[ucbnet] Bird sightings and date guide

[Kristin Purdy]

A Wasatch Audubon database might be a start. The group did a project called 
First Sightings from 2000-2003 where members recorded their first spring 
sightings of many species. We used as a basis a list developed by 
Bridgerland Audubon; it has many of our spring birds, but not all of them, 
and an occasional species that doesn't belong on the list at all, like the 
Black-crowned Night-heron. But the data is still interesting. Bridgerland 
might also still have their data from a similar effort. Here's a link to the 
WAS data:

http://www.wasatchaudubon.org/birding_data_first.htm

Kris
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Colby Neuman
  To: Matt Mills
  Cc: ucbnet at utahbirds.org
  Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 7:42 PM
  Subject: Re: [ucbnet] Bird sightings and date guide


  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





------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _______________________________________________
  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/aa76d395/attachment-0001.htm