Hi Andrew and All, Thank you for your response to my email. The changes to the protocol seem reasonable to me.
I believe having this information on eBird will generate even more interest in this field of bird studies. John From: bounce-75469066-28417...@list.cornell.edu [mailto:bounce-75469066-28417...@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Andrew Farnsworth Sent: March 7, 2013 13:40 To: nf...@list.cornell.edu; Matthew Sarver; Magnus Robb; W. Douglas Robinson; Laurent Fournier; Rob Fergus Subject: Re:[nfc-l] NFC Protocol - more Let me try this again, I am not sure it went through . . . Best, AF On Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 12:38 PM, Andrew Farnsworth <a...@cornell.edu> wrote: Hi John and all, Thank you for bringing these points to the group, much appreciated. First, yes, there is an error (now corrected) - astronomical twilight should reference the sun's position 18 degrees below the horizon. Apologies for my poor editing skills! For reference, civil twilight is the sun's position 6 degrees below horizon, nautical twilight 12 degrees, astronomical twilight 18 degrees. Second, regarding the choice of astronomical twilight as opposed to the more typical civil twilight that many use for recording flight calls, we were/are concerned about this issue. We spent a long time thinking about it (again) after you raised the point, and it is complicated in many ways (that's a topic for outside the NFC list serve presumably). In the end, we decided that it is preferred to enter NFC Count Protocol data in the period between astronomical twilights but it is OK to enter NFC Count Protocol beginning from civil dusk and concluding with civil dawn. However, please follow all the instructions outlined in the protocol (for example, make sure to report all other non-NFC-singing/calling birds as local that you detect, whether by ear or by automated detection)! Not that any of you wouldn't do that . . . Furthermore, we strongly recommend that you enter hourly or sub-hourly counts and that any counts entered between civil and astronomical twilight be entered separately. We amended the current protocol to reflect these changes and requests: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/nfc-count-protocol. As with the previous posting of the protocol, please contact me with questions (and/or the list if NFC relevant). The original logic behind astronomical twilight was to separate as truly nocturnal any flight calls that were reported, basically eliminating the potential confusion associated with other crepuscular activity, increasing numbers of local species calling, and so on. As I said above, it's likely a topic for non-NFC list discussion as it departs into another realm of discussions, although I am happy to continue the discussion here, or privately, or offline to be summarized for the list later! Hopefully this provides more clarity on some of the issues. And again, thank you (all) for raising this issue/set of issues! If we've not yet made it clear, we are eager for all in the NFC community to be involved and for those not in the community to join! Good nocturnal birding! Andrew (on behalf of teams BirdCast and eBird) -- NFC-L List Info: <http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_WELCOME> Welcome and Basics <http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC_RULES> Rules and Information <http://www.northeastbirding.com/NFC-L_SubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> Subscribe, Configuration and Leave Archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/nfc-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html> The Mail Archive <http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NFC-L> Surfbirds <http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NFCL.html> BirdingOnThe.Net Please submit your observations to eBird <http://ebird.org/content/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/ --
