Hi Cayugabirders, Another week has gone by, more migrants have arrived, and the 50 Avicaching locations are getting better to bird with each new day. For those of you who need a refresher as to what Avicaching is (http://ebird.org/content/ebird/avicaching/), or haven’t given it a try yet, I hope you’ll get out in the field this week!
Avicaching is a local eBird project to encourage birding of specific habitats that are underrepresented in our normal local eBirding, allowing researchers to perform more thorough analyses of eBird sightings. As a reward for contributing to the scientific strength of eBird in Cortland and Tompkins Counties, by participating in Avicaching you are eligible to win a free pair of Zeiss binoculars. There is also a leaderboard of Avicachers, which gives you a chance to be #1 in a birding numbers game without having to chase every rare bird that is found. If competition and scientific contributions aren’t the parts of birding that interest you, then the exploration aspect of Avicaching is a great one, and one of the main reasons why I enjoy visiting these sites. It gets you out to new areas, some of which offer some great birding. Of course on the way you’re probably going to stop as well, and that has resulted in some great discoveries this past month, including an amazing 37 Lesser Black-backed Gulls in a single field (http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S22889666). The Avicaches themselves cover a variety of agricultural and forested areas, and some have a variety of warblers back already (http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S23195934), or even potentially Northern Goshawks (http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S23044288)! There are a little over three weeks of Avicaching left, and I hope that you can make it out there at least once. With every passing day, more fun warblers and other breeding birds are filtering back into the forests, and Avicaching is a great way to get out there. You can just visit one site quickly, or string together a bunch for a day’s birding. At the extreme end of “a day’s birding”, one of the most avid participants in this project so far, Ken Rosenberg, is going to be doing an Avicaching Big Day this Saturday as part of the Global Big Day (http://ebird.org/globalbigday/). We’ll see what he finds. No matter where you bird, I hope that spring is treating you all well, and that hummingbirds and warblers have returned to a tree near you. Best, Ian Davies eBird Project Assistant Ithaca, NY [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/uropsalis/ -- 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/[email protected]/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/ --
