No one seems tohave mentioned the breeding bird atlas database with regard to dickcissel documentation. I have reported dickissels from Clearwater and Hubbard Counties to the MNBBA. There may more records buried there that haven't surfaced through other venues. I've also found (but not reported yet) dickcissels in Hubbard County in areas that aren't part of the atlas program. In fact I would say they are fairly common this year in Hubbard County in suitable grassland, perhaps second only to vesper sparrow in abundance of species that are obligate grassland users.
I don't normally submit seasonal reports to the MOU until after the season is over and, being of retired age, I never got in the habit of using eBird. My take on the discussion just started about this is that it's a good idea for the MOU to continue with its own observation database. At the very least it can serve as a safety net for Minnesota records in the event that eBird does not persist in perpetuity. But observers shouldn't have to enter their data separately into both. If the MOU databases aren't already set up to feed automatically (or at least fairly simply) into eBird, they probably should be. Marshall Howe Park Rapids ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
