Utah county have a date guide for birds? I know
> there is a wealth of information on the website for
> seasonal abundance but Ive never seen a formal date
> guide.
>
> Back home in Hamilton, Canada the local birders
> established a range of dates when each species would
> typically be expected, and extended it to the general
> limits of migration.
>
> For species that occurred all year there was no range
> of reportable dates - for example, Red-tailed Hawk
> would be Jan 1st to Dec 31st, but Yellow Warbler might
> be April 20-Oct 05th or something like that.
>
> Individuals being seen outside the range require a
> formal documentation in order to better document early
> and late migrants, stragglers etc.
>
> Additionally, noteworthy bird sightings are punlished
> monthly in the club newsletter to highlight not only
> rare sightings (like the hotline summaries on the Utah
> Birds website) but also First and Last migration dates
> and peak numbers. This encourages birders to report
> trip lists and numbers and serves as a tool to at
> least casually monitor trends.
>
> Im just curious if there has ever been an interest to
> more formally document all bird sightings every month
> or to publish a date guide for Utah county?
>
> Thanks
>
> Matt Mills
> Provo
> mattymills2005 at yahoo.com
>
>
>
>       ____________________________________________________________________________________
> Don't let your dream ride pass you by. Make it a reality with Yahoo!
> Autos.
> http://autos.yahoo.com/index.html
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ucbnet mailing list
> ucbnet at utahbirds.org
> http://utahbirds.org/mailman/listinfo/ucbnet
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://secureserver.securesites.net/pipermail/ucbnet/attachments/20070920/66c55461/attachment.htm