I appreciate Bill's kind words, but Rob Ostrowski did a lot of the 
work.  My records have been computerized since late 1979, and when Rob 
contacted me all I had to do was write a brief program to turn the 
pelagic data into a form he could put into a spreadsheet.  Then Rob put 
the data into EBird.

I would like to second the call to get more pelagic data into the 
system.  Getting offshore is not all that easy, and there is not a lot 
of data on the movement of pelagic species.  Rich Rowlett once commented 
that "we know about as much about pelagic birds as we would about hawks 
if someone had walked to Hawk Mountain once a month for a couple of 
years."  Every little bit helps.  In particular, the trend in numbers 
seen from pelagic trips to similar locations over a period of years 
would be very useful for monitoring the trends in the abundance of 
pelagic species.

On 2/28/2012 8:09 AM, Bill Hubick wrote:
> Gail/All,
>
> If someone has precise coordinates for pelagic sightings, we hope they will use them. If not, and that person is in Maryland, we hope they'll use "Maryland Pelagic (General)". In most cases, I expect these reports to be filed as "Incidental" due to a lack of known effort information.
>
> Thanks to others for the good questions and useful replies. While I'm writing, I'd like to take a moment to thank Maurice Barnhill for contributing a wealth of precisely mapped pelagic data to the MD eBird effort. Historical data is extremely valuable to this project, and to have carefully mapped historical pelagic data is especially so. Thanks, Maurice, for having the foresight and dedication to collect that great data, and then the generosity to share it with the community. Much appreciated! Thanks also to Rob Ostrowski for his continued leadership in historical Maryland data collection!
>
> For anyone who has access to collections of historical data and is interested in contributing it to Maryland eBird, please get in touch!  For those of you who have recently shared data or started historical data entry, thank you!
>
> Good birding!
>
> Bill
>
> Bill Hubick
> Pasadena, Maryland
> 
> http://www.billhubick.com
>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Gail B. Mackiernan %3Ckatahdinss%40comcast.net%3E<>
>> To: 
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 7:32 AM
>> Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Maryland Pelagic Data in eBird
>>
>> What about folks like us that go on commercial cruises solely for the purpose of birding (well, we do eat but...)? We have spent months at sea chasing seabirds in most areas of the globe and these are, IMHO, reportable pelagics. Sometimes importantly so, e.g. the 25 Solander's Petrels we had on our September cruise which were first for Alaska and perhaps for USA.
>>
>> Of course it is important to get the position etc. of the ship at times of sightings to ensure one is actually in Maryland (or where ever).
>>
>> Gail Mackiernan and Barry Cooper
>> Colesville, MD
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-- 
Maurice Barnhill
Newark, DE

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