Hi Cayugabirders, Hope that you’ve all been seeing some great birds recently. September is in the air, and it smells like migrants. Life is good.
This past spring and summer, 59 local birders took to the forests of Tompkins, Cortland, and Schuyler Counties—recording 138 species on more than 2,500 eBird checklists. All of this was for Avicaching—a project that provides a fun game for our local birding community, while also collecting data that are used for a specific research question: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/avicaching/. This most recent version of Avicaching was created to address the question of roadside bias in breeding birds: how are analytical results influenced by the fact that almost all birding data are from alongside roads? By collecting information on birds at varying distances to roads, we can further understand how this affects the likelihood of detecting a given species at a given distance from the road. Factoring that into analysis will be a great step forward for the data products that we can provide for the birding community. We are just beginning to analyze the data that were collected, and will share results when they’re available. Of course, any good game has a winner, and a prize! In Avicaching, your birding at Avicaches earns you points, and each point gives you one chance at a lottery drawing. The more points, the higher chance—but no guarantees! The winner of the the last round of Avicaching, chosen by random lottery draw, is Sarah Toner! Sarah is an undergraduate at Cornell, and she saw 73 species and earned 424 Avicaching points on her way to winning. Congratulations, Sarah. The clear winners on species and total points are Jay McGowan and Livia Santana—their amazing Avicaching efforts earned almost 10,000 points combined, with 116 and 108 species respectively. Incredible, and truly excellent work. With the last version of Avicaching over, there’s a new one on the way! This fall, we’re going to be approaching the same question of roadside bias—but in migration season. There are a lot of unknowns about how birds use the forested landscapes in fall, and you can help change that! In addition, these upland forests can be incredibly birdy in fall. Here is a list from Texas Hollow State Forest last fall, where there are 15 Avicaching locations this year: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S25203380! One of the difficulties with fall birding is that the birds are much harder to detect than in spring—not singing, and often moving quietly through the undergrowth. With this in mind, we want to capture whether you’ve used any attraction methods during your Avicaching this fall. It will be very important for the analysis for you to note in the checklist comments whether you pished, or used a owl/chickadee “mobbing” tape. Please put the precise word “MOB” in the comments if you used the tape, or “PISH” if you pished only. If you are planning on pishing; consider using the mobbing (judiciously) to standardize the attraction method between observers. This distinction will be exceedingly helpful for analysis. And of course, in addition to the fun of exploration and contribution, we have prizes to give away to Avicachers! This fall there will be 5 winners chosen from all Avicachers—each person will be able to choose an eBird t-shirt or ballcap in reward for their victory. To get started, check out the map of locations, and go explore some this weekend! http://ebird.org/ebird/avicache/home. Standings will reset from September onwards by early next week. We’ll see you out there. Very best, Ian -- Ian Davies eBird Project Coordinator Ithaca, NY i...@cornell.edu<mailto:i...@cornell.edu> http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ http://ebird.org/ebird/profile/MTI3NDA0 -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
