Date: Wed, 30 Jan 2002 13:08:43 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Coskren Subject: Re: Possible Breeding Bird Atlas Record MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello to MDOSPREY and Maryland Atlasers, I will be taking on the statewide coordination of the Atlas Project for MOS and I thought I would kick off my correspondence with the, obviously very keen and active, Maryland birding community with a comment on the use of atlas codes. It has been awhile since this message was posted, but this provides an opportunity to offer some clarification about the uses of "safe dates" in the Atlas Project. There is no doubt that Red-shouldered Hawks and many other birds start nesting well before their safe dates "kick in", this is because many young birds continue to migrate well into the nesting season of the adults of their species. This is especially true of raptors, but can apply to many other birds (e.g. Blue Jay). The "safe dates" are meant to be used when you are considering using the "observed" and "possible" codes for a bird you have seen in a block. When you see some evidence of breeding behavior, such as a pair of adult Red-shouldered Hawks keeping each other company as was the case here, then you should use the atlas code ("P" in this case). A sighting such as this can be reported to the appropriate County Coordinator (see the MOS Atlas web page for names and addresses) on an Incidental Reporting Form. Given there is room for up to 27 incidental sightings on one of these forms it's probably best to save up these observations by County for each year before handing them in. Alternatively if you know who the block captain is for the block you could give the information to that person. Feel free to submit any such sightings to me if you don't know who a local coordinator or captain might be. I look forward to an ongoing discussion with you all about Maryland birds and atlasing in general. Walter Ellison Maryland Atlas Coordinator 104 Maple Ave., #1 Chestertown, MD 21620 410-778-9568 wgellison@earthlink.net P.S. I'm "in transit" between my former address in upstate NY and my new MD home, if you don't get ahold of me by phone try the email address. All is in flux, contact information will change again before the spring is done. "Kurt R. Schwarz" wrote: > Forgive me it this is off-base, I'm new to atlasing, but... > > Today, 17 January 2002 at 11:35 a.m. I noted a pair of Red-Shouldered Hawks > at the Baltimore-Washington Parkway's interchange with Greenbelt Rd., which > I believe is in P.G. County. Both were adult birds, with red breasts. The > size difference between them tells me that they were male and female. The > female flew into a sapling of about 10 feet height on the right side of > the Parkway as you head north. The male was in a similarly sized sapling > within ten yards of the female. I observed no apparent courtship behavior, > we were going probably 60 mph (I was not driving). I realize that this is > well outside the "safe dates" for this species (the safe date for Red- > shoulders is 5/10), but this would seem indicative of potential breeding. > Red-shoulders have begun nest-building in my yard in Ellicott City, Howard > County, in late February for the past two years. > > Kurt Schwarz > Howard County > white-crown@home.com > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================