Even though the Rusty Blackbirds were seen outside of the time frame of the count, I would recommend submitting your results anyway, especially if you've never used eBird before. Though it's not difficult to create an account and submit sightings, there is a bit of a learning curve so the more you use it, the easier it becomes.
Also, there are lots of people who submit sightings and don't properly quantitate the number of each species seen. They use X to mean they saw them but don't know how many. This is useless information for the over health of the database. It would actually be better to not check the box at all. If you look at submissions by people like Bob Ringler, there are always exact numbers for each species. Kudos to those people who do it rigth! Once you start keeping lists with this in mind, it becomes second nature.
Tyler Bell
California, Maryland
----- Original Message ----
From: Ed Boyd <>
To:
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 9:55:24 PM
Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Rusty Blackbirds at BWI 3/28
Mike and MDOspreyers,
eBird is certainly happy to get every report that they receive. Every record
submitted makes the overall database that much more complete. However, eBird
is running a week long census of the species from April 1 - April 7 and this
record falls outside of that window and will be unusable. It's like a bird
being seen 4 days out from the actual Christmas Count date; nice information
but it can't go onto the record.
Personally, I think a one day count, or maybe a one weekend count would be
more effective. Like the Spring and Fall Migration Counts, it locks the
birds down to a shorter time period in which less movement can take place.
With birds in the midst of migrating, over a week's time there's no saying
how many times a single flock could be sighted over different areas. Perhaps
they have a formula to take this in account, because we certainly are not
going to record every Rusty individual, but for census purposes I've always
been in favor of smaller sampling periods. Anyway, be sure to get the
sightings in during the first week of next month.
Ed Boyd
Westminster, MD
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