John, Have you noticed any fine differences between the zeep calls that you are getting in early August vs early September? Your data set might be worth a closer look to see if there are any commonly seen differences.
Wil Hershberger Nature Images and Sounds, LLC Hedgesville, WV The Songs of Insects My Blog On Sep 20, 2012, at 12:07 PM, John Kearney wrote: > The discussion today reminds me of a similar train of thought that I’ve been > pondering lately. Namely, in today’s world of birding and ornithology, we > require a high of degree of certainty when it comes to documenting the > classification of our observations to the species level. Basically, > photographic proof has become almost essential for rare species. When it > comes to night flight calls, the certitude of species identification becomes > very problematic. I am concerned that we might apply similar standards to NFC > identification as to bird observations. Should we rather think of NFC IDs > more in terms of probabilities and error bars than certitude? I personally > feel this approach is worth pursuing if we wish to make more of a > contribution to bird migration and aeroecology. For example, where I in live > in Nova Scotia, the “zeep” warblers can be boiled down to about 6 species > that are difficult to identify. Thus while I might not be able to distinguish > the NFC of a Yellow Warbler from a Blackpoll Warbler, it is very probable > that this type of call in early August is a Yellow Warbler and such a call in > early September is a Blackpoll Warbler. This breakdown of all the zeep > warblers into probability categories is much more useful, I believe, for > understanding regional migration patterns than having them all lumped as zeep > warblers because we can’t be certain of their identification to the species > level. How we calculate these probabilities is another question. I have been > doing stop-over transects in areas close to a recording station. Although > this analysis is not completed, I sense that there may be some interesting > correlations to be made between the species composition of nocturnal > migration and stop-over areas within a certain time frame. > -- > NFC-L List Info: > Welcome and Basics > Rules and Information > Subscribe, Configuration and Leave > Archives: > The Mail Archive > Surfbirds > BirdingOnThe.Net > Please submit your observations to eBird! > -- -- NFC-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_WELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC_RULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
