Hi Everyone,
With this season shaping up as one for the ornithological record books,
those of us on the MD and DC eBird teams thought it would be helpful to
provide some suggestions about reporting Red Crossbills to eBird (
www.ebird.org). The more carefully we can document crossbills in MD and DC
this season, the more valuable all of our contributions will be.
Let's cut to the chase with a few specific recommendations. As always,
please let us know if you have questions or if we can help with anything.
1. If you are fortunate enough to encounter one or more Red Crossbills but
are unable to get voice recordings, please report the birds to eBird as Red
Crossbills only. In other words, please do not report the birds as Red
Crossbill Type 3 or any other Type.
2. If you have an excellent ear and have been studying hard and think that
you were able to assign a fleeting sound overhead to a specific Type, then
please enter this information in the comments section.
3. Any Red Crossbill encounter in MD or DC is noteworthy. If you enjoy
bird study, you can put that interest to great use by capturing information
about the encounter. How did you identify the bird(s) and rule out similar
species? Did you see the bird(s) or only hear them? How many birds were
there? If you are lucky and actually get to see the birds in a tree
(instead of flying by), what kind of tree is it?
4. By far the biggest contribution you can make to documenting the avian
events of this season is to collect actual evidence in the field. If you
have a smart phone, you can make voice recordings (see suggestions in Matt
Young's article linked below). Photos are always important evidence and
will always be appreciated. Even photos of the trees used by the birds
would be nice--not all of us are experts on conifer id, but a simple photo
of a tree takes care of that.
5. "To be able to identify all individuals of each call type with 100%
certainty, audiospectrographic analysis is needed," says Matt Young in his
article linked below. More from this article: "We encourage anyone
encountering crossbills to attempt audio recordings. While we welcome
recordings from those with professional grade recording equipment, even
smartphones can adequately document the call types using their 'voice memo'
features. For example, on an iPhone just hit voice memo (included on any
iPhone), hold your phone as steadily as possible with the speaker facing
the crossbill, and then email the recording for analysis along with a link
to your eBird checklist! External microphones can be purchased that improve
the recording quality even more; read Bill Schmoker's excellent
review<http://blog.aba.org/2012/05/mic-up-that-iphone-follow-up.html>of
the topic (for iPhones) and consider purchasing a $25 microphone to
further improve the sound quality for your crossbill recordings!
Recordings can be sent directly to the author <may6...> for
assistance with identification."
Here is the link to Matt Young's complete article on the eBird website:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/news/red-crossbill-types
In summary, again from Matt Young:
"Every crossbill recording adds an important piece to the puzzle,
especially when accompanied by notes on behavior and ecology, including
tree species used for foraging and nesting. The conservation of crossbill
call types will depend in large measure on our understanding of their
complex distributions and ecological associations, and birders can make
critical contributions to their conservation by recording crossbill calls
and by reporting their findings."
Thanks for reading. Again, if we can help with anything eBird related,
please let us know.
And... whether you use eBird or not, you will surely enjoy Chuck Fullmer's
excellent Red Crossbill photos taken in Delaware yesterday (19 Nov 2012):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/allseasonshooter/8199982107/in/photostre<https://webmail.salisbury.edu/owa/redir.aspx?C=HoipYtqlRUmqMhnoNybZmauNfApXms9Im2o1yr4cM9Ikfqe80HNtG6ukmqQJ8GNd9ARLUWWt3ks.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.flickr.com%2fphotos%2fallseasonshooter%2f8199982107%2fin%2fphotostre>
Happy crossbill hunting (and documenting)!
The MD and DC eBird Teams
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