Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 08:24:08 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Scott Crabtree Subject: Re: Fw: Counting crows and tracking hummingbirds MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For what it's worth, I've been in contact several times with Mike Powers at eBird, and he's been extremely helpful. I've already posted some questions and thoughts about eBird previously, and have been using it. Seems to make sense to me as a tool for birders, nationwide, to make their data collection useful. It doesn't take away from the concept of reporting locally data to be included in NAB or MD Birdlife - it's just another way for birders to have an impact. Scott Crabtree Chester, MD crabtree@myshorelink.com ----- Original Message ----- From: Frank Powers To: Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 6:39 PM Subject: [MDOSPREY] Fw: Counting crows and tracking hummingbirds > Given all the discussion on the list recently about crows crashing and > hummers visiting, I thought this email might be of interest. > > It's from my nephew working with eBird at the Cornell.Lab of > Ornithology. He is almost getting persuasive enough for me to start > posting my MD & DC sightings on eBird (he's already gotten me to post > sightings from WV & NC). > > I've found eBird to be an exciting concept that might contribute > toward greater understanding of how the lady hummers at the > Smithsonian got where they are, when they did. One aspect I > particularly appreciate is that the folks at eBird are very willing to > listen to suggestions and ideas from birders interested in expanding > the knowledge that can be gained through eBird. > > If you haven't visited their site, give it a whirl. > > Good birding, > > Frank Powers > Glen Echo, MD > Montgomery County > frankpowers@comcast.net > > > Hi Frank, > > > > I've been following the hummingbird discussion on MDOsprey with interest, > > congrats on being able to see both birds! Happily, ever since the > > brief discussion about eBird on MDOsprey I've been contacted by > > several Maryland > > birders offering wonderful suggestions for the site and project. > > I've > also > > noticed a bump in participation from MD, I hope the local birding > community > > is finding eBird useful, or at least how valuable eBird eventually > > will be > > *with* the participation of Maryland birders. > > > > eBird would help provide additional information to foster discussion > > on a > > couple of recent threads. For example, I hope the students > > interested in > > finding out if there was evidence of crows declining in Maryland > > found out > > about eBird (I forwarded a note). Their observation got me > > interested, so > > I used eBird to create a summary of observations submitted from > > Maryland for the past year (November 2002 - November 2003). > > > > The summary shows that in November 2002 almost 60% of the checklists > > included American Crow, but in November 2003 only some 28% of > > checklists reported them - 50% fewer Maryland checklists reported > > American Crow than > > one year ago! The average group size was also down: in November > > 2002, 35 > > crows was the average, but last month the average group size had > > dropped > to > > 23 birds. > > > > That's certainly not to say crow populations are crashing, it will > > take many more checklists from many more birders to make any bold > > statements. Right now there are only a few dozen submitted > > checklists per > > month from Maryland, not the hundreds (or even thousands) per month > > that will illuminate trends more clearly and reliably. But this > > evidence of a > > decline warrants keeping an eye on crow sightings and numbers. It > > will be > > interesting to see if the Christmas Bird Count data show a similar > > trend for the same time period. > > > > And hummingbirds: how and why western-breeding hummingbirds wind up > > on > the > > east coast is a fascinating topic. As reports of these birds > > continue > from > > across the region and through the years it will be possible to > > unravel the > > proximate trends and patterns in their movements, and try to > > determine the > > ultimate causes of these movements (bad migration skills? brains > > wired wrong? normal dispersal patterns to colonize new areas? a > > weather event pushing them where they've never been before? global > > warming? el Nino? have they been here all along and we're just now > > noticing? etc > etc). > > > > By contributing observations to eBird, all birders literally put > > their sightings on the map, which are available to help discover > > where hummingbirds are over wintering, how this range is changing > > through the years, if certain locations consistently attract the > > same species, when > the > > birds show up and when they leave, if they are surviving through the > > winter, etc. There needs to be many more hummingbird entries before that > > happens, though. I hope you'll submit your trips to see the Black-chinned > > and Rufous visitors! > > > > Good birding! > > Mike > > > > Michael Powers > > eBird Project Leader > > > > Cornell Lab of Ornithology > > 159 Sapsucker Woods Road > > Ithaca, NY 14850 > > > > (607) 254-2106 (phone) > > (607) 254-2111 (fax) > > http://www.birdsource.org/ebird > > > > ====================================================================== > = > 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 ======================================================================= =========================================================================